One Skull Merchant suggestion
Leave it so drones still have stealth mode (invisible scan lines until activated). This still allows for the trap-setting playstyle and allows SM to get a lot more use out of her radar. Having them always active makes it so they’re really only useful in chase.
Other than that, I think her changes are fine.
Comments
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If they're that concerned with surviors' inability to outplay stealth drones in chase, they could make it so drones start in scouting mode and they go into stealth mode after some time has passed. Survivors would still see the beams when the Skull Merchant deploys them and her trapping playstyle wouldn't be complitely gutted. Both sides are happy
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General consensus from numerous threads/sources seems to be single scan line and removal of haste are OK changes... other changes should be reverted.
Would like some kind of compensation buff, such as Stealth Drones being stationary for a more setup/trap playstyle; that would be my preference...
However even if she's only nerfed, having these two changes only doesn't make her completely toothless...
I know BHVR is deliberately clipping her, but a change like this would be much more reasonable and still address her pain points... might even lead to a situation where she doesn't even need to be reworked...
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"General consensus from numerous threads/sources seems to be single scan line and removal of haste are OK changes... other changes should be reverted." - literally no one wants either of these, the haste a little bit but without it shes still extremely useless in chase against injured survivors, and I cant find ANYONE who actually wants the single scan line change as it makes her traps just extremely useless against everyone with literally no actual usage case outside of hoping to lock a survivor in a loop and spam rotate to try and force a clawtrap
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I've seen several people cite these changes as potential positive directions for her design if given appropriate compensation.
I don't want to name drop people in the forums and force them to back me up, but if you want a more well known name: PixelBush is one...
We all know that Skull Merchant had to change somehow... she gets too much reward for too little skill expression.
There is skill expression in her kit, but it isnt needed cause just unga bunga walking after a survivor is just as effective. I like playing Skull Merchant, but even as a console player I can admit that she needs to be made more challenging to play, cause her gameplay is so untaxing. I've even seen her be defended by people saying "sometimes you just want to play chill and SM allows you to relax".
The single scan line change and haste removal are changes that immediately make her less obnoxious and raise her skill floor to actually make use of her rotation change mechanic and proper m1 mind games. Currently why she is hated is because she literally just throws up a drone and gets all that value for basically nothing.
If you think you shouldn't need to change scan line rotations to get scans, I have to wonder how on earth you can think just throwing a drone down and holding W after a survivor until they make an error is somehow more engaging for everyone involved.
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Yes I dont think pixel realizes the ramifications of these actions at all. SM NEEDS haste otherwise she has no power, she has no usage, theres no reward to scan plays, theres no reason to laser tag, theres nothing she can do in chase, she becomes a pure M1 killer with nothing to help her out except an occasional claw trap injure. Haste imo is the most ESSENTIAL part of her kit currently that should never be done away with.
"We all know that Skull Merchant had to change somehow... she gets too much reward for too little skill. " No we didn't know that, we knew people mindlessly hated her because of how she used to play on her first rendition and the hate never stopped because of that. She barely gets rewarded anything even when she currently does insanely skillful things and in any case, trapper gets MORE rewarded than she does for LESS work. You shouldn't NEED rotation for scan lines esp if you remove haste because then why even bother genuienly, youre doing an extreme amount of work and timing along with a HUGE amount of luck, for what equates to 1/3rd of a health state on a healthy survivor.
Ive played her in the PTB, with the current changes Im literally getting 5-8 scans PER MATCH with at most 1 claw trap during a match because the scan lines are so piss easy to avoid its laughable and thats with me constantly swapping drone positions, timing, rotating, forcing, and setting up webs because the scan lines are so easy to avoid theres no reason to be threatened by them. Even in this PTB survivors are just chasing me INSIDE MY DRONES RANGE because they know theres nothing stopping them from not doing so, survivors hold all the power over her and her drones pose 0 risk even if you force it.
"Throwing a drone down and holding W" You mean setting up a trap? You mean setting up traps at places survivors will loop in ways that will be effective for you to utilize later in the match and forcing value out of said trap? How is this any different from trapper throwing a trap down and holding W for a free down later on?0 -
That doesn't seem fair, considering the other changes to her scanlines being always visible within 16m influences your ability to get scans as well. I absolutely believe you get less scans per game, but its not an apples to apples comparison when you don't have her stealth drones and everything is easily visible. I also completely believe you you can't score downs if you successfully scan survivors, but that is also attributable to the 5% hindered nerf as well.
If we're just talking purely about single scan lines and no haste, yeah that on its own is a sizable nerf, that severely weakens her... but what about faster drone rotation speed? What about stationary stealth drones to cut off paths? What about about longer scan lines to cut off paths further away/tag on deployment? What about more drones to deploy? What about the hindered effect being applied as the survivor gets claw trapped as well?
Haste is a relatively cheap and lazy way of making things better in the meta. I would argue it is better to avoid using it where possible, and I would ask you instead of writing anything that deviates from haste off, to try and come up with something a little more interesting.
Look I know she isn't the strongest character in DBD, I've defended her many times, and several times had my head bitten off by mardy survivors who are just whining.
She does have counterplay, but the cognitive load and relative effort on survivors is very high vs. that of Skull Merchant... you and I both know that is true, and is why she is outperforming at the mid level of play, thus warranting this nerf train.
We can whine about it all we like, but there are more voices against us than for us, so we are gonna lose that debate... I don't know about you, but I don't want to see Skull Merchant die, so we need to start being a bit more creative in how we approach making her viable than just slapping haste on her.
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I like this idea and it definitely seems fair. Maybe the logic could be: if no survivor is detected for 10 seconds after the drone spawns, it goes into stealth mode.
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Right, I’ve always played her more as a trap killer whose traps give her location info and occasionally injure careless survivors. I really hope they don’t remove this aspect entirely.
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I think UndeddJester makes some fair comparisons here, better than all the other threads who seem to be echoing the same opinion from one content creator because they cannot think for themselves.
I personally mainly don't like the haste against her paired with the hindered, both of those together are what make me roll my eyes mainly due to how laggy crouching in chase works versus her drones, Or bring back her slowdown when using her radar so she can't just keep the scanlines ontop of me while I'm looping and ducking them.
I feel like a lot of the people arguing for her don't play against her. Not this thread inparticular bare in mind.2 -
Yeah kinda like her original power used to work. If no survivors were detected by a drone for a set duration, the drone would enter a secondary mode.
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Agreed. The haste + hindered made her way too oppressive, and unfairly punished survivors whose teammates carelessly got themselves scanned.
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Yeah, the haste was a tiny boost to her lethality when chasing survivors, regardless of their health state. Her lock on stacks + undetectable allowes her to get a first hit on a survivor relatively quickly. Removing her hinder means her power is worse than nothing against an injured person, she becomes a worse legion. If they removed just the haste, it would hurt her lethality only a bit in both cases, which is definitely more balanced.
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