Skull merchant doesn't deserve to be gutted
The only reason of why she has such a high artificially inflated killrate it's cuz of crybaby survivors giving up or dcing then crying on twitter while absolutely refusing to play against a B tier killer at best.
After this rework even trapper and freddy will be stronger than her and it's not a good thing because your main could be next. She doesn't deserve the hate when blight and nurse still exist in their current state, and their playerbase is even worse. And no, they dont require skill, just some getting used to. But people cry for a 3% speed boost as if it's not their fault for looping around drones yet i don't see people crying about artist.
She's basically the same anti loop killer.
Please Behaviour, don't listen do the loudest crying voice as it's not the majority.
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The lingering hate for Skull Merchant isn't going away. It isn't wholly rational anymore, but it's true. Basically the community has rejected her completely.
All the tweaks and yet another rework in the works prolly won't be enough to salvage her.
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She has high killrate because the average survivor has zero idea how to deal with her power, and I don't blame them. But what I've noticed playing her is that while average survivors play against her and lose, good survivors that could probably defeat her immediately give up, thus inflating the killrate.
She is very confusing and unintuitive to understand for beginners and average survivors, and unless you've played as her, you'll miss a ton of important info.
- She has undetectable, old SM didn't. From the survivor perspective she just suddenly has it without rhyme or reason, plus she's completely silent.
- Stealth drones scan people and you have to "know" that they can scan you from the lights, there's no indication that they can. You also just have to "know" that you can stand still or crouch to avoid scanlines. White scanlines help a lot and was a good update, but it's still confusing when the drones start in stealth mode
- There's no indication that SM can track you on her radar, no beeping, no red light, nothing really. Unless you've played her, you may not even realize her radar exists. I purposefully hold my radar up when I find some locked on survivor hiding in a corner, to teach them that I can find them.
- There's no indication that SM has any kind of haste, and it's frustrating to get hit in places where you'd otherwise reach a pallet
I get why they're reworking her, but man they really didn't have to gut the entire power into oblivion. Why not add a custom movement animation when she's walking faster than 115%? Or make it so she only gets haste from survivors within 32m of her? And removing an entire scanline is absolute insanity. Her power will be totally useless.
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Actually old SM DID have undetectable. It applied whenever she was in the radius of one of her drones for a few seconds and lingered a few seconds once she left
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It has gone down to the point, that me a killer player main (with a fair share of survivor experiences), I dislike playing as and agaisnt Skull Merchant in general. Her anti looping isn't anything significant if Survivors hold W the entire game, her what used to be most boring yet strongest ability to gen defense and hold game sort of hostage, especially agaisnt the best survivors players make her unfun for either side... and the worst part, I personally do not like the background story or even the name of the killer. She literally doesn't sell skulls at all, and how is that horrifying for appearance and overall killer design.
If anything, I would scrap the entire killer and rework her complete with a more accurate and intimidating name; like The Poacher or The Merchant (alone, without the skulls). Part of me feels like the drone should not be stationary and should be allow to track survivors by following them when pick up by its scanners, and should apply a debuffs of some kind, especially in chase. My inspiration is inspired by the official trailer, in which the Drones were moving around and tracking and following two survivors. It would be great way to punished survivors whom make alot of noise by running within its detection range but rewards stealth by crouching or standing still. The drones do not need to be summon and should be constantly patrol the map until they find any survivors. It should be able to hit a survivors automatically, every 30 seconds or more or less every time they make too much noises, it stacks debuffs like hindrance, exhaustion, obliviou, etc. Until they get injured and down. If a survivor get close enough to a drone, they can manually try to disarm it; but it takes some time to render the drone inoperable for a good brief period of time or until the Killer finds their disable drone to reactivate it quickly with the controll. Survivors making noise, while being tracked drone will have killer instinct be proc to eventually be fully revealed with aura reading with the killer is close or in chase. Stunned the killer with a pallet or locker or any perk/item that stun the killer, with a drone on their back could temporarily disabled the drone for a brief couple of seconds. It rewards risky plays in going for stuns, yet more rewarding benefits in letting your drone freely patrol the map and spot any careless survivors making to much noises. Slow down the pace of the game
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Could I interest you in a Lore rewrite?
The way she is presented I feel leads into a highly functional, successful and attractive psychopath like archetype. The likes of Ted Bundy for example were not the ugly societal reject people normally expect psychopaths to be, and that actually helped them stay under the radar to keep killing...
So from that lens, I rather like the idea of and see potential in the Skull Merchant.
Post edited by UndeddJester on0 -
Her rework was almost 1 year old, 10 October 2023.
People dc when they see her then cry that they don't know how to play against her. Literally a skill issue.
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Hating a killer doesn't give you an objective point of view on how to balance them.
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It's an interesting idea that i also had a thought about but i don't want to learn a new killer every 6 months because survivors can't handle clown on steroids.
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I never said it did. I'm just saying most of community simply refuses to ever play verse her nor learn how to play against her. Think of it as a giant veto to the killer, no matter what changes have been made or are coming.
This isn't something that is easily fixed, and may not be fixable. That's why I said it isn't very rational.
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Old skull merchant had undetectable
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I dont mind facing killers like Blight or Nurse, Because their power is interactive.
And i dont mind anti loop killers, because if they attempt to deny a loop i can go to a different one.
SM is a killer whose only fun playing as one side, similiar to legion. But pre nerf she was able to apply hindered whilst getting haste passively that you couldnt do anything against(unless swf, which by the way, game is balanced around AVERAGE player, not 4-man swf) so unlike legion, there was no counter. And it didnt help half of her playerbase only played her to be “toxicl
So effectively the killer was able to deny every loop with no cooldown, and passively apply pressure in which you couldnt do anything against.
Her current version she can still apply pressure whilst in chase, but the pressure she applies doesnt affect the person shes in chase with, This version can still deny loops, theres no need for a 25% speed difference with anti loop being basekit
And yes, she isnt gonna be B tier like she was prior, Id say more C-D tier. But even so i promise you good SM will still consistently get 4k’s and the killrate for SM will be more balanced.
- i dont think this is the last we will see of SM, i think upcoming changes will make her anti loop punish those who leave a radius rather than stay inside. Whatever the change is i think it will buff SM but make her more interactive as a whole
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