What's your wishes you want to see in the 2025 Skull Merchant Rework?
Anything you wish for in this killer you would like to see in a rework.
I will start
-Removed one of the things I hate most when playing against this killer, which is throwing Dorn into every window or pallet that survivor goes to, because it is very brainless and I don't think I need to explain why.
-give her a new animations in the chase, like the ghost face, because all of this killer's animations are very sleepy and lazy and it looks like she's moving while she's asleep, at least to me.
What about you? Remember to write your wish for this killer only and not for any other killer or the community.
Comments
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Here before "I want to see her deleted HUHUHUH"
I hope they lean into stealth and tracking, using her radar for info, etc. Give her info and tools to capitalize on the info using stealth and ambush tactics. Currently, there's a few stealth killers, there's a few info killers, but there aren't many killers with both stealth and good info in their basekit.
Remove the "area trap killer scanline/zone" thing entirely. Ideally, don't have her even "place" a drone flying in the air, people will get PTSD from seeing her drone placement animation.
Speaking of PTSD, change her base outfit to something new. Change her animations and walk cycle, this one's important, otherwise people will immediately get traumatic flashbacks and DC on instinct. Change her terror radius and her chase music. Change all her addons. Keep nothing the same.
And for gods sake change her lore too. Doesn't matter that she has a lot of anime skins, make it cool.
Give her a cool new short trailer with the new design that doesn't feature drones, but focuses on her stealth or something.
I hope people don't even recognize her as Skull Merchant anymore other than "stealth and tracking". Everything needs to be different. Give her a clean image, trick people into playing matches against her while they also have fun, and things will change.
But the power has to be well designed and she has to be fun to play as and against. Otherwise it's all over.
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I just hope it will be a LAST REWORK of her.
Developers wasting too much time on her. I'd rather them to work on other stuff: Like Freddy.
Freddy need just OVERALL rework - how he looks and his kit + voice acting!
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That a new killer my friend.
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I hope they don't change a thing from before her being nerfed, and they make the DC penalty harsher. If we can let Spirit continue to exist, Skull Merchant is fine.
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Short version, I'd like to see her become a genuine trap killer.
We haven't had one since Hag, and her lore paints her as a brilliant tactician and an obsessive perfectionist who plans for every contingency well in advance. If anyone was gonna be a new trap killer for DBD, it's Skull Merchant.
While I understand fundamentally Trap killers are not really well configured for the pace of Dead By Daylight at higher levels, they can be immensely satisfying for players so inclined, even if they aren't strong. If they can work stealth in as well seemlessly, that would be cool.
Perhaps something like she's a trap killer where drones are hidden and stationary on deployment, and any drone scan will immediately claw trap you (with no wound) and put you on her radar, and any subsequent scan then exposes the Survivor for so many seconds with a small hindered affect. I dunno, but whatever it is setting up and maintaining a web of drones would be far better received I feel.
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Ive wanted to see her being a trap/stalk killer, and make her stealth in the form of a crouch with a leap where if a Survivor is fully locked on they get instadowned from the leap
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Stealth tracker would be neat. Reminds me of OG Freddy.
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I agree with ya, my friend, this is a good suggestion.
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PTSD from drone placement animation 😂 good one
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"After carefully assessing the killers performance and monitoring their killrate for the past 3 month we have come to the conclusion that Skull Merchant is underperforming. With the next patch, getting scanned three times will expose survivors for 60s. Also, using her handheld device will no longer slow the Skull Merchant down. We will hope that this change will expand her options considerably and lead to many more, interesting matches and situations."
Lets go full circle :D
EDIT: But for real, I think her main power should be tied to her handheld scanner and giving her unparalleld map awareness. Its often so depressing to look at your device and see absolutely nothing, no ping. And when you got one, claw traps burn out so fast, its not feasable as a monitoring tool, of you get ping you gotta work on it fast, OR ELSE!
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no more drones getting survivors injured, hindered or haste
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reverting how she used to be. claw traps giving haste. 10% hindered. drones have two modes, stealth mode and regular scan mode.
she's already trap killer. you set drone traps around the map, often using LOS blockers so survivor do not see scan lines. you chase survivor, build 2 lock on stacks on them and then change target. when a survivor is going through the map, they get hit by 1 scan line and it gives them claw trap, injuring them and put them in broken state.
after that, you use your radar to see survivors and you place drones to gain undetectable to sneak up on survivors that work on generators to collect your bounty. during that time, you can use haste effect from claw trap and scans to chase concurrent survivors to end chases quickly. that is how pre-nerfed merchant functioned. now it doesn't work because…. scan lines are visible to survivors… there is no haste effect for claw traps and your slowed for using radar. as result, the waiting game for the rework/revert.
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The one distinction of Skull Merchant vs. other trap killers is trap killers require set up. Both Trapper and Hag have to stop to set their traps, and that causes them to lose distance.
Skull Merchant on the other hand has always been able to drop a drone on a tile in chase, and immediately lock down the entire tile, no setup required. In this regard this makes her more of an anti-loop zoning killer, closer to Artist or Knight.
Her drones are also highly telegraphed to survivors, even in stealth mode giving a clear warning via the ring on the ground where they are, and serving more as a "no go zone" rather than a trap, and yes I realise the point of a trap is to zone, but a trap is passive in nature and something that should have a realistic ability to function without the owner there.
If I were to riff on making her a true trap/stealth killer, I'd do something like: -
- Skully - Give her 8 drones.
- Skully - No haste, your web of drones and your active scout drone is your catch up/down power.
- Drone - Bring back stealth drones as the default deployed state, remove the ring and make them stationary.
- Drone - Have a 3s startup for any deployed drone so they are less effective at tagging in chase. Drone deployment still slows the Skull Merchant. (Also please drop the drone at the end of her animation... its clunky and weird how it is now)
- Drone - Drone deployment no longer grants Undetectable (moved elsewhere). Remove the deployment cooldown.
- Drone - Have claw traps applied immediately upon being scanned without injuring the survivor, giving Skull Merchant constant info.
- Drone - Being scanned with a claw trap applies exposed for the duration of the claw trap. Further scans apply 8% hinder for 6 seconds.
- Drone - Scout drones operate how they do now, with only 1 scan line. Raise the turning speed to 105°/s (they feel too pedestrian now and this reduces their time to crouch).
- Drone - A hacked drone cannot be recalled for 20s.
- Radar - No longer slows the Skull Merchant.
- Radar - Add a 1s cooldown to switching direction on the drone. Pressing and holding the rotation button for 1s resets the drone back to stealth mode.
- Radar - After holding the radar up for 2s Skull Merchant slows to 4.0m/s and gains Undetectable.
Without haste and the immediately lockdown her traps bring, all of the pain points of Skull Merchant are gone.
Without a survivor running into a trap she is a m1 killer with stealth, disarming her traps severely limits her power.
If you can eat a scan, you can disarm a trap, its actually in your interest to do so if you're at a good tile, but now you have a claw trap, and can't risk eating another one and Skull Merchant knows where you are and can look at chasing you into her web.
Skull Merchant has Undetectable on tap rather than it awkwardly being attached to drones, so you want to heal against her. Her exposed effect and hinder is counter playable with pallets and windows, but it is strong and threatening. Her using/checking her radar to freely switch drone directions without penalty keeps her fun and not clumsy to play.
Placing drones to cut off paths means they aren't necessarily in optimal places to close of loops and tiles. You also want them somewhere defensible that another survivor can'tslip in and disarm easily, making them muvh more playable for survivors, but the scan line direction shift gives Skully a strong mind game. Trying to place drones in chase is significantly less effective due to the start up time.
Obviously fine details are always up for debate, but that is the core idea of how I would do it.
Post edited by UndeddJester at0 -
If her power moves from the drones to the radar somehow as the main part the frustration playing VS her will go away really. With how map Maze tiles are now she can block most if not all loops with a drone.
Something all survivors start with a claw trap and like every 30 seconds she can scan for survivors in a set range on her radar. With addons to lower the CD but with loss of some drones for for lower CDs. Also making drones automatic and on scan it activates the claw trap for detection. Making her an Info killer more then a trap one.0 -
Whatever happens, I just hope they get away from plopping down circles on the ground. They're kinda tacky.
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he one distinction of Skull Merchant vs. other trap killers is trap killers require set up. Both Trapper and Hag have to stop to set their traps, and that causes them to lose distance.
Yes which is bad design. That is why in newer trapping versions of killer, they don't stop to set traps, they re-balanced trapping killer to move while placing traps… trapper and hag are stuck in 2016 design. Freddy, Artist and Skull merchant are modern 2022-2024 trap designs. there is like no reason why killer should be having time-sinks to use an ability. some of these killer have m/s reductions when placing traps which is pushing back some of that bad design. Without haste and the immediately lockdown her traps bring, all of the pain points of Skull Merchant are gone.
Without a survivor running into a trap she is a m1 killer with stealth, disarming her traps severely limits her power.
Every trapping killer design faces this problem. Unless trap itself is placed in chase that is only way you can use it to limit the ability. the way trapping killer deal the problem is they play defensive….in other words, they camp hooks and 3 gen. 3 gen allowing killer shrink map size and patrol generators that are close together with traps nearby. It is like playing castle defence games. your building a castle and your defending inside castle.
If you can eat a scan, you can disarm a trap, its actually in your interest to do so if you're at a good tile, but now you have a claw trap, and can't risk eating another one and Skull Merchant knows where you are and can look at chasing you into her web
Drone - A hacked drone cannot be recalled for 20s.
The whole trap is not drone. it is the claw trap… hence the name. The drones are what you use to get said trap. it is sophisticated design. again, it is new evolution of how they designed trapping killer. one of big problems of trapping killer is how easily they get abused by swf. adding mechanics to disable killer's ability is super easily abusable by 4 man swf. it is why trapper and hag are like…. joke killers due to how coordination deletes their ability.
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She already blankets the entire map in drones, reduce their radius or less drones.
Get rid of the dumb way you have to disable drones. Use a skill check like everything else in this game.
Change her headlock looking arm, she looks dumb.
Give her her own mori so she can stop stealing Freddy's.0 -
A COMPLETE rework, not some number changes, I want a Freddy level rework (that isn't as bad as Freddy's was).
Make her drones an actual chase power that has some skill expression, like I don't know you control the drones in 3rd person and mark Survivors or whatever, make her a remote Ghost Face for what I care, just something that isn't just place a drone at loop or at gen and wait for the results.
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I just hope they don't turn her Into another hillbilly with extra steps like half of the characters in the game (yes, i'm talking about all the run forwards in high speed to injury survivor type killers)
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This seems to be what survivors want. They want every killer to be exactly the same with basically no variation; some sort of binary dash attack they can dodge and then claim that as skill. Any killer that is different, or has some sort of innate slowdown so they can't just loop or work on gens, gets labeled as "boring" or "unfun" or some other variation of that and then gets cried about until BHVR nerfs them into the garbage bin.
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On point, pinhead for me (for example) is one of the most fun killers to face, even In solo q, i love the box itself, but I fear that they'll nerf it into the ground in a few patches considering his high kill rate
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Same. We already have enough of them and in my opinion Hillbilly and Oni are the only ones with a good design.
Wesker? Blight? Chucky?
Terrible.
We also shouldn't get more M2 zoning killers like Pyramid Head, but that is a topic for another time.
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I miss the "creative" design we had before, I know it's hard to do it, but man, where are our Pig-like killers?
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