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I fear Kaneki might be the new skull merchant

What I mean by that is I see people getting extreme annoyance and fatigue from him that will destroy his reputation no matter what they do, just like Skull Merchant.

The longer BHVR leaves this obviously broken overtuned killer in game as is, and especially with zero acknowledgement that they’re working on a fix, the more the anger and frustration is going to grow. Add to that the fatigue aspect since (depending on your region and or MMR) every killer you face is Kaneki. So now we have a broken overtuned killer that people keep facing over and over, with no variety in killer matches, adding to the growing anger and annoyance of the players.

By the time BHVR steps in I feel like it might be too late. Even if they do fix him, people are going to be so burned out on him from seeing him every match for days/weeks that they’re still gonna hate him. His reputation is one of frustration and over saturation. First impressions stick and he’s got a very bad one from jump.

I don’t want to see this happen cuz I do think he could be a fun strong killer with the right tweaks, but right now I’m so aggravated with him and I know I’m not the only one. I stopped playing the game for now because every time I loaded into a match and heard that terror radius I wanted to instantly DC.

I could be wrong but again, the longer they leave him in this state the more I think he’s gonna be Skull Merchant 2.0. Hated no matter what they do and forever seen as an unfun overpowered killer, even if he’s not later down the line.

Comments

  • Nazzzak
    Nazzzak Member Posts: 7,356

    Nah, nothing could be as bad as original Skull Merchant lol The Ghoul needs some tweaking for sure but I think he will end up more like Wesker - not too complicated to play/pick up, gets good results, and therefore will always have a decent pickrate. What gave SM a bad rep was that trolls were purposely playing her in order to lock games down until the game was forced to close after an hour. Their goal was literally to force an extremely unpleasant game on you. Obviously not all SMs, but enough that it soured her reputation.

  • RainehDaze
    RainehDaze Member Posts: 2,695

    I don't think you know what "broken" means.

  • ChaosWam
    ChaosWam Member Posts: 2,087
    edited April 2025

    After really testing everything, I think there's three things I can say I don't like. I will preface this and say I think I like the rest of his kit, skilled movement to cut off paths is great! However:

    1. His ability to cancel out of his power is quite a low cooldown. That is my biggest gripe about him, really. I think he should be rewarded for smart movement to cut off survivors, but with how low the cancel cooldown is, it's hard to play against even in safer spots.

    2. His enraged vault speed can trivialize some loops. I think it should be fine with unsafe loops, but needs to be adjusted for stronger loops imo. I tested this, and for whatever reason it can activate both Bamboozle (which Legion can't after a nerf, crazy to me) and Unbound. If done right, the Unbound movement speed after getting a M2 hit can be a pretty oppressive combo due to this.

    Edit: I should clarify it can't increase vault speed from perks, but it can activate secondary effects like blocking windows with bamboozle or the haste from unbound. Though if you wanna waste a slot, it starts the cooldown on superior anatomy without the increased vault speed, which is kinda funny.

    3. The width and range of his M2. As a hitscan ability, it really should have a smaller window to get hits off of. I don't mind it being a hitscan, and thanks to Legion and Plague I know how to play around being injured, but even I have to admit that needs toning down.

    Otherwise, I do like this killer and the concept. Despite these issues, I do have fun going against him and it's neat to see how far players can push his kit, even if I think some things need tuning.

    Post edited by ChaosWam on
  • Legendary_deedee
    Legendary_deedee Member Posts: 93
    edited April 2025

    His reputation is ruined now he’s going to be skull merchant how did they manage to release him broken and they didn’t even attempt to nerf him knowing he loses no distance on survivors like he legit has a 8 second power with the old chucky recovery time. This is way more op when Chucky had that and Chucky power was 20 seconds. And his hit scan power needs to be removed it takes no skill. Like that’s more crazy than legion. I felt like the only reason they buffed legion because they realized how similar they made both of these killers to keep legion in the sad state would’ve just look bad on their part. Legion should’ve been buffed months ago.

  • ShanoaLegendaryPlz
    ShanoaLegendaryPlz Member Posts: 1,270

    I got the same impression as i really liked skull merchant at first and then avoided playing it because others hate it. Same thing here as Rize is one of mt favorite anime characters and then the ghoul gets overplayed and is alredy hated for being overtuned lol

  • Thusly_Boned
    Thusly_Boned Member Posts: 3,428

    Yeah, people are utterly sick of him just like SM.

    Unlike SM, his power isn't fundamentally broken, so I think he can come back from this once he is adjusted. I remember having a similar feeling about Wesker back when he dropped.

  • MaddieMage
    MaddieMage Member Posts: 691

    This is why I kinda have some hope. His power is actually very cool and definitely something be that COULD be fun if they tweak him so he not so overtuned. But even after they fix him I still see people being exhausted and annoyed with versing him because of how long people have been facing this killer every match every day etc.

    The appeal of this game is in the massive variety you have in characters you play as and against. Playing against this same killer for so long is still gonna leave a bad taste in the mouth of some people

  • Chiky
    Chiky Member Posts: 1,139

    I played like 10 survivor matches yesterday. 9 kanekis, 1 deathsliger. Needless to say I didnt escape once (the desthsliger tunneled me as well lol)

  • Zakon05
    Zakon05 Member Posts: 432

    It should be fine if they don't delay much longer before applying the nerfs.

    You gotta remember that people hated Skull Merchant before she even came out. A blurry screenshot got leaked of her and people hated that. People hated her long before we figured out how well her power worked with 3gens. And then she was left in that state with Chess Merchant running rampant for months.

    Ghoul's initial reception was much more positive and he's only been out a couple of weeks.

  • 100PercentBPMain
    100PercentBPMain Member Posts: 2,798

    Hell be fine after nerfs he is just overtuned.

    If survivors hate a killer that forces you to loop instead of hold forward...well...then survivors just hate dbd at that point and are just burned out in general.

    SM hate started before she even came out