Skull Merchant deserves to be buffed

Agreed. What they've done to the Skull Merchant is extremely anti-consumer. People paid good money for her and her skins. Essentially deleting her from the game for years is not ok.

As long as killers enjoy something, it doesn't matter how it feels to verse it, amirite?

Yeah this is unacceptable what the devs did to nerf SM so hard to the point to discourage anyone from playing her ever again. They have a history of trying years to rework or change something so I highly doubt her rework will go through this year all we know is that she's still in a planning phase with Microsoft paint doodles several months later and her past 2 designs they shared were negatively received by the fans. She's a trap/stealth killer not another projectile or dash killer. The past 2 versions they did shared were changes for the worst potentially making her worse than twins or a 3 gen monster again with the controlled drones. The base game gotten a number of changes since then they should just revert her back to her 2.0 state since that was her healthiest state she's been in until a proper rework is made.

I tried skull merchant again last night after putting her away since she nerf and OMG she feels so bad now.

She just goes undetectable occasionally and that's it. The drones no longer really do anything, like you can get the traps on people but good luck ever getting the hinder or haste effects.

I honestly think just give her drones the 2nd beam back for now until she's reworked. She'd still be bad but at least she'd be playable.

I believe its because they dont want to the killer give straight buff some players most survivors woul cream game is kollersided and they are buffing only killers thats what happens every time look at curent ptb pyramidhead speed while holding your power I get it they dont want him to be zone god and he is strong killer but 10 seconds instead five is too much in my opinion and knight, clown are weak and need straight buffs (c-tier killers who are unenjoyable by most survivor comunity to go against meaning most survivor would just choose to go against blights all day instead these two) same as xeno changes, etc. They just fear the backlash from survivors comunity even they know if they have to give survivors something basekit like unbreakable they need to make the gab between killers small as possible to make changes like that.

That isn't the case here, though. Here it is the case of a killer who got unnecessarily nerfed and is constantly at risk of having her identity erased because of an unreasonable and unacceptable "hate train" caused by a problematic release, despite the fact that the problems caused by said release had already been fixed.

You know me, friend. You know I don't disregard the survivor experience. And, speaking as someone who enjoys playing as and against Skull Merchant, I strongly support a full return to her previous iteration, that we had before the nerfs.

Let's be real. We all know she only got released because she was gooner bait.

She should at least get a buff until that said rework for however long that will take

And hopefully not becoming another dash/projectile killer

As others have already pointed out, she needs a complete rework, which is currently in process.

Her old playstyle of simply pooping out a drone at a loop and getting passive haste while applying passive hindered on the survivor should absolutely not come back, if that's what you're implying.

OG Legion was, somehow, objectively in a better place than SM 2.0. He didn't have a 70% KR.

Saying he kept his identity is like saying that because the design previews of SM still use Drones, she's still the same. Legion's playstyle was completely changed, just like SM's playstyle will be completely changed. The design previews were mixed. There were the die-hard SM defenders, who see a return to SM 2.0 as the only path forward. Then you have the people who didn't really care and give decent feedback over the kits as they were presented. Then you had the people who didn't want SM changed because they like how she is now, nonexistent.

Her identity is objectively problematic, imo. If you want to keep her identity, you must accept she will never be viable. A Killer with a lockdown AoE is either going to be far too strong (been there) or far too weak (here now). Ironically, this is just like Legion, and more recently, Ghoul. A Killer that gets free injuries cannot be balanced. They will only ever be too strong (Ghoul) or too weak (Legion). Doesn't mean they can't be fun to play (both Ghoul and Legion are fun to play imo).

Her kit was bloated beyond belief. She shouldn't have been called SM at that point, but just, Status Effect Merchant. Once again, disregarding suicides and DC's, her KR was 70%. BHVR was just supposed to leave that there?

The problem with her 2.0 design was that it fixed pretty much nothing. She was bloated, poorly thought-out and exceedingly tedious/unpleasant to play against. Even SM 1.0 was beatable. Nobody wanted to play chess for an hour to get an escape. The effort you had to put in as SM was laughable compared to how much effort you had to put in as a Survivor.

We don't need "place drone at loop, leave loop and get hit or die" and "place drone on gen, ignore? get hit when she comes to check her drone. disable drone? she replaces it immediately" to come back into play.

Bringing her back as SM 2.0 will make the vast majority of players far more miserable.

That is not a comparison I would make, friend. Legion's kill rates may not have been as high, but they were genuinely problematic for the game, simply because their kit had no counter. There was literally nothing you could do against Legion, once they decided you would go down, you would go down. The same doesn't apply to Skull Merchant 2.0, who had counter play.

Well, Legion's changes to me felt more like adjustments, but the core idea of running around and stabbing people remained the same. That can't be said for SM's design previews, who will end up giving her a dash and a mid-range M2 attack. That, my dear friend, is a full erasure of identity. The design previews will never be well received because the whole point is that SM players have to be taken into consideration, and erasing her identity completely is something that none of them, myself included these days, want. Obviously there are those who would prefer to never see her again, but that is just personal preference towards the game. I would love to never play against Wesker again, but I don't want him gutted for that to happen.

I would argue that her identity isn't problematic at all, imo. A killer with an AoE trap can work because SM 2.0 did work, and could have remained in the game. Would have, had people adapted and taken their time to realize that the killer was fine. Ghoul, the other character you've mentioned, I agree, he is overpowered. But the difference is that Skull Merchant couldn't disregard everything, even with the haste and hindered effects she had to deal with survivor's resources. Ghouls doesn't have to.

Yes, my friend, I do believe BHVR was supposed to leave it there because the number wasn't caused by her kit. Just like Freddy's incredibly high kill rates before the buff. The kill rates are caused by several other factors.

As far as my understanding goes, Skull Merchant 2.0 fixed the problem with 3 gens, and gave her a power that worked for chases, which is what some people wanted in the first place. Her kit can appear bloated at first glance, much like Vecna's for instance, but in reality it was perfectly possible to understand it and play around it. Personally, she really grew on me and became one of my favorite killers in the game, to play as and against. And, regarding effort, that goes for pretty much every killer in modern DBD: the survivor role can require more effort than killer because of how the game has been since the whole process of making killers deadlier, but that has nothing to do with SM.

I strongly support a full reversion, my friend, and really don't think it will make games miserable. Some people won't like it, of course, just like I didn't like Freddy's changes earlier this year after insisting on this topic for years, but unfortunately you can't please everyone.

All things considered, this is the best option, friend.

It felt lazy how they reworked her, instead of tailoring her power to a different playstyle they just toned down everything in her kit to make 3 genning not viable anymore.

I used to always say it's not fair that "m1 killer on crack" SM gets hated and deleted when Clown is right there and is genuinely one of the more miserable killers to face.

now that Clowns been changed hopefully SMs turnaround is soon

Her rework is going to be in like 1/2 years…

While paid killer is completely useless, she definetly needs some short term buffs to make her somewhat viable to play.

I don't think she created the exact same scenario as OG Legion, my friend. Skull Merchant had to scan you three times before the claw trap is even applied to you, and then she can play around Haste and Hindered, which you, as a survivor, is not helpless against. Sure, there were situations where you would go down, but that goes for every single killer in the game. Not one of them can be looped indefinitely, not anymore. Skull Merchant provided you with counter play, something that OG Legion didn't do.

But the thing is, my friend, Legion's changes didn't go as deep as Skull Merchant's proposed changes would. Legion runs fast and stabs people, that hasn't changed. The specifics around it changed. Skull Merchant is a set up killer with AoE traps that scan survivors, and that would have been replaced by a Twins-style dash attack and mid-range M2 like the countless we already have. It isn't the same. It is an erasure of identity.

The design previews are comparable to the idea of allowing Trapper to manually control his bear traps and have them running around chomping survivors. Or Hag's phantasms being controllable, finding a survivor, and only then letting her teleport.

I would say, my friend, that it didn't work for those who would rather give up and leave rather than actually trying to play the match. For those players, yes, SM 2.0 didn't work, but the result would have been the same for any other killer, if they did the same thing. I don't think it is unreasonable to think that the perfectly fine and fair games I had against Skull Merchant 2.0 were also experienced by countless players out there. I can guarantee you, my friend, that if we had her in the game right now with the anti go next, players would have a much better understanding of what to do against her.

The problem here is that putting it into any other context doesn't work because each killer has a different reason for their kill rates. Let's say Ghoul, pre-buff Freddy and Skull Merchant had 70% kill rates. We can't dismiss all three as overpowered. Ghoulsis overpowered, most certainly. Pre-buff Freddy's high kill rates were due to being picked mostly by experienced players, and survivors lacking experience in playing against him. Skull Merchant's can be easily explained by failed attempts at hook suicides and, just like Freddy, lack of experience. Because you can't improve if many games you play against a killer has someone DCing because of a problematic release that had already been fixed. It isn't silly, my friend, it is a matter of looking at each case individually.

As for the last question, friend, well… when I first started playing DBD, if I asked pretty much any killer player out there who was the weakest killer in the game, they would say Freddy. But I didn't agree with that, and I have made many posts over the years trying to explain why I didn't consider him the weakest. Skull Merchant 2.0 is another killer that I like, and I'm trying to explain why I support her return to the game and why I don't think she was problematic, at all.

As much as I don't think BHVR are going to, it really would be appropriate to give her some placeholder buffs so she actually functions between now and her rework.

While it wouldn't be difficult to just… fix her previous iteration, I also think that would take a bit too much work to really justify as placeholder buffs, so in lieu of going all the way and fixing her outright I'd probably propose the following tweaks:

• Revert her Haste and Hindered numbers/functionality to where they were prior to the nerfs
• increase the slowdown for placing a drone
• Let her scan people vaulting again
• Maybe make her a bit louder to offset how good she is at using Undetectable

That still leaves her with a few of her old problems, most notably her power not conveying itself very well and being unintuitive as a result, but even with a pure total reversion she wouldn't be outright problematic.

Yes, some people will be mad, but to some degree you have to ignore the most unreasonable subset of commenters.

I really don't think she is on spot where you need to add nerfs to possible buffs…