Skull Merchant Could Still Do With A Rework Post 9.3

I have played the Cadaver Shopkeeper for many an hour, both in the advent of this update and in general. She is probably my second most played killer with Spirit being my defacto-main. I consider myself an experienced killer, 500 hours in the game, blah, blah, blah. Skipping to the point, this isn't coming from someone with 1000 hours on the character nor am I in high MMR.

HOWEVEVER, I've still earned a degree in Skulltology and wanted to write post describing how she plays right now and why that might be an issue. Post 9.30, she is sort of viable. Her territorial and map control is still nerfed. You can typically get a few odd scanlines in per match but most of the pressure she is able to apply comes from chase. This actually has been what the community has been asking for a while. Her power was alleged to be sedate before and now it is more active. I always liked the territorial element of her character but I can get behind a chase-merchant. The problem is how this chase-merchant functions. To get results with her, you gotta drone every pallet and loop you enter or you are otherwise playing without a power. She's kinda like the Xenomorph in the sense that you force the pallet drop and probably get a scan as a result. Once a pallet is down, the survivor is put into two situations. First, they can stay in the loop and get an injury through claw or drone. Second, they can leave the loop while the merchant burns the pallet.

There's four distinct issues with this gameplay loop. Firstly, she can only function in the current meta. The Merchant can get results because there are very little pallets on the map. Any killer could play the same way as her right now and still get a 3-4k while doing so with more ease than Skully. The moment we add pallets back, she becomes unplayable again. And speaking of 3ks and 4ks, you gotta play dirty on Skully to get those. When I have won a match, it is because I did manage to tunnel out an early kill, or because I had good 3 gen, or I knew when to slug. All the things that survs hate going against are very much necessary aspects of her kit. Overarching both of these points is that she has the same problematic gameplay loop as Ghoul. Drop pallet—>burn pallet—> deadzone —> repeat. There's no looping, there's no interaction, there's no mindgames. And finally, to just state what I've been implying, she's REALLY underpowered. Xeno, huntress, tricksters, they all do what the Skull Merchant does right now but better.

I vaguely remember something on the steam fourms detailing a ranged rework for my favourite billionaire and I would really love that. It fits who she is and it would give her a more interactive power. The only buffs that would make this character viable again are to keep pallets as they are now or revert back to how she was before the nerf last year. I don't think either of those are good solutions so a rework is necessary even if, as mentioned on livestream, it is eating up resources.