Skull Merchant

• In psychology, it's called "post-traumatic stress disorder."🤣 In reality, she's a mediocre killer, but she has a good ability to "deny the loop." As soon as the survivor dares to do something similar to a loop, she drops one of her drones, and the survivor's best choice is to press W and change the loop. Obviously, it's not her fault; that's just how she works. So, at an average-high skill level, she's not a very fun killer from the survivor's point of view. The knight also suffers from the same problem.

As others have said, the main complaint now is that she is boring/non-interactive to face as survivor.

She is a bottom-tier killer and easy to counter, but she is so rare now that I most survivor players don’t know how to counter her, so many still give up immediately when they see her.

Well just go on Yt there are plenty of videos about it, but in short first she was strong in her first released version so than nerfed (little rework) came and mede her by today standarts weaker mediocre killer at best but more like c-tier, the kick was she was released into meta that had probably best synergy with her power and terms like "chess merchant"were created not like she was only killer that could hold 3gen (3 gens very close to each other which are easy to patrol and hard to be done if killer stays by them, mostly created by few reason first is map gen spawn rng that spawns them from the start and reason its problem is either killer will spot them from the start and decides to play around them and protects them or survviors have no game sence in what gens they should do first meaning theys just do gens fast but advance from one side to other so the last 3 gens that left are 3 gen and then game slows a lot and survivors mostly loose in long game because they forget to create last 3 gens that killer can hardly protect or even cant like against no mobility killer two gens across the map is gg) knight could do it or singularity but she was best at it with meta that was strong regression gen kick perks like Call of brine and overcharge, eruption (all these perks were much stronger back then and gen regression was same like in 2v8 maybe even faster just so you can imagine it how strong it was (nowdays you mostly chase survivor off gen and dont kick it if its not highly progressed but back then you always first kicked the gen).

Last and key problem that if existed back then the "chess merchant" wouldnt be able to beat strong survivor teams in long game was no gen damage limit like now you can damage generator as killer only 8 times (perks like ruin can do it more times but other regression perks just can do it only 8 times and then the gen is bloked and cant be regressed or damaged by any perk except ruin which is hex that can be romoved by destroying the totem).

So just her ability to hold certain places locked with strong regression perks that didnt required some action to be activated (like hooking from pop or pain res, or down from jolt or eruption etc.) and no gen damage limit (which is now 8 times and then killer cant regress the gen so survviors can do it and finish it) made her super hard to deal with for average teams and even comp teams which I believe beat her but it took ages like almost hour a match which was not good so instead devs just gave gens damage limit and nerfed little those gen kick perks they nerfed merchant into f-tier killer (first of its kind, even trapper wasnt ever been so low like merchant), they super hard nerfed those gen kicking perks and ruin and lastly they added gen damage regression number (its 8 now), in common devs fashion they take action little like drunk man walking they do one step forward and then two back and repeat, sometimes they do two front but mostly they stay in place but they moving.

Now they gave her super minor buffs (she is still worst killer in the game and in like top 3 most hated with ghoul and knight) and wanted to ask if its enough so they dont have to do the rework but unfortunately for them people want her reworked and not her being in this garbage state so there should be rework somewhere in 2026.

Just people have that bad "nostalgia" from her past version and hate her same as when people think old DBD was far better (it was chaotic mess both sides had op broken things and tuneling and camping,facecamping or sluging was like 1000% stronger and much harder to counter but the nostalgia effect look I have it nowdays to just Im like "I will play trapper" and then Im brought back into reality because he still sucks and it hasnt that atmosphear like back then with fog and thick grass that helped him even he still sucked).

Its just grudge and hate from past still blinding them, to see she is actualy quite harmless nowdays (more than unknown for sure).

She is still incredibly unfun to play against.

Unfun doesn't necessarily equal too strong. Bad design is bad design.

I would say with her recent resurfacing and me seeing more of her I still dislike her pretty severely. I had one yesterday that hard tunneled me out and just keep tossing drones up at every loop I went to, so all I could really do was hold W until I eventually got downed. Even when I thought I'd lost her when I was on death hook she was just undetectable. If that's the scuzzy playstyle I'm going to have to deal with then I'm not gonna like the killer.

Shes not my most hated though. That might be Twins, who I've also seen more of lately.

Most players still hate her from the PTSD they got from her when she was first released and some people never got over it. There was massive back lash back then so many people refusing to even play against her even after her first rework they then just decided to just hit her to shut people up. She wasn't even that strong her 2.0 version but was in a much healthier state than her first version.

To Dodge her drone beams you don't need to crouch you just need to be standing completely still at least to avoid them. But not really something you can do while in chase so crouching while moving still works.

Also I recommend looking up PixelBush on YouTube he's a huge fan of Skull Merchant and has some really good guides and history on her.

Well, she used to be very good at holding 3-gen, in 3 gen meta…

Then first rework created situation where she required very little effort to play, but was quite difficult to understand for survivors.
She was easily beatable at that point, but she was definetly good noob stomper.

But because she was so easy and survivors got used to giving up from her 3-gen era, her kill rates were very high and survivors complained, so devs nuked her…

Funny is survivors complained about playing her even after she got nuked. Even now, devs were not willing to just buff her, but had need to add some nerfs too.

Yeah, I said it was very high…

She was mainly noob stomper, it wasn't really that difficult to beat her imo. Sure, kinda depended on map.

Vecna it's like half a second. How do you crouch through a whole chase? It's not like you do one quick squat and the drones are instantly disabled.

And if the Vecna is running spellbook crouching is also useless.

i hate her because her chase is boring and her scan lines are not interactive.

"just crouch" ? and lose all my distance and go down or get injured for free? nice, fun, very well played from SM !

the lasers from her drones are headache inducing if you're sat in the vicinity of one whilst on a gen or something, same with xenos flame turrets.

every skull merchant seems to play like a rat, bming, slugging, hitting on hook excessively. a lot of people who play her play her to be a dick, you see them nodding across the map because they know what they're doing. they play her for a reaction.

i must ask why you want to know why/what people hate about skull merchant and in the same post you negate anything people say. why ask people if you're just gonna respond with "just crouch"… if you read what people say there's no need to be confused as to why people hate her.

but you also said you're new so i suppose it's easy to say "just do so and so".

the problem is her entire design is a mess and no one likes her. thats just it. community is scarred by what was and only a full rework is the best solution imo. or just delete her and forget she ever happened because she is that much of a failure. but hey, at least her cosmetics are cool i guess…..

but yeah, there is still reasons to hate her. i still hate her and have stated why. there ya go.

"Without suicides or DC's"

bro is mansplaining dbd

what was the point of this post if you seem to know everything? you're not acknowledging when people say why they hate skull merchant and are responding saying "just crouch". i have thousands of hours in dbd and "just crouching" is the stupidest response when people complain about skull merchant when she loses no distance when you need to crouch and you lose all momentum and distance gained. i've said before she cannot be rectified and "just crouching" does not make her any more fun to go against.

it's not the same as vecna or nemi or blight or billy because they actually get slowed down when you crouch to avoid their power. either by fatigue or power animations. skull merchant could gain blood lust 3 whilst you're fighting for your life to avoid scan lines by "just crouching". on top of being forced into deep wound, on top of being hindered. — you want me to crouch ?whilst im being hindered and in deep wound too? are you unaware of how unfun that sounds ?

besides even if you do win against her i doubt it'd have been fun and it'd have felt more like a chore than anything because nobody likes her. just crouching isn't going to magnificently make people enjoy versing her so i don't know why that's your response to everyone answering your question.

With Legion its the constant mending that most people find annoying its just feels like you are wasting your time. Deep wound mechanic is not well liked and another reason why Ghoul is partly hated too but he has several other reasons for it too.

Have to admit I find Singularity more annoying than Skull Merchant. Current version of her is not even really anyway annoying.

Meaningful and engaging counterplay.

Legions counterplay is to not heal, sometimes not mend. But you'll be mending most of the match.

SM's counterplay is to either crouch constantly (and probably get hit) or leave the loop when she brainlessly throws down a Drone. It isn't exactly engaging for the Killer either, but SM players have never been about engagement.

Sometimes it isn't about being fair or unfair. It's about how it feels. SM feels bad to play against because the counter-play is required, but horrifically boring and unpleasant. Few enjoy it.

Still majority of survivors I play against do only strategy which is holding shif+W and run to other loop when they dont need to, its not engaging to play against and still I play against it without switching to killers like blight or ghoul from my frustration to have this problem dealt with.

I was injured and being hard tunnled off hook and this guy was just spamming drones the moment I got to anything usable. Crouching mid-chase gives me free hits as Vecna. It would have done it here too. Just that tiny slow down in your speed screws up your timing. This killer gets free Undetectable and free Hindered for doing pretty much nothing and that's obnoxius.

There's a certain group of killers with obsessive followings who I really don't like their kits (or how their players choose to play) and that looks unlikely to change if they keep playing in this manner, or if they aren't reworked.