How To Make Skull Merchant Interesting?
Skull Merchant seems to be really strong in 3-gen situations while having a poor chase potential, but I think everyone is really ignoring the root of the issue here.
Their "gen defense" addons are Common and Uncommon, which makes them inexpensive, easy to obtain, thus making them more desirable; while their chase related addons are Rare and Very Rare, which makes them more expensive, harder to obtain, thus making them less desirable.
I personally think the addons for "gen defense" should have their rarities increased while chase related addons should have their rarities decreased. Doing this will make Skull Merchant stronger in chase without needing to change their entire basekit.
It also still keeps 3-gen strategies as an option for players who enjoy that playstyle, but makes them not as appealing for your average player due to the expensiveness and scarcity of the addons.
Comments
her chase add-on are under-tuned numerically. the iri add-on requires survivor to activate drone. the drone needs to turn off and survivor needs to walk into the drone area for you to gain haste. why can't add-on just give you 5% haste for using a drone?
her purple add-on is more reliable for haste... but 2% haste? that is not enough for weak m1 killer for her. it is not even bloodlust 1. At least make it bloodlust 1.
Her other add-on called randomised strobe DOES NOT have a lingering effect. It only applies 1 time bonus of -5% hindered for 3 seconds. 3 seconds. that is so little. at least increase duration to like 5-10 seconds or make it linger like purple haste add-on.
I think its more that these add-on are too weak. not that their rarity is high. they just kinda suck making 3 gen the only viable way to play her.
I think what they tried doing was make her Chase weaker so we dont get another Knight or Artist Situation.
In which the Killer Simply Places their Power and Survivors just leave the Area in Order to avoid it.
So they made her Drones not be really scary so Survivors wouldnt avoid them at all Cost.
I still think the Skull Merchant needs a little Buff.
Fully Tracked Survivors for example should either receive a hindered Effect when they are injured cause the exposed does literally nothing then. Or at least Reveal their Aura as a Basekit Mechanic. Or something along those Lines.
I havent played her enought to give really a good Opinion on her.
They are too weak given that they are Rare and Very Rare addons, but reducing their rarity would warrant their weakness and make them easier to obtain for most players; making the generator defense addons a higher rarity would also warrant their strength because they are too oppressive for Common and Uncommon addons.
It's hard to do in a way that doesn't feel cheap or contrived. It's the glaring flaw in centering the power around a static placed object. There's no back and forth or skill curve to the power. It's just there and it and works if a survivor is in it.
I'd like to see a rework happen with some sort of manual drone control. There's no big pop or payoff with her power usage. Like I said, it's just kind of there as opposed to the satisfaction you get from hitting a Wesker dash.
And from the survivor side, it's kind of the same thing. You just avoid the glowing areas to avoid the debuffs. But you probably take an M1 for it. Again, there's no skilled interaction happening. It's a decision-making simulator where both decisions often a negative outcome. The claw trap is interesting on paper, but in reality, I simply don't care that I have it half the time. She's in a chase across the map, so what does the claw trap do?
I sound like a broken record, but there has to be a skilled interaction happening between killer and survivor outside of basic chase elements (this is also the problem with Knight). Pressing up-down-left-right to hack a drone is not that. And it can't be a decision-making simulator at its core.
its not like haste and hindered are not powerful effects. they are really good but these numbers and restrictions make the add-on less attractive to run.
My suggestion is to tie the amount of drones you can deploy to the amount of claw traps active on survivors, restoring charges once the batteries on a survivor die the first time to allow drone radius' to continue to recharge currently dead claw trap batteries. My only issue with this is the fact she is an M1 killer and could make chase more difficult in certain situations.