Just got out of a 40 minute Skull Merchant game
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I don't really have anything constructive to say about the killer. Delete their entire kit. Actually, use one of those flash things from Men In Black that deletes my memory of ever having encountered the Skull Merchant. Start over. This is the worst killer that has ever been released. Yes, it's worse than release Legion, because those games actually ended. I don't want to play DbD for the duration of this tome. End rant.
Comments
I'm sorry, who here was claiming that they were too strong post-nerf? Not trying to troll, I just don't remember offhand seeing people saying that in this thread, or anywhere for that matter.
That being said, PR definitely isn't weak or useless. It's still strong. 25% is nothing to scoff at, and even if you only got 3 people and didn't even get your 4th token used up, thats still a considerable amount of regression that you caused for not kicking a single generator, and even if you got all 4 stacks used up, you regressed up to a total of 1 generator and are probably winning in the first place.
Her ability is the worst killer design in my opinion.
But at the same I do think she's the guideline of how killers should play for better kill rates.
Honestly after patch? kind of a skill issue with the nuked regression.
The point was that you can't loop a Nurse by the very obvious nature of her power, and yet you think telling people that:
is somehow helpful advice against Skull Merchant, in a thread where those facts and opinions are largely irrelevant.
I'm very sorry that you suffered some kind of injury, but that doesn't give you the right to resort to personal attacks to assuage your bruised ego.
You are not entitled to win every game. I completely agree.
However, you are entitled to a chance at winning every game you load into. If something is preventing you from at the very least having a chance to win, then whatever mechanic is denying you that chance is inherently unfair, unfun, and unbalanced.
Even after the update that killed Overcharge and CoB, Skull Merchant can still:
This is a crucial game design problem that BHVR needs to address if they ever want people not to hate this killer.
Yes, it can be reapplied in a short window of time. It has no cool down, iirc. Just because the generator isn't at max regression for the full time doesn't mean that no regression happens.
i kinda enjoy playing as her, if i get a bit tired and wanna just turn my brain off in the next match and relax
There are four things that bug me about her and I don't get how they went live:
1/Why does she get seemingly infinite drones? Far more than any other trap based killer. Trapper and Hag don't get this many so what makes her special?
2/ why do trap radii give the exhausted status effect? When she can cover virtually the entire map in them with minimal areas not covered between them, it seems very unbalanced to render all exhaustion perks null and void.
3/ why is there no cooldown on using drones in the same area? Whilst the survivor is tagged with the drone they have deactivated the SM shouldn't be allowed to put one back up in that area unless the survivor has been downed. Whats the point in even deactivating when she can immadiately put one up in th3 exact same area? Also, Given you cannot deactivate the drone for a set amount of time it makes doing gens, especially in the late game, a massive annoyance. Especially given the ability to reset them goes back into cooldown when she walks through the radius.
4. Why can the 'search light' section of the drone see you through obstacles when the beam visibly gets blocked. SM mains are very quickly learning areas of maps where you cannot get to the drones before the beam gets you. Regardless of whether you are in the radius of effectiveness or not the beam should not be able to see you if it's line of sight is obscured.
If they fix some of these things then she would be much more bearable.
she's trash to play too, i can't stand her kit versing or playing
If im in match vs her I die on first hook. Sucks for my team but im not gonna play out that snoozefest of a match. 100% worst designed killer ever
I only care about talking about the game, so I don't really care about trying to prove you were rude to me. Water under the bridge.
Regardless, any killer can be in a situation where the survivors have given the killer a 3 gen. That's perfectly fine; the survivors should know better.
But any killer that tries to camp a 3 gen from the start will most likely lose against any team consisting of players that are 1 standard deviation above the normal distribution of player skill (i.e. above the average but not experts).
Except Skull Merchant, who can load into a match, pick their 3 gen of choice, and then stalemate the game for 40+ mins with their power.
2/ why do trap radii give the exhausted status effect? When she can cover virtually the entire map in them with minimal areas not covered between them, it seems very unbalanced to render all exhaustion perks null and void.
That's an add-on, not basekit.
He isn't.
Knight can. Presumably, Nurse and Blight could as well, though they don't need to.
People still think this killer is even remotely capable of 3 gen strats?
I would agree with this IF her drones didn't give undetectable.
Since her 3 gen is close together, as she walks around she is spending alot of time being undetectable. The only time she really wouldn't be is when she catches a survivor off guard due to undetectable, hits them, and returns to her 3 gen.
This is made even worse with the addon that makes you oblivious if you enter the drones active zone, as if you were to stay on the gen you would have 0 clue if she is coming while being exposed. Furthermore, this lingers for a couple seconds once you leave the drone area, making it even harder to tell if she's coming.
This isn't even factoring in maps with verticality. SM on The Game or Midwitch is the most unfun experience in the game. If she places a drone on a separate floor, it's gonna take forever to disable it, and if you try and stick the gen she walks over with no terror radius knowing your exact location and instadowns you. Even if you wait for the drone to go into scouting mode, she can just quickly re-enable it and put you back into a lose-lose situation.
Is this to say she shouldn't have undetectable and vertical drone height? I have no clue. If you take that away from her she's gonna suck, and thats why she's in such a weird place. If you remove the things that make her unbearable to play against now she sucks, you need to balance it out with substantial buffs to her kit. She just needs a complete power overhaul in my opinion.
i dont think shes that bad. weirdly enough i like going against her. probably more than half the other killers in the game.
I kind of feel the same about Myers as well. If using the infinite t3 add-ons he could, presumably, easily hold down 3 gens. But if you reach t3 early he doesn't really need to anyway.
I've used the infinite t3 add-ons many times but never really tried to 3 gen with it. So I can't speak from experience on that.
I kind of feel this way with Myers. If running infinite t3 add-on then he could, presumably, easily hold down a 3 gen. Though if you reach t3 early it really isn't necessary anyway.
I've used the addon many times but never tried to 3 gen with it. So I can't really speak on how effective it is for that.
You realize Overcharge literally makes the gen regress at slower speed when it starts? At start, it regresses at 85% speed. Combined with CoB, the gen will be regressing at 105% speed, so only 5% faster, which is completely negligible.
i don't find her undetectable that impressive. I think her oblivious add-on is very strong vs soloq as it is more difficult to know how close/far she is but at least when playing vs swf, it does not seem that effective vs 4 man swf. too much coordination.
towards pulsar comment, m1 killer using oc/cob wasn't concern part about combo. the concerning part was high-tier killer with anti-yoyo capacity using those perks... like blight and Wesker with his 12 vaccine mechanic. those killer are a lot more impressive at 3 gens than skull merchant. you can watch for example one of hens video from 7 months ago title: Wesker "Permanent Infection build" which spoiler alert is Wesker 3 gen gameplay. Like user above said, almost any killer can 3 gen but low-tier killer that 3 gen often 3 gen because they have no other option. They're just weak killers.
Not when she can force a surv off for 10 seconds (Drone Active timer before it becomes hackable). Another 3+ seconds to hack the drone. That is now 13+ seconds of Overbrine and SM is probably headed right back to the gen upon seeing the drone hacked. She kicks it again, drops another drone and now...
Drone can't be hacked and while you can go for the gen tap to stop regression, once again, she knows immediately and can (and most often will return). I could run through more scenarios, but they all end the same way - the regression is not negligible when you have a killer that can force survivors off gens for 13+ seconds with relative ease.
The problem isn't overcharge. The problem isn't COB. The problem is a Killer power that gives higher than normal value with these two perks.
All of what you are saying is well and fine if MMR actually did something, so that Survivor lobbies weren't a mix bag of 40hrs, 300hrs, 1k hrs, and 6k hrs.
What you're describing is coordination--on a level you see in competitive FPS games like CS:GO and Overwatch. I don't know anyone who queues into pubs looking to execute that level of coordination. There is a human element attached to all the number crunching that asks DBD to either create better matchmaking or design Killers with forgiving counterplay.
The "best strategy" often requires mutual understanding of the plan. When I can't make assumptions about the experience and skill level of my teammates, I cannot reliably make the best decisions for our team.
Too many times I've been in a situation where there is one gen left, I'm injured and on death hook, and my 3 full health teammates discover a phobia of generators. Splitting pressure is the best strategy with 1 gen left, but if my teammates aren't going to do that, I'm just a sitting duck trying to get my team out the exit gates.
We can't look at game balance in a bubble.
oh yes, balance around bad players with low coordination. riveting argument.
People still think its not entirely her raison d'etre? Especially now the maps consistently spawn 2 gens within sight of each other?
With all due respect. It shouldn't be.
She already gets the oblivious (or blindness - I mix the two up) effect as base kit and exposed if you stay in the radius too long, which is almost a guarantee when running through the inevitable multiple lined up drones, giving her a one hit down . The drone radius is powerful enough as it is. It didn't need add ons. Add ons should be reworked to allow her to use more drones (with the base number she can use decreased, increase the amount of time you can wait before deactivating the drone, the amount of time it takes to lose the tag etc). At the moment she is just far too oppressive.
You can drop the sarcasm, if you want to have a constructive conversation.
No one will take you seriously if you act like everyone with a differing opinion is inferior to you.
I had no idea SM had such a vocal Internet Defense Force.
yeah her design is terrible. All I see in my games are survivors running to the killer to kill themselves every single game where a SM treasures her 3 gen. People just simply don’t want such a long game.
I’ve played this game since 2016, and in my opinion, this killer’s power isn’t healthy for the game.
She needs a complete change to her base power, enough said. The knight isn’t that great either.
I love this game and I have thousands and thousands of hours in it but the quality of these killers being released is not ideal.
Wesker was great though. Big fan haha. :)
This is so true! It’s almost like this killer does not even care about killing the survivors. She just needs to keep her precious generators lol
Here's a fun experiment. Try to hold a 3-gen as Trapper without ever using his traps. But, you're allowed to equip Surveillance in your perk build.
Congratulations, you've fully recreated what Skull Merchant's power does in a 3-gen. She is an M1 killer with basekit Surveillance. If you run that perk on any other killer, you are by default a better 3-gen killer than Skull Merchant, because you are getting the entire effective value of Skull Merchant's power in a 3-gen plus the effective value of the actual killer's power.
Skull Merchant is terrible at holding 3-gens. If you get 3-genned by Skull Merchant, especially now that Overcharge and Brine are completely dead, it's genuinely just a skill issue.
Genuinely, what are you talking about?
Key differences between Skull Merchant and....Trapper with Surveillance: The drones apply the exposed the status effect. The drones mask her TR. The Skull Merchant gets a passive haste buff for every claw trap on a survivor. To avoid the the exposed status, survivors must wait 10 seconds for the active mode to expire on a fresh drone and then hack the drone.
Not to mention, the Skull Merchant can use perks like PWYF to make bouncing between 3 gens and not committing to anything even faster on top of her passive haste. So the notion that it's very easy to pick away at the gens between the haste stacking and her drones ignores basically all the variables that come into play in a game of DbD. Not every gen in a 3 gen is always workable depending on the gen location, map RNG, and killer loadout.
The players chiming in thinking every game of DbD is played in a vacuum where everything is ideal are extremely inexperienced. Or players saying to "yo-yo" the gens. You know what makes that unrealistic? A killer moving at 120+% between PWYF and claw traps, and needing to avoid the exposed status because of the killer speed with 1 gen on a hill, 1 in a deadzone in the middle of the 3 gen, and 1 safe.
I would have loved for that to be a Trapper with Surveillance. Easiest game of my life.
You you have the solution to your problem make some coordinated plays.
Again what’s being discussed here isn’t the mechanics of the skull collector. The OP says they have nothing constructive to add, what was being complained about is a 40 min match.
Yes the mechanics of the skull collector need looking at but if you are “stuck” in a 40 min match you can either complain or get involved.
I prefer to do the latter as at least it can still be a fun game even if I don’t win.
What kind of idiot is sitting around in a 40 min game getting angrier and angrier at it when they have to power to get involved.
If it fails which it probably will you can move on from the match. You aren’t quitting but neither are you just sitting around moaning about the stalemate.
If people want to view that as purposefully throwing the game then fine wallow in your negative perspectives and don’t have any fun. I plan to have fun no matter what happens in game and I generally do.
I love how people are hell bent on ruining their own fun in this game because of their crappy mindset.
Irony and satire aren't your strong suites are they.
But it wasn’t and I made that clear.
I don’t want to quit but neither do I want to just hide on the far side of the map. I’m going to try and progress the objective even if that’s really hard to do.
If I die then no hard feelings, because it’s only a game and not worth getting upset about.
I think that a pretty healthy outlook to have on the game. No matter how much you want to twist it with your negative outlook.
whereas you said you’d try and kobe off hook, would you try till you died this genuinely quitting the game or would you try a couple then wait for rescue.
You are promoting quitting more than I am, but felt the need to get all self righteous about throwing the game, because I’d rather get involved and progress the objective than just outright quit and complain.
hypocrisy is the best way to fall off your high horse and you fell hard. So as I previously said welcome back to the mud.
But if you want to keep whining and quitting go for it but I’d rather get involved in games that are starting to drag out and have fun, even if that fun may get me killed.
Played my very first game against a Skill merchant today :D
3 people immediately DC'd within a minute, she closed hatch, and me not knowing what killer it was because I didn't recognize the chase music ended up getting slugged until death by some Discord Kitty looking "thing".
If this is what Skull Merchant games are like, I would like to pass on them :<
The op is complaining about the fact that merchant can grind the game to a halt forcing survivors to either throw the match or suffer through 30 minute games
Under no circumstance should survivors feel the need to throw a match just to get out quicker.
They don’t have to throw the match. The game only grinds to a halt of no one is trying to progress the objective.
Most coordinated teams can break a 3 gen if they try, solos may struggle a bit more and that’s why the merchant needs looking at mechanics wise.
But if you come up against a really hard tactic to beat I’d rather still try and progress the objective, learn something and maybe have some fun while still progressing the game, than sit around being miserable about how it’s too hard.
Even afk pig a completely busted play style could be countered, it was just really hard and not that practical, but we managed it twice and everyone got out.
Just as afk pig was changed, I’m sure there will be changes to merchant eventually.
Till then you can play it out for the fun and maybe find some interesting ways to work around it or continue to wallow in self pity and whinge. I know what I’d rather do.
You can’t really stop people from choosing to be miserable though.
Hmmmmm
The Haste, Exposed, and stealth are all so borderline ineffectual, especially given how easy it is to just disable her drones entirely, that they are completely negligible in factoring in one's ability to actively pressure gens as a powerless M1 killer. On paper, they sound super neat, but in practice, she really is just a killer with basekit Surveillance as her entire power if you try to hold a 3 gen.
"PWYF" any killer can do the exact same thing with that perk. Find obsession, get stack, run back to gen, rinse and repeat. Skull Merchant has no synergy with PWYF that any other M1 killer shouldn't also have.
Her power is not a threat. And if she's not a threat, she's not going to be good at forcing survivors off gens. And if she's not good at forcing survivors off gens, she's not a good 3 gen killer.
it is the same reasoning as boon doing the same thing...just find it funny when the drones being able to to the same thing is seen as op but boons are a no go...exponential is especially fun in multiple floor levels
13 seconds brings Overcharge to roughly 100%, which is normal gen regression speed. These perks give almost no value now. I've already tested 3 gen strats on this patch. It's impossible to hold the 3 gen for long if all 4 survivors are alive since regression perks aren't strong enough.
i find her to be the only killer to really get the most use out of hex totems...she doesn't just have to 3 gen
In that logic nurse also should be kill switched bc she technically breaks the game since she can teleport through walls and pallets lol
she is just an m1 killer most of the time...you have to work for your insta downs since knowing where the opponent is with claw traps doesnt help if they go and take it off away from gens and the speed haste isnt that great...if you try to get 3 or 4 claw traps at the same time then you leave yourself without a drone to mind game at loops
still more interaction than a slugging nurse or oni and then waiting to bleed out for 4 minutes or tombstone myers
Nah, those matches were fun, I remember aimbot nurses shooting all the way across the map to their basement perfectly. The fun was picking people up frantically...enjoyed crazy billy blasting around slugging people as fast as they could, sometimes there was a win, but atleast I didn't watch Mt character sit on hook get unhooked or face camped to go right back on hook 2 more times and then game was over
While those are not fun either, I prefer those over 40+ minutes against Skull Merchant.
Yea but... Imagine if they were 🤣
I was really hoping BHVR would get rid of her insta-down and replace it with aura reading. I think it would be more fun. Maybe make survivors in her drones area hindered 3% basekit or something + aura to give reason to not want to be in the area.
Not a bad idea, as it is, if I see skull merchant playing 3 gen I just run at her and get the waste of time over with. After 3 30+ minute games in a row I'm just not doing it anymore.
BHVR really doesn't like aura-reading being basekit for any killer, which is why Killer Instinct exists. The closest exception is Trapper and survivors caught in his traps but those are completely stationary so it doesn't really matter.
Skull Merchant doesn't need aura-reading, that's what the radar should be for.