Skull Merchant is a broken/unfun killer
Boring gameplay and an extremely ridiculous "no hability need" to expose survivors, the whole time, for the whole game.
In my point of view the DEVs created a gencamp killer, and then they changed their minds after realize that they broke the whole game.
Now they tried to change her gameplay and it still sucks.
Frankly, I don´t have any suggestion of how making this terrible designed killer (visually and game style) be viable and fun to play and go against.
Comments
one word to describe her..........AWFUL
I'd say this is a widely agreed upon take.
Skull Merchant's only real power is holding a 3 gen and dragging out games long enough for survivors to eat through their resources. Trying to use her Drones in a chase will just causes survivors to run to the next loop and the additional movement speed provided from tracking survivors is nowhere near as strong as her potential to stall the game - so why would anyone bother to use her for any purpose other than that?
As boring as it is to face, I can't really bring myself to blame Skull Merchant players for doing it, just because there's no other way to use her successfully. Not to mention that Dead by Daylight's emblem system actually rewards that type of gameplay. I tested it out myself when she released and I've never double pipped so consistently. It's by far the easiest way to sail through the ranks I've found.
The entire concept of her power is flawed, and anyone with any real degree of experience in the game would've seen how it will be used straight away and scrapped it. If anything, The Skull Merchant (and The Knight for that matter) were a massive wake up call that BHVR needs to involve the community more in the design and testing process of their upcoming content. I firmly believe they should get a handful of actual players (or even Fog Whisperers), have them sign NDAs, and take feedback from them on killer power concepts, perk reworks and the like. That way BHVR doesn't waste a YEAR of time, resources, and money designing a killer just for everyone to hate it.
There's no way to salvage this rendition of The Skull Merchant's power. No number tweaks can resolve this - she needs an entire rework and I think most of us will be happy when she finally gets one and we don't have to play anymore 50 minute long games.