I feel like there is a way to make skull merchant fun for both killer and survivor.
When facing skull merchant all that I see is her placing drones at three gens and that's it. It's not to fun for killer since you basically can only do three gens and for survivor it just becomes annoying since well once that three gen happens the match goes on for to long.
I feel like there is some way to make skull merchant fun or at least make her not to boring.
For example when Knight first came out most people didn't like him but he still had a way of applying pressure his gaurds would chase someone which wasted time for them but he was useful at getting survivors away from loops. Facing him was fun because it made you think your being hunted by a guard you need to get some good timing to get the banner or figure out how to out last the hunt.
For has much has I hate Wraith I still find it somewhat fun since he makes me more aware of my surroundings I have to pay close attention.
But skull merchant she's just well not fun it's like facing a face camping Bubba you know what's going to happen.
Some ideas for skull merchant could be have it where she can control her drones having them move a certain distance so they can cover some ground or maybe she has two types of surveillance?
Comments
As long as she can just place 3 drones and then hit anyone who tries to do said gens with sloppy butcher, she will never be fun. The drones would have to be reworked completely and have the exposed removed or if a drone is taken down, it removes 2 from her for a period of time etc.
I've had one fun game against SM, and she didn't drone the gens. She won purely with a chase build (got a 3k and the last survivor found hatch). There are definitely SM players out there who choose not to go the 3 gen route, they're just outnumbered by those who do choose to do so.
The exposed status needs to go for a start. That's why people are wary to go in there for any length of time. The fact the exposed status is gained so easily and stays for a ridiculous amount of time is very unbalanced.
If they were to make minimum changes, they'd need to remove the exposed and perhaps even the undetectable status and have it so the Skull Merchant can only detect survivors using her tablet thing (no killer instinct or otherwise. Undetectable could be an add-on perhaps.
Also, if the drones wanted to be more of an attacking ability, have them follow a survivor once they detect one and as long as the survivor is in eyesight of the drone it can maybe try to attack or continue to trace, allowing the killer to have a better idea where survivors are, in exchange for no 3-gen.
Finally, for the love of god fix that walking animation. No two-ways about it, it's absolutely terribly animated.
They can start by changing the chase/radius music for her hopefully lol
The kit has numerous problems.
1. It introduces a repetitive pre-requisite for doing the objective. You have to hack a drone every. single. time you want to do one of the gens she's guarding.
2. A player with a claw trap is effectively useless at breaking the 3 gen. Drones go into active mode automatically when a claw trap is near them. This introduces the loop where a survivor hacks a drone, the drone is immediately replaced, and that survivor essentially has to hang out away from the gens.
3. She doesn't run out of drones. She always effectively has the amount of drones needed to lock down a 3 gen. Claw trap timers are 45 seconds. Drones are not hackable for the first 10 seconds after deployment. There is an extremely brief window at best for a survivor to work on a gen between claw traps and the active period.
4. The power goes through floors. This makes certain gens un-repairable with the Exposed status effect. You are throwing the game if you try to repair main building Coal Tower, Garden of Joy, Badham, etc without specific exhaustion perks to get you out of there. 3 gen clusters often become 2 gen clusters because her power goes through floors.
5. She's completely uninteractive in chase. There's no skill expression for either side. Her chase power is passive haste and automatic pallet breaking. It's boring on the killer side and feels incredibly cheap on the survivor side. There's a huge difference between going down to a Huntress vs a Skull Merchant who holds forward with zero mindgames until I'm forced to vault and break my own pallet. Completely unrewarding.
1) No it does not. drones makes generator risky to do.
2) The generator is not blocked when a survivor wears claw trap. The player can still progress generators with claw traps on.
3) This is also wrong, she does run out of drones. Each claw trap reduces max drone carrying capacity by 1. Hacking 2 drones will reduce her drone carrying capacity by -2, so at least 1 gen will have no drone.
4) All area of effect perks, items, powers etc. go through floors. Its is not unrepairable if your a swf. You have 1 guy at bottom floor that plays like scout and sits outside looking out for when killer shows up while person top floor repairs generator. So this is also wrong.
5) She is empowered m1 killer with slightly better movement speed. She needs speed to have counter-play towards survivor hold-w pre-chase near gens and she needs pallet break because many loops are unfair for killer. The majority of her chase interaction is no different then any normal m/s killer with limited power scope in the chase. The only difference is that she has chances to down people. what a crazy concept for a killer to win 1vs1 chases...
Then I can just ignore drones?
We already do it when we stay injured. It's an option, but risky.
Without exposed status, we would just ignore it. So what she know about me being there? She is M1 killer.
If I remove her drone, she will know my location, if I don't, she will know my location.
Removing exposed status from her is simply bad idea. She wouldn't work at all.
As later on in my post said, the drones could be in a more attacking capacity. So it won't just be a killer knowing where I am.
That's basically worse knight.
Instead of patrol, it would be stationary.
It's so bad idea... I am not sure you even tried to think about it.
She would be so useless. Basically putting trap, who is knight's soldier. You can outrun it. You can easily see it and it's possible to disarm after some time.
It would be triggered whenever survivors want (or never) so unlike knight, merchant wouldn't be always in position to follow up based on it.
Better tracking? When you have claw trap, I can see exactly where you are, how is this any better?
If you didn't notice, DBD AI is not best thing in the world. Both Zombies and Guards can be so stupid with their tracking. We really don't need more of that.
I want the Lock-On toned down so survivors can ignore it for a while, but the drone range increased. I also want the Claw Trap battery life extended so that the drones remain disabled for longer.
Best thing BHVR could do is admit their mistake and delete the killer. It does more harm then good
Again, you didn't read!!! I said the drones could attack and follow the survivor. The only bit you've answered with any merit was about bad AI. Stationary drone guarding a gen detects survivor and then follows the survivor. What part did you not get??
It's clear you're not bothering to read the post I put, so I don't feel like bothering to debate further with you.
That's stationary guard -> worse knight.
Guards can follow and attack survivors. Only thing different is guards patrol, drones would be stationary -> worse.
Knight can actually pressure multiple survivors at once, with sending his guards to far gens.
Merchant wouldn't be able to do it, she needs to walk there, drop drone and then hope someone will trigger it?
It will follow survivor for what? Survivor will have to be able outrun it. Knight can drop guard in a way where survivors can't avoid it for hit.
This is not possible with drone, either survivors can outrun it -> useless, or they can't and every trigger is hit -> broken.
For myself I adopted a totem defender build with my SM. Instead of defending gens I defend 2 totems (Thrill and Devour). I've dodged the issue of 3- gen games lasting forever as the games I've played with it were average length (~15 minutes). It also offers counter play since the big weakness is you're essential advertising where totems are.
I play that a lot too, I prefer devour with undying tho.
Don't really want another hex, I wouldn't know what is devour...
I prefer Thrill because the slowdown buys time to interrupt a cleanse if a defending drone is taken down, which is your warning a totem is in danger.
A variation I haven't had a chance to try is totem defense with trap totems (Haunted Ground, Retribution, Undying)
I have three builds:
Devour, Undying, No Way Out, Deadlock
Plaything, Pentimento, Jolt, Ruin
Superior Anatomy, Bamboozle, Dissolution, STBFL
I've generally gone Devour, Thrill, Iron Grasp so I can hook away from drones, and a flex perk, usually Deadlock, as it's my crutch perk of choice.