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I personally don’t like her flow of gameplay, both as and against. I don’t think she’s overpowered, just tedious and repetitive and boring in the one fun part of the game: Chase. It’s why I don’t enjoy Hag or Trapper or Clown either, there’s no mindgame or intricacies that are meaningful (though Clown and Hag definitely have more that can make them fun) Drop drone on loop, if they stay bloodlust until trapped, or and if they leave get an m1 or claw trap now that they’re zoned into nothing or another drone. It’s really boring. There’s really very little counterplay and it’s just boring. Before the Skerchants come after me I did my own extensive analysis and research on playing as and against the character (though mainly I care about the fun of playing as her) and my resolve won’t change because it is just fact she has almost non existent counterplay, and my opinion is this makes the character boring. Do I hate her with a passion? No. Do I dislike the character? Yes. It’s no deeper than that.
Lmao the argument "a survivor will not be Claw trapped if they don't want to be" is like Sadako will never condemn you if you hug the edge of the map and never go near a tv. You will be downed in 20 seconds as your most sophisticated loop on map edge are Z walls, but you will never build condemn
7:18 – thats exactly what a xenomorph would say!
EDIT: i think skull merchant just had a bad first impression. first impressions matter, and her original iteration was so bad and left such a sour taste in everyone's mouths that her rework wasnt enough to wash it out. even today, despite the fact that she isnt nearly as bad to play against as before, i and many others still get a sense of dread when we see her in game, as the bad memories flood in.
Legit question about Xeno counterplay as someone who doesn't play them so I may be using the wrong info. You mentioned the charge time for his attack being reactable, but checking on the wiki (again, could be entirely wrong if there's other parts to it that make it more reactable, please inform me if I am wrong), it lists that it is 0.2 seconds, which is 12 frames at 60fps. From my experience with Dragonball FighterZ and other fighting games, I remember one very common thing was actual pros who played in tournament retorting multiple times the idea that a 17 frame move was reactable, with basically every person who actually won in tournament stating that it being 17 frames made it completely unreactable. With DBD requiring even more active thought during chase than blocking in a fighting game, wouldn't this issue be accentuated so 12 frames would be completely unreactable in a realistic situation no matter what?
They probably defend her vehemently because they have to. No other main has been under fire and faces hate to the degree that Skully mains do. Not even Nurse, which is wild. Most have long since lost patience because of what you stated regarding the Xenomorph- people won't listen. And there is a ridiculous amount of counterplay to Skully's power- you can just stop moving for a fraction of a second if you have to deal with a drone in chase, and good groups will keep the ones you prepare disabled 99% of the time. She has too much counterplay, IMO, which is why I don't play her. It's frustrating. Nobody complains about what actually makes her feel oppressive when I play against her- on demand stealth with no audio cues that she can m1 immediately out of. But her drones are a joke. Disable them out of chase. In chase you have to get scanned 3 times. That takes forever if you use crouches, LOS blockers, standing still, etc. And lock on stacks go away on a down. Ludicrous time sink.
Even though seen as boring evasion is a counter strat
how to counter skull merchant from a former main of one
1. WHEN NOT IN CHASE AND YOU SEE A DRONE CROUCH IT CANT DETECT YOU AS YOU CROUCH AND SNEAK UP TO IT IF YOU'RE GOING TO DISABLE A DRONE MAKE SURE TO CROUCH UP TO IT AND DO NOT DISABLE A DRONE WHILE YOU ARE IN CHASE OR IF SHE IS WITHIN THESE CLOSE UP (8 METERS) STAGE OF HER TERROR RADIUS BUT DO NOT LEAVE A DRONE ACTIVE IF YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO DISABLE IT
2. SPLIT PRESSURE DO NOT GROUP UP SERIOUSLY I CAN'T TELL YOU HOW MANY TIMES WHEN I'M PLAYING SKULL MERCHANT I GET A FREAKING SNOWBALL EFFECT BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE GROUPED UP ON GEN'S AND THEN COMPLAIN AFTERWARDS THAT THEY HAD NO COUNTER PLAY LITERALLY SHE FUNCTIONS THE SAME AS IF YOU WERE FACING A LEGION IN THAT SITUATION DO NOT GROUP UP ON GEN'S
3. GETTING SCANNED IS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD MANAGE IT CAREFULLY IT ONLY CAUSES AN ISSUE AT THREE OR MORE SO IF YOU NEED TO TAKE A BODY BLOCK AND YOU HAVE NO SCAN PERCENTAGE TAKE THE BODY BLOCK BUT DO NOT BE A DUMMY AND JUST START RUNNING THROUGH ALL THE DRONES WHEN YOU HAVE NO STACKS OF SCAN BECAUSE YOU HAVE LOW SCAN IT WILL BE YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO ESSENTIALLY BE THE THE DESIGNATED EITHER BODY BLOCKER OR PERSON TURNING OFF ALL THE DRONES
4. YOU'RE GOING TO GET DOWNED BUT MAKING SURE YOU GO DOWN IN A BAD POSITION FOR THE SKULL MERCHANT WILL ASSIST YOUR TEAMMATES IT MAY SEEM COUNTERINTUITIVE TO PREPARE WHERE YOU'RE GOING TO GET DOWN AT BUT TRUST ME WHEN I SAY BECAUSE THE SKULL MERCHANT IS VERY OPPRESSIVE JUST POSITIONING WHERE CHASES ARE GOING TO END UP IT IS SUCH A DIFFERENCE.
i do help this helps everyone because though she has very little counter play the little she has can completely screw her
Press button….
….
PROFIT
I think the difference between Xeno and Merchant is the fact that Merchant isn’t as strong as Xeno, she’s not even A Tier and gets more hate then A Tier killers like Plague and Artist, so SM getting nerfed could be much more detrimental to the character then killers like Xeno, she’s essentially Clown with extra steps but Clown is allowed to be considered a weaker killer and barely gets talked about
Skull are trash period let’s not discuss anything…
I feel like this is also part of the common mentality of people that have the mindset of "If u dont agree with me u are my enemy" thats not just with the skull merchant topic its with alot of things which is kinda sad that nobody wants to discuss anymore
also to add I think the big issue with skull merchant is not that the drones are just impossible across the board. I think stationary drones are fun deal with. the crouching, standing still, avoiding the beams and leaving a drone active and doing a gen are something positive I come away with from skull. them being used as anti loop paired with the stationary is what makes it frustrating. because if you are healthy at a loop and cant make it to another loop you lose. you lose that health no matter what you do as long as the skull merchant moves you will take damage. legion does this but doesn't also add a slow and always broken and tracking that will be reset if you accidently run into a some what hidden drone or forced to run through by the killer it's just not fun to go against in most ways. her kit literally has everything except a teleport.
The thing with skull merchant is that the people that play against her will insult the people playing her as well as the character. There's a lot of hate being thrown at an m1 killer that the people who play her get frustrated with it. She doesn't even deserve it. Just like you with xenomorph, people just refuse to learn her counterplay, then insult the character and the player behind her. So when someone brings up skull merchant, the first thought is, "Here we go again with the hate."
I never heard anything about Skull Merchant defenders. I understand that it would be frustrating when the devs have changed her completely so many times. I got frustrated playing against her because she had so many status effects and all the good loops had drones on it. She has oblivious and maybe haste, and now I'm hindered. I've become a turtle for slaughter. Where is the counterplay? Disabling drones is only temporary when you are working on a generator. IDK. Maybe there is a way to play against her but I think most of the time 2 survivors dc and there's not much I can do against her. Same with Nurse. I actually love playing against nurse but most of the time my teammates dc immediately. If you get a beginner nurse, they over blink a lot. It is kind of funny.
From what I understand the counterplay is: while healthy safely hold W, drop safe pallets, and crouch to avoid scan lines as much as you can until you reach 2/3 tags; once you reach 2/3 you want to force m1 and use that distance to go somewhere strong ideally. You can still try to avoid getting claw trapped but obv at that point you’re trying to avoid m1 primarily. Her chase power is relatively similar to clown only using pink bottles (but she can gain blood lust while it’s happening) so you really can’t give up pallet control at weaker to mid strength pallets, but you can still play around stronger ones.
It’s definitely a “matter of time” type of chase and this is definitely way too complex/easier said than done for the amount of effort it takes to play her, but that has let me extend chases long enough. As for the undetectable you gotta just hope you see her or be in a swf 😭
I feel like part of it is a lingering feeling of insecurity among some SM mains, partially due to her problematic first iteration when she first released, and even after her reworks, Skully still isn’t a character whose power I find particularly fun to go against. It just doesn’t FEEL like there’s much in the way of effective counterplay to Skully. Skull Merchant also tends to get associated with toxic players, so I feel like a lot of Skully players can get defensive about that as well, whether they are toxic or not.
The conversation stops or gets quiet, as you say, because the conversation of counter-play usually treats "counter-play" as an absolute; something that will always be true regardless of any contexts or circumstances. Whether or not counter-play should be treated as an 'absolute' or not, is a different conversation to have and I am open to talk about it– but this is not what this video is about. I will generalize all online sentiments about Skull Merchant but the dissenting opinions against her typically always revolve around the Claw-Trap, the Drones, or the Lock-On stacks. For this reason, yes it is correct that all discussion from Skull Merchant mains will be around this aspect of the power because this is the part of the power that people draw attention to. No one talks about the dynamic of "avoid killer power or avoid their m1" because its such a given, if you have played this game for some time. This isn't a new dynamic because its present in many existing killers to different extremes. This aspect of Skull Merchant isn't brought to the forefront either because its so contextual and circumstantial. You CANNOT give ABSOLUTE advice to someone about how they should simultaneously avoid a killer's power AND their m1 attacks. The only advantage that players have going against Skull Merchant compared to other killers is that her killer power does not have immediate lethality, but that statement will not guarantee a survivor complete and absolute safety. It is such a difficult topic to discuss with players who vehemently hate her because they interpret everything I have stated here as "oh you have to do so much work to play against her and she doesn't" and disregard everything, which is a whole other conversation to have.
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I am a Skull Merchant main myself and I have met calm collected individuals that love the character or respectful people that genuinely want to learn what they can do against her…but I have also experienced severely hateful people that transform the simple act of me playing this character a lot, as a statement of my worth as a person, or just send me absolutely hateful transphobic messages. Other SM mains have expressed similar extremes of interactions, at least the ones I have spoken to online. PixelBush himself still gets weird personal accusations thrown at him and unlike me, this man spent so much time constructing a clear and concise guide of how to play Skull Merchant and how to play against her. It goes both ways BUT this is absolutely NOT an excuse for why other Skull Merchant mains behave in the way they do. However, I understand why they behave this way. Skull Merchant is already an extremely controversial character with every topic of conversation turned into blatant misinformation or deliberate exaggeration. The most common source of misinformation I see is that you cannot avoid her drones, and the most common exaggeration I will see is that Skull Merchant can injure you without doing anything. No other killer faces this level of negativity. And this negativity is so so so abundant because there are also individuals that take the matches they go against her, as very personally. So you have a controversial character that faces an unprecedented level of misinformation, exaggeration, hysteria, and hatred, so everyone who likes her happens to be caught in the line of fire. I fully believe you when you say you do experience hate for playing Xenomorph, I myself dislike that character. But my dislike never reaches the comedic absurdity of hate that I receive from the community at large. This isn't meant to be read as a victim-complex. People ARE allowed to dislike characters they do not like. But there is a line where the dislike reaches uncomfortable levels of harassment. Does this justify the behaviors of Skull Merchant mains? No, but this entire experience is why they defend this character so strongly. If you're going to get so much hate for simply liking a character and playing them, you might become really defensive because you yourself know you're not in the wrong. I have felt so defensive in the past about this character, before later learning to just point and laugh if someone tells me "you will never be a woman" simply because I killed them as Skull Merchant or any other type of similar comment.
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I do not think that this online behavior is necessarily unique to Skull Merchant players. If you ever say you dislike Huntress, Hillbilly, Bubba, Wesker, or Blight, you will get so many comments about you allegedly "wanting the game to be easy" or "you hate skill" or "you're just bad" from the players who main them. Sometimes it won't even be the players who main them, but instead it will come from players who like going against them. You could very well know how to play against these characters but the simple act of expressing your dislike, will make you a target for players that think you are a "survivor main that cries when you don't get what you want"– which is a funny comment for me to receive since 60% of my play-time is as killer LOL. Even Nurse herself, is getting this weird movement where if you hate fighting her, "you're just bad".
I absolutely love the character of Adrianna Imai, the Skull Merchant. I loved her since day one, but the rework ruined all her appeal for me. I wasn't a three gen Merchant, I was a Chase Merchant. I stacked full chase perks because Skully's drones took care of the tracking for me. Once the rework gutted her of her tracking, I think she basically became a worse Clown, maybe even worse Freddy. People are so busy focussed on the multiple status effects and not realizing that the net hindered+haste differential is STILL worse than Clown's purple bottle. I find it amusing that people still hate her to be honest. There's way better candidates.
SM mains don't want to admit the truth. They know their chosen killer has so little counterplay that someone could pick up and play this character with very little knowledge or time spent in the game and win consistently. You don't have to learn any powers with her as her bloated kit handholds you to victory.
Getting angry when asked about their non-existent counterplay is just diversionary. It's easier than admitting what they already know. That this character takes almost no skill to use. Admitting she has no counterplay and that's why 99% of her mains like her would be admitting they're bad at the game.
In other words, attacking SM is also attacking their skill or lack thereof.
SM main are the most obnoxiously oblivious people and constantly play the victim card whenever you state what's wrong with the killer. Even when they don't go crazy on you for suggesting that their "Adriana" have very unfun counterplay they'll talk you down as if you were stupid and will give you pointless advices, "just crouch when you're in a drone radius", "she's not different from clown or doctor", "she is an M1 killer, so loop her like you would against a trapper or a ghostface". It genuinely sounds like those who defended old dead-hard "just wait it out", "swing your camera up and down", "try and remember who has it", "sprint-burst is technically stronger so its ok". Having a discussion with them is pointless, they'll always act as if they are constantly targeted and harrassed, but meanwhile in game they're gonna play even sweatier than a Nurse or a Blight in a 4k winstreak, and be even more toxic than a Wraith player (Hitting on hook, humping you on ground, Toxic endgame chat).
Yes she can no longer hold the game hostage for 1h, but she can still play chessmerchant style (That's litteraly what was going on in the replay), which despite what all of them claim is still very effective at securing minimum a 3k.
She is way too oppressive in chase, having permanent lock on status effect that she can cause at the click of a button at whatever loop she wants.
Not to mention the constant speed up haste in the process whenever that happen or when you get claw trapped (which btw can slow you down when she speed up). Which make it impossible to loop her like a (M1 killer).
She can inflict you with every status effect in the world with one single claw trap.
Her drone reset automatically and she can reset them.from a distance anyway by recalling them, whereas killers like singularity or knight have to manually reset their biopods/guard.
They compare her to clown, but at least you have to aim with your power and have to tremendously slow down in order to recharge. The only time she does is to either recall her drone, change their rotation at a click of a button, or locate with deadly accuracy where claw trapped survivors are.
Right now the only way to beat her is by hoping that the one playing her is bad at the game, or be in a very coordinated Swf.
Also most importantly what Skullmerchant mains struggle to understand, is that most players are ok with facing a strong killer or having a hard game. What most of us don't like is when the killer is unfun, and SM is not fun at all to verse, most of the time she is gonna fly at the speed of sound towards and you have no idea why, you will be trapped in an area stacked with drones and there is genuinely nothing you can do about it. Most SM players will settle with spamming drones on top of gens to stale out the game and it is miserable to verse.
To me Skullmerchant are the same kind of people who enjoyed forever Freddy back in the days, the "survivors are busted, my killer was weak so I'm allowed to make them feel as miserable as possible", although the disparity in toxicity and power level is debatable, they are basically the same. That's why I am so tired of Skull-Merchant mains, and why i refuse to play with them…
Time to put my opinion on youtube comments;
I believe the main issue could be divided in two, first and the easier to explain as you did on 10:14 some people take the character as an extention of themselves, and let's be honest here… There is big reasons for Skull Merchant for people to be like that, just like you can find this type of players with the spirit, and the Huntress enjoyers, you will never be able to convince people like this so actually a considerable red flag the instant they become aggressive.
The second reason for skull merchant players viceral reaction most of the time comes off from being constantly under fire, Jesus, people go for the throat on some end game chats and social media if you even dare to mention skull merchant in a neutral or positive light, this negativity builds up and some people find it very hard to manage or redirect towards other focus, like you do with Xeno at 7:04, and I have difused successfully some of this negativity on Reddit of all places but… Man is tiring, so much annimocity towards the subject, and gonna use reddit as an example here because i could share multiple screen shots of the blind hate towards the character that make not a single slice of sense but people hold by their statements to death, I even adopted the meme of "I must legally inform you, for having Skull Merchant in your title you are gonna get downvote", there was this very wholesome member of the DbD Reddit community that was "Overly Thankful" for everything, played Skull Merchant tried to defend her on post but damn, they deleted their account and I can only hope it wasn't because of this, is not worth it at the end of the day, even I sometimes get exhausted of trying to be clear and explain misconceptions with people just because is trying to discuss with a rock that slings insults every second, I have not given up tho, and if randomly scrolling around reddit you may find every now and then one post reminding people of anti skull merchant tips I am either the one who made it or the one in the comments trying to calm down the insults, to end this long rant of my own, I can not justify the aggressive replies of the skull merchant enjoyers, but also I can understand why is there.
All of this as an arguably Skull Merchant main (Mixed with Knight, Xeno, And Trickster), I am no stranger to receiving some … colorful replies in the end game chat, or actions during my games, and will finish this by saying awesome work on your Xenomorph stuff, every time i come across a Xenomorph player who wants to improve I send them your guide and in your direction, you are a very wholesome content creator and level headed 98% of the time, keep the awesome work.
I mean, if people wanna know why even the reworked SM is hated, look no further than "Reworked Skull Merchant is still a big problem" by Donut Boy (good video and fun channel actually).
While it's true that she's no longer as obnoxious as her release version, she's still among the most obnoxious Killers to go against and arguably the most braindead Killer to play, with an extremely low skill floor and low skill ceiling. It arguably feels worse to lose against a Skull Merchant than any other Killer due to the fact that a week 1 player using Skull Merchant can win in basically any loop even against a veteran Survivor by pressing one button, not even needing to hold or aim like Dredge or Artist.
I also think that SM mains are so vehement in her defense because they think that if people complain enough that she'll get nerfed into oblivion.
7:17 your not?!
being forced to either take a health state or take a health state is the obvious reason people will always complain about this killer. the way skull merchants power works is in and of itself unealthy for the game. that being said her kit contains a number of things people dont like to play against so she receives hate and the people that play skull merchant receive that hate as well. i'd argue that since they catch the same heat skull merchant does, the skull merchant mains make it personal.
I think it's because skull merchant mains have this conversation every 10 minutes and have to constantly be on the defensive due to being the communities #1 most hated killer. Same thing happened with Trickster.
Skull merchant main here-
Counter play wise, I'd really just suggest taking out her drones early on.
Like most losses is just because people know to turn her power off, play around loops she has yet to put drones down.
She has only like six drones, play around loops you know she doesn't have on. This is more about keeping count on what places you've seen or disabled her drones at. This forces her to either conserve her drones or play them half-hazardly, keeping her on you chase wise is really great if you know what places or pallets you have around. Like for a throwaway pallet if you play around it the killer is forced to either use a drone or commit to an m1, pathing is like super crucial onto keeping no drones on you. Don't just crouch under it whilst in chase, hold w to another loop like a t l wall. Drones can't scan past a wall so use that to your advantage, force the killer to try to zone you into a place or use their lack of clarity to lose them by losing sight.
Skull merchant mains can lose to good chases really easily if you have a exhaust perk, force them to waste their drones on loops you can leave.
I know you wanted like tactics on counter play but this video comes off as more complaining against the community and that wasn't really a great video to listen to. I've never met a skull merchant main and yeah these people sound super creepy – calling her by her first name? i didn't even read her lore-
But like the toxicity thing is more of a recent thing for the the community as a whole- I would also maybe throw in that skull merchant mains just get more specific salt thrown their way. I played this game since like 2021 and I've never had as much insults and salt put down these past 3 months I've been back. I've had players write on my profile on steam about how much they hated me for how I play.
The fact I got one of them about me being a skull merchant is kinda wild.
Anyway just saying I think the community as a whole needs to chill, I get enough of a reminder that I'm not playing how other people like, now I had to listen to a guy say his twitch chat was being absurd and said basically his interactions with skull merchants are horrible.
I think this killer is fun now and she does some really good jump scares imo
Oh and I think the best counter to her maybe is to try looping her at high walls where the drones will have a hard time detecting you. Crouch speed perk helps get rid of her drones faster too
Main knight here.
I NOT LIKE SM. I not like the killer, I not like playing against the killer. Just to be clear.
I do not support the theory that she is cheap because some hits with her are free hits, this is a lazy reason many people say.
Lots of killers, in the right circumstances, have free hits:
– Trickster in a lop with low walls;
– A skilled 2 bottle clown in any loop with no god pallet involved;
– Obviously a knight in a loop cornered;
– A hag or a trapper in a pre-trapped loop
"But the hag played well pushing you in a trapped loop"… yes… and the trickster played well pushing you away from high wall loops and the clown played well pushing you away from loops where his 2 bottle gameplay is uneffective and so on…
DBD is matter of time… it is about how much time a killer need for an hit and a down with a set avaibility of resources, some killers are more effective, some less effective.
It is curious that all the more effective killers are never "lazy gameplay" but are always killers able to ignore the loops with a very oppressive power, like nurse, blight, wesker, billy, spirit….
This is skill… mastering a very oppressive power that puts the survivor in unexcapable situations.
Having a mediocre power that simply does not allow survivor to go on indefinitely but needs more time to down… this is not skill… this is cheap gameplay it seem.
I do not agree, a killer that has this kind of power need to put skill in other things like time and resource management, planning ahead, tricking survivors and so on…
But it seem the only 2 real skill in this game are chase skill and reflexes and muscular memories. These are skills.
Planning ahead and keeping survivor always busy and always in difficult position it is not, that is neandertal play.
NOW, WHY I THINK SM IT IS NOT A NICE KILER TO PLAY AGAINST?
I think the effort into playing against her is way more than the effort the SM puts in the chases and this is mainly because:
1) Noone plays her and it is difficult to git gud, this issue is shared with twins for example, twins are way harder because you never meet them and you can't learn consistently how to counter Victor.
2) How absurdly complicate and counterintuitive her power is. She places drones! Drones should allow surveillance and monitor. But instead the surveillance killer is singularity.
Drones instead sometimes make her faster, or make you slower, or wound you, or shoot you clawtraps and, even if they fly, they can be grabbed and disabled, not destroyed, disabled via hacking…. this whole situation makes very little sense.
People rarely meet her, survivor do not have time to learn her incredibly awkward set and memorize it and be consistent against her.
Let me explain it, huntress is stronger than SM, but her power is simple, she throws hatchets, the hatchets wound you. Sometimes they do other stuff but the point is simple, you should dodge the projectile.
What if the huntress still throw hatchets to you, but instead of wounding you they make you 10% hindered until you cleanse a totem that spawn when you are hit, but if you cleanse such totems for 60 seconds you are 15% slower at repairing gens while you are in the lullaby range but not the terror radius range and after the 60 seconds the totem reappears as unlit totem?
If huntress power was such a mess many people would not find easy to counter her, what should I do? Cleanse, not cleanse? In chase avoid the hatchets or the axe?
Now… why SM players are so defensive? As knight main in this 18 months since the release of my killer i had to eat a LOT of toxicity, I had to play several games when survivors give up on my sight, I collected on my steam profile a huge aamount of verbal violence because…. KNIGHT.
Because some streamers decided to spend the last year spreading the idea that knight and SM and the evil of this game, killers with zero skill that deserve to never play against human beings.
I tend to be defensive with knight because 9 times out of 10 i heard someone talking about him it is bullshit.
I cannot imagine what a SM player endured but I am pretty sure they are defensive because of exahustion.
I don't mind going against the skull merchant, I just mind that all my teammates give up on hook immediately. Skull merchant is one of my mains and she's not that hard to counter if you try tbh
I feel like part of it is they feel like when they get wins or good plays it immediately gets shutdown as if they didn't earn it. Whether that's true or not is irrelevant to them because being told that your win is not a real one will always feel bad no matter if there is truth behind it or not
Hot take, I think most pub players DC or kill themself on hook against her just because they're aware of the stigma the community has towards her rather than anything about the actual gameplay. They likely haven't even really practiced much against her, because they're conditioned to believe she's boring and unfair and disconnecting is just what you're supposed to do because everyone else does.
If you simplify things enough, there's no counterplay to any killer; they're faster and they can break pallets and gain bloodlust. They will always ensure a hit eventually. That's just dead by daylight, it's a game with a time limit. But in terms of anti-loop powers? She isn't all that strong.
I think the player conflict comes from that sense of entitlement – or at least the perception that they're being entitled. I mean, many of the same survivors who complain that a killer is "boring" are themselves playing in the most braindead boring way imaginable and just abandoning the match when things don't go their way. This isn't news to most solo players who have to deal with that crap.
Was talking about this to my friends the other day about how people will take insults about their chosen main being taken as a personal insult for some odd reason. It really hurts discussion, debate, and us getting any meaningful changes. Not to mention the DBD community cannot look past what's directly in front of them. There's no branching path, or cause and effect. It's all black and white, and they refuse to see anything past that. They just gaslight themselves and other players into thinking they're right. It's a big problem with DBD balance in general.
"We added this perk that does this." Ok that's cool, but did you consider x power, or x perk that literally breaks it? It goes into arguments like that where people say x perk is fine, but refuse to mention the partner perk that elevates it to a broken status. Or a combination of powers/perks that just makes a killer super oppressive and require insane skill/luck to avoid hits.
Side note: It's not just SM. You can find adamant defenders of killers/perks that absolutely lose their minds over any disagreements or people pointing out flaws. Same as people getting upset when they get called sweaty. No one cares you sweat, but stop pretending your 4 slowdown, 4 slug Nurse was just you goofing around.
P100 Skully main here and I would guess most people that main her are intense with defending her because you get alot of hate playing her. I've gotten bullied and told to "KYS" many times because I play her. I'm not personally intense about defending her but I can see why many people are. I just want to play my favorite character and have fun, but this community makes that very hard sometimes.
I've been maining her since she came out. I get haste when people get trapped so I put the drones in high traffic areas. She's time consuming to play so the counter to her is a good old fashioned gen rush. You speed the game up and it's tough for her to catch up
I don't hate Skull Merchant as a character. I love her character type. But I hate her play style/playing against her. I know the minute I hear her terror radius, or see the drones, I know I am going to have a miserable match. But I also don't like playing against characters that place items or traps. I don't like playing against hag either, or trapper.
After the rework I tried giving her the benefit of the doubt, only to be met with awful after awful game in a row. Like you said, trying out multiple things, trying to figure out what works but I always end up feeling like it doesn't matter and she gets 4 status effects on me for free. Not to mention I mainly play Soloqueue Survivor so it's just a nope for me. When I do force myself to play those games now I am met with the most toxic individuals ever who are incredibly sore winners or I win after the most boring experience of my life so… I can't say I'm not heavily biased. Sometimes I feel like people still just play her to make others miserable or because they fell for the very obvious targeted "character design" (wearing less clothes) and defend her into the depths of hell for it :')
I feel her drones should be like nemis zombies, three or four just fly around the map and follow survivor tracks. Survivors that is being chased by one can drop a pallet to break the drone or jump in a locker to stop being followed but the drone will claw trap the locker and block it for a few seconds like twins or a fellow survivor can get behide a drone and disable it. She will still get the speed buff from claw traps.
She will need an alt power tho, I had an idea she will have like sprint ability that lets her vault like a survivor it will be vecna's fly but she will have more control and collison like wraith so good players can bodyblock survivors at loops. I love tracking powers I was a crypto main from day one when I played apex but I fully understand why survivors hate her and fun for both sides will keep this game alive to i tend to not play her because of that.
You've must have been meeting bad Skull Merchant mains. Because the few I've met aren't like that, I assure you.
But I love Skull Merchant, and I live for going up against her. Call me a masochist if you want, but I just like testing where the limits of her power are.
I've played Skull Merchant a lot, but I've gone against her more. And one thing I've learned to do from playing against her is doing what most survivor players do NOT want to do. NEVER GREED PALLETS. Skull Merchant is one of those killers who will punish you for pallet greed. Killers wonder why there are so SO many pallets on a lot of maps, she's one of those reasons. There are killers where pallets and distance are the ultimate defence, and I've noticed a lot of survivors never want to throw pallets, because they're thirsty for infinite looping too much, or they just don't know. But distance is the best defence against her, and she can only throw so many drones at you before she has to bloodlust you to M1 you herself. Will she toss a drone up anyway even before you make it to the pallet? Of course. But you can delay how many stacks you get from the drone by not pallet greeding. Keep tossing pallets so you make her waste her drones.
Trick footing through the drone's beams is one way of avoiding a hindrance, but it's not the only one. And distance with pallets is more effective.
I say this, because I've recently gone up against a Skull Merchant main using this strategy, and almost escaped her. She had to bloodlust me in order to kill me in the end though. But it was a good game. And the killer was quite wholesome.
finishes small book in comments i am sorry Bran that i ever doubted people left rants that took longer then 4 min to write. i was clearly very wrong.. and i apologize.
skull merchant is just clown with next to no skill expression
I’m a skull merchant main, just hit p100
I agree that some can defend their main a little too hard and take it too far. That being said, as an enjoyer and a main, I couldn’t care less if ppl like her. My issue is, and what probably makes SM mains as a whole generally more defensive, is the fact that people feel so ROTTEN about skull merchant that they go out of their way to insult, belittle, and even send death threats to skull merchant mains. I’ve never received the last one thankfully, but I’ve seen others have. Not to mention, you mention one positive thing or try to open a discussion, and you get a flock of people telling you you’re brainless and dumb for playing SM or they come with a fifty page dissertation on how she’s the worst thing that’s happened to DBD and how you should feel awful for even liking said killer. The dumb “pick a better killer” or “delete SM” comment and those alike are annoying but we can deal with those. It’s the constant attacking that puts so many SM mains on edge.
As for the playability and the counterplay, I get it. There is definite counterplay, and the “lack thereof” isn’t any worse than it is with any other killer. That said, I understand not liking a certain killer or not wanting to go against them. I’m glad we can all have differing opinions and viewpoints, people just go about it the absolute wrong way a lot of the time.
Are you saying my Tarhos Kovács doesn't have counterplay?
Fr though I think Skull Merchant will always be problematic until the movement speed aspects of her kit are removed. Plague and Legion can get free injures but they don't hinder you while simultaneously gaining a speed buff.
So…
this channel is just you being a entiteled surv crybaby?
I think you're missing the point that SM mains are under bandwagonned hate 24/7 as opposed to Xeno or anything else. "It's not that deep" until the SM mains get so much hate from survivors. If it ain't that deep, tell those survivors that bandwagon and carry trauma from seven reworks ago and dump it on the SM mains. She's genuinely easy to go against and it's kinda fun actually
I'm not a SM main but I do like playing her on occasion. My suspicion is that she just got hated on so much that the people who do main her feel the need to react strongly against the hate she gets. I think it gets a bit silly for either side of the equation. I don't know a whole lot of SM mains but the ones I do are pretty chill and don't get super emotional like what you described but then you get stuff like DBD Twitter where people get weirdly emotional over a video game. People are strange and definitely have to chill whether it's rampant SM hate or fanboyish defense.
I just think she should get haste or hinder. Not both.
SM is very much jack of all trades and needs to be fine tuned to be a tracking chase killer. She is very much like trapper we’re you need to be careful but in chase being very oppressive. I agree she doesn’t have much counter play in chase but like trapper disable her power when you can and watch for her drones.