This DBD Strategy is So Evil It Might Get You Banned..

We take a closer look at the Skull Merchant, one of the most toxic killers in the game. With the ability to stall the game indefinitely, it's almost impossible for Survivors to stop her unless they're a competitive team in a voice call. Skull Merchant's 4 Drones can be used to protect Generators, wasting no time at all. While not being a big threat in chase, she is the king of stalling the game into oblivion.
Thanks to Beth for Editing the Intro!
I stream 5 times a week at / hens333
Community Discord: / discord

[@monochrome1326]

I don't think she needs a nerf, she need a whole rework.

[@BathrobeHero]

Just delete her and pretend it never happened

[@TatKat]

This behaviour needs to own up to making a mistake with her power she needs a full Freddy rework complete new power fully not half measures like ghost face billy a whole ass rework

[@Jack-id4lu]

Preach

[@KONNN_]

She's fine. 🤦🏾‍♂️

[@thedutywarlord264]

​@@KONNN_ shes not because she can hold a 3 gens forever .

[@PeterWoodstock]

I think the Skull Merchant became the most lore accurate killer of all. The survivors are put through the trial until all their hope, happiness and anger gets dried out and they become a hollow shell of themselves.

[@TalonBrush]

This comment is a thing of beauty and needs to be framed and placed on BHVR's wall somewhere.

[@hagadizle]

Everyone just dcs when I'm on survivor and it's her

[@hagadizle]

@@TheSkullMerchantX that would have been an amazing mori if she took the skulls

[@TalonBrush]

@@hagadizle Everyone seem smart today ;)

[@hagadizle]

@@TalonBrush oh lobby's are hilarious on both sides as killer and survivor. If I'm survivor theres dcs. I played killer and had a few DC after first hit or hook. Wasn't even running sloppy butcher or anything like that people are just like "nope not today" 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@RufusRoundy]

Remember when one of the developers played against a survivor team using instant-blind add-ons, then that was promptly nerfed? They need to do that with skull merchant. Lock four of the devs inside a game against her for 2 hours until they just give in and change her power entirely.

[@bloxer9563]

💀

[@cayplat2816]

I don't think that so much devs even played their game

[@MeepLessThan3]

That was Game Director Mathieu Cote who got wrecked as Hag against a SWF team. That was rough. Apparently the increasing blinding speed was noted as unintended after that which lead to the flashlight nerf.

[@NoahReCoded]

That’s like 2 whole matches lol

[@lifehandz_lemons]

​@@MeepLessThan3 he was showing off the game to a bunch of Japanese consumers to get them invested in it too. Must've been pretty embarrassing for him as one of the devs to get destroyed by a bunch of random players

[@swatson5699]

Comp teams struggle against Skull Merchant's 3 gen yet I have to go against it in solo queue.

[@JackBytez]

Mostly cause she's incredibly rare cause she's not very fun. No chase power plus no mobility equals a killer who sucks on basically every map. Similarly her power isn't all that good at anything in particular BUT info, info she can never act on because every map is bad for her. It's like Twins and Knight. They aren't bad killers who are incredibly weak, but their power can pretty much only do ONE thing, and that ONE thing is slug or pressure gens or slug and pressure gens in Skull Merchants case. If the next tome has a "Hit X amount of survivors with your weapon" or "Break X amount of things" you'll probably find me playing Skull Merchant, otherwise why wouldn't you just pick Nurse for quick and easy games?

[@kiriyamask]

I only play Solo Q (or with one friend without comms) and it's almost guaranteed we will have players disconnect or kill themselves on first hook against SM. I loaded into a match against her on RPD and saw her instantly set up a gen protect situation- it's pretty demoralizing as a Solo to know you have no chance from the beginning, and it will just be a long, drawn out BS match, or else- your team mates just opt out immediately and your left to de-pip, get no points and waste offerings/items.

[@taigerpendragon5938]

@@JackBytez just saying Im taking record of every killer we face since previous reset and she’s the 2nd most faced killer ( I think her release helped with the number ) with 22 matches, number one is wesker (which I’m already bored of facing tbh ) with 31, number 3 is huntress with 19 So, she isn’t (or wasn’t?) that rare at all at least in my q times

[@NameIsDoc]

Swf Survivors Stomp killers via genrush tactics yet they have to just eat it I guess

[@LightBoltDash]

​@@JackBytez bruh you have no idea what you're talking about twins and knight have actual anti loop powers knight can trap people in loops and make shack obsolete and you can do the same while body blocking with Charlotte and getting Victor to play it lol

[@Trident_Gaming03]

This killer is so incredibly weird Haste, breaking pallets, aura reading, stealth, instadown She has all these things, yet basically none of it makes sense for her to have It's like someone thought throwing a bunch of different random spices into a dish would make it taste the best

[@EvanSnowWolf]

Because she has al those things, but they all suck. None of them are any good. It's like calling Sadako an instadeath killer because Condemned exists. You'd be technically correct, but it's a bitch to do.

[@fart63]

Her design and lore doesn’t make any sense either lmao. This has gotta be the worst killer they’ve released by far

[@EvanSnowWolf]

@@fart63 I hear that every time a non-licensed killer comes out.

[@fart63]

@@EvanSnowWolf the only other killers I heard that for were knight and trickster. Idk who you are listening to lmao

[@theblazinfoxx4631]

I like to think of the skull merchant as an m1 killer who specializes in many things.

[@abriam3199]

If I had a nickel for every time Hens333 stalled a match of killer for an hour with different killers and made people mad, I'd have 2 nickels. It's not much, but it's weird that it happened twice.

[@ryneconor._.9648]

And then he’s like for entertainment purposes

[@daultrak1ller]

@@ryneconor._.9648 it is entertainment tho

[@ryneconor._.9648]

@@daultrak1ller nahh it isn’t its to show the devs

[@daultrak1ller]

@@ryneconor._.9648 idk, im pretty sure if im watching a video on youtube im watching it to be entertained

[@wurewulf264]

I found a pretty evil build for merchant. The whole basis was using hex plaything and actually using the drones to defend the hexes so they stayed oblivious. Plus an indoor map with the aura reading add on while they’re in a drones zone. Best part is that totems tend to spawn near gens, so most of the time you can defend a totem and a Gen at the same time. It was fun but I felt bad for playing like that 🤣

[@bearsgaming5843]

This is evil I like it

[@snarkbotanya6557]

I'm surprised the comp team didn't end up trying a Potential Energy strat. It seems like that perk might be a good way to try and counter the Skull Merchant Three-Gen.

[@quattrokerbecs]

The main issue with that is they would need to avoid getting hit while holding it, otherwise they'd lose all their tokens for Potential Energy to work, which would leave them even further behind.

[@Timothee_Chalamet_CMBYN]

@@trashmix2184what are you talking about? The match clearly was against SM and everyone knew.

[@dicerson9976]

The core of the issue here isn't really SM herself. It's about what her being able to do this means. Think very carefully about *why* this works so well. What *exactly* is SM doing here that makes it so oppressive? She makes survivors oblivious, ohkay. Not exactly unique- but she can do it pretty consistently. But all them being oblivious does is make it harder for them to avoid getting downed. If anything, it should shorten games since survivors are getting downed more often. But that's not what's happening. SM is *stalling* games, despite the Oblivious ostensibly being a condition that only really makes it easier to down survivors. Imagine how long an SM game would go if she DIDN'T have oblivious. Probably far longer. She exposes survivors? True- but games where survivors never heal because of a killer mechanic aren't exactly uncommon. Is it the perks? Well, any killer can use them. So what exactly is special here? The thing that is special is Info. SM's drones give her more overall info than any other killer in the game could even begin to dream about. Exposed survivors in a drone give heartbeat. Survivors in a drone are revealed on a map-wide radar. Survivors who disable a drone are also revealed on a map-wide radar, and have to hide because if they don't they make a drone unhackable. They can't risk pallet loops, and the killer will find them if they are anywhere nearby. Only way to avoid getting caught is to be so far away SM doesn't want to bother- because SM is a slow ass M1 only killer that can't ever waste time like that. And therein lies the problem. SM is a slow ass m1 only killer. Every other killer in the game has a power that shortens the amount of time it takes them to kill survivors by some significant margin. Even the most "M1-y" killers like Myers and Trapper and Wraith dramatically shorten how long it takes them to down survivors. Traps can (or will, with an addon) instadown survivors. Wraith gets superspeed while invis. Myers gets vaultspeed and one-shot on ALL survivors during T3 (as well as the tombstone addons). Mirror myers gets good info, but in a limited radius and eats a harsh movespeed penalty in return, T2 mirror myers has an even shorter radius and can't keep watch over gens nearly as well as SM can. Give SM's info to any other killer, and what you find is survivors dying very quickly and games ending quickly. OP to be sure- but not the ludicrously slow stallfests SM produces, because SM has literally nothing else going for her. SM is a case in point example of the *problem* with Gens as a mechanic in DBD. If the killer's power doesn't help them secure downs, then their only good strategy for winning is to stall as long as possible until the survivors just give up. Because doing anything else will result in lost gens and losing the game. Knight had this issue as well, because of how bad his power was in chase. They BUFFED Knight- and suddenly the stalling problem went away. Because stalling stopped being his only option. While not true for everyone, most killers don't like spending 20+ minutes in match either. It's boring to get juiced by survivors over and over and over again achieving nothing but still barely clinging on to a game because you can just push them away from gens. Behaviors options are to either ignore this and let SM continue to be a problem. Buff SM's chase like they did with Knight and hope people just stop doing it- whilst failing to remedy the larger underlying issue that affects the entire game. Or to try and remedy the larger underlying issue by dramatically changing the core objective in some way to make genstalling impossible while still letting slow killers who can't secure downs very fast have some kind of path to victory. Map design plays a big part in this, but ultimately it cannot be solved there because every killer is affectedly wildly differently by different kinds of maps. If you make all the big maps smaller- suddenly nurse and blight are even more broken. If you make the small maps bigger, mobile killers become the only viable option. If you make loops too much harder to use, the game will just be imbalanced against survivors. Vice versa if you make them easier. If you increase the number of them on a map, you get stuff like the coldwind maps or the burning town map whose name I can't remember. Decrease them, and you get Ormond or Eyrie. There is no one "Perfect" map design that works out for every single killer and all survivors with all perks and addons. But the disparity in power between the *best* and the *worst* is certainly far too great. I honestly don't know what bhvr could do to fix gens as a mechanic and remedy the underlying issue that essentially forces SM to play like this to win at all. SImple changes will, like with maps, not see equal value across all killers. Such changes would have to come paired with radical changes to the best and worst killers to bring all of them in line. It would probably be easier for Bhvr to actually just drop gens *as a mechanic* in their entirety and replace them with something else. They don't even have to full commit- they could iterate through options by creating temporary alternate game modes and use them figure stuff out.

[@GeeNo_]

I love the gameplay of DbD from hiding to looping to the mindgames, it makes it unique. I hate the rest of it, problem is a lot of people mistake holding M1 on gens for the gameplay rather than the interactions between the killer and survivors.

[@doomsdaydreamer]

Just a quick tought: Make so when there's just 1 gen left to power gates, one of the three remaining gens is insta powered and one of the already done ones gets unpowered, and make it so the new option is relatively far from the other two. This could give them a window to improve the chase of some killers and maybe even help a lot with stalling without actually chaging the game that much

[@keys5595]

@@doomsdaydreamer I see where you’re going but this isn’t exactly a good idea. Especially since a gen being on the opposite side of the map is pretty much a automatic escape if you have even 3 survivors.

[@GlowStickGreg]

I ain’t reading allat

[@SynthXV]

To be fair a big reason why Knight doesn't really hold 3 gens as much anymore is because those players switched to skull merchant lmao She's much better at it than him which is sad

[@joshuajones4791]

Might be controversial, but honestly I think if a drone is disabled, the area cannot have another drone placed in it for 30 seconds, kinda like as if the drone was still up.

[@yourablizardlarryyes5148]

She’s already boring as hell

[@A_Typhlosion]

Honestly, you might have cooked with that one. Only issue might be how to communicate visually what is a "dead zone" and for how long. Not a great fix to the issue, but the best I've heard.

[@xSinfulGodx]

Your just making her gen defense weaker and not boosting her chasing capability. She is strong in 3 gen but weak in chasing. They need to nerf the drones but buff the claptraps because they are extremely weak. Even with dissolution build in their battery life is to low.

[@A_Typhlosion]

@@xSinfulGodx thing is if they nerf the drones to the point they aren't as relevant than there isn't an instentive to deal with them in order to get the trap in your arm In the first place. Kinda like how some teams just don't cleanse against plague. What's the point of cleansing and giving her a better power if she can't land a single it in the first place you know.

[@SubxZeroGamer]

No killer power should work on gens period lol. It should despawn just like by the hooks. Same with the Knight guards. It makes no sense.

[@twosoup3252]

Reminder that a few people still try to act like this killer isn’t problematic

[@someguy3763]

I think it’s really easy to downplay/underestimate her power, especially considering how underwhelming they were during PTB.

[@TeemoQuinton]

Reminder that most people wanna lie and say Trickster and Myers are problematic

[@twosoup3252]

@@TeemoQuinton I mean they are, just from a different lens. Myers is widely agreed upon to be the most archaic killer in the game, and people have been clamoring for a meaningful update to him for a while, which makes the devs’ recent comments that “he’s fine” pretty disappointing. As for Trickster… he’s generally not viewed very highly by the community. He’s pretty much the epitome of the “weak zoning killer that has little meaningful or fun counterplay in chase but can’t do anything else” archetype that has grown so stale over the past few years. Just because these killers can’t indefinitely hold a 3 gen doesn’t mean they’re designed flawlessly or even well.

[@GhostingShu69647]

I love how the Claudette in the first match at the end switched a whole mood as soon as Hens revealed who he was 😭. If it would have been anybody else, she would have insulted this person down to ground, bet.

[@KozyGamer15]

Can’t wait to face this now. Solo q is gonna be hell now

[@FriendlyAC130Online]

don’t worry CoB, overcharge, and pain res nerf is coming so this won’t be as strong

[@thedutywarlord264]

​@@FriendlyAC130Online more slug ( with sloppy butcher ) and more tunnel . Survivors will have fun this patch . This update is not going to be fun for both side since they nerf Everything..

[@middox239]

​@@FriendlyAC130Onlinehonestly i dont get the pain res Nerf at all and their reasoning is so ridiculous... "It has slowly found its way into the meta so we decided to Nerf it so hard it will never be used again"

[@MrcreeperDXD777]

​@@middox239 pain res is super healthy imo as it encourages killers to not slug. I dont get why both PR and PGTW got nerfed to the ground when both encourage not slugging.

[@pyramidhead8154]

@@MrcreeperDXD777 it's because if there is one scoorge hook inside a 3 gen scenario, the killer gets to patrol the gens, camp AND getting value from it (15% regression). I have seen it with my eyes lol.

[@dean987]

I remember having this one match against SM when I was solo queueing AND after 40 minutes, I finally managed to get the gen to 90% while my teammate came over and kept gesturing to get off so they could heal me. I got it to 99% while they just sat there and SM came back and killed us, I was literally exposed anyways :') solo queue is the most terrifying thing when going up against this killer

[@Sonny2Solid]

I had a similar experience. The gen that was part of the SM’s 3 gen was 95% and the meg I was doubling up with decided to leave the gen instead of committing the completion 🤦🏿‍♂️ I’ll never have respect for megs

[@dean987]

@@Sonny2Solid God, its so frustrating when you're finally able to complete it and your teammate doesn't commit causing everyone to die. SM just isn't fun to play against :(

[@Kenlac92]

The skull merchant shows significant incompentency in the dev team.

[@Rayndorn]

Great showcase of her potential! Tbh, it makes me sad because I find Skull Merchant incredibly fun with a chase build, juggling her drones aggressively to deny loops. I don't run any slowdown so every match is fast-paced and engaging, win or lose. Yet because her most competitive playstyle is, unfortunately, to 3-gen, that's what most people will do - and I can't exactly blame them. I'd love it if she could get tweaked in a way that makes the best strat less tedious without taking away from what I enjoy about her. Hopefully this mid-chapter patch and its nerfs on slowdown perks will make those kinds of Skull Merchants less common.

[@Cerulean-Calavera]

This chapter feels like it wasn't tested at all sometimes...

[@ThePowerofCutleries]

I love how the moment you see the comp team's perspective, you see these insane, stupid filters for optimisation. DbD comp players are fucking hilarious lmao

[@TeemoQuinton]

Every comp game has this blight. With the fov slider they're gonna introduce we're gonna see the dollyzoom fov shit that plagues tf2 and minecraft

[@w.o.jackson8432]

Unfortunately DBD was designed poorly, and players need to correct it. I don't care if fog is part of the game as a mechanic, it simply isn't fun at all. On poorly lit maps like midwich I turn my screen brightness up and I still can't see what I'm doing, you have to basically have the map memorized already if you are in the courtyard, for example. And it's not like this is a core component to gameplay. There are plenty of maps which are brightly lit with good contrast and it's easy to see what you are doing. They need to fix every map to be like that or you will continue to see these filters.

[@rebelrose1992]

Love seeing a pro player using colorblind settings, gives me hope for myself possibly being able to get better at the game despite my own color deficiency

[@keys5595]

Is that color blind settings? I thought that was just reshade used to see killer stain easier. Don’t think that was color blind settings lol

[@rainbowskin3379]

@@keys5595 It's absolutely not colorblind settings. It's using third party shaders to make certain aspects of the game pop out more

[@rebelrose1992]

@@keys5595 not in game settings, its a filter program but it definitely helps colorblind people too

[@MistarZtv]

that is not color blind that is reshade used to brighten up the game or have nicer popping colors. or some people use it to gain a competitive advantage being muting every color that isn't red down so you can spot the redstain from way farther away or in the killers case see blood and scratches more and mute the other colors down.i think tataru or potato legion uses it to, you notice in their videos reds pop out more and greens and blues are more desaturated.

[@hsrmikki3201]

@@MistarZtv well I don't think that this color settings give you some advantages, I only feel pain in my eyes

[@V_enjoyer]

I just played a 40 minute game against a skull merchant that held us hostage with a three gen. Oppression and call of brine plus she didn’t hook

[@panzerscoutempire27]

Skull Merchant was BHVRs answer to the gen rush meta. Ofc Survivors hate SM bc of that, "Its not fun to go against a 3 gen SM" but its fun as a killer to get gen rushed all the time. entitled Survivor mains just digged their own grave. I play SM and shes extremely fun to play as (I run hex perks with her so no 3 gen in mind unless they 3 gen themselves)

[@aegislight5996]

my guy, they release anti loop killers which if you have more iq than a leaf = more gen pressure because of faster chases. then they released knight, literally a prototype of 3 gen killer which everyone knew was an issue. then they released sm who does it even better LOL gen rush never was and never will be a thing, its a sign of poor macro and chase skill.

[@planbrent]

I highly encourage everyone to DC against such an unfair and unfun killer

[@jesfavor831]

In my opinion, timing your approach to a scanning drone, and then disabling it, should not penalize you at all with the claw trap. Anyway, at least I'm not as pissed playing against the Skull Merchant as I am so tired of going against the Plague. That said, both are annoying. In fact, I'd love to go against the Nurse more than to be pitted against those two.

[@averagekobenienjoyer7639]

They “made” it so that it’s harder for her to 3 gen camp with one of the recent updates yet she’s still able to do it just as well lmao

[@xSinfulGodx]

Only if she sticks by them. Back then you could be more freely but you chase a survivor too long they can push out their gens. Its still strong but weaker than ptb skull merchant.

[@pukerat7562]

They honestly made her better at it.

[@xSinfulGodx]

@@pukerat7562 you would think that but if every survivor is claptrap she has no gen defense. Also 7% sounds strong on paper but it's not that big of a deal if theres strong loops and pallets on map. And if she chase too long she could lose the gens. It really the drones info that makes her 2gen strong. With knight you would hope they miss oc skillcheck or hitting good skillcheck on brine or sending knight minion to gen.

[@Libellulaire]

@@xSinfulGodx The whole strat also relies on defending a good 3-gens, not 3 gens that are in a strong area of the map. If there are strong loops and pallets she leaves them and check on her radar who got a trap and is an easier prey. She "only" has to stall for 45s and then she gets at least one drone back. You say "7% Haste sounds strong on paper but it's not a big deal" but it's a *huge* boost, especially when you take into account the fact the survivors are slower by 22% + she'll get Bloodlust in a few seconds. And if they have a claw trap and vault a pallet, the claw trap breaks and she gets her drone back. She's in a win-win scenario anyway unless the survivor has a speed boost exhaustion perk ready to use. She can also sneak up on them since they'll still be oblivious from disarming, and that could be an easy free hit. Then they need to reset > it's one fewer person on the gens > she can defend more easily against 3 people. Given now she's not as good because no more CoB + Overcharge, but the changes they made to her power didn't get rid of her 3-gening strength, it only gave her more chasing power on top of that.

[@denjeez]

She's like basement trapper in terms of survivors not knowing what to do. Like you gotta use a lot of brain power to cause the killers to mess up somehow.

[@kongolandwalker]

I love those plays both as a surv and as a killer. This is the true sportsmanship potential, when you are not limited by your opponent's complaints

[@kongolandwalker]

Let's be honest. Having long chases is not a skill. Noticing a killer started defending a threegen and finding a way to break it is much harder and That is a skill

[@TeemoQuinton]

@kongolandwalker I find more value in juking and actually taking a chase over looping. But I'm a long time complainer about the looping shit.

[@maria_zoe_soca4333]

I do appreciate that the thumbnail doesn't have stupidly red circles and red arrows all over the place.

[@xyex]

I still say her power functionality is inverted from what it _should_ be. An active drone shouldn't be what causes exposed. It should apply debuffs in its active zone after a lock on instead. Oblivious should be one of them, by default, instead of an add-on. Not sure what, if any, other debuffs should be default inside drone zones. Also, drones shouldn't trigger Killer Instinct when locked on by default, but only if there's an active claw trap. And first getting a trap on should pop KI for a few seconds. Exposed should be tied to the claw trap. Survivors with active traps on are exposed until it comes off. So now Survivors have a choice between removing drones and their debuff effects, or disabling them and risking exposed. This would give counterplay, it would make games more dynamic, and it would completely eviscerate her 3 gen potential because now you can't just camp a 10 second Exposed effect on gens.

[@user-lj1cr8by8g]

Adaptive Lighting has been my most used add-on for the undetectable status to play her as a stealth killer.

[@peters9329]

Honestly, I think Dead by Daylight was meant to be a small niche party game that got too toxic and sweaty for its own good. These kinds of playstyles that kill the fun of a game for players. Playstyles of both killer and survivor are optimized to cause grief it feels. It was a fun power trip in the beginning, playing as a 'killer' hunting survivors. Now it is a game of which team is the bully

[@evehellod9776]

I have never seen anyone escape her in my matches, even when we’re all in a call and cooperate. We may not be that great of players, but it’s not even close how hard and boring it is to face her compared to other killers. If she’s guarding three gens if you take one away she’ll just go there and put her fourth one down, kicks the gen, and when you go back the gen is already at zero. You take away a drone at the other gens, she’ll be able to instantly put them back when she chases you off and kicks the gen, when you can work there again it’s at zero Not to mention the exposed aspect and the haste, none of us know how to play against her and actually survive I’m honestly surprised her winrate is as low as 60%, with how badly our games go I would’ve expected 80%

[@waffelwizard8787]

It might just be me, but the Singularity is what the skull merchant should have been💀

[@guandisimo1096]

why don't they have testers from this game like that team. Just put a couple pro players against eachother give them early access and they'll definitelly notice all of the problems

[@RebeccaMain90]

I have an idea for a rework for skullmerchant. 1: remove her ability to place drones, replace it with something chase oriented like a lunge attack with the claw that can break pallets (or something) 2: the drones now become roaming minions around the map which do not react to sound/sight like zombies but retain their search sweep mode/active mode. When they detect a survivor they follow them starting the lockon sequence (but can be destroyed with a pallet) once locked on and exposed, they will attach themselves as a claw trap with a battery life that lasts as long as the expose status. In this way the drones can be evaded or disabled if needed, but are also a much greater threat especialy if you get caught by one in chase. The killer would be more fun to play as and against i think and camping generators would not be her power anymore. What are all your thoughts on this? I wouldnt know how to send this idea to the devs lol

[@MythicTF2]

That's certainly an interesting idea and would 100% be much better than what she is right now. I'd say allow her to place down drones in certain areas to retain some of her original feel but her drones wouldn't be stationary and they'd wander in a 24 meter radius from where you placed them, following survivors aggressively if they detect one. I'd say the drone can't go through windows though so it leaves some counter-play open for the survivors (since thats important for a fun killer) and can be broken with pallets. If a survivor vaults a window while being chased the drone will attempt to pathfind around the obstacle and upon doing so if the survivor is do longer in sight, the drone returns to it's patrol. Granted, this just makes her a more fun Knight at this point.

[@agustinruggeri2585]

I hope someone from behaviour reads this lol, good ideas!

[@Purrfect_Werecat]

the first idea already exists and it's called demogorgon xD the second idea is interesting though, I had something similar in mind where the drones can be set to patrol an area / distance til they run out of battery or fuel, but they only react to movement, and then they can find/reveal a survivor and maybe follow them around or something. keeps them from being able to just sit in one spot, they could be lured away or hidden from.... idk, combined with your idea would at least be more interesting than "set up 3 gen immediately"

[@RebeccaMain90]

@@Purrfect_Werecat im aware of the demogorgons shred, but he doesnt have minions. Also for all we know he doesnt exist in the game anymore and years down the line they aren't able to make a killer with a shred like ability because of a character that can't even be obtained anymore exists in the game. I find being able to place drones in any way shape or form would still make them too defensive and could still be used for 3 gen in some way. But anyway still hope they change things around someday, half the killera people hated i never even got to see what they were like on launch etc except freddy

[@Hugzzi]

Those filters the comp guy is using is so super sweaty.

[@bomboclado8469]

For all survs out there, dont give up.. i mean this Strategy is unbeatable! So take the Killer hostage. Other survs dont need to deal with this bullshit for a while 💪

[@foofoo1364]

After 45 seconds of putting a drone, the drone will back to you instead of shutting down on it's own place, trust me. This change will destroy her

[@Justmonika6969]

The problem is clearly that her drones are too static so their only real use is as an alarm system. I would rework her power to where she has 1 or 2 drones. From there she can remote control them around and either shoot at survivors or have the drone act as an AI that tries to keep sight of and marks the survivors for you.

[@Mono_Neko]

That would actually be lore accurate because in the cinematic, SM's drone follows Thalita and his brother.

[@cookielover5838]

So kinda like trickster or ghost face?

[@Justmonika6969]

@@cookielover5838 Yeah, like a mix of both killers. Idk how they'd balance it, but I think this rework would cover what people HATE about the Skull Merchant. It would make her fun and viable to play, while eliminating her 3 gen potential.

[@J377YF1SH]

Wouldn't the correct play here be to have everyone disable the drones at the same time? Skull Merchant has an inverse number of drones to the amount of survivors that are claw trapped (only three drones when one is trapped, all the way to no drones with all four trapped). So in theory if two survivors pressure one gen with Prove and the other two gens have one person working on them each, no one would be exposed and SM wouldn't be able to place drones to keep them down. Granted, she has vision on you all the whole time, but her chase is terrible unless you need to fast vault a pallet with one on you, and as long as one person keeps going for bodyblocks or someone has a quick heal perk like WGLF or Autodidact then really there's nothing she can do to patrol all three gens. Let me know if I'm wrong, but I always figured the "ignore the drones" strat wouldn't be as effective as just coordinated disabling.

[@brenyselira3714]

you still need Discord communication to even do that and she can counter by not placing 4 drones at once

[@Real_RUBB3R]

One perk that would help against breaking genlocks is Potential Energy, assuming everyone brings it and knows what gens to pressure. You can work on gens elsewhere in the map, because the killer is going to be focused on defending the 3gen so they don't lose it, and then if everyone has max Potential energy everyone could throw it onto a gen at once, or a few at a time at least. Do that enough times and try to prevent the gens from regressing and you'll be able to break it eventually. Makes me wonder why nobody in the custom game tried bringing it

[@irift3]

This. This is why I haven't played DbD in over 2 weeks. 2.6k hours since Pyramid Head came out and now I don't want to play anymore. Love the channel Hens but BHVR doesn't want their fans to enjoy the game.

[@JayCamm]

I see the timer and I'm like, "Oh shit, the timer. Alright guys, get your popcorn, and soda..."

[@pizzamelia3210]

As a survivor, you can use the generator to block line of sight of the drone so you can work on it within the detect zone without getting detected.

[@theodorehuang9881]

SM will just active the scanning drones and then will strictly patrol the chosen 3 gens.

[@Libellulaire]

Except she can herself "turn on" the drone so it'll go into detection mode and start the Expose status effect on whoever is in range... :)

[@TalonBrush]

BHVR Dev One: "you know, I regret how we killed Deathgarden. I wish we could at least bring a piece of it to DBD." BHVR Dev Two: "how about the drones? People loved those, I think, maybe. Plus, they were iconic for the game, possibly, I don't know, never played it." BHVR Dev One: "cool, let's do that. Except, maybe we should make them do something even more fun than they did?" BHVR Dev Three: "hey guys, I got this. Trust me, people loved my Knight treatment, maybe, possibly, I don't know, never looked it up."

[@snoopdoggydog172]

2 weeks of playing Console in Australia and haven’t seen one Merchant Killer.

[@X-EvilAsh]

Ive had about 5 - 10. And I'm on New Zealand/ Australia servers

[@JV2789]

Consider yourself lucky

[@X-EvilAsh]

@@JV2789 I agree.

[@TatKat]

Australian server here can confirm I get her about 1 in 5 wesker on the other hand 1 in 2

[@X-EvilAsh]

@@TatKat In about 2 weeks. I think I've had wesker atlesst 60 times

[@killak2971]

Whenever I got bullied by toxic squad I play this character n never lose.

[@yas0pp_397]

so that means to break a trigen (not winning the match because you clearly bleed out), you need to be close to a pro team, with excellent communication, specific perks as no mither that are not played in real games... bro to just break ONE (their could be more) trigen, with a killer that is doing clearly nothing but surprising survivor with indetectable and slugging, that's just an entire rework she needs

[@scorpx3790]

Survivor: Baby killer 3 genning for his life cause thats all you can do Killer: Hello friends, this is Otz Killer: Testing a build nothing personal Survivor: Understandable, have a great day

[@colossaldonut5190]

At least with the nerfs to Overcharge and Call of Brine next patch this strategy will be severely worse but it is kinda sad that two perks had to effectively be gutted (especially Call of Brine) to alleviate this strategy desoute BHVR's best attempts when changing this killer.

[@unodos2647]

Be sad that COB died for this trash killer

[@Kermthefrog]

She's still way too good at holding gens hostage, even with the nerfs to regression perks. She needs a complete rework or be outright removed from the game.

[@MonStarGuy]

With 3 regression perks + Sloppy Butcher ANY killer can hold down a 3-gen. I kinda wanna meme on this video and recreate it with every killer to show how absurd it is.

[@HexTacobell]

She's actually fun to play. I try to play fair with her and run perks that have nothing to do with gens and then i just take away a drone for every survivor i end up killing to give more of a chance for the people left.

[@HexTacobell]

@@TheSkullMerchantX Yes mommy

[@bluetonik7323]

i enjoy playing SM , people always get so mad its hilarious and i enjoy it very much

[@BouncingTribbles]

They nerfed both sides in that stalemate today. No self healing in CoH, so injuries are real pressure; and Brinecharge was nerfed into the ground, so repairing two different gens is real pressure too. The game should be much more interesting, I just wish they paid as much attention to the least used perks as they do to the most used stuff

[@hvhhvvggg8663]

They reverted rest of the healing changes while gutting most gen regression.

[@Libellulaire]

@@hvhhvvggg8663 Nah, healing with med-kits is still 24s long. They made med-kits more about altruistic healing, while self-healing is not in such a good spot, forcing survivors to actually look out for each other rather than be selfish and self-sufficient.

[@hvhhvvggg8663]

@@Libellulaire no one is going to heal the others with medkits when heals are back to 16 seconds

[@bc6292]

I've been playing a lot of Skull Merchant using these perks and this strat. I think a nerf that doesn't seem too devastating would be to remove killer instinct from survivors that are exposed. The reason ignoring the drone and repairing while exposed doesn't work is partly due to the loud noise and visual notification the killer gets. I immediately know which of my three gens with active drones is being worked on. Without the notification, the survivors may just have the extra time they need before I can get over there to disrupt them. Survivors are still exposed so the ability is still strong. I just think the killer doesn't need to have the Killer Instinct for this ability to be good.

[@KermitBinLaden911]

The skill merchant is so strong bro, people need to understand

[@zachtemoro2116]

I feel like the way to fix her is make her less drone based, and give her a chase power that charges once per minute (or Gen completion). She’ll have a Billy esc sprint/Demo Shread where she charges up her Predator Claw, gets the undetectable status while then goes mach 5. It’ll be hard to use in chase like Billy’s chainsaw though so it will be more for sniping rather than used in chase. She’ll also start with only 2 drones, and get more once every 3 hooks (does not have to be the same survivor). Drones no longer expose survivors, but will build meter until full before launching a Claw Trap at them. This change makes it so she is able to actively track survivors rather than just camping drones. It remains on them for the rest of the trial, and will deactivate after 60s, but reactivates if not removed and you walk back into the aoe

[@click8708]

When even a pro team struggles and then when they learn the strategy they STILL have to work hard for it then you know its a fucked situation.

[@Timothee_Chalamet_CMBYN]

Pro va pro, won’t be easy. Unskilled survivors cry too much

[@unkon129]

nerf pig

[@MTA6996]

15:28 funny thing is, that’s not an addon or a perk, that’s part of her base kit bhvr thought was ok to implement into her xD Edit: just realized this video was 2 months ago, idk if they had already implemented it into her base kit yet at this point.

[@RondouDeoki]

So much of a good design,i've never seen someones play her since i've started playing the game

[@Name-ql7jf]

Hello Hens! I believe you called “team Singularity” “team Elysium” by mistake. Thank you for your amazing content and hard work.

[@LyoDBD]

They were probably still Team Singularity at the time of recording, but SNG pulled out of DBD; therefore the remaining players became Elysium

[@Name-ql7jf]

@@LyoDBD Ah, thank you. Do you know who left and who’s on the roster now?

[@-_Jayden_-]

Same roster as before

[@LyoDBD]

@@Name-ql7jf Everyone stayed iirc; and I believe Kekso joined them as well

[@Name-ql7jf]

@@LyoDBD Glad to hear the team is still together. Thanks for the info

[@SyATik.mp4]

the most evil map for her is rpd, you can pretty much lock the entire center

[@ImSiggi]

To be fair, you can only do this due to Overcharge + Call of Brine being broken, which will be fixed with today's patch.

[@thedutywarlord264]

No good gen perks = more camp, tunnel , slug and you'll see a lot more of blight and nurse . Im 100 sure less killers will play after the update . Imo healing shouldn't be nerfed.. the real issue is gen speed .

[@keys5595]

@@thedutywarlord264 nah medkits definitely needed a nerf. Healing overall though probably didn’t

[@thedutywarlord264]

@@keys5595 i agree .

[@bigbacon1366]

I totally agree with the value of medkits which is over power since it only require single player to fully heal themselves with as fast as getting heal by others

[@xSinfulGodx]

If the skull merchant sticks by her gen and don't chase too long. Those two will still be good.

[@thebeardedredrhino9230]

i feel like a whole genrush build could counter this if you are only focused on 3 gens than if i have a team with 4 potential energies and brand new parts as well as exponential for the slugs you could probably crack the 3 gen fairly quickly but this all can only happen if the team knows that their about to go against this build the competitive team knew about it as far as i know so they probably wouldn't have managed it so easily if they didn't know what you were planning but aside from that it was pretty interesting lol.

[@thebeardedredrhino9230]

looking at their perks yeah for a fight for the gens they need more gen oriented builds rather than chase and competitive builds or if anything their competitive builds need to be competitive gen perks lol.

[@TatKat]

I can honestly say one thing solo has over comp team is that solos will generally two out of the 4 survivors will have prove thyself it should also be mentioned since the forged in iron chapter a perk can’t recall it was introduced to stop three gen strategy they should have been given a mention at least and no I’m not defending skull merchant as I firmly believe she needs a complete power rework and I mean completely changed

[@kirikon5171]

*forged in the fog, and the perk is potential energy (accumulating gen charge to pass on another one)?

[@charlesornelas6217]

I literally left my controller cause this one killer wouldn't let me leave and ended up saying for like 40 min in the match just so I can end up getting the hatch cause the killer was too cocky 🤣🤣

[@davidperezvazquez7856]

"bUt KiLlErS hAvE tO uSe ThIs BeCaUse SwFs ArE bRoKeN"

[@mindassassin]

Hey guys! Let's make a killer built entirely around making the game as dull as possible for literally everyone involved! Fucking brilliant!

[@B0ngo]

Why am i now just realizing the bp award for “caught in 4k”

[@IHaveBadPing]

Anti loop, anti gen pressure, anti speed, anti everything just delete the killer

[@Lacter12]

8:30 "we rely on survivor sex" - auto captions

[@Trident_Gaming03]

That title is complete clickbait

[@CarpetBanana]

Welcome to KZbin buddy

[@Josie.770]

If SWFs are on comms and have filters to see your red light easier I feel more than justified with stalling out a 3 gen for 30 minutes. Just strategies, right?

[@strangeone7198]

That survivor running a full meta build and talking about the killer playing "boring" lol

[@Homururu]

I mean, they were playing boring tho

[@goth.baby420]

I was playing Oni about two weeks ago and got down to 2 survivors and they 3 gen'd themselves, lasted an entire hour.

[@retrosaur_]

@7:38 Hilarious a guy on anonymous mode is complaining about Hens using anonymous mode haha

[@Libellulaire]

It's Hens's hiding the players' name, not the survivor hiding their own name...

[@Bunbunnyny]

This isn’t an issue with Skull Merchant’s design but with the gen regression meta. You can do this strategy with Hag, Knight, Twins, Wraith, Nurse, Demo, Dredge… Until Overbrine dies tomorrow (later today) this strat is possible on anyone.

[@xSinfulGodx]

They just nerfing regression. Honestly Oc and B still paired will still be strong if the killer holds it well.

[@nolanstrife7350]

Yes! Yes! Thank you! Call me names, but the thing is, I really like Skull Merchant. Her power has pretty much no slowdown, which makes her feel very smooth. Yes, looking at radar slows her down, but it also has two lights which tell you outright if you even have a reason to look at it in the first place. She has info, she has slowdown (not a slowdown per ce, but for survivor's it's either waste time to disarm a drone or be exposed), she even has some chase power, evem if it's somewhat situational Combining it all together, SM gives me one thing pretty much no other killer gives me. The feeling of control. She knows where everyone is and isn't. She can lead survivors to or away from crucial points like loops and gens. I like her gameplay a lot And I don't want devs to ruin her because of OverBrine

[@handlenameig]

Her tracking, undetectable, pallet breaking add on, drone power and exposing doesn’t help. Also it’s kris Jenner, yikes

[@dodang_9147]

yeah. its disheartening how people are suggested nerfs to the killer when the perks are clearly the issue. the most overpowered killers on these perk are actually Oni and Wesker because wesker has mechanic where hitting infection inflicts permanent hindered which is game over and Oni has demon fury, a mechanic that is often gated by time to win which this build provides near infinity time to demon fury for the win.

[@MrcreeperDXD777]

But the difference is, all the above killers has other viable builds that dont involve 3 genning. Skull Merchant LITERALLY only has 3 gens and nothing else. No chase power, no lethality, no mobility, no nothing.

[@itsTbomber]

now replace sloppy with eruption or fearmonger and that is how you maximize pain

[@frostwolfnoku]

its a little funny to think one a member of one of the best comp teams forgot that a addon became base kit like that just goes to show either how little people think of skull merchet or just how little people read the patches

[@miklymick5]

3 gen perk is save best for last/overcharge/call of brine/eruption. That if you just ignore all chases and keep all 3 gen always kick, Then add-on of harder and silence skill check for much easier overcharge miss. I use that build once and they never got pass 10% on any of them and just gave up. Swap back to iron grasp/mad grit build for more fun.

[@Luke-cp9to]

I'd be up in arms about her too but fortunately, I never see her. KNIGHT ON THE OTHER HAND - has been in 7 out of 10 of my last games. Both of these killers reward mediocracy.

[@quailland1982]

You would simply never catch me in a game for over like 15 minutes bro no way

[@JPSMXD]

They called me a madman when i said no mither would counter this strat

[@acemaison2834]

no clue how they gonna nerf this , add-ons wise they aren't that strong except the long oblivious & maybe exhustion but thats only 3 secs so taking off the lingering would help. What really is killing them is the time in between deactivation & Activation. The problem is u have get in to deactivate and do it fast before reactivated but even if u do that the skull merchant can just wait for the claw trap to come bck to reset it . They could make it saw the claw traps stay on unstill either it breaks on pallet or is downed off to decrease the number of drones . other then that the only way might be to decrease her drones from 5 to 2 to make her have a choice between gen defense or chase ending . Because she can place 3 to 4 down on gens and still have 1 left to stop chases early . Idk how they gonna deal with this killer but its safe to say solo que has no chance against her

[@bubblewrap8823]

i think pwyf / stb are great on her. i ran them, and since her drones slow the game, you have time (and info) to get pwyf stacks to have an advantage in chase before eventually building stb stacks to make chases even shorter

[@JV2789]

Just have the drones reveal auras and nothing more, they disable after 30 seconds or after a series of merciless storm style skillchecks by the survivor. And just give her a big lunge attack like Pig's dash or something so she doesn't feel boring to play as or against

[@William256]

That would still be incredibly boring to play as. I'd much rather just play Amanda's Letter Pig than what you just proposed. She needs a rework, but that ain't it.

[@projectalex9826]

i mean... the build of insta gen is something that i survivor can do to counter merchant... but its so incredibly hard to do that only very skilled players are able to pull that of

[@dkr011]

I had this issue upon release of skull merchant and it doesn’t look like anything changed after the balance fixes. People said she was bad before which I didn’t understand, and now it seems the ability to drag a game on is even worse now. I’m glad people don’t play her as much anymore though

[@Schacal6666]

Aren’t overcharge and call of brine useless now in the new update? They nerfed it to death. Same with pain res

[@versationstetralogia]

The Snull Merchant made me feel "safe" playing killer again, so I really appreciate her release. I always focused on getting informations about survivors locations, so the character is perfect for me -and I never play toxic-.

[@bandit3515]

well for you but lots are very toxic and just 3 gen

[@Amilia4Anime]

I know im late to commenting but before this video i almost got banned for this it wasnt even 5 mins into the match and they gave up and guess what the person who was doing this was the streamer Morf and his whole chat simontaniously got clips and wrote support tickets to get me banned but luckily bhvr sided with me and my 1k+ hour account was saved

[@nqqthing]

me and my swf don't touch gens and commit to holding the game hostage for max time vs this killer

[@ThatCrystalityGuy]

"It's just like a game of chess"

[@dankdaze42069]

Didn't think behavior would one day make a character so useless that even her perks are unwanted

[@gaj7062]

Bro made this vid and then we saw the most tragic 55 minute game against eternal

[@Jdrunnin]

The fact that it took a competitive team 40 mins to break it is unreal. Sounds awful to play against

[@spookieboogi6161]

I have an evil strat of a survivor has boil over and runs to a corner of the map with no hooks I’ll just beat them down and leave them there as bait

[@tammywhammy896]

Old pop and ruin meta was so much more bearable than Call of Bring and Oppression

[@brett1908]

Kind of funny that a killer that can make the match time out was put in a “game” it’s supposed to be fun, and something that takes comp players at best 4 minutes to complete will definitely not be fun for the majority of the community that would require 20+ mins or can literally just never break the 3 gen and therefore the match is decided before it’s started, especially with all the recent patches being focused on balance for both sides, winning a game before it’s started isn’t balanced.

[@atmosdwagon4656]

In the similar way that Basement Bubba/Trapper highlighted how strong the strategy of facecamping is, Skull Merchant and Knight highlight how strong 3-gens are. This is nothing new as 3-gen was always a strong strategy for killer just like tunneling and camping. Hell, Skull Merchant isn't even the best at it; Blight is. (with Nurse right behind him. No need to worry about recovery when you can just mow down teams with mindless super speed) But Skull Merchant's abilities only really work when playing around 3-gens. Otherwise, she's just another easy to loop M1/115 killer.

[@tompy3738]

Went back to GTA after her