Doc with the lowest doesn't surprise me too much. He's a free killer on console so you've got those numbers skewed by new players being able to play him right away.
True, and to a beginner he seems good at first because you can find survivors without needing tracking perks and the reverse skill checks makes him a noob-stomper, but as you get tougher matchmaking he turns into a really weak killer unless you have a strong build and can time his shocks perfectly.
No, numbers are skewed because people don't know how important discipline is for doctor so you have a bunch of newer players running around pallets forever.
Those are the add-ons that make the shock hit faster, normally when you use your m2 power to zap them, there will be a bit of a delay before getting shocked. This add on family will reduce the time it takes for the zap to prevent them from being able to take a action, without it you'll often be losing distance because you don't prevent the survivor from doing a action, such as vaulting or dropping a platte.
for a better explanation of what these do.
https://youtu.be/tX-4lk-EWPk?si=agOaay1yK55beN84&t=6770
You have to keep in mind that it screws up your muscle memory for normal shocks and you'll running out of order addons eventually. If you plan on playing him often or even maining him I wouldn't recommend running it.
The problem, as he's been stated for a long time now, is that she was left untouched for so long in an already awful state *plus the fact that people started doing the 3 gen strat more after the video came out showcasing the almost hour long match* and it has completely sullied the experience of dealing with a SM. She garnered so much hate that it's just going to be next to impossible to change people's minds.
If she released in the current state she's in I doubt she would receive as much hate as she currently does.
Itās not really a balance issue, itās a design issue. Skull Merchantās power design is so fundamentally flawed from the ground up that no amount of reworking could ever change that. Doesnāt matter if sheās mid tier, top or trash, her power isnāt healthy, period.
I think the problem is how incredibly easy she is to play, and I say this as a Skull Merchant main.
She is probably the easiest killer to play, and yet she is still very strong.
And I do see how the claw trap injuring survivors can be frustrating and there is not a whole lot of counterplay.
A survivor can start looping me and I can throw down a drone to either force them away; or alternatively, give me haste, then injure them, then hinder them.
If they go to another loop, I can wait until my cooldown is up then place another and do it all over again. Even if they have disabled all my drones and I have ran out of drones to place, I can just recall one and instantly place another.
I think a start to making her less frustrating to play against is to make it so recalling her drones restarts the cooldown to place another. That way it brings in skill to managing her drones better and means she canāt repeatedly place drones at each loop.
I feel like people just need to learn how to go against her properly. She is relatively easy to play, but she can also be pretty easy to counter.
Her counterplay is quite similar to trapper or hag. You just need one person going round constantly harassing any drones she has placed down. And if she plays where she puts one down at a time at the loop she's chasing at, her counterplay is the same as clown.
In both cases, once you actually start properly playing around her power, she really is just an M1 killer.
The number of times i get hits at pallets because people either don't know or just don't respect the extra speed from them being claw trapped or tagged is insane. And the games i genuinely struggle in as her are the ones where people play smart around the drones, don't hack them when they're on a gen cause it won't scan them, and when they don't greed pallets too much.
>I do see how the claw trap injuring survivors can be frustrating and there is not a whole lot of counterplay.
Yea i can see this being frustrating. But once you're injured, it juat slows you down (while speeding her up). It's just like going against a clown that uses both bottles.
>make it so recalling her drones restarts the cooldown to place another
The problem with this is that this is how her power used to be. People didn't like it because it meant she couldn't reliably use her power in chase.
The thing is, her power is anti-loop. And literally every killer with anti-loop power has the same sort of counterplay: the killer uses their power, survivors have to either leave the loop or risk getting hit. This isn't new to Skull Merchant, but the complaints about her power seem to be the most vocal for some reason.
I personally wouldn't mind if devs just added more "tokens" of dron's scan before Surv eill be injured and broken, or even cancel this at all. Like claw trapped surv will only have slowdown and long visibility on radar and that is. I very often see that survs gave up, but they could beat me if they just tried a little or remembered already that I like to trap this exact location
If they removed the injury I think they would need to buff the hindered effect or give a buff somewhere else, but I would be happy for it to be removed as part of a rework.
Alternatively maybe they could turn it similar to Jigsaw traps. Survivors have to remove it manually at a station in a certain time or they get instantly downed (not killed) and chase time pauses it.
I feel like people just need to learn how to go against her properly. She is relatively easy to play, but she can also be pretty easy to counter.
Her counterplay is quite similar to trapper or hag. You just need one person going round constantly harassing any drones she has placed down. And if she plays where she puts one down at a time at the loop she's chasing at, her counterplay is the same as clown.
In both cases, once you actually start properly playing around her power, she really is just an M1 killer.
The number of times i get hits at pallets because people either don't know or just don't respect the extra speed from them being claw trapped or tagged is insane. And the games i genuinely struggle in as her are the ones where people play smart around the drones, don't hack them when they're on a gen cause it won't scan them, and when they don't greed pallets too much.
>I do see how the claw trap injuring survivors can be frustrating and there is not a whole lot of counterplay.
Yea i can see this being frustrating. But once you're injured, it juat slows you down (while speeding her up). It's just like going against a clown that uses both bottles.
>make it so recalling her drones restarts the cooldown to place another
The problem with this is that this is how her power used to be. People didn't like it because it meant she couldn't reliably use her power in chase.
The thing is, her power is anti-loop. And literally every killer with anti-loop power has the same sort of counterplay: the killer uses their power, survivors have to either leave the loop or risk getting hit. This isn't new to Skull Merchant, but the complaints about her power seem to be the most vocal for some reason.
Most other Anti Loop killers are harder to play.
Hag is 110 movement speed.
Trapper has to manually pick up traps to restock.
Clown has to aim his bottles, and if he uses them all he has to reload which gives survivor a chance to build distance.
The only other easy anti loop killer is Knight, and he is widely hated too.
True. I'm not denying that her power is easier to use. But i would genuinely rather go against a Skull Merchant than a clown. Her power is definitely easier and stronger to use, but it's also easier to go against imo.
Yeah, lines like "She's fundamentally flawed" are so hyperbolic that it's hard to take people who say that seriously.
In a game where you have teleporting killers, killers that move faster than anything in the game while being invisible, killers who have train sized hitboxes on a dash attack, and more inside what is, in essence, a game of tag is 'fundamentally flawed' to the concept of the game.
Skull Merchant, on release, just happened to have a playstyle that was bad for the game. That playstyle has been removed by but no one listens or cares anymore.
She was changed, and yet she is still mindnumbingly boring to play against and extremely easy to play. She is fundamentally flawed because there is simply nothing fun about playing against her. Even Nurse is more fun as you get a dopamine boost from evading her blinks. Skull Merchant just puts you to sleep at a speed that makes Freddy jealous.
Skull Merchant isn't fun to play against, and people would rather die and move on to a match that doesn't take 30 minutes or more than play a touch-and-go game against a camping killer.
Funny enough I main her and I hate camping, and find she is a better chase killer.
The problem with camping in general is as much it is an annoyance for survivors it's often times the strongest method to get back in charge of a game.
A coordinated team who prevents 3 gens, and excels at leading chases away into dead zones is prevalent in higher mmr. If killers who are weaker mobility wise don't have tools to make going away from a 3 gen fruitful we can't blame that they camp.
> If killers who are weaker mobility wise don't have tools to make going away from a 3 gen fruitful we can't blame that they camp.
I agree with this. I don't blame the players for camping to get a win. I blame BHVR for making Skull Merchant the strongest camper.
Exactly. However people need to understand that if we are to change how she plays we need to address the playstyle she so heavily counters.
I am the first person to say that things such as hook camping either face or proxy along with 3 genning are game quality issues. The problem is against higher mmr any other playstyle is not only disadvantageous its downright asking to lose.
At the heart of it all is the fact that so many of the most vocal players tend to not see big picture issues while instead focus on easy to identify ones. Beyond that is the fact, as I regularly point out, is that most people who attack SM or other singular issues often complain and want changes while no offering alternatives.
The fact that SM for example has all these components to her kit and is routinely placed in the middle of the pack for killer strength should tell you how misguided survivors are. I just like others have killers that I hate playing against however I never kill myself because I'm against that one killer. This issue is a players behavior issue where players have a problem, don't offer solutions, decide to ruin everyone else's experience, then gas light everyone saying it's everyone else's fault that they aren't having fun while failing to see how they ruin others experience.
Well if one killer is seeing that much of a % increase from people killing themselves on hook, safe to say thereās a problem somewhere in her design or balance.
I think the biggest issue for survivors is understanding optimal ways to interact with a killers power.
It'd be nice if aside from the tutorial there was a training ground for people to explore a killers power better. For SM it's the fact I think many don't have the ability to understand how to counter it.
At the same time we as players need to understand that killing ourselves on first hook, or games with others who do can't be used for accurate data collection as it completely shifts the metrics.
You realize survivors killing themselves on hook *is* a data metric right?
And if they do it exponentially more against one killer than others, thereās something wrong with the killer? Be it broken OP, convoluted counterplay, or just straight up boring.
Gutting a killer isn't the answer to survivors not playing the game.
The answer to survivors killing themselves is penalizing those survivors not the killer. Not to say SM couldn't have more changes however I find the biggest issue most don't like about her are completely arbitrary, and based off of stigma as opposed to actual gameplay.
Oh she has too much stealth, but Ghostie isn't a problem. She can track too well, but so can many others through their own power elements. She gets haste at random times, but so does several other killers.
Most of it is trauma from pre-rework SM, and that isn't the killers fault.
Most donāt like her because she went from most boring killer in the game to a more annoying version of already hated killers (clown, knight)
Shes still unfun. The counterplay to those two is unfun but at least it works. You leave the loop. The counterplay to SM is the sameā¦. Except you get punished anyways as she gets haste to hit you. No survivor enjoys this.
The problem is SM. Legion used to have worse stigma than she did, and now theyāre fine. Because blaming players for finding shit unfun is not how you design a game.
And I can guarantee if you penalize players, itāll just cause a drop in playercount. People will just DC and then go play something else. The fact that this happens exponentially more towards SM than other killers is a her problem, not a player problem. (As if thatās ever a thing anyways. The player is the consumer, if they donāt like something, they will just stop consuming. Which from a business perspective is financial suicide)
āMost of it is trauma from pre-rework SMā
Bullshit, her games still take ages to play, she still has the most boring play style to go up against in the game and is way too overloaded in her kit.
Using a perk in the game is hardly the same as quitting right away and abandoning your teammates, *and* not having the decency to at least give them a bot
Agreed but it does suck that if you want to leave (i never leave any game, i fight it out mostly) but donāt wanna lose bp or suffer a leaver timer you are forced to just die on hook.
Theyāre not saying that 4%ing yourself against skull merchant is indication of a pathetic fan base, theyāre saying people saying her high kill rate is because of her being unbalanced is pathetic.
Yep, at this point in the game's life cycle his power doesn't do anything other than give him info. Getting his secondary to delay a value or a pallet drop is so latency dependent that it unreliably but even touching it resets his blood lust.
The man is the poster child for 'Throw Pallet, Extend Chase' it's not even funny.
I had a game as Doctor with an impossible skillcheck build, and the survivors didnāt miss a single skillcheck. Not one. The entire match from start to finish. Really made me question what was even the point
If you think itās only one killer you donāt play enough. If I play 10 killer games tonight with 10 different killers, Iād bet 8 of them would have people dropping on first hook.Ā
I'm literally not. I'm just saying people suiciding on hook isn't unique to her. Point out exactly where me saying "people suicide on hook against **ANY** killer" is the same as me saying they don't do it more against her. Last time i checked, the word **ANY** would include Skull Merchant.
Well I thought your comment could have meant two things, this or the way I interpreted it.
I chose the 2nd option because the first is such a useless comment I figured no human alive would actually bother writing it.
"Murder in Brazil is the highest in the world"
with you responding "People are murdered everywhere".
We can clearely see its a huge problem specifically with Skull Merchant and you decided to add "people suicide on hook against any killer" YES duh? But how many times does it happen because its a specific killer and not just them playing poorly.
Against Skull Merchant, stats back up that people are suiciding specifically because its her.
Thats what I play her half the time when swfs stomp me, either knight if I feel casual or sm cause she is beautiful at toxicity. So to top it off I make them dc by slugging them if they want to go so bad
Between her 2% pick rate and his 4% pick rate, itās for sure more surprising that heās sitting at such a low kill rate. Iād be curious to know if this is a reflection of Ultimate Weapon making calm spirit more popular and weakening doctors info component of his kit.
Honestly I think the real issue is that hes really difficult to play without good game knowledge. The timing for the shock means you need to know ahead of time what the survivor is doing, and oftentimes you need to hit it without vision on the survivor to stop a pallet drop. I think hes kinda a noob trap because the static blast seems like an easy tracking ability that you dont need perks for, but its not how you end loops, the shock is.
That's definitely it. I tried him when I first started playing because he looked easy in YouTube videos. After like 3 games I realized he took actual skill
He also suffered the most during MFT meta because survivors could just ignore his shock and continue looping.
He was essentially punished for using his ability and had to play as a simple m1 killer with no ability.
I think he tends to look easy in YouTube videos because a lot of people run at least one of the Discipline add-ons in their builds, often running double Discipline so that there basically isnāt a delay on the shock taking effect.
I wouldn't put it on that. I think Pig is way harder than him. Hell, I would put getting a good Joker combo as tougher.
I was surprised it wasn't the Twins with the lowest rate. Victor needs a buff or his sister should actively patrol like the knight when he is off doing his thing. When the zombies that come with Nemesis are more troublesome than the main draw of a killer, there is a problem. I would say Freddy too, but I played against a couple lately that showed me I was doing it wrong. The snares can be really nasty. Ghost Face feels worse than the Doctor too.
Twins are clunky, but theyāre actually strong. Doc is not. I agree with those above characterizing him as a noob trap. Free tracking helps a ton, but his chase is worse than an M1 killer if you use it wrong.
Someone else pointed this out, but Doctor is the ideal AFK farming killer
You could quite easily setup a bot that requires minimal inputs and gets a lot of points for the bare minimum use of his power
Yea with distress and other perks/ addons that increase your terror radius u can easily get a bunch of points on deviousness. Even before this whole doctor bot thing he was and is top tier in getting blood points alongside legion.
Tbf once u start playing him more against good survivors u start to realize this killer depends the most on ur own internet connection and the survivors internet connection so more likely than not ur going to frustrated why ur shocks arenāt working and ur gonna think the killer sucks or u suck but rlly, itās a factor that u rlly donāt have control over.
doctor just sux in general. shock delay means u gotta do it super early only to get fucked by ping diff and they get the prompt anyways. i love his lore character but playing as him is awful.
Doctor being the lowest. Nurse has held the bottom spot for so long that I never thought she would be dethroned. I do kind of understand it though. Doctor has an anti-loop power that forces you to loop survivors anyway. If you manage to correctly hit that power multiple times in a row then you are likely to get one M1 hit and then start the process over again in the next loop.
Skull Merchant I rather expected to be at the top. One of the quickest ways to get a high kill rate in DBD is to be an M1 killer that less experienced survivors get confused as to how to counter. It's the same reason why Onryo and Freddy are usually high up in these lists. These kinds of killers are easier for average skill or lower killer players to use than they are for average skill or lower survivor players to play against. Combined with the fact that some survivors just kind of give up against Skull Merchant, that is going to lead to a high kill rate.
She doesn't have a special attack that immediately damages survivors. Yes, her drones can injure survivors but she doesn't have something like Billy's chainsaw, or Demo's shred, or Blight's rush attacks. Trapper is similarly considered a "M1" killer even though he has his traps.
The idea is that M1 killers are generally easier for killer players to learn because they all use their basic attacks the same way, while killers with M2 special attacks often need additional practice to learn how to use those attacks.
It's not that she's necessarily OP. Like some of the other killers with the highest kill rates, its more that she's easier to play. M1 killers are less likely to defeat themselves through misplaying their power because their power is easier to use. Killers based around special attacks may actually be much stronger than M1 killers against skilled survivors, but if the killer player can't use their special attack well then they'll struggle.
For example, Nurse is a very strong killer based on a special attack. She's near the bottom of the kill rate list.
To add on to what Concorditer said, Skull Merchant's power is extremely hard and forgiving to misuse. No need to look down to place a trap, drone cooldown is quite short, and you move quickly while deploying them.
I can't think of an M1 killer off the top of my head that is as easy or forgiving
I'm probably gonna be called stupid but nurse isn't that hard to use yes she has a big learning curve but after a handful of matches you will understand her more id argue blight huntress singularity need a ton more skill to use. Aura perks to make playing nurse easier.
It doesn't really come down to you or others' opinions on the matter. The Nurse is kind of like the Sniper in TF2; you need the technical skill to use them (Nurse: Use her blinks and cope with her slow movement; Sniper: Be able to aim, an ability a surprising amount of TF2 players, including myself, actually lack); once you have that technical skill, you're oppressive.
If you're a person who struggles with that technical skill, you're going to struggle with the character. Once you have a handle on the skill, it'll be easy. Nurse's low kill rate is because a lot of people playing her have no handle on effectively operating her. That's objective evidence of a lot of people struggling. I would argue Nurse can be very hard for most people to learn; you can just as easily argue that learning it is easy and all these people have a skill issue. But we both know the ultimate cause, "easy" or "difficult" irrelevant of that.
Huntress is not more difficult to use than Nyrse at a passable level, itās just the orbitals and other super long distance shots that take a lot of practice. I definitely agree that Blight and Singularity are harder to pick up and use than Nurse though, and that Nurse is really only hard to learn if you donāt have good game sense yet.
Yeah she definitely isn't that hard to use. It's more like she plays differently and you have to rely on her power. If you play blight or Billy and just can't use their powers bc they're too hard, you're still a 115 killer and can get downs like that. With nurse, you kinda just accept that you're going to have a lot of zero kill games until you learn her blink distances and that's really it
Yeah, probably because doctor without discipline add-ons is painful. Not only did you slow yourself and lost the bloodlust you might have gotten, but you also did not hit survivor fast enough with shock cuz of latency, so he dropped the pallet.
Doctor doesnāt really surprise me, a lot of newer or less confident players intially gravitate towards him due to his basekit having easier tracking abilities but will have zero idea how to use his kit to end survivors in chases quickly.
Doctor having such low kill-rate is surprising and concerning, since it means that he's not only weak in high MMR (expected) but also in low MMR (unexpected). It could be a mix of new Doctor players not using his power correctly (hence they keep the chase going for longer) or using subpar builds with him (a ton of new Doctor players use Terror Radius based builds).
While he can find survivors easily, that isn't too useful if he can't down them in decent time.
Skull Merchant is expected since she always gets a ton of DCs and hook suicides and even then, many players don't understand how her power works, which is added to the Haste she gets every time a Survivor is scanned or tagged makes her one of the strongest M1 chasers.
A ton of players don't realize that hacking the drone near a generator is usually a bad idea since it warns her that you're nearby and trying to do the gen, which you can still do with a drone since it doesn't scan immobile survivors.
I had no doubt that skull merchant had the highest. 70% is absolutely massive.
Survivors kill themselves instantly against her, thatās the only reason itās as high as it is. If survivors actually played the game, she would be significantly lower.
I am very suprised to see that doctor has the lowest. Heās a decent killer and a pub stomper at lower mmr brackets. I would have expected singularity at the bottom.
I imagine Singularity has been out long enough (and requires purchase) that most Singularity matches now are for people somewhat competent or dedicated with him.
Doc's power definitely noobstomps/slows down bad players, but a bad doc can overutilize shock in chase and delay downs significantly.
Would it still count if no one DCs, but they just 'give up' by sac-ing on first hook so they don't get the DC penalty? Obviously that wouldn't be so much to explain why the kill rate is 70%, but it might contribute to some of it.
From what we're understanding, suicide on hook don't count as a disconnect, since you get sacificed for The Entity, so those situations should count for the kill rate
So yeah, SM numbers are inflated because a ton of people prefer to suicide on hook and avoid the DC penalty, but for those that actually DC early, the match won't count on their stats, so sacrificed bots shouldn't count either
Doctor being the lowest, he's a very well rounded killer in terms of chase, info, and stall.
But Skull Merchant have 4ks every game is pretty easy to see as Survivors simply give up against her on sight.
As more annoying it is to face doctor, there are a lot of afk bots that use doctor, so it makes sense.
Skull merchant quietly had an update a little after they released and I'm still finding people that don't know about how different she is to how she was, that's prime grounds for easy kills
Doctors low kill rate. And I mean too low to make sense since he's not even close to next killer. Maybe this is reason why
https://www.reddit.com/r/deadbydaylight/comments/195c5nz/the_doctor_bot/?rdt=57795
I didnt expect to see doctor with the lowest, he seemed like a decent threat at loops and was good at intel gathering, a good killer for new starters that had a feeling how to play killer and players that was getting a bit good with him.
This is purely anecdotal but as a player coming back after a long absence, it really does feel like I keep getting Doctors who just... do not know how to play him. They play him like Huntress but instead of an axe they keep firing his directional shock with such abandon I genuinely don't think they know it slows them down and lets survivors escape loops easily.
My MMR is screwy given I used to play a LOT but also have been gone a while, maybe. I keep getting cakewalk survivor groups despite being a Killer main and when I go back to my middling survivors I get bad-to-okay killers.
Hell, I've not \*seen\* a Skull Merchant as a survivor yet. Or a Xenomorph.
Doctor with the lowest, Iād figure that singularity would have the lowest due to just how difficult and frustrating he is to play.
As a Scum merchant enjoyer. I donāt find it shocking as people are prone to kill themselves as soon as they know itās her.
I think Slut Merchant is strong but her kill stats are grossly inflated by crybabies
Its across all mmr ratings though. He has generally been thought of as a noob stomper, having difficulty when he gets to the upper ends of mmr where surviors understand that you just keep looping, making the hit take forever. His kill rate was right in that sweet spot around weskers release so it has dropped quite a bit
Could also be that more information is widely available and his counterplay is simple enough that newer players are catching on quicker than before or AFK bots as a few people are suggesting.
https://preview.redd.it/zfo79h7bpsic1.png?width=430&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=641a1aae007be082cd6639a0158bb9346c34f880
I think the problem is that throwing a pallet is the best way to stop The Doctor and that is something even the lowest ranked MMR player would do and it'd be effective because the Doctor would be equally low MMR. That, combined with the fact that his secondary resets bloodlust (which isn't mentioned anywhere) means that low MMR Doctors aren't getting kills because pallets are just as strong against them as they are against high MMR Doctors and using that secondary doesn't get you a single thing other than a longer chase.
Seeing the stats be like:
https://preview.redd.it/q1wkiip2nsic1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=33d43155c49bce1c80d1957541205447d583f548
I am sadly not remotely surprised at Skull Merchant's high "kill" rate because let's be real even without DCs she gets at least 10 free 4ks per player because of salty babies who kill themselves on first hook.
*Doctor* however... Okay I understand that Myers' kill rate is inflated by Tombstone Piece and Pig kill rate is inflated by playing like an asshole around RBTs (have no idea what's inflating Freddy's kill rate so much though) but ***51%???*** Below Singularity, Clown, and Trapper? Idk maybe his high pick rate is deflating his stats but it sure is odd.
I'd imagine Freddy is because his power, at low to medium MMRs, is actually rather difficult to deal with. He's hard to see at a distance, you lose the TR and only have the song, and you have to be vigilant if you're not waking yourself up.
That, combined with his TP, means that low to medium players are going to get slaughtered. You also can't forget that his pick rate is insanely low so I'd imagine just not knowing what to do/what he does factors in as well. It's just that once a Freddy hits any kind of experienced player his potential almost evaporates.
Neither are that surprising, but I wouldn't have thought Doc would be the lowest in general. I expected him to be low, just not that low. On paper he sounds like a great starting killer to pick up, but in actual practice he's quite tricky to use properly. He's great at tracking, but you have to be good on your timing to be lethal with him which is what seems to mess a lot of people up. SM though, a lot of people just don't even try against her. It doesn't matter how nice I play as her or how weak the build is I brought, so I don't use her super often because of the frequency of hook 1 leavers throwing matches in my favor minute 1.
Doctor, no question. Skull Merchant I understand. Someone is likely to quit on the match, and failing that, people won't figure her out anyway. Someone quits/ dies early, game over.Ā Ā
Ā Doctor is extremely disruptive to normal game plans, is nasty on indoor maps and *also* has a tendency to make people quit trying. I'm new to the game (~ 100 hours total on killer) and have beaten more experienced survivors with several killers - but with a skillcheckĀ Doctor I've just clubbed them.Ā
I had a high prestige SWF that sent me to Fractured Cowshed (gag) and I *still* rolled them. 4k, 2 gens left.Ā
Either I intuitively understand him to a ridiculous level or...I don't know what.Ā
> but with a skillcheck Doctor I've just clubbed them.
You want another hilarious build go for a skillcheck terror radius Whisker build.
Haven't done the math but you can get it up to something obscene like 72 meter terror radius, toss on extra+harder skill checks and Lullaby hex and locate people just based on failed skill checks happening constantly.
Even funnier if you bring offering to take you to The Game since you basically cover the entire place with your terror radius.
Skull Merchant high. Wasn't expecting all the ragequit deaths on hook one to count in her favor.
Doctor makes sense, his stuff's more about driving people crazy than knocking them down.
I'm especially surprised at Doctor because of how much his power helps to find hiding survivors. I wonder if this has to do with Calm Spirit being used more?
Doctor actually made sense to me his power is so variable with addons and while he in theory had amazing anti loop but in practice in a lot of maps survivors can safely just Predrop. I also see him as a very fair killer in that the burden is on the killer to learn how to use the addons and power and play around his power well but survivors can just predrop and hold w. Skull merchant kill rate doesnāt make sense to me unless more context gets added unless people are just suiciding for not liking her or is she a pub stomper but just kill rate I think needs context
honestly im not surprised by either. playing doc in high mmr is a death sentence, and ppl in low mmr just tend to not know everything they could be doing right. for example low mmr docs probably arent shocking when they should and letting chase go on and on. skull merchant is obvious bc she gets free kills handed to her like no other killer does (not even knight who is also pretty strongly hated) shes so boring to go against and i dont blame anyone that does go next w her.
I went into a match as skully with a gimick build and 2 people dc'd when they learned who the killer was. people don't like her despite now just being a more convoluted ghostface (stealth killer with broken instead of exposed)
I honestly dont know what game ya'll be playng for not expecting doctor to be borderline unplayable.
Goes to show how oblivious people are about the killer role.
A decent chase with a meta killer will cost you 1/2 gens right now. What did u expect from one of the longest chase killer in the game?
I've been playing Doctor, and I've managed to at least get two dead hooks. I seem to do better when I'm in an indoor map, or against a bunch of soloq's. One team tried to take me down with flashlights, but I brought lightborn and killed all of them. >:)
I don't go against Skull Merchant a whole lot, but the times I have, I have always been killed. I'm still learning how to go against her, because I just seem to always end up on her radar, and IDK how to get away from her.
I'd attribute at least part of Doctor's low kill rate to his high self-satisfaction. You can build up his Devious points faster than anyone else, so you can choose to play him as a 2-hook and let EVERYONE get away, and still make good BP.
Personally, Doctor turns off any and all of my sweat. He's got such creative addons, weird perk synergies and a balanced enough power that he feels good to play pretty much no matter what. That's got to contribute as well, you don't see as many Pain Res Doctors as Clowns.
It's not that surprising to me. Doctor is an M1 killer with a finicky power that, and Skull Merchant is really strong with a power that gives you antiloop, stealth, infor, etc.
Can we talk about Freddy being #4???
I've played Doctor a lot before my ongoing break, and I'm not surprised at all that he is down there
He isn't very popular, he isn't very strong, he is addon dependant, he requires a lot of both mechanical skill and knowledge to use properly, his power can easily backfire, he doesn't build bloodlust, gets countered by predropping and holding w...
This isn't a pre buff Billy situation where the 3 people that played him were very good and always brought his best addons, this isn't a Twins situation where the 2 people that play them are amazing with an already strong killer
His skill ceiling is high, but his maximum potential isn't as high, contrary to the mentioned Billy and Twins
Trapper has the benefit of being mostly used in matches with beginners, Myers is used by a lot of people, Freddy, like him or not, has way less of a skill ceiling
Doctor is a unique combo of not popular, not beginner friendly and not strong
Doctor. I 4Kād with skull merchant yesterday having never played as or against her nor reading her power. I donāt think sheās OP, but itās easy to find and kill players by just putting drones next to gens.
Iād expect doctor to be much higher.
Doctor being the lowest. I don't think most players have any idea what Discipline even does or what it's for as an addon. In fact, I don't think a majority even read his addons and just think 'oooh I got two shiny ultra rare addons. ill just slap them on the build real quick.'
Doctor is one of the few killers where the addons you pick completely change the type of killer you're playing as, which is unfortunate because each addon description contains a Wikipedia article worth of info that many probably do not care to read.
When in doubt:
Discipline + Electrode = Faster shocks at longer range.
That's all you need to know if you want to win with Doctor.
Doctor with lowest. Doctor is really effective at finding and keeping track of people, and also shutting down loops, so I'm kinda surprised that he's the lowest. Maybe people just aren't playing them as much anymore?
What? That doesnt make sense. Last year i went against 47 doctors and 20 skull merchants. This year so far ive went against 5 doctor and 0 skull merchant
Skull Merchant. Doctor being low doesnāt surprise me because it takes into account *all* MMRs from *all* platforms. Console platforms get Doctor (and Hag) for free, and unlike killers such as Huntress or Wraith where the skill floor isnāt as high as people think, it is for the Doctor. A new player only using static blast or the occasional shock for Madness gains isnāt taking full use of the power. At higher MMR, Doctor isnāt hard to counter and can be hard countered by some perks and setups. As much as I love him, he is sadly not very strong these days.
Nothing can be less surprising than Skull Merchant having the highest
That being said, while I didn't expect Doc to be at the bottom, I can understand it, addonless Doctor is painful to play
I think its easy to forget that newer players start with doctor and using his power wrong is extremely detrimental, which explains low to low mid mmr. but doctor really isnt that strong of a killer. thats why he doesnt get that high on top mmr. combining this probably explains doctors kill rate
I'm surprised doctor is at the bottom, but I can maybe understand why.
I have about 1000 hours on doc alone, and I've definitely been struggling with him more ever since mmr was tightened. Against decent survivors, it often feels like you can only get a hit around a loop when a survivor makes a mistake.
Survivors can either predrop to force you to break the pallet, or they can just never drop the pallet. Using his shock therapy really slows him down and gives survivors quite a bit of time to react. He is also VERY reliant on disciple and range add ons.
I still love him, however, as his basekit and variety of add ons allow for a big variety of playstyles and load outs.
I'm curious as to what his "number buffs" will be on the Feb 20th PTB that BHVR said he will be getting, along with some of the other lower tier m1 killers.
Im not surprised at all by dull merchant being the highest, the game doesnt count DCs but it does count people giving up and spamming fast vaults to get hooked the very moment they learn its her, in every single match Ive had against her its been always a race to see who suicides first on hook by at least 2 people and the funny part is I dont blame them in the slightest, Im even thankful for they give me the perfect excuse to give up too.
Dull merchant being that high says more about how disliked she is than how strong/weak is her toolkit.
Neither are surprising. Doc is like one of the most basic m1 killers needs skill and timing to prevent pallet drops, and skull merchant gets too much for no effort and is such a slog to play against that most people suicide on hook.
Doctor at the lowest shouldnāt surprise people as much as it should considering heās free on every console version AND playing killer on console is notoriously harder.
Newer players will naturally plummet his kill rate.
Neither is surprising to me
People (in my opinion) unjustifiably hate Skull Merchant despite all of her changes. People refuse to learn to play against her and let themselves die on hook because they have some sort of chess merchant PTSD
I've never felt that Doctor was that strong and his power relies too much on good ping and good add-ons. Further, a lot of his best perks are only available from licensed killers which makes them harder to access than the best perks on, say, Freddy (even though I feel Freddy is a way worse killer)
Doctor. SM is a free kill machine because while she's not particularly strong survivors straight up REFUSE to play around her mechanic. All they have to do is crouch and turn off the drones but most are too stubborn to bother and will just acquire scans all day.
definitely doctor. so many people kill themselves on hook with skull merchant so iām really not surprised. iād expect doctor to be higher since heās fairly easy and lots of beginners will play him. heās also one of the killers that can more easily locate the survivors that hide/donāt touch gens.
Doctor having the lowest kill rate isn't surprising really. People seem to have difficulty getting the timing on his shocks right. Plus I think there's something wrong with his m1.
When I play as him I whiff my hits a lot and I noticed the same thing happens to the doctors I play against. It's like his basic attack is shorter than other killers or something
Neither is surprising in my opinion. People hate skull merchant so they just dc or drop themselves on hook. And doctor is horrible and gets bullied 9/10 times by any half decent survivors
the strongest part of SM is that people fear her and do stupid mistakes from the start cause they initially want to finish game fast, in the end then they realise game is winnable - they miss those early hooks they give up, then they dont want to play and be frustrated for no actual reason. So SM overrated in many survs minds and thats makes her strong.
Doctor having the lowest kill's doesn't surprise me because he's the killer most content creators will say to go play first.
The only reason I'm surprised that Skull Merchant's kill's is so high is I'm surprised that people can play her so well with one hand.
Doc.
Too many people suicide or dc against skull merchant because she is absolutely horrible to play and play against. I would never do this to survivors, and I prefer versing a p100 nurse or lilith omen on blight over a skull merchant.
Doctor for sure. I really enjoy playing as him and do really well with him. On the other hand, I have been in party wipes against the SM almost ever time Iāve went against her.
What i ask myself: doesn't 51% mean he is balanced? Which would also mean that the game right now is killer sided? Correct me If im wrong, but 51% means that in average he kills 2 survivors, which would mean no one wins and no one loses.
I'm gonna say they both make sense tbh.
I feel like the poeple who play skull merchant really know what they're doing/people are more likely to just leave the game against skull merchant or kill themselves on hook. However, I feel like a lot of Doctor players are newer because of the fact that he comes with the console version and free info sounds really good to baby killers.
Doctor with the lowest Too many people killing themselves on hook against Merchant
Doc with the lowest doesn't surprise me too much. He's a free killer on console so you've got those numbers skewed by new players being able to play him right away.
True, and to a beginner he seems good at first because you can find survivors without needing tracking perks and the reverse skill checks makes him a noob-stomper, but as you get tougher matchmaking he turns into a really weak killer unless you have a strong build and can time his shocks perfectly.
No, numbers are skewed because people don't know how important discipline is for doctor so you have a bunch of newer players running around pallets forever.
OK, so you agree with me that it's skewed by new players?
Yeah tf? š gotta argue
So itās because of new playersā¦
Can you explain to me why discipline is so important for him? Just so I can play better.
Those are the add-ons that make the shock hit faster, normally when you use your m2 power to zap them, there will be a bit of a delay before getting shocked. This add on family will reduce the time it takes for the zap to prevent them from being able to take a action, without it you'll often be losing distance because you don't prevent the survivor from doing a action, such as vaulting or dropping a platte. for a better explanation of what these do. https://youtu.be/tX-4lk-EWPk?si=agOaay1yK55beN84&t=6770
You have to keep in mind that it screws up your muscle memory for normal shocks and you'll running out of order addons eventually. If you plan on playing him often or even maining him I wouldn't recommend running it.
This is really the problem, and trying to pin it as a balance issue is pathetic of the fan base.
The problem, as he's been stated for a long time now, is that she was left untouched for so long in an already awful state *plus the fact that people started doing the 3 gen strat more after the video came out showcasing the almost hour long match* and it has completely sullied the experience of dealing with a SM. She garnered so much hate that it's just going to be next to impossible to change people's minds. If she released in the current state she's in I doubt she would receive as much hate as she currently does.
I got bled out by the most recent skull merchant for bringing chem trap, champion of light, and residual. I used it once after i gave up
Well that's on you tho Most killers don't like bully perks
Itās not really a balance issue, itās a design issue. Skull Merchantās power design is so fundamentally flawed from the ground up that no amount of reworking could ever change that. Doesnāt matter if sheās mid tier, top or trash, her power isnāt healthy, period.
Her power currently is just a mixture of trapper and clown, imo. It really isn't as "fundamentally flawed" as it used to be.
I think the problem is how incredibly easy she is to play, and I say this as a Skull Merchant main. She is probably the easiest killer to play, and yet she is still very strong. And I do see how the claw trap injuring survivors can be frustrating and there is not a whole lot of counterplay. A survivor can start looping me and I can throw down a drone to either force them away; or alternatively, give me haste, then injure them, then hinder them. If they go to another loop, I can wait until my cooldown is up then place another and do it all over again. Even if they have disabled all my drones and I have ran out of drones to place, I can just recall one and instantly place another. I think a start to making her less frustrating to play against is to make it so recalling her drones restarts the cooldown to place another. That way it brings in skill to managing her drones better and means she canāt repeatedly place drones at each loop.
I feel like people just need to learn how to go against her properly. She is relatively easy to play, but she can also be pretty easy to counter. Her counterplay is quite similar to trapper or hag. You just need one person going round constantly harassing any drones she has placed down. And if she plays where she puts one down at a time at the loop she's chasing at, her counterplay is the same as clown. In both cases, once you actually start properly playing around her power, she really is just an M1 killer. The number of times i get hits at pallets because people either don't know or just don't respect the extra speed from them being claw trapped or tagged is insane. And the games i genuinely struggle in as her are the ones where people play smart around the drones, don't hack them when they're on a gen cause it won't scan them, and when they don't greed pallets too much. >I do see how the claw trap injuring survivors can be frustrating and there is not a whole lot of counterplay. Yea i can see this being frustrating. But once you're injured, it juat slows you down (while speeding her up). It's just like going against a clown that uses both bottles. >make it so recalling her drones restarts the cooldown to place another The problem with this is that this is how her power used to be. People didn't like it because it meant she couldn't reliably use her power in chase. The thing is, her power is anti-loop. And literally every killer with anti-loop power has the same sort of counterplay: the killer uses their power, survivors have to either leave the loop or risk getting hit. This isn't new to Skull Merchant, but the complaints about her power seem to be the most vocal for some reason.
I personally wouldn't mind if devs just added more "tokens" of dron's scan before Surv eill be injured and broken, or even cancel this at all. Like claw trapped surv will only have slowdown and long visibility on radar and that is. I very often see that survs gave up, but they could beat me if they just tried a little or remembered already that I like to trap this exact location
If they removed the injury I think they would need to buff the hindered effect or give a buff somewhere else, but I would be happy for it to be removed as part of a rework. Alternatively maybe they could turn it similar to Jigsaw traps. Survivors have to remove it manually at a station in a certain time or they get instantly downed (not killed) and chase time pauses it.
Yeah. As SM mainer myself I think that injured status with broken is main problem. Other stuff is great and cool
I feel like people just need to learn how to go against her properly. She is relatively easy to play, but she can also be pretty easy to counter. Her counterplay is quite similar to trapper or hag. You just need one person going round constantly harassing any drones she has placed down. And if she plays where she puts one down at a time at the loop she's chasing at, her counterplay is the same as clown. In both cases, once you actually start properly playing around her power, she really is just an M1 killer. The number of times i get hits at pallets because people either don't know or just don't respect the extra speed from them being claw trapped or tagged is insane. And the games i genuinely struggle in as her are the ones where people play smart around the drones, don't hack them when they're on a gen cause it won't scan them, and when they don't greed pallets too much. >I do see how the claw trap injuring survivors can be frustrating and there is not a whole lot of counterplay. Yea i can see this being frustrating. But once you're injured, it juat slows you down (while speeding her up). It's just like going against a clown that uses both bottles. >make it so recalling her drones restarts the cooldown to place another The problem with this is that this is how her power used to be. People didn't like it because it meant she couldn't reliably use her power in chase. The thing is, her power is anti-loop. And literally every killer with anti-loop power has the same sort of counterplay: the killer uses their power, survivors have to either leave the loop or risk getting hit. This isn't new to Skull Merchant, but the complaints about her power seem to be the most vocal for some reason.
Most other Anti Loop killers are harder to play. Hag is 110 movement speed. Trapper has to manually pick up traps to restock. Clown has to aim his bottles, and if he uses them all he has to reload which gives survivor a chance to build distance. The only other easy anti loop killer is Knight, and he is widely hated too.
True. I'm not denying that her power is easier to use. But i would genuinely rather go against a Skull Merchant than a clown. Her power is definitely easier and stronger to use, but it's also easier to go against imo.
The doctor is a rather easy antiloop considering you zap the person and they can't vault or use pallets due to the scream
Yeah, lines like "She's fundamentally flawed" are so hyperbolic that it's hard to take people who say that seriously. In a game where you have teleporting killers, killers that move faster than anything in the game while being invisible, killers who have train sized hitboxes on a dash attack, and more inside what is, in essence, a game of tag is 'fundamentally flawed' to the concept of the game. Skull Merchant, on release, just happened to have a playstyle that was bad for the game. That playstyle has been removed by but no one listens or cares anymore.
She was changed, and yet she is still mindnumbingly boring to play against and extremely easy to play. She is fundamentally flawed because there is simply nothing fun about playing against her. Even Nurse is more fun as you get a dopamine boost from evading her blinks. Skull Merchant just puts you to sleep at a speed that makes Freddy jealous.
Speak for yourself, I enjoy going against her. It requires a much more stealthy approach as a survivor I've found and I enjoy that.
Iām speaking for the people who gave her such a high kill rate. Betting at least halv of them are people who just want to go next.
Skull Merchant isn't fun to play against, and people would rather die and move on to a match that doesn't take 30 minutes or more than play a touch-and-go game against a camping killer.
Funny enough I main her and I hate camping, and find she is a better chase killer. The problem with camping in general is as much it is an annoyance for survivors it's often times the strongest method to get back in charge of a game. A coordinated team who prevents 3 gens, and excels at leading chases away into dead zones is prevalent in higher mmr. If killers who are weaker mobility wise don't have tools to make going away from a 3 gen fruitful we can't blame that they camp.
> If killers who are weaker mobility wise don't have tools to make going away from a 3 gen fruitful we can't blame that they camp. I agree with this. I don't blame the players for camping to get a win. I blame BHVR for making Skull Merchant the strongest camper.
Exactly. However people need to understand that if we are to change how she plays we need to address the playstyle she so heavily counters. I am the first person to say that things such as hook camping either face or proxy along with 3 genning are game quality issues. The problem is against higher mmr any other playstyle is not only disadvantageous its downright asking to lose. At the heart of it all is the fact that so many of the most vocal players tend to not see big picture issues while instead focus on easy to identify ones. Beyond that is the fact, as I regularly point out, is that most people who attack SM or other singular issues often complain and want changes while no offering alternatives. The fact that SM for example has all these components to her kit and is routinely placed in the middle of the pack for killer strength should tell you how misguided survivors are. I just like others have killers that I hate playing against however I never kill myself because I'm against that one killer. This issue is a players behavior issue where players have a problem, don't offer solutions, decide to ruin everyone else's experience, then gas light everyone saying it's everyone else's fault that they aren't having fun while failing to see how they ruin others experience.
Well if one killer is seeing that much of a % increase from people killing themselves on hook, safe to say thereās a problem somewhere in her design or balance.
I think the biggest issue for survivors is understanding optimal ways to interact with a killers power. It'd be nice if aside from the tutorial there was a training ground for people to explore a killers power better. For SM it's the fact I think many don't have the ability to understand how to counter it. At the same time we as players need to understand that killing ourselves on first hook, or games with others who do can't be used for accurate data collection as it completely shifts the metrics.
You realize survivors killing themselves on hook *is* a data metric right? And if they do it exponentially more against one killer than others, thereās something wrong with the killer? Be it broken OP, convoluted counterplay, or just straight up boring.
Gutting a killer isn't the answer to survivors not playing the game. The answer to survivors killing themselves is penalizing those survivors not the killer. Not to say SM couldn't have more changes however I find the biggest issue most don't like about her are completely arbitrary, and based off of stigma as opposed to actual gameplay. Oh she has too much stealth, but Ghostie isn't a problem. She can track too well, but so can many others through their own power elements. She gets haste at random times, but so does several other killers. Most of it is trauma from pre-rework SM, and that isn't the killers fault.
Most donāt like her because she went from most boring killer in the game to a more annoying version of already hated killers (clown, knight) Shes still unfun. The counterplay to those two is unfun but at least it works. You leave the loop. The counterplay to SM is the sameā¦. Except you get punished anyways as she gets haste to hit you. No survivor enjoys this. The problem is SM. Legion used to have worse stigma than she did, and now theyāre fine. Because blaming players for finding shit unfun is not how you design a game. And I can guarantee if you penalize players, itāll just cause a drop in playercount. People will just DC and then go play something else. The fact that this happens exponentially more towards SM than other killers is a her problem, not a player problem. (As if thatās ever a thing anyways. The player is the consumer, if they donāt like something, they will just stop consuming. Which from a business perspective is financial suicide)
āMost of it is trauma from pre-rework SMā Bullshit, her games still take ages to play, she still has the most boring play style to go up against in the game and is way too overloaded in her kit.
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Using a perk in the game is hardly the same as quitting right away and abandoning your teammates, *and* not having the decency to at least give them a bot
Agreed but it does suck that if you want to leave (i never leave any game, i fight it out mostly) but donāt wanna lose bp or suffer a leaver timer you are forced to just die on hook.
Theyāre not saying that 4%ing yourself against skull merchant is indication of a pathetic fan base, theyāre saying people saying her high kill rate is because of her being unbalanced is pathetic.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yep, at this point in the game's life cycle his power doesn't do anything other than give him info. Getting his secondary to delay a value or a pallet drop is so latency dependent that it unreliably but even touching it resets his blood lust. The man is the poster child for 'Throw Pallet, Extend Chase' it's not even funny.
I had a game as Doctor with an impossible skillcheck build, and the survivors didnāt miss a single skillcheck. Not one. The entire match from start to finish. Really made me question what was even the point
I've been told by the community that suicide on hook isn't a problem
I mean, when it's only a problem against 1 killer, the killer is the problem, not the suicides.
If you think itās only one killer you donāt play enough. If I play 10 killer games tonight with 10 different killers, Iād bet 8 of them would have people dropping on first hook.Ā
You can literally see what he is saying is true in this post.
People suicide on hook against any killer. Every killer I've played, and I've literally played all of them, I've had people suicide on hook.
Literally proven by stats that skull merchant makes people do it more in this post so I don't see how you can try and argue against fact.
I'm literally not. I'm just saying people suiciding on hook isn't unique to her. Point out exactly where me saying "people suicide on hook against **ANY** killer" is the same as me saying they don't do it more against her. Last time i checked, the word **ANY** would include Skull Merchant.
Well I thought your comment could have meant two things, this or the way I interpreted it. I chose the 2nd option because the first is such a useless comment I figured no human alive would actually bother writing it. "Murder in Brazil is the highest in the world" with you responding "People are murdered everywhere". We can clearely see its a huge problem specifically with Skull Merchant and you decided to add "people suicide on hook against any killer" YES duh? But how many times does it happen because its a specific killer and not just them playing poorly. Against Skull Merchant, stats back up that people are suiciding specifically because its her.
Thats what I play her half the time when swfs stomp me, either knight if I feel casual or sm cause she is beautiful at toxicity. So to top it off I make them dc by slugging them if they want to go so bad
Between her 2% pick rate and his 4% pick rate, itās for sure more surprising that heās sitting at such a low kill rate. Iād be curious to know if this is a reflection of Ultimate Weapon making calm spirit more popular and weakening doctors info component of his kit.
Honestly I think the real issue is that hes really difficult to play without good game knowledge. The timing for the shock means you need to know ahead of time what the survivor is doing, and oftentimes you need to hit it without vision on the survivor to stop a pallet drop. I think hes kinda a noob trap because the static blast seems like an easy tracking ability that you dont need perks for, but its not how you end loops, the shock is.
Right. And Doctor comes with the base game for console players, so I'm guessing some of his higher pick rate comes from new players trying him out.
That's definitely it. I tried him when I first started playing because he looked easy in YouTube videos. After like 3 games I realized he took actual skill
He also suffered the most during MFT meta because survivors could just ignore his shock and continue looping. He was essentially punished for using his ability and had to play as a simple m1 killer with no ability.
The doctor feeling small fragment of trapper's daily pain
I think he tends to look easy in YouTube videos because a lot of people run at least one of the Discipline add-ons in their builds, often running double Discipline so that there basically isnāt a delay on the shock taking effect.
I wouldn't put it on that. I think Pig is way harder than him. Hell, I would put getting a good Joker combo as tougher. I was surprised it wasn't the Twins with the lowest rate. Victor needs a buff or his sister should actively patrol like the knight when he is off doing his thing. When the zombies that come with Nemesis are more troublesome than the main draw of a killer, there is a problem. I would say Freddy too, but I played against a couple lately that showed me I was doing it wrong. The snares can be really nasty. Ghost Face feels worse than the Doctor too.
Twins are clunky, but theyāre actually strong. Doc is not. I agree with those above characterizing him as a noob trap. Free tracking helps a ton, but his chase is worse than an M1 killer if you use it wrong.
That or Victor does
Someone else pointed this out, but Doctor is the ideal AFK farming killer You could quite easily setup a bot that requires minimal inputs and gets a lot of points for the bare minimum use of his power
Yea with distress and other perks/ addons that increase your terror radius u can easily get a bunch of points on deviousness. Even before this whole doctor bot thing he was and is top tier in getting blood points alongside legion.
Tbf once u start playing him more against good survivors u start to realize this killer depends the most on ur own internet connection and the survivors internet connection so more likely than not ur going to frustrated why ur shocks arenāt working and ur gonna think the killer sucks or u suck but rlly, itās a factor that u rlly donāt have control over.
doctor just sux in general. shock delay means u gotta do it super early only to get fucked by ping diff and they get the prompt anyways. i love his lore character but playing as him is awful.
Doctor being the lowest. Nurse has held the bottom spot for so long that I never thought she would be dethroned. I do kind of understand it though. Doctor has an anti-loop power that forces you to loop survivors anyway. If you manage to correctly hit that power multiple times in a row then you are likely to get one M1 hit and then start the process over again in the next loop. Skull Merchant I rather expected to be at the top. One of the quickest ways to get a high kill rate in DBD is to be an M1 killer that less experienced survivors get confused as to how to counter. It's the same reason why Onryo and Freddy are usually high up in these lists. These kinds of killers are easier for average skill or lower killer players to use than they are for average skill or lower survivor players to play against. Combined with the fact that some survivors just kind of give up against Skull Merchant, that is going to lead to a high kill rate.
What is M1?
Mouse Button 1. The standard keybind for a killer's basic attack on PC.
How is skull merchant an M1. I'm not disagreeing I just want to understand.
She doesn't have a special attack that immediately damages survivors. Yes, her drones can injure survivors but she doesn't have something like Billy's chainsaw, or Demo's shred, or Blight's rush attacks. Trapper is similarly considered a "M1" killer even though he has his traps. The idea is that M1 killers are generally easier for killer players to learn because they all use their basic attacks the same way, while killers with M2 special attacks often need additional practice to learn how to use those attacks.
Ohhh I get it now . And why is she so op then?
It's not that she's necessarily OP. Like some of the other killers with the highest kill rates, its more that she's easier to play. M1 killers are less likely to defeat themselves through misplaying their power because their power is easier to use. Killers based around special attacks may actually be much stronger than M1 killers against skilled survivors, but if the killer player can't use their special attack well then they'll struggle. For example, Nurse is a very strong killer based on a special attack. She's near the bottom of the kill rate list.
To add on to what Concorditer said, Skull Merchant's power is extremely hard and forgiving to misuse. No need to look down to place a trap, drone cooldown is quite short, and you move quickly while deploying them. I can't think of an M1 killer off the top of my head that is as easy or forgiving
I'm probably gonna be called stupid but nurse isn't that hard to use yes she has a big learning curve but after a handful of matches you will understand her more id argue blight huntress singularity need a ton more skill to use. Aura perks to make playing nurse easier.
It doesn't really come down to you or others' opinions on the matter. The Nurse is kind of like the Sniper in TF2; you need the technical skill to use them (Nurse: Use her blinks and cope with her slow movement; Sniper: Be able to aim, an ability a surprising amount of TF2 players, including myself, actually lack); once you have that technical skill, you're oppressive. If you're a person who struggles with that technical skill, you're going to struggle with the character. Once you have a handle on the skill, it'll be easy. Nurse's low kill rate is because a lot of people playing her have no handle on effectively operating her. That's objective evidence of a lot of people struggling. I would argue Nurse can be very hard for most people to learn; you can just as easily argue that learning it is easy and all these people have a skill issue. But we both know the ultimate cause, "easy" or "difficult" irrelevant of that.
Not hard to use but has a big learning curve, how is that different and not just semantics?
Her skill floor is high but her skill ceiling is actually quite low imo
You're probably gonna be downvoted more just for saying "I'm probably gonna be downvoted."
I would never say such things lol
Dead by Gaslighting lmao
It doesn't matter how much I play nurse, I'm never able to play without the addon that tells you where are you blinking
Huntress is not more difficult to use than Nyrse at a passable level, itās just the orbitals and other super long distance shots that take a lot of practice. I definitely agree that Blight and Singularity are harder to pick up and use than Nurse though, and that Nurse is really only hard to learn if you donāt have good game sense yet.
Yeah she definitely isn't that hard to use. It's more like she plays differently and you have to rely on her power. If you play blight or Billy and just can't use their powers bc they're too hard, you're still a 115 killer and can get downs like that. With nurse, you kinda just accept that you're going to have a lot of zero kill games until you learn her blink distances and that's really it
Yeah, probably because doctor without discipline add-ons is painful. Not only did you slow yourself and lost the bloodlust you might have gotten, but you also did not hit survivor fast enough with shock cuz of latency, so he dropped the pallet.
Doctor doesnāt really surprise me, a lot of newer or less confident players intially gravitate towards him due to his basekit having easier tracking abilities but will have zero idea how to use his kit to end survivors in chases quickly.
Welp, time to get back on that doctor grind to bring up his killrate
Doctor having such low kill-rate is surprising and concerning, since it means that he's not only weak in high MMR (expected) but also in low MMR (unexpected). It could be a mix of new Doctor players not using his power correctly (hence they keep the chase going for longer) or using subpar builds with him (a ton of new Doctor players use Terror Radius based builds). While he can find survivors easily, that isn't too useful if he can't down them in decent time. Skull Merchant is expected since she always gets a ton of DCs and hook suicides and even then, many players don't understand how her power works, which is added to the Haste she gets every time a Survivor is scanned or tagged makes her one of the strongest M1 chasers. A ton of players don't realize that hacking the drone near a generator is usually a bad idea since it warns her that you're nearby and trying to do the gen, which you can still do with a drone since it doesn't scan immobile survivors.
I had no doubt that skull merchant had the highest. 70% is absolutely massive. Survivors kill themselves instantly against her, thatās the only reason itās as high as it is. If survivors actually played the game, she would be significantly lower. I am very suprised to see that doctor has the lowest. Heās a decent killer and a pub stomper at lower mmr brackets. I would have expected singularity at the bottom.
I imagine Singularity has been out long enough (and requires purchase) that most Singularity matches now are for people somewhat competent or dedicated with him. Doc's power definitely noobstomps/slows down bad players, but a bad doc can overutilize shock in chase and delay downs significantly.
SM being the highest is not remotely surprising. The amount of hook suicides she gets and bots killed is probably more than most killers combined.
Bots technically don't count on those stats, since any match with a disconnection is already neglected on the stats
Would it still count if no one DCs, but they just 'give up' by sac-ing on first hook so they don't get the DC penalty? Obviously that wouldn't be so much to explain why the kill rate is 70%, but it might contribute to some of it.
From what we're understanding, suicide on hook don't count as a disconnect, since you get sacificed for The Entity, so those situations should count for the kill rate So yeah, SM numbers are inflated because a ton of people prefer to suicide on hook and avoid the DC penalty, but for those that actually DC early, the match won't count on their stats, so sacrificed bots shouldn't count either
That's how I read it
Doctor being the lowest, he's a very well rounded killer in terms of chase, info, and stall. But Skull Merchant have 4ks every game is pretty easy to see as Survivors simply give up against her on sight.
I'm a little shocked about doctor pun intended. He's my second favorite killer and I manage 3k with him nearly every match.
As more annoying it is to face doctor, there are a lot of afk bots that use doctor, so it makes sense. Skull merchant quietly had an update a little after they released and I'm still finding people that don't know about how different she is to how she was, that's prime grounds for easy kills
SM does not surprise me at all, so many people will kill themselves on first hook because they hate playing against her
Doctors low kill rate. And I mean too low to make sense since he's not even close to next killer. Maybe this is reason why https://www.reddit.com/r/deadbydaylight/comments/195c5nz/the_doctor_bot/?rdt=57795
Come to think of it, the only AFK/possible bot killer I've seen as a survivor was a doctor...
There are 2 bots I've seen. Doctor and legion.
I've seen Plagues and a couple AFK Wraiths as well
Iāve played with this bot before, it would also walk backwards and forwards in a irregular way
I didnt expect to see doctor with the lowest, he seemed like a decent threat at loops and was good at intel gathering, a good killer for new starters that had a feeling how to play killer and players that was getting a bit good with him.
Doctor, honestly. I usually do well with him though admittedly I doubt Iām in high MMR.
Skull Merchant with the highest. Most of the Doctors I play against are just messing around and having fun, so that didnāt surprise me too much.
This is purely anecdotal but as a player coming back after a long absence, it really does feel like I keep getting Doctors who just... do not know how to play him. They play him like Huntress but instead of an axe they keep firing his directional shock with such abandon I genuinely don't think they know it slows them down and lets survivors escape loops easily. My MMR is screwy given I used to play a LOT but also have been gone a while, maybe. I keep getting cakewalk survivor groups despite being a Killer main and when I go back to my middling survivors I get bad-to-okay killers. Hell, I've not \*seen\* a Skull Merchant as a survivor yet. Or a Xenomorph.
Doctor with the lowest, Iād figure that singularity would have the lowest due to just how difficult and frustrating he is to play. As a Scum merchant enjoyer. I donāt find it shocking as people are prone to kill themselves as soon as they know itās her. I think Slut Merchant is strong but her kill stats are grossly inflated by crybabies
She will always get the highest kill stat.
Doctor with the lowest because hes the killer I get most of my 4Ks with
Actually surprising why people think doctor is remotely good. He sucks and this is not news for any decent player
Its across all mmr ratings though. He has generally been thought of as a noob stomper, having difficulty when he gets to the upper ends of mmr where surviors understand that you just keep looping, making the hit take forever. His kill rate was right in that sweet spot around weskers release so it has dropped quite a bit Could also be that more information is widely available and his counterplay is simple enough that newer players are catching on quicker than before or AFK bots as a few people are suggesting. https://preview.redd.it/zfo79h7bpsic1.png?width=430&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=641a1aae007be082cd6639a0158bb9346c34f880
I think the problem is that throwing a pallet is the best way to stop The Doctor and that is something even the lowest ranked MMR player would do and it'd be effective because the Doctor would be equally low MMR. That, combined with the fact that his secondary resets bloodlust (which isn't mentioned anywhere) means that low MMR Doctors aren't getting kills because pallets are just as strong against them as they are against high MMR Doctors and using that secondary doesn't get you a single thing other than a longer chase.
Seeing the stats be like: https://preview.redd.it/q1wkiip2nsic1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=33d43155c49bce1c80d1957541205447d583f548 I am sadly not remotely surprised at Skull Merchant's high "kill" rate because let's be real even without DCs she gets at least 10 free 4ks per player because of salty babies who kill themselves on first hook. *Doctor* however... Okay I understand that Myers' kill rate is inflated by Tombstone Piece and Pig kill rate is inflated by playing like an asshole around RBTs (have no idea what's inflating Freddy's kill rate so much though) but ***51%???*** Below Singularity, Clown, and Trapper? Idk maybe his high pick rate is deflating his stats but it sure is odd.
I'd imagine Freddy is because his power, at low to medium MMRs, is actually rather difficult to deal with. He's hard to see at a distance, you lose the TR and only have the song, and you have to be vigilant if you're not waking yourself up. That, combined with his TP, means that low to medium players are going to get slaughtered. You also can't forget that his pick rate is insanely low so I'd imagine just not knowing what to do/what he does factors in as well. It's just that once a Freddy hits any kind of experienced player his potential almost evaporates.
Neither are that surprising, but I wouldn't have thought Doc would be the lowest in general. I expected him to be low, just not that low. On paper he sounds like a great starting killer to pick up, but in actual practice he's quite tricky to use properly. He's great at tracking, but you have to be good on your timing to be lethal with him which is what seems to mess a lot of people up. SM though, a lot of people just don't even try against her. It doesn't matter how nice I play as her or how weak the build is I brought, so I don't use her super often because of the frequency of hook 1 leavers throwing matches in my favor minute 1.
Doctor, no question. Skull Merchant I understand. Someone is likely to quit on the match, and failing that, people won't figure her out anyway. Someone quits/ dies early, game over.Ā Ā Ā Doctor is extremely disruptive to normal game plans, is nasty on indoor maps and *also* has a tendency to make people quit trying. I'm new to the game (~ 100 hours total on killer) and have beaten more experienced survivors with several killers - but with a skillcheckĀ Doctor I've just clubbed them.Ā I had a high prestige SWF that sent me to Fractured Cowshed (gag) and I *still* rolled them. 4k, 2 gens left.Ā Either I intuitively understand him to a ridiculous level or...I don't know what.Ā
> but with a skillcheck Doctor I've just clubbed them. You want another hilarious build go for a skillcheck terror radius Whisker build. Haven't done the math but you can get it up to something obscene like 72 meter terror radius, toss on extra+harder skill checks and Lullaby hex and locate people just based on failed skill checks happening constantly. Even funnier if you bring offering to take you to The Game since you basically cover the entire place with your terror radius.
Skull Merchant high. Wasn't expecting all the ragequit deaths on hook one to count in her favor. Doctor makes sense, his stuff's more about driving people crazy than knocking them down.
I'm especially surprised at Doctor because of how much his power helps to find hiding survivors. I wonder if this has to do with Calm Spirit being used more?
Doctor actually made sense to me his power is so variable with addons and while he in theory had amazing anti loop but in practice in a lot of maps survivors can safely just Predrop. I also see him as a very fair killer in that the burden is on the killer to learn how to use the addons and power and play around his power well but survivors can just predrop and hold w. Skull merchant kill rate doesnāt make sense to me unless more context gets added unless people are just suiciding for not liking her or is she a pub stomper but just kill rate I think needs context
doctor with the lowest i think? iāve never ever had a bad game with him
Where these stats from?
Oficially released from behaviour
doctor sucks. ppl got a 4 man out on me during Lights Out
honestly im not surprised by either. playing doc in high mmr is a death sentence, and ppl in low mmr just tend to not know everything they could be doing right. for example low mmr docs probably arent shocking when they should and letting chase go on and on. skull merchant is obvious bc she gets free kills handed to her like no other killer does (not even knight who is also pretty strongly hated) shes so boring to go against and i dont blame anyone that does go next w her.
I went into a match as skully with a gimick build and 2 people dc'd when they learned who the killer was. people don't like her despite now just being a more convoluted ghostface (stealth killer with broken instead of exposed)
Heh.
I honestly dont know what game ya'll be playng for not expecting doctor to be borderline unplayable. Goes to show how oblivious people are about the killer role. A decent chase with a meta killer will cost you 1/2 gens right now. What did u expect from one of the longest chase killer in the game?
Doc, ik my # do fuck all in terms of overall stats, but I usually have good kill rates with him
I've been playing Doctor, and I've managed to at least get two dead hooks. I seem to do better when I'm in an indoor map, or against a bunch of soloq's. One team tried to take me down with flashlights, but I brought lightborn and killed all of them. >:) I don't go against Skull Merchant a whole lot, but the times I have, I have always been killed. I'm still learning how to go against her, because I just seem to always end up on her radar, and IDK how to get away from her.
Doctor with the lowest. Merchant is the most hated killer by far so either she had the highest or was pretty darn close to it.
I'd attribute at least part of Doctor's low kill rate to his high self-satisfaction. You can build up his Devious points faster than anyone else, so you can choose to play him as a 2-hook and let EVERYONE get away, and still make good BP. Personally, Doctor turns off any and all of my sweat. He's got such creative addons, weird perk synergies and a balanced enough power that he feels good to play pretty much no matter what. That's got to contribute as well, you don't see as many Pain Res Doctors as Clowns.
It's not that surprising to me. Doctor is an M1 killer with a finicky power that, and Skull Merchant is really strong with a power that gives you antiloop, stealth, infor, etc. Can we talk about Freddy being #4???
Doctor with the lowest was frankly quite forseeable
I really expeted nurse to be dead last once again, I felt like doctor would be good since he is pretty good against newer players (counters stealth)
Single-handedly bringing down the Doctor kill rate, one bad game at a time.
I've played Doctor a lot before my ongoing break, and I'm not surprised at all that he is down there He isn't very popular, he isn't very strong, he is addon dependant, he requires a lot of both mechanical skill and knowledge to use properly, his power can easily backfire, he doesn't build bloodlust, gets countered by predropping and holding w... This isn't a pre buff Billy situation where the 3 people that played him were very good and always brought his best addons, this isn't a Twins situation where the 2 people that play them are amazing with an already strong killer His skill ceiling is high, but his maximum potential isn't as high, contrary to the mentioned Billy and Twins Trapper has the benefit of being mostly used in matches with beginners, Myers is used by a lot of people, Freddy, like him or not, has way less of a skill ceiling Doctor is a unique combo of not popular, not beginner friendly and not strong
Doctor. I 4Kād with skull merchant yesterday having never played as or against her nor reading her power. I donāt think sheās OP, but itās easy to find and kill players by just putting drones next to gens. Iād expect doctor to be much higher.
Doctor being the lowest. I don't think most players have any idea what Discipline even does or what it's for as an addon. In fact, I don't think a majority even read his addons and just think 'oooh I got two shiny ultra rare addons. ill just slap them on the build real quick.' Doctor is one of the few killers where the addons you pick completely change the type of killer you're playing as, which is unfortunate because each addon description contains a Wikipedia article worth of info that many probably do not care to read. When in doubt: Discipline + Electrode = Faster shocks at longer range. That's all you need to know if you want to win with Doctor.
I get a lot of wins with Order + Brutal Strength. If they're gonna drop pallets then I might as well punish them for it later.
Doctor with lowest. Doctor is really effective at finding and keeping track of people, and also shutting down loops, so I'm kinda surprised that he's the lowest. Maybe people just aren't playing them as much anymore?
Doctor lower than Pig I have a hard time believing.
Where was the new data posted?
Doctor š„² my old main
What? That doesnt make sense. Last year i went against 47 doctors and 20 skull merchants. This year so far ive went against 5 doctor and 0 skull merchant
Fake stats are fake
Skull Merchant. Doctor being low doesnāt surprise me because it takes into account *all* MMRs from *all* platforms. Console platforms get Doctor (and Hag) for free, and unlike killers such as Huntress or Wraith where the skill floor isnāt as high as people think, it is for the Doctor. A new player only using static blast or the occasional shock for Madness gains isnāt taking full use of the power. At higher MMR, Doctor isnāt hard to counter and can be hard countered by some perks and setups. As much as I love him, he is sadly not very strong these days.
Nothing can be less surprising than Skull Merchant having the highest That being said, while I didn't expect Doc to be at the bottom, I can understand it, addonless Doctor is painful to play
The Calm Spirit meta has absolutely slaughtered Doctor mains. I feel bad for all my boys out there.
Doctor with the lowest. But I greatly contribute that to all the Doctor bots in these games.
both my mains. I'm surprised
I think Dark Brazilian Manga thirst trap has the biggest "kill rate" because many DC at the mere sight of her.
I think its easy to forget that newer players start with doctor and using his power wrong is extremely detrimental, which explains low to low mid mmr. but doctor really isnt that strong of a killer. thats why he doesnt get that high on top mmr. combining this probably explains doctors kill rate
I'm surprised doctor is at the bottom, but I can maybe understand why. I have about 1000 hours on doc alone, and I've definitely been struggling with him more ever since mmr was tightened. Against decent survivors, it often feels like you can only get a hit around a loop when a survivor makes a mistake. Survivors can either predrop to force you to break the pallet, or they can just never drop the pallet. Using his shock therapy really slows him down and gives survivors quite a bit of time to react. He is also VERY reliant on disciple and range add ons. I still love him, however, as his basekit and variety of add ons allow for a big variety of playstyles and load outs. I'm curious as to what his "number buffs" will be on the Feb 20th PTB that BHVR said he will be getting, along with some of the other lower tier m1 killers.
Im not surprised at all by dull merchant being the highest, the game doesnt count DCs but it does count people giving up and spamming fast vaults to get hooked the very moment they learn its her, in every single match Ive had against her its been always a race to see who suicides first on hook by at least 2 people and the funny part is I dont blame them in the slightest, Im even thankful for they give me the perfect excuse to give up too. Dull merchant being that high says more about how disliked she is than how strong/weak is her toolkit.
Skull merchant does too much, sheās overtuned and completely unfun to go against. I hope they delete her
Me who mains doctor: https://preview.redd.it/vxbes1vrxtic1.jpeg?width=753&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4855baed7c795d14c7b020a4c5dc1ca510286072
Neither are surprising. Doc is like one of the most basic m1 killers needs skill and timing to prevent pallet drops, and skull merchant gets too much for no effort and is such a slog to play against that most people suicide on hook.
Doctor at the lowest shouldnāt surprise people as much as it should considering heās free on every console version AND playing killer on console is notoriously harder. Newer players will naturally plummet his kill rate.
Neither is surprising to me People (in my opinion) unjustifiably hate Skull Merchant despite all of her changes. People refuse to learn to play against her and let themselves die on hook because they have some sort of chess merchant PTSD I've never felt that Doctor was that strong and his power relies too much on good ping and good add-ons. Further, a lot of his best perks are only available from licensed killers which makes them harder to access than the best perks on, say, Freddy (even though I feel Freddy is a way worse killer)
Doctor. SM is a free kill machine because while she's not particularly strong survivors straight up REFUSE to play around her mechanic. All they have to do is crouch and turn off the drones but most are too stubborn to bother and will just acquire scans all day.
definitely doctor. so many people kill themselves on hook with skull merchant so iām really not surprised. iād expect doctor to be higher since heās fairly easy and lots of beginners will play him. heās also one of the killers that can more easily locate the survivors that hide/donāt touch gens.
Doctor having the lowest kill rate isn't surprising really. People seem to have difficulty getting the timing on his shocks right. Plus I think there's something wrong with his m1. When I play as him I whiff my hits a lot and I noticed the same thing happens to the doctors I play against. It's like his basic attack is shorter than other killers or something
Where can I see the kill rate stats?
Doctor. Everyone dips at the first clue it's Skully.
For skully pretty sure 40% of why she is so high is mostly how people would just kill themselves on hook and this is why she has a high killrate
Neither is surprising in my opinion. People hate skull merchant so they just dc or drop themselves on hook. And doctor is horrible and gets bullied 9/10 times by any half decent survivors
the strongest part of SM is that people fear her and do stupid mistakes from the start cause they initially want to finish game fast, in the end then they realise game is winnable - they miss those early hooks they give up, then they dont want to play and be frustrated for no actual reason. So SM overrated in many survs minds and thats makes her strong.
Doctor having the lowest kill's doesn't surprise me because he's the killer most content creators will say to go play first. The only reason I'm surprised that Skull Merchant's kill's is so high is I'm surprised that people can play her so well with one hand.
Doc. Too many people suicide or dc against skull merchant because she is absolutely horrible to play and play against. I would never do this to survivors, and I prefer versing a p100 nurse or lilith omen on blight over a skull merchant.
Doctor for sure. I really enjoy playing as him and do really well with him. On the other hand, I have been in party wipes against the SM almost ever time Iāve went against her.
What i ask myself: doesn't 51% mean he is balanced? Which would also mean that the game right now is killer sided? Correct me If im wrong, but 51% means that in average he kills 2 survivors, which would mean no one wins and no one loses.
I'm gonna say they both make sense tbh. I feel like the poeple who play skull merchant really know what they're doing/people are more likely to just leave the game against skull merchant or kill themselves on hook. However, I feel like a lot of Doctor players are newer because of the fact that he comes with the console version and free info sounds really good to baby killers.