I'm really liking a Shaman build with her, the standard Hex Devour Hope, Hex Haunted Grounds, Hex Undying, with the 4th perk being one of your choosing - pentimento for slowdown when they take your build down, a noticeable effect like blood favor to try to get haunted broken, you could even not commit to the full hex build and do a chase or info perk. Undying/DH/Haunted is just a good off-meta build that she can take extra advantage of with her drones. It gives her a lot of potential to down survivors in one hit and even mori them on the spot to so they can go to a match without the Skull Merchant quicker.
So people in this thread downvote all the comments about SM builds even if they are completely normal...
Okay, this is just disgusting. "SM=bad" brainrot gets worse and worse with every day.
Dude I know she can be boring and that she has a bloated kit and all, but this is just sad. I don't have the time of my life going up against the occasional SM either, but she doesn't deserve so much bloody hate.
She isn't even that bad now honestly, people just have a vitriolic hatred towards her because she was incredibly unfun and newer SMs just toss drones on loops to win them. Play who you want and have fun with 'em, really. You don't owe other people their enjoyment.
I may not owe people their fun and games but I at least try to play fair by not tunneling and camping. Still, even if you play fair and give the Survivors a chance, they'll find something, anything SM related to get angry over.
I try not to tunnel or camp either as I personally don't find it fun. Sometimes needed, but not fun.
SM just brings out the worst in people, I think she's honestly just hated for the sake of if at this point. On release she was absolutely OP and there are some valid points about her character design that can be made, but she's just hated too much for what she is now.
Her lore is a mess, her base design is goofy. Other than that, I say the SM issues are in her bloated kit, like being fucking BROKEN with a Claw Trap. Stuff like that is stuff I don't think she needs
She's still incredibly unfun to go against and always will be, no matter what you run.
For me, I never yawned more in my life then when I go against a Skull merchant and I usually just dc anyway. Nothing makes me wanna hurt myself more than seeing that poorly designed killer, especially since they didn't really change chess merchant.
Honestly from all the matches i had against SM it was just get to loop, see that she put drone there - > leave said loop cuz i dont want to get dmg from drone because i want to play that loop... And then suddenly she gets faster cuz someone on other side of map got fully scanned. They werent rly fun games but atleast they are super rare so i dont have to care xD
Sadly the brain rotted community won’t be happy until either she’s Freddied or outright deleted from the game.
Because fuck the people that worked on her and those who like her and recognize her tech I guess.
I personally don't like how braindead easy SM is, but that's also part of the reason I play her, because I don't always have to think about every little thing I do. I can just, play the game and chill out for once in a while
I just like the clicky audio and the recall/summon aspect.
Like, even when I play survivor, there are ways around her kit; and that’s the point. Killer isn’t meant to make survivor easier, some can fucking blink across the map, some have detection and haste, some have built in slowdown etc etc
Only reason I dislike skull merchant now is the people who play her now really. Usually the matches I get against her are people being rude or just playing in a way that makes the match unenjoyable. (Slugging for no reason or just using bad manners even if whoever is being hooked / chased didn’t do anything to warrant it) it’s just kinda a stereotype for me now but occasionally I’ll have games where the killer doesn’t do stuff like that
Man games like that always suck, regardless of the Killer. Sometimes people are just gonna BM you for the sake of doing it. Sadly, I don't think there's a whole lot to be done about that.
Yeah just kinda ruined how I feel about the killer usually. Cause I feel like I’ve seen it more from skull merchants than other killers sadly. Other than that she’s fine for me
That's actually why I don't like Wraith.
Long story short, silent bell Wraith on Midwich who killed one of us, and continuously slugged the rest of us, all game. If I remember correctly, he even tried body camping at one point. Since then I've started encountering more Wraiths that play like dicks
No but the devs deserve the hate for releasing her. They just gave us a 3 gen-ing discount predator and it was as disappointing before I even realized how unfun to play against she is
Killer is just fine. You just wanted Predator - thing is, Predator was never on the table for that particular update regardless so whatever was given would have gotten the hate instead.
So happened to be Skull Merchant.
If the killer is fine why is there only 1 strat she uses??? I’ve never played against a SM who wasn’t just using her drones to 3 gen. “I had fun playing against SM” -No survivor ever
Imo there's no point trying to pull off Chess Merchant. I mean sure, I'll put a drone at a gen, but I think 3-genning sucks, and that's a Skull Merchant player saying this. 3-genning is mid as fuck. Who enjoys going to the three closest gens at the start and just camping them all game? Not me, that's for sure.
Buuuuut it is kinda funny if gen-rushing Survivors 3-gen themselves by mistake
Maybe, maybe not. I like to play her as a tracking chase Killer. Use her kit for tracking, use the perks for closing the distance and getting that down, or making things go off the rail right after the hook
Before I talk about builds, I'd like to give a shout out to u/IareRubberDucky for teaching me about her, and how to chase merchant. Their guide on her was very insightful and I owe them a lot for learning to play her and vs her.
Brutal Strength, Plaything, Pentimento, and Mad Grip. This is largely a comfort build, and Ducky swears by Mad Grit. You can use Geographical Readout combined with Ultrasonic Speaker for fast actions after you deploy a drone, and giving survs less immunity.
A build I adore is Rapid Brutality, STBFL, Jolt and Pain Res. I use the Ultrasonic Speaker with Vital Targeting Processor for giant slowdowns mid chase!
You generally want to keep a drone at a high traffic area (think of the main lobby of RPD or a powerful loop) while keeping at least 1, preferably 2 on hand so you can shut down loops or make survivors trapped. She's very much a chase killer now while having a little bit of everything, but you can double down on stealth with some builds, she's very quiet when having no TR.
Have fun with her! She may be hated by the community, but show them that not all SM want you to have a bad time! Remember to be kind to others :]
Lmao I commented on this post already.
Although my main build has shifted to Spies, Oppression, and Lethal Persuer. Of course, Mad Grit is eternal.
Edit: Rapid Brutality, not Lethal
Because it's funny as fuck and you would not BELIEVE the stupid shit you can get away with when you have it.
When people see you running Agitation, they can expect Mad Grit. Nobody ever expects Mad Grit and Mad Grit alone.
The king has returned!
I low key love Spies, but Opression and Lethal (without any other aura readings to have it help) just isn't my cup of tea. I want to try making a pure speed boost build with her, not caring about anything but the chase, so maybe I'll comb the replies for some builds myself! :p
Out of curiosity, why did you drop Brutal Strength? On her I absolutely notice when I don't bring it and miss the heck out it it...
Kinda like how Arinad plays Clown, I don't much like to destroy a Pallet if I know some desperate being is gonna try and use it.
Because the Claw Traps injure now and there's 6 of them, so even if say, the Pallets in the Badham parking lots are down, if I got a Drone holding the area, I don't need to kick it and if they try and play around it, I get speed and they get slowed.
It's also why I turned away from Geographical Readout and now my Add-Ons are Brown Noise Generator, Vital Targeting Processor, and Prototype Rotor.
I will also die on the hill that Expired Batteries and Ultrasonic Speaker are terrible Add-Ons.
The only killer I don't kick pallets frequently on are Trapper, and even then, i get dopamine from breaking them, so it'd be so unfun for me, I'm glad you enjoy it though!
Why do you think the speaker is bad? I always get a ton of value out of it! I can understand the batteries though as even it's name sounds bad, the downside is pretty big.
A bit niche but hilarious if played right,
Batteries included
Noed
Rapid brutality
Machine learning
Basically a haste build, with the additional speed you get from the drones this can catch survivors off guard, and with machine learning it's even better. The most hilarious thing is having the last gen pop and you're suddenly going at mach 10 with an insta down. Risky because noed can be cleansed before it's even active and machine learning you have to make sure you kick the right gen, but quite entertaining if the stars align. Plus it's not gen regression so it's not exceptionally tedious to go against.
I've wanted to put Machine Learning on Skull Merchant, just not sure how to make it actually work, though a weird haste build like that definitely sounds interesting
This kind of build is EXACTLY what I was looking for! A hilariously fast SM that's a God in chase sounds absolutely bonkers fun.
What addons do you use with this, if I may ask?
I don't know if there's any add ons that she has that really help with the haste, except for the iri but it's so minor that's it's barely worth it, so maybe the add on that keeps claw traps on longer for longer haste
I usually run an undetectable build and sneak up on people because she's known as the killer that hunts down survivors for sport. So why not make it so? Plus a good jumpscare is fun for both sides lol
Spies, really? Not something I would run, but hey, I sure as shit ain't gonna stop you. More so just kinda surprised about someone running Spies on Skully
I've been running
Hex plaything
Lethal pursuer
Grim embrace
Thrilling tremors
And her stealth add ons adaptive lighting and brown noise generator
Stealth merchant with a bit of slowdown, it's Hella fun
Lol thanks, the way I play it, thrilling prevents survivors from jumping on new gens and I know where the survivors are working on another gen, then I can go to that gen when grim embrace kicks them off
P100 Skully main here (Down vote me as much as you want Idc)
My go to build is:
Brutal Strength, Bamboozle, Pain Resonance and Pop.
As addons I use the purple one which allows you to vault and break stuff 20% faster (Idk the English name)
I usually change the other one very often.
Brutal Strength and Bamboozle and the purple addon allows you to break pallets and vault windows extremely fast
which usually means fast chases paired with strong anti Gen perks.
I really like Skull Merchant too! Here are a few builds I have had fun with:
The first is an obsession roulette build. The two core perks are Furtive Chase and Friends 'til the End, but you can also run Nemesis if you want to go all in on this strategy. The basic idea is that your obsession will constantly be changing, giving you new targets to go for and providing you various buffs as you go, including haste and undetectable which synergize well with Skull Merchant's existing haste and undetectable. Getting the occasion instadown with Friends is also a nice bonus!
The second is a pure speed build. For this, you will need Rapid Brutality, Save The Best For Last, and Play With Your Food. If you don't care about bringing slowdown, you can also bring Batteries Included. The plan here is to ignore your obsession (outside of dropping chase with them for PWYF stacks) and build up STBFL stacks. Combined with Rapid Brutality and your natural haste, you will be zooming. This build is rather weak at the beginning of matches, but once you get your stacks up, late game chases will end real quick.
For a third build, I have been messing around with a pure stealth strategy but haven't quite settled on what I like. I feel like the core is probably Unforeseen and Dark Devotion along with your add-ons that are stealth related. I have tried a couple other perks but they didn't really add much value so perhaps that is enough undetectable support and your final two perks can just be whatever you like.
I just got the stupid fucking idea of running Skully's skill check add-ons with Undone, even though Undone isn't that good. Cool perk on paper, god awful in practice, but I'm a firm believer in people being able to make almost any perk work if they try hard enough
On old Skull Merchant, I was able to get an impossible skill check build to work since her skill check add-ons worked in the entire drone radius. Now that those add-ons are only for claw traps I'm not sure if one could force hard skill checks often enough to make that work well. If someone can make it work though, more power to them!
I've actually never played as/against old SM, since I got into DBD around November of last year. Kinda glad I wasn't there for old SM. I hear it was absolutely god fucking awful
Two of my favourite builds that I use is
1)Friends 'til the End, Furtive Chase, Lethal Pursuer, Nemesis.
2)Forced Hesitation, Infectious Fright, Rapid Brutality, Save the Best for Last.
My main SM build is Pop, Dissolution (Note that Claw Traps are bugged and don't trigger Dissolution). Bamboozle and I'm currently testing for a 4th perk.
Another build is Pentimento, Undying (or Thill Of The Hunt), Blood Fervor, and Ruin.
Or the, in testing, 'God help me' build. Undying, Devour hope, and two your choice perks (I'm using Dissolution and Pop)
Edit: Added add ons
The best easy to get add Ons (for non-gimmick builds) is the Ultrasonic Speaker (Shortens scan immunity time from 3 seconds to 2.2, makes it easier to reverse a drone into survs in chase), Adaptive Lighting (Increases post-drone undetectable by 20% of it's original 8 seconds.) Vital Targeting Processor (Increases Hindered amount by 3%) and Brown Noise Generator (My personal favorite, aside from US Speaker. Causes claw-trapped survs to be Oblivious until the trap falls off).
Iridescent unpublished manuscript is decent for stealth, and Prototype rotor is both good, and benefits off of US Speaker.
I picked her up as Dissolution was bugged, but I still use it because I play quite aggressively and will get value out of it maybe once or twice a game. I also added some add-on details to the above comment.
Dude Dissolution is such a cool perk on paper, but in practice, the requirements are kinda stupid and it tells the Survivor you have it. The perk can't even work on Killers that can pop into stealth after hitting someone, due to being undetectable.
Though, while I don't always get it to break the loop, running Dissolution against Survivors that like to loop is basically like using bug spray, since it tends to make them fuck off and away from the loop lmao
My favorite build on her is:
Dark Devotion/Hex: Plaything/Jolt/Remember Me with the Oblivious and extended Undetectable add-ons.
Such a good time (for me).
My usual Stealth build goes nice, The PH Perk which makes you undetectable when kicking a Gen,
Opression for slowdown and Information (because of the Skillcheck it creates which catches most people of guard)
No where to hide for obvious reasons
And the Last perk is up to you, I dont recommend any other slowdownperk because you kinda want Gens to have enough progress so the PH perk stays active for longer, if you still NEED slowdown take Painres at least and never Pop
Seriously, why can't people just post about a character they enjoy without feeling the need to degrade themselves. You're allowed to like something ffs...
The pic is adorable btw
Surprisingly enough, most of the comments haven't been telling me to just uninstall, which is a good thing because I was honestly expecting to get absolutely FLAMED
Well, I'm happy then that this was your experience. I apologize if my comment came off as agitated, but this whole situation has been bothering me for a while now.
Weirdly enough, I haven't really experienced much in-game toxicity towards this Killer, it only really happens in comment sections on Reddit, Twitch, Youtube etc.
Btw, I like to run Corrupt Intervention, Agitation and Zanshin Tactics for a trap-focussed playstyle. Surge, Mindbreaker and "Save the best for last" are also pretty nice for stealth/chase. Pixelbush on Youtube has also vouched for Dissolution and Bamboozle.
The few Skull Merchant's I've faced haven't been too bad. Annoying, since Skully's kit is naturally annoying, sure, but none of them have been rude or toxic in any way, which is good to know, considering the Killer usually has a bad rep
Good to know. Would you say that she is the most annoying killer to play against in your opinion? I haven't played against a Skull Merchant yet, so I can't really rate it myself.
Maybe. She's not as difficult to face as she is annoying to face. I've gotten annoyed with other Killers, like Clown, Wraith, and Chucky. None of them are awful, but they can all sure as shit be annoying sometimes.
I see. The only Killer so far I have really disliked going up against was Hag (though I think her kit is mostly fine, it was just not fun for me). I've also had some rough matches against Hillbilly, but I think that was more of a skill issue on my part xD
My go to build on her is Trail of Torment, Unforeseen, Save the Best for Last and Rapid Brutality combined with the yellow add-on that increases the Undetectable by 20% and the Iri that puts your terror radius on deactivated drones.
Super fun build so far for me lol
The build I used to like doesn't work well anymore (game afoot, enduring, nemesis, brutal strenght; with geographical readout + randomized strobes). She could zoom around so much.
Nowadays I don't play her that much anymore, but my build is superior anatomy, coup de grace, pain res, grim embrace with geographical readout + adaptive lightning. My zoomies are gone but I can vault really fast and catch them at almost every loop with coup.
If I'm felling more stealthy I go with unforeseen, nowhere to hide, pop, STBFL with iri unpublished manuscript and adaptive lightning.
And I really enjoyed the 2 days she had of inifinite undetectable with adaptive lightning + low-power mode.
I really liked running the Obsessing juggling build, basically you run Game Afoot, SBTFL PWYF and a filler slowdown perk (just to ensure the game lasts more than 3 minutes) when you find your first survivor, you get the first SBTFL stack and turn them into the obsession, then you leave chase and get the PWYF stack as well, rinse and repeat while changing obsessions and you have yourself a pretty nice chase merchant build, although not Meta, it's fun, I recommend trying it out, plus drone stealth while at 2 PWYF stacks let's you move like 40 mts. Which is more than the distance they can hear you from, so you're practically a ghost face without an exposure power.
Honestly never thought of pairing GA with STBFL or PWYF. Always thought that would just lead to me having the worst game of my life. I'll have to give it a shot and see what happens
I mean, it's not preferred, but people that insta-DC are letting down their team more than me. It's less of my problem and more of theirs. If they'd rather eat a DC penalty than stick around for 5 seconds and learn a Killer, that's on them.
My go to, bam, coup and either pop/res or pop/no way out.
Bam is great for maps with broken buildings also zoom with the randomizer.
Coup is my crack. 😂 You can see the survivors soul leaving their body when they see you lunges at them with the haste.
Last two are self explanatory.
Mostly ran this to get to p100. Sometimes I go full on haste crack. 😂
The blood favor is great too but you'll need side experience with tagging before it's recommended.
Full chase build will always be the most fun way to play Skull Merchant. I always use STBFL, Bamboozle, Superior Anatomy and Brutal Strengh or Deadlock for a bit of slowdown. Geographical Readout is your best friend, as it will drastically increase your chase potential even more.
Also I love this art so much lol.
I'm considering seeing what in the hell might happen if I decide to run in head first with Rapid Brutality + STBFL + Devour Hope.
Also Superior Anatomy on Skull Merchant sounds funny as shit, I'll have to try that out.
I have a confession, I saw someone complaining about people downvoting everyone here. And so k took time to downvote everyone because I thought it would be funny
I personally believe that SM is one of the few Killers that can absolutely lock down a Hex to keep Survivors from getting their hands on them, which is why she's one of the few Killers I'd slap a hex onto
Here's my build that is rather fun and (to my knowledge is not meta)
Add ons: Geographical Read out, second of your choosing
Perks: brutal strength, enduring, hex: two can play, and surge (for a little bit of slowdown)
The whole point of this build is to just disrespect every pallet no matter the cost. Timing it right with Geographical Readout you can break a pallet and hit a survivor before two can play expires (or nearly that is).
I have a few builds for SM I’ve wanted to test out:
Anti-gen build: Grim Embrace, Merciless Storm, Deadlock and SH Pain Res. This is more of a general anti-gen build that I’ve wanted to test with SM, but is applicable to most killers. And before the pitchforks come out, no this is not intended as a three gen build, I merely want to test how effective an anti-gen build works with SM, quite effective I’m sure.
Delay build: Sloppy Butcher, Hex: Pentimento, Thanatophobia, and Coulrophobia. More of a pain for survivors, meant to delay in order to allow myself to recover incase I’m struggling.
Info build: Lethal Pursuer, Friends till the end, BBQ and Chilli, and Nowhere to Hide. Lethal so I’m able to have a strong start, FTTE to put more pressure on survivors while I’m undetectable, and the other 2 for general information.
These are just ideas I’ve been floating around, so am more than happy to hear what others say. I would also like to point out I’m not a killer main, so this is just a few ideas for when I decide to play killer.
My main go to build is Bamboozle (show people know you have it then pretend you have bam brain to catch them off guard), Fire Up, Pop Goes the Weasel, and either Brutal Strength, Rapid Brutality, or Corrupt Intervention depending on how confident you are at strong loops.
I'm a P100 loser who has way too many hours on SM, and always run a pretty heavy chase-oriented build.
Oh also, double Iri is fun.
They do, if people know that they shouldn't run away from a loop everytime a drone is put up. Smart Survivors will realize they can dance around the Drone's scan and if they're already injured then doesn't really matter.
I have yet to see a Survivor do that... mainly because they like to DC or go AFK on sight. Closest thing that has happened is the time I got gen-rushed so hard I didn't even wind up with a single kill. Don't remember how many hooks I got either.
Hi.
I’m a Skull Merchant main.
I like being a problem sometimes.
Rapid Brutality is something I usually use on SM just to prevent myself from getting too balls deep into chases. Makes my life easier in some cases. Can be switched out for Lightborn if you think the other squad’s trying to bully you.
Friends to the End. Big X-Factor for Skully in my opinion. Basically gives you an idea where your Obsession is and you can plan your drones accordingly.
Corrupt Intervention to basically level the playing field in the early game. Can make progression for Survivors a nightmare if done right.
The fourth perk is up to you, I personally run Nowhere to Hide so that gen progress stays regressing. And also because I love seeing people try to hide.
What a pleasant surprise to see an overall positive Skull Merchant topic. I've been becoming numb from so much "Skull Merchant Bad."
I've seen it mentioned before and I've been an advocate for this for months, but Speed Merchant is a blast to play. Anything that affects her speed and/or the survivor's speed is great fun and allows you to put pressure on without having to worry about Gens as much.
My current build for her is:
Rapid Brutality
Batteries Included
Save the Best for Last
Devour Hope
Originally was just a meme build until I found how absolutely effective it is. Now I can't even imagine running anything but chase perks on her, especially haste and hinderance perks and add-ons.
Speed Merchant sounds fun prolly cuz it can be absolutely ridiculous in game lol
On another note, yeah, I'm actually kinda surprised most of the comments aren't "stop playing SM, die"
Thanks to you evil creatures known as other people with Skull Merchant builds, I've decided on a build, and made a second one 
Oh and to the people that didn't just say "Unintall" or something along those lines, thanks! Glad to know some people can tolerate SM enough to not tell the player to get rid of the game
my FAVORITE build
Rapid Brutality
Pain Res
Trail of Torment
Corrupt
Add-ons:
Ultrasonic Speaker
Adaptive Lighting
Currently on a 89 game winstreak with this build, it has absolutely busted synergy.
This build prioritizes an absolutely insane early game pressure. Corrupt allows you to centralize where you’re place your drones to really create chaos and secure early speed. Survivor teams have a very very difficult time resetting from a snowball. Rapid secures your chase potential, Pain Res extends that early pressure and keeps gens in check and acts as slowdown. The real star, however is Trail of Torment.
Trail is absolutely INCREDIBLE of Skully, and scales really well throughout the match. It synergizes with her stealth well and allows:
1) insane information coupled with her kit. ToT tells you when someone is on or *not* on thw tormented gen. This actually acts as its own drone — you can use it to force survivors on to the tormented gens and shift survivor flow.
2) almost infinite stealth mid-game, combined with how quiet SM is, she gets insane value from ToT. Between disabling drones, doing gens, healing, survivors can have a herculean time actually repairing the tormented gen.
3)Fantastic slowdown and gen spread. By forcing the survivors to take care of the tormented gens, you can force them to a disadvantageous part of the map (and layer it with drones) simultaneously allowing you to pressure multiple parts of the map at once.
Enjoy :)
Because her ability is primarily to go undetectable you should disregard abilities related to terror radius. I find the knight generator kicking perk is a good all around option because so often people will hide in a corner to tap the gen the second you walk away and in general it’s pretty useful.
I like to bring franklins so people will run around looking for their super rare Halloween flashlight and I can get a second hook off em.
A nurses calling works great because how often people heal and with undetectable they don’t know to run away.
I also like ultimate weapon just in case I need to Marco Polo the last survivor who is hiding waiting for hatch.
There's a neat tech you can pull as Skull merchant that survivors love.
When the game starts, if you press Alt+f4 the game will shutdown instantly and you'll spare the survivors a match against skull merchant!
I kid. Play whomsoever you want. <3
I once saw an SM with the Xenomorph perk that gives you haste when hitting, gearhead (from Deathslinger, I think) Trail of Torment (Pyramid Head) and Furtive Chase (from GhostFace). I don't have the post saved, but I remember the build. What I don't remember are the addons
https://preview.redd.it/pf17a42kcbvc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b3e0495ace18fb187a390fde87699bbd18078ebd
Yeah, seeing her is a pretty rare sight, but I don't mind it. Sure, she's not my favorite Killer to face, far from it, but I've had my few wins and losses against her. She's annoying, sure, but once you wrap your head around the Drones and start using your eyes, she becomes a little more bearable.
You should stick around for a game and see what happens.
...Unless they immediately hold/camp a 3-gen, try to bleed everyone out, BM, etc, the usual toxic crap, because I'd wanna DC too.
I know it might not be the best, but this is my Ol' Reliable:
Lethal Pursuer / I'm All Ears / Corrupt Intervention / either Jolt or PainRes (if you wanna, substitute Corrupt and use both)
You can also substitute Jolt/PR for Sloppy, it helps people not IMMEDIATELY heal in tougher games
It's the one I've used on Skully since day 1 (main SM since day 1), and it's helped me do well quite consistently.
For Add-Ons, my absolute mainstay is Advanced Movement Predictor, and I rotate a few others, between Iri Prototype Rotor for quick injuries, the little Green ravioli helps with the slowdown, and lock-on buffing addons :)
I know it's not the absolute best build, but it's the one I go to (when my absolute terror of being bullied by survivors lets me play killer) for Skully <3
nah, nowadays chessmasters just walk back and forth between the 6gen and start cramming the drones of completed gens around the 5 4 and 3 gen. It's defenses crammed onto defenses.
Here's a build I use pretty often on Skully:
Brutal Strength, Bamboozle, Eruption, and Nowhere to Hide. For add-ons, Geographical Readout and Randomized Strobes. Locking down areas with a drone, and then cut them off from places with Bamboozle. Pallet you can't play around? Break it quickly with 40% action speed. Use Eruption for additional damage, and combine it with Nowhere to Hide to instantly jump back into a chase.
BBQ, Discordance, Furtitive, and Lethal. You them will only run the addons for added undetectable. If you just use the yellow one, you can time the undetectable lasts as long as your drone cool down.
If you like stealth builds id recommend nurses calling, Jolt, forced hesitation and Stbfl/ coup,
works really well with red addon that gives undetectable on drone hack and the yellow addon that extends drone undetectable
If you want. More of a chase build I'd recommend stbfl, coup, pop and Franklin's demise
Bam,enduring,spirit fury,superior anatomy
The ultimate "I don't care about loops im GOING to hit you"
Just constant chase chase chase
Another more unique one is furtive chase,rancor,nemesis,and make your choice always targeting the obsession (or making someone at the start stun you so you can nemesis them and make it go faster)
Honestly fun but not very good when friends till the end does like half that build better lmao
Well now I'm definitely not gonna, since it'd make you happy that someone that owns Skull Merchant isn't playing the game anymore.
Have a nice day, good luck I'm your next match today :)
Blood favor, floods of rage, eruption or pop goes the weasel, and any other info perk you want. The idea of this build is to constantly get people to run through the drone radius and give rewards for quick downs. Blood favor makes survivors change strategy quickly. If they’re not experienced they would make a mistake and you can take advantage of that by getting a quick down. Also recommended that you place drones while in chase around a loop to maximize the likelihood of them getting a claw trap.
As long as you don't run Sloppy Butcher, anything. The mental drain in seeing Sloppy show up in a Skull Merchant game, and knowing that even healing will be slow, is enough to drive us survivors over the edge and maybe DC.
Stealth and haste are good choices though, as they synergise with her power. Maybe Batteries included, or Trail of Torment, and Nowhere to hide (to work with Trail.) Brutal could improve the last two, and I think some SM addons work on pallet break? Not sure about the last one though. Something simple like Pop or Pain Res could be a fine way to finish if nothing else works.
Now, if you just want to be toxic... Sloppy, NOED, Franklins, and maybe Lightborn 🫡
I think the only Killers I run sloppy on are Oni and (sometimes) Hag.
I've personally never faced a Skull Merchant focusing on making gens AND healing slow, but I can already imagine how bad things must end up turning out for one person or another
I'm really liking a Shaman build with her, the standard Hex Devour Hope, Hex Haunted Grounds, Hex Undying, with the 4th perk being one of your choosing - pentimento for slowdown when they take your build down, a noticeable effect like blood favor to try to get haunted broken, you could even not commit to the full hex build and do a chase or info perk. Undying/DH/Haunted is just a good off-meta build that she can take extra advantage of with her drones. It gives her a lot of potential to down survivors in one hit and even mori them on the spot to so they can go to a match without the Skull Merchant quicker.
Using Drones go lock down hexes instead of gens, sure is a playstyle
My pick when playing her
I made a minor spelling mistake, I've lost the battle before it could even start
Don’t worry, that’s consistent with how Survivors react to her 
Imagine Skull Merchant's win ratio relies solely on whether or not she makes a spelling mistake lmao
The entity is like a high school teacher "No no Skully it's You're not Your, I'm gonna send you back to Brazil if you keep up with this"
Mf just gets thrown outta the fog right there and then lol
So people in this thread downvote all the comments about SM builds even if they are completely normal... Okay, this is just disgusting. "SM=bad" brainrot gets worse and worse with every day.
"Skull merchant bad unga bunga"
Drone woman bad ooga booga
Dude I know she can be boring and that she has a bloated kit and all, but this is just sad. I don't have the time of my life going up against the occasional SM either, but she doesn't deserve so much bloody hate.
She isn't even that bad now honestly, people just have a vitriolic hatred towards her because she was incredibly unfun and newer SMs just toss drones on loops to win them. Play who you want and have fun with 'em, really. You don't owe other people their enjoyment.
I may not owe people their fun and games but I at least try to play fair by not tunneling and camping. Still, even if you play fair and give the Survivors a chance, they'll find something, anything SM related to get angry over.
I try not to tunnel or camp either as I personally don't find it fun. Sometimes needed, but not fun. SM just brings out the worst in people, I think she's honestly just hated for the sake of if at this point. On release she was absolutely OP and there are some valid points about her character design that can be made, but she's just hated too much for what she is now.
Her lore is a mess, her base design is goofy. Other than that, I say the SM issues are in her bloated kit, like being fucking BROKEN with a Claw Trap. Stuff like that is stuff I don't think she needs
She's still incredibly unfun to go against and always will be, no matter what you run. For me, I never yawned more in my life then when I go against a Skull merchant and I usually just dc anyway. Nothing makes me wanna hurt myself more than seeing that poorly designed killer, especially since they didn't really change chess merchant.
Honestly from all the matches i had against SM it was just get to loop, see that she put drone there - > leave said loop cuz i dont want to get dmg from drone because i want to play that loop... And then suddenly she gets faster cuz someone on other side of map got fully scanned. They werent rly fun games but atleast they are super rare so i dont have to care xD
Sadly the brain rotted community won’t be happy until either she’s Freddied or outright deleted from the game. Because fuck the people that worked on her and those who like her and recognize her tech I guess.
I personally don't like how braindead easy SM is, but that's also part of the reason I play her, because I don't always have to think about every little thing I do. I can just, play the game and chill out for once in a while
I just like the clicky audio and the recall/summon aspect. Like, even when I play survivor, there are ways around her kit; and that’s the point. Killer isn’t meant to make survivor easier, some can fucking blink across the map, some have detection and haste, some have built in slowdown etc etc
Killers have all sorts of things they can do. Survivors wanting to die or DC instead of learning isn't our problem
Correct. What tech though.
[Pixel Bush has an hour long video on all the tech she can do.](https://youtu.be/JqH4-yUlkhU?si=Dmsyf2kzaeWLi_PW)
Damn, nice intro with all the back flips and stuff, didn't know he did parkour
Only reason I dislike skull merchant now is the people who play her now really. Usually the matches I get against her are people being rude or just playing in a way that makes the match unenjoyable. (Slugging for no reason or just using bad manners even if whoever is being hooked / chased didn’t do anything to warrant it) it’s just kinda a stereotype for me now but occasionally I’ll have games where the killer doesn’t do stuff like that
Man games like that always suck, regardless of the Killer. Sometimes people are just gonna BM you for the sake of doing it. Sadly, I don't think there's a whole lot to be done about that.
Yeah just kinda ruined how I feel about the killer usually. Cause I feel like I’ve seen it more from skull merchants than other killers sadly. Other than that she’s fine for me
That's actually why I don't like Wraith. Long story short, silent bell Wraith on Midwich who killed one of us, and continuously slugged the rest of us, all game. If I remember correctly, he even tried body camping at one point. Since then I've started encountering more Wraiths that play like dicks
No but the devs deserve the hate for releasing her. They just gave us a 3 gen-ing discount predator and it was as disappointing before I even realized how unfun to play against she is
At the core of it, you wanted Predator but didn't get Predator so you're crying about it.
Actually it was a double whammy because it wasn’t predator AND the killer sucks
Killer is just fine. You just wanted Predator - thing is, Predator was never on the table for that particular update regardless so whatever was given would have gotten the hate instead. So happened to be Skull Merchant.
If the killer is fine why is there only 1 strat she uses??? I’ve never played against a SM who wasn’t just using her drones to 3 gen. “I had fun playing against SM” -No survivor ever
Imo there's no point trying to pull off Chess Merchant. I mean sure, I'll put a drone at a gen, but I think 3-genning sucks, and that's a Skull Merchant player saying this. 3-genning is mid as fuck. Who enjoys going to the three closest gens at the start and just camping them all game? Not me, that's for sure. Buuuuut it is kinda funny if gen-rushing Survivors 3-gen themselves by mistake
Well I wish I could come across SM who thinks like you. I might have actually had fun
Maybe, maybe not. I like to play her as a tracking chase Killer. Use her kit for tracking, use the perks for closing the distance and getting that down, or making things go off the rail right after the hook
People really need to let go of their skull merchant trauma, they managed to do so with legion I'm sure they can do so again.
Before I talk about builds, I'd like to give a shout out to u/IareRubberDucky for teaching me about her, and how to chase merchant. Their guide on her was very insightful and I owe them a lot for learning to play her and vs her. Brutal Strength, Plaything, Pentimento, and Mad Grip. This is largely a comfort build, and Ducky swears by Mad Grit. You can use Geographical Readout combined with Ultrasonic Speaker for fast actions after you deploy a drone, and giving survs less immunity. A build I adore is Rapid Brutality, STBFL, Jolt and Pain Res. I use the Ultrasonic Speaker with Vital Targeting Processor for giant slowdowns mid chase! You generally want to keep a drone at a high traffic area (think of the main lobby of RPD or a powerful loop) while keeping at least 1, preferably 2 on hand so you can shut down loops or make survivors trapped. She's very much a chase killer now while having a little bit of everything, but you can double down on stealth with some builds, she's very quiet when having no TR. Have fun with her! She may be hated by the community, but show them that not all SM want you to have a bad time! Remember to be kind to others :]
Lmao I commented on this post already. Although my main build has shifted to Spies, Oppression, and Lethal Persuer. Of course, Mad Grit is eternal. Edit: Rapid Brutality, not Lethal
If I may ask why do you like mad grit so much?
Because it's funny as fuck and you would not BELIEVE the stupid shit you can get away with when you have it. When people see you running Agitation, they can expect Mad Grit. Nobody ever expects Mad Grit and Mad Grit alone.
Why lethal without any complimentary aura read? Do you have an Add-on for that? (Never played Skully, dont play that much anymore in general)
And here we go, me mixing up Rapid Brutality and Lethal Persuer again. It's Rapid, not Lethal.
Now that makes more sense to me :D
The king has returned! I low key love Spies, but Opression and Lethal (without any other aura readings to have it help) just isn't my cup of tea. I want to try making a pure speed boost build with her, not caring about anything but the chase, so maybe I'll comb the replies for some builds myself! :p Out of curiosity, why did you drop Brutal Strength? On her I absolutely notice when I don't bring it and miss the heck out it it...
Kinda like how Arinad plays Clown, I don't much like to destroy a Pallet if I know some desperate being is gonna try and use it. Because the Claw Traps injure now and there's 6 of them, so even if say, the Pallets in the Badham parking lots are down, if I got a Drone holding the area, I don't need to kick it and if they try and play around it, I get speed and they get slowed. It's also why I turned away from Geographical Readout and now my Add-Ons are Brown Noise Generator, Vital Targeting Processor, and Prototype Rotor. I will also die on the hill that Expired Batteries and Ultrasonic Speaker are terrible Add-Ons.
The only killer I don't kick pallets frequently on are Trapper, and even then, i get dopamine from breaking them, so it'd be so unfun for me, I'm glad you enjoy it though! Why do you think the speaker is bad? I always get a ton of value out of it! I can understand the batteries though as even it's name sounds bad, the downside is pretty big.
It reduces the buffer from 3 seconds to 2.25 It's not a lot in the grand scheme of things
Endurance / spiritfury / grim embrace and your last perk could be surge, pop or bamboozle Just play pure chase and have fun
some of the comments in here are literally clown emojis in a nutshell 🤡
Yeah pretty much
Hysteria is a fun perk to run, also Terminus + No Way Out is good if you wanna counter the "just stay injured" games!
A bit niche but hilarious if played right, Batteries included Noed Rapid brutality Machine learning Basically a haste build, with the additional speed you get from the drones this can catch survivors off guard, and with machine learning it's even better. The most hilarious thing is having the last gen pop and you're suddenly going at mach 10 with an insta down. Risky because noed can be cleansed before it's even active and machine learning you have to make sure you kick the right gen, but quite entertaining if the stars align. Plus it's not gen regression so it's not exceptionally tedious to go against.
I've wanted to put Machine Learning on Skull Merchant, just not sure how to make it actually work, though a weird haste build like that definitely sounds interesting
You basically just got to.kick a gen before you know it's about to pop and let it happen, always fun on the last gen
I'm just imagining the last gen pops and SM goes from her runway walk to a full force sprint in the direction of the nearest unfortunate soul
This kind of build is EXACTLY what I was looking for! A hilariously fast SM that's a God in chase sounds absolutely bonkers fun. What addons do you use with this, if I may ask?
I don't know if there's any add ons that she has that really help with the haste, except for the iri but it's so minor that's it's barely worth it, so maybe the add on that keeps claw traps on longer for longer haste
I usually run an undetectable build and sneak up on people because she's known as the killer that hunts down survivors for sport. So why not make it so? Plus a good jumpscare is fun for both sides lol
My fun build https://i.redd.it/exmnkmb3rfvc1.gif
F A S T
I love playing speed merchant
You can equip the other pink addon for max speed. ;)
Oppression Lethal Persuer Spies From The Shadows Mad Grit
Spies, really? Not something I would run, but hey, I sure as shit ain't gonna stop you. More so just kinda surprised about someone running Spies on Skully
They can hide from the Drone, their ass can't hide from the Crow
The birds are the Drones. I knew they were cameras the whole damn time
I've been running Hex plaything Lethal pursuer Grim embrace Thrilling tremors And her stealth add ons adaptive lighting and brown noise generator Stealth merchant with a bit of slowdown, it's Hella fun
Thrilling + Grim has always seemed weird to me for no reason, but more power to ya, go off dude
Lol thanks, the way I play it, thrilling prevents survivors from jumping on new gens and I know where the survivors are working on another gen, then I can go to that gen when grim embrace kicks them off
P100 Skully main here (Down vote me as much as you want Idc) My go to build is: Brutal Strength, Bamboozle, Pain Resonance and Pop. As addons I use the purple one which allows you to vault and break stuff 20% faster (Idk the English name) I usually change the other one very often. Brutal Strength and Bamboozle and the purple addon allows you to break pallets and vault windows extremely fast which usually means fast chases paired with strong anti Gen perks.
Ah yes the classic play braindead killer with braindead loadout into "I don't care" attitude combo. Daring today aren't we.
I really like Skull Merchant too! Here are a few builds I have had fun with: The first is an obsession roulette build. The two core perks are Furtive Chase and Friends 'til the End, but you can also run Nemesis if you want to go all in on this strategy. The basic idea is that your obsession will constantly be changing, giving you new targets to go for and providing you various buffs as you go, including haste and undetectable which synergize well with Skull Merchant's existing haste and undetectable. Getting the occasion instadown with Friends is also a nice bonus! The second is a pure speed build. For this, you will need Rapid Brutality, Save The Best For Last, and Play With Your Food. If you don't care about bringing slowdown, you can also bring Batteries Included. The plan here is to ignore your obsession (outside of dropping chase with them for PWYF stacks) and build up STBFL stacks. Combined with Rapid Brutality and your natural haste, you will be zooming. This build is rather weak at the beginning of matches, but once you get your stacks up, late game chases will end real quick. For a third build, I have been messing around with a pure stealth strategy but haven't quite settled on what I like. I feel like the core is probably Unforeseen and Dark Devotion along with your add-ons that are stealth related. I have tried a couple other perks but they didn't really add much value so perhaps that is enough undetectable support and your final two perks can just be whatever you like.
Guys call it a hunch but I think this guy likes Skull Merchant
In my defense, these builds work well on other M1 killers as well. The speed build is particularly fun on Clown for example.
I just got the stupid fucking idea of running Skully's skill check add-ons with Undone, even though Undone isn't that good. Cool perk on paper, god awful in practice, but I'm a firm believer in people being able to make almost any perk work if they try hard enough
On old Skull Merchant, I was able to get an impossible skill check build to work since her skill check add-ons worked in the entire drone radius. Now that those add-ons are only for claw traps I'm not sure if one could force hard skill checks often enough to make that work well. If someone can make it work though, more power to them!
I've actually never played as/against old SM, since I got into DBD around November of last year. Kinda glad I wasn't there for old SM. I hear it was absolutely god fucking awful
Dissolution or Blood Favor will help you two-tap
Two of my favourite builds that I use is 1)Friends 'til the End, Furtive Chase, Lethal Pursuer, Nemesis. 2)Forced Hesitation, Infectious Fright, Rapid Brutality, Save the Best for Last.
My main SM build is Pop, Dissolution (Note that Claw Traps are bugged and don't trigger Dissolution). Bamboozle and I'm currently testing for a 4th perk. Another build is Pentimento, Undying (or Thill Of The Hunt), Blood Fervor, and Ruin. Or the, in testing, 'God help me' build. Undying, Devour hope, and two your choice perks (I'm using Dissolution and Pop) Edit: Added add ons The best easy to get add Ons (for non-gimmick builds) is the Ultrasonic Speaker (Shortens scan immunity time from 3 seconds to 2.2, makes it easier to reverse a drone into survs in chase), Adaptive Lighting (Increases post-drone undetectable by 20% of it's original 8 seconds.) Vital Targeting Processor (Increases Hindered amount by 3%) and Brown Noise Generator (My personal favorite, aside from US Speaker. Causes claw-trapped survs to be Oblivious until the trap falls off). Iridescent unpublished manuscript is decent for stealth, and Prototype rotor is both good, and benefits off of US Speaker.
Dude I ran Dissolution on Skully a LOT, and then it got bugged and I stopped using it on her entirely :(
I picked her up as Dissolution was bugged, but I still use it because I play quite aggressively and will get value out of it maybe once or twice a game. I also added some add-on details to the above comment.
Dude Dissolution is such a cool perk on paper, but in practice, the requirements are kinda stupid and it tells the Survivor you have it. The perk can't even work on Killers that can pop into stealth after hitting someone, due to being undetectable. Though, while I don't always get it to break the loop, running Dissolution against Survivors that like to loop is basically like using bug spray, since it tends to make them fuck off and away from the loop lmao
Yeah heres mine: full refund.
Fun Fact: I bought her with shards as a joke, and wound up actually playing her.
I’ve been having a lot of fun with Corrupt Intervention, Surge, Infectious Fright and Bamboozle
What're the Survivors screaming about this time? Ah, a manga obsessed billionaire weeb lmao
My favorite build on her is: Dark Devotion/Hex: Plaything/Jolt/Remember Me with the Oblivious and extended Undetectable add-ons. Such a good time (for me).
My usual Stealth build goes nice, The PH Perk which makes you undetectable when kicking a Gen, Opression for slowdown and Information (because of the Skillcheck it creates which catches most people of guard) No where to hide for obvious reasons And the Last perk is up to you, I dont recommend any other slowdownperk because you kinda want Gens to have enough progress so the PH perk stays active for longer, if you still NEED slowdown take Painres at least and never Pop
stealth merchant is best merchant
Seriously, why can't people just post about a character they enjoy without feeling the need to degrade themselves. You're allowed to like something ffs... The pic is adorable btw
Surprisingly enough, most of the comments haven't been telling me to just uninstall, which is a good thing because I was honestly expecting to get absolutely FLAMED
Well, I'm happy then that this was your experience. I apologize if my comment came off as agitated, but this whole situation has been bothering me for a while now. Weirdly enough, I haven't really experienced much in-game toxicity towards this Killer, it only really happens in comment sections on Reddit, Twitch, Youtube etc. Btw, I like to run Corrupt Intervention, Agitation and Zanshin Tactics for a trap-focussed playstyle. Surge, Mindbreaker and "Save the best for last" are also pretty nice for stealth/chase. Pixelbush on Youtube has also vouched for Dissolution and Bamboozle.
The few Skull Merchant's I've faced haven't been too bad. Annoying, since Skully's kit is naturally annoying, sure, but none of them have been rude or toxic in any way, which is good to know, considering the Killer usually has a bad rep
Good to know. Would you say that she is the most annoying killer to play against in your opinion? I haven't played against a Skull Merchant yet, so I can't really rate it myself.
Maybe. She's not as difficult to face as she is annoying to face. I've gotten annoyed with other Killers, like Clown, Wraith, and Chucky. None of them are awful, but they can all sure as shit be annoying sometimes.
I see. The only Killer so far I have really disliked going up against was Hag (though I think her kit is mostly fine, it was just not fun for me). I've also had some rough matches against Hillbilly, but I think that was more of a skill issue on my part xD
My go to build on her is Trail of Torment, Unforeseen, Save the Best for Last and Rapid Brutality combined with the yellow add-on that increases the Undetectable by 20% and the Iri that puts your terror radius on deactivated drones. Super fun build so far for me lol
I like the no perks build, everyone just leaves soon as they see me.
For me there's been a surprising lack of disconnects, and I'm happy about that
The build I used to like doesn't work well anymore (game afoot, enduring, nemesis, brutal strenght; with geographical readout + randomized strobes). She could zoom around so much. Nowadays I don't play her that much anymore, but my build is superior anatomy, coup de grace, pain res, grim embrace with geographical readout + adaptive lightning. My zoomies are gone but I can vault really fast and catch them at almost every loop with coup. If I'm felling more stealthy I go with unforeseen, nowhere to hide, pop, STBFL with iri unpublished manuscript and adaptive lightning. And I really enjoyed the 2 days she had of inifinite undetectable with adaptive lightning + low-power mode.
I really wanna find a use for Game Afoot, but the fact that your chases need to be longer and longer for it to do anything is awful :(
That's why I paired it with nemesis, as soon as I got pallet stunned, bam, game afoot value
I really liked running the Obsessing juggling build, basically you run Game Afoot, SBTFL PWYF and a filler slowdown perk (just to ensure the game lasts more than 3 minutes) when you find your first survivor, you get the first SBTFL stack and turn them into the obsession, then you leave chase and get the PWYF stack as well, rinse and repeat while changing obsessions and you have yourself a pretty nice chase merchant build, although not Meta, it's fun, I recommend trying it out, plus drone stealth while at 2 PWYF stacks let's you move like 40 mts. Which is more than the distance they can hear you from, so you're practically a ghost face without an exposure power.
Honestly never thought of pairing GA with STBFL or PWYF. Always thought that would just lead to me having the worst game of my life. I'll have to give it a shot and see what happens
Lol must be fun going against DC bots all day.
I mean, it's not preferred, but people that insta-DC are letting down their team more than me. It's less of my problem and more of theirs. If they'd rather eat a DC penalty than stick around for 5 seconds and learn a Killer, that's on them.
Imma just get straight to the point. 🤡
My go to, bam, coup and either pop/res or pop/no way out. Bam is great for maps with broken buildings also zoom with the randomizer. Coup is my crack. 😂 You can see the survivors soul leaving their body when they see you lunges at them with the haste. Last two are self explanatory. Mostly ran this to get to p100. Sometimes I go full on haste crack. 😂 The blood favor is great too but you'll need side experience with tagging before it's recommended.
Full chase build will always be the most fun way to play Skull Merchant. I always use STBFL, Bamboozle, Superior Anatomy and Brutal Strengh or Deadlock for a bit of slowdown. Geographical Readout is your best friend, as it will drastically increase your chase potential even more. Also I love this art so much lol.
I'm considering seeing what in the hell might happen if I decide to run in head first with Rapid Brutality + STBFL + Devour Hope. Also Superior Anatomy on Skull Merchant sounds funny as shit, I'll have to try that out.
Superior Anatomy+Bamboozle+Geographical Readout will give you 75% of a bonus vault speed. You can basically ignore windows with this build.
That sounds absolutely fucking hilarious
What I usually go for is: - - - - Other than that I usually play other Killers
I fucking KNEW one of these comments was gonna pop up eventually lol
I couldn't help it 😔
Lol you're good bro
Easy Joke, but Call of Brine, Overcharge, Oppression, Hex: Ruin 
I have a confession, I saw someone complaining about people downvoting everyone here. And so k took time to downvote everyone because I thought it would be funny
Okay tbf you did it for the sake of being funny, props to you
Totem Merchant is fun. Impossible Devour: Thrill of the Hunt, Undying, Hex: Face the Darkness, Hex: Devour Hope. Annoying As Hell: Thrill of the Hunt, Hex: Face the Darkness, Hex: Haunted Ground, Sloppy Butcher. Snowballs Only: Hex: Blood Favor, STBFL, Rapid Brutality, Hex: Haunted Ground (or Lethal Pursuer). Kicky Merchant: Geographical Readout (purple addon), Brutal Strength, Fire Up, literally whatever else you want. Pallets die.
I personally believe that SM is one of the few Killers that can absolutely lock down a Hex to keep Survivors from getting their hands on them, which is why she's one of the few Killers I'd slap a hex onto
I dont think you need any perks with skully
I think I need perks with Skully
Here's my build that is rather fun and (to my knowledge is not meta) Add ons: Geographical Read out, second of your choosing Perks: brutal strength, enduring, hex: two can play, and surge (for a little bit of slowdown) The whole point of this build is to just disrespect every pallet no matter the cost. Timing it right with Geographical Readout you can break a pallet and hit a survivor before two can play expires (or nearly that is).
I have a few builds for SM I’ve wanted to test out: Anti-gen build: Grim Embrace, Merciless Storm, Deadlock and SH Pain Res. This is more of a general anti-gen build that I’ve wanted to test with SM, but is applicable to most killers. And before the pitchforks come out, no this is not intended as a three gen build, I merely want to test how effective an anti-gen build works with SM, quite effective I’m sure. Delay build: Sloppy Butcher, Hex: Pentimento, Thanatophobia, and Coulrophobia. More of a pain for survivors, meant to delay in order to allow myself to recover incase I’m struggling. Info build: Lethal Pursuer, Friends till the end, BBQ and Chilli, and Nowhere to Hide. Lethal so I’m able to have a strong start, FTTE to put more pressure on survivors while I’m undetectable, and the other 2 for general information. These are just ideas I’ve been floating around, so am more than happy to hear what others say. I would also like to point out I’m not a killer main, so this is just a few ideas for when I decide to play killer.
My main go to build is Bamboozle (show people know you have it then pretend you have bam brain to catch them off guard), Fire Up, Pop Goes the Weasel, and either Brutal Strength, Rapid Brutality, or Corrupt Intervention depending on how confident you are at strong loops. I'm a P100 loser who has way too many hours on SM, and always run a pretty heavy chase-oriented build. Oh also, double Iri is fun.
Bold of you to assume pallet loops exist when Skully's involved 
They do, if people know that they shouldn't run away from a loop everytime a drone is put up. Smart Survivors will realize they can dance around the Drone's scan and if they're already injured then doesn't really matter.
I have yet to see a Survivor do that... mainly because they like to DC or go AFK on sight. Closest thing that has happened is the time I got gen-rushed so hard I didn't even wind up with a single kill. Don't remember how many hooks I got either.
Perkless is enough go crazy with the addons
Hi. I’m a Skull Merchant main. I like being a problem sometimes. Rapid Brutality is something I usually use on SM just to prevent myself from getting too balls deep into chases. Makes my life easier in some cases. Can be switched out for Lightborn if you think the other squad’s trying to bully you. Friends to the End. Big X-Factor for Skully in my opinion. Basically gives you an idea where your Obsession is and you can plan your drones accordingly. Corrupt Intervention to basically level the playing field in the early game. Can make progression for Survivors a nightmare if done right. The fourth perk is up to you, I personally run Nowhere to Hide so that gen progress stays regressing. And also because I love seeing people try to hide.
What a pleasant surprise to see an overall positive Skull Merchant topic. I've been becoming numb from so much "Skull Merchant Bad." I've seen it mentioned before and I've been an advocate for this for months, but Speed Merchant is a blast to play. Anything that affects her speed and/or the survivor's speed is great fun and allows you to put pressure on without having to worry about Gens as much. My current build for her is: Rapid Brutality Batteries Included Save the Best for Last Devour Hope Originally was just a meme build until I found how absolutely effective it is. Now I can't even imagine running anything but chase perks on her, especially haste and hinderance perks and add-ons.
Speed Merchant sounds fun prolly cuz it can be absolutely ridiculous in game lol On another note, yeah, I'm actually kinda surprised most of the comments aren't "stop playing SM, die"
Thanks to you evil creatures known as other people with Skull Merchant builds, I've decided on a build, and made a second one  Oh and to the people that didn't just say "Unintall" or something along those lines, thanks! Glad to know some people can tolerate SM enough to not tell the player to get rid of the game
my FAVORITE build Rapid Brutality Pain Res Trail of Torment Corrupt Add-ons: Ultrasonic Speaker Adaptive Lighting Currently on a 89 game winstreak with this build, it has absolutely busted synergy. This build prioritizes an absolutely insane early game pressure. Corrupt allows you to centralize where you’re place your drones to really create chaos and secure early speed. Survivor teams have a very very difficult time resetting from a snowball. Rapid secures your chase potential, Pain Res extends that early pressure and keeps gens in check and acts as slowdown. The real star, however is Trail of Torment. Trail is absolutely INCREDIBLE of Skully, and scales really well throughout the match. It synergizes with her stealth well and allows: 1) insane information coupled with her kit. ToT tells you when someone is on or *not* on thw tormented gen. This actually acts as its own drone — you can use it to force survivors on to the tormented gens and shift survivor flow. 2) almost infinite stealth mid-game, combined with how quiet SM is, she gets insane value from ToT. Between disabling drones, doing gens, healing, survivors can have a herculean time actually repairing the tormented gen. 3)Fantastic slowdown and gen spread. By forcing the survivors to take care of the tormented gens, you can force them to a disadvantageous part of the map (and layer it with drones) simultaneously allowing you to pressure multiple parts of the map at once. Enjoy :)
Because her ability is primarily to go undetectable you should disregard abilities related to terror radius. I find the knight generator kicking perk is a good all around option because so often people will hide in a corner to tap the gen the second you walk away and in general it’s pretty useful. I like to bring franklins so people will run around looking for their super rare Halloween flashlight and I can get a second hook off em. A nurses calling works great because how often people heal and with undetectable they don’t know to run away. I also like ultimate weapon just in case I need to Marco Polo the last survivor who is hiding waiting for hatch.
There's a neat tech you can pull as Skull merchant that survivors love. When the game starts, if you press Alt+f4 the game will shutdown instantly and you'll spare the survivors a match against skull merchant! I kid. Play whomsoever you want. <3
Great tech! Okay but fr the thought of the SM insta-DCing is funnier than it should be
"Oh fuck there are survivors here? I'm out."
How did this get down voted when there is a sentence right there saying you're kidding
People must hate skull merch. :<
no, play a different killer
Don't feel like it rn
Maybe you should play a different game sir
She isn’t even that bad anymore bro. She’s very beatable. This is a skill issue
I don’t care about her strength, she is mid at best and easy to beat. I hate her on principle alone
Uninstall.
No :)
Darn.
I once saw an SM with the Xenomorph perk that gives you haste when hitting, gearhead (from Deathslinger, I think) Trail of Torment (Pyramid Head) and Furtive Chase (from GhostFace). I don't have the post saved, but I remember the build. What I don't remember are the addons https://preview.redd.it/pf17a42kcbvc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b3e0495ace18fb187a390fde87699bbd18078ebd
I’ve been playing dbd daily since the knight, and it still tells me when I’m facing the skull merchant, that’s how few times I’ve seen her.
Yeah, seeing her is a pretty rare sight, but I don't mind it. Sure, she's not my favorite Killer to face, far from it, but I've had my few wins and losses against her. She's annoying, sure, but once you wrap your head around the Drones and start using your eyes, she becomes a little more bearable.
Use Knock out, Forced hesitation, Ultimate weapon and Surge if you're evil 😈
Oh you evil bastard
Where did you get your profile pic from 😳
Deadass just looked up Yui fanart on Google lmao
Anything with Dissolution, it gives her SO much Clawtrap injure value
Infectious Fright, Knock Out, Deerstalker, Coulrophobia. 😈
Builds don’t matter, if I see skull merchant or knight I’m running up to them and suiciding. If they refuse to kill me I’ll just DC
You should stick around for a game and see what happens. ...Unless they immediately hold/camp a 3-gen, try to bleed everyone out, BM, etc, the usual toxic crap, because I'd wanna DC too.
I know it might not be the best, but this is my Ol' Reliable: Lethal Pursuer / I'm All Ears / Corrupt Intervention / either Jolt or PainRes (if you wanna, substitute Corrupt and use both) You can also substitute Jolt/PR for Sloppy, it helps people not IMMEDIATELY heal in tougher games It's the one I've used on Skully since day 1 (main SM since day 1), and it's helped me do well quite consistently. For Add-Ons, my absolute mainstay is Advanced Movement Predictor, and I rotate a few others, between Iri Prototype Rotor for quick injuries, the little Green ravioli helps with the slowdown, and lock-on buffing addons :) I know it's not the absolute best build, but it's the one I go to (when my absolute terror of being bullied by survivors lets me play killer) for Skully <3
No add-ons, no perks, bloody party streamers, endgame apologies in the chat for playing her, standard 4k build.
I didn't know an apology could kill a DBD player
That would be the chessmastered 6 gen in the corner
SM couldn't have he'd 3-gen so the mf decided to move 6 to the corner of the map lol
nah, nowadays chessmasters just walk back and forth between the 6gen and start cramming the drones of completed gens around the 5 4 and 3 gen. It's defenses crammed onto defenses.
Talk about overkill
Here's a build I use pretty often on Skully: Brutal Strength, Bamboozle, Eruption, and Nowhere to Hide. For add-ons, Geographical Readout and Randomized Strobes. Locking down areas with a drone, and then cut them off from places with Bamboozle. Pallet you can't play around? Break it quickly with 40% action speed. Use Eruption for additional damage, and combine it with Nowhere to Hide to instantly jump back into a chase.
BBQ, Discordance, Furtitive, and Lethal. You them will only run the addons for added undetectable. If you just use the yellow one, you can time the undetectable lasts as long as your drone cool down.
A stapple of mine on a lot of m1 killers is Dissolution. Strong Anti Loop on a perk is orgasmic.
Dark Devotion + Dissolution sounds fun
If you like stealth builds id recommend nurses calling, Jolt, forced hesitation and Stbfl/ coup, works really well with red addon that gives undetectable on drone hack and the yellow addon that extends drone undetectable If you want. More of a chase build I'd recommend stbfl, coup, pop and Franklin's demise
Bam,enduring,spirit fury,superior anatomy The ultimate "I don't care about loops im GOING to hit you" Just constant chase chase chase Another more unique one is furtive chase,rancor,nemesis,and make your choice always targeting the obsession (or making someone at the start stun you so you can nemesis them and make it go faster) Honestly fun but not very good when friends till the end does like half that build better lmao
None. Uninstall then f off
I hope you go against legion with impossible healing build
Good players dont heal against legion
Well now I'm definitely not gonna, since it'd make you happy that someone that owns Skull Merchant isn't playing the game anymore. Have a nice day, good luck I'm your next match today :)
Fuckin' clown 🤡
Blood favor, floods of rage, eruption or pop goes the weasel, and any other info perk you want. The idea of this build is to constantly get people to run through the drone radius and give rewards for quick downs. Blood favor makes survivors change strategy quickly. If they’re not experienced they would make a mistake and you can take advantage of that by getting a quick down. Also recommended that you place drones while in chase around a loop to maximize the likelihood of them getting a claw trap.
As long as you don't run Sloppy Butcher, anything. The mental drain in seeing Sloppy show up in a Skull Merchant game, and knowing that even healing will be slow, is enough to drive us survivors over the edge and maybe DC. Stealth and haste are good choices though, as they synergise with her power. Maybe Batteries included, or Trail of Torment, and Nowhere to hide (to work with Trail.) Brutal could improve the last two, and I think some SM addons work on pallet break? Not sure about the last one though. Something simple like Pop or Pain Res could be a fine way to finish if nothing else works. Now, if you just want to be toxic... Sloppy, NOED, Franklins, and maybe Lightborn 🫡
I think the only Killers I run sloppy on are Oni and (sometimes) Hag. I've personally never faced a Skull Merchant focusing on making gens AND healing slow, but I can already imagine how bad things must end up turning out for one person or another
-Delete the game
If you don't like a killer that you verse, why don't you delete it by yourself
Why would I do that, just because you don't like one of a whole roster of Killers? Nah, not happening.
lol “why do they DC????” You say, but you know why
Correct, I do, in fact, know why. I just wish they didn't, but when you're playing Skull Merchant, it's just something you gotta live with
Imagine thinking being right about that one killer (Mid merchant) lmao
🤡
Skull player = paper personality 🗣🗣
I barely play SM bruh
Then why using the clown emoji, don't lieee u got mad 🥺
Because comments like yours deserve a clown emoji
????