The best Dead By Daylight Skull Merchant build mainly takes advantage of all those handy drones available in her kit, and this keeps constant informational awareness of each map.
So in this guide, we'll go over how to make a build for The Skull Merchant. From what perks you should pick, which add-ons are the best, and much more. She's had quite a rework with this newest update, so let's see how best to play her in the current state.
What are The Skull Merchant perks in Dead By Daylight?
There are three unique perks that The Skull Merchant comes with. Prestige her to give the standard version of the perk to all killers.
Thwack!
After hooking a survivor, Thwack! activates. The next time you break a wall or pallet, all survivors within 28/30/32 metres scream, revealing their location for four seconds. This works very well to flush out potential flash saves and can be valuable when you lose track of people in a chase.
Leverage
With Leverage, you get one token every time you hook a survivor, up to ten tokens. For each token, altruistic and personal healing speed are reduced by 3/4/5% for the next 30 seconds up to a maximum of 30/40/50%
Game Afoot
After hitting an opponent with the highest chase time in the lobby with a basic attack, they become the obsession. You gain 5% haste for 8/9/10 seconds after damaging a generator or breaking a wall or pallet when hunting the obsession.
What is the best build for Skull Merchant in Dead By Daylight?
Given The Skull Merchant's main strength is in her ability to slow down the game and control areas, the strongest build is one that focuses on slowing down generators while you engage in chase.
Call of Brine (Onryo)
After damaging a generator, the damaged generator regresses at 115/120/125% of normal regression speed, and its aura is revealed in yellow for 60 seconds. You then receive a loud noise notification when survivors hit a good skill check on it. This is good for gen slowdown and information.
Scourge Hook: Pain Resonance (The Artist)
You start the trial with four tokens. Every time a survivor is hooked on a Scourge Hook for the first time, the generator with the most progression explodes and instantly regresses for 15/20/25% of its max progression. It will then regress as usual after this.
Corrupt Intervention (The Plague)
At the start of the trial, the three generators furthest from you are blocked for 80/100/120 seconds. This is then deactivated early if a survivor is put into the dying stat.
Deadlock (The Cenobite)
When a generator is finished, the entity blocks the second most progressed generator for 20/25/30 seconds and its aura is revealed to you in white.
The Skull Merchant power
The Skull Merchant's power is called Eyes in the Sky. With the new updates, she now starts the game with six drones that can be placed anywhere around the map, with a minimum distance between them of 16 metres. The drones have an 8-metre radius, and if a Survivor steps into one's line of sight, it activates. The Survivor gains scan immunity and cannot be detected by another drone for 3 seconds once they've activated a drone.
Survivors can attempt to hack drones, but failure to do so will activate the drone and partially fill the Lock On metre. However, if a Survivor succeeds in hacking the drone, it will be unavailable to Skull Merchant for 45 seconds.
Radar
The Skull Merchant can open her Radar and see the locations of Survivors detected by her drones, or those with Claw Traps. Drones can also be recalled using the Radar. With each Survivor detected, Skull Merchant receives a boost to her speed.
Lock On
The Lock On metre for each Survivor will fill each time they are scanned by a drone, and when the metre is full the Survivor will receive a Claw Trap. They are put into the Injured state, and suffer from the Broken Status effect. Additional scans on Survivors briefly apply the Hindered status effect also. A Claw Trap will broadcast the Survivor's location to the Skull Merchant, and is only removed when the battery eventually dies. The Exposed status effect is no longer part of this kit, as per the latest update.
The best Skull Merchant add-ons
Skull Merchant's best add-ons are the ones that make you slightly better at the more mundane tasks, allowing you to catch survivors off guard.
Geographical Readout
While inside the area of effect of a drone, you gain 2% haste and the breaking speeds of walls, pallets and generators are increased by 15%. This is a great anti-loop add-on.
Advanced Movement Prediction
Survivors who enter the area of effect of a drone have their aura revealed for six seconds. This is great for giving you information and gives you great mind game potential on dangerous loops.
Dead By Daylight Skull Merchant tips and tricks
- Skull Merchant doesn't have excellent traversal abilities, so only engage in a chase when you have the time to do so, or know your opponent is running into a bad loop.
- Being in your own drone's area of effect grants you the Undetectable status, which pairs really well with Haste.
- She is particularly good at locking down three to four generators so you can pick a nice setup early and commit to it, whilst getting a few hooks throughout. Map knowledge will come into play here.
- You can apply a surprising amount of pressure on loops and intense parts of the map with a drone. Many survivors are afraid of engaging with them and opt to leave them alone. This means that you can place the drone near a door in a building that has two doors to funnel them right back into you. However, with the latest updates, that meta may well shift.
But there you have it, now that you know how to play The Skull Merchant, you may be looking for more information on the game. If you want to get better at it, check out our Dead By Daylight Anniversary 2023, as well as our Dead By Daylight The Blight build guide, and the best Dead By Daylight Killer perks ranked.