Dead by Daylight: Best Builds for The Skull Merchant (2023)

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Dead by Daylight

By Lewis Smyth

Updated Nov 6, 2023

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Dead by Daylight: Best Builds for The Skull Merchant

A predatory Killer with eyes all over, The Skull Merchant has arrived in the Fog with the Tools of Torment DLC for Dead by Daylight. With the ability to place lethal drones across the map, The Skull Merchant can prove to be a deadly territorial Killer, capable of tracking Survivors at a distance and injuring them should they linger too long within a drone's radius. As such, to truly thrive in the Entity’s trials, players should bring perks that complement The Skull Merchant’s playstyle in Dead by Daylight.

This guide will tackle the best builds to run with The Skull Merchant in Dead by Daylight, featuring teachable and non-teachable perks to accommodate newcomers and adept players alike.

UPDATE: 2023/11/06 16:23 EST BY LEWIS SMYTH

Dead by Daylight: Best Builds for The Skull Merchant

The beginning of 2023 saw the introduction of the divisive Skull Merchant, and the end of the year saw her significant overhaul. From a Killer capable of holding games hostage with her drones for hours, Adriana Imai has come a way since she first arrived in The Fog, now much more focused on chase potential. This guide now features fewer perks surrounding territorial gameplay, centering her builds instead on passively slowing generator speeds while she builds pressure.

The Skull Merchant: Best Non-Teachable Build (2023)

dead by daylight the skull merchant best non-teachable build

Though The Skull Merchant’s basekit perks pose some interesting gameplay possibilities, they are quite situational and playstyle-specific. As such, the base perks that synergize best with her power involve keeping Exhaustion perks out of play while keeping generators and Survivor health states pressured until the endgame.

Hex: No One Escapes Death (General Perk) – After the final generator is completed, all survivors suffer from the Exposed status ailment, and users gain a 4% Haste effect until the Hex Totem is cleansed.
Fearmonger (General Perk) – Any Survivor working on a generator is inflicted with the Blindness and Exhausted status ailments. These effects linger for 5 seconds after stopping repairs.
Sloppy Butcher (General Killer Perk) – Basic attacks cause the Mangled and Hemorrhage status ailments, slowing down healing by 25% and regressing healing progress when left unfinished.
Jolt (General Perk) – Downing a Survivor causes all generators within a 32–meter radius to lose 8% progress.

The Skull Merchant: Best Build (2023)

dead by daylight the skull merchant best build

The Skull Merchant’s power revolves around setting up drones at generators and loops to ensure Survivors cannot make quick progress without alerting her. Thus, the most complimentary builds revolve around powerful Scourge Hooks and aggressive slowdown.

Scourge Hook: Pain Resonance (The Artist) – The Killer starts with four tokens. For each different Survivor hooked on a white Scourge Hook, lose one token and explode the generator with the most progress, causing it to lose 25% of progress.
Sloppy Butcher (General Perk) – Basic attacks cause the Mangled and Hemorrhage status ailments, slowing down healing by 25% and regressing healing progress when left unfinished.
Corrupt Intervention (The Plague) – At the start of the trial, the 3 generators furthest from the killer's starting location are blocked for 120 seconds or until the first survivor is downed.
Deadlock (The Cenobite) – After a generator is repaired, the generator with the most progress is blocked for 30 seconds.