Dead By Daylight: How to Counter The Skull Merchant

As the most recent Dead by Daylight Killer addition, it’s understandable many players are giving The Skull Merchant a run. She’s unique thanks to her usage of Drones and tracking skills. With the best builds for her, Survivors can have a hard time getting out alive. However, a smart Survivor build can disrupt her unique perks and Drone power. We’ll show you what you can do to counter The Skull Merchant in Dead by Daylight.

How to Counter The Skull Merchant in Dead by Daylight

Credit: Behaviour Interactive

High on tech, Adriana Imani, AKA The Skull Merchant, can apply insane pressure on Survivors when used by an adept Killer player. She can expose Survivors, disrupt their healing, and gain speed to quickly hunt them down. Her Drones increase her danger tenfold. So, if you want to learn how to counter The Skull Merchant in Dead by Daylight, you must first understand her perks and power.

Unique Perks:

THWACK!: After she hooks a Survivor, this activates. If she breaks a Pallet or Breakable Wall, any Survivor within 28/30/32 meters of her will scream. This also reveals their aura for 4 seconds.
Leverage: This perk of hers focuses on slowing down your healing speeds by a stackable amount of 3/4/5% for the next 30 seconds. It can even reach as high as 30/40/50%.
Game Afoot: This gives her 5% Haste after she breaks a Pallet, Generator, or Breakable Wall while chasing her Obsession.

Next, to successfully counter The Skull Merchant, we must come to terms with her Dead by Daylight power: Drones.

The Drones can detect you, and if you remain too long, you are Exposed and she can instant-down you. Also, if you fail to hack it, it exposes you as well. You can also get a Claw Trap which helps The Skull Merchant track you down.

Additionally, she gains Undetectable for remaining in the Drone zone for a period of time. The Drones can easily make The Skull Merchant a 3-Gen Killer.

Now that we understand what we are up against, let’s tackle the various ways you can attempt to counter her.

Keep an Eye on Your Fellow Survivors

A good way to counter The Skull Merchant in Dead by Daylight is to be aware of your teammates. It is easy for our Killer to gain Undetectable. If you can’t hear her coming or even see the red stain, then she can quickly down you or even grab you off a Generator.

It’s possible now for Survivors to see when another is being chased. Keep an eye on the Survivor HUD to notice any tentacles around it. However, if you don’t see the tentacles and haven’t for a while, there’s a high chance she’s using her Undetectable effect. Double-check your surroundings in this case so she doesn’t sneak up on you.

Counter The Skull Merchant in Dead by Daylight – Don’t Heal

This may sound offputting, but consider remaining in the injured state when up against The Skull Merchant. If you are already injured, Drone exposure no longer matters. So, you can remain in the zone if it has a Generator or if you’re looping the Killer.

In this case, it pays to have the right perks to help keep you from getting hit, moving fast, and repairing quickly:

Resilence (General): All your Action Speeds increase by 3/6/9% when you’re injured.
Prove Thyself (Dwight): Repair speed increases +15% for every Survivor within 4 meters of you. This also applies to all said Survivors.
Potential Energy (Vittorio): You can activate it after repairing Generators for 12/10/8 uninterrupted seconds. Continued repairs charge the perk instead of the Generator. 1.5% of repair progression converts into 1 Token up to 20 Tokens. Press the Active Ability button while repairing to spend 1 Token and instantly progress the Generator 1%.
Dead Hard (David): While running and injured, activate this to trigger Endurance for 0.5 seconds.

As you can see, these perks attempt to counter how well The Skull Merchant can control Generators in Dead by Daylight.

Dead by Daylight Renato Lyra Survivor Perks & Build Guide

Counter The Skull Merchant with Cooperation and Sacrifice

Another reliable way you can counter The Skull Merchant is to focus on teamwork and a little sacrifice in Dead by Daylight. Who sacrifices is up in the air if you’re solo playing. However, if you’re playing with friends, this is much easier to discuss.

Either way, you will need one or two Survivors to keep The Skull Merchant busy. Stay within the Drone range and even keep a Claw Trap charged. With The Skull Merchant distracted, the remaining Survivors can push Generators that are further away from the commotion.

If too many Generators are close to one another, then everyone will have to fall into a comfortable playstyle of looping the Killer.

However, if the distraction works, whoever is doing it must be good in a Chase. Otherwise, this counter to The Skull Merchant will fall on its face in Dead by Daylight.

Dead by Daylight Renato Lyra Survivor Perks & Build Guide

Consider bringing some perks that can help when running or looping a Killer. Remember: we don’t want to completely lose The Skull Merchant with this plan of attack. We want to hold her attention, but make it hard for her to catch you. Resilience comes in handy here again along with these perks:

Lithe (Feng): After you rush vault, you’ll break into a sprint at 150% of your normal running speed for 3 seconds.
Background Player (Renato): Activates for 10 seconds when another Survivor is picked up. You will sprint at 150% of your normal speed for 4 seconds when you start running.
Adrenalin (Meg): Instantly heal a health state when the Exit Gates are powered. You’ll sprint at 150% of your normal speed for 5 seconds.

If you try out some of these tips and work with your fellow Survivors, you may have a chance yet to counter The Skull Merchant.

Dead by Daylight is available on PC, PS5 and PS4, Xbox One and Series, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android.