Dead by Daylight: Tools of Torment Chapter Review (SlayerKast)
Tools of Torment is a huge disappointment of a chapter for DBD. The Skull Merchant's entire design is uninspired, her lore feels like it was written by AI, and her power and perks are the most un-intuitive and punishing released in recent memory.
To summarize:
• She controls 4 drones, which means she shuts down 4 zones briefly. To wrest control back, you need to risk being exposed after a number of seconds to disable her drone, which then places a tracker on you which she can use to exactly pinpoint your location. If you become exposed, you also get the killer instinct effect and it lasts 60 seconds.
• Her power is instant, and she can reactivate any one drone on a short cooldown just by looking in its direction. You don't need to think about where they go, you just drop it at a powerful loop or force a 3-gen by dropping them on the same generators and patrol between your zone. Which you're undetectable in.
• Playing against her is abysmal, since her power is extremely punishing to remove but not punishing to the killer to set up again. Playing AS her is abysmal, because if you don't play to your drones you literally have no power. You set up drones, reactivate them occasionally, but otherwise you're even simpler than the Trapper.
• Her perks consist of: a healing slowdown for any altruistic healing for a short time after unhooking - which promotes coming back to the hook since getting that person healed without things like We'll Make It or CoH absolutely dreadful; a perk that, if you wait to break a pallet or wall until you hook someone, will make nearby survivors scream and reveal them; and a perk that changes the obsession after hitting the Survivor who has the most chase time, which grants a negligible speed boost if you choose to break chase and hit a gen or are forced to break a pallet mid-chase. All of these combined, by themselves, promote chasing someone who was recently unhooked because you either know where the other survivors are with your web or you know where they're NOT because they're afraid to remove the drones.
The Survivors are alright, and bring some nice teamwork perks to the table, but clearly Renato plays second-fiddle to Thalita and really doesn't get a chance to shine on his own — hell, all of the lore seems to revolve around another character that isn't the character the lore is written for: Renato's growth was dependent on his sibling rivalry with Thalita, Adriana's was steeped so far into her father's manga it's laughable, and Thalita's is the one who reflects their paired Killer's the most but in reverse.
All-in-all, this chapter feels really dialed in and rushes than something truly polished, which is a shame because the potential is there — just hidden behind layers of quantity over quality.