Arrowroot [Fire Support]

(JJMAJR) #1

“Biologist. Tactician. Accountant. Mercenary. These all sound like supportive roles, but my techniques look out for my bottom line, not yours.”

“Arrowroot” is a veterinarian experienced in the impoverished countries of both south america and the middle east, reaching as far and deep as Somalia, India, Paraguay, and Syria. She grew old from her time in the tropical heat, but developed a very peculiar set of skills. She is experienced in poisons, being able to turn the medicines found often in the field against her opponents, and she also is conditioned to the sun and has found ways to deal with radiation.

However, she doesn’t give this knowledge willingly, and is suspected of terrorism. Don’t expect to pry these secrets out of her through force or through money.

She joined MercServ because of pure, highly-caffeinated blackmail, served on the side of a serious piracy and drug smuggling business. She registered in MercServ with an offshore company to increase her opportunities and get past the authorities.

Needless to say, we have her under our thumb.

She has a set of abilities that are fairly interesting to boot. She never goes to the field without her tranquilizer rifle, has discoloration on her skin, but refuses medical attention. She also has claustrophobia but carries really close range weapons.

Besides her tranquilizer rifle, she uses these weapons:

KEK-10
Crotzni
Hurstall 2K

Empire-9
MP-400
Tolen MP

Batons
Beckhill Combat Knife
Kukri

Physical Exam Results:
Stability Examination:

  • MercServ put Arrowroot through a series of tests to determine the point in which wounds start to cause problems for a person’s physical well-being. “Arrowroot” took the challenge well but was surprised at how terrible her results were.
  • The typical MercServ test for this vector is through putting that person in a “burn room”, where large amounts of fuel are laid around the room in a safe manner, meant to determine how long a person can sustain normal function when oxygen is removed and heat is applied.
  • She lasted 10 seconds, flat. The longest a person lasted in that test is 20 seconds, but that’s only impressive because oxygen concentrations and temperature increases on an exponential basis. Arrowroot refused to do service for a month after that test. That was how MercServ was able to force her to license one very common piece of technology to them.

Agility Examination:

  • MercServ fortunately tested her movement abilities beforehand, putting Arrowroot through the Assault Course. Her average indoor running speed was recorded as 4.3 meters per second.

Q - Tranquilizer Rifle
Arrowroot carries a specialized tranquilizer rifle that can be loaded with any poison to incapacitate an enemy. Most poisons can be countered with a proper antidote, but Arrowroot uses one that acts quickly, in small doses, and is incurable except with time. The side effect to this chemical weapon is that it can’t kill, only seriously torture. It doesn’t last very long either, but when in effect it removes all voluntary muscle ability.

Maximum time span measured for Arrowroot’s drugs to take effect is two seconds, and the minimum amount of time that it lasts is five. It can’t be cured through any means and when hit with a dart it is recommended to back away from the fight, if one can.

Headshots deliver a lethal dose of poison that absolutely require medical attention if a merc wants to return home alive. The only way to remove the poison before that death sentence is through physical means.

E - Ammo Packs
Arrowroot chews through ammo. Literally. To complement her high-rate-of-fire weapons she carries a lot of ammo packs, and has the ability to regenerate them over time. It’s the only technology she is known to monetize to MercServ, servicing specific people with a portable and endless supply of bullets.

Passive - Outdoor Conditioning
Arrowroot recovers more quickly from wounds outside than inside for some reason. In fact, twice as fast compared to what most people normally do. She even moves 0.5 m/s faster outdoors in wetland territory than inside a paved underground corridor. Most medics are astonished by her talents but she doesn’t share her secrets.

MercServ's description file for people that need to lose their jobs:

Physicals:
Health: 100
Speed: 430

Primary Classification: Fire Support
Primary Weapons: PDW Class
Secondary Weapons: CMP Class

Tranquilizer Rifle
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Delay: 2 seconds
Duration: 5 seconds
Special: On headshots, poison - 20 damage per second for duration of status effect (lethal)

Outdoor Conditioning
x2 health regeneration speed
Halved health regeneration delay
Movement speed buffed to 470

Extra: Ammo Packs

-MercServ Files

(Mr-Penguin) #2

TLDR- The lore-based formatting is a fun read, but it gives little information in the way of actual in-game results and potential balance.

EDIT- My bad, I didn’t realize that you labeled Arrowroot as “fire support” in the post title. My point about hybrid merc still stands though.

I like the lore-based formatting, but what in the hell do the tranq darts actually do gameplay wise? From the looks of it, it does some damage (but not much) and “removes all voluntary muscle activity.”

That could mean a lot of things. It could slow, screw over reload speed/accuracy, cause you to spray bullets at random and disable jumping… all of which are pretty powerful effects, but I don’t know. Without an accurate in-game description and good numbers to go with it, I can’t say if this ability is balanced or not.

Other thoughts:

  • How much HP does she have? How fast? Again, the lore-based formatting is cool, but there are few in-game descriptions I can use to ascertain balance.

  • I can’t tell if Arrowroot is supposed to be a medic or fire support (again due to lore-based formatting). Can she heal? She definitely can’t rez (I think?), but if she can’t do either, why does she have ammo packs and no explosive-type ability to bust objectives or zone out an area? Additionally, we’ve seen how “hybrid” mercs like Javelin and Guardian fare in comparison to their peers in their main “class.” Arrowroot can either be a shitty medic or a shitty fire support, and neither of those is good.

  • Passive ability is… interesting. I think giving her the augment “Tough” as a passive would be much simpler. The speed boost could actually be pretty annoying to play with on some maps (Underground for example- short speed boosts in the few “open” areas but slower everywhere else.) I’d rather have a consistent movespeed value (which isn’t listed because of the lore-based formatting).

  • You mixed up the time values for the tranq duration- it should be 5 sec max and 2 sec minimum. Also, if time is the only cure for the tranq effect, how is this timeframe set in-game? Do tranq rifle headshots last longer than legshots? Lore formatting is again the reason for my confusion.

(JJMAJR) #3

I can’t believe I left so much important information out.

  1. Knocking enemies down for a while (but letting them OD and respawn making it functionally equivalent to being downed.)
  2. I need to figure out balancing for this character but I’m aiming for something along the lines of Kira or Phoenix or both.
  3. Hybrid of medic, fire support, and recon. Specializes in shutting down characters essentially guaranteed but for a short period of time, which I think is very powerful. The tranquilizer dart is a single-round weapon. The main purpose of Arrowroot is to shut down characters instead of shutting down an area, with an ability that can be used to enable an offensive push more than a defensive barrier. It is not recommended to use the tranquilizer when an enemy is trying to push a position, as they will likely use that time to overwhelm you with more firepower.
  4. Fire supports work best outdoors with the exception of Stoker. That fact is the foundation of this character’s design. I would like to find a flavor-based way to justify damage reduction or something over movement speed though since the math gets scary with +20% movement speed.
  5. Typo. Minimum amount of time refers to how long the drugs last, maximum refers to how long it takes effect, assuming a minor dose. I should add a note that headshots cause a real DoT effect of 20 damage per second or something which is enough to kill downed bodies that don’t recieve medical attention.