Assault Merc of Hearing

[I-Fell-Tower]

Name: Mercury

Role: Assault

Primary Ability; Low Dash: Mercury lowers himself to the height of him crouching. Them he can move around the battlefield like a ninja with his sprint speed. Being that small and quick makes him far harder to hit than any mercs similiar to him. Once the ability is activated you have up to 10 seconds of time for running. You can disable to ability by pressing the activation key again to start the cooldown. Like with Phantom the more you have used the ability after the activation the longer the cooldown is that starts by you pressing the key again or using the ability for 10 seconds. The cooldown’s duration is identical to Phantom’s cloak; 10 seconds.

Secondary ability; Silence: Every other source of sound other than enemies will grow silent. This allows you to locate enemies even when they’re not in your line of sight. The cooldown system’s again similiar to Phantom’s cloak. You can activate the ability and the more you use it the bigger the cooldown is up to 10 seconds. And yes, the ability duration’s again 10 seconds.

HP: 100

Speed: 440

Arsenal: Hit-and-run weapons. Of course shotguns but maybe also some SMG?

About Mercury: He looks like he comes from Saudi Arabia but no-one actually knows. He has two quite big hearing aids plugged to his ears. His default robe suit is red like the planet Mercury. Gotta admit, didn’t come up with any noticeable backstory or personality for him…

Uses: Mercury is good for taking out tanky assault mercs. He can easily flank and dodge them and hear their loud weapons and abilities from a distance. He’s best used when recon mercs aren’t securing an area but the enemy’s pushing in from that area.

Weaknesses: Short range, low HP and the fact that his abilities aren’t that lethal on their own.

[STARRYSOCK]

The crouch sprint ability is interesting, but it’s really not going to make much of a difference to any player with reasonably good aim. You’re better off just jumping around randomly if you want to be harder to hit.
So the only real plus to that would be sneaking, but Phantom can more or less do that better.

Silence is kind of weird, being that the game doesn’t really have any sort of background noise. And hearing gunfire from your own team, as well as requests for assistance/etc are still just as important.
It’s also only really useful if you have a good sound system, which surprisingly a lot of people don’t.
The only way I can see this become viable is if it amplified enemy footsteps several times, but even then it’s kind of a lame ability.

Also worth noting, but have you ever played as Aura? Even with shotguns, it’s pretty hard to take out “tanky” mercs, let alone dodge fire. 20 more HP isn’t going to make a huge difference.

Interesting idea, but to me it just sounds like a weird mishmash of stuff that doesn’t really fit with the playstyle of DB. Doesn’t sound like someone I’d play personally.
Needs some sort of third ability to really help.

[HunterAssassin5]

Crouch-sprint? Don’t think it’ll be that useful. I had an idea for a slide after a sprint ability, but I didn’t tie a cooldown…or let’s face it, a merc, to it. It was in a list of merc ability ideas I wrote up quite some time ago, since I’m not imaginative enough to think up a name, face and all that our stuff to attach it to.
Anyways, the second ability is basically the whatsitcalled “Big Ears” augment, isn’t it? The one that makes enemy footsteps louder?

Overall, it isn’t that useful imo.

[Naonna]

Silence is an interesting ability-focus which has been around in the discussions for quite some time.

While it would not be ‘overpowered’ alone, depending on teammates and abilities, it could be very utility-based. (Making proxy mines or a revved rhino not have giveaway sounds) - I feel that this sort of ability may need testing at length to see how it interacts with different mercs and maps.

(Also, would this make the ‘noise’ of someone planting a C4 silent? if so, an Engie character with this could be VERY dangerous for game balance.)

As for the low-dash… uhm… why? People with good aim (myself not included) would be able to kill the merc just as easily as if he were wall jumping with the resulting bullet spread…

[I-Fell-Tower]

[quote=“STARRYSOCK;153021”]The crouch sprint ability is interesting, but it’s really not going to make much of a difference to any player with reasonably good aim. You’re better off just jumping around randomly if you want to be harder to hit.
So the only real plus to that would be sneaking, but Phantom can more or less do that better.

Silence is kind of weird, being that the game doesn’t really have any sort of background noise. And hearing gunfire from your own team, as well as requests for assistance/etc are still just as important.
It’s also only really useful if you have a good sound system, which surprisingly a lot of people don’t.
The only way I can see this become viable is if it amplified enemy footsteps several times, but even then it’s kind of a lame ability.

Also worth noting, but have you ever played as Aura? Even with shotguns, it’s pretty hard to take out “tanky” mercs, let alone dodge fire. 20 more HP isn’t going to make a huge difference.

Interesting idea, but to me it just sounds like a weird mishmash of stuff that doesn’t really fit with the playstyle of DB. Doesn’t sound like someone I’d play personally.
Needs some sort of third ability to really help.[/quote]

[quote=“TheRyderShotgun;153107”]Crouch-sprint? Don’t think it’ll be that useful. I had an idea for a slide after a sprint ability, but I didn’t tie a cooldown…or let’s face it, a merc, to it. It was in a list of merc ability ideas I wrote up quite some time ago, since I’m not imaginative enough to think up a name, face and all that our stuff to attach it to.
Anyways, the second ability is basically the whatsitcalled “Big Ears” augment, isn’t it? The one that makes enemy footsteps louder?

Overall, it isn’t that useful imo. [/quote]

Thanks for all the feedback! I thought it through and modified the merc a little bit.

Name: Mercury

Role: Assault

Primary Ability; Low Dash: Mercury lowers himself to having only a fourth of his normal height. He also runs 10% faster than when he’s sprinting. Like Phantom’s RA cloak this ability increases it’s cooldown the longer you use it. The maximum ability duration’s 10 seconds and so is the cooldown. While he’s Low Dashing he cannot be detected by automated defenses either.

Secondary ability; Sonic Shotty: This ability allows Mercury to take out a two-barrel shotgun. Once the two shots of it have been shot the cooldown of 45 seconds will start. The Shotty is pretty much identical to the Ahnuhld in terms of stats but it (of course!) has only two shots, fires 150 RPM and it deals only about 25 damage per bodyshot. The Shotty also deploys very fast and silences the game for headshot enemies for a time depending on how much damage you dealt, the more the longer. The maximum silent period the enemies might suffer is 10 seconds.

HP: 100

Speed: 440

Arsenal: Hit-and-run weapons. Of course shotguns but maybe also some SMG?

About Mercury: He looks like he comes from Saudi Arabia but no-one actually knows. He has two quite big hearing aids plugged to his ears. His default robe suit is red like the planet Mercury. He did something horrible in his past and now desires to find a person worse than him. He is good at being a merc but sometimes questions what he’s doing.

Uses: Mercury can bring a nasty surprise as he storms in. Taking out automated defenses, silencing the in-game audio for enemies…
His Low Dash can also be used when a teammate needs urgent help.

Weaknesses: Short range, low HP and not-so lethal abilities.

And of course, tell me what do you think!

[Naonna]

just edit the first post ‘-’; not always reply…

[I-Fell-Tower]

OK.