As the title says. Just throwing a bunch of ideas out there.
The goal here is to present the community (and hopefully Splash Damage) with concepts for a Spotting ability (which Phantom currently lacks, despite being classified as a “Recon” merc), that don’t fully compromise his “lone wolf” play style or diminish/interfere with his ability to sneak around with his Refractive Armor.
Any thoughts, insights, etc. on the ideas presented are welcome in the comments.
Simple Abilities:
These would not greatly alter Phantom in any way, other than granting a spotting ability.
Target Marking (Simple) - A very basic active Spotting ability. Activate to Spot an enemy in your crosshairs for a few seconds. Can be used without limit, even in Stealth (if wanted) without penalty to armor level.
This would behave as a weaker, more aim-intensive version of RedEye’s IR Goggles in terms of spotting.
Tracer Bullets - Passive ability. Starting with the fifth shot, one out of every five bullets fired by Phantom’s primary weapon will Spot enemy targets on hit.
Very simply paints combatants to give teammates a better idea of where a gunfight is happening.
Communications Hack - Active ability. Globally spots all enemy units for an 8 second duration. 75 second cooldown.
Great recon potential countered by a long cooldown, and does not disclose Phantom’s location.
Spy Drone - Active ability. A handheld drone that is thrown like the SNITCH device. Spots enemies in its line of sight within a certain range before falling out of the sky after flying a certain distance or hitting a wall. 14 second cooldown.
Does not leave a bright glowing trail like the SNITCH, and is small and light colored to blend into the environment. Would be difficult to see or shoot down, but an enemy with Bomb Squad would be able to see where it came from with relative ease.
A spotting ability with a broader effect, spotting multiple enemies with the ease of other recon abilities, but without lasting effect. A reckless Phantom might reveal his location throwing such a drone if not used with proper judgement.
Advanced Abilities:
These abilities would affect Phantom’s play style and/or expand on his character role.
DUPE Device - The Deployable Undercover Personal (or Phantom) Espionage Device is a stealthy, repurposed SNITCH device that, instead of being planted and then spotting and debilitating enemies, is instead used as a decoy device to confuse assailants and assess enemy position indirectly without compromising stealth.
The DUPE Device would be stealthed while traveling through the air and, when planted, spot nearby enemies in it’s line-of-sight for Phantom personally (meaning that neither Phantom’s teammates nor his spotted rivals would be aware). Additionally, it constantly emits the same loud buzzing sound as Phantom’s refractive armor, sowing fear and uncertainty into enemy assailants and having them on the lookout for a Phantom that isn’t really there.
This ability would have a ~24 second cooldown and stay active ~18 seconds.
There are obviously significant impacts that this ability would have on Phantom’s play style, but it stays true to Phantom’s solo play style, and while it wouldn’t be the same team-spotting ability that other mercs have, it would definitively distinguish him as a recon merc and not an assault.
Throwing Knives - Active ability. (Independent from the user’s melee weapon.) Medium-short-ranged offensive/recon ability. A simple ranged ability that deals ~45 damage and sticks into targets for up to 20 seconds. 10 second cooldown. Stack up to 3, and can be Reclaimed from walls and finished targets for cooldown return. A max of 3 can be deployed at once.
Throwing Knives would remain stuck in their target indefinitely until removed by a teammate of the affected merc (by walking up to the knifed merc and pressing “F”; this awards the helper with 25xp). While stuck, the affected merc has their natural health regeneration nullified and is constantly spotted. Throwing Knives stuck in enemy mercs also temporarily spot other enemies in a small 2m/6.5ft radius, so when they run to get themselves unstuck they might disclose their teammates’ location.
These would allow Phantom to execute short-ranged assassinations of relatively weak mercs, and spot and disrupt bigger targets for other teammates to find if he cannot engage them himself. Since this is a dual combat/spotting ability, it would lock Phantom on the border of assault/recon classification.
Target Marking (Advanced) - Uses the same point-and-spot mechanic as explained in the section above, but this one is different. In addition to spotting target enemies for an extended duration, affected mercs are also debilitated (Aimee’s debuff which increases bullet damage to the affected merc), giving Phantom a sort of “mark for death” ability. This would be accompanied by a 5 second cooldown.
This would allow Phantom to more effectively assassinate targets from a distance, but consequently shift him further from the “lone wolf” playstyle because of the potential for close teamwork.
That goes back to Phantom straying too far from the lone-wolf recon classification in any case, since it would not only be a combat ability, but would Debilitate and spot enemies, making it optimal when (or even entirly dependent on) having teammates with guns involved. This, as I have said, deviates too far from the standard of maintaining Phantom’s current solo style for me to consider it over pure-damage Throwing Knives or include it in the main post.