Before reading this keep in mind that this post is primarily directed towards the average pub rhino. This means the minigun is essentially your only weapon.
So people always complain about rhino being a low skill merc, they also seem to suggest that rhino is a low risk low reward merc. While I do agree that rhino is definitely a low risk low reward merc, calling him a no skill one is simply unrealistic. Yes, it is easy to kill enemies when they’re right next to you however to get to this point several things need to happen first. As rhino you need to pick your fights and make sure you have throughout your positioning. Running directly at the enemy while they are shooting at you won’t work as your slow, big, and need to rev up to attack with your minigun. This encourages playing rhino defensively, cautiously, and predictably. I enjoy playing rhino but I will admit that I often will resort to camping in some situations as it would be far too risky for me to attempt to move up. Due to rhinos horrific accuracy he is generally limited to cqc and since his movement speed is so low closing gaps to reach these situations is very difficult and will likely result in you dying. Now the real reason I made this post is I would like to make a few suggestions about this merc to potentially make him more viable in non cqc situations which would in turn encourage less camping and more movement when playing rhino.
Buff:
-10% increased to minigun accuracy
-25% faster accuracy recovery on the minigun
-20% longer overheat time
Nerf:
-minigun generated increased amounts of noise
-minigun will not cool down while reved
-60% slower cool down
New secondary ability, charge: cooldown 10 seconds, duration: until canceled
-can only be activated while minigun is out and cause it to quickly cool down
-on activation rhino quickly dashes forwards with increased movement speed(25% faster), and damage resistance(15%)
-downed enemy’s will be killed if passed over, deployable items will also be destroyed
-while charging you cannot attack, stop moving, or walk backwards but can cancel the attack at any time by using melee attack at which point rhino will bash the target with his minigun dealing 50% more damage.
-chopper will increase the charges damage
Ok, that was a lot of text… but wait there’s more.
The point of the changes above would be reduce the effectiveness of sitting in a corner or healing station while increasing rhinos effectiveness at offensive combat and on the go power as the game seems to be focused around. The charge is intended to be used after firing the minigun in order to cool it down and get closer to your next target. The cool down speed reduction and no cool down while revved makes movement required if your want to keep using your minigun consistently. As for the damage reduction and melee boost while charging these stats are simply there to add combat use to the ability but could easily be removed if necessary. The slight accuracy and overheat time are to compensate for the cooldown nerf. Overall my goal with this idea. Would be to encourage more offensive gameplay as rhino instead of camping or “low skill gameplay”.
So what do you think of the idea? Rhino is currently fine in my opinion and I doubt anything will change about him for a while however fun while he is severely lacking. Additionally I do not think that this should necessarily be implemented just wanted to see what everyone’s reaction to the idea would be.
I spend a lot of time on this so please judge fairly