Stratus [FS]

[JJMAJR]

Biography:
Stratus is a FS character that has some friends in engineering and meteorology circles. Her studies focused on the nature of weather. She isn’t a fan of IEDs but she knows somewhat a way around them. (This is expressed by her loadout cards mostly containing technology-based augments.)

Stratus has created several devices that allowed her to carry on with her work in the nuclear dystopia that was Texas. She immigrated there back when she was a child, studied at Harvard, and passed with flying colors.

Weapons:
Stratus is a fan of sniper rifles, and thus uses the MOA, FEL-IX, and the PDP. She uses machine pistols to complement her arsenal. Her melee weapons however are generally purpose built, carrying a modern claw hammer, (cricket bat) a Kukri, or a combat knife.

Or for a more organized view:
[spoiler]Primary:
MOA
FEL-IX
PDP
Secondary:
MP-400
Empire-9
Tolen MP
Melee:
Claw Hammer
Kukri
Combat Knife[/spoiler]

Abilities:
Stratus is a Fire Support. This actually reduces the amount of ammunition that she can carry with her.
Her abilities and augments are supposed to more than make up for that fact.

Q: Nimbostratus Seed
40 second cooldown, 10 second duration.

Stratus calls in a plane to seed clouds in a specified area. She pulls up the minimap that shows all ally deployables and tries to define an area to cause rain at. When it’s raining, any deployables and objectives (in competitive, that includes your own) caught in the rain take 25% (Stratus’s own weapons instead have a x2 multiplier) extra damage, and Stratus is dealt 10% less damage when she herself is caught in the rain.

The rain doesn’t affect anything that fire support weaponry can’t directly target.

Enemy stratus clouds look like they are raining blood.

E: Repair Node
With a 40 second cooldown, Stratus could deploy a repair node that reverses damage done to ally deployables. This ability is a replacement for standard-issue FS ammo abilities. Stratus’s repair node has 80 HP, and only shows its effect by a team-colored shimmer around affected deployables.

Stratus’s repair node repairs objectives as if they are players under the affect of Aura’s health station, except with an additional delay where they need to last 5 seconds before they get any repairs done on them. Lock-On however reduces this delay.

Passive: Cloud Connection
Whenever an ally uses a support ability on Stratus, she returns 90% of that ability’s cooldown time back to that player. This doesn’t work with deployables.

Augments:

Necessary Augments
[spoiler]Stratus has standard-issue augments that should be on every build due to the nature of her bio. Either her builds have Mechanic or Escort, which shows her finesse with mechanical devices.

These augments go in the first slot of every build.[/spoiler]

Recommended Augments
[spoiler]These augments are recommended for Stratus because of her biography, but don’t need to be in every loadout she has.

Armor Piercing
Bomb Squad
Enigma
Extra Supplies
Guardian Angel
Healing Reach
Lock-On
Steady
Undercover
Untrackable[/spoiler]

Stats:
110 HP
400 Speed

Scrapped:
[spoiler]Passive: Antimaterial Munitions
Stratus uses specialized antimaterial rounds built solely for taking down vehicles. This reduces her ammo count, and increases the damage she could do to objectives with her sniper rifles by twice as much as what normal mercs could do with the same weapon. (x2 damage to objectives from primary weapon fire)

Likewise I think Proxy should have this kind of passive, but then it would be nuts to have her with 4 abilities, right?[/spoiler]

[Dysfnal1]

I like this, but it does have a large number of issues.

I’ll start with something small and rather insignificant. I don’t think that Texas is hit by anything nuclear during this time, only London is really mentioned in the lore. Not to say Texas couldn’t have been hit, nothing has been said about it.

Felix should be the starting weapon, as no other mercs have it as default. I would also recommend replacing the PDP with the grandeur, as this gives her a unique arsenal. I don’t strictly like snipers as a fire support primary, but it’s not too bad.

Secondaries are fine

What is a claw hammer? What how much damage does it do in relation to other melee weapons?

Her primary ability seems far too niche, and not that strong either. It requires the deployables to be outside, and in a place where you can cause them damage. At that point why not use arty? This would cause the destruction of the deployable, and possibly even kills. Arty also has a much easier time marking the location, with this proposed merc you would need to be in a safe location and take too much time to mark where you want the rain.

Her secondary ability is too strong, you could hide the device behind the deployable, making both it and the deployable invulnerable, except via explosives. Having a very fast heal instead would be better. This would make you have to burst down the deployable, as most people do, but would also require more time to burst it down. Don’t make it too fast though, or turrets would become far too powerful.

I like the idea of antimaterial munitions, but without ammo packs to supply herself she’s both not a real fire support, and her ability requires her to constantly have ammo. And with her arsenal of snipers, it doesn’t complement her ability, she needs line of sight with objectives (aside from the EV), which is usually hard at long range, and snipers actually have the lowest DPS in game.

Having particular augments on mercs specifically for their persona isn’t advisable, she has snipers, which are better used from the back of your team, and not up doing the objective. This isn’t good for mechanic. And escort? What is this? You didn’t explain it in your post.

Other augments are fine, though healing reach wouldn’t affect her primary ability, as it’s not a healing ability.

Health/Speed ratio is fine

My solution, which is very drastic: Give her 3 LMGs for her arsenal, heavy pistols for secondaries, the melee weapons can be left as is, a large health pool, remove primary and secondary abilities, and make the antimaterial munitions her primary (still passive) ability. Allow her to carry the default ammo amount, becuase LMGs are already weak in that department. Give her ammo packs.

Her unique LMG should probably be a middle ground between the existing LMGs, with maybe slightly higher accuracy, a medium fire rate, and damage to match.

[sgtCrookyGrin]

I could add in what I want to say but instead I have to nitpick this.

Multiple times you state that Stratus is she or he, dude pls fix it XD.

Secondly I sort of like the idea it’s just very confusing, very very confusing but hey I like it and should read it some more before I actually give my opinion on it so expect that soon.

[JJMAJR]

[quote=“sgtCrookyGrin;204281”]I could add in what I want to say but instead I have to nitpick this.

Multiple times you state that Stratus is she or he, dude pls fix it XD.

Secondly I sort of like the idea it’s just very confusing, very very confusing but hey I like it and should read it some more before I actually give my opinion on it so expect that soon.[/quote]

[quote=“Dysfnal;204274”]I like this, but it does have a large number of issues.

I’ll start with something small and rather insignificant. I don’t think that Texas is hit by anything nuclear during this time, only London is really mentioned in the lore. Not to say Texas couldn’t have been hit, nothing has been said about it.

Felix should be the starting weapon, as no other mercs have it as default. I would also recommend replacing the PDP with the grandeur, as this gives her a unique arsenal. I don’t strictly like snipers as a fire support primary, but it’s not too bad.[/quote]
The reason why I said Texas was because that I heard something about the reason why London was nuked. Russia was trying to nuke North America and the UK ended up intercepting the bomb by accident. At least that is what I think I heard.

So Texas was more than likely to have been nuked…

[quote=“Dysfnal;204274”]Secondaries are fine

What is a claw hammer? What how much damage does it do in relation to other melee weapons?[/quote]
I was thinking something along the lines of another Cricket Bat. Faster swing speed though, and more easily justified melee range.

In case you don’t know what a claw hammer is, go to a carpentry shop and ask for a hammer. You would find something extremely familiar.

[quote=“Dysfnal;204274”]Her primary ability seems far too niche, and not that strong either. It requires the deployables to be outside, and in a place where you can cause them damage. At that point why not use arty? This would cause the destruction of the deployable, and possibly even kills. Arty also has a much easier time marking the location, with this proposed merc you would need to be in a safe location and take too much time to mark where you want the rain.

I like the idea of antimaterial munitions, but without ammo packs to supply herself she’s both not a real fire support, and her ability requires her to constantly have ammo. And with her arsenal of snipers, it doesn’t complement her ability, she needs line of sight with objectives (aside from the EV), which is usually hard at long range, and snipers actually have the lowest DPS in game.[/quote]
The rain provides Stratus with damage reduction, and also is supposed to help destroy objectives.

Yes, sniper rifles have the lowest DPS against objectives. That’s why I have both a passive and an active ability made just to multiply her DPS against objectives by 4. That makes it really hard to justify the MK46 or the K121 on that character, however I do think that she needs more diversity with her weaponry.

The Hochfir/Blishlock would be just plain retarded.
The Grandeur… is a weapon that I would actually tolerate on FS characters.
Thus the PDP, which makes her a rip off of f-ing Vaseline in regards to weaponry.

To be honest though I am not even comfortable with the PDP (123 DPS) either. This is frustrating.

Her secondary ability is too strong, you could hide the device behind the deployable, making both it and the deployable invulnerable, except via explosives. Having a very fast heal instead would be better. This would make you have to burst down the deployable, as most people do, but would also require more time to burst it down. Don’t make it too fast though, or turrets would become far too powerful.

[quote=“JJMAJR;32333”]E: Repair Node
With a 40 second cooldown, Stratus could deploy a repair node that reverses damage done to ally deployables. This ability is a replacement for standard-issue FS ammo abilities. Stratus’s repair node has 80 HP, and only shows its effect by a team-colored shimmer around affected deployables.

Stratus’s repair node repairs objectives as if they are players under the affect of Aura’s health station, except with an additional delay where they need to last 5 seconds before they get any repairs done on them. Lock-On however reduces this delay.[/quote]

Also, Stratus’s name is supposed to reference cloud computing, and her primary ability also involves clouds. Her main strength though is the fact that she is a sniper, with effectively 122 HP, and the ability to support her team by making many abilities have a longer effect.

[quote=“Dysfnal;204274”]Having particular augments on mercs specifically for their persona isn’t advisable, she has snipers, which are better used from the back of your team, and not up doing the objective. This isn’t good for mechanic. And escort? What is this? You didn’t explain it in your post.

Other augments are fine, though healing reach wouldn’t affect her primary ability, as it’s not a healing ability.

Health/Speed ratio is fine[/quote]
I don’t really like Vaseline that just stays far from the action, not doing anything to help the team. I like-

-oh my god this is too gay for me.

Anyways, you get the idea. The reason why I said that she should have Mechanic or Escort in every loadout is because that she needs to be pushed to contribute to the team in order for players to make the most out of her.

But mostly it’s because that the Repair node exists.

If you don’t know what Escort is, look on the DB wiki. It states that it increases EV speed contribution by the player, which I think Objective Specialists should have in their passive once their abilities are reworked to be defensive-focused in nature.

[quote=“Dysfnal;204274”]My solution, which is very drastic: Give her 3 LMGs for her arsenal, heavy pistols for secondaries, the melee weapons can be left as is, a large health pool, remove primary and secondary abilities, and make the antimaterial munitions her primary (still passive) ability. Allow her to carry the default ammo amount, becuase LMGs are already weak in that department. Give her ammo packs.

Her unique LMG should probably be a middle ground between the existing LMGs, with maybe slightly higher accuracy, a medium fire rate, and damage to match.[/quote]
Do you know how broken that could be? And to be honest, what you left wasn’t much of a character to talk about any more. It’s just Fragger (sans frags) with ammo packs and a very specific form of objective specialist.

Ohh, I forgot that the multiplier for the damage here is x2 and couldn’t reach x4.
Still that’s more EV DPS than what I given Stratus here. Not to mention the fact that the EV takes more damage from LMGs.

[BushWanker]

Nice idea!

[BushWanker]

Sounds maybe a bit OP but let’s not go there lol.
Also don’t FS mercs have ammo packs or stations lol

[Dysfnal1]

My biggest concern is that she seems too niche

[JJMAJR]

After some thought, I don’t think that rain should affect explosive damage against objectives or deployables. However I think that makes the effect she would have on certain maps greatly reduced, such as Dome (which is a pain) and Gallery.

Also don’t FS mercs have ammo packs or stations lol

Repair Node = Stratus’s ammo station.

My biggest concern is that she seems too niche

Yeah, this one’s swingy.

Citadel and Bridge would have no affect on deployables even though the EV would be incredibly easy to destroy.

Meanwhile Underground/Market just gives extra HP. There are exceptions for defenders though…

Trainyard has another FS class people need to deal with, but it’s great as a Kira replacement because of the sniper rifle.

Overground just dies with this character around.

Dome actually would be greatly affected by this character’s presence.

Extremely useful defending character in Gallery when things go wrong.

Terminal would be affected greatly on the last point.

Dockyard though… Great for attackers. Just make sure to avoid putting the cloud in the wrong place.

[BushWanker]

Sorry, I didn’t read it properly.
Also could you rephrase what the abilities do to help us all properly understand?

[sgtCrookyGrin]

You fixed it! The inner nit pick urge has finally been itched XD

[Fyrix]

Wtf have I just read

[JJMAJR]

I was reminded of this ability idea I had before as an afterthought:

[quote=“JJMAJR;200082”]I thought of something gimmicky, fun, and maybe somewhat cool, but I think it should be a passive ability for something like a fire support.

Bribery
Whenever another player uses a support ability on you, that ability’s cooldown is reduced by 10%. Doesn’t synergize with healing stations or ammo dispensers.

I originally thought “what if that was an augment” but then I decided against it.

Hey, it would be like the Phoenix of Fire Support classes! At least in regards to a radial healing ability.[/quote]
Two active abilities and two passives. Yup, I gone crazy.

Wtf have I just read

Something beautiful.

[quote=“Bushwanker;204319”]Sorry, I didn’t read it properly.
Also could you rephrase what the abilities do to help us all properly understand?[/quote]
Repair Node increases how long an ability could last. It’s a replacement for the ammo abilities most fire supports have, which is fine considering how powerful sniper rifles are if they have infinite ammo.

It’s partially inspired off of an earlier idea where a FS character recharges abilities instead of ammo.

Nimbostratus Seed is a FS ability made to modify how much damage that Stratus and machines are dealt, if those things are exposed to open air. It’s supposed to have greater map coverage than Arty’s artillery strike while giving Stratus the ability to tank some damage. I feel that at the moment Stratus’s damage reduction may be too low with her effective HP being only 122.

Finally Stratus has a passive that makes her deal more damage to objectives with her primaries, which have low DPS. Unfortunately I can’t think of more than 2 weapons that have less than 100 DPS, which may cause the PDP to be broken on her.

[Naonna]

The next time I see someone suggest ANY ability which remotely repairs an objective, plants or defuses a c4, adds to movement of a character or characters, changes spawn timers in some way, or deals unlimited passive damage or slowing to an EV, I’m gonna smack them (with a link to this post).

Reasoning:
By making that sort of ability, the merc becomes a MUST pick. Without it, even if the character’s killing potential is less, the player bypasses the core aspects of the game modes.

[nice to be back. ‘-’]

[JJMAJR]

[quote=“Naonna;204785”]The next time I see someone suggest ANY ability which remotely repairs an objective, plants or defuses a c4, adds to movement of a character or characters, changes spawn timers in some way, or deals unlimited passive damage or slowing to an EV, I’m gonna smack them (with a link to this post).

Reasoning:
By making that sort of ability, the merc becomes a MUST pick. Without it, even if the character’s killing potential is less, the player bypasses the core aspects of the game modes.

[nice to be back. ‘-’][/quote]

I understand that you think the passive would make the merc a must-pick. However there’s the fact that her passive on her highest-DPS primary (except the PDP, dammit why) deals 125 DPS (numbers compared to other primaries before damage reduction) against objectives.

A typical LMG, and heck, the Timik, have the ability to ignore some EV damage reduction, would deal much more than 125 DPS against players.

Therefore the passive damage would be wasted if not used when under the effects of rain.

But I am starting to think that her passive ability should really be replaced by a better one, or bolt-actions should have this kind of buff by default, because said buff would only make their new DPS Blishlock/M4A1 size, which is miniscule.

[quote=“JJMAJR;32333”]Abilities:
Stratus is a Fire Support. This actually reduces the amount of ammunition that she can carry with her.
Her abilities and augments are supposed to more than make up for that fact.

Q: Nimbostratus Seed
40 second cooldown, 10 second duration.

Stratus calls in a plane to seed clouds in a specified area. She pulls up the minimap that shows all ally deployables and tries to define an area to cause rain at. When it’s raining, any deployables and objectives (in competitive, that includes your own) caught in the rain take 25% (Stratus’s own weapons instead have a x2 multiplier) extra damage, and Stratus is dealt 10% less damage when she herself is caught in the rain.

The rain doesn’t affect anything that fire support weaponry can’t directly target.

Enemy stratus clouds look like they are raining blood.

E: Repair Node
[spoiler]With a 40 second cooldown, Stratus could deploy a repair node that reverses damage done to ally deployables. This ability is a replacement for standard-issue FS ammo abilities. Stratus’s repair node has 80 HP, and only shows its effect by a team-colored shimmer around affected deployables.

Stratus’s repair node repairs objectives as if they are players under the affect of Aura’s health station, except with an additional delay where they need to last 5 seconds before they get any repairs done on them. Lock-On however reduces this delay.[/spoiler]

Passive: Cloud Connection
Whenever an ally uses a support ability on Stratus, she returns 90% of that ability’s cooldown time back to that player. This doesn’t work with deployables.[/quote]

No more antimaterial munitions to screw up the balance of the PDP, but it would require the bolt-action rifles to deal double damage to the EV by default in order to work properly.

[sgtCrookyGrin]

@JJMAJR
Question dude, what “is” the damage reduction percentage on bullets for objectives? 50%? 85%? Been trying to figure this out and also the amount of health they normally have.

[JJMAJR]

[quote=“sgtCrookyGrin;204851”]@JJMAJR
Question dude, what “is” the damage reduction percentage on bullets for objectives? 50%? 85%? Been trying to figure this out and also the amount of health they normally have.[/quote]

It’s hard to figure out for myself. The devs don’t really give this kind of information out, but I know that LMGs and the Timik deal increased damage against objectives.

[sgtCrookyGrin]

[quote=“JJMAJR;204853”][quote=“sgtCrookyGrin;204851”]@JJMAJR
Question dude, what “is” the damage reduction percentage on bullets for objectives? 50%? 85%? Been trying to figure this out and also the amount of health they normally have.[/quote]

It’s hard to figure out for myself. The devs don’t really give this kind of information out, but I know that LMGs and the Timik deal increased damage against objectives.[/quote]

Damnit. Been looking everywhere for this information, turns out I’m not insane that I don’t know the numbers themselves.

Would they be in the game files maybe?