Deceive Inc. – The Definitive Agent Kit Guide

A guidebook for the confused Deceive Inc player, offering detailed explanations of how every character’s weapons, expertise, and passives work along with examples of use and a few top tips.

Should also be helpful for those in ‘what the hell just killed me’ situations! Learn exactly how your opponents were able to Deceive you and re-enter the field with certainty you won’t make the same mistake again.

Introduction

This guide aims to deliver clear, detailed explanations of EVERY weapon and ability in the game to aid those who do not understand them and maybe even inspire some people to use abilities in ways they hadn’t thought of. Will be updated should abilities be changed/added.

You can expect:

• Breakdowns of weapons/abilities
• Examples of use cases and strengths/weaknesses
• Maybe a few fun facts! (for example, did you know Larcin P2 can work with tripwires?)

Characters are grouped together by role, going Vanguard, Tracker, Disruptor, Scoundrel.

Squire

Squire is an all-rounder agent with plenty of fighting power and utility. Being easy to understand with both combat and non-combat options he’s an overall good choice for newbies and experienced players alike.

Weapons:

W1: Lance

Squire’s initial weapon, the Lance, is a solid jack-of-all trades semi-auto weapon that fires fairly quickly. It’s still a competitive pick though, as it’s consistency is unmatched by any other weapon.

• Though it isn’t completely silent, it is noticeably quieter than other weapons, making it harder to pin down for any listeners.

W2: Trident

An alternative weapon sporting a three-round burst fire with a short cool-down.

• Compared to the Lance, the Trident fires a lot faster at the cost of dealing less damage per bullet, and having much more noticeable recoil
• In-game, it’s best to play it like a full-auto weapon, using it’s high output to put constant pressure and damage onto your rivals
• Due to it’s high recoil, you’ll want to try and stick to close-mid ranges with it, as it’ll make it easier to hit every bullet in the burst

W3: Javelin

A slower, powerful semi-auto pistol that trades off fire-rate and mag size for much chunkier shots.

• With it being able to kill in only 3 headshots, this weapon is particularly dangerous in the hands of a skilled player
• While aiming for the head is a great strategy, it’s still a good weapon even with only body-shots
• For ambushing: Using a charged melee attack to knock your opponent out of cover allows you to kill them in 2 headshots instead of 3. Though, this strategy doesn’t work against anyone with any health field upgrade, so it’s mainly a strat to use in the early game.

Expertises:

E1: Eyes on the Prize

Squire’s E1 allows him to learn the locations of all available Intel, Safes, Food, and Keycards within range. This ability works even through drawers and walls.

• A useful out of combat tool, Squire’s E1 is great for teaching new players how items spawn, or to enable experienced players to use their time and Intel efficiently
• A good use case for this ability is to use it outside of a staff room before hacking the door, allowing you to see if it really has what you need (namely keycards)
• It can also be used outside of Vault Terminal rooms to see if they actually contain a vault terminal: If you see a safe icon in there you’ll know it doesn’t contain a terminal (though still might be worth looting)
• During extraction, make sure to use it while you have the package so you can quickly refill your Intel to be able to see other players through walls.

E2: Under Pressure

Squire’s E2 gives him an increased sprint speed and faster reload speed for a short duration when activated.

• Very Useful in-combat to make dodging easier, and to help him have much less downtime while reloading
• Can also be used as a disengage tool: using the increased speed to help outrun a pursuer in a chase
• Allows you to more easily close the distance between you and another player, especially if they’re using that distance to their advantage with something like a Sheildbrella
• Great in close quarters fights, allowing you to change direction quickly around your opponent to throw them off and make aiming at you much harder.

E3: Danger Sense

Squire’s E3 creates a large zone around him for a short time. If there are no rivals located in that zone, it appears blue. If there are any rivals (regardless of cover) within the zone, the color changes to red.

• Great for double-checking before doing a suspicious action (such as hacking a door, opening a safe, etc). If the zone appears blue, it’s basically guaranteed that no one will see you do it.
• Alternatively, it’s also great for letting you make plans based on the information it gives you. If the zone appears red, that means it’s time to either lay low and focus on stealth, or be on the lookout for any suspicious behavior.

Passives:

P1: Always Ready

Whenever Squire is damaged by any thing but falling, he gains a sprint speed increase for a short time. He can only gain this boost once before having to regain his cover to use it again.

• The most consistent of Squires passives, as you’re guaranteed to gain this boost no matter if your the ambusher or ambushee
• In general, you’ll want to play it a similar way to how you would use his E2 (but without the reload bonus)
• In a fight, it might be worthwhile to disengage mid-fight to regain your cover so you can recharge the speed boost. This is most easily done with gadgets like Sheildbrella and Bounce Pad.

P2: Sixth Sense

Whenever Squire’s cover is blown, he traces and broadcasts his assailant, allowing him and his team to see them through walls.

• Usefull in teams to help your teammates know exactly where your assailant is if you struggle with call-outs
• Important to note: The broadcast of this ability (not mentioned in it’s description) can be seen by both teammates and rivals, and as such can draw unwanted attention from nearby players.
• With that in mind: people playing passively with Squire may find broadcasting their assailant with this ability, and then escaping using Bounce Pad or Squire E2 to be a worthy strategy: letting other rivals kill the opponent for you.
• This ability activates on tripwires, giving the effects to the person who placed them (though it’s a bit spotty and doesn’t always work)

P3: Aegis Cover

Squire’s cover shield lasts a bit longer, granting him headshot protection for a longer duration than normal. Additionally: in that duration Squire has 25% resistance to all incoming damage.

• Incredibly helpful if you find yourself getting ambushed a lot, as it helps draw out your survivability to give you a few more seconds to react.
• Also useful for disengaging, as it lessens the punishment of being successfully followed
• Being the easiest to use out of all of Squires passives, an easy way to get more value out of this passive is to not engage with fights whenever possible, relying on stealth to get you past obstacles.
• If there have been times when you’ve pumped enough damage into a Squire to kill him and he just hasn’t died, this is likely why.

Chavez

A family man and veteran agent on the verge of retirement, Chavez is a solid, dependable Vanguard with beefy revolvers as his weapons, and abilities revolving around being able to take more hurt before going down.

Weapons

W1: Sentinel

A high damage revolver that holds six shots and is a mid-range specialist, although by no means underperforming at close range.

• Does exactly 25 damage on a torso shot within its effective range, allowing it to kill most players in four shots.
• Requires precision in aiming due to its nature as a relatively slow firing weapon

W2: Vigilante

A short barrel revolver that trades damage and range for faster firing and better handling, making it a very good option for close range combat that’s nevertheless usable at mid-range.

• Significantly lower damage means the Vigilante must land all six shots to kill the average player, although it is still Chavez’ least punishing weapon for missed shots due to the incredibly speedy firerate and reload.

W3: Duke

A high damage, long barrel ‘Big Iron’ revolver for the most badass of sheriffs in town- so long as you’re confident you can hit your shots.

• High risk, high reward. A headshot will send the majority of your opponents’ health straight down the drain, but the weapon is very punishing for missed shots due to the very slow rate of fire and incredibly sluggish reload.
• Handles very like a sniper rifle and is very comfortable at even the longest of ranges.
• E3 can be used to absorb enough damage to power up the weapon enough to insta-kill on a headshot, which is very funny if you can pull it off

Expertise

E1: Hard Boiled

Chavez near-instantly becomes Invulnerable for a few seconds. While he’s invulnerable, Chavez is incapable of taking damage from any source- but isn’t able to retaliate with his own gunfire or melee attacks for this period, and is limited to moving around and opening unlocked doors.

• Often seen as a fairly useless ability- since you can’t retaliate and you’re unlikely to escape your opponent, all you do with this ability is delay your death, which is certainly the case if the ability is used in a panic at close range.
• A very handy ability in mid-to-long range fights to reposition safely or increase the timespan you have to get behind cover when someone’s shooting at you
• If playing in a team setting, consider letting your teammates take cover behind you in an active firefight
• Negates all damage, including fall damage. This ability lets you take very long falls with no sweat, which can be a helpful tactic to escape someone who may not be willing to take large amounts of damage to follow you, or simply to get around the map quickly
• If several guards are present when you’re fighting another spy, consider using this ability so they are forced to eat a little more damage from the guards while you remain untouched
• Chavez remains vulnerable to Neutralization from Red or Hans while invulnerable, which can force him out of his expertise
• Can be cancelled early- and unlike letting the duration run out naturally, Chavez is still invincible until the animation of closing his locket and taking out his weapon again finishes. Consider turning invincible and immediately cancelling and continuing to fight to catch opponents off guard.

E2: Unshakable Fortress

Chavez creates a small zone around himself which lasts a fairly long time. Chavez, and his teammates, become Resistant while in the zone, reducing all damage taken by 40%.

• Often seen as Chavez’ most worthwhile ability, is frequently plonked down in a fight to help Chavez tough out a little more damage
• Very helpful in team fights due to the ability also affecting teammates
• Do remain aware that 40% damage resistance is nowhere near total invulnerability. It’s very possible for your opponents to sink enough damage into you to kill you regardless.
• Easily countered by retreating, which will force Chavez to either disengage combat, or follow the rival out of his resistance field

E3: Return to Sender

Chavez near-instantly becomes Invulnerable in a very similar manner to E1. There are a few key differences- for one, the maximum duration of the ability is halved down to three-and-a-half seconds. In exchange, Chavez will absorb damage dealt to him while invincible and use it to power up his weapon, with his revolver’s damage increasing relative to the damage absorbed. This extra damage lasts until Chavez reloads his weapon.

• You can still pull many of the tricks that E1 allows, even with the shortened duration- although if using it to negate fall damage, you will have to time it a little more precisely
• Damage from guards counts. Consider deliberately breaking cover near guards and using the ability to ensure you’ll have a little damage boost in your next fight.
• Unlike E1, doesn’t synergize very well with P1 due to the invincibility not lasting long enough to regenerate meaningful amounts of health

Passives

P1: Tough Luck

Chavez turns a portion of the damage dealt to him, roughly 2/3, into Grey Health. Grey health does not function as normal health (it will not block damage), and there is a maximum to how much Grey Health Chavez can have at any one time. Grey health will start regenerating after a short delay period after taking damage. For example, if Chavez has his initial health of 100, and is shot for 30 damage, he will be left with 70 health AND 20 Grey health. If Chavez then doesn’t take any damage for a short period, the 20 grey health will slowly regenerate into proper health, leaving him with 90 HP.

• Very handy in prolonged combat situations where Chavez doesn’t have access to healing methods, due to him theoretically being able to take up to three times as much damage as normal assuming he is allowed time to regenerate his grey health in between damage.
• Synergizes very well with E1, as grey health will regenerate while invincible
• Note that enemies can guess Chavez is healing his grey health via yellow health particles he emits while the grey health regenerates

P2: Overheal

Chavez gains the ability to Overheal up to 50 extra health (which is static and does not scale with health upgrades). Any method of healing can Overheal and add Overhealth to Chavez’ health bar. The main weakness of the ability is that Overhealth is temporary and will start draining back down to Chavez’ default maximum health after a short period of time where he receives no healing.

• Excellent for if you know a fight is coming and have ready access to healing
• Synergizes well with Nutritional Supplement and Social Battery field upgrades
• Works best with his E2 to help draw out the value of that extra health

P3: Endurance Training

In a similar manner to P1, Chavez turns 2/3 of the damage he takes into Grey Health. With P3, the grey health does NOT regenerate over time, and instead, a small portion of the grey health is healed whenever Chavez deals damage to a rival spy.

• A great ability to tough out just a little extra damage in combat
• Note that healing by other methods will replace Grey health before empty health bar sections- for example, if Chavez has 50 HP and 20 Grey HP, healing 10 HP will leave Chavez with 60 HP and 10 Grey HP.

Ace

Advertised as “The Sniper” of Deceive Inc, Ace’s playstyle tends to be rather different to sniper characters in other games. Equipped with chargeable shots and unique tracking options, Ace is an agent who can be incredibly deadly in the right hands, but very much relies on precision to be viable.

Weapons:

W1: Queen of Diamonds

A powerful semi-auto sniper rifle, the Queen of Diamonds deals big chunks of damage in exchange for a slow fire-rate.

• With an E2/P1 boosted headshot along with any bodyshot being enough to kill, this weapon is great for skilled players who are confident in their shots
• Since Ace’s passives start charging right after you shoot, this weapon allows you to use them on every shot pretty consistently provided the fight setting has enough breathing room to remain scoped in.

W2: Jack of Diamonds

Ace’s faster but lower damage option, this weapon is great for people who love her tracking, but are less keen on the whole “Sniper” deal.

• Due to it having the smallest shots-to-kill difference with and without her E2, this weapon is her go-to if you want to play her as a full tracker as it’s less reliant on the extra damage.
• Due to it’s faster firerate, it’s important to only use your passives when an opportunity arises for them, as taking the time to charge them before every shot will slow down your damage output significantly.

W3: King of Diamonds

If you felt let down by her first 2 options, her third weapon is as “Sniper” as it gets, a heavy single-shot sniper rifle capable of dealing insane damage at the cost of an insanely slow firerate.

• Combined with E2 or P1, headshots with this gun are able to one-shot any player without any health upgrades (and with both, it one-shots regardless of health upgrades.) Keep in mind players in cover are immune to headshots.
• The need to reload after every shot means incredibly high downtime. Make sure to keep your distance and hide behind cover while reloading.

Expertises:

E1: Queens Gaze

Ace applies Hunted to the last player she hit, or the player closest to the center of her sights while aiming. Hunted players can be seen through walls, and Ace is shown a footstep trail to their location.

• Great for catching players who try to disengage, allowing you to hunt them down after they break line of sight
• Also great mid-fight to be able to keep tabs on where your opponent is through walls, such as if you’re ducking behind cover. Predicting when they’re going to pop out from behind cover also allows you to line up charged headshots easily.

E2: Stacked Odds

Ace applies Vulnerable to the last player she hit, or the player/NPC closest to the center of her sights while aiming. Vulnerable players are shown with a diamond around them even while in cover, and take +25% more damage from all sources.

• Often seen as her best expertise by far due to how much it speeds up kills with W1 or W3.
• Because the diamond can be seen through cover, it’s good for making a rival be unable to hide in a crowd, but is noticeably less useful to track opponents down than E1.

E3: Big Blind

Ace enters a stance in where she can place a zone on the ground anywhere in sight. Every player and NPC in that zone can be seen by Ace and her allies through walls.

• Great for monitoring choke points such as the entrance to a terminal room.
• People aren’t notified they’re in the zone, and as such will act as if they think no one is watching. Use this to your advantage in places like guard and staff rooms.
• Also great in fights to see people through walls while taking cover, as unlike E1 you can see multiple rivals at the same time.

Passives:

P1: Diamond’s Bet

Ace is able to charge up her shots before firing. Charged shots deal about 25% more damage.

• Great with her W1 and 3 to help make her headshots deal more impactful damage
• Also great for making sure you get E2’s damage on the same shot you use to apply it, as the scoping-in-to-apply method can be a bit unreliable.

P2: Crippling Shot

Ace is able to charge up her shots before firing. Charged shots slow rivals down for a short time.

• Amazing as an opener with any weapon, as it makes the next few shots much easier to hit

P3: Cover Flush

Ace is able to charge up her shots before firing. Charged shots make rivals unable to regain their cover for a short time.

• Works well to stop rivals regaining cover in fights, making it much harder for them to disappear back into the crowd or use abilities that require cover.
• Can also work well for sniping out someones cover at a distance, and leaving them vulnerable to other players or guards while you get away.

Cavaliere

Cavaliere is the detective of Deceive Inc: she is able to take advantage of amazing tracking and powerful weapons to find and eliminate players on her own terms. With such a different expertise style, she’s one of the few agents with a wildly different gameplay loop to the rest: aiming for the other players rather than the objectives in Phase 1.

Weapons:

W1: Dragoons

Cav’s first weapon is a pair of alternating dual pistols, allowing her to pepper opponents with their fast fire-rate and impressive damage.

• Her best weapon for consistency, Cav’s Dragoons are a great option for anyone with a twitchy trigger finger looking for a fun spam-click weapon.
• With these weapons, it’s important to make sure as many shots hit as possible, as they can be fairly ammo hungry in fights and reloading can mean a death sentence from most players.
• While they work about as well as any other weapon at long ranges, their reliance on quick firing makes them most powerful at short to mid ranges.

W2: Hydras

Packing more of a punch than her Dragoons, Cavaliere’s Hydra’s have both guns fire at the same time to deal bigger chunks of damage at a noticeably slower fire-rate

• While supposedly being her “high risk, high reward” weapons, Cav’s Hydras actually kill much slower than both her W1 or W3. As such, most people tend to ignore them right now as they just aren’t as effective as her other options.
• Firing much slower than her other 2 weapons, it’s important to be able to use natural cover/shields to your advantage: making yourself harder to hit in-between shots
• As they fire much slower and have much more manageable recoil than her other 2 options, her W2 is generally the best for longer range engagements.

W3: Wyverns

With both guns swapped out for a fully-auto counterpart, Cavaliere’s Wyverns give you an insanely fast fire-rate and amazing damage, at the cost of some of the strongest recoil in the game.

• Amazing for ambushes, allowing you to melt away a large portion of a rivals health bar before they even know you’re there.
• Incredibly ammo hungry: It’s good idea to have Ammo Capacity somewhere in your field upgrade deck as you’ll go through bullets even faster than her W1 with these weapons
  [*} Main downside is their intense recoil: as such longer ranged attacks are almost impossible, and mid-range fights will lead to a lot of missed bullets. Make sure to stay within close ranges of your target for best results.

Expertises:

E1: Investigation

In her E1, Cavaliere enters a stance where all items which have been interacted with by rivals in the last 60 seconds are highlighted. Investigating these objects allows you to see who last interacted with them, as well as trace that person for a period of time based on how many items were investigated.

• Note: Cavaliere’s E1 is currently bugged right now, making items have a high chance of not being highlighted when they should. As such it’s effectively unusable right now until said bug is fixed. All other points are made with the assumption that the ability isn’t bugged, so take them with a grain of salt.
• The most consistent of the 3, her E1 has the benefit of getting you the most traces, with the caveat that a good few of those traces will be farther away than the duration allows
• If you’re able to pin down where the last trace ended or started, you can usually end up finding more items to track them down if one of those was in a room.
• The expertise which empowers the “Cavaliere Playstyle” the most: A ton of value can be gotten by spending all of phase 1 looking for clues, and then hunting down the players you find.
• Useful in Phase 3 as well, as you can investigate used intel devices near a briefcase ping to hunt down the package carrier.

E2: It’s a Setup!

Cavaliere places a large zone which is invisible to rivals. Anyone who interacts with an electronic device in that zone gets Traced similar to her E1.

• This expertise isn’t widely used, notably because of it’s glaring similarities to the Hacktrap gadget, which outperforms it in every way.
• Even then, Her E2 is great for players who want a more typical playstyle, at it allows you to just place it somewhere while you go about your business and go hunt down anyone who activates it.
• Placing the zone in high-traffic areas with lots of Intel is important for getting the most out of it, Staff Rooms, Guard Rooms, and Vault Terminals are all great places to put the zone.
• The zone has a very low cooldown after being picked up, so don’t be afraid to move it to somewhere closer to you so you can more easily kill someone caught in it.

E3: Redemption

Cavaliere enters a stance similar to her E1, but instead she is able to investigate KO’ed NPCs and Players, as well as any Holo-Breadcrumbs (the little faces you leave behind when you change cover)

• Cav’s E3 presents a middle ground between her E2 and E1, making you have to swap between a normal playstyle, and an E1 style “Cav Playstyle” on the fly.
• In teams, you’re able to investigate your own downed party members, allowing you to scope out if the killers are camping their body or not
• If you here a gunfight going on around near you, It might be a good idea to investigate the area once the fight is over to use the KO’ed player to trace the winner

Passives:

P1: Tiger’s Leap

Cavaliere’s fully charged melee attacks propel her a short distance forward

• Great for repositioning mid-fight, as well as ambushing players while out of normal melee range
• Helpful in chases as it allows you to catch up to players faster than they can run

P2: Maximum Velocity

Cavaliere’s fully charged melee attacks reload her weapons and give her a sprint speed boost if they hit a player.

• Also great for ambushes, as it gives you better dodging for a short time after breaking their cover
• Works well as a finisher also, as the instant reload and sprint speed bonus is great for combating third-partying
• If you already have an enemy in close quarters (such as in a guard or staff room), then it also works as a mid-combat reload option with bonus damage and speed

P3: Baleful Blow

Cavaliere’s fully charged melee attacks cause any player hit by them to be slowed for a short time.

• Her go-to ambush option, amazing for shutting down people’s choices at the start of a fight
  [*} Very helpful with her W2 and W3 for making sure every bullet hits.

Sasori

Sasori, the Venomous Assassin, is Deceive Inc’s newest agent, a deadly Tracker with an intoxicating arsenal of various throwable pointy objects and blades, who dabbles in cookery in his spare time.

A key part of his arsenal is a status effect unique to him: Poisoned. Poisoned players:

• Cannot receive healing by any means (They are unable to interact with health stations or food, and if anything happens which would otherwise heal them (For example, a Red allied with them uses E2 near them), they simply do not get health back. You can pick up Spypacks left by a dead player while Poisoned, but they do not restore health).
• Cannot interact with any objects in the environment. Unable to hack intel, pick up ammo, open doors, open safes, interact with an NPC to change your cover, the list goes on.
• Have their vision clouded slightly with a green effect.

Note that unlike poison effects in various other games, Sasori’s poison causes NO damage in itself. but because it prevents healing, it is a good way to prevent your opponent from healing via food or health stations mid-fight, and it essentially negates healing abilities. Be aware that due to a bug Red’s Sweet Embrace ability can heal Red or her allies even while they are poisoned.

Weapons:

Sasori’s weapons are very unique. All three are throwable-and-blade combos, where the throwable is thrown by the main fire button (LMB by default), and you can hold the secondary action button (RMB by default) to ready his blade, to swing by pressing the main fire button.

W1: Ame and Kage

Throwable darts and Wakizashi (short sword). A great base weapon set without many frills and an incredibly high skill ceiling.

• The throwing darts are unique in that while they have low damage, they have the highest headshot multiplier in the game, doing almost a third of an opponent’s health on a successfully landed headshot, greatly rewarding precision and allowing Sasori to kill enemies quickly- provided you can aim.
• The Wakizashi is Sasori’s basic blade, doing 40 damage per swing and working well as an opening attack or a finishing blow.

W2: Hyo and Hanei

Throwable kunai and katana. Both weapons revolve around being able to charge them for more damage than his W1

• The individual kunai are very low damage, but can be charged to throw up to five at once (at no extra cost to ammo, strangely), potentially dealing a chunk of health that combos nicely with the katana.
• The katana works very similar to W1’s Wakizashi (doing 30 damage instead of 40, however), but can also be charged (by holding down the primary action button while readying the blade). A charged Katana blow clocks in at a devastating 70 damage, but slows down Sasori and renders him unable to attack for a short period after use.
• Both weapons can be devastating in an ambush due to the sheer amount of damage the katana can do even through cover, but both weapons must charge attacks to do well making them rather unhelpful should Sasori be the one getting ambushed.

W3: Yuki and Hikari

Throwable needles and Santoku knife. This set revolves around debuffs, with the Santoku knife inflicting slow and the needles dealing extra damage for each debuff on the target

• The needles have a very low initial damage value (although a very fast rate of fire), but do increased damage the more negative effects their target suffers.
• The Santoku knife is the fastest of Sasori’s blades- it does only 10 damage, but also applies Slow for a short time, which is a negative effect and thus gives the needles extra damage. The Santoku knife also has, bizarrely, the longest range of any melee attack in the game.
• With this set, you’re obviously best off poisoning your enemy as fast as possible and ideally opening with a Santoku swing, to get the most damage possible out of your needles.
• Can be an absolute menace in teams if you’re playing alongside other debuffers, Hans and Yu-Mi are notable here for stacking them up to 4 (merging slows).
• Note that strangely, being out of cover counts as a debuff.

Expertises:

E1: Coated Weaponry

Sasori coats his weapons in poison for a short time- both the throwable and the blade will inflict Poisoned.

• Note there is a short animation of dabbing poison on a dart (and one of dabbing it on the blade if you take it out too fast).
• Works well as an opener as it doesn’t break cover upon use, allowing you to start fighting with poison on your weapons.
• Can be cancelled early to keep some of the cooldown. Note that hitting an already poisoned enemy with poisoned weaponry will reset the duration, but you can sacrifice this and cancel the ability after hitting them once to keep some of the ability’s cooldown, in case that is required shortly after the fight.

E2: Poison Vials

Sasori takes out a bottle of poison, which can be thrown in the direction he is looking by pressing the Primary Action Button. It shatters into a cloud of poison which lasts a long time- rivals in the radius will be Poisoned.

• This works well as an area-denial tool, or to be thrown at mid-range, and works better than E1 in situations where there is not time to coat your weapons.
• It’s also a good choice in team modes to hit multiple players at once.
• Note that this ability doesn’t break his cover upon activation, and as such also works really well as an opener
• Try placing it in a doorway to the room you’re in to block the paths of any potential ambushers.

E3: Noxious Gas

Sasori instantly breaks his cover and throws a poison grenade at his feet, causing a near-instant poison explosion around him. Rivals caught in the explosion will be Poisoned and take 5 damage.

• This is Sasori’s shortest-range ability, but very powerful as an opener and to poison enemies mid fight with little effort on Sasori’s end.
• W2 doesn’t lose it’s charge while activating this, allowing you to instantly follow up your poisoning with a katana slash
• The 5 damage is just enough to ensure W1’s darts can three-shot to the head.

Passives:

P1: Poison Sense

Sasori Traces rivals he poisons, allowing him to see an outline of them through walls and through cover for as long as the poison effect remains.

• This is very useful for hunting down injured prey and giving Sasori more information in a fight. Be aware Rivals will be told if they are being Traced.
• Since E2 doesn’t break cover on use, it can be combined with this ability for a spycheck tool, as Poison Sense will trace poisoned rivals, but not poisoned NPCs.
• With this ability, it might be a good idea to disengage mid-fight, heal up a bit of health, and then re-engage with a knife slash to continue the fight
• Works very well with W3 due to the trace counting as an extra negative status effect on top of the poison.

P2: Give and Take

Sasori’s Blade deals extra damage to Poisoned enemies.

• This works well in combination with W1 or W2 (not as well with W3 due to W3’s knife barely doing damage)
• W1’s Wakizashi is boosted to 51 damage, while a fully charged W2 Katana deals an absurd 91 damage
• This is a very useful passive for those who like using the blade as a finishing attack on a weakened enemy, and also sees use in combo attacks to open a fight.

P3: Down With The Sickness

Sasori’s poison lasts a little longer than normal. Additionally, Sasori regains some of his Expertise cooldown when he deals damage to a poisoned enemy.

• This is a good ability if you REALLY don’t want someone to heal or interact with something mid fight.
• Great with his E2 to increase the amount of area denial you can pull off with it at once.

Hans

Hans, a Disruptor character, is a close range shutdown specialist. His prosthetic arm-shotguns excel at close quarters and his abilities all revolve around limiting opponent’s options to control the fight and eliminate his targets.

Weapons

Hans’ weapons are all prosthetic arms with built in shotguns, and all function in a similar way- in hipfire, they work as normal shotguns, but when aiming down sights, they fire single high damage slugs. The shotgun pellets do the same damage wherever they hit a player, but the slugs are subject to the normal head/torso/legs damage changes.

W1: The Hook

Hans’ standard shotgun hand, the Hook is a good all rounder option, boasting great damage, a hefty six shells before reloading, and middling fire rate.

• Using slugs at close range is inefficient, as the regular spread shots have more potential damage overall
• A very scary weapon at close range due to the very high damage and reasonable firerate.

W2: The Jab

A full-auto variant with faster firerate and more ammo at the cost of damage.

• IMPORTANT: The Jab’s shotgun spread is currently bugged and has been for some time. The spread is very unreliable and will frequently miss the majority of pellets it fires outside of point blank range.

W3: The Uppercut

A high-risk high-reward weapon, the Uppercut boasts the same high pellet damage as the Hook along with a tighter spread, more slug damage, faster firerate, and faster reload. The downside? The Uppercut holds only two shots and has much stronger recoil.

• Can be used to perform a deadly ‘two tap slap’ combo- unloading both shells at point blank followed immediately by an uncharged melee is lethal, doing 105 damage if all the pellets hit. The two tap slap can also be done with the Hook, but is slower.
• The Shield-brella may be useful cover to survive your frequent need to reload.

Expertise

E1: Incapacitor Orb

Hans enters a stance to fire an Incapacitor Orb from his robotic hand. The projectile does no damage, but is massive and very difficult to miss, and pierces through NPCs and players to hit people behind them. The projectile applies two effects: Neutralized and Slow- hit players will be rendered unable to use their own ability, and made to move much slower, both effects lasting only a couple of seconds.

• The orb plays into Hans’ game plan well as a close range shutdown tool to limit his enemies’ options and render them unable to escape from his deadly shotgun, although the orb has perfect accuracy and is difficult to miss, allowing it to theoretically be used at any range.
• Be aware that the effects last for a very short duration, so you must kill an enemy quickly if they have an expertise that would allow them to get away easily (such as Larcin)
• Firing the orb blows Hans’ cover and the cover of any hit rivals. Due to its piercing capabilities, it can be used to spycheck a lot of people in a crowded corridor as it will have no effect on NPCs.

E2: Static Cage

Hans instantly creates a cage of energy around himself. The cage lasts a short while, and is non-solid- anyone can pass through the walls. Rivals that pass through the walls of the cage, whether attempting to enter or leave the cage, will be Neutralized and Slowed just like if they were hit with the Incapacitor Orb.

• While the cage has a shorter range and is potentially less reliable than the orb, it excels at limiting enemies’ options and controlling the battlefield, as well as dissuading anyone attempting to pursue Hans when he chooses to retreat.

E3: Spreading Spark

Hans enters a stance to shoot a spark from his robotic hand. The spark has much smaller hitbox than E1 and must be aimed well, although it has the benefit that upon hitting an NPC or rival, energy will arc to other nearby targets, Neutralizing and Slowing them as well.

• This is generally seen as Hans’ worst ability due to its extra difficulty in use but not much reward compared to the other options, but can still see use in a number of tricks- for example, energy can arc to an invisible Larcin when you hit a nearby NPC, giving him a nasty shock and booting him out of his invisibility.

Passives

P1: Dreadful Presence

Whenever Hans breaks his own cover, he emits a visible and obvious wave of energy around himself. Rivals caught in the wave will get their own cover blown and will be momentarily Slowed, reducing their movement speed.

• A strong contender for the worst passive in the game. This is more of a hindrance for the most part, as the wave of energy tends to give Hans’ position away very easily.
• The effect of blowing rivals’ cover around Hans isn’t terribly useful and only forces people nearby waiting out the fight to engage early, and the slow is hardly useful due to Hans’ expertise also applying the same debuff (and the slows not stacking).

P2: Fear Projection

Whenever Hans breaks a Rival’s cover, the Rival emits a wave of energy. Rivals caught in the wave get their own cover blown and are momentarily slowed (including the Rival whose cover was initially blown)

• A similar, more helpful, ability to P1. Has some applications in teams modes due to forcing all members of a team to reveal themselves at once, ensuring you won’t be caught off guard by an enemy that was hiding as a civilian near the end of a fight.
• Can be useful to slow down a rival if Hans’ expertise is on cooldown.

P3: Energy Siphon

Whenever Hans hits a Rival with his expertise (any variant), he gets about a quarter of his expertise cooldown back. The effect stacks if multiple rivals are hit.

• Sees wide use as Hans’ pretty uncontested best passive. Having Hans’ expertise back faster is generally more useful than anything P1 or P2 could provide.
• If Field Agent Kit makes a regular appearance in your field upgrade kit, consider swapping it out for something else when playing P3 Hans, as it may be less needed.

Yu-Mi

An enthusiastic gadgeteering prodigy, Yu-Mi has some tricks of the trade she brings to the field- many of which have explosive results.

Weapons

It’s worth noting that all of Yu-Mi’s weapons are slingshots which fire projectiles, not hitscan bullets like most other agents, and can be charged to do extra damage. Be aware that Yu-Mi’s slingshot charge is binary- her shots are either charged or not, and damage does not scale with charge time as one might expect.

W1: Tactical Slingshot

An all rounder option for Yu-Mi, the Tactical Slingshot works perfectly fine at more or less any range and doesn’t have to rely on charged shots or headshots to do serious damage.

• Due to all of Yu-Mi’s slingshots being projectile weapons rather than hitscan, they often have unreliable hitboxes and can sometimes be blocked by obstacles that could be shot through with most weapons.
• Charged slingshot pellets are a good way to open a fight due to the great damage they deal.
• Usually best to mainly use uncharged pellets, only using charged ones when it’s safe/advantageous to charge them.

W2: Experimental Splitshot

A very strange weapon, the Experimental Splitshot’s pellets break up into multiple smaller pellets quicky after leaving the slingshot, behaving almost like a shotgun.

• Rapidly firing uncharged shots with this weapon is a good strategy to deal plenty of damage in a pinch
• Has by far the worst range of any of Yu-Mi’s weapons and indeed has some of the worst range of any weapon in the game
• An excellent comfort pick, the Splitshot isn’t all that difficult to use compared to Yu-Mi’s other weapons.

W3: Heavy Longshot

A very slow, clunky slingshot that takes a while to charge up and does very little uncharged damage, but has great range and extremely high damage when charged.

• Notorious for its ability to deal over a hundred damage on a charged headshot, enough to instantly kill a player with no health upgrades or resistance, provided they are out of cover and able to be headshot. Even without headshots, the charged pellet damage is enough to two-shot healthy rivals.
• Very long range and little drop. A reliable tool at mid to long range.
• Note that charging a shot does not break cover, only firing one does. This allows you to charge up very high damage pellets while maintaining your cover.

Expertise

Note: Yu-Mi has several bugs at the moment. Chief among them are her expertise randomly going on cooldown without being used, which can be very frustrating and unpredictable. Be aware of this should you choose to play Yu-Mi.

E1: EMP Blast

Yu-Mi equips an EMP Pellet in her slingshot, which will do reduced damage, but upon hitting a surface will explode into an EMP field. Rivals inside an EMP Field are slowed down and forced to stay out of cover, and if they have destructible gadgets in their inventory, those will be destroyed and put on repair cooldown. Additionally, Rivals are unable to use gadgets in an EMP field, even indestructible ones such as the holo-mimic or spyglass, and most importantly, any rival gadgets inside an EMP field are instantly destroyed.

• A great tool for shutting off enemy options by destroying and preventing gadgets. It’s also a lot easier to land slingshot pellets on slowed enemies.

E2: Medi-Field

Yu-Mi equips a Medi-Pellet in her slingshot, which behaves very like an EMP pellet, but instead explodes into a Medi-Field. Yu-Mi, and any of her teammates, will rapidly regain health while inside the field, although the healing will momentarily pause if damage is taken.

• A very powerful tool to heal up yourself and your team mid-fight, and the core of Yu-Mi’s identity as a support agent. Arguably the most potent combat healing tool.
• Like Yu-Mi’s weapons, synergizes very well with the deployed shield-brella- opponents can’t interrupt your heal if they can’t shoot you.
• Be aware that Sasori’s poison will entirely negate the healing effect of this ability, rendering it useless.

E3: EMP Flock

Yu-Mi equips an EMP pellet in her slingshot and prepares to fire two more, allowing her to fire up to three EMP pellets in a row. Can be cancelled by re-pressing the ability key to retain some of the cooldown.

• The EMP field created by each pellet is smaller than that of her E1
• Useful for Yu-Mi’s who tend to miss shots or for whom the ability frequently bugs out and refuses to activate, as it allows a couple of backup EMP bombs.
• Better than her E1 at creating a hazardous battlefield, but at the cost of casting time and duration

Passives

P1: Quick Fix

Yu-Mi’s gadgets regenerate much faster after being destroyed- the exact figure is 65% faster, more than halving the time it takes to get back destroyed gadgets

• Amazing for a gadget-heavy playstyle where you’d ideally like to have all of your gadgets available whenever you need them
• Do be aware that this ability is no help on gadgets that cannot be destroyed. For instance, it’s a dead passive with no effect if you’re bringing Spyglass and Holo-Mimic

P2: Energy Catalyst

Yu-Mi recharges some of her expertise cooldown when she destroys a gadget- roughly 50%.

• Although the in-game instruction video shows it being used alongside EMP’s to get them back immediately, this is currently not possible as gadgets destroyed while an EMP is out don’t count towards the cooldown.
• For some reason, the ability works with destroying your own gadgets, although it must be done manually- holding R to remotely recycle them won’t trigger it.

P3: Booby Traps

Yu-Mi’s gadgets leave behind a small EMP field when destroyed (by any means).

• This allows you to use deployable gadgets (such as goo pods or tripwires) to set up EMP traps for you to remotely detonate by recycling said gadgets. You can also throw such gadgets and immediately shoot/recycle them for ‘EMP Grenades’ to take down an annoying shield, for example.
• Works as a way to punish enemies for destroying your gadgets- for example, if you’ve blocked a hallway with the Bounce Mat and they destroy it to follow you, they’ve just triggered an inconvenient EMP field they have to deal with.
• A hilarious, but none too practical, strategy is to use this with the Recon Drone. You can remotely destroy it by holding R, even while flying it, and it will make a small EMP field around itself wherever it was destroyed, allowing you to remotely bomb rivals with inconvenient EMP fields and generally make a nuisance of yourself.
• Another strategy is to pepper a room with tripwires, and once one goes off or one gets shot, to immediately destroy all of them to create an EMP Minefield. Unlilke the drone strategy, this on can be performed while you are still in the room to take advantage of the bubbles.

Larcin

Larcin is the quintessential Scoundrel character. He’s a sly, handsome thief who wields fancy throwing pistols and is great at stealing items from rivals and disappearing.

Weapons

W1: Silence

Larcin’s basic throwing pistols, Le Silence are powerful and consistent. Upon emptying the magazine, Larcin throws his gun forward, potentially doing extra damage should a rival be hit by the thrown weapon, and pulls out a new one, ready to continue firing.

• An amazing consistency weapon capable of high burst damage, with very low reload downtime.
• They deal low damage, but fire at a blistering speed.

W2: Cadence

A two-round-burst variant of the thrown pistol.

• Since it’s a burst pistol rather than semi-auto, it’s good for ‘peeking’ from behind cover to fire a single burst
• Higher capacity than W1, but the throw upon emptying the magazine is less potent and slower

W3: Violence

A throwing pistol outfitted with deadly blades, making the throw drastically more present and potent than with the other two weapons.

• The thrown pistol flies much faster and further
• The throw does drastically more damage than other options. 30 on a torso shot and a devastating 60 damage should the thrown pistol land a headshot, making Larcin a very present danger even while reloading- so long as you can aim the thrown pistol well.
• The weapon holds only four rounds, and fires them much slower than W1 or W2, but they do a little more damage.
• Very much an all-or-nothing, inconsistent option. If you can land the thrown pistol consistently, it’s a great weapon. If you can never land it, you’re better off with Larcin’s other options.

Expertise

E1: Adieu

Larcin near-instantly becomes completely invisible. If teammates are nearby, they will be granted faster movement speed for a short time via the Amped Up status effect.

• The invisible effect lasts six seconds at maximum, and can be cancelled early to retain a little of the cooldown
• It takes a quarter of a second for the invisibility to activate on use- during which you are still visible and vulnerable. Beware of this.
• While invisible, you are also completely invulnerable- any damage you would take is entirely negated (including fall damage), and attacks simply pass straight through you.
• Entering or leaving invisibility triggers a visible puff of coloured smoke and an audible ‘poof’ sound effect (Which has lead to a community term for this ability ‘larcin poof’ or ‘poofing’)
• Most often used as an escape tool or to reposition mid-fight, but invisibility helps in a lot of stealth plays, so feel free to get creative

E2: Grande Finale

Larcin creates a zone of smoke around him (With a 0.25 second delay). While in the zone, Larcin and his teammates become invisible. They can still attack, but this will cancel their invisibility momentarily, and it takes 1.5 seconds of not attacking or being attacked to return to being invisible.

• The zone is fairly large and lasts a lot longer than either of his other two abilities, but does not move with him, making it trickier to use as an escape tool.
• The zone is visible to enemies, and as with his first ability there are visible and audible signs of entering and leaving invisibility
• Can be very helpful in team fights, but can be countered by simply running away.

E3: Tour du Monde

An ability near identical to E1, with only two differences, one upside and one downside. While invisible, you gain the Amped Up effect, which increases sprint speed. The downside is you leave a visible trail of smoke while invisible.

• A very powerful escape tool that loses some of the versatility of E1 in exchange.
• Relies on enemies not being able to match your speed. An E2 squire, for example, can keep pace with you fairly easily.
• Less useful in repositioning mid-fight than E1 due to enemies still being able to see your position.

Passives

P1: Merci beacoup!

Larcin’s melee attacks have the additional effect of stealing items from rivals- keycards, upgrades, intel, or the package. He will always steal the most valuable item that he does not own. If there are no items the rival has that Larcin does not already own, but Larcin is not at his maximum intel capacity and the Rival has intel, he will steal one intel point.

• His priorities in what to steal (from highest to lowest) are as follows: Package, gold keycard, gold upgrade, purple keycard, purple upgrade, blue keycard, blue upgrade, green keycard, green upgrade, grey upgrade, intel. Notice he prioritizes keycards over their same class upgrade.
• Rivals that have their items stolen are notified (EXAMPLE was stolen!) and hear a sound stinger, so be aware that rivals will most definitely notice you are stealing their items with your attacks.
• Works very well as an opening attack- much of the time you’ll be stealing an upgrade that your opponent was using as a health upgrade, making the resulting fight easier. If you end up having to turn invisible and retreat, you have the consolation prize of at least one item, more if you performed additional melees in the fight.
• A good tool to annoy and aggravate rivals- in one charged melee, you can steal an item, break their cover and deal 30 damage, before disappearing with invisibility. Be aware they are very likely to try and hunt you down to get their item back, so have an escape plan!

P2: Soffre-Doleur

When Larcin blows an enemy’s cover (typically by attacking them), he will make them drop an item on the ground. They will always drop their most valuable item, following the same index of valuable items as P1.

• Not as useful for directly stealing an enemy’s item, as the ability does not factor in which upgrades or keycards Larcin owns. Additionally, this is the only Larcin passive that does not let you steal the package or intel.
• Can sometimes work with tripwires, making enemies drop items when they break their cover by walking through a tripwire set by a P2 Larcin, although this is very inconsistent.
• Useful to make rivals drop their valuable items from a distance, which they may well leave behind in a panic.
• In some extreme cases, can be used to spread discord through enemy teams, as a different team member may pick up an item that Larcin forced their teammate to drop, leading to arguments between the team relating to distribution of items.

P3: Pickpocket

By far Larcin’s most popular passive ability. It allows you to steal in the exact same way as P1, but under different conditions. Essentially, with this ability, Larcin’s melee attacks work entirely differently while Larcin is in cover. They will not break Larcin’s cover and not deal damage, although meleeing an NPC with this ability will raise Larcin’s heat almost as much as killing them would to discourage pickpocketing suspicious people as a spycheck. Instead, Larcin’s melee attacks on rivals while in cover (regardless of the Rival’s state of cover) will steal items from them, following the same rules as P1.

• Can be used sparingly on suspicious NPCs as a spychecking tool
• Can be used to steal multiple items from a Rival before they react. Note that they are immediately notified of your theft and hear a sound cue.
• Note that using this passive stops you from dealing damage with a melee at all, unless you are already out of cover. This is a clear downside, as a 30 damage charged melee attack is one of Larcin’s best opening attacks due to having low damage weapons.

Xiu

Madame Xiu is an tall, enigmatic criminal mastermind who’s always one step ahead of her opponents with her powerful abilities and information network.

Weapons

W1: Zhulong

A fast firing repeating crossbow that can be treated like an SMG or assault rifle with very low recoil.

• It holds twenty rounds, and does low enough damage that you’re going to need most of those unless you have perfect accuracy, but nevertheless is a great weapon for whittling down opponents’ health and performs perfectly well at any range.
• Has the fastest bodyshot time-to-kill of any weapon in the game, technically only needing ten bolts to do 100 damage.

W2: Longshen

A burst-fire crossbow that fires three bolts in rapid succession every time the trigger is pulled.

• Less consistent and somewhat harder to use than the Zhulong, as well as reloading slower, but can absolutely shred enemies in the right hands, with headshots being especially lethal.

W3: Xuanwu

A gatling-style crossbow that increases in firerate the longer you fire continuously.

• While capable of outputting its thirty-five bolts with impressive speed, it’s not a great choice due to it’s awful damage per shot, horrendous recoil, and impressive ability to eat through ammo reserves. Don’t let that put you off trying it, however, if you’re a heavy weapons enjoyer.

Expertise

All of Madame Xiu’s abilities make use of a technique known as Shifting, which all three abilities use in different ways. When Madame Xiu shifts to an NPC, she effectively deletes them and assumes their exact position and disguise, leaving a decoy of her old disguise behind. These decoys behave like NPCs, but have 1HP and will generate a puff of green smoke if killed, along with playing Madame Xiu’s laughter. If Madame Xiu attempts to shift to a rival in cover, both agents lose their cover upon Madame Xiu’s arrival. The process of shifting is entirely invisible to anyone watching.

E1: Cobra’s Deceit

Madame Xiu enters a stance to shift into any NPC in a very large radius of her.

• The very long range compared to her other two abilities, which sacrifice it for some other gimmick, make it an amazing mobility and escape tool provided there are nearby NPCs.
• Useful for accessing areas you otherwise wouldn’t be able to, provided you have line-of-sight to an NPC there- for example, entering a guard room easily by shifting to a guard on the balcony.
• Do make sure you’re not too predictable with how you use the ability. It’s great to confuse enemies and get to places sooner than they might anticipate, but people will be able to see the direction you’re facing when you cast the ability if you’re out of cover, and may therefore be able to guess where you shifted.

E2: Serpent’s Bluff

Madame Xiu enters a stance to designate a nearby NPC as a callback target. Once a callback target has been designated, pressing the ability key again causes Xiu to immediately shift back to them, regardless of where Xiu or the NPC is. If Xiu gets too far away from the NPC or roughly twenty seconds pass from the callback target being set, the callback target is unset and the ability is returned to Xiu.

• This works great as a ‘safety net’ if you’re about to go into a risky situation (such as starting a fight or doing something suspicious)- if you’re attacked and are at risk of dying, simply shift to your callback target and you’re out of the situation (and your opponent has no way to figure out where you went)
• Less useful as a mobility tool, unless by sheer chance an NPC is running directly where you want to go.
• If you can be sure an NPC is heading into a room you want to access, try setting them as a callback target and waiting for them to enter the room before shifting into them.

E3: Python’s Ruse

Madame Xiu enters a stance to shift into nearby NPCs with a close range. She can shift up to three times in a row, although you have a very limited time to use all three shifts.

• This ability is great for mind-games, escaping fights in densely populated areas, or confusing enemies by shifting into them and then immediately shifting into a nearby NPC, which blows the rival’s cover.

Passives

P1: Viper’s Knowledge

When a rival gets their cover blown (by any means) within a large radius of Madame Xiu, she knows, and a stationary, visible-through-walls icon will flash briefly at the location where the cover was blown, along with a sound stinger playing.

• This is a very useful ability for tracking down rivals, especially those who may be in a bad situation and thus vulnerable to attack, and is Xiu’s most popular, easiest to use passive ability.
• Do note teammates will not get the notification, so good communication is very helpful if using this ability in a team setting.

P2: Krait’s Instinct

Rivals who are low health and out of cover within Madame Xiu’s line of sight are highlighted in red, along with a sound stinger playing when the health gets low enough. ‘Low Health’ is counted as 39% HP or less.

• This ability is currently bugged and frequently does shenanigans such as highlighting dead bodies, continuing to highlight people who have left Xiu’s line of sight/healed above ‘low health’, etc.
• It’s useful to give Xiu a little more game sense to know if it’s worth sticking a fight out to the end or if she’s fighting a losing battle and needs to retreat, synergizing particularly well with E2 on this front.
• Also useful for judging the HP of two players who are fighting each other so you know just the right moment to jump in and nail both kills.

P3: Mamba’s Hunch

This ability activates a maximum of three times per game, as it’s tied to mission phase progression. It activates for the first time when the vault opens, again when the Package is first taken, and finally when the extraction vehicle is called for the first time. When the ability activates, Madame Xiu is shown the locations of ALL RIVALS for a couple of seconds, regardless of position and cover.

• This ability is typically seen as her worse passive, but it can nevertheless provide Xiu some very useful information as to how many players are left, their positions etc.
• Note that the game’s information on this ability is misleading- despite claiming the echoes are visible for Xiu and her allies, they are NOT visible to Xiu’s teammates, requiring good communication to make the most of this ability in a teams setting.

Red

Red is a charming socialite Scoundrel who hides a ruthless, sadistic core behind makeup and expensive dresses. She is very versatile, with aggressive and defensive abilities, making her highly modular- it’s very possible to make two different Red loadouts that feel like completely different agents.

Weapons:

W1: Heartbreaker

A popular and reliable choice, the Heartbreaker is Red’s assault rifle, firing quickly but doing low damage.

• Effective at close to midranges, but falls apart at farther ones due to it’s recoil
• Capable of very consistent DPS and reloads quickly, making it a great consistency option to ensure your opponent’s health never stops going down

W2: Jack of Heart

A semi-auto sidegrade with heftier damage per shot and longer range, but much less ammo and slower firerate.

• Better than her W1 at longer ranges
• Has a much worse TTK than her W1 though, so playing with it means having to work around your environment more

W3: Lovebite

A devastating close-quarters shotgun, Lovebite is a very extreme weapon; trading off any semblance of range for massive ambush damage.

• It has arguably the worst range of any weapon in the game, competing with Yumi W2, due to being a shotgun with no slug option, unlike Hans’ weapons
• Using ADS will tighten the spread, allowing it to be more effectively used outside sniffing distance
• A useful strategy is to Charm your opponent after shooting them out of cover, allowing you to get another shot off for free.

It’s worth taking a second here to review a core feature of Red known as the Charmed status effect, used in two of her three abilities. Being rather complicated and difficult to use, it can be very powerful in the right hands. A charmed rival:

• Is forced back into cover, if they were out of cover, and gain the effects of Neutralized (inability to use their own Expertise) and Slowed (reduced movement speed)
• Additionally, when initially charmed rivals have any attack they were performing interrupted, and are unable to attack for a very short period
• The charm wears off after 7 seconds if not removed by any other method, losing all its effects.
• If a Charmed rival breaks their own cover by attacking, the Charm effect is instantly removed and replaced with Heartbroken. Heartbroken applies Neutralized and Vulnerable (35% damage vulnerability), but not Slowed, and lasts 7 seconds.
• If the charmed rival loses their cover by ANY other means, the charm is removed along with all of its effects, and Heartbroken is NOT applied.

This makes Charm a powerful tool, but one that absolutely must be used correctly. For example, Charm is good for confusing opponents and causing panic- a good amount of people will continue to shoot, making themselves vulnerable. If they choose not to break the charm immediately, that’s a free opportunity to reload and/or charge up a melee attack to restart the fight on your own terms.

Expertises:

E1: Succubus’ Kiss

Red enters a stance to charm rivals in a cone in front of her. Upon use of the ability, Red is instantly put back into cover, if she was out of cover, and any rivals in the cone become Charmed.

• Due to it’s simple activation, her E1 is her most reliable option for getting charm off in a fight
• The cone is considered a projectile, and as such is unable to go through solid objects and shields
• Consider using the time gotten with Charm to quickly reload your weapon, canceling the reload if they break out of it
• Running trap gadgets like Goo-Pods and Turret are a good way to guarantee value from charm: allowing you to either set up a tactical advantage while your opponent is Charmed, or to cause them to panic and shoot themselves into heartbreak.
• The confusion Charm causes makes it a great escape tool, just make sure to break line of sight before they can start shooting you down
• This ability is able to Charm guards as well, stopping them from attacking.
• Since charming an opponent forces them back into cover, it WILL activate Squire’s passives and an enemy Red’s P1. Beware of this.

E2: Sweet Embrace

Red instantly creates an area of effect around her. Red, and any of her teammates who are inside the radius, regain some health and their cover.

• The ability restores 20 health to Red, but 40 health to her allies, making it a powerful support option in teams.
• In solo’s however, the ability is still powerful due to being able to combo the 20 health with the resistance from her P1, giving her an amazing mid-fight buff
• Being her only expertise that doesn’t Charm, her E2 is a powerful alternative for people that either don’t like the condition, or just can’t seem to learn it.
• Note that Sasori’s poison prevents healing from this ability, although it will still restore cover.

E3: Love Bomb

This is one of the most complicated abilities in the game, so buckle up. Red enters a stance to throw a love bomb on the ground wherever she’s looking. Pressing the ability key again will recall the bomb to you for no penalty. If an out of cover rival enters the radius of the love bomb (either by walking into the radius while out of cover, or breaking their cover within the radius), the bomb instantly detonates, applying Charmed to any rivals in the radius. Red, and her teammates, can also interact with the lovebomb while out of cover to consume it and instantly regain their cover.

• The love bomb will stay on the ground after being thrown for an indefinite amount of time, allowing you to set durable traps.
• Note that unlike using either of her other abilities, throwing the love bomb does NOT immediately put you back in cover
• The lovebomb, unlike red’s E1, bypasses shields, and has several other useful utility functions, such as being able to knock a Larcin out of his invisibility.
• Despite it’s activation style being much more complicated, once Charmed you can pull basically all the same tricks as with her E1

The reason this ability is so complicated is that it’s complicated in the way it applies Charmed, a complicated effect in itself, adding layers of confusion that make the ability hard to understand, but very powerful if understood properly. If you want to learn how to use this ability, I’d recommend using E1 for a while to get the feel of how Charmed works in general.

Passives

P1: Makeover

Upon regaining her cover, Red becomes 40% resistant to damage for a very short time and swaps her cover to a different cover from the same security level. (IE: If you were disguised as Douglas the fat guard, your cover might come back as Amber the female guard with this ability)

• The resistance alongside her E1 and E2 is very good for making sure you survive through fights
• With her E1 specifically, it acts as a sort of safety net for if the person you Charmed decided to instantly break it and shoot you
• It might be a worthwhile strategy to equip Sheildbrella and a Cover Regen Field Upgrade to let you be able to regain the resistance mid-fight without your expertise
• An often overlooked part of this ability is the Cover Swap, which is great for escapes as it allows you to change your cover without leaving a Holo-breadcrumb (the little faces that appear when you change cover). Using it while disengaging will make you much harder to pin down.

P2: View To A Kill

If Red is out of cover when an agent dies near her, she gains a sprint speed and cover regen bonus until she gets her cover back.

• The ability can trigger from the deaths of Red’s teammates as well as rivals, and Red does not need to be the one to kill the victim in order for them to activate this ability.
• Unlike what the tagline would have you believe, line of sight to the killed agent is not necessary, and the range of what counts as ‘near’ Red is fairly large.
• Both effects continue INDEFINITELY until Red regains her cover. As such, it allows for several goofy shenanigans such as meleeing the air in order to keep the buff for as long as possible.
• Amazing in teams as it lets you both gain a reliable buff to rush down the enemies, and is great for running away from a fight that’s not going well.
• Great in Solo’s to combat Third-partying, as you can use the buffs to either dodge their ambush, or to more effectively escape.

P3: Naughty List

Whenever a Rival gains heat, or is scolded by an NPC for being in an area their disguise doesn’t have clearance for, she knows and Traces them for a short time, seeing them highlighted in red even through walls.

• The trace effect happens in a large radius, but does have a cutoff point
• The victim IS NOTIFIED they are being ‘traced by Red’ and know exactly when the trace expires, so take into account that if you use this ability to track someone down, they may be expecting you.
• This is a great ability to punish reckless plays by other players and find victims. Cavaliere fans will feel right at home with it, as it allows Red to play somewhat like her and track down people to kill.
• Also great for re-engaging after a rival escapes, as there’s a definite chance they have accidentally killed a few NPC’s in the fight.