Myth

Ellusive, Ethereal Archer

co-owned w/ Joshua Morrison (<click for linkedin>), her original designer and creator!

Lore: Little is known about Myth. Legends say she was blessed centuries ago as a champion by the godlike guardian Virideth in eternal defense of the ancient Greenwood Forest. Now, after the cataclysm of The Rising, the Greenwood Forest is gone. Myth joins crews fighting for the now rare and precious Vive, for reasons unknown.

Gameplay: Myth is an agile, long-ranged archer with a toolbox of versatile skills who excels at surviving throughout the match. Myth highly rewards a deep mastery of not only her kit, but the game mode itself. However, players who don’t manage to synergize her tools together may struggle to make the same impact as another Hunter.

Audience: Myth tended to be weak among new players, but scale in strength substantially with skill. Her ability to survive lost fights with Phase Walk is uniquely powerful in SUPERVIVE’s flavor of BR. Reviving a team in SUPERVIVE is much easier and less costly (don’t lose abilities vs losing guns). Also, power scaling was more limited by global map timers than loot density, so death time had less progression opportunity cost as the whole map “reset” every new day. The toolbox of game-specific bonus effects she brought also took playtime to appreciate, like Cremation, Anti-Heal, and Destruction damage.

Heartpiercer

Hold to charge up and release to fire a large bolt, pushing enemies and stunning them if hit into terrain. The projectile distance and knockback force scaled on charge.

With Myth’s characteristic ability to move through terrain (Phase Walk), this spell can allow for sneaky angles for knockacks and stuns. As a quick tap cast, it can can also be used as a close range interrupt, adding utility.

Phase Walk

Myth dashes and enters Phase Walk for a brief duration. While in Phase Walk, Myth can move through terrain. The ability has 2 charges that refresh together.

With Phase Walk, Myth can change her position in the encounter space more quickly and consistently than any other hunter. She can flank, shoot-and-scoot, and full disengage incredibly well. Her ability to disengage and survive also gives her strong strategic power and map mobility. She can survive and avoid fights as the last squad member to get revives, increasing the placement and winning chances of her team.

All credit aside to JMO! I did the dash and charges tech

Rain of Arrows

Fire a rain of arrows in a persistent AoE over a large arc. The arc size grows with distance from cast point. The rain of arrows AoE deals damage and applies debuffs: anti-heal which blocks healing, and cremation which slows wisp (knocked players) revives.

A strong zoning tool with important utility, Rain of Arrows is Myth’s most consistent spatial impact in a fight. A common pattern was to use it as a psuedo-wall to prevent enemy escape while you poked at max range.

This ability had some interesting technical challenges. The concave arc shape needed to scale fluidly in arc angle and radius, but maintain a consistent width (difference between outer and inner radii). This required some unique runtime collision shape checks and posed challenges for VFX, which Jason Lin (eng) and Pete Nichols (vfx) did incredible work!

Virideth’s Fury

Myth’s Ultimate loads 3 long range arrows that pierce destructible objects and enemies, the final shot dealing bonus damage. These shots also apply a knockback based on how close the enemy is.

Finishing fleeing enemies is a weakness of Myth due to her consistent but low-burst damage pattern. Virideth’s Fury makes up for this weakness somewhat, albeit on a longer cooldown. It’s also effective as a counter-engage on charging melee enemies, the knockback can reset the fight to a neutral distance. This ability was intentionally kept low-complexity, as of her primary attack and strategic toolbox nature already filled her “complexity budget”.

Shiv

Deadly, Nimble Duelist

Lore: For decades, Shiv served as the personal bodyguard and assassin for the Queen of the Fey Empire. This honor was bestowed to the most lethal single warrior in the empire, a position she earned through a lifetime of training and competition. Her air of superiority isn’t unearned, even now that the once dominant Empire is in ruin. Shiv isn’t an assassin interested in subtlety. She’s better than you, she knows it, and she wants you and everyone around to know it.

Gameplay: Relevant trivia, Shiv’s original pre-launch name was “Flex”. Shiv has the lowest range of the ranged attackers, a defensive weakness she makes up for with skillful mobility instead of toughness. Her sustained damage is unmatched, and in the right hands she can single-handedly devastate squads. She rewards confident control and precise aggression. Her gameplay fantasy and lore play into each other quite well, in my opinion.

Audience: SUPERVIVE’s quintessential “1v1 me bro, git gud” glass cannon, Shiv is unforgiving but mechanically rewarding — a high skill floor, but a high skill ceiling. Shiv was made for the players that want to fight and get into moment to moment combat. Her gameplay fantasy The fantasy I personally love in these games that I tried to pay off was the feeling of “dancing” at the perfect range. Making constant micro-adjustments and riding on the knife’s edge where a mistake meant disaster is thrilling and rewarding to practice and master!

I took ownership of Shiv shortly after joining, not in small part because I one-tricked her in playtests immediately. Her kit didn’t change at a high level (each ability is in the same spot) but I made updates and improvements to each spell and took her through to ship.

Arcslinger

Shiv’s Primary Attack (LMB) is a short ranged projectile. On hit, Arcslinger applies a stack of Malice, an infinitely stacking debuff. Arcslinger shots deal increased damage for every stack of Malice on the target; initial shots don’t deal much, but with continued hits Shiv can shred through tough enemies. Arcslinger attacks can be empowered by Quickflip, described below.

The stacks need to be maintained with consistent aggression, encouraging a play pattern of “fight until one of us dies”. I find that this fits thematically with her lore as well as speaks directly to her core audience. Her ability to stack up damage gives her incredibly high DPS in sustained engagements — tuned such that she surpassed other attackers’ DPS at 3-5 Malice stacks.

Quickflip

Dash a short distance. After dashing, Shiv gains movement speed and her next Arcslinger attack is empowered for a short duration. This empowered LMB has bonus range, and it refreshes the cooldown of Quickflip if it hits. Additionally, the empowered attack has a “tipper” mechanic. At longer range, it deals significant bonus damage and applies 2 Malice stacks.

This dash-shoot-shoot-reset combo forms the bread and butter of Shiv’s kit and gameplay style. Quickflip’s speed and rapid-attack Dash Curve gives Shiv excellent dodging capabilities. The Empowered Arcslinger shots are highly lethal and build Malice rapidly. Failing to hit the empowered shot and being left in close range waiting on the cooldown can be fatal, but if you never miss the shot then that doesn’t matter, right ;) ?

The “all-or-nothing” defensive pattern paired with the high damage pushed the moment-to-moment intensity and the high skill perception.

Chain Bolas

Shiv throws bolas that pass through players and destructibles. If 2 targets are hit, players are stunned.

Chain Bolas discourages enemies from clumping together, helping her single out enemies to duel. It also allows Shiv to play off of the environment in creative ways. She’s well suited to the minigame of lining up 2 targets with her rapid repositioning and ability to circle targets.