Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

A life in the shadows is the life of the Recon.  You strike hard and fast, and break away before you're overwhelmed by the superior firepower and stability of the other classes.  You are more than capable of toying with solo soldiers in the field and breaking their spirits as they have no idea what hit them.  Your mobility is unmatched, your range insurmountable, and your melee as devastating as a rocket launcher when hitting from behind.  No wonder everyone loves this class!

The Melee Weapon

The No Elves campaign is in full force, and the only relic of that forgotten time in gaming in Global Agenda is the Ghost Sword.  Big enough to be held with two hands, swung with one, it's the iconic weapon that forces people to flip out and target Recons immediately when hit.  Not paying attention when being melee'd by a recon and leaving your back open rewards the attacker with critical hits for much more damage.  This bonus modifier stacks with all of the damage boosting abilities that Recons have, enabling them to cripple a target with two strikes and then deliver the killing blow with a rifle shot as they panic at how low on health they are.

The Guns

The Recon Rifle is a little bit different than the other classes' respective rifles.  The base stats are the same, but the entire Marksman skill tree can benefit it as well as the sniper rifles.  The end result is a burst rifle with the ability to out-range any other class in the game, that loses no damage except at the most extreme ranges.  Of course if you'd rather snipe in a more classic style, the Ballista and Scorpia rifles are clones of each other that each give a massive debuff to the target hit.  The Ballista lowers the defense of the target to all forms of damage, and the Scorpia lowers all incoming healing for a time.

Generally solo sniping is frowned on unless you are extremely good at it and can hit high priority targets consecutively.  A pair of Recons that focus fire targets together though can devastate an offense or clear out a point with little trouble, putting out so much damage that healing can't even begin to counteract it.  Sniping nests of Robotics equipment is also recommended/expected of you, as the Robotics will have to choose between coming after you or tending to his little metal farm and eventually running out of energy.  Remember that if you're going for the Robotics itself, taking out the medical station first will make your job far easier!


Distraction is the name of the game in team battles.  If they come after you, you're doing it right.

The Specialty Guns

All you can do with your specialty slot is cloak, which isn't as bad as it sounds.  There are two cloaking devices available and each one bestows a unique buff when active.  The Sprint Stealth increases your running speed by a fair amount, making it effective for getting around the map quickly and evading enemies.  The Spring Stealth enables you to get a little trickier with your approaches and escapes by greatly boosting your standard jump capabilities.  Spring Stealth is wonderful for allowing you to climb to great heights without revealing yourself by using the Jetpack, and enables you to dodge AOE attacks much better since they're aimed at the ground to try and reveal you.  Leveling these devices will greatly reduce the power drain, and level 4 is barely noticeable.

The Jetpack

Not too bad looking, actually.  You'll get a lot of use out of it as you maneuver around to more advantageous sniping and infiltrating positions.

The Off-hands

Recons have two kinds of support weapons -- Offensive and Buffing.  These include the devastating Bomb line that tosses a bag full of explosive goodies at an area, and after a few seconds explodes with spectacular results.  The damage of these is on par with the grenades of Assaults, but they also have devastating secondary effects.  From long term burns, massive defensive debuffs, and one of the only Stuns in the game, these bombs can instantly turn a situation around if they hit people or turrets.  You can also lob mines one at a time to various surfaces and places.  These are fast to recharge, but can be shot and destroyed by attentive enemies which limits their usefulness.'

The buffing line starts with the Stims.  These are 5 second buffs that increase your damage of a type by 25% when activated at level 4.  From there, you can activate Visual Scanners for stealth detection and an additional 10% ranged damage.  These bonuses all stack with your boost, and can be devastating in combination with defense lowering abilities like your bombs and sniper shots.  They have a long cooldown versus their up-time, but enable you to kill targets before they can react and get healed.

You also have access to some unique systems like Decoy.  Decoy makes a clone that charges random targets and melees for no damage, but boy do people panic and shoot at it in a hurry.  It's also one of the Recon's few good PvE skills.  Bionics gives you a buff that increases run speed, jump speed, power regeneration, and passively negates all fall damage.  One of the most overlooked ones is Sealed Systems, which purifies you of all debuffs and makes you immune to them for a short duration.  This is key as any damage you take will reveal your shadow in stealth, so in order to escape those pesky Magma Lance assaults, you'll need to dispel that fire.


The Boost

The best boost in the game.  Not only does it give you and your team in a wide radius 40% bonus damage and 20% movement speed, it also enables X-ray vision for that time.  Speaking of that time, it lasts a whopping 13 seconds, longer than any other buffing Boost.  Generally if you hit that around your team, the other team is screwed.  It's amazing!

Is it fun?

Being a Recon is all about picking your fights.  You have widespread chaotic AOE to clear out a point, the sniper rifles to pick off key targets at a distance you can't be struck back at, and the melee prowess to make people fear your sudden appearance at your back.  Once they detect and attempt to kill you, the mobility kicks in and you can lose your target any number of ways.  Just remember that you have to contribute to the objective : this is not a Deathmatch game!  If you're not killing people at the objective, you aren't helping nearly as much as you could be.  You can even stealth to the edge of a point and sneak in some capture points or block a capture before lobbing a bomb and returning to stealth.  Nothing makes people rage quit like a good recon, so if you revel in other people's suffering, you'll love this!