• Dorsa: The Underwater Rogue

    • Stephen McGregor
    • Design
    • 4 May 2016

    Dorsa has been in the game since the beginning, but she’s never really had a role that fit her character well. As detailed in our character descriptions, Dorsa is a greedy, self-absorbed fish who wants to profit from the takedown of the Dolphin Empire as much as possible. However, we’ve oftentimes saddled her with a loadout more suited for a selfless support role. We’ve asked ourselves time and again: do we want this character to be a rogue or support? And then we thought, why not both?

    Meet the Rogue

    Dorsa has been built from the ground up to be the best of both worlds. Her toolkit revolves around manipulating both her positioning and enemy positioning to yield the most reward for her and her teammates. Her abilities are best used when enemies have been grouped together by her excellent movement slowing capabilities. For all her utility, though, she lacks damage. She delivers less firepower than any other member of the core squad, but she makes up for it by keeping her teammates fighting and her enemies at bay.

    Dorsa's Super Sniper

    Dorsa’s cannon is the Super Sniper, a powerful gun with a slow rate of fire. Each bullet deals high damage, but every shot counts! A Dorsa player will want to make sure that she’s in a good position to hit each bullet. Missing even a few puts a devastating cramp on your damage per second.

    Icy Personality

    Dorsa's Ice Grenade

    The Ice Grenade can make many enemies in the Kelp Forest vulnerable to attack.

    Dorsa’s first gadget is the Ice Grenade. It fires an explosive projectile that triggers an icy field on hit, slowing all enemies within that area drastically while it’s active. In addition to dealing solid damage in the area, this gadget makes hitting enemies with the Super Sniper super simple. A mobile enemy is rendered nearly useless while frozen, and is far easier to bulls-eye with further shots.

    Proper use of the Ice Grenade will vary from stage to stage. In the Kelp Forest, it’s an invaluable tool in slowing down the hordes of aggressive enemies mobbing you from all sides. In the Cave, however, use it to freeze big enemies when their weak points are exposed, elongating their window of vulnerability.

    Feels Good to be a Thief

    Dorsa's Pickrocket

    The Pickrocket rounds out Dorsa’s loadout. This versatile weapon can be aimed in any direction she chooses while holding the gadget’s activation button down, and fires a piercing rocket on button release that deals little damage to enemies hit. Dorsa and her team are healed for each enemy the rocket hits as it travels. The ideal strategy is to line enemies up to hit as many as possible for a massive healing burst for the team. Enemies can be manipulated by positioning Dorsa or an ice field from the Ice Grenade, making the Pickrocket even more effective.

    Although the burst healing from the Pickrocket is strong, it has little effectiveness when it hits only one enemy, which makes healing from many boss encounters difficult. Many bosses call up minions to fight your team off, however, so if you can survive until then, you can keep your team fighting strong well after. Don’t be afraid to wait for the right angle either! The reward for hitting many enemies is worth it.
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    Pickrocket v Jellyfish Queen

    We’ve finally feel we’ve made a loadout that feels right on Dorsa’s ship, and still provides support utility that her team would want. Do you feel we hit the mark? Tell us how you feel in the comments below, send us a tweet to our Twitter page, or comment on our Facebook page.