Echoes in Maternity: A Red Eye Guide (Part 1)

Overview

This is the first guide out of three for the Reconnaisance character Red Eye. Part 1 discusses the weapons he has access to and the best loadouts for each of his primaries.

Introduction

Red Eye is a reconnaissance class, specializing in mid-long range combat with his choice of rifles. A lot of people comment on how diffucult he is to play and how his primary ability actually harms the team. In my series of guides, I’ll be giving insight in various mechanics to play Red Eye without screwing your team over. In part one of this guide, I’ll be talking about his weapons the best loadouts you should use when playing as him.

The Best Loadouts (First Generation)

Red Eye is the only mercenary whose selection of primary weapons drastically changes his play style. As a result, there are three best loadouts, one for each of his primary weapons.

I find the G41 Adept Sniper as the best Grandeur loadout. It has access to the M9 Pistol, the Beckhill Combat Knife and the perks Try Hard, Chopper and Quick Slash.

The Grandeur SR is Red Eye’s signature weapon. It has twelve rounds in a clip and each shot deals 40 damage, doubling to 80 on headshot. It’s kind of awkward to use, but three shots from this gun is enough to kill most classes while one shot. A headshot can be quickly followed up by a body shot as well. This gun requires a lot of trigger discipline because the bloom per shot is very high.

The M9 is his best pistol, having fifteen rounds, dealing fifteen damage per shot (doubling to thirty damage for headshots) with decent recoil. It’s a much spammier weapon than his other two pistols.

The Beckhill Combat Knife deals 40 damage for a light attack and 80 damage for a heavy attack, same as the Grandeur. When caught in close quarters, this weapon will most likely be the one you’ll pull out because of the augments this loadout offers.

Try Hard
This is more of a training perk as you familiarize yourself with the Grandeur. Every time you die without a kill, you get ten extra hit points, capping at thirty extra. If you are unlucky enough to die thrice in a row without a kill, you’ll have a total of 150 hp. This becomes useless as you become better.

Chopper + Quick Slash
This is what makes this loadout the best. Red Eye doesn’t have any access to machine pistols of any sort, forcing him to rely on his secondary (which in this case is the reliable M9 pistol) or his melee, which is very powerful. Chopper increases your light attack to 46 and your heavy attack to 92. It doesn’t sound like much, that means it will take one less swipe to kill ninety-hitpoint classes such as Proxy and Kira.

I know what you’re thinking: Shouldn’t you use the G75 Veteran Sniper? It has Quick Draw.
Well, Quick Draw isn’t very useful for Red Eye. He doesn’t have to constantly switch his weapons like Engineers, Medics and ammo pack dropping Fire Supports do. The only time he has to switch is when he gets ambushed, but most of the time you wouldn’t be.

I recommend the P52 Elite Sniper. It has access to the DE. 50 and the Stilnotto Stiletto with Quick Slash, Drilled and Cool.

The PDP-70 scout rifle is Red Eye’s only scoped weapon. It deals 50 damage, doubling up to 100 damage on a headshot, which can instantly down a Phoenix. It has decent recoil and is great for tracking your enemies from afar. The main disadvantage of this weapon is that you couldn’t run and gun, which is one of Red Eye’s main selling points over Vassili.

The DE .50 is a fine secondary. It deals 27 damage, which doubles to 54 on a headshot. Two headshots from this can immediately down mercs like Phoenix. It has a small clip size, carring only seven rounds, but 189 damage per clip is nothing to scoff at.

The Stilnotto Stiletto knife deals only thirty-five damage in a quick attack, but deals 85 damage in a heavy one. How useful this is depends on how you knife people.

Quick Slash
Despite not having the damage bonus of Chopper to go along with it, Quick Slash still remains very potent.

Drilled
Drilled is a great augment for any mercenary. It allows you to reload 20% faster than usual, meaning less time spent not killing anything. This rifle has a relatively fast fire rate, meaning you will be reloading often.

Cool
Cool allows you to use the mounted turrets longer than you should. Generally isn’t a very good augment because you will probably die the moment you are spotted, but Red Eye’s smoke grenades can offer a bit of protection.

Without a doubt, the D75 Elite Rifleman is the best loadout for him. It has access to the Caulden pistol and the Kukri machete, along with Quick Draw, Drilled, and Guardian Angel.

The Dreiss AR is a semi-automatic rifle with twenty shots in a clip and deals 27 damage per bullet, doubling up to 54 on a headshot. It is much more forgiving compared to the Grandeur because it has less recoil, but it takes twice the number of shots to kill any given mercenary, except for Aura and Sparks.

Personally, I’d run with Arty if I wanted to use the Dreiss. Arty has the same stats as Red Eye but with the added utility of dropping ammo packs and artillery strikes.

While the Caulden doesn’t have the reliability of the M9, nor the damage per bullet of the DE .50, it is still a decent sidearm. It deals 20 damage per shot, with a clip size of 9 for 180 damage per clip.

The Kukri is a sinister-looking weapon, dealing 55 damage on a quick attack and 85 damage on a heavy attack. Unlike the knives, you won’t be running full speed with this thing drawn, you may want to draw your pistol instead to prepare for meet ups.

The combination of augments on this loadout is what makes this card better than the other Dreiss cards.

Drilled
Drilled is great on this card. Even though the Dreiss has a twenty-round clip, it will run out fast. You will reload a lot.

Quick Draw
Though it doesn’t have any melee bonuses, Quick Draw allows you to reach for your knife or pistol 30% faster to engage enemies in close quarters.

Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel emits a very high-pitched beep that indicates you, and the patch of land you are sitting on, are about to get wrecked. It’s good for a lot of mercs because you never know when a fire support’s about to get stuff done. On Red Eye, it’s useful for the occasions when you’re standing in a smoke cloud and an Arty thinks “Scrubs are hiding there.”

The Best Loadouts (Second Generation)

The introduction of the Second Generation gave Red Eye a lot more viable card choices, for this section, I could give a short discussion for each loadout based on the augments they possess.

• Looter: It’s okay on a Dreiss loadout because Red Eye has a tendency to be closer to his enemies compared to when he’s using the other rifles.
• Bomb Squad: It’s great for Red Eye because of his tendency to hide within the smoke.
• Quick Eye: Pretty decent if you’ll be using ADS often

• Enigma: This is only really decent against other Red Eyes.
• Spares: This augment is great for the Dreiss because you’ll find yourself burning through ammo more often than with the other rifles.
• Guardian Angel: It’s a bit difficult to see markers or lasers when you’re within your smoke. Guardian Angel is great because it gives you a bit of a heads up for when you need to bolt out of there.

• Quick Draw: This is an alright augment for when you suddenly get ambushed in close quarters, but the Dreiss is still pretty alright in those situations.
• Drilled is always great.
• Focus is good.

Notes

*27 December 2015: Updated for damage changes to the Dreiss AR.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading this guide! If you have any comments or suggestions, just comment or suggest them below.
The next part would be talking about his abilities: the IR Goggles and Smoke Grenades.