New Throwables Idea: Water Balloons
New Throwable: Water Balloons!
Applies Douse on hit in an AOE around 60% of a pheromone canaster
Douse: Drenches enemies in water, making them susceptible to cold and electricity
Enemies afflicted with douse are 20% more susceptible to Freeze damage 50% more susceptible to electricity damage
Starting capacity: 16
Damage: 0
Found in the Grenade Locker
**Why add these?**
Douse already exists in the game, but the way its applied is either incredibly niche or contradictory. An enemy can be doused by either thawing out after being frozen, or after being temp shocked.
The issue with these methods of application is that A: you don't really want enemies thawing out after being frozen because it's usually better to just kill them, and B: Temp Shock is already of debatable usefulness because people running freeze and fire probably want enemies to remain frozen or on fire, due to perks like Blaze Charge, Ember Attuned, Subzero Rage, or Cryo Drain
This leaves Douse in a really awkward space where players have no reason to pursue Douse, and if they want douse they have to give up other, more interesting interactions
Douse also has another element attached to it already in the game, that being short circuit. And because Douse is so rare, short circuit is even MORE rare since the odds you have Freeze, Shock, and Fire on the same team is very rare, and even if you do, it's difficult to coordinate using all 3 of them simeltaniously
Adding Water Balloons lets shock builds access their exclusive Elemental Combination Effect, and gives both Cryo Slicer and Falconer a powerful grenade that combos with other perks already existing.
Cryo grenades are iffy on Cryo slicer since you only get 2 from a resupply, and a few stages in he'll have other more powerful and reliable ways to apply freeze. Why not add a grenade that compliments upgrades like Icy Shrapnel, Weathering Blast, and Cooling Unit?
And Falconer/Shock builds already struggle at the grenade locker since they don't have any *really* synergetic grenades in that starting pool. Adding Water Balloons would let falconer spread shock through big groups and compliment both her drone and turret thing.
And there's all the MANY electric upgrades it would boost. You throw your drone in, then dump a bunch of balloons all over a crowd, spread short circuit, and keep proxing your electric upgrades.
The high capacity of balloons is to encourage flexibility in use, since it's less of a "set it and forget it" type of grenade than something like Cryo, Incindiary, cluster, or the upcoming Neurotoxin. Because of how much douse would help Falconer shine, while the grenade *itself* not being any use in a vacuum, it's important to give players a lot since an individual grenade wouldn't have nearly as much utility as something like HE or Cluster.
It also gives Falconer's Storm Deck marginally more universal utility, but that wouldn't be a huge plus towards its viability since now it's just reliant on a specific grenade.
**Potential issues:**
It would dilute the starting grenade pool *m*ore than it already is, and overall wouldn't be useful for certain classes like Spotter or Retcon.
16 *might* be too high, but doing the math in relation to cryo grenade it ends up coming out at roughly the same. Cryo Grenades instantly freeze smaller enemies, douse gives a 20% vulnerability, it's 5 water balloons per 1 cryo grenades worth of freeze. This makes it come out as slightly worse in raw freezing power than cryo grenades, but gives the player additional utility to apply more freezing in a larger area per resupply.
**Closing Notes**
Please note I didn't make up Douse or Short Circuit, both of these effects already exist in game. Water Balloons as a whole could help make any electric damage on the team be vastly more helpful, give cryo builds another option in the grenade locker, and be a soft buff to some existing items that find themselves power crept (namely Stubby and the Storm Deck)