Forward

**William Webb Ellis** or **William Ellis**, also known as the **Forward**, is an Assist/Rescue Hybrid Type and Difficulty 3 Survivor available for purchase after completion of the prologue. He is one of **43** playable Survivors added to Identity V.

—William Ellis (Forward's Birthday 2021)

## Appearance

William is a tall, well-built, sinewy doll with dark brown skin, cascading black dreadlocks pulled into an olive-green-and-white striped bandanna on his head, a small black goatee and a short beard, frowning, furrowed, bushy black brows, and dark grey eyes cross-stitched with black thread. His mouth is pulled into a grimace, revealing gritted white teeth.

He wears a dark olive football uniform branded with an olive green 13 on the chest, matching, skin-tight pants, a black belt, black shoulder and knee guards, matching wristguards, grey stockings, and dark grey trainers. He holds a rugby ball in his right hand.

## Gameplay

The Forward is an assist/rescue-type Survivor who has a Rugby Ball, which when activated allows him to run forward at a very fast speed. Once it is deactivated, he will stop in his tracks for a second, and will be stunned for a short period of time if he runs into an obstacle. If he charges into the Hunter, they will be pushed back a few meters, and if they are carrying a ballooned teammate, or is pushed into an obstacle, they will be stunned and drop the teammate. The length of time the Hunter is stunned is dependent on how much Rugby Ball durability is used. He also struggles free from balloons faster, vaults faster, but decodes a Cipher Machine slower.

### External Traits

Below is a list of Forward's intrinsic traits. For more in-depth information, please check the individual pages.

### Tips

**Please press "Expand" to see tips about playing as and against this Survivor.**

#### As Forward

* **Forward**, similar to Mercenary, has extreme weaknesses and strengths. He massively excels at rescuing and kiting but heavily struggles to decode. Because of this, try to be active for rescuing or kiting all the time to avoid being forced to play with his weaknesses. However, keep in mind that the Hunter might deliberately avoid chasing the Forward.
* **Forward** should stop decoding and start heading to kiting survivors when a survivor is hit in early game. This is, again, to avoid playing with his weaknesses.
	+ Avoid getting hit during this period as well since getting hit means that your odds of a successful rescue is significantly deducted.
* Like any rescuers, **Forward** together with any decoder is a powerful combo as **Forward** will work towards rescuing, stalling time for the survivor to be eliminated while the rescuer quickly decodes cipher machines, accelerating the progress to late game.
* In the other hand, **Forward** is also great with other kiters as since most of survivors/everyone is/are hard to hunt, **Forward** can work to his other strength, kiting instead.
* If the hunter is "Disciple" and you're caught with her cat. Don't dash to stun "Disciple". You'll get stunned by the cat instead and gives the hunter a free hit. You'll also lose Rugby durability freely.
	+ In a similar situation against Gamekeeper, if he places a trap, always dash from a different direction. The trap can also catch you while dashing, resulting the same as with "Disciple".
* Keep in mind deeply that even while you're dashing, you can still get hit and the dash will be cancelled. Either try to stay a bit near to the knocked down survivor or if you want to act like a pro, drift to the other way and drift back to stun the hunter.
	+ If you're using the 2nd method, make sure that the hunter is given just enough time to hit you if you dash straight and not drift away so that the hunter won't have the 2nd chance to hit you.
		- Different hunters vary the attacking speed with the balloon so the timing differentiates depending on hunters.
* Specially in Tarot and Duo Hunters Modes, avoid dashing immediately. You may get tricked by the hunter using Excitement, making you an easy target.
* It is recommended to bring Tide Turner persona as this benefits to Forward's extreme rescuing presence since even if he fails to rescue while the hunter is putting the survivor on balloon, he still has the power from rescuing from the chair.
	+ However if the hunter is "Undead", Tide Turner is no longer effective. **Forward's** strength overall is also heavily countered by him.
* Bring personas those allow you to be more available for rescue such as Healing persona.
	+ If not, either have another rescuer without extreme weaknesses and strengths such as First Officer and Coordinator or have healing focus survivor such as Doctor and Barmaid.

#### Against Forward

* **Forward** is incredibly weak against Excitement trait. Bring it if you struggle to deal with **Forward**.
* When you knock down a survivor and know that **Forward** is around, don't tie the survivor on balloon immediately unless if you have Excitement trait available for use. Wait around a bit and then tie. This will make Forward lose the timing and provides you the chance to hit him while he is dashing.
	+ Take note that **Forward** player can converse this back with the 6th tactic of "As **Forward**". Try to predict their actions to converse this back again.
	+ If Forward does dash and you do not have Excitement ready, try and hit him while he is dashing. Take note of your Hunter's attacking speed when ballooning a survivor; if the Hunter attacks slowly, press the attack button when Forward is at least 4 meters away, likewise, if they attack quickly, you can press the button when he is 2 or 3 meters away.
* **Forward** is also incredibly weak against "Undead" as this hunter counters multiple of his biggest strength or forces him to play on his weaknesses.
	+ Against this hunter, **Forward** must be very quick in enclosing to the hunter to stun "Undead" but even so, the hunter can use regular attacks to be immune to stuns and cancel it out if he is in Energy Surge state and if the survivor is down, **Forward** no longer serves any purpose as "Undead" doesn't use rocket chairs to eliminate survivors. "Undead"'s biggest weaknesses are late game and cipher rush but those are also **Forward's** biggest weaknesses as he decodes cipher machines sluggishly.
* **Forward** is in between meta (most effective tactics available) and non-meta. His strengths are monstrously powerful but this hindering weaknesses and counter plays keep him away from being the meta. Despite of this, in Rank Match, banning this survivor is a good choice if you don't want to use Excitement. However there are better options for banning survivors such as Priestess and Seer.
* You're less likely to face with **Forward** in large maps like Lakeside Village as the long travel distance hinders **Forward's** capability to go and assist the hunted survivor.
	+ Contrast with the said information, you're more likely to face with **Forward** in the Unite State of America and Europe server (AKA EU & US server). This is due to this survivor being more popular in this server than other servers.

### Character Statistics

**Press "Expand" to see the character's statistics.**

Movements
* Running Speed: 3.8 m/s
* Walking Speed: 2.11 m/s
* Crouch Walking Speed: 1.14 m/s
* Crawling Speed: 0.44 m/s

Decoding
* Duration of decoding Cipher Machines: 115.71 sec
* Regressed decoding progress from electric shock: 1.0%
* Duration of inability to decode from electric shock: 2.0 sec
* Time spent opening Exit Gate: 18.0 sec

Interactions
* Time spent dropping pallets: 0.49 sec
* Time spent vaulting over pallets at high speed: 0.98 sec
* Time spent vaulting over pallets at medium speed: 1.36 sec
* Time spent vaulting over pallets at low speed: 1.73 sec
* Time spent vaulting over windows at high speed: 0.73 sec
* Time spent vaulting over windows at low speed: 1.06 sec
* Time spent going through chests: 10.0 sec

Healing
* Time spent healing injured Survivors: 15.0 sec
* Time spent being healed by others: 15.0 sec
* Self-healing time after knockdown: 30.0 sec

Others
* Duration of footprint: 4.0 sec
* Duration of speed boost after being hit: 2.0 sec
* Duration of struggle while being held up: 14.55 sec
* Rocket Chair countdown time: 60.0 sec
* Time spent being rescued from Rocket Chairs: 1.0 sec

## Concept / Design Notes

### Design Notes

This character's skill is dash. We wanted a real-life job that was both dashing and sprinting, so we came up with rugby players. It turns out that this sport existed as early as the 19th century. We overturned some body plans that were too thin, and finally determined the image of this muscular man with a tough personality.

### Beta Development Notes

Athlete outfit → striker. Strikers do have hairstyles, and I just wore the football cap. Of course, considering the impact of game skills, hats are necessary. I remember when this setting came out, the planner lamented that this survivor is too strong, he can fight against the butcher.
But in fact, it was also from him that the inspiration for the division of characters appeared. Eventually he did get to fight the Butcher too.

## Trivia

* William is based on William Webb Ellis, the alleged inventor of rugby. He also shares the exact same name as him.
* He and Cheerleader are the most modern survivors, as a rugby player, compared to the more historical jobs of the other survivors (Doctor, Lawyer, Dancer, Perfumer, etc.)
* He is 1 of 14 survivors that have a 'secondary role' which classifies then in two categories. (This can be seen on the paperclip when viewing Survivor Profiles.)
	+ He is classified as both a Rescue and Contain role, Rescue appears to be his primary role while Contain is his secondary role.
	+ He was previously an Rescue/Contain Type Survivor until it was changed to Assist/Rescue on May 19th 2022 Update.
* William is 1 of 6 Difficulty Level 3 characters.
	+ He was the first Difficulty Level 3 character added to the game.
	+ He was the only survivor to have this type of Difficulty Level 3 in the Game until the introduction of the Antiquarian.
* If a costume with a helmet or the Dark Side costume is equipped, his icon on the Survivor profile will change to have a helmet.
* He is the first and only character so far to have an A Tier Character Release Costume, with the costume being Hermes' Shoes. This is evident because the package is called the Forward Pack and the pop-up for it in the in-game news says "A new survivor, the Forward is here!".

## References

1. ↑ Forward's Tenth Deduction Quest
2. ↑ From the official Art Reference Book
3. ↑ In Diaries & In-Game Voice, A Website confirming the (former) Voice Actor of Hell Ember, Gamekeeper, **Forward** and Explorer - https://zh.moegirl.org.cn/index.php?title=%E8%8B%8F%E9%91%AB&variant=zh-hans&mobileaction=toggle\_view\_desktop
4. ↑ Appearances Listed Down Below:

	* In Diaries (Confirmation Post by Japanese Official Account)
	* In Stormy Night "Surprise" Game (Youtube)
5. ↑ Design notes of characters are from the first volume of the Official Art Reference Book
6. ↑ Archived post from Nekooxi's IDV development concept arts