Doesn't matter. Huge disadvantage to have footprints.

Imo a good strategy is to hide in one area, presumably a place that could be densely populated, but not too populated (halls), and strike the opponent as a passing is made. After striking, cloak immediately and make a straight path of movement, so you can walk in a straight path. Make the path long, so you can walk back to your old position without having footprints seen. I've never used this strategy as I've been quite inactive. A very good tip I would recommend is to not move around in curves, as you can further spread footprints, leading to your catastrophe. Always move in straight paths. Another tip is to walk around gray/brown areas, to camouflage your footprints

@Glowupball:
I think the giant yellow exclamation point over their heads is enough hint there is a recon nearby so they should either get ready to fight or run if they get deathmarked. And before anyone says it, it's not up to the recon whether or not that mark appears most of the time, we don't control where or how close the strikers zoom past us.

Well, if we think about distance...
- Recon cloak warning has a ~4 tile radius (same as a 5* mist bomb).
- Swords (in general) have about a 1.5 tile radius
- Mid-range guns (ex: alchemers) have a ~6 tile radius.
- Long-range guns (ex: valiance, polaris) have a ~8 tile radius.

So while we can't really do much about the passing striker boosting across, we can control the distance we stand (from capture zones, chokepoints) to safely avoid triggering recon warnings accidentally or to synchronize them with our approach (for you cool people who know how to deathmark while fighting <3).

Also in conjunction with this, if you know polaris' max distance and pay attention to where the shot is fired from, you can make the decision to sidestep or decloak and run away from it (MSD from cloak will make the bullet move faster than you!). If you can get past two bullets, you've successfully won yourself a counterattack.

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@Holy-Nightmare:
Indeed, the entire point of recon is not being seen before you strike.
If you just rely on people being unaware of you so you can get first hit... then what about the second hit? Third hit?

Ignoring the recon warning, once you show yourself to attack, they will know a recon is nearby anyway. What do you do after your first hit then?

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@Recon, in general
Truth be told, a bunch of people have messaged me in-game or after matches asking for 'lessons'. I usually just give them tips on whatever they ask for. So far, people have only shown interest in being able to double-switch. There's far less interest in actually learning how to aim, much less how to use recon's unique abilities.

When it comes to it, people playing recon seriously need to be able to:

- Deal with people who have guns
- Deal with people when cloak has run out or when sneak attack fails

I especially emphasize being able to play cloakless, because I learned recon back when a single hit (stray AP bullet, accidentally touching the tip of a mist bomb) would kill your cloak completely.
You show up to ambush 3 people standing on a point? You were going to get hit out of cloak somehow, so you needed to be able to come out of that alive without using cloak stupidly.
Someone random-shooting AP? No need to challenge it, decloak and settle the fight with guns.

It was a bunch of picking and choosing battles, but overcoming the OHKO cloak is probably the biggest factor in developing my recon playstyle.