My current campaign I've started trying out a new squad comp. I've always been interested in class stacking. I've done previous campaigns where I'll run something like all gunners or all assaults. It's fun to try out on Veteran but not so much on higher difficulties. You really start to learn about those 'other' perks that would normally be never-pick perks for a one-of-each squad.
My current main squad for 8/10 man content.
- 2-3 Cooldown Gunners
- 2-3 Pure Infantry Rangers
- 2 DFA Snipers
- 1 Holobot Officer
- 1 Support Grenadier
TLDR : Shoot first, ask questions later!
I'll explain the perks/synergies a bit below but first a few notes about the squad in general.
The basic idea here is "Volume of Fire". Corpses don't shoot back, they might slap you across the face, but they don't shoot! Very little survives a turn, and what does is easily controlled. You'll hear people say it alot, better to kill than to control. While this is very true, RNGesus is not always a kind god. And having some control is necessary to mitigate that RNG.
Tactical
Number one is noise. This team sits almost exclusively as far away as possible and trades shots. This often means I'm not pulling yellow alert pods unless they are just outside of sight range. With upcoming changes to sound from rockets/grenades they will almost have the same affect as RunNGun on pulling fog of war. I'm also somewhat careful with flashbangs for this reason. This team is so far away from fog that pods literally have to be just oustide of visual range in order to hear anything. Typically I think it's the dead bodies that pull yellow alert, but by then I've reloaded and am Overwatching until the pod shows up, and single pods often melt in 1 turn.
Recon is important for this squad. They have no stealth opener really. Typically you are using the gatecrasher strat of leaving someone out of cover so you get a full salvo of overwatch on their turn, then a full turn to nuke them from orbit. Not uncommon for half the first pod to be dead or gravely wounded after the overwatch. Ideally if you use recon well and are patient you can get a single pod pull per turn. Even with 8 strong pods, this team can easily melt a pod a turn. Pulling 2-3 pods is manageable, but the more CC you need to dish out, the less firepower you have.
Although there is amazing burst potential for this squad. A key factor in a successful mission is managing ammo and Gunner CDs. While you could pop 3 Hail of Bullets on the first pod that shows up, this is rarely if ever a good idea. It really makes for a better finisher to pick off high value targets that got wounded by someone else. I find it also beneficial to learn how to roll CDs across the gunners so I always have something good available.
Another great synergy of this squad is the power curve. Every rank has impact. You never get a rank and feel your soldier is only slightly better than he was before. The synergies between classes at each rank only compound this effect.
Strategic
Because your shooting everything you get all the corpses/loot. Sometimes getting loot can be hard since it would involve pulling fog of war and the loot can easily be more than a dash away due to the low mobility and long range. For this reason I like to have high mobility on my holobot officer, even going so far as to give him a Speed PCS since nothing else is really beneficial to him. And with Phantom he can safely collect loot with a couple of blue moves.
Research is pretty straightforward. Weapons are huge here. Getting to mag quickly is a nice power spike, and getting to coil is top priority. I typically go Laser -> Praedator -> Mag, but I think this is common in most cases anyway. After that ammo starts to become a priority and lastly getting the support grenadier better grenades.
Alternates
Other classes can be mixed in depending on the mission or roster situation. Although the squad is ok at LCPL, it doesn't really become solid until CPL and then starts to scale strongly from SGT+.
Assault can be a good addition for faster paced missions like retals. Typically I go for pure Breacher build with high mobility/dodge. If I need someone to get shot at, they are good at that. It also keeps my main squad for taking shots, especially the glass-cannon infantry.
Sapper Grenadier can be a good alternate early game until the power curve starts to kick in. You could even argue that they would synergize with the squad for the whole campaign and I may try it out myself to see how I like it. They don't initially make the cut because of the noise they bring. Otherwise they can work quite well. I will include a build of that below as well.
Shinobi aren't really that valuable. Sword Shinobi is mostly a liability and Recon shinobi only really helps with the opener / watching flanks / grabbing loot. They can be useful for retals to get some initial info without pulling, but typically I can use the Holobot for this since they have Phantom as well and also like to give them battlescanners and a grappling hook.
Specialist is mostly not useful at all. Mecs get melted very easily and wounds are minimal or non-existent. They can be useful on retals to gamble on getting a good tower perk assuming Failsafe, but otherwise can also just be another liability.
Technical I feel has no place in this squad at all. Flamethrower is almost never in range of anything. And rockets just yellow alert the whole freaking map! This squad works optimally when it has time to reload after the auto-loaders are burned through so putting the whole map on yellow alert on Turn 1 is a big detriment to the ability.
Psionic... LOL GTFO
Builds & Loadout
Weapon Mods
I'll put these separate from the classes since it's basically the same across all of them. Scope/Mag/Reloader. This creates a lot of competition, so priorities have to be worked out as to who gets what upgrades.
Scopes
Infantry > Sniper > Gunner
Infantry really need the scopes to be effective early. Snipers can usually get away with lower aim by getting elevation bonus or picking off flanked squadsight targets. Gunners are not in a huge rush for scopes as they typically have auto-hit or multi-shot abilities, so they get the last pick.
Expanded Mags
Gunner >= Infantry
Gunner here is obvious. They burn alot of ammo, although as long as they don't have to move, they can reload then do something useful. Infantry mostly wants a level 1 mag, letting them overwatch/shoot/walkfire with a full mag.
Reloaders
Infantry > Sniper = Gunner
Infantry benefit the most because the Gunner typically has the better mags. I think they also benefit the Sniper more since they can keep up their Kill/Steady chain longer with the free reload. Sniper only really needs the level 1 autoloader, after that Gunner takes priority.
Hair Trigger
Gunner
If scopes are rare, or if I get good Advanced/Elite HTs then I'll slap them on my gunners. They do enough overwatch to make a difference and it helps with supression.
Laser Sight
Infantry
These can be ok fill-ins if nothing else is available. They can be good on the Infantry once their aim is higher to push down grazes even more. And if things get into close quarters they can almost guarantee crits.
Utility
Pretty basic utility slot loadout. Plate/Vest/Ammo across the frontline. Snipers typically carry Plate/Ammo/Medkit for patching/stabilizing as well as a little buffer in case they do get shot at. Supports carry a mix of flash/smoke/incendiary and maybe acid in certain situations.
Vest is almost always nanofiber. The crit reduction is very good. Later game I'll likely transition toward Tac/Stasis. Not sure exactly where I would choose one over the other yet. Tac is mostly likely to win but I'll try out Stasis to see if it can work in any situations. Hellweave doesn't seem to provide any benefit over Tac. 1 Armor > 1 HP. And I've yet to have anything get in melee range. Always open to trying it out though.
Ammo gets more diverse. Typically start everyone with Tracer until their Aim improves. After that I start to mix in AP rounds on Gunners, Talon rounds on Infantry/Sniper. Dragon is a great late game pickup. Otherwise I sometimes mix in Shredder rounds on an Infantry. Especially good once Rapid Fire is online for up to 3 Shred. Stilleto/Needle/Flechette/Bluescreen seem way to selective to be useful but I may try them out later in the campaign to see if any of them are beneficial over Dragon. Redscreen is not applicable to this squad.
Perks
Cooldown Gunner
- Center Mass
- Hail of Bullets
- Demolition
- Chain Shot
- Cyclic Fire
- Saturation Fire
- Kill Zone
Chain Shot can easily be swapped with Formidable for better armor stacking vs Graze.
Kill Zone is taken over Rupture because the Infantry already bring Rupture, and they are crit monsters to make it count.
Infrantry Ranger
- Walk Fire
- Locked On
- Aggression
- Executioner
- Bring 'Em On
- Rapid Fire
- Rupture
This is a very glass cannon build. Picking up Defensive AWC Perks is a priority here. You have enough offense already. These guys are crit monsters. They have a lot of synergy with the Gunner/Holobot/Shred Cannon. Demolition provides almost guaranteed kills. Hail of Bullets also sets up Executioner and/or Walk Fire. And this only gets better with Chain Shot/Cyclic Fire/Saturation Fire.
DFA Sniper
- Death From Above
- Precision Shot
- Deadshot
- Center Mass
- Aggression
- Hunter's Instincts
- Serial
Precision Shot over DGG here mostly because it makes the class too reliant on high ground. And once you have high ground your already so high aim that Precision Shot is almost always a kill shot.
Deadshot over longwatch because they rarely overwatch and are almost always steadying with a Stock. The idea is to maintain a Kill/Steady Chain as much as possible.
Aggression over Conceal because should be obvious. I have no idea why Conceal is on the left side of the tree. Seems like it would be much more useful to a Snapshot. Aggression helps to push off grazes and land those big crit kills with Precision Shot. Combined with Deadshot that's very often +40% crit.
I have Hunter's Instincts here because it's quite reliable. The AI doesn't know about your squadsight flanks and so when there's 15+ active aliens, you almost always have a flank shot somewhere. If not you can set them up with the Gunner. Maybe Kubikiri could work, but I'd have to learn how to set it up more. It could combo really well, but I'd have to play with it a bunch to see if there's good enough synergy to make it work. I often shoot first with the Sniper, and Kubikiri seems more like a shoot last type of perk.
They also carry a pistol. Typical loadout is Plate/Ammo/Pistol. I'll still prioritize Offense perks before Pistol perks in AWC, while only looking at Defense perks if there's something nice. With all the crit + bonus damage, pistols can actually hit really hard with this build if you end up at close enough range. Also combos nice with DFA for a 2 kill turn.
Holobot
- Rapid Targeting
- HiDef Holo
- Phantom
- Independant Tracking
- Vital Point Targeting
- Multitargeting
- Serial (Doesn't really matter, they almost never shoot)
The synergy here should be quite obvious. Getting the Mk2 Holotargeter is a priority. +15 Aim/Crit on this squad is a massive increase. And once you hit TSGT/GSGT this only gets more awesome. He takes Phantom so that he can take low/no cover positions for line of sight and not worry about getting spotted too much. Especially since holo target works at squadsight.
MSGT doesn't really have anything of strong value. You can break concealment for some better DPS, but this guy typically burns all his action points holo targeting.
Loadout is typically light. Doesn't really need plate/vest as he's concealed pretty much the whole time. Keeping this up is a priority to keep him from being wounded. Battlescanner/Medkit most of the time. Smoke breaks conceal, better to have the +1 Mobility more often than not.
Support Grenadier
- Rapid Deployment
- Protector
- Boosted Cores
- Sting Grenades
- Dense Smoke
- Volatile Mix
- Full Kit
Boosted Cores here over Bluescreen as Mec is really a non-issue for this squad. And I eventually take Incendiary Grenades as they are typically as good or better than Sting in alot of cases.
You could go biggest booms here over Dense Smoke for better Incendiary. But there's two big benefits from Dense Smoke. The first is that it provides good RNG mitigation against pods that are very spread out and can be hard to flashbang/suppress. It also helps when dealing with yellow alert shots or shots from active aliens that were out of reach/sight during your turn.
The other big synergy with Dense Smoke, is that it makes a mobile heavy cover. With the amount of Demoltion/Saturation Fire/Shredder Cannon, it can leave very little cover to advance into, or the cover may be sparse to begin with. I can easily put a few soldiers out of cover for better shots and Dense Smoke them.
Typical early game load is straight Flashbangs. Pretty much able to use a flashbang per turn. Most fights are over very quickly so I use them liberally on anything that is not dead at end of turn. Combined with 1-2 Area Suppression is incredible lockdown control for the Ranger/Sniper to have time to pick things off.
Later game I'll start taking things like Incendiary/Acid. But typically I'll stick to something like 2 flash, 1 smoke, 1 incendiary for a good mix of utility.
This guy also picks up an Exo suit for some emergency DPS/cover destruction in case it's needed. It's often not but it's nice to have when it is. Can easily blue move -> Rapid React Sting -> Shred Cannon. Really handy combo when you pull 2-3 pods of 8.
Damage Grenadier
- Sapper
- Heavy Ordnance
- Boosted Cores
- HEAT Warheads
- Biggest Booms
- Volatile Mix
- Combat Engineer
These guys can be great additions. I may start trying them out on some missions. My current campaign doesn't have one but I may cheat one in just to try it out. There can be good synergy here with cover destruction early on making you less reliant on the Gunners for this, and opening them up to taking shots themselves. Combined with Executioner/WalkFire can setup some guaranteed kills.
They also have very complimentary power curves with the squad. Getting more damage as the FL increases. Destroying loot becomes less of an issue as HP bars increase and having access to more incendiary leaves the support able to carry more flash or acid.
The main negative is noise. Especially since I believe this will soon be from the origin of the blast which will turn in to yellow alerting half or more of the map which can make it a liability, it will take some testing to see whether they do more harm than good in practice.
Officer Perks
- Focus Fire
- Get Some
- Jammer
- Collector
- Defilade
- Infiltrator
- Combined Arms
Focus Fire is somewhat niche and I don't use it often. Typically a holo target is more useful but it can be nice for single target burst on high HP/high dodge/high armor targets. Easily melt a sectopod in 1 turn. Oscar Mike just doesn't synergize at all with the squad.
Get Some can be quite amazing for burst DPS. When there's 10-20 targets on the map, I typically pop get some right away to push crit even higher. Grazes become a rare thing to see from my infantry/sniper teams. Not uncommon to see 80%+ crit chance from the infantry when this is up without flanking.
Jammer isn't really useful for most of the missions these guys are on since there are no reinforcements. But there are some missions this officer will be on where there are. Fallback is almost useless to this squad since I'm almost never in a position to use it, or it would just put my guy in a worse position. Jammer helps on missions like retals and such that may have reinforcements.
Collector is typically a better choice for this squad since the officer, even being a Sniper, doesn't have the highest Aim. If they did they would go DFA. It could bump up the Gunner Aim a bit, but I feel like there is enough firepower here already that having Collector let's you infil boost more often.
Defilade is a nice mitigation to a turn gone wrong. Although Fire Discipline is definitely a nice perk and I may try it out, I don't really rely on overwatch that much. Almost everyone ends their turn having fired/reloaded/steadied/moved. Also this squad is fairly glass-cannon already, so picking up a squad-wide defense bump doesn't hurt.
Infiltrator helps a lot in most situations. This officer at least is almost never on call evac missions, so it's a dead perk for him.
Combined Arms is really strong for this squad. Not that I wouldn't take Scavenger. While +1 squad wide damage is a big boost, the resources from Scavenger could also net you better gear that would outpace Combined Arms. I guess it really depends on how behind you are with resources. Given this squad goes on missions with 40+ aliens consistently, it's not like Scavenger would be useless. But Combined Arms can mean alot less wounds which is why I pick it. I'll see how it plays out in reality once I get there!
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This is somewhat of a work in progress. I've only just started playing with it recently after having tried it out more by accident. Had a squad that was kind of a mix bag, but it had 2 Infantry, 2 Gunners and 1 Sniper, and I was amazed how well they worked together. So I've been pushing harder to get it smoothed out. It seems really strong so far on Veteran, looking forward to trying it out on Commander/Legend once I get the kinks ironed out.