Is it just me or are Shinobis the most important class in the game?

[idleray]

Not only are they crucial to stealth missions, excellent base class for officers, absolutely mandatory as scouts on 95% of missions, a key part of Sniping cheese(where you use a few snipers and a spotter Shinobi to cheese un-timed missions rather than with a proper team),

they ALSO

have a surprising diversity of builds for efficient damage-dealing on par with assaults.

There's the obvious sword build where you take all the right side perks which have really good action economy on wave defense missions (where it's just reinforcements coming down), as well as potential for LOS shenanigans with snipers - where you hide assaults and shinobis behind any object that blocks LOS and lure enemies to you with Snipers then take them all out when they get close. Whirlwind allows you to do this and then run away from LOS again.


There's also a slightly complicated hit n run build that optimally has you shooting an advent trooper in cover then slashing something on the same turn.

I'm starting to think that almost every situation benefits from two shinobis, one to act as a scout and spotter and one that leverages the killing power inherent in the class tree.

[stefan3iii]

I agree with your title, virtually ever team wants a Shinobi.

Combat wise they're very strong early game, drop off a bit in mid game till you unlock better swords, spike back up when you get Reaper and then stay awesome.

Utility wise, the phantom they have is indispensable, and is basically useful on every mission type. I put 1 shinobi on every mission, and they're one of the first classes I train when I get a GTS.

That said, I don't think you can afford to have an entire shinobi do nothing but stealth an entire mission, they need to be able to come out and do stuff eventually. Making them officers let's them delay coming out of stealth, by using Command instead, but they should actually be good at combat if they're forced to destealth. The good news is, they don't really need much, really all they need is Reaper and they're a beastly damage class. Blademaster is nice too, though not as important.

I do:
Blademaster
Combatives
Covert
Shadowstrike
Reaper
Hit n Run
And whatever at MSGT, still experimenting.

I build every Shinobi this way, they're very good scouts, and they still kill a lot of enemies with reaper chains when needed. I also only use Shinobi officers, so they can stay stealthed for much of the mission.

[Dwarfling]

It always seems like you don't have enough early game and you're always wondering if you want to deploy one of your few shinobis on a mission and then get annoyed when a Smash and Grab or Extract VIP pops up and you got no shinobi to scout ahead.

[Zork]

Nope, it's clearly the Specialist, at least for me.

Do I play without a specialist? Never if not totally forced to do it. That's enough to answer the question for me because I have squads without one class for all other classes, but not one without a specialist at least partial medic.

For me and the Shinobi there's currently a fair balance between the close range risk + attracting pods, the high damages, and the set of skills. And play with one less soldier (shinobi scouting) for the benefit of scouting is generally balanced roughly even if for sure bigger teams favor the scouting.

Im' pretty sure that without Reaper my Shinobi would lag far behind some other classes for number of kills. And for scouting even if I never tried, it would be possible to to use a soldier with Phatom from AWC or even a Sharpshooter, and use Ghost grenade for conceal.

I wouldn't even say that Shinobi is the most influential class, from the point of view of approaches or tactics that open a class. For missions of 10 without timer I would say it is dumb to not bring at least one Shinobi, or the weird scouting replacement I suggested above.

Otherwise bring a Shinobi is a choice, without a sharpshooter it's not so influential. Fully scout for the whole team is too slow and won't change much the start of combats with new pods.

It's like saying if you play a squad without Sting Grenades or Chain Lightning and many more. Many skills just change the play if you have them or not, it doesn't make them more important because you can also play without them.

[Jj001]

I wouldn't say Shinobi's are the best class but I certainly will admit that they're very critical. My sword should know be is almost always number one in kills through the course of the game. It's nice having a class that can reliably kill one enemy per turn at the bare minimum. The Phantom should know bees are also great because you can scout with them and scouting is so crucial. However I do think Rangers are a must-have by endgame as well as Death from Above snipers. Simply because these classes can eliminate enemies with minimal risk. The Shinobi while he can eliminate enemies does so it moderate-risk. Unfortunately for the Shinobi he's very Gear Reliant since swords are based on corpse drops is in research. It's much easier to give a Ranger a coil rifle than it is to give a Shinobi a high-end sword

[hamds28]

They're one of the most indispensable classes I think. Phantom and actually being able to kill stuff that is holed up in cover is super valuable. They become a little weak as the early game transitions into the midgame as the one shot kills get riskier, but then get a large power spike as you start acquiring stunlancer corpses. By the time Arc Blades begin to lose their edge, hopefully most of your shinobis will be close to acquiring Whirlwind.

My MSGT shinobis are like Jedi masters on GOps. One of them can shepherd a whole flock of lance corporals through any decent mission.