Overview
How to build your soldiers’ skills, what items are useful for, and how to factor in gene mods, psi powers, and MECs.
Introduction
Before I begin; Credit where credit is due:
When I was learning to play Enemy Unknown, the single resource that became most valuable was a guide here on Steam “XCOM: Enemy Unknown – In-Depth Class Guide” by Rensje. While it hasn’t been updated for Enemy Within, I would recommend it in a heartbeat to anyone playing the Vanilla game, and as a good start for anyone playing Enemy Within as well. I essentially started with that guide, then advanced to learn my own tricks of the trade. Can be found here: [link]
With that done; Here is my contribution to the steam community’s collective store of shared knowledge, a guide on how to build soldiers in Enemy Within, what different skills do, and which options are better for which play styles.
We’ll start with the basic four Soldier classes, and rookies, before proceeding to the more specialized skill-sets, Psionics, Gene mods, and MECs.
Rookies
So, at the beginning of the game, you’ll have no classes at all, just some schmucks with assault rifles and bad aim. These are Rookies. Rookies, if they get promotions, randomly assign to an actual class, and become more useful, if only by feeling like they’re more useful.
In the early game, I would recommend spending your first few easy missions (your first abduction, your first UFO you shoot down, etc.) using only rookies, leaving the units that get promoted at base. I stress that this is a style for lower difficulties, but it can result in a decent variety of useful soldiers early on, rather than a team of Corporals that leave you with no choice but to use rookies every time one gets wounded.
All soldiers gain experience by just going on missions, as well as by getting kills. Rookies promote to Squaddie and receive a class by getting a single kill, and should always get first dibs on a kill, so long as it doesn’t put them in danger to do so, as their aim is pretty terrible. As a result, it can often be better to rely on frag grenades to make kills than to rely on their ability with a rifle. Be Careful though: As Dr. Valen is quick to remind you, killing enemies with grenades, rockets, or exploding cars will destroy the fragments you get from their weapons upon death. Wounding enemies with grenades is fair game.
Every soldier (except MECs, but we’ll get there) has a primary weapon, in the rookies’ case, rifles, a secondary weapon, almost always a pistol, as it is on the rookie, armor, and an item slot, two slots after the foundry project “Tactical Rigging”, which is awesome.
Rookies should be given simple, durable armor whenever you send them into battle. Basic armor before you research anything better, Carapace armor when you reach about laser technology, and Titan armor in the endgame, though you should hopefully have enough soldiers you’ve already promoted by then that you don’t need to train rookies. As well as whatever the most advanced assault rifle and pistol you can have a good supply of, though I might recommend light plasma rifles over normal plasma, as light plasma rifles do less damage, but have an aim bonus.
For supplementary items, grenades are a good choice actually, because any enemy with three or less health left (or total) can be killed reliably by a frag grenade, though you will loose the weapon fragments. Worth it if your soldier won’t otherwise be promoted, or will otherwise die. If you complete the Alien Grenade Foundry project, equip them with those, they do a good five damage, which can make quite the difference. Be aware that if an enemy is next to a car/truck/UFO power source, you can grenade the obstacle to make it explode, usually doing 6 damage. If you catch the alien in both the grenade and the secondary explosions, then they both do damage, and the alien probably dies. Grenades can also be used to blow up enemy cover and any walls blocking another soldiers’ shots, which can save you in a pinch, or be used to just tilt the odds in your favor.
Also worth considering for a rookie: Health items, with follow the hierarchy of Nanofiber Vest < Respirator Implant < Chitin Plating. Because you really want to keep your fragile rookies alive (Experienced soldiers are still more valuable though), it makes sense to give them a health boost. Also also worth considering is a SCOPE, to boost that crappy aim of theirs. I’d go with a grenade first though, it’s versatile, and good for getting you out of a jam. Feel free to give the Rookie that and one of the others once you get Tactical Rigging though, two grenades a mission is just asking to come up short on salvage.
Heavies
Stalwart Defenders, A Heavy is harder to kill than an assault or Support, but can spread damage across multiple enemies like no other. Armed with a Light Machine Gun and a Rocket Launcher, the heavy will do great damage against anything that has the misfortune to be in his or her line of fire.
Heavies Should be right behind your assaults at the front lines, and make a good unit to use more than one of once you expand your squad size. Heavies have Machine guns that are less accurate than assault rifles, but do better damage, and Rocket launchers, but can only use the launcher if it’s their first action that turn, meaning they cannot move or shoot, then launch a rocket, and the rocket takes up both their actions for the turn.
Upon gaining the class, Heavies gain the Fire Rocket power, which functions like a supped-up grenade with firing restrictions. Use it when you need to, but the more enemies you kill without explosives, the better. The Rocket is a great, powerful tool for emergencies, and remains a powerful weapon throughout the game. You only have 1 per Heavy per mission at this point though, so I recommend saving them for when everything is going to hell.
At the next Rank, Corporal, heavies can choose between the “Bullet Swarm” Power, which makes shooting only take up an action, rather than ending a turn, meaning the heavy can take a shot, then move, overwatch, reload, hunker down, or shoot again, or “Holo-Targeting”, which makes it so whatever opponent a Heavy shoots at, regardless of if they hit, becomes easier to hit (+10 aim) for the rest of the team.
I recommend Bullet Swarm here, because the Heavy isn’t the soldier you want making risky shots, due to their sub-par aim, and because Bullet Swarm is just versatile. Big, dangerous enemies can be greatly weakened by two attacks from a heavy, or two different weaker enemies can die in a single turn from the Heavy, or the heavy can take a shot then retreat. It’s not to be underestimated. It’s not like I don’t respect the potential of Holo-Targeting; it’s just that I consider bullet swarm to be one of the best abilities in the skill tree, and Holo Targeting isn’t. There are more firefights where Bullet Swarm will save your bacon than Holo, that’s my stance.
Sargent Heavies get “Shredder Rocket”, another rocket you can use each mission that does less damage, but makes the target take more damage every time they’re hit by your soldiers, or Suppression, which pins down a target, lowering their aim and getting a reaction shot on them if they move or attack. Suppression is a super useful skill for buying you a turn against dangerous enemies, and controlling the threat that different aliens pose to your squad.
I’m still constantly going back and forth on this one, because both abilities are GREAT. Suppression is how you take a dangerous enemy you can’t kill this turn and keep them under control for now, and is a huge tactical advantage to make fights winnable. Shredder Rocket, on the other hand, is a great way to start any hard fight with big, dangerous enemy targets who will take a lot of fire to take down. I lean toward suppression more these days, but not without some regrets, because Shredder Rockets are a really powerful way to melt a Sectopod, or a Mechtoid, or any number of dangerous opponents.
Lieutenant Gives us “HEAT Ammo”, which boosts all damage done by a heavy, rockets, grenades, and LMG rounds, by 50% against mechanical enemies, and “Rapid Reaction”, which lets the Heavy take another reaction shot on overwatch, but only if the first one hit. Never take Rapid Reaction. You have to A) have two aliens run past to trigger reaction shots, and B) Hit with both of them to accomplish more than wasting ammo. The number of situations where this actually plays out properly are just too few and far between. HEAT Ammo, by contrast, is so good it got seriously nerfed in this expansion (from double damage to +50%), and is still much better than the alternative. A bunch of the scariest enemies in this game are the big deadly robots, and having a heavy do extra damage against them is a lifesaver. ALWAYS go HEAT Ammo. No regrets.
Heavy Captains choose between “Grenadier”, which gives you an extra grenade if your heavy carries those, or “Danger Zone”, which boosts the Blast radius of rockets and makes Suppression into a small area of effect. So, here’s the thing- I don’t really give Heavies Grenades often. Sure, being able to pack 2 would make it a lot more worthwhile, and I’ve done it before on Supports because of that in the late-game, but I’m not convinced it’s actually good. On the flip side- Danger Zone is a skill that makes it so when everything’s gone to Hell and you need to blow everything up with a Rocket, your rockets are better at that. Also, the Suppression AOE thing is more-or-less incidental. It doesn’t come up that often. Cool, but not a selling point.
At Major, no soldiers actually choose their bonus, but they’re all pretty darn good at keeping your people alive, so no real complaints. Heavies get “Will to Survive”, which reduces the damage they take when they get shot by 2 if they’re in cover and not being flanked. This is wonderful, because no matter how careful you are, your soldiers will get shot, and you want them to be able to move on and shrug it off as much as possible.
And finally, at Colonel, Heavies choose between “Rocketeer”, which gives them an extra normal Rocket, and “Mayhem”, which gives a great boost to Suppression and Rocket/Grenade damage based on the tech level of your LMG and Rocket launcher. II strongly take the “Quality Over Quantity” Approach to explosives in this game, and thus recommend Mayhem myself, but if you didn’t pick Shredder Rocket, and you don’t often run two heavies, then I can see the argument that you’d rather pack 2 just in case. I prefer Mayhem, but Rocketeer is reasonable. You don’t need 3 rockets though, and boosting damage on Shredder Rockets is pretty sweet.
For Item slots, Heavies could really use a Scope, as the extra 10% aim does them well. Once you have Tactical rigging, you might go for a health boost, they are going to be in the middle of the fray. I recommend against grenades, due to the Heavy’s already Copious Explosion potential. If the heavy is a Psionic, Then a Mind Shield is great, but if not; don’t bother.
Assaults
The Assault might be your primary damage dealer; they’re definitely your primary fighter, and will be used to jump around the battlefield to find good positions to attack the enemy soldiers.
Assaults can pick between Assault rifles, the rookie guns, and shotguns, which will do greater damage, but are short-range weapons. Your choice. The rifle is more versatile, the Shotgun is more devastating. Assaults also have a Pistol, which is weak, but accurate and never runs out of ammo. Useful at a distance if you’ve got the shotgun, but little damage. Gets better with Rapid Fire, but that’s down the road.
For the first few months, I go back and forth between if I want a Rifle or a Shotgun, but the priority should be on giving them the most advanced weapon they can use, with the scatter laser and Alloy Cannon (higher-tier shotguns) being considered more advanced than their rifle counterparts.
The Assault gain “Run And Gun” upon receiving the class, which, when activated, lets the soldier shoot after their second movement, meaning they can dash into the area highlighted in yellow when they move, then shoot. Run and Gun is a vital ability when you’re using shotguns, as it’s great to get close with, and can be a viciously effective flanking tool with assault rifles (With Shotguns as well, there’s not much point getting up close if you don’t try and angle yourself around to flank them, now is there?) This ability is on a 2 turn cooldown, meaning you use it on one turn, then two turns pass where it cannot be activated again on that Assault, after that you’re ready to Run and Gun Again. This is how Assaults fight; they run&gun into an enemy’s face with a shotgun, or use it to maneuver into an advantageous position, either responding quickly by covering distance across the battlefield, or flanking your enemies. They get where they need to go and start killing everything in sight.
At Corporal, Assaults choose between “Tactical Sense”, Plus 5 defense per enemy in sight up to a maximum of +20 (Defense can be seen as the opposite of aim. +5 defense is -5% chance to hit for anyone shooting at you, just as +5 aim is +5% chance to hit when you’re the one shooting.) or “Aggression”, which is +10% chance to get a critical hit per enemy in sight, max of +30%.
I usually go Tactical sense with this one, just because I like shots to miss my soldiers as much as possible, and while I can respect aggression, I don’t find it necessary. You don’t often need a crit, and when you do, clearly things have already gone seriously wrong to get you there. Boosting your defense passively is really strong on the soldiers most likely to be up on the front lines in half cover.
At Sergeant, Assaults choose between “Lightning Reflexes”, force the first reaction shot taken at this unit each turn to miss, or “Close and Personal”, which was changed in Enemy Within so that this assault can take a free shot each turn at an enemy within just a few tiles of them, but can’t combine this power with Run and Gun.
Lighting Reflexes, all the way. It might not sound super useful, but it is Awesome to be able to waste your enemies’ overwatch shots with this ability. It will save you a lot of damage if you can consistently remember to use it, and makes missions full of overwatching Thin Men much less dangerous. Where a skill like Tac Sense protects this one soldier, Lightning Reflexes lets this one soldier protect the whole squad, which is immensely valuable. Close and Personal is great, if a touch clunky to pull off, letting you get close and take extra high-damage shots, but is not nearly as useful for survival as Lightning Reflexes.
Assault Lieutenants gain either “Flush”, a special shot that forces an enemy unit out of cover, but does less damage, or “Rapid Fire”, which lets you take two full-damage shots on an enemy in one action, each with a 15% accuracy drop.
Rapid Fire, hands down. This power can effectively double your damage output if you’re up close enough. Combined with Run & Gun, you can make a huge jump across the battlefield and do huge damage, all in one turn. The 15% aim penalty sounds harsh, but since you’re taking two shots, usually Rapid Fire makes you more likely to hit, not less. And it has no cooldown, so you can abuse it constantly. This is your killing soldier, and Rapid Fire is few things if not Lethal.
At Captain, Assaults choose between “Close Combat Specialist”, which gives a free reaction shot, even without overwatch, to enemies that come too close to the Assault, ie within the range that the assault will essentially never miss these reaction shots, and “Bring ’em on.”, which increases your critical damage by one for each enemy the squad can see up to a limit of 5.
While it’s cool and I like that it’s boosted by the whole squad, Bring ’em On only boosts Critical Damage, not the chance to deal a Crit, making it only for people who took Aggression earlier, and even then… Close combat Specialist, on the other hand, is a wonderfully fun ability, because it means that any enemy that tries to run past the assault, tried to get close for a melee attack, or any enemy you get close to that tries to run away (assuming you didn’t kill them the first turn), gets a barrel of buckshot to the face for their troubles. Really good defensive tool against Melee enemies like Cryssalids too. That said- every campaign I play to completion, there’s at least one incident involving Mind Control and one of my soldiers getting shot in the face with Friendly Fire due to this ability, and it’s been fatal before. Understand how big an endorsement of Close Combat Specialist it is that I still think it’s worth it.
At Major, Assaults get “Extra Conditioning”, which increases their health boosts from armor. Already a pretty tanky class, the Assault just became Nigh Unkillable. Because of this, you don’t have to fret about giving a Psionic assault Psi armor instead of Titan, or giving any of them ghost armor over titan, because they’ll still have more health than a support wearing the stronger armor.
At Colonel, Assault choose between “Resilience”, an immunity to critical hits, and “Killer instinct”, which gives you +50% critical damage when you use Run & Gun. Yes, that does combine with Rapid Fire.
Killer instinct is only for people who chose Aggression, and even then, it’s hardly a consistent boost, since you can only use Run&Gun every third turn. I like Resilience, just because critical hits can REALLY ruin your day. You soldiers will take hits no matter what you do, but with skills like this, you can at least be safe knowing that there are less surprises coming at you in those attacks.
For Items, Assaults are best with health boosts early on, I feel, due to the front-line nature of their work. The Arc thrower seems a good idea at first, but they can’t use it with Run & Gun, so they end up not much better equipped for it than anyone else, and I never find myself with a good opportunity to use the Arc Thrower whenever I put it on an assault. People constantly tell me that you’re supposed to put it on the assaults, but every time I try, I’m disappointed by it. Give the taser to the Supports.
The Assault ideally won’t need a scope, since shotgun assaults are trying their damnedest to get up close and rifle assaults are doing their best to flank, which should give them some great shots, but things are never ideal, and +10 aim is always appreciated. Once you get Tactical Rigging, the Scope is a great choice. Doubling up on health items, due to the variety there are, is possible, but obviously rather redundant, particularly with the crazy health Assaults end up with as they level up. Late game, I use Chitin Plating and a Scope.
Snipers
Ah, the fun one. Snipers are not a class much like the other three. If a sniper moves with their first action, they can’t shoot with their rifle on the second. This leaves them to use their pistol, which kinda sucks until the late-game. The strength of this class is that the sniper rifle does as much damage as the Heavy’s machine gun, and the Sniper has the best aim of any of your soldiers.
Snipers are the hardest class to get that first level-up on: They’re just hard to get many kills with before their promotion to Corporal, but after that, they start picking up the pace very quickly, and are usually my first soldiers to Colonel.
At Squaddie, the sniper receives the skill “Headshot”, which is a special attack that can be used every third turn, which gives a boost to the snipers critical chance, and a boost to critical damage. the damage boost scales as you get better sniper rifles, meaning it’s always useful, and the critical chance is just plain nice. Save it for enemies you wouldn’t otherwise kill, someone you need to get a critical on, or someone you just need the full damage of the rifle, or more. It doesn’t affect accuracy, so don’t waste it on hard shots. That said, it does regenerate, so don’t treat it like you have to save it for the perfect moment either.
Corporal is the level where you decide what kind of sniper you’re fighting with. the two skills are “Snap Shot”, which lets you fire the Sniper rifle or use overwatch after moving, with a -10 aim penalty, or ‘Squadsight”, which lets the sniper shoot enemies outside of his normal range, so long as another member of the squad can see them, but you can’t get crits with squadsight shots unless you use Headshot.
I will say this once, then say it again, then a third time for good measure; Squadsight, Squadsight, SQUADSIGHT. This ability is just. plain. awesome. You can plant your sniper in the back of the team and just plug away, kill an enemy every single turn without them ever catching a glimpse of your sniper. This is the reason you have this person on your team, don’t screw it up. You’ll have a hard time getting kills for your sniper to level up with before they get Squadsight. After? No, not really. Snipers turn very suddenly from a load you’re pulling along to your surest killers. Snap Shot could be good, but honestly, you’re making your sniper into a lame Heavy who never gets rockets or Bullet Swarm at that point, when instead they can be The Angel of Death in their own right.
Sergeant Snipers choose between “Gunslinger”, +2 damage with Pistols, and “Damn Good Ground”, +10 aim and +10 defense if the sniper is above their opponent, in addition to normal elevation bonus (which is +20% aim, so pretty rockin’.)
If you put snipers to higher ground often, Damn Good ground makes them better at it, but the +10 aim isn’t a guarantee, and is situational. On the flip side, Gunslinger makes the Sniper a viable offensive threat after moving. Assault rifles do 2-4 damage. Pistols do 1-2 damage. With +2 damage, your pistol deals 3-4, slightly better as an assault rifle. It doesn’t hold up that well as the weapons upgrade, but gunslinger snipers do perfectly respectable damage, and are far from useless. I love Gunslinger for making Snipers still powerful in unideal situations, but I understand trying to specialize them with Damn Good Ground, even though I disagree.
Lieutenant Snipers choose between “Disabling Shot”, which forces the target to reload before they can shoot again, keeping the enemy from shooting next turn, but not doing much damage (2 turn cooldown), and Battle Scanner, which can be thrown like a grenade and reveals enemies, even invisible enemies, in a massive radius.
Disabling shot is good for dealing with big deadly enemies you want to stop from shooting you more than you want to do damage to, which is one of a few good methods for avoiding fiery death by Sectopod. Battle scanner isn’t that useful, though you could throw it out to combine with squadsight the next turn if your sniper can’t rely on its team for vision, but if you need to do that, you’re doing something wrong. Battle scanner’s most useful feature I’ve found is to quickly deal with Seekers, since you can just toss it out wherever they spawned and reveal them. More a “I’m tired of your stupid games” feature than a “I need to kill these guys NOW” kind of mentality though. I consider Disabling Shot the better choice, because I’m deathly afraid of Sectopods, but the skill is kind of a poor man’s suppression a lot of the time, unless you’re going for the capture. But I never use scanner when I do pick it, so either way.
Sniper Captains get “Executioner”, +10 aim against foes at half health or less, or “Opportunist”, removes the aim penalty for reaction shots, also lets them do critical hits. I always go opportunist, because snipers do so much damage and have such good aim already that they have better uses than clean-up duty, and accurate overwatch shots are kinda awesome, particularly so when you’re overwatching with a sniper on the other end of the map so you can nail some poor alien who showed up at the wrong time.
Majors get “Low Profile”, half cover counts as full. Badass. Now your snipers can go into half cover and be as safe as anyone else in full, letting you save the full cover for the rest of the team. Particularly good if you’re throwing snipers on rooftops where the edge is low cover, or if you’re using your sniper on the front lines with their pistol and there’s less full cover than you’d like (And there always will be). Just remember to use it, it’s easy to forget.
And, the two most fun skills of them all, At colonel, Snipers get “In the Zone”, if you kill an enemy that is flanked or not in cover, that shot doesn’t take an action, and “Double Tap”, Sniper can use both their actions to shoot, can’t be done two turns in a row though.
I personally lean Double Tap, to kill big nasty things like Berserkers, Sectopods, Mechtoids, and Cyberdisks, and to take out multiple enemies with one soldier more reliably (Great against Exalt), but damn can I respect In the Zone for the hell it wreaks on Melee enemies like Cyrssalids, as well as dumber groups of floaters, and the drones that accompany more dangerous enemies. Both skills are great, you could build two snipers just so you can pick between them on a mission-by-mission basis if you want. Double Tap is always powerful, and you’ll never feel like it’s a waste, but I’ll be damned if In The Zone ain’t always just tempting for how good it can be when it does work. Bit of a ‘win more’ ability though, at times.
For Items, The sniper should get a Scope, to maximize their aim, because you will be relying on them to hit as much as possible. Once you get Tactical rigging, the Sniper is actually the only class I equip with a grenade, because I like them being able to blow some stuff up if they get surprised by wandering enemies while they’re separated from the group. It also makes for good support when the whole squad is in close-quarter areas where the sniper rifle is less useful, and you could use someone who can blow tough enemies out of cover to give the heavies better shots. A Sniper can do this wonderfully, and if they have gunslinger, get a few kills of their own. But most importantly: I can’t think of anything else useful for them. Snipers don’t really need health-boosting items, since they shouldn’t be getting shot at much anyway.
And remember kids: SQUADSIGHT.
Supports
The Support has several vital uses in the XCOM squad, from healing to smoke grenades, to suppression, to Captures, to occasionally just shooting Aliens in the face alongside the rest of ’em. They are a reliable backbone of your squad, as well as combat medics, and are otherwise invaluable.
Supports are armed with an assault rifle and pistol, just like a rookie, but much more useful. Thank God.
Squaddie Supports, ie everyone you know is a support, have “Smoke Grenade”. This creates an area of thick, red smoke that increases the defense of anyone inside by 20, equal to being in half cover. Useful power, great to throw out if you’ve got teammates stuck in half cover, Flanked, or even out of cover completely, in a fight scene. When Things go to Hell, the default plan is, “Fall Back to Full Cover, Pop Rockets and Smoke.”
Corporal supports choose between “Sprinter”, which increases your soldier’s move distance by 3 tiles, and “Covering fire” which lets overwatch trigger on attacks, not just movement.
Covering Fire is fine, really, It has it’s uses, and can save your bacon sometimes, but really it feels like a Poor Man’s Suppression most of the time. Pick Suppression later down the tree, if you ask me. Sprinter, on the other hand, lets the support reach more allies for clutch heals, reach better cover and firing positions that are otherwise out of range, occasionally giving you sick flanks for the support’s secondary role as another good gun in the field, and makes the Support the class best-equipped to handle the Arc Thrower, making it the better option, IMO, both early-game and long-game. As this guide’s comment section makes clear, you can argue with me on this one pretty reasonably, but Sprinter is my call.
Sargent Supports get either “Field Medic”, which makes any medkit you bring into combat usable three times per mission, rather than one, or “Smoke and Mirrors”, which lets you use Smoke grenades three times per mission.
This one makes me kind of sad, because I’d love to have Smoke and Mirrors, it’d be useful, but I use supports for Field Medic, that’s what they’re best at. Smoke and Mirrors would be a great pick if you’re using the Training Roulette Second Wave option, but as is, Field Medic lets you have a single, or even a pair, of dedicated supports who can keep your squad healthy and stabilize them if they go down. You need combat medics in XCOM, it’s the only way you’re going to keep your team alive. Being able to use Smoke Grenades more often would be awesome, but it’s not worth what you’d have to give up for it. maybe have one, dedicated Smoke&Mirrors Support in your lineup if you have extra supports, but you still need a Medic on basically every mission, and I’m not convinced that slot in the lineup doesn’t have better uses.
Lieutenant Supports choose between “Revive”, which brings critically wounded soldiers back into the fray at 1/3 health when you revive them, or “Rifle Suppression”, which is identical to Heavies’ suppression, in that in pins a target, lowers their aim by 30, and gives you a reaction shot if they do anything funny.
I did revive a lot in the past, but, to be fully honest with you, I consider switching to Suppression to be the turning point where I actually got good at XCOM. There are a lot of missions where Revive doesn’t actually do you any good, because you’re sorta by definition not actually saving the revived soldier any more than a normal stabilization would. A soldier has to go down, bleed out instead of just dying on the spot, and you have to be able to stabilize them, at which point you get your wounded soldier that you’re gonna be babying for the rest of the mission back, and they’re not gonna be doing that much. Suppression, on the other hand, is a great tool to lower the threat posed by a chosen enemy until you get the situation under control and kill them. When taking another shot at the enemy has a high probability of doing stone-cold nothing, suppression temporarily removes that enemy from the equation, and is a damned lifesaver. Call it the preventative medicine to Revive’s reactive medicine. It needs to not be underestimated how good suppression really is.
Support Captains choose between two upgrades to the smoke grenades, “Dense Smoke”, which increases the defense boost by an additional 20, or “Combat Drugs”, which provides +20 will, +10 crit chance. In vanilla, Not in Enemy Within, but in vanilla Enemy Unknown, they also gave +20 aim by accident, and were thus good. It doesn’t do this anymore, and thus kinda sucks.
Combat drugs makes the smoke a little useful offensively, but Dense Smoke is nice for the aforementioned defensive situations you normally use smoke grenades for. I say Dense Smoke, so I don’t have to change the way I use them, and because +40 defense is equal to full cover. Damn. That’ll make for a solid defensive position when things go to hell, which is the point when you most need a solid defensive position anyways.
Majors get “Deep Pockets”, which give all limited-use items an additional use, including grenades, combat drugs, and medkits (Not smoke grenades, they’re a skill). Great ability, makes the support an even better field medic, gives them a reason to use grenades if you feel like it, gives them an extra charge with the Arc Thrower. This is the point where you can have 4 medkits with Field medic, or 2 medkits without, if you’re going ham on that smoke&mirrors support I don’t think you can quite make work. This is where I also occasionally arm supports with grenades if I feel like I want those more than I want an Arc Thrower or a scope. But it doesn’t happen often.
At Colonel, Supports gain either “Savior” which adds 4 healing to your medkits, and “Sentinel” which gives you two shots on overwatch. Savior makes for a kickass field medic, though it isn’t necessary, and Sentinel is a bit situational. Good when it works, but situational. Better than that Heavy skill “Rapid Reaction”, for damn sure, but I’ve just never been that impressed by it. I go Savior on this one, but I wouldn’t put up any real argument if someone had strong opinions in either direction.
As for items, Supports obviously want medkits for combat medic potential. Besides that, they’re the best users of Arc Throwers, thanks to Sprinter, and when you don’t want an arc thrower post-Tactical Rigging, it’s a toss-up between health and aim. If you only have one support, until you get Titan Armor, I’d say health, since one goes down and you have no more healing (don’t be afraid to have a support use a medkit on themselves), but if you have two, or one with endgame armor, then you’re fine, give ’em scopes or something. I’ve also become a fan of giving them grenades every once in awhile, but most of the time, the scope is probably better.
Covert Operatives
Covert Operations are new in the expansion, special missions against the EXALT faction. Covert Operatives are soldiers of any class besides Heavies and MECs that you send into the field for these missions. They have no armor, and only a pistol for weapons. I heartily recommend giving them your best pistols (and using the pistol foundry upgrades), as well as choosing someone who is either gene modded, psionic gifted, or both. The soldier keeps all their abilities from normal play, from Run&Gun to Squad Sight to Field Medic. I recommend snipers, because of Gunslinger making them quite dangerous with a pistol, and low profile if they’re high enough level, but assaults are good too, thanks to Run&Gun, Lightning Reflexes, and Rapid Fire. Supports are also valid, as they can basically fill the same role they normally do by Sprinting and using medkits, but then you get scary missions where the support starts out alone on the other side of the map and doesn’t deal enough damage to defend themselves. I still lean Sniper, but they all have their merits.
The situation I always think of is when you go on an Op and the covert operative begins on the opposite side of the map, alone and unsupported, and you have to rendezvous with your squad to complete the objective. In that situation, a support Operative is in over their head, but an assault or a sniper can fight for themselves fairly effectively if it comes to that. I lean sniper, if I have enough kicking around in my roster, with assaults as a back-up plan.
That Said: I do believe that most Covert Operations put the Operative relatively close to your squad’s starting position, at which point protecting them, and getting them to aid your squad with smoke and heals, is easy to pull off. So if you have to send in a support, it’ll probably work out, but I don’t like it whenever I get in the situation where I have to.
Oh, here’s a good spot to mention: Squadsight doesn’t allow for long-range shots with the pistol, just the sniper rifle. Or it shouldn’t: Overwatch shots with the pistol still trigger, and have a weird tendency to hit, funnily enough. Abuse this on Covert Operations. Abuse it Often.
As for items, I go with a Scope and a Grenade, personally, but that’s just me- I don’t think that health items actually work on Covert Operatives, otherwise I’d totally use them. Mind Shields are also solid on psionic Operatives.
Specializations
Now that the basic classes are defined, we get to the extra fun stuff: The other skill trees.
After a certain point in the story, you will build the Psi labs. If you put soldiers into the psi labs for ten in-game days, they will be tested for psionic abilities. If the tests come back positive, they will unlock the first rank of psi powers. If the tests are negative, you get nothing. This is random based on the soldier’s will stat.
In addition, after researching it, you can use MELD to modify the genetics of your soldiers in the gene lab, providing passive abilities to enhance individual soldiers, who will leave service for three days per gene mod. One second wave option makes it so you can’t psi test a gene modded soldier, or modify a psionic trooper, but normally they’re not mutually exclusive.
And finally, you can amputate the limbs of any soldier above rookie rank to fit them into MEC suits, hulking, powerful armored platforms that function much like a heavy class, using heavy armor plating, high damage, low accuracy weapons, and powerful on-MEC weapon systems. MECs can’t take cover, on account of being huge, and can’t equip secondary weapons, or equipment, but their MEC suits provide them a selection of powerful abilities, in addition to extreme durability. MEC troopers can’t be gene modded or psionics.
As far as usefulness goes, in my experience: Gene Mods are what you have going on in the background when you don’t want to put real resources into using that MELD, MECs are super powerful, and fun as hell, but expensive enough to enable that I usually don’t get them online until the campaign is already moving along pretty smoothly, and psionics just don’t kick in fast enough to ever be necessary. By the time I’m trying to level them up, I don’t actually need them to win. They come in late enough in the game that they become ‘Win More’ by association.
Psionics
The Only specialization in Vanilla Enemy Within, Psi powers are unlocked about halfway through the game, and, while required, to an extent, to finish the game, can easily become your least used set of alternate abilities. Any class besides MECs can be psionic, but only some soldiers can use psionic powers, and the only way to find out who is to put them through psi testing with Dr. Vahlen. Apparently there’s a correlation between will and chance to be psionic, but I don’t really know how that one works.
The first, and most important, ability any psionic soldier activates right out of the psi labs is called ‘Mindfray’. Against anything that isn’t a robot (Isn’t a drone, seeker, cyberdisk or sectopod), mindfray can do five damage, and give penalties to aim, will, and mobility. Mindfray’s chance to hit has nothing to do with distance or cover, so long as they’re close enough to see (no squadsight mindfray, as awesome as that would be.), but instead with the target and users’ Will stats. . Mindfray also carries a pretty strong will penalty to its targets, so the more psionic damage you do, the easier it is to keep doing psionic damage, or to use the more flashy powers (we’ll get there in a bit).
Mindfray is incredibly useful to kill weaker enemies, like thin men, floaters, and sectoids, because all of them have very low will, and are almost certain to die. Same goes for Mutons, except that they have higher health. so shoot them first, or hit them with a couple of mindfrays if your shots are bad. Mindfray is a great weapon against enemies in high cover, since psychic powers don’t care if you’re behind a big rock. Plus, Mindfray gives penalties to Aim, so the victim is less likely to hit you back if they do survive. It’s not a Suppression or a Disabling Shot, but it’s pretty good.
After using mindfray a couple of times, you gain the psionic experience to use one of two new powers: Psi panic, and Psi inspire. Psi panic is targeted like Mindfray, and makes them panic, which can lead to all sorts of funny and not funny results, from them running for the hills, to hunkering down, to taking a low-accuracy shot at either you or their allies. Again, panic shots are super low-accuracy, no matter who’s panicking or why, so it’s not too dangerous a power so long as your troops are in cover, and it can disable or otherwise make useless a single enemy soldier for one turn. I talk about how good suppression is a fair bit through this guide, and this can serve the same tactical purpose, though being dependant on rolling well against the enemy Will Stat is a bit of a damper on things.
Psi Inspire gives a pretty massive Will boost to all allies in range, and also removes any panic or mindfray effects. The real reason psi inspire is useful is if you’re trying to buff the Will of an ally to pull off a mindfray or mind control you really need. Don’t get me wrong; that’s a perfectly legitimate use, but it’s not that useful. Neither is psi panic really, this level is mostly a wash.
Snipers should definitely take psi panic, simply because psi inspire is only useful if you’re with allies, and snipers should be in the back. Supports should probably run with the support theme and take psi inspire, and heavies and assaults can go either way. Just understand that it doesn’t really matter; mindfray is the most useful psi power (That you get to use) because it actually does damage, and this level in particular isn’t really helpful.
The final level of psi powers (Yeah, that’s it: There’s not much here) is split between two actually really useful powers: Telekinetic Field, and Mind Control. Now, I know most of you just went “The hell with telekinetics: I want to mind control some alien bastards!” And you’d be reasonable for saying that; mind control is pretty darn fun. But Telekinetic Field is its equal, if not the better of the two options particularly when your squad is under fire and you’re forced to use half cover or nothing at all. It is less sexy, but it’s also quite good.
Telekinetic field throws out a circular area around the user that gives +40 defense, meaning you’re 40% less likely to get hit. That. Is. Huge. As in equal to full cover. For context, it takes the dense smoke upgrade for Smoke grenades to provide an equal boost, and Telekinetic field has a cooldown instead of limited number of uses, and a much greater range. Worth noting though- just like smoke, enemies can benefit from telekinetic field as well, so you probably don’t want to use it in close-quarter fights.
Mind Control has a very low percentage to hit, it takes a significant advantage over your target’s Will, but, after a turn of them sitting there looking stupid, gives you control over the target for 3 turns. If all other enemies are dead, the target keeps the mission going until they die, so feel free to have your mind-controlee blow themself up with their own grenade. If the alien is under your control when they die, you get their weapon and grenade (if they have one), intact as salvage, so feel free to run them off on suicide missions, or to put them out in the open to draw fire away from your human soldiers. There’s not much point putting a Mind-Controlled Alien in cover, is what I’m saying.
On snipers, again, mind crontol, since you won’t be close enough for telekinetic field to be helpful much (Though when you attack alien ships you’d be close enough). You usually won’t be close enough to enemies for offensive powers to work either, but it’s got a higher chance. Floaters and mutons are the best targets for mind control: They’re mobile, durable, have weak will, and deal good damage.
Supports might as well get Telekinetics, just because it fits the theme, and assaults and heavies can go either way. So can supports, it really doesn’t matter. Just take a guess at what you’ll actually use.
Of Special Note: Psionics can benefit greatly from the will boost from a Mind Shield, which aids in offensive psi attacks, and in defending against psi attacks (and not panicking). Psionic powers also benefit from psi armor, which boosts will as well, but doesn’t defend as well as a few other armors.
Secondary Side Note: There’s an achievement for Mind Controlling one of the Aliens’ very nastiest enemies they can send against you, a powerful and deadly psionic alien that probably just strait-up has higher will than any of your soldiers are likely to have called an Etherial. This is a SUPER difficult achievement to get, because it means you probably have to land several successful Mindfrays AND buff the soldier with Mind Control using whatever means are availible. It’s much harder than just shooting the alien, though it is VERY satisfying.
Extra Bonus Side Note: Late in the game, if you complete the ‘Progeny’ Series of three missions, you get to recruit 4 garunteed-Psychic soldiers- First, Annete Durand, has a bonkers Will stat, and is a great candidate for doing the Etherial Mind-Controlling (I give her Mind Control Unconditionally just because she has great voice lines for psychically attacking people), as well as three other soldiers, the “Furies”: Matthew Hawkins, a Sniper, and Said and Fatima Tariq, a Support and an Assault who are apparently supposed to be siblings I think? All of them will be a bit low-leveled by the time you recruit them, but are garunteed psychics for the late-game if you need them.
Though, every campaign I play, there’s an incident where one of the Tariq Siblings gets mind controlled by an Etherial, and one of them gets shot in the face with an Alloy Cannon. One of the two kills the other under mind control every 3rd campaign or so, it’s really quite tragic. This is just the price of doing buisness, apparently (And Paritcularly of leveling lower-ranked, and thus lower-willed, soldiers in the late-game). It’s probably my fault for always recruiting them late in the game where most of my roster are at max level, and trying to power-level these three to catch them up.
Gene Mods
After building a researching Meld and building a genetics lab, you can implement passive bonuses to your soldiers that will make them more effective on the battlefield, at the cost of money and meld. If a soldier is killed, the investment cannot be recovered. Some gene mods are unlocked at the start of the game, but most must be unlocked by performing autopsies on the different species of alien you encounter.
The first Gene Mods you’re likely to try out are the eye modifications, both of which are available from the start. Every area you can modify as two different mods that can be implemented, but are mutually exclusive on each soldier. In the eyes, you choose between High Reactive Pupils, and Depth Perception.
Depth Perception adds +5 aim and +5 crit chance to the normal bonuses for height advantage. This works well for Snipers if you work to get them high ground, and makes them particularly vicious if they have the Damn Good Ground ability, though it’s not very consistent.
High Reactive Pupils makes it so that, if a soldier misses a shot, their next shot gets +10 aim. This is a great mod because it makes it much less likely for you to miss two shots in a row, which is often a fatal mistake if it happens. It isn’t consistent, but it does give you an edge to make your mistakes less damaging.
In the Legs, we choose between Muscle Fiber Density and Adaptive Bone Marrow.
Adaptive Bone Marrow is available as soon as you build the genetics lab. It reduces a soldier’s recovery time after being wounded by 66%, and restores up to 6 hp per mission to the maximum unit health without armor. that sounds great at first; an extra 6 hp healing every mission if the soldier gets hurt, but in reality, you’re only likely to get that weak in the very early game, before carapace armor, and at that point, you’re soldiers are so fragile that the healing won’t make a huge difference.
Muscle Fiber Density allows soldiers to move vertically without ladders or pipes or grappling hooks. this means that a sniper with Depth Perception and Damn Good Ground can just jump on top of a building rather than navigating all the way around it for a ladder, and sort of by accident increases your troops’ effective movement speed, since moving vertically doesn’t take up any points for moving around horizontally. I love Muscle fiber Density for the chance to get a height advantage, but it is very situational, always, and there will be plenty of times you just forget you have it.
In the Chest are Adrenal Neurosympathy, and Secondary Heart.
Secondary Heart makes sure your soldier goes down as critically wounded rather than simply dead, which means that if you can finish the mission or get a medic over in time, you can save them. Secondary heart also extends the time you have before they die, and removes the permanent Will penalty for soldiers being critically wounded. This is a good mod to spread to as many soldiers as you can get away with, because it will make your casualty rate drop dramatically, and keep your soldiers fighting fit when they get back in the action, but honestly it’s expensive to spread around enough to make a difference. It was way nicer when a lot of these effects were just in the Officer Training School.
Adrenal Neurosympathy provides a boost to all soldiers within normal Line of Sight whenever this soldier makes a kill. The boost cannot stack if you have several people with this mod, it just resets the timer, and amounts to +10 aim, +1 movement, and +5 crit chance. This power kicks ass. +10 aim to even one or two of your soldiers is a huge bonus, and if you can trigger it with your first kill in a fight, it should give you a good couple of shots with the boost. Several people with the mod, and you can chain those boosts real good.
Skin implants aren’t even a question; One of them is badly overpowered, and the other is just boring.
Bioelectric skin makes it so that soldier can detect enemies through walls for a short distance, and through cloak. Problem is, it also makes the seekers, the only cloaking enemies, have no reason to get within range of you, since they can’t strangle soldiers with bioelectric skin, so they just shoot you, which does more damage anyways. Not to mention that late-game armors also have that “No Seekers Allowed” clause. Lackluster, can’t really do anything a battle scanner can’t take care of better, I find it’s not worth the Meld or Money.
Mimetic Skin provides invisibility for any soldier who starts out of sight for any enemies, then moves into Full cover. Invisibility is broken if they shoot or leave cover. This is so broken because you can just stay cloaked forever and let your snipers plug every enemy in sight full of holes before anyone even sees your soldiers. And if your mimetic scout is a sniper, then Low Profile means they can cloak in half cover too! Plus, cloaking gives a +30% crit chance on any attack, meaning you can sneak into a fight and deal huge damage before the enemy even knows you’re there. This Mod is strait busted, like “I Don’t Use it Because It’s Not That Fun.” kinda Busted. Don’t let that stop you from trying it, if that sounds appealing, but I’d rather not.
And, finally, brain mods. Both are about psionic enemies, and for good reason; mind control is a ♥♥♥♥♥. Your Options are Neural Feedback and Neural Dampening.
Neural Dampening is defensively focused: This soldier will never panic, gets +20 will when defending against psionic attacks, and, if mind controlled, disables the soldier for a turn, cancelling the power. This means that any enemy that tried to mind control your soldiers will only stun them for a turn, rather than take them over. And the panic prevention, and resistance to psi powers, are solid, seriously weakening psionic enemies from some of the most threatening foes on the battlefield, to a lot less scary.
Neural Feedback, on the other hand, makes it so that any enemy that attempts to use a psi power on that soldier gets a rude awakening: weather the attack succeeds or not, the alien gets a psychic backlash proportionate to the soldier’s Will, potentially dealing huge damage, and their psi powers are all set to cooldown, practically disarming some enemies.
I usually go Neural Dampening, because I like boring but reliable options, if you haven’t noticed by now. I actually experiment with both a fair bit, but I use each of them rarely enough that I don’t have a strong opinion as to if one is better than the other.
I know I didn’t go into what’s best for each class so much here, but other than the eye mods, it all is sort of one-sided. If you’re playing without MECs, and can afford to make gene mods kind of standardized for your troops (which is expensive), then I think Muscle Fiber Density, Adrenal Neurosympathy and High Reactive Pupils should be the standard, and I only exclude Mimetic Skin because it’s expensive and sometimes the boring kind of overpowered instead of the fun kind, and the brain mods because those can go either way. And I guess Depth Perception for Snipers, but that’s a judgement call.
Now: Here’s the annoying thing about Gene Modded soldiers: Their armor looks like ♥♥♥♥.
You spend the whole game developing this kickass Titan armor that makes your soldiers look like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ tanks on the battlefield, and then you make their eyes better and what do you know; now they have to go with these stupid, sleeveless combat vests that only pick up the texture of whatever armor you’re using. The stats are exactly the same, don’t mistake me, it’s only aesthetic, but it just looks terrible. It’s seriously worth learning how to make Nexus Mods work just to download a mod to fix this.
MECs: Gear and Previous Training
MECs are new to Enemy Within, and can be constructed after building the cybernetics lab, available after researching Meld. You can convert any soldier above rookie rank into a MEC trooper in the Cybernetics lab, permanently amputating their limbs to drive the MECs. Soldiers retain the same rank they had before becoming a MEC trooper, and the same stats, even though any level-ups after the switch will be determined by MEC stat growths, if you want to manipulate how much health, Will, or Aim your MEC trooper has. Their skills earned on level-up, though, don’t carry over, and MEC troopers have their own skill tree. What MEC troopers do carry over is a passive ability based on their former class.
Assault-MECs have Shock-Absorbent Armor, which reduces damage from enemies at close range. Support-MECs get Distortion Field, which gives +10 defense to allies in cover nearby (visible in-game as a weird energy-fieldy thing). Heavies-turned-MEC troopers get Body Shield, which lowers the aim of the nearest enemy by 20%, and prevents them from getting a crit on the MEC trooper. Snipers-turned-MECs get Platform Stability, which gives you +10 aim and crit if you fire without moving.
All are pretty good. I like Snipers personally, but that’s just me. Supports are good for the team, heavies and assaults are tankier.
MECs can’t take cover, though they do get a +10 defense bonus from their armor. Mainly, though, MECs just have heavy enough armor that they don’t die easily. They’re tactically the tanks in your lineup most of the time, and part of how they do that is by making the aliens go “Hey, that big MEC is easy to hit, I should take all my shots on it instead of the vulnerable and fleshy guys.” A+ Tactics aliens, A+ tactics.
(Side note- I’m only half-joking here, the way XCOM AI works is that the aliens automatically target the one of your soldiers with the lowest defense most of the time, the one they have the highest chance to hit. So having low defense but high health like MECs do is sorta the only way to tank effectively.)
The actual MEC, not the MEC trooper, can come in three stages, roughly corresponding to conventional, carapace, and Titan Armor. Each level you upgrade the MEC unlocks a new ability for whoever pilots the MEC to use. MEC troopers can mix-and-match between MECs at will, though it gets confusing who has what abilities, and it can get really Meld-intensive to build more than 2 or 3 MECs.
At the first Level, you choose between equipping your MEC with a Flamethrower, or a Kinetic Strike Module.
The Flamethrower has two uses per mission to throw six damage worth of fire and death across a pretty vicious cone area. Can be upgraded to 9 damage, and causes enemies to panic. Because, you know, they’ve been set on fire.
But the Kinetic Strike Module deals twice as much damage in a mano-a-mano punch, can be upgraded to 18 damage, and increases your movement speed by a few tiles. I almost always go Kinetic Strike Module (Do the SHIV project in the Foundry, that’s how you unlock the upgrade to fisticuffs). Also: it’s freaking awesome. The cutscene when you go melee on a berserker is just beautiful, and the punch is really nice for taking down enemies, either big ones, or normal ones when you’re out of ammo, which happens a lot with MECs. And you can punch down a wall of cover too! Just avoid punching Sectopods, they detonate on death. Your MEC will probably survive, but it’s just best avoided if you can get away with it.
Flamethrowers might just be better, since they serve as a strong crowd-control option, and can be great for keeping several enemies off your back with a single action, but if I’m investing all my Meld for a campaign into MECs, than I expect to rocket punch some aliens for my troubles.
Level 2 gives us Restorative Mist, and Grenade Launcher.
Restorative Mist is no replacement for a dedicated Field Medic, since it can’t stabilize downed soldiers, but it is an AoE heal for 4 health that can be used between fights on the entire squad, including the equipped MEC, if you bunch them up for it. You normally only have one use per mission though, which limits the power. That said; it’s the only non-medkit healing skill you have access to.
Grenade launcher can launch a 4 damage grenade across significant distance, and can demolish cover to hurt and reveal stronger enemies like Mutons. You also have two shots, which is quite useful, letting you be a touch more frivolous with the grenading than you might be otherwise.
Both of these upgrades are useful, and gain an extra use with one of the late skill choices. In addition, each upgrades with the appropriate foundry upgrade: Improved medkit, for 6 healing, and alien grenade, for 5 damage, to keep them from becoming obsolete. I think I usually go grenades, but then I don’t put them to very good use, so either way.
And with the final level, you can choose between Proximity Mines, and Electro Pulse.
Proximity mines do a whopping 8 damage, trigger when enemies walk nearby (but not on friendlies), and can be detonated with other explosive effects. This is fully awesome, because you can have a MEC throw a mine down beneath the feet of a Sectopod, or at a cluster of tough aliens, then detonate the bunch of them with Grenades or Rockets for much more damage than the blast would normally deal, in what we in the business know as “Beaglerushing”, or you can actually lay them out to detonate by proximity when enemies move, pinning them in place. 2 shots, 3 with the right skill tree option.
Electro Pulse is a short-range AoE around the MEC that deals 5 damage to all enemies in the blast radius, stunning any robots who survive. It’s particularly useful alongside the Kinetic Strike Module, thanks to the close-range focus and extra movement tiles. Plus, you can stun a robot, then punch it to death. And as a bonus, there doesn’t appear to be a limit on uses. What Fun!
Again, either upgrade is great. Electro pulse for when you’re in the thick of things, and Proximity mines for more tactical control. Both are deadly as hell in the right hands. Choose by how you’re using your MECs.
MECs: Skill tree
Sorry, lot of abilities to go over about the MECs. They’re very different from other troops.
The first ability you’ll get it Overdrive: It expends two ammo, which is an entire clip until you upgrade, to deal an AoE attack that, on its own, does two damage, and doesn’t increase until plasma weaponry, but also detonates anything explosive in range, including proximity mines and, more usefully, cars. Not an ability you’ll be using too often, but a good one if you remember it. Great for detonating enemies who are behind the wrong cover.
At Corporal, we get Advanced Fire Control and Automated Threat Assessment, both about Overwatch. AFC removes the aim penalty on overwatch shots, so that you get more hits, but ATA gives you +15 defense while in overwatch. This means you can use overwatch like you’d use hunker down on a normal soldier, and protects you if you try to use overwatch to pin an enemy in place, rather than to kill any surprise intruders.
Both are valid. I lean toward Fire Control, but Threat Assessment has a worthwhile and valuable tactical use. Of course, I did already call Covering Fire a Poor Man’s Suppression, and this is most certainly that, so if you have enough other skills to watch dangerous enemies, then you don’t need it.
Next, Vital-Point Targeting, and Damage Control.
Vital-Point gives +2 damage against any enemy you’ve autopsied, and also against the human EXALT operatives. That might not be a ton of damage, but it’s pretty nice, and you should autopsy every enemy you come across pretty quickly, at least once you win South America over. After that, it means you have one battle without the damage boost, autopsy them, then keep the boost forever.
Damage control makes it so that, if you take a hit, then you start a 2-turn period wherein all damage dealt to you does 2 damage less. While nifty, it requires your MEC to be under fire from multiple sources simultaneously to be useful, which you really need to make not happen. Not only that, the shots have to hit, which you really really need to make not happen, and even then, two damage isn’t a ton on a bulky soldier like this, and means much more early on. Same could be said for Vital-Point targeting, I guess, but I still lean toward damage dealt. Damage Dealt is how you prevent your soldiers from taking too much damage in the first place.
Lieutenant gives us One for All, turning the MEC into high cover (which can still be shot/grenade-ed), or Jetboot Module, which can be toggled to let the MEC leap high buildings in a single bound, like the leg gene mod. Always go rocketboots. Not because it’s useful, but because One for All is terrible. I’ve never really had any good use for it, particularly because I think the MEC reverts to normal form when they take a hit.
Captain gets Repair Servos or Expanded Storage. Repair gives you up to 6 health in auto-healing, and is much better than the gene mod, because it can heal armor. Now: it’s still not worth it, because Expanded Storage gives you one extra use of restorative mist, grenade launcher, proximity mines, and, most importantly, your primary weapon. Without foundry projects, you have 2 shots without this skill. With it, you have 3. That’s a lot bigger deal than it sounds. And once Ammo Conservation happens, you have 5 shots with, 4 without. Later in the game you don’t necessarily need Expanded Storage, but I still use it, because the extra shots of systems and weapons are really nice, and really useful. It lets you keep shooting early, and spam Proxy Mines late, so it’s always useful.
For Major, MECs get Bullet Swarm. They don’t call it that, but it is. If your MEC is a sniper, they can take 2 stationary shots and get the aim bonus on both, or shoot with the bonus, then move into position for another shot next turn. This is freaking excellent, and makes you MEC into a beast.
At Colonel… You can really go either way, because I’m not enthusiastic about these.
Absorption field limits damage to a third of the MEC’s health maximum, and no more in a single shot. Problem is, by this point your MEC should be so tanky that nothing much should deal that sort of damage, short of a lucky crit. It’s too situational for me.
That said, Reactive Targeting Sensors sends a reaction shot (with penalty to aim even if you use Advanced Fire Control) at the first enemy to take a shot at you each turn. Problem is, it’ll burn through more ammo than a fire at a gun show if you don’t upgrade the magazine size. If you don’t have Expanded Storage, you kinda can’t afford to take this skill.
Equipment Part 1: Weapons
I’m going to kinds rush through this section: I covered everything important already.
Assault rifles are used by rookies, assaults, and supports. Basic assault rifles does 2-4 damage, laser does 4-6. Light plasma rifles do 4-6 damage as well, but have a +10% aim bonus that makes them really powerful. Full plasma rifles do 6-8 damage, and all assault rifles have a 10% crit chance under normal conditions. Light plasma is great for rookies, if you’re still using any that late in the game, since their aim is ♥♥♥♥, but on your best you might as well give them the highest damage (though if they have bad enough aim for whatever reason, Light plasma is still very good. Strictly better than laser or anything before all the same.)
Pistols are sidearms used by everyone but Heavies and MECs, and they have infinite ammo. Basic pistols do 1-2 damage, lasers do 1-3, plasma does 2-4. With improved Pistol I, they have +20% crit chance, which is nice enough, since only the laser pistol has any natural crit chance, and even it has just 10%. With Improved Pistol II, they get +10 aim, which makes them great for killing weakened enemies, since they’re more likely to hit than a normal gun. and IP III gives +1 damage to all pistol attacks, making you deal 3-5 damage, before, say, gunslinger kicks in to deal 5-7 damage, with +10 aim and 20% critical. With your Sidearm. Damn that’s good. This is why you should use Gunslinger guys, seriously.
Sniper rifles have already been covered enough in their quirks, suffice to say they’re Sniper-class-exclusive and hit like a sledgehammer when you can make them actually have a shot. Conventional is 3-5 damage with 25% crit, laser deals 5-7 with 30%, and plasma 8-10 with 35%. Just get your snipers the best rifles you’ve got your hands on, clean and simple. Worth noting is that sniper rifles are more accurate the further away your opponent is, and actually loose accuracy as the enemy comes closer. so put ’em in the back, use squadsight, and plug the X-rays full of holes from half a map away. Elevation is also great with them.
LMGs are the Heavy’s weapon, and while their wielders are less accurate than riflemen, they deal better damage. Though 0% crit across the board means they’re not going to surprise you much. Conventional LMG deals 3-5, Heavy laser 5-7, heavy plasma 8-10.
Shotguns are short-range weapons, as they loose accuracy much more dramatically with distance than other weapons, but gain accuracy more quickly as you get close, and deal heavy damage. Conventional deals 3-5, scatter laser 5-7, alloy cannon 8-10. You’ve seen those numbers before. All have a 20% crit bonus, and all are an alien’s worst nightmare in close quarters.
Heavies have a basic rocket launcher when you start, and they’ll likely keep it for the entire game if you don’t put effort into hunting down an enemy battleship. I mean, Slingshot DLC makes the stuff easier to get your hands on, but otherwise you aren’t likely to even learn the Blaster Launcher exists. It’s a nice damage boost on the rocket, 6 damage turns to 9, before skills upgrade the damage, and it also makes the rocket a guided missile, making sharp corners and maneuvers in between your most dangerous enemies.
MECs have miniguns early on, then railguns, then particle cannons. All 10% crit, damage is 4-6, 6-8, 9-11. They have too little ammo though, fix it.
Equipment Part 2: Armors
Everyone except MEC Troopers get body armor, and can equip any kind.
Basic armor that you start with gives +1 health and nothing else. It’s simple, and it’ll have to do.
Carapace armor comes a little further into the game, and is roughly on par with laser technology. Carapace gives +4 armor total, significantly better than basic armor, but nothing super special. It’s contemporary (if slightly more advanced) Skeleton Suit gives only +3 armor, but also increases movement speed by 3 units, gives +10 defense (-10% chance to be hit, basically), and lets you grapple onto higher ground. Which armor you want is a judgement call. 1 health for +10 defense is tempting as hell though, particularly if that +3 movement makes it easier to maneuver into good cover, as can the grapple ability. Obviously use whatever you can get your hands on, but when you have the choice it’s interesting. I usually don’t invest the resources into Skeleton Armor though.
At the final level, you first unlock Titan Armor, which provides +10 hp. Yeah, that’s a lot. I’ve won missions without any casualties where I shot my own soldiers with a rocket because of that health boost. Archangel Armor, developed not long after, provides flight for a total of six moves (can be upgraded to twelve), and +8 hp. finally, we have Ghost armor, which has a one-turn cloaking effect that can be activated four times per mission, +3 movement, +20 defense, and +6 health, and a grappling hook. Worth noting is that all three of these armors provide immunity to fire, poison, and seeker strangulation.
I have to go Titan armor for terms of survival on this one: Archangel Armor doesn’t have inherent defense/movement bonuses, and Ghost Armor gives 3 movement and 20 defense for 4 health, which is just too big a hit. Now, if you want to use cloaking or flight, they’re valid. I usually don’t but it’s a personal choice: I recommend experimentation. Archangel works best on a Squadsight Sniper with Damn Good Ground and Depth Perception, floating in the back of the map, and Ghost armor would have to go assault or support.
Finally, the last armor you’re likely to get your hands on is psi armor, which provides +6 hp, +20 will, +2 movement, and +10 defense. Psi armor is restricted to psionic soldiers, but, thanks to that will bonus, makes them significantly more successful at using their psi powers on the enemy. If your soldier has mind control, you probably want them in psi armor. Otherwise, it’s up to you: Most of the enemies I find myself using psi powers on are so weak-willed that psi armor is redundant, like floaters, sectoids, thin men, and mutons, and the other organic enemies are largely too strong-willed for psionics to be practical, even with psi armor. The exception, of course, is the Ethereals, whom it isn’t precisely practical to use psi powers on, but there’s an achievement, and it’s also pretty fun.
edit: Now that I think about it: you can use will boosts to help against EXALT, who are usually right on the edge of “is mindfray a practical choice?”
MECs instead have different levels, each of which provides an additional subsystem as previously covered in its own section. Warden Armor gives +8 health, +10 defense, and +10 will, Sentinel with +12 health, +10 defense, +15 will, and Paladin, +16 health, +10 defense, and +20 will.
Equipment Part 3: Supplementary items
So these are your additional items, items not specific to any class or specialization, just not allowed to be given to MEC troopers. They come in all shapes, sizes, and measures of usefulness.
The Grenades:
Frag Grenades are the most basic tool you’re provided: Throw it, and it deals 3 damage in a spherical blast radius. Good early on, when most of your enemies don’t have more than 3 health, but looses a lot of shine once you’re packing laser weapons.
Alien grenades work just like frag grenades, and can even be produced in infinite quantities once you complete the foundry project for them (you have to retrieve an alien grenade from a captured alien). They deal 5 damage though, so they’re useful for much longer.
The flashbang grenade reduces an enemy’s chance to hit by 50% and halves their movement speed, for two turns, effectively crippling them as a threat, as long as they aren’t already right in your face. Good, can save your bacon if big enemies are too close and too hard to kill. It won’t work on robotic or (halfway decent) psionic enemies.
Gas Grenades create a cloud of toxic gas, like Thin Men use, that will poison enemies for 1-3 turns and deal about 1 damage per turn. Poison also reduces aim by 20 and movement by 3. Watch out for friendly fire.
Needle Grenades have a bigger blast radius than frag grenades, but do the same damage, don’t destroy cover, and can’t hurt an enemy through cover. Alright, good in the rare situation that the cover difference averts friendly fire or the radius boost catches an extra bad guy, but they take valuable cryssalid corpses to build, and deal too little damage to be relevant by the time cryssalids are rolling out.
Mimic Beacons draw enemies that haven’t spotted you yet toward them, but other than a gimicky killzone set-up, aren’t hardly useful.
Ghost Grenades make it so all units inside the field of effect when it goes off are invisible. Invisibility makes it so they won’t get shot, but only lasts until that soldier’s next turn. Moving doesn’t break cloak, but shooting does. All attacks from invisibility get a +30% crit chance, making it vicious when used on assaults.
Passive Boosts:
The S.C.O.P.E. boosts your soldier’s aim by 10%, which can make a huge difference, in any situation. In addition, once you complete the appropriate foundry project, it also boosts crit chance by 10%, which is a nice boost sometimes. Snipers definitely get Scopes, and so do heavies. After that, it just depends. Supports and Assaults don’t need them exactly, but once you get tactical rigging, scopes are a legitimate choice of another item.
Nanofiber vests give a +2 health bonus, which is nice, particularly early on. It’s enough that enemies might have to take another shot at you to get a kill, which is really all you can ask for.
Better than nanofiber is the Respirator Implant, which does the same +2 health, and makes you immune to strangulation and poison.
And even better than Respirator implants is Chitin Plating, which gives +4 health, immunity to strangulation, and halves any incoming Melee damage. Sadly, chitin plating takes a bunch of Chryssalid corpses to make, so you’re not likely going to be able to build as many as you want for awhile. Health items like these last three are great for Assaults, and also work well on heavies. Snipers shouldn’t need them, and supports are better served with other items.
Reaper Rounds boost the crit chance of your primary weapon by 20%, but can’t be used with laser or plasma tech, so it’s strictly early-game. Actually pretty good while they last though: No effect on assault rifles or LMGs, only hurt you within 10 tiles with a sniper rifle (though you can’t get non-headshot crits with squadsight, so it’s not going to help much either) and hurts shotgun aim past 10 tiles, where you shouldn’t be using shotguns anyway. That said, +20% crit isn’t much, so they really aren’t worth spending (at the time) your only item slot on.
The Mind Shield is a late-game item that gives +30 will, and makes you immune to strangulation. The will is pretty potent on a psionic trooper with mind control, but besides that doesn’t do much. They’re also really expensive to make.
Other Items:
Medkits give the wielder immunity to poison, and can be used to heal an ally for 4 hp, or to stabilize (save the life of) a critically wounded soldier. Medkits also end the damage done by poison effects rather nicely. Medkits are absolutely vital to your squad’s survival, because you get shot and you have to be able to deal with it. Medkits don’t prevent stays in the infirmary when wounded, but they do make you more likely to survive long enough to get there.
Foundry Project increases the healing to 6 hp, the savior support skill gives +4 healing, Field Medic gives you three uses from one medkit, which is huge and is why that skill is one of the best in the game, and deep pockets gives one extra use as well. Supports need a medkit. It’s basically the whole reason you should bring one out in the first place.
The Arc Thrower is a plot-important item that lets you capture enemy soldiers alive for interrogations. the problem is; to taze them with it, you have to get enemies down to 3 health to have any reasonable chance of success. 70% at 3 health, 80 at 2, and 90% chance for capture at 1 health. Captured enemies give you research credits, halving the time for some projects, and let you take their plasma weapons, which need to be researched before you can equip them, and their grenades.
Foundry upgrades let you: Capture enemy Drones, Repair your SHIVs, and increase capture chances (6 health; 70%, 5 health 75%, 4-80%, 3-85%, 2-90%, 1-95%). The Arc thrower only has two uses per mission though, so take your stuns when you’re reasonably certain it will work, and don’t bother with the drones. Also: Don’t capture enemies you’ve already interrogated, it doesn’t get you anything special. Just their weapons.
I recommend giving these to your supports, since they can get in close with sprinter. Assaults sound like a good idea, but you can’t use Run&Gun to get close for an arc thrower, just to shoot.
Combat Stims have two uses, and apply +40 will, -50% damage, and +3 movement for two turns, but end your turn when you use them. I don’t usually make these, but they are decent. Pop the stims one turn on a soldier in half cover so that they take fire for the rest of the squad, then use that mobility to pull them out of the fire and medkit up. Not great, but in an emergency it could save your bacon. Just not the best use of an item slot.