Some general notes on classes in ABB:

Every class is tied to exactly one secondary weapon.
Every secondary weapon is tied to exactly one class.
Every class gets access to two primary weapon categories.

These three things are set in stone and not debatable, the classes identity is built around them.

The perks that are available to soldiers are divided into class perks and Operative perks.

Class perks:
These are the backbone of the class. They make up the left side of the perk tree. Class perks usually either deal with the secondary weapon of the class or are particularly well suited for the designated combat role.

Operative perks:
The right side of the perk tree is made out of the Operative perks. This list of perks is built from the class perks of other classes and from a list of general perks. Operative perks are required to work on any soldier and not being tied to any specific weapon. If they are 'trick shots', they need to work with cannons, sniper rifles, shotguns and rifles. A soldier can not get one of his class perks in his Operative column. So a Specialist will not be able to get Field Medic on his Operative perk line, for example.

Randomization:
Withing the class and Operative pools, the perks are divided in 4 tiers and then randomized within that tier. For the Operative line, it works the same on every soldier: The first two ranks offer a tier 1 perk, the next two offer a tier 2 perk and finally they get a tier 3 perk at Major and a tier 4 perk at Colonel.
Class perks roughly follow the same model. Usually there would be 12 class perks, divided in tier groups of 4, 4, 2 and 2. With 6 ranks, the chance to get a certain class perk on a certain soldier of that class follows a baseline of 50%. There are some subtle differences between the classes in how exactly the class perks are distributed among tiers, but those aren't important right now.

** Ranger (Shotgun, Cannon, Sword) **

Primary roles: Close quarters damage dealer
Secondary roles: Finisher

The combat role for the Ranger doesn't change much from vanilla, but gets either a more narrower focus when equipped with a shotgun or one that is a bit more opened up with the cannon.

All the weapons the Ranger uses are primarily dealing with damage, with the high damage he does being gated behind different mechanics: Shotgun reload mechanics and range, the Cannon action economy and the Sword's need for melee. Both sword and shotgun are highly accurate in close quarters, making them excellent at finishing off wounded enemies that survived attacks from other soldiers.



** Sharpshooter (Shotgun, Sniper, Pistol) **

Primary roles: Gunslinger
Secondary roles: Long or Short range support

Like in vanilla, the Sharpshooter can be used in two distinct ways. But while vanilla offers the choice between a Sniper and a Gunslinger build, the ABB Sharpshooter puts a bigger focus on the pistol and how it can interact with the primary weapon. Especially in combination with the shotgun, the Sharpshooter can use the pistol as the primary way of engaging with the shotgun offering extra punch at opportune times.

The Sharpshooter is no longer the primary sniper, that job can be done by the other sniper classes as well. If i had to name a primary sniper, it would probably be the Specialist now.



** Specialist (Rifle, Sniper, Gremlin) **

Primary roles: Hacker, Sniper
Secondary roles: Healer, Overwatcher

Among the secondary weapons, the Gremlin has the unique feature of working at squadsight range. This makes it a good fit for use with the sniper rifle for a soldier that can hang back and use his full range of abilities on long range. The Gremlin is of course also notable for his remote hacking ability, and in missions where you want to get close to a hack target (cell door, terminal), the Rifle used at standard engagement range often ends up being the better choice.

The current build has the Specialist still be the primary healer around, but that is a role i plan on moving into other classes soon. He is more likely to gain some of the key overwatch support perks like Guardian or Ever Vigilant, but the AWC perks and the Operative perks already made these perks available to many other non-Specialist soldiers.



** Grenadier (Rifle, Cannon, Launcher) **

Primary roles: Demolition, Shredding
Secondary roles: Firepower at regular engagement ranges

Grenades are powerful tools - the grenade launcher and the extra grenade pocket make the Grenadier much more able to use them in meaningful ways. All things being said, the Grenadier's role doesn't really change much from vanilla. The high environmental damage on the cannon plays right into that Demolition theme. The option to use a rifle makes them a bit more useful for missions where a high mobility is required, but comes at the significant cost of damage, both against enemies and cover.

Both of the primary weapons that are available to the Grenadier use the medium range aim table. This combined with the presence of several 'Trick Shots' like Chain Shot make the grenadier a good class to just add some general firepower to most 'normal' engagements.

** Infantry (Rifle, Cannon, Sawed Off) **

Primary roles: Firepower, Boss kills
Secondary roles: Suppression

Of all secondary weapons, the Sawed Off Shotgun is the one that is most limited in number of charges and in how situational it is. For that reason, the Infantry starts with the Advanced Suppression perk and is actually (once the next update comes out) the only class with Suppression. Suppression in vanilla is extremely weak, the Infantry gets a couple perks to increase aim and damage for reaction shots to enhance it. They can also use it with their rifle from squaddie, which hands them their secondary role without any additional cost.

Like the Grenadier, they can shine at engaging the enemy in regular firefights, dealing damage and tearing through cover with the cannon. The limited charges on the sawed off are offset by the shotgun dealing a lot of damage. This makes them good at 'boss kills', or really taking out anything with a lot of hp. Examples would be the Primes and Rulers, both of them enemies that reward dealing a lot of damage per shot. Early game, the sawed off shotgun is great at taking out Faceless on ballistics or dealing heavy damage to Chosen.



** Scout (Rifle, Sniper, Holotargeter) **

Primary roles: Targeter, mobile sniper
Secondary roles: Stationary sniper

The Scout's Holotargeter buffs aim for all squad members. It doesn't use charges or cooldowns, running on opportunity costs. The targeter is one of those high profile secondaries like the Launcher or the Gremlin that make out a role for the class on its own, even before considering perks.

The Scout is very likely to get offered Snap Shot early on, a perk that opens up a career as a mobile sniper that can operate on the border between medium and long range, with a lot of damage for a single action.

** Agent (Shotgun, Sniper, Combat Knife) **

Primary roles: Disabler
Secondary roles: many

The Agent's Combat Knife is very different from the Sword mechanically. Where the sword deals a good amount of damage, the combat knife deals only very little. However, the Agent is able to use it with a good amount of different perks that disable, disarm, weaken or even cripple the enemy.

A special thing about the Agent's class perks is how many of them are simple passive boosts to one or more stats. While simple in nature, their applications open up their own secondary roles. For example, the Infiltrator perk adds a whopping +150 hack, making any hack checks almost guaranteed to succeed. Without a gremlin, that can only be used to hack cell doors and terminals - so they can be brought instead of a Specialist on those missions, trading the convenience of Gremlin hack for a guaranteed bonus after hacking the objective.
Other perks increase things like critical damage, stealth capabilities, movement or health.
Their choice of primary weapons (one long, one short range) reflects this, so you can pick the one best suited for what you skilled for.


** Saboteur (Shotgun, Cannon, Arc Thrower) **

Primary roles: Ranged disabler
Secondary roles: Demolition

The Arc Thrower has powerful stuns and works at range, but uses long cooldowns and doesn't apply the heavy debuffs that the combat knife can put on enemies. Cannon and shotgun being available gives options for two engagement ranges.

Like with the Agent, i wanted the Saboteur to be able to play backup for roles already filled by other classes. Saboteurs double up on the Grenadier's ability to destroy stuff. They get the cannon, they have Demolition and they have a couple perks for grenade and heavy weapon use. Thus, they can almost make up for the lack of a grenade launcher.

Have you considered allowing the Agent's basic stab attack to trigger at the end of a blue move like the Skirmisher Slash and overdriven SPARK? It'd add a lot of versatility to the knife, synergises with the shotgun and the Agent's other abilities but due to the very low damage on the knife wouldn't be much more powerful damage wise.

Sharpshooter:
Long range mostly stationary snipers are always my team's backbone so I'm sad it's not really here. Specialist snipers doesn't make much sense to me since well..long range snipers require the best aim and decent crictical chance to be reliable, and specialist doesn't have that in growth stats. The pistol build gunslinger however seems to suit in the specialist build with the stat growth in concern IMO.

Agent:
First of all, are there any plans on making the in game model of the combat knife like Musashi;s Combat knives? I'm mixing them up with rangers alot as they both have the same in game model tho they are a completely different animal :p

Secondly, considering combat knives is Agent's shtick and most of them are melee range active debuff skills (correct me if I'm wrong ;)), I'm not entirely sure why would one choose to go for equipping a sniper rifle instead of say a assault rifle (which is not possible atm), it just doesn't mesh IMO if you want a agent to do agent work.

Which comes to the comparsion of agent and saboteur, as the mechanic differences between the melee range debuff and range debuff looks more like a difference in risk and reward but otherwise mostly the same as the primary role goes. I think if the both classes can fuse into one (eg. equip either the arc thrower or combat knife with the option to either go longe range debuff route or melee range debuff route) may be a simplier solution to making each class having more meaning to it, but I do see it a problem if you prefer to keep the 2 main weaponry choice and 1 set secondary for the classes.

As a side topic, can you explain more on how the class perks are randomized? And can these be respec into other perks in the available pool via say the training center? May be it's just me but the randomness can be frustrating if there's one or two perks in the build that goes completely against the available play style.

@Lago: I have considered allowing for move+attack with the knife, but it poses some problems when considering that i currently have knife attacks not end the turn. You'd end up with a functional Run and Gun every turn, like on that high-end Skirmisher ability. Something like that is obviously not going to happen at Squaddie rank.
If i were to allow move+attack with Knife skills, it would have to end the turn. That's certainly an angle i would be open to, but i decided to try it this way first to make it work mechanically different from the sword.

@Astery:
Currently, my classes use the vanilla stat progression because i didn't spend time on rebalancing that yet. I do agree that some change in the numbers is in order where the roles shifted around. Some aim from the Sharpshooter should go towards the Specialist, for example. So that's going to happen.

The knife/sniper combination is something that i want to try because i skipped sword/sniper with the four baseclasses. Sword/sniper is a surprisingly nice combination of weapons and for some time, classes with those two weapons were popping up everywhere on the Workshop. The shotgun/sniper choice on the Agent is mostly to enable to pick your engagement range between the two extremes so the Agent could fill as many backup roles as possible. On a final note, i think he's a particularly good guy to use the scoutrifle on.

I will add an explanation of how the perk randomization works into the first post.

Only the Skirmisher slash refunds an action if you dash with it: the SPARK punch in Overdrive eats two actions if you take two moves and if you use your last action to punch it ends the turn. Would movement on the basic knife attack pose a problem if it worked like the SPARK?

What do you think of giving each class a second squaddie ability so that they can all fulfill their roles from the word go?

Ranger - Run and Gun
Strong synergy with both of the Ranger's action-guzzling weapons and pairs with the Ranger's emphasis on mobility.

Scout - Snap Shot
This ability is tied to the Scout's playstyle tightly enough that it appears in the Scout's description so why not give it to them up front? To keep the appeal of the Assault Rifle and Scout Rifle raise the close range penalties on the full sniper to be very punishing: with no backup weapon a Snapshot Scout is screwed if enemies close in.

Gunslinger - Return Fire
Chosen for lack of other options and its relative unpopularity but making it a squaddie ability enables the addition of new abilities for the Gunslinger's tree that play off it.
A few examples:
Standoff - Return Fire triggers on every attack targeting against the Gunslinger rather than just the first.
Preempt - Return Fire triggers before attacks targeting the Gunslinger rather than after. (Think Bladestorm)
Flashfire - Return Fire deals reduced damage but disorients the target.

Grenadier - Smokescreen
Smoke grenades don't end the turn. There was something similar in Shadow Ops and it made smoke an appealing prospect on the Grenadier.

Agent - Conceal
Helps the Agent sneak around to achieve objectives and close in with the knife but unlike Phantom doesn't have the drawback of preventing ambush participation. Give them a civilian disguise and you have a poor man's Reaper.

Saboteur - Stun
The Saboteur gets to use its shared cooldown mechanic from the start.

Specialist - Medical Protocol
Solves the no medic problem the random leveling can cause.

Infantry - Advanced Suppression

I feel like the classes are spread too thin. With no mods, we already have 9 classes (4 main classes + 3 factions + psi + sparks). That's already so many that even when modding in an additional two squad upgrades you can't take one of each on a mission. This mod bumps that number up to 13, and at some point you need to start wondering if you need all these classes.

Agent is a good example, I think. I found the combat knife to be completely useless. Only working at melee range makes it too dangerous to use, especially since it doesn't have the dash or damage of the sword. The combat knife is basically the pistol with a 1 tile range. And since the classes are basically based around the secondary weapons, the entire tree is based around buffing the knife to be worth using. It's a class that overall just isn't needed.

In describing your classes, you listed off 20 "different" roles: Close quarters damage dealer, Finisher, Gunslinger, Long range support, Short range support, Hacker, Sniper, Healer, Overwatcher, Demolition, Shredding, Firepower at regular engagement ranges, Firepower, Boss kills, Suppression, Targeter, mobile sniper, Stationary sniper, Disabler, and Ranged disabler. Quite frankly I don't think XCOM requires that many roles. Especially considering there are another 5 classes you didn't describe.

I think this mod would benifit from you coming up with a more refined list of roles, and taloring a class for the role. Your currrent system of one class per secondary weapon just seems arbitrary. I think the roles of scout, melee damage, tank/heavy weapondry, utility, and basic firepower are decently well handleded by the other 5 classes, so how many more roles do you really need? Long range, cover destruction, AOE damage, crowd crontrol, healing, hacking, buffing/debuffing, maybe a couple more I can't think of off the top of my head, but certainly not the 25 or so roles that you have now?

The other thing that I feel hurts the classes is the limited number of perks to choose from. I really like the dynamic of semi-random skill trees, but when there's only one set of class-specific perks, it's too easy to miss out on important ones. I got two scouts without snapshot, and it made them worthless. If there was one set of garuenteed "core" perks and another set of class-specific random perks, it would be easier to assure that you get something at least decent at every level. At the very least, there should be an additional random row to choose from so that if feels like I'm not stuck with loads of sub-par options.

These are just my opinions. The reason I look for class mods is to give myself more options and better abilities, but it feels like every single one of my soldiers in this mod is weaker than in vanilla. Maybe that's intended?

I think it's a mistake to think about sparks and faction soldiers in terms of class roles. Obviously, they fill a niche, but you're pretty much never going to have more than one of any of them, so they shouldn't have a monopoly on any class roles. Instead, they should just do a better job at filling roles that more common classes already fill. In all, I think that the amount of roles is reasonable and has the potential to be balanced and interesting. I can see why I would want each class.

Having said that, though, I agree that the base classes don't feel very powerful. For nearly all of them, the only ability they have is "can use secondary," but that's basically meaningless for about half of them. The Grenade Launcher, Sword, Arc Stunner, and Holotargeter are all worthy of defining their class right away, but the other four secondaries (Gremlin, Pistol, Knife, Sawed-Off) start off weak and require specific abilities to be good--abilities that they might not actually roll. I rolled an unlucky streak of medical-protocol-less specialists, and they were all platforms for assault rifles instead of actual people. I agree with Lago's suggestion above--give the weaker classes a starting *ability* in addition to their secondary. The Scout, Grenadier, Ranger, and Saboteur are probably fine as they are, but the Agent could get a 1AP, non-turn-ending knife dash attack, for example. The Infantry already has advanced suppression. I like Lago's suggestion of giving the Sharpshooter a buffed return fire right away. The Specialist could get Medical Protocol (or Field Medic, if you want manual healing).

One note on medical protocol: I know you've said you think field medic will be the ability that people want on their medics, but I've found it comes too late in the tree to matter. Especially with hidden future abilities, every combat-protocol specialist I get is basically just a stand for an assault rifle. If one or the other of the two medic abilities were guaranteed (or even a toned down version of one of them) were guaranteed right away, I think the class would be better.

"I like Lago's suggestion of giving the Sharpshooter a buffed return fire right away."
Standard return fire. Abilities that improve Return Fire are then in the tree.

"These are just my opinions. The reason I look for class mods is to give myself more options and better abilities, but it feels like every single one of my soldiers in this mod is weaker than in vanilla. Maybe that's intended?"
It definitely adds more options. As for better, that depends what you mean by better. If you mean more powerful I very much doubt the intention here is to make the game easier.

Good discussion in here. Thanks for that, it's immensely helpful with making me consider and re-consider things.

Instead of trying t adress every point made line for line, let me try to navigate my way through the suggestions in a more roundabout way, trying to actually explain my thought process behind why things are set up the way they are.

Let's start at the top and with the suggestion to add another starting ability to all classes. It's a strong suggestion and i thought about it before. Snap Shot on the Scout is the one i am most likely to do, even if i don't do it for everyone. I don't think everyone really needs that kind of ability, the secondary weapon is already a very strong 'fingerprint' for the class. To be frank, i think it also adds too much power right away and that brings me towards my main point:

The classes are weaker than vanilla by design.

This is not necessarily because i want to make the game harder, but to shift some of the power from the soldiers to their equipment because that's where the most flexibility from mission to mission can happen.

To expand on this, i also want to adress Qazerowl's point that the classes are spread too thin. The way i see it, that's a good thing. I want you to stop looking at the classes first and then how you can use them second. I want you to look at what things you need to do for your next mission and which combination of your individual soldiers is best suited for the tasks. If that means you will never use a Scout, that is perfectly fine to me. Maybe you'll find a use for him next run. I want the classes to be wide instead of deep, with lots of options that will contribute instead of just a few options that will dominate.

To pick an example, i think that Medical Protocol is a badly designed ability. It trivializes healing and makes one single class so much better at it that putting a medkit on a non-Specialist is not even a consideration in vanilla. With ABB, i have Field Medic in the rotation for everyone, so the Medkit can do some good work on every soldier. Medical Protocol only appears on 50% of your Specialists and only 50% of those also get Field Medic, making soldiers that have these abilities incredibly important to you. In vanilla they'd just easily be replacable by any Sergeant Specialist. This doesn't make things easier, but it certainly makes them more engaging.
The next update is going to introduce Traumakits, which are Medkits with an additional charge and a non-Gremlin version of Revival Protocol on a cooldown. Those are going to close the gap between Specialist Medics and non-Specialist Medics even more.

The same principle can be expanded to other choices i made with regards to perks and equipment. And i am going to follow that line further.

Now, there are certainly things that need buffing, adjusting or are simply in need of additional 'meat'. There are too few abilities in the pool for tier 1 and tier 2 Operative perks and the next update is going to add a couple to each. In my attempt to make the Combat Knife different from the sword, i went too far and made it almost completely unable to kill something with damage. This i am also going to adress at least somewhat with the next update. Something else i want to do is give alternatives to the secondary weapons unique effects in the perks. I already added a hacking perk for non-Specialists and a grenade perk for non-Grenadiers. Next update is going to add a stun shot for non-Saboteurs and i am also going to add a Mark Target for non-Scouts.

Which brings me back to how much less important i want a soldiers class to be in ABB than they are in vanilla or other class packs. Every class should be better at a certain job than most others, but they should never be the only ones to get that job done. At least ideally.

Well, my concerns are satisfied. I'm not opposed to early game classes being weaker, but without traumakits single medikits can't really pick up the slack if you fail to roll a medic. How much more expensive will traumakits be compared to medikits, do you think, and are they compatible with specialist abilities?

Traumakits will cost 90 supplies, Nanotraumakits will cost 150 supplies and a Viper Corpse. They are expensive, because they are so good. Their healing abilities are fully compatible with Specialist abilities which means that if you get that dream Medic specced Specialist with Field Medic and Medic Protocol, he will have 5 Medic Protocol charges: 2 from the medkit, 2 from the Field Medic, 1 from the Protocol itself.

The Revive ability doesn't stack with Revival Protocol though. I am not giving you unlimited Revival Protocols, if you want to make use of that you will need to get in close.

Any regular soldier with Fieldmedic will be able to use it for 4 heals and an unlimited amount of resurrections. That's easily worth picking up Fieldmedic on a few of your soldiers.