All hirable mercs tier list

[Trolleur_Durden]

After finally finishing the game on Mission Impossible and having seen most of the content, I know much better now what really works and what does not. Here's my tier list of all the hirable mercs in the game. I've made it using the following grading system for each merc, going from what matters the most to what matters the least:


-Unique perk

Unique perks vary greatly between utterly broken and almost useless, and they are the real mesure of a merc's true value. A merc providing a game-changing unique perk will be rated much better in this category than one having a low-impact unique perk.

-Allocated perks

Most mercs are Lvl 2+, which means they come with pre-allocated perks. And sadly, most of them have perk choices ranging from bad to terrible. The more botched a merc build is, perk-wise, the lower his rating will be in this category.

-Relationships

Most mercs have relationships with other mercs, and this can have a noticeable impact on their performance. A low AP merc like Steroid can end up unable to even fire a gun if he loses AP because of a low morale. So in this category, mercs are rated through their relationships with other mercs. Having bad relationships with other highly-tiered mercs is a clear downside which warrants a low rating in this category, while having bad relationships with low-tiered mercs which you wouldn't want to hire in the first place doesn't really matter. And of course, having good relationships with other high-tier mercs is a must.

-Starting perks

Most starting perks are pretty underwhelming, besides a couple solid choices like Heavy weapons. There are also mercs coming with some special starting perks that are actually pure downsides, like Claustrophobic. While starting perks don't matter as much as the categories above, they can nonetheless add or remove some value to some mercs, depending of their builds.

-Context

This category is mostly relevant for the specialists, the mercs focusing on Mec/Exp/Med, because some mercs can become more relevant only because there's actually no better alternative to them.

-Special items

Some mercs have special items giving them an edge, while others have important inventory slots clogged by bad unremovable items. When it's the case, it affects their rating accordingly.

-Stats

Stats are without a doubt a very important aspect of a merc, but I'm more and more convinced they actually don't matter as much as it seems for two reasons. The first one is because those stats can improve and be trained, allowing a merc to overcome their stats weaknesses. However, this is only true for mercs having a decent Wis stats. The second reason derives from the importance of the equipment, which can allow even an average merc to be quite efficient with the right tools.

Here's one example from my own playthrough: Barry ended up the game lvl 10 at 77 Marksmanship, having gained +7 through field experience only. I never trained him in this stats. He still managed to do 115 non-explosive kills with an average accuracy of 82%, because he used various rifles modded to improve aiming and accuracy.

Stats are also tied to perks, since you need to reach some thresholds to be able to take the best perks, making a low stats and low Wis combination an especially detrimental one for the relevance of a merc.

In summary, mercs are rated depending of either their starting stats or their Wis, while having neither of those is a serious flaw. The Old dog perk is also weighting down the stats rating, since having flawed stats and no other means to improve them except tomes car be an irredeemable flaw.

-Cost

Lastly, the cost of a merc is what settles the deal, because everything comes down to the final question: "Is this merc really worth it?". However, it's a pretty tough question to answer, since the real value of money will vary greatly depending of difficulty settings and overall strategic performance. From me, money wasn't really a limiting factor after the early game, since I finished the game in a bit less than 4 months with a bit more than a million in bank. However, I noticed that the salary of mercs ramp up with their level, so much that at the end of the game, recruits like Livewire, Barry and Fox asked each around 30k for 14 days. So while I wasn't nowhere near broke, I still ended the game with a negative burn rate due to mines depleting while salaries going up with time. I settled on taking a merc's salary into account for their final rating, but I fully acknowledge that a good management can lead to high funds and make some of the mercs better than the tier I put them in. It's also the reason I haven't rated the free mercs here, since there's literaly no downsides to having them with you.


Regarding the tiers, here's what each tier means for me:

-S tier mercs are not only the best mercs when it comes to either stats or potential, but they also provide something truly game-changing, which opens new strategic venues for the whole team.
-A tier mercs are solid good mercs with an overall high rating in the areas listed above, which makes them good recruits to have in almost any team.
-B tier mercs are decent mercs marred by some flaws. They can still be relevant for some niche roles or in special circumstances, but usually, there's better alternatives to them.
-C tier mercs are the worst mercs in the roster, those who have irredeemable flaws without outstanding qualities, and they should be avoided in most circumstances since there's almost always better alternatives to them.


S TIER
-Livewire
-Fox
-Raven
-Thor
-Barry
-Reaper

A TIER

-Ivan
-Wolf
-Ice
-Blood
-Vicki
-Dr. Q
-MD
-Buns
-Igor
-Len
-Sidney
-Shadow

B TIER
-Raider
-Meltdown
-Gus
-Magic
-Scully
-Scope
-Red
-Mouse
-Nails
-Grizzly

C TIER
-Kalyna
-Fauda
-Fidel
-Hitman
-Steroid
-Omryn
-Grunty
-Tex


If you want a detailed breakdown of the way I rated your favourite merc before insulting me for not putting them in S tier, feel free to ask!

EDIT LIST:

-Wolf downgraded from S to A tier.
-Ivan upgraded from B to A tier.
-Raven upgrade from A to S tier.

[[SCZ]Celestrian]

Originally posted by ChaosKhan:

Originally posted by Trolleur_Durden:

And when it comes to teaching marskmanship, anyone with a high enough stat can do it, since it always takes 2 days to do so, despite what some perks might say.

You seem to misunderstand how the teaching perk works. It does NOT work the same way for militia and merc training. For militia, it reduces the time flat, but for merc training, it increases the GAINS you have during the same amount of time compared to if you don't have teaching. From my observation, teaching increases the gains by at least 25 %, which is quite substantial.

About Hitman being "hard to salvage". It's not quite how he works. As you saw already when playing Livewire and Barry - low aim gets carried by well modded weapons. Hitman has an increadibly powerful individual perk on top, which makes him a hard carry in early stages of the campaign and a pretty solid B-team leader or militia trainer pick afterwards.

He technically competes with Raider, but I think that Raider is pretty overrated. Best leadership, sure, but it's so easy and intuitive to make your IMP into you A team leader and ignore Raider altogether....

question is how far (and quick!) are you going to be with only 1 leadership merc.
raider gets his fix just like livewire with a modded sniper, making him a decent squad 2 or 3 leader. also if he gets killed... horribly... raven is on the market again

[The Great Cornholio]

Hitman shines as a solo militia trainer. Dirt cheap, teaching and high leadership. Needs 1 mechanical training session to fix his own gear.

[mr_oluap]

Originally posted by Trolleur_Durden:

Originally posted by ToaD:

I think you should consider Blood and Vicki for S Tier.

Vicki is one of the very few mechanics with great stats, her unique is auto repair with bonus damage and extra crit chance which is very strong.
Ambidextrous and Throwing add to the versatility and the price is fair.
If you don't have Livewire I would say Vicki is mandatory. Even if you do you need more than one mechanic.

Blood is too cheap and has crazy good stats. Throwing knives are high damage, low ap and silent, he is also a monster in melee and great with grenades. A secondary doctor with his 51 med skill as well.

Hitman should be B tier imo. He is affordable for his XP level. His unique seems decent. He is one of the best militia trainers and can teach marksmanship. For a secondary squad leader there aren't many affordable choices and he is one of them.
You can fix his dex and in the meantime use overwatch I suppose.

Vicki is certainly a great merc to have. However, repairing her stuff automatically is more convenient than useful, since repairing stuff isn't an issue in the first place. Same for her unique item, not having to worry about finding lockpicks is convenient, but with a proper management of those (not wasting them on doors when there's crowbars available), there is no real scarcity.

Getting bonus damage and crit with fully modded weapons is certainly nice, but not particulary broken. It can make some bad weapons like SMGs much more relevant, but at the end of the day, any decent marksman with a good rifle has no issues one-shotting pretty much anything, despite hot having her perk.

Her other perks are a bit messy, because having both ambidextrous and throw perks is an incentive to use both, which precludes her from using rifles.

Last but not least, her Claustrophobic trait is a serious downside, since there's some pretty important underground areas to go to through the game.

At the end of the day, Vicki doesn't provide anything unique or strong enough to warrant to be S tier, but she's definitely a high-tier merc overall.


I'm a huge fan of Blood and have used him extensively, which is why I'm sad to not be able to put him above A tier. His unique perk is pretty solid, but more for the mobility it provides than anything else, since he will miss with his unaimed throws most of the time. His main issue is either his starting build or his unique item, because both match very poorly. His build is geared towards melee, with a starting perk and a health perk both made exclusively for melee. However, his endless knives are purely throwing weapons, which can't be used for melee attacks while only allowing grenades in the secondary slot. Which means that his loadout should be a melee weapon + his endless knives and some grenades. And the issue with this kind of loadout is that he's very bad in situations where he can't go close and personal. With a better balance between playstyles, he could potentially be S tier, but in a meta where rifles, LMGs and long range stealth are the most efficient ways to play, Blood struggles to match the sheer efficiency of conventional marksmen.


Hitman has an abysmal 40 Dex and an average 74 Wis, making him one of the hardest mercs to "salvage". And when you take into account his pretty underwhelming unique perk, the effort to do so is definitely not worth it. If you want a merc with decent Leadership for a secondary team, Raider and Thor are much better choices. And when it comes to teaching marskmanship, anyone with a high enough stat can do it, since it always takes 2 days to do so, despite what some perks might say.

1 - Blood knives are same as any knives and can be used in melee, they're just infinite

2 - Training op duration is 2 days but training speed is MUCH faster with the teacher perks, which is why Hitman is a great teacher.

[chrismyco]

i would put MD as S. his med score is super high, his wisdom is super, he's mega cheap.

[The Boldr]

Livewire is S-tier alongside Barry (who I wish weren't the only viable explosives expert until you unlock Larry). Her free intel saves an inordinate amount of scouting time, which in turn keeps you moving. In other words, if time is money, the amount of money she saves you is insane. In my latest game, not having her along has had me scrambling at times to meet deadlines, as I'm a lot further behind if I want to scout first - and it's always my A-team wanting the scouting done, so it's them or nobody.

Since I don't have Livewire around, I'm currently playing with Steroid as my mechanic for no reason other than to hear all his voice lines. While I too dismissed him for his low agility/dexterity he's fit in fine as a carrier of heavy weapons and overwatch and has been as good as Livewire as the team's mechanic. What surprised me is how much I appreciate his strength and body (huge carrying capacity plus a lot of checks). Is he A-tier? Absolutely not, but he's not in the Kalyna tier.

As for anyone that complains about the usefulness of having a Psycho in your group, I'd suggest finishing the game with one. Meltdown is easily one of my favorites for one-liners out of nowhere. Her well-rounded stats (making her an inexpensive psycho that can fill a heavy gunner roll in a pinch) make her tremendously strong for her cost.

[kayfabe]

Pet peeve, but there's a big difference between characters being unviable and merely being overshadowed. A lot of the issues with lower explosive mercs go away if you settle for detecting where not to step rather than insist on disarming everything and anything that might blow up in your face. Barry overshadows people not because they're totally incompetent but because he doesn't really give up a dang thing for the privilege of being better at his shtick than other people. Nails in particular would be a pretty decent utility bot in a hypothetical world where Barry doesn't exist.

[Amormaliar]

Originally posted by Trolleur_Durden:

Originally posted by pascal.difolco:

Your tier list don't factor cost enough, for example Reaper is very good but costs 3K a day to Barry's 350, that's nearly 10 times less !!
So Barry is really S, Reaper is A/B

I agree that the weighting of cost in a merc's value is highly debatable and it can definitely affect some ratings, especially those of the Legendary mercs (which I have overall rated a bit on the lower side because of that). However, while there will be players struggling with income, with a good game knowledge it's entirely possible to be quickly swimming in cash, so much that it makes mercs salary almost irrelevant for the time needed to finish the game.

Reaper is one of the most expensive mercs for sure, but it's pretty much his only flaw. His unique perk is a gamechanger, especially when you are heavily outnumbered, and he comes with 90+ in Dex and Agility, which are the stats tied to the perks he should invest into. His perk allocation is moderatly botched with two Wis perks and a 81 Wis preventing him from reaching gold Wis perks, but he still has the potential to take all the relevant stealth Dex perks. When it comes to combat, he's probably the strongest "out of the box" merc available, while still having potential to grow.

Reaper - one of the worst mercs in the game right now. His talent works only in around 5-10m once per “conflict” - so only once per location (not battle or kill). Scaring few people for a round in a small-medium radius once per map… seems useless to me.
And I tried him a few times, still useless. But his perk allocation - pretty good one.

Absolute “S-tier” - Blood. One of the strongest mercs in the game by himself and even stronger as one of the cheapest mercs in the game.
Completed solo iron man with him and not many mercs can do the same, or at least comfortably.

[ChaosKhan]

Originally posted by Amormaliar:

Absolute “S-tier” - Blood. One of the strongest mercs in the game by himself and even stronger as one of the cheapest mercs in the game.
Completed solo iron man with him and not many mercs can do the same, or at least comfortably.

No one argues, that Blood has a niche, that he can solidly fill. That you can complete Lone Wolf with him is nice and all, but is Blood the best merc you can use for it? Hardly. If we even add the factor of group interaction, it should be fairly obvious, why he isn't quite S-tier. If we compare him to the likes of Livewire, Fox, Barry, or Buns, who are pretty much perfect picks for every team and every situation and are super viable on the strategic AND tactical map at the same time, Blood simply can't compete. He is a strong fighter but not so overly broken, that it compensates for his downsides. He is definitely a very good merc and a solid pick for his niche, which makes him A-tier, but nowhere close to the overperformers and must-haves on the S-tier.

[Trolleur_Durden]

I'm quite surprised to see so much love for Hitman, so here's a detailed rating of his performance as a merc.

-Unique perk

I've played around with his unique perk and in my opinion, it's one of the worst UP around. Technically speaking, if he doesn't move during a turn, he gains the Focused buff, which then improves marginally his damage (he does around 5 more damage per hit from my experience) and gives him 15 Grit at the end of the turn, provided he doesn't move again. I have two issues with this.

First one is the fact that this is a delayed bonus. It doesn't trigger during the first turn, which is arguably the most important turn of a combat, because 99% of the time, we as players start fights on our own terms. Which allows us to be especially deadly during the first turn, when enemies are surprised and out of cover. So when you start a fight, Hitman gets nothing from his UP. No damage bonus, no Grit. It's only after a whole enemy turn that he gets his buff and then can get 15 Grit at the end of his second turn, before the remaining enemies play a second time, provided that he hasn't moved. In other words, he can get 15 Grit once he spends a whole turn in enemy's range without moving.

A second issue I have with this UP is that it incentivizes not moving, which is detrimental not only on a tactical level, but also for Agi growth, since it's pretty easy to rack up Agi experience by simply spending free moves to adjust positions, even if you come back to your initial spot. And since Hitman has a terrible Dex and a below average 69 Agi, he's gonna have a hard time reaching the 90 threshold needed for their associated perks.

-Allocated perks

Hitman has a Health, Str and Wis perk, making his starting build all over the place and not able to reach gold tier perks anytime soon.

-Relationships

Hitman has no issues here, he's disliked by Raider, but since both are competing for the Leader role, it's not an issue to have only one of them. He likes Raven, who is a pretty solid merc, and Grunty, who is a low tier one.

-Starting perk

He has only Teacher, which is decent.

-Context

The game has no shortage of skilled marksmen, so he falls short in this category. There's an argument to be made that with his 58 Leadership, he could be a decent secondary team leader, which is true. However, Thor and Raider could both assume that role too and they are both overall better mercs than him.

-Special items

Raider has no special items.

-Stats

Raider has bad stats overall. His 88 marksmanship is good, but his 40 Dex makes him quite inefficient at long range aimed shots, reducing his flexibility. Besides that, he has subpar other stats, with 69 Agi, 72 Health and Str and 74 Wis, meaning that he's gonna need a fair amount of effort and investment to reach any 90 gold tier perk threshold.

-Cost

He's cheap, can't deny that.


Summary

With a below average UP providing survivability and damage per-hit while incentivizing not moving, and an abysmal Dex making aiming inefficient, there's an argument that Hitman could be an LMG user. However, without access to the Dex perks, who are the ones improving overwatch, and no Heavy weapons starting perk, he's never gonna outclass mercs specialized in those weapons like Grizzly or Meltdown.

He can have a niche as a militia and marksmanship trainer, but that's pretty much it. To be anything else, he's the one who's gonna need training. He's definitely C tier for me.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by ChaosKhan:

Originally posted by Trolleur_Durden:

And when it comes to teaching marskmanship, anyone with a high enough stat can do it, since it always takes 2 days to do so, despite what some perks might say.

You seem to misunderstand how the teaching perk works. It does NOT work the same way for militia and merc training. For militia, it reduces the time flat, but for merc training, it increases the GAINS you have during the same amount of time compared to if you don't have teaching. From my observation, teaching increases the gains by at least 25 %, which is quite substantial.

Interesting so it's a bug exploit?

Because the trait description is clear it only targets militia training, or it's a translation bug? Didn't bother check in English.

EDIT:
it's not changing that I agree Hitman is a strong pick.

But this list is a comedy, Red is a perfect example, sure overall he is no match with Barry, but when you start has 2 teams and all plays should, then Red has no match.

[mr_oluap]

Originally posted by Dorok:

Originally posted by ChaosKhan:

You seem to misunderstand how the teaching perk works. It does NOT work the same way for militia and merc training. For militia, it reduces the time flat, but for merc training, it increases the GAINS you have during the same amount of time compared to if you don't have teaching. From my observation, teaching increases the gains by at least 25 %, which is quite substantial.

Interesting so it's a bug exploit?

Because the trait description is clear it only targets militia training, or it's a translation bug? Didn't bother check in English.

EDIT:
it's not changing that I agree Hitman is a strong pick.

But this list is a comedy, Red is a perfect example, sure overall he is no match with Barry, but when you start has 2 teams and all plays should, then Red has no match.

No it's as intended, tip says it makes training mercs faster

[mr_oluap]

What people seem to don't understand with training is that you don't have to spend the two whole days of the operation to get the benefits, you can train any time you have a few hours and it'll be faster with teacher and high leadership, wisdom and stats discrepancy

[RejectedByAnthonyDavis]

Not relevant to this tier list but I'm really unhappy with Meltdown's new voice. Her lines are still great but I was looking forward to using mercenary Roseanne Barr again. And she lost weight.

Now theeeeres a pet for me!

[DrDuckman]

I think Raven is S tier myself, as she's by far the best LMG user, once you realize that her unique ability to Mark people she overwatches works with the LMG cone.

That means she can set up with the LMG, mark a group of enemies, then shift her overwatch cone a couple of more times to Mark everyone. You can even set up to Mark people, then shoot them to score the crit with her alone in the same turn. With Opportunist, her overwatch shots will also score crits.

Watch her mark everyone in the combat for the team, then kill everyone in her overwatch cone. Amazing.... particularly since she does not have any wasted skills, so you can get her the Dex overwatch skills early.

I was thinking maybe Tex is underrated as well? His skill sucks with most weapons, but with shotguns, he will kill everything in his cone all the time. It's a shot against everyone, then overwatch, which can get Killzone. That's 6 shotgun shots against two targets, more if more targets... who will get hit by every hit cause shotgun. Nothing survives, particularly if you use this with the AA shotgun, right? So why is he considered a noob trap? Is it just overkill?

I have seen him wipe out entire enemy Legion squads in one turn with an Auto-5... but Barry and other explosives experts can do that too, and I've not tried this late game yet.

[Trolleur_Durden]

Originally posted by DrDuckman:

I think Raven is S tier myself, as she's by far the best LMG user, once you realize that her unique ability to Mark people she overwatches works with the LMG cone.

That means she can set up with the LMG, mark a group of enemies, then shift her overwatch cone a couple of more times to Mark everyone. You can even set up to Mark people, then shoot them to score the crit with her alone in the same turn. With Opportunist, her overwatch shots will also score crits.

Watch her mark everyone in the combat for the team, then kill everyone in her overwatch cone. Amazing.... particularly since she does not have any wasted skills, so you can get her the Dex overwatch skills early.

I was thinking maybe Tex is underrated as well? His skill sucks with most weapons, but with shotguns, he will kill everything in his cone all the time. It's a shot against everyone, then overwatch, which can get Killzone. That's 6 shotgun shots against two targets, more if more targets... who will get hit by every hit cause shotgun. Nothing survives, particularly if you use this with the AA shotgun, right? So why is he considered a noob trap? Is it just overkill?

I have seen him wipe out entire enemy Legion squads in one turn with an Auto-5... but Barry and other explosives experts can do that too, and I've not tried this late game yet.

Raven's starting perk is a bit of a waste since it provides +5% Crit chance per aim, and as a dedicated overwatch character she's not gonna aim often, but it's still a Dex perk allowing her to progress in the Dex perk line, which isn't too bad.

Besides that, I find your arguments very convincing, especially the moving LMG cone part to mark everyone. This allows her to pretty much guarantee critical hits for everyone, which in turn opens new builds venues in the Agi perk line, like the one giving Inspired after two Crits in the same turn. I'll move her to S tier.