Best mercs?

[kampfturke]

I have not seen any youtube, forum or steam chat discussing the best mercs.
This includes best mercs for a starting team and best mercs in general.

I guess I will start with one, as a hot merc that no one is talking about.
Vicki.
Vicki gets +7 increased damage and 15% crit with fully modded weapons.

So if you use a UZI, she does, not 8, but 11 damage per shot. The game doesn't show the crit increase though.
With pistols she does, not 18, but 27.

Isn't this merc broken, especially early game?

Game only came out, so I am sure there are more OP mercs.

[Tommy]

From my experience so far weapons almost go instantly from 100% condition to 99%, so Vicki's bonus would only last for the first few attacks or maybe even only for the first attack.

I do consider Ivan to be quite OP at the moment. He gets back 3 AP per killed enemy and can trigger that multiple times per turn. That also makes him one of your best options if you plan for a playthrough to get the Lone Wolf achievement.

[kampfturke]

Originally posted by Tommy:

From my experience so far weapons almost go instantly from 100% condition to 99%, so Vicki's bonus would only last for the first few attacks or maybe even only for the first attack.

I do consider Ivan to be quite OP at the moment. He gets back 3 AP per killed enemy and can trigger that multiple times per turn. That also makes him one of your best options if you plan for a playthrough to get the Lone Wolf achievement.

I pretty sure with modded it does not mean condition of weapon.
I have a 74% Uzi and she gets the damage bonus.

I am pretty sure there is a way to get mercs to get inspired for the +4ap and use Ivan with his +3 per kill, to get a nice chain effect.
What weapon would you give him?

[Tommy]

Ah thanks, you are right, I confused the two things that her talent does.

[ewoly]

Yeah, she is my only elite at the moment after taking 2 mines & is an all star. I fully modded her two starting pistols and she can dish over 100 damage in a turn. Her infinite lockpick item is also very useful!.

[Solomon Kane]

Scope be my best girl in JA2

[Dre G Writer]

Raven has been my go to with getting one-shot kills with headshots with a Gehehr sniper. She has a 94 in marksman by default.
I would use pretty much all my AP to aim at the head, and man, she makes their heads just disappear.

[✪ Battle Fox ✪]

Kalyna has proven to be my go to sniper, and fairly cheap to employ too.

[BloodyPork]

Vicki is overpowered indeed. But it's not really necessary because you can just hire cheap mercs only and train them for stealth sniping. Just train the Fox, Mouse, etc in marksmanship and take all perks for stealth sniping purpose and they one shot everything with like silent properly modded m24, winchester, dragunov etc while hidden. Extra damage is nice but stealth lets you instakill regardless of damage, and even out of stealth, good sniper can headshot everything with too much damage and extremely high accuracy even outside its range. Have like one tank specializing in explosive (just use barry or something) hiding in cover in front for tanking purpose and the AI will only hit him.

[Dre G Writer]

Originally posted by BloodyPork:

Vicki is overpowered indeed. But it's not really necessary because you can just hire cheap mercs only and train them for stealth sniping. Just train the Fox, Mouse, etc in marksmanship and take all perks for stealth sniping purpose and they one shot everything with like silent properly modded m24, winchester, dragunov etc while hidden. Extra damage is nice but stealth lets you instakill regardless of damage, and even out of stealth, good sniper can headshot everything with too much damage and extremely high accuracy even outside its range. Have like one tank specializing in explosive (just use barry or something) hiding in cover in front for tanking purpose and the AI will only hit him.

Who would you suggest for training???

I just found out the hard way that Raven, who is my best shot, is terrible for training others since she has like 19 for leadership. which is terrible. I had her train like three people and they each got like, 1 point each in marksman. Damn, if only I knew.

[Jo]

Talking about Vicky, I have a question regarding her unique skill that repairs equipped items. Does it work for the items she has equipped only or does it repair all items equipped on the team?

I started with Blood, Buns, Ice, Livewire, Barry and Fox. Buns I use as my sniper since she has few APs compare to Blood and Ice. She pops heads pretty reliably. The mers have high average wisdom so they each have increase 2 or 3 stats on the first island only. Livewire and Barry are definitely lagging in the firefights department but they have others assets.

[BloodyPork]

Originally posted by Dre G Writer:

Originally posted by BloodyPork:

Vicki is overpowered indeed. But it's not really necessary because you can just hire cheap mercs only and train them for stealth sniping. Just train the Fox, Mouse, etc in marksmanship and take all perks for stealth sniping purpose and they one shot everything with like silent properly modded m24, winchester, dragunov etc while hidden. Extra damage is nice but stealth lets you instakill regardless of damage, and even out of stealth, good sniper can headshot everything with too much damage and extremely high accuracy even outside its range. Have like one tank specializing in explosive (just use barry or something) hiding in cover in front for tanking purpose and the AI will only hit him.

Who would you suggest for training???

I just found out the hard way that Raven, who is my best shot, is terrible for training others since she has like 19 for leadership. which is terrible. I had her train like three people and they each got like, 1 point each in marksman. Damn, if only I knew.

IMP merc. He's the best all around teacher, 85 leadership 85 marksmanship 85 dex 85 agi in one package. Fox with 80+ marksmanship and that thermal scope or whatever just kills everything in one shot at max range with almost 100% accuracy even when they're in cover and what not. Why Fox? her perk gives you free starting shot if you use her to initiate, basically free guaranteed extra kill with 0 ap, and enemy don't reposition straight away due to her perk giving you another extra kill. Go straight up from the starting island and cap the mine, then just clear that area you'll get an m24, a winchester (make sure to never use revolver, that ammo is hard to come by, it's not even as good as a modded normal pistol with range 20 that you get plenty of soon, and its best used on this), a dragunov with that op mod for free, and a chip that you can give to your m24 to make that thermal scope thingy. Then game becomes too easy, everyone stealth snipes silently from max range. Actually even blind shot is really accurate in this game with proper modded weapon and high merc stats so you can just use 1 tank as spotter. Recruit Flay for additional Winchester. There is another good modded assault rifle you can buy but it uses NATO ammo.

The easiest way to win without ever crafting any ammo is to use like 4-5 sniper rifle, and 1 explosive guy (barry the most cost efficient by far). Maybe one assault rifle person to use excess ammo. Shotgun is honestly not worth, neither is melee, unless you like taking damage, why even go close when you can stealth snipe everything from afar. Machine gun and smg not ammo efficient and not better than sniper so no reason really.

[Hank Scorpio]

Keith "Blood" Hanson
Cheap
Fast
Unique abillity to throw daggers 2 times for 3 ap?
And yes ofc infinity knives to op.

Livewire.
Cheap
Hacking

[norker77]

Have to add Livewire. Not only is she a decent mechanic and has really high wisdom, she practicly pays for herself. With her there are more hackable objects that give extra cash.

I like to use Igor and Mouse as well for the extra stealth. Livewire and Mouse are good enough medics if you play carefully.

Barry seems to be the only reasonable explosives choice. He is cheap and has a really high explosives skill (Minefield? Oh, that field of parts). I have no idea who I would replace him with.

[tenchifew]

Absolutely agree on Barry.
He was unavailable as I started, and trying to defuse mines with Livewire was an absolute pain.
Otherwise fully agree on snipers - as soon as I was able to give everyone a rifle, even the K98, the game became a lot easier.
Mouse is extremely useful, peak agility is grand, she is thus fast and very stealthy. I am also using Fox, the -1 AP morale penalty for Mouse because of her is acceptable because of Mouse´ high agility, and Fox has nearly 100 dexterity, thus she makes an excellent sniper due to high aim bonuses even with her only average marksmanship in the beginning.
Livewire is an excellent mechanic/hacker.
IMP merc as the leader.
The last merc is a tossup: Kalyna for extra sniping and a rifle from the beginning, Grizzly for strength or Igor for another allrounder.

[SerHak72]

Barry for Explosives since his Shaped Charges. Practically nukes everything that is short of the troopers from the National Army and Bosses.


Blood for Stealth and DPS. Remember... ENDLESS Knives.

Thor or Fox for Medic. Thor can grant you extra Grit even when your team is Wounded with his Herbal Medicine Auto crafting whilst Fox has special dialogue options to get you a nice edge on talking to NPC's at the cost of slightly lower stats than Thor.

Grizzly is great for a Machine Gunner and has a Rambo Ability to boot but will require him to get his Dexterity up if you actually wanna hit anything. I recommend you keep the early game MG42 you find in the Erie Island Bunker and give it to him.