Which characters do you find most useful?

[Coach's Coach]

Which of the characters do you find yourselves taking on missions most often? Clearly the mission objectives differ, but even with that I find certain crew members always find a place on my team.

The most prominent member tends to be Billy. His ability to do massive damage, especially when equipped with two sets of boots (or a vest that gives health, movement, plus a pair of boots) allows him to blitz an enemy, filet-o-fish them, take them out, and then flee all in one turn.'

Alongside him, it tends to be Piper, Seabrass, and Sally.

The other characters tend to fall short. I try to utilize everyone somewhat equally, mainly because the game feels too stale otherwise, but I'm fairly certain this is just another balance issue with the game.

The lack of usefulness for half the utilities already was a big turn-off to me, but now I'm noticing half the crew is basically pointless as well.

I really hope they either tweak things (doubtful), or at least make a second game and remedy some of this stuff. I love the game overall, I'm having a lot of fun playing, but it still feels lacking in some areas.

Devs, if you are listening/reading, and open to suggestions, please say so. There are some things I'd recommend, or at least like to bring to your attention.

[[STA] Cheeto]

On Middle difficulties (my first playthrough) I focused on Fen/Piper/Valentine. Fen as my damage soak/heavy weapon murderer (so he can self-heal without burning a turn), piper as my damage amp/support, and valentine was my trick-shot murderer.

My next playthrough looks like I'll be abusing flanker a lot more for those guaranteed killshots, so I'll probably remove valentine from my roster. Having laser sight was crucial for me to not suck at the game, though.

[ParryBlossom]

Piper/Sally/Valentine was my core team, an all arounder.

[Derank-O-Mat 2000]

On my last run I exclusively used Piper, Fen, Dora and Beatrix.
Piper because she has inspire and group heal and because I like laser sight guns since its fairly easy to get trickshots at enemies behind cover.
Dora has the swag detection ability which can save you a lot of time and by the end of zone 3 she was able to do 20 damage with her backstabbing ability.
Fen is by far the best overall character imo, character and cover piercing shot, unlimited heal.
And Beatrix was very usefull in boss fights with her double shot when focused ability as a damage dealer.

[Yarrun]

Seabrass is the closest thing I'd call to a main, though I try to rotate between different characters. He's a good all-rounder who can charge in, burst damage someone, tank a hit or two, and come out alive. I got lucky and got a utility that adds +1 Mend to whoever's equipped it, so if he ends up tanking a *lot* of hits, he's still covered. A close second would be Sally, who's good at clearing out lots of enemies in a single turn. She'd probably be my favorite if she wasn't so fragile. But really, I like all of them to some extent. I just tend towards high health/high damage per turn characters because I tend to forget to make sure they're in cover before they shoot, so 'being able to take a hit' and 'being able to kill them before they kill you' are top attributes.

I'd actually say that Billy's one of my least favorite characters to use, tied with Dora and Valentine. He's just a bit too slow to consistently get into melee range without sacrificing his melee damage, and I could get similar results with Seabrass or Payroll. I still use him, because he's adorable, but I can't imagine taking him into a boss fight.

[[STA] Cheeto]

yarrun-He was an absolute blast in the final boss fight with a double-shot pistol (try to snipe two shield spheres in one turn while relocating the same turn with his fish feet)

[Yarrun]

Yeah, he's been pulling his weight more since I got that double-shot stun handgun. Still, it takes a while before he's useful. Same reason why Valentine gets on my nerves; he's not bad now that I've grinded him to level 7, but until he gets up to level 4, there's no reason to use him over Piper.

[DanTheTerrible]

My favorite is Beatrix. I like to use her as my doorkicker, when preparing to enter a room I move her next to the door the turn before, then start the turn by having her open the door. Opening a door doesn't count as moving, so if she just shoots at this point focus and loose cannon kick in. With a heavy weapon equipped she can kill anything but a boss in one shot (actually two shots due to loose cannon), whether in cover or not, and if two or more opponents are close together she can often kill both. Bea's launcher just makes her more devastating. Friendly fire issues from her area effect weapon are much mitigated if she fires before anyone else enters the room.

I typically use Sally, Piper, and Seabass to back Beatrix up, though I expect there are other good characters as well. I can't really imagine doing a tough mission without Beatrix, though.

[Iso Koala]

They seem all usefull, and each can be played succesfully really. That said, the best characters are the ones you use the most, since the level gives them an edge. I am not biggest fan of sniper characters beside Piper though, Piper does his job well enough and I rather have more aggressive characters to support him. Billy and Stavomsky or whatever the big guy is, are my most used I think. Stavinskys lead belly ability is super OP if you abuse it well.

[Hiroshi Mishima]

It's easy to see everyone has their own play style and that's one of the great things about this game. We're not all doing the exact same teams and strategies.

Personally, when not mixing it up to gain XP for my allies, I like to stick with the same crew. This is especially true when doing a potentially dangerous mission.

Piper: Inspire and Team Heal are must haves, especially for bosses or large groups.
Fen: Healing as a free action plus penetrating skill/explosive main weapon.
Sally: Not the strongest but can get in free turns thanks to her passive.

I'm often stumped for a fourth and will cycle around depending on my mood. I'm kinda partial to Beatrix (for extra punch) or Dora (for back attacks & stuns). I only just got Billy, but he does seem a useful character.

[White Shadow]

Most frequent members of my teams are Piper, Seabrass, Ivanski, and Beatrix. I also tried to take the others at times to spice things up and make it interesting, though these were my mains.

Piper - for sniper skills, good damage, inspire, and area heal
Seabrass - for Payback, Mend, and generally good damage and HP
Ivanski - for high HP, iron abs (invulnerability + taunt = saviour), and being one of my explosives experts
Beatrix - even more of an explosives expert than Ivanski, but a lot less of a tank

[swingline]

In my first playthrough I played using all of the characters, leveling most of them up evenly as I went by repeating missions with different crews. I found uses for all of them

Most Positive:

Seabrass - became highly valued toward the end of the game as he could take alot of damage and similarly dish it out with the double shot. I didn't appreciate him as much early on, but later in the game he was a "go to" character w/ an assault weapon.

Dora - I found her "stun" ability highly useful (especially against powerful units), and her flanking ability combined with a sighted gun and +4 critical ammo was powerful combination on shots hitting from behind. Plus, her speed burst was very useful when I just had to get across a big room to get in position. I would equip her with a scoped gun that had 50% chance to stun, so that gave me all sorts of opportunities for stunning when she was in the battle. Later levels have so many enemies to deal with the stunning helped me reduce damage on the rest of my team.

Sally - super useful in the earlier parts of the game w/ the kill shot, but in the later game I had to become more careful using her because so many barriers/shields were in the way, and the rooms became bigger making the kill streak more difficult. She also had lower survivability. But I still used her alot with a handgun, some of the +2armor/+1move along with +2 bullets. The Mad Dog ability is probably my favorite skill in the game.

Payroll - I didn't like him at first, but as the rooms got bigger and crossing alot of space fast became important he was valuable - especially his special ability to shoot after moving a very long distance.

Fen - the chargeup ability for use with a special strike or self-heal was very valuable. Also the ability to equip with a heavy weapon if needed. On several occassions Fen's special weapon took out 3 or 4 enemies in a single strike, even if they were behind barriers.

In general, later in the game it seems like mobility becomes more important, so characters with more of that increase in value.

Neutral:

I enjoyed Piper and Valentine and used them alot, but their skills weren't quite as valuable to me as the game progressed. Valentines piercing shot was excellent in certain cases though.

Ivansky's invincibility, taunt, and high hit points were very useful in certain missions and would cause enemies to come out from behind cover and attack him - and that would create opportunities for the rest of the team to pick them off But by the end of the game he was not a go-to character.

Had more difficulty using:

Billy - I never was able to fully figure out how to effectively use him. I'm going to focus on using him more if I do another playthrough because I know some people love playing with him. Even with the +2 melee gloves and the energy orb thing that gives extra speed and bonus melee I'm not sure he was more effective than having different team member. His ability to move after making a kill is something I should be able to make better use of.

Bea - I enjoyed having Bea, in the middle of the game, but I think I preferred playing with Ivansky for a heavy, and in many cases Fen would work for a heavy. I'm not sure was able to benefit from the double-shot "focus" ability of Bea as much as I expected for the big strikes. It just wasn't as devastating as I think it should've been.

[PhailRaptor]

Generally I tend to favor characters that mesh well with laser sights. Piper and Valentine in particular, Piper favoring the handgun end of the Sharpshooter spectrum, while Valentine gets the sniper varieties (can't fire after moving). Even with a Sniper weapon from The Core, Valentine was easily landing headshots for 10 to 11 damage. When I finally got a Rare from Deep Space, the one that lets you shoot twice, Valentine could straight up murder any 2 basic mobs, and could land triple kills very frequently with his Penetrating Shot skill.

I wasn't that impressed with Payroll for a while. But he was useful almost from as soon as you can hire him. But he really took off at the end of The Core, when I acquired the Hooded Assassin, a Rare handgun that fires twice. Not only does this pair fantastically with his own Double Shot skill (fires twice, twice) but when you finally max him out his Flanker ability is adding 4 damage to each of those shots.

I didn't really have a "standard" 4th character. It was a fairly small perentage of missions that even had a 4th slot that I didn't really land on a favorite. Sometimes it was Sally with a SMG of some kind or other. Sometimes it was Seabrass with a shotgun. I didn't really use Beatrix or Ivanski, just because the way I played their splash damage didn't help much. And I didn't touch Billy at all. Melee just seems super underpowered in this game. But I've seen enough people talking about him, and really examined his abilities, to know that if you use him correctly he will straight up murder things.

Had there been any 5 man missions, I would have tossed Dora in for support fire in a hearbeat. But I felt like using her in other conditions was a loss. Stunning things is every useful, but killing them is a lot better. And I don't believe you can stun turrets, either.

[peddroelm]

The most fun I've had of this game was the playtrough during which I used a online RNG squence generator to select which characters (from the available ones) would go to each mission ..

[swingline]

Originally posted by PhailRaptor:

Generally I tend to favor characters that mesh well with laser sights. Piper and Valentine in particular, Piper favoring the handgun end of the Sharpshooter spectrum, while Valentine gets the sniper varieties (can't fire after moving). Even with a Sniper weapon from The Core, Valentine was easily landing headshots for 10 to 11 damage. When I finally got a Rare from Deep Space, the one that lets you shoot twice, Valentine could straight up murder any 2 basic mobs, and could land triple kills very frequently with his Penetrating Shot skill.

I got one of those sniper guns like you mention right at the end of the game, but didn't use Valentine for the last couple of missions. I'll have to replay the last couple missions with him just to try that thing out. I tend to dislike the weapons you can't fire after moving, but if it's a double-shot I should give it a go.

Originally posted by PhailRaptor:

I wasn't that impressed with Payroll for a while. But he was useful almost from as soon as you can hire him. But he really took off at the end of The Core, when I acquired the Hooded Assassin, a Rare handgun that fires twice. Not only does this pair fantastically with his own Double Shot skill (fires twice, twice) but when you finally max him out his Flanker ability is adding 4 damage to each of those shots.

In my playthrough got a rare 3 shot revolver that I gave to Payroll on a several missions and found it a great combination with his flanker + bonus ammo. That plus the double-shot is a great combo.

Originally posted by PhailRaptor:

But I've seen enough people talking about him, and really examined his abilities, to know that if you use him correctly he will straight up murder things.

Me too. I need to learn better how to play Billy.

Originally posted by PhailRaptor:

Had there been any 5 man missions, I would have tossed Dora in for support fire in a hearbeat. But I felt like using her in other conditions was a loss. Stunning things is every useful, but killing them is a lot better. And I don't believe you can stun turrets, either.

I'm pretty sure I used Dora several times to stun turrets. (Also equiped a stun sidearm occassionally on other characters so they could do it too). Those turrets at the end have high hit points, and sometimes a shot doesn't always knock them out, so stun is great option in that case. Some of the things don't stun (like the orbs at the end don't stun, or the transporter boxes - but I'm pretty sure turrets are susceptible to stun.)

[Aldehydra]

Originally posted by Χάος:

it tends to be Piper, Seabrass, and Sally.

Pretty much. Piper is always useful, Seabrass is very hard to kill as he constantly heals himself, and Sally's Kill Shot ability is extremely useful. Sally is a bit less useful in the second act as there aren't all that many weak targets, but she becomes really useful again in act three when she can trigger Kill Shot almost every turn from shield orbs and bombs.