NPC MVP: Who to have on your crew

[justicar347]

I think, for me, Is0bel has been the most important person to bring along. If you are not a decker yourself, she is kind of necessary half of the time. Oh, and she has a grenade launcher that sets people on fire. I want one! She is actually pretty good with her pistol, so she wracks up a pretty good kill count.

[benjamincarylewis]

Pretty much that. I bring her on nearly every mission, even if I've played them before and *know* there are no matrix jackpoints.

A much more difficult question is who to bring after that.

[Watchman]

Gobbet is pretty much a shoo-in for the healing and Haste spells already - even if you can do those yourself too.
There can never be too much AP to go around your team after all.

[benjamincarylewis]

Gobbet does tend to be my second choice. Her haste spell gets used in every encounter; whereas healing -- I rarely find necessary, even on "hard" setting (the aim buff gets used much more). I also like to bring her for the occasional extra dialogue colour.

For me, "most likely to get left behind" is probably Gaichu. I find him a little underwhelming, though perhaps that's just the RNG frowning on me.

Between Racter and Duncan, Racter usually wins out.


I did one playthrough as a pure Rigger, and found Gobbet to be much less useful on that one, because she can't haste (or heal) the drones. I brought along Racter as well on many of those runs, so he could use his repair kits on my MC's drones :)

[steelcoresoviet]

While you could go without Izzy, that'd be much more of a smash and grab, and less of a proper shadowrun. I can think of one non-decking run, but her grenades are still useful there.
If you're not magical, Gobbet is almost as important. Having hearth spirits in a pinch is really nice.

Racter, Duncan, and Gaichu are tactically interchageable, although some may tackle objectives better. I've found Racter is most likely to tell me things I didn't already know. That's less important on repeat playthroughs.

[justicar347]

I do like Gobbet for Haste and Aim...but I dont think she has ever hit anything with her SMG. Sometimes that is important. I took her to rob the museum and she got telleported into the mummy diminsion thing by herself and that nearly was the end of her.

Gaichu is probably my favorite storywise, but he can be underwelming at times. Mainly if it is a situation where you have to run through a hail of bullets to get up close. There is a reason swords went out of fashion...

I love bringing Duncan along. I think he is my most consistent hitter, plus grenades. On the other hand, Racter can turn his drone into a real beast when he throws in overclock.

[UHDNRT]

Gobbet story/flavor wise, is awesome. And surprisingly effective in combat if you remember to get the acid Spell/Weapon, As it's hit is based on her charisma and conjuring. If you are an adept with enough Charisma/conjuring to get Dual Blur, then Gaicho becomes amazing. Dual Blur cast on him essentially allows you to close in one round with nearly anything with the 2 of you.

With that particular build, my main team consisted of Me, Is0bel, Gaicho, and Duncan (giving duncan the semi-auto grenade launcher is just MEAN). Isobel and Duncan laying down aoe and covering fire, then Me and Gaicho closing in and destroying what's left. Very, very satisfying.

As far as story/flavor? I'd rank it Gobbet>Duncan>Is0bel=Racter=Gaichou.

[Candy Witch]

On my first playthrough (which to me is the "pure" one, not knowing what's ahead of you going in), I most consistently took Duncan along because he's my "little brother", and Is0bel because my MC was a mage and I needed a decker. Then I often had Gobbet along because I liked her, but in equal amounts Racter whenever I suspected I could use a Rigger for extra firepower—Koschei is pretty powerful. I killed Gaichu because it didn't sit right with me to let him continue killing people when our mission was exactly to prevent that, doesn't matter if he was betrayed.

I'm kind of partial to Racter in terms of how interesting he is. Glory and Eiger were the most interesting personalities in Dragonfall, and I think I find Racter the most interesting one to explore in dialogue in SR: Hong Kong.

In terms of usefulness, Is0bel is amazing. Doubles as a hacker and wreaks a lot of havoc in regular combat with her standard weaponry. The grenade launcher and flechette gun are incredibly useful.

[Sky]

Isobel for her decking skills.

Gaichu for -ap and taking enemies out of cover by hitting them.

Racter for taking out enemies with drone when outed from cover by Gaichu.

[Watchman]

Originally posted by Wratts:

I killed Gaichu because it didn't sit right with me to let him continue killing people when our mission was exactly to prevent that, doesn't matter if he was betrayed.

Somebody clearly did not explore rather obvious alternate solutions to the mission.

[Candy Witch]

Originally posted by Watchman:

Originally posted by Wratts:

I killed Gaichu because it didn't sit right with me to let him continue killing people when our mission was exactly to prevent that, doesn't matter if he was betrayed.

Somebody clearly did not explore rather obvious alternate solutions to the mission.

They obviously weren't obvious enough, because I felt like I'd explored every possibility, and it boiled down to me having a binary choice of letting him continue killing and becoming a buddy, or me confronting him to kill him. (Which is symptomatic of some of the other missions in this game, where I had to re-load and re-play some of them in a weirdly specific order of actions to find alternative possibilities.) Feel free to enlighten me.

[Traveller]

if you get enough of the info about the killings, you can get the elders "arrested" while keeping G as a teammate.

[Watchman]

Originally posted by Wratts:

They obviously weren't obvious enough, because I felt like I'd explored every possibility, and it boiled down to me having a binary choice of letting him continue killing and becoming a buddy, or me confronting him to kill him. (Which is symptomatic of some of the other missions in this game, where I had to re-load and re-play some of them in a weirdly specific order of actions to find alternative possibilities.) Feel free to enlighten me.

Did you even *try* taking him to the Elders and talking things out? As the guy above said if you have done your investigating properly the deputy will then arrest the lot for "conspiracy to murder".

[Candy Witch]

Try how? These things were not an option in dialogue, despite having all sorts of dirt on them. And I had exhausted all other options before meeting him. I was confused that anything like settling this without violence wasn't an option, but like I said, it wouldn't be the only time in this game where if you do anything slightly out of order, something doesn't work right.

[Watchman]

Pretty much just bring along Racter, Is0bel and Gobbet and then thoroughly investigate EVERY SINGLE CLUE AND SCENE. The rest is just basic reading comprehension and then rattling off every single bit of evidence gathered to Porter Lam when you take Gaichu to meet up with the Elders.

It should also be noted that in a lot of the missions fighting can be avoided partially or completely if you so much as pay attention, or is only necessary for "sidequests".

[Candy Witch]

No need to get condescendeing. I investigated everything. There were no hotspots or NPC dialogue options left. (Yes, I even scoured everything with the ALT-key.) It was possibly bugged or I did something in an order that didn't allow that course of action. You don't need to tell me like I'm dense and am not paying attention.

I'm aware most missions allow non-violent solutions, hence my statement above; particularly the Golden Rooster mission for example, where I needed to re-load and re-try certain options in a VERY specific order till it worked the way I wanted it to. The mission involving Gaichu didn't seem like it had alternative solutions because I had exhausted everything entirely and wasn't aware of some of the issues in this game yet because it was the first mission I'd tackled, so I'll have to see what that's like on another playthrough.