Gained a lot of respect for sniper and empath while unlocking Spectre

[Doctor Gitgud]

Honestly, I hadn't been a huge fan of either character before, but together they're amazing. Things are rough on the first planet because you have to pick between good tanking and good stuns for your third character, but once you get a fourth, they wreck. Reasons I now like them:

1. Empath 30% damage boost for maxed relationship is *HUGE* with the sniper. If the sniper is well specced/buffed, that ability alone can account for as much damage as a whole secondary dps character would do.

2. Sniper base damage always seemed low to me for his fragility and lack of utility. His ability to target the backline wasn't useful because his stagger is weak and it would take him too many turns to kill a backline enemy alone. But with that damage buff from friendship + the empath's extra crit damage ability, it becomes viable to have the sniper take out backline targets.

3. Seeing the sniper become threatening with the empath buffs caused me to spec for pure damage gear rather than other utility, and his damage is actually way more ridiculous than I expected when I did that. I think I popped the last boss for like 1500 with a killshot on my best hit. It would have taken my entire party from other runs multiple turns to chip off that much damage.

4. The sniper/empath special ability is insanely good. Oneshots most enemies, activates instantly, can target the backline, low fury cost.

Was cool that trying to unlock the additional characters caused me to see the mechanics and party composition differently. I had been rolling with DPS + rogue stuns + tank as my starting party.

[FBI Informant]

Inspire > Stimulate > Killshot x2 does feel way too good >:)

[MerlinCross]

I had sniper on my first win team, last pick. Bently was doing way more damage than him but by the final section Sniper had kinda caught up or at least within 100 damage of Bently. Sniper from the word go and grown long the way will full EXP/Bonds is probably terrorifying.

[PowerSworder]

Wait until you try the Empath paired with the Spectre. It's by far the highest damage combo in the game.

The Spectre has better gear options for damage, with sword, rifle, and implant (Marksman has a shield instead of sword). That means you can stack +damage multipliers on all three for truly obscene late-game damage.

She also has an aoe and if you get your damage high enough, she can instantly (no delay) one-shot half a pack of mobs utilising the Empath's free-action ability. Then you just aoe again on her turn and wipe out everything else.

Try the Paragon (aoe siphon) with the Empath (+damage aura) and the Spectre to start. Then pick up the Varangian (more aoe) and the Dragoon (for the +damage aura). You can basically alpha strike everything in the game except the bosses with that team. I've never had a more powerful squad than this one and they even turned the end-game bosses into a joke.

Have fun. :)

[BroadsideRenegade]

Sniper with a moon rifle (with the extra 10% stacking damage per action) is disgusting btw.