Hey man, congratulations on getting your class updated. I really hope you get your other classes built and released and I'd be interested to hear what your ideas for them are?

I've been meaning to get back into XCOM and had some ideas for a class pack myself but sadly haven't had the time for modding. If your pack gets released though that would get me playing it again! A couple ideas for classes I've had that might fit your build in abilities that grow through the ranks concept:

Vanguard (Shotgun + ripjack) - Close combat themed class which has a shielding ability that grows in strength both through increased shield hitpoints and reducing damage from a distance which grows shorter as the class levels up.

Warden (Cannon + claymore) - Take and hold style class. Heavily armoured and an overwatch specialist. Ability that grows as the soldier levels would provide extra overwatch shots and accuracy/damage bonuses. Also the longer the Warden stays in one place the more dug in and protected he would be up to a limit of a couple turns.

Pathfinder (Rifle + ?) - Remember the first strike ability you helped me code that granted reaction fire against targets revealed from the fog of war? This guy is your recon class who as he levels up will fire more reaction shots with greater damage and accuracy against targets that reveal themselves. I also picture this guy being granted squadsight though not unlimited like a sniper when "set up" on an elevated position giving him some marksman capabilities.

Please steal my ideas as I don't have the time to make them happen anymore.

Thanks James! I have been making some pretty good progress on my Specialist class (except for the basic Gremlin skills, which are giving me trouble...), but I have a kiddo on the way any day now, so who knows on timing!

My current plans include:

• The Field Medic and Tech. Specialist to replace the base-game Specialist for hacking/healing/support/anti-mech.
  
• A Marksman to replace the base-game Sharpshooter and part of the Ranger for scouting/sniping. Uses the holotargeter and takes some inspiration from Lucubration's sniper class with a setup-type mechanic. Design for this one is half-way done, but little implementation work has been done yet.
  
• An Assault-style class to replace the Ranger for melee/short-range aggression. One sub-tree takes heavy inspiration from your Operator class for the Breach and Clear style combat. Design for this one is mostly done, but no implementation work has been done yet.
  
• A Soldier/Marine-style class and a Combat Engineer-style class to replace the base-game Grenadier for ranged combat/defense roles and grenades/support roles, respectively. Very few details are nailed down for these two right now.

I don't have much representation of the new stuff/skills (claymore, ripjack, etc.) so I might use some of those ideas for folding that in if I get that far. I'll be happy if I just get the first 4 done some-day, but if people like what I'm doing, I'll try to keep going!

I really like the draft you made. I think separating the Grenadier into two classes makes a lot of sense and I like your plans for the Marksman. My Ideas if you are interested.

Marksman: I'd like to see the Vector Rifle as an alternative primary weapon for him.

Soldier/Support-Gunner Class: I guess this guy gets the cannons. He could probably get the assault rifle as an alternative option (because why not?) . I would shift the snipers kill zone ability to this guy as I think it makes more sens for a squad-automatic-weapon to set up a kill zone.
Would you give him a pistol as a secondary? I somewhat miss the xcom-1 style pistol sidearms.

Did you think about touching the Psi-Operative?

I really would like to see this finished, however I wish you all the best for your new family member. I became the daddy of a baby girl two months ago and she's great.

Thanks! The Marksman will get an alternate primary... either the vector rifle or the assault rifle (depending how I want the skills to interact) for the spotter/scout roles. Current plan is the assault rifle, but I'm going to take a look at the Vector rilfe and see how it fits.

My plans for the Soldier/Marine are pretty much exactly as you suggested - they will equip either the cannon or the rifle and which one they choose will impact their skills a little bit, but the plan is for all skills to work with either (unlike the Marksman, which some skills will only work with the Sniper Rifle). For example, I want to switch the single target supression to a cone - basically Killzone that applys suppression to any targets in the cone when you place it - that will change based on the weapon equipped... like maybe the rifle, being more manueverable, having a wider cone, while the cannon has longer range, etc. (nothing nailed down yet).

No plans for Psi-Ops right now. I don't really use them so I haven't had inspirations to change.

First off, well done!

I'm hoping that you differentiate the base 6 enough that they stop interfering with the faction classes. Also, hoping you might expand and do the faction classes as well.

The Reapers seem stuck with stealth, and they could very well be used to soften targets for approaching squad members with DoT, debuffs, and crowd control. I hate that other classes get stealth as well, making the reaper a terribly weak class. While these would be great to have, i believe strong classes should come with downsides if you use their powers. For instance with the reaper, if the reaper is a certain number of squares away from one or more squad members, the squad temporarily loses will and movement speed is affected as they are wary without their faction leader.

Skirmishers seem like they have a lot of useful abilities already but probably work best in the squad as support. Their NPC isolation with hook abilities are great, but what i would want to see are more squad benefiting, leadership perks. (i.e. minor, temporary increases to stats, reinforcements, calling in air strikes, etc). Maybe a weakness to this class being that stealth is not functional for the squad that mission.

Templars, IMO, are powerful because there is no option here. You are given a lot of passives for the class that make it a powerful, untouchable fighter. They should be treated as the star player on the squad, dealing massive amounts of damage and poping in and out of a fight via a teleport similar to the codex's. I honestly don't think this class needs a ton of changes, just some chains to make the game more thought provoking. I like what the Warden class was doing and what you are doing with the sharpshooter replacer. Make the Templar choose to do damage for a period with a cooldown, then having to "pray" or shift focus to mobility to stay in the fight rather than be the glass cannon it is and shatter in position around many enemies(taking debuffs). The player should then have to make decisions on later battles when to unleash hell, or position the glass cannon, possibly sacrificing the templar to wipe out a pod on its own in a turn. A life saving perk that builds on how many turns the templar goes without taking damage and activates on a deadly shot for damage reduction would be great. Give the player the hard choice of when to use that weapon.

All the classes shouldn't just build, but should be thought of as chess pieces that evolve over time and should still have negatives even at the highest of high levels.

Originally posted by D3adlocust:

First off, well done!

I'm hoping that you differentiate the base 6 enough that they stop interfering with the faction classes. Also, hoping you might expand and do the faction classes as well.

The Reapers seem stuck with stealth, and they could very well be used to soften targets for approaching squad members with DoT, debuffs, and crowd control. I hate that other classes get stealth as well, making the reaper a terribly weak class. While these would be great to have, i believe strong classes should come with downsides if you use their powers. For instance with the reaper, if the reaper is a certain number of squares away from one or more squad members, the squad temporarily loses will and movement speed is affected as they are wary without their faction leader.

Skirmishers seem like they have a lot of useful abilities already but probably work best in the squad as support. Their NPC isolation with hook abilities are great, but what i would want to see are more squad benefiting, leadership perks. (i.e. minor, temporary increases to stats, reinforcements, calling in air strikes, etc). Maybe a weakness to this class being that stealth is not functional for the squad that mission.

Templars, IMO, are powerful because there is no option here. You are given a lot of passives for the class that make it a powerful, untouchable fighter. They should be treated as the star player on the squad, dealing massive amounts of damage and poping in and out of a fight via a teleport similar to the codex's. I honestly don't think this class needs a ton of changes, just some chains to make the game more thought provoking. I like what the Warden class was doing and what you are doing with the sharpshooter replacer. Make the Templar choose to do damage for a period with a cooldown, then having to "pray" or shift focus to mobility to stay in the fight rather than be the glass cannon it is and shatter in position around many enemies(taking debuffs). The player should then have to make decisions on later battles when to unleash hell, or position the glass cannon, possibly sacrificing the templar to wipe out a pod on its own in a turn. A life saving perk that builds on how many turns the templar goes without taking damage and activates on a deadly shot for damage reduction would be great. Give the player the hard choice of when to use that weapon.

All the classes shouldn't just build, but should be thought of as chess pieces that evolve over time and should still have negatives even at the highest of high levels.

In my experience Reapers are capable combatants if used correctly (exploiting their rifle's absurd crit damage) and can still contribute as fire support with shredder and/or Holo-Targeting, as well as claymores for revealing enemies or softening up armored enemies for Templars and Skirmishers. IMO the mod that buffs the Blood Trail and Sting abilities (I believe it was one of Iridars) allows to function well out of concealment. I really don't think they should be used as crowd control, leave that to Grenadiers.

Skirmishers suffer from the Bullpup's range table and their relatively low aim (if you give them better aim through covert ops they're damn near unstoppable). While leader like abilities do sound interesting, I think Skirmishers should live up to their name a bit more. Maybe this could be accomplished by giving them something like Hit 'n Run or Close Encounters for offense and something like Tactical Sense for defense.

I agree that templars are decent where they're at for the most part. My main problem is that most of the time there's not really a reason to do anything except Rend and Parry most of the time, especially after you get stuff like Arc Wave and Deflect. A lot of their other abilities are incredible on paper, but just aren't needed in gameplay. (The two teleporting abilities are an exception though)

While I'm sure you have your ideas already, heres what I think for the two planned Classes

Sapper:
Weapons - Rifle or Shotgun, Grenade Launcher
Proficiency Skill - Grenadier
Starting Bonuses - Equipped Grenades have +1 Radius and Range, stacks with Grenade Launchers
2nd Bonuses - Grenade Slot only Grenades gain +1 Charges
Final Bonuses - All Grenades deal +2 Damage and Increased Environmental Damage

The Trees are fairly easy to imagine. First Tree would be built around an Explosive Build, skills like Heavy Ordnance, Salvo etc. Second Tree could be a Support Grenade build, although it might step on the toes of the Breacher tree in the Assualt Infantry. Last Tree could be a Status type build, based around the Experimental Grenades and other Status effects, maybe including Remote Start as well.

Marine:
Weapons - Rifle or Cannon, Pistol or Sword or Sawn Off Shotgun
Proficiency Skill - One Man Army/Soldier
Starting Bonuses - Gain +5 Aim on Overwatch and other Reaction Shots, and they can critically hit
2nd Bonuses - Gain +2 Ammo with your Primary Weapon, and firing it no longer ends the turn
Final Bonuses - All weapons deal +1 Damage, including Heavy Weapons

This was a little more difficult for me. First tree I could see being an Overwatch/Suppression tree, focused on keeping enemies locked down and friends secure. Second tree could just be a shooty shooty tree, accuracy by volume and all that. Last tree... i'll be honest, I have no clue. Possibly one that focuses on the secondary weapon, but honestly I have no clue.

I'm sure whatever you come up with will be excellent, as the current classes are!

In terms of balance, I think roving warrior is really underpowered as compared to either colonel capstone abilities. Those can trigger nearly every turn or every other turn while roving is dependent on run and gun. I'd change it to something like "light em up" or "marauder" where standard shots don't end the turn and run&gun gives 2 additional action points. This would be it more on par with the other two abilities.

Hey, thanks for the feedback. I'll take another look at those and see how they play out. My thinking was that Roving Warrior trades the cooldown of Run-N-Gun for the extra flexibility it offers. Pop Run-N-Gun and be able to take two or more, potentially Killer Instinct-boosted shots, with no setup requirements. With Teamwork/Inspire/etc. you are looking at 3 or 4 potential shots in a turn. It also allows shooting into Zone Defense overwatch and the cooldown can be quite low with a bullpup/knife loadout.

That's the theory behind it anyway... in practice, it may be harder to use effectively than I thought. I actually felt it was the safest option at that rank, if a little boring, but I'll think it over a bit.

Making some good progress on re-working the Medic. It has gotten too complicated trying to keep everything in order such that the changes would not break existing skill trees (too many abilities/effects are getting shifted around), so it WILL require you to rebuild the ability trees for any existing Field Medics you have when the update is complete. I apologize for this inconvenience, but having duplicated alternates for 5 or 6 abilities is just too much. I'll leave one marker ability in-place (probably Quality of Care) with a description prompting players to rebuild the class trees, but the others will just be removed or replaced on existing soldiers.

The goal of this rework is to both simplify and boost the Field Medic just a bit, as well as removing some of the decision points I'm not entirely happy with. I'll start with the last point as that's the element that is driving the most complex changes and it's tied to the most unique aspect of the class.

I'm not entirely happy with the way Medivac and Quality of Care wound time reduction works in-practice. Without Quality of Care, you are encouraged to hold your medkit charges so that wound reduction can be applied via Medivac after the mission; with Quality of Care, you are encouraged to wait around and heal everyone in-mission because the effect is better there. Neither of these interactions is desirable - I don't want anything to DISCOURAGE you from using you Medic to heal, even if it is situational! In addition, two of the Colonel-level abilities feel too weak to me. Advanced Trauma Kits is much more useful early on in a campaign than at the end when things are more established, and Battlefield Triage is just a bit weak in-general. So these 4 abilities will be getting switched around.

In place of the current Medivac, a new ability called Battlefield Triage will take it's place, granting the wound time reduction effects of the old Medivac and Quality of Care (heals in-mission and post-mission heals with remaining medical supplies) and both wound time reduction effects will restore the same %HP value. Old Battlefield Triage and Quality of Care are simply being removed. New Medivac will instead be a potential tier 1 AWC skill that grants +2 charges for post-mission healing, regardless whether the Medic has any medkit charges remaining or not.

Where Quality of Care previously sat as a Sergeant rank ability, Advanced Trauma Kits will move and it will no longer be required to allow Revive to be used with Emergency Aid - instead it will grant +1 Revive charge and Revive will now be a free action with Emergency Aid by default (leaning out an exception). You'll be choosing between potential free revives or more and better revives with those skills now, which I like much better.

Where old Battlefield Triage and Advanced Trauma Kits sat as Colonel rank abilities, two new abilities will take their place. For the Corpsman tree, you will be able to choose Combat Stimulants, which will allow the Medic to use medkit charges to buff allies, granting bonuses for a few turns, but wounding them and draining their Will afterward. I'm still working out the exact bonuses and penalties, but I intend for this to be a powerful, but damaging option that should not be used lightly - The boosted soldier may help you get out of a sticky situation, but will be wounded, requiring treatment, and may end up Shaken after the mission. For the First Response tree, you will be able to choose Armed Intervention, which upon activation will have the Medic enter Overwatch and fire at any enemies in their range that make an attack, disorienting and possibly debuffing them. The Medic can only fire on each enemy once, but may take as many shots as they have ammo for; however, they will not fire on enemies moving or taking defensive actions - only on those making hostile attacks, and the ability will have a long cooldown.

These changes should simplify a bit of the variance in the way the class works and provide a bit more combat oomphf at the end of the tree. These are the current plans and the specifics may change with balancing, but I'm trying to get these changes in-place over the next week or two to be ready to release when the next community highlander update gets pushed.

My Thoughts. (Sorry if these are dumb, I have nowhere near as much knowledge about this as you.)


SAPPER

1. Hold Position. Without the benefit of Cool Under Pressure, this ability seems a bit underpowered. Maybe Fire Support should also grant CUP, or maybe toss in an overwatch ability or two in their AWC pool of perks? Or going into overwatch after lobbing a grenade?

2. Burn Out. Considering the middle path seems to be more focused on shooting rather than exposives, this seems kind weird, despite it being a cool ability. If you want to make their gun stronger instead, you might want to put an armor piercing or shredding ability their instead. Perhaps even a combination of Holo-Targeting and Shredder?

3. Charge! I like this, mostly because I like to punch things, but it kinda comes out of nowhere for a Explosives oriented class. I can't give ya anything better, so take this with a grain of salt.

4. Entreched. I dunno about the numbers, but maybe make it more like Will-To-Survive from EU/EW, with a dash of Ever Vigilant or Aim tossed in? Getting shot isn't desirable in the first place, but I do like the idea of getting bonuses against it.

Overall, the Sapper looks like they'll slot in well with their brethren, just a few nitpicks, otherwise they look like great fun.

MARKSMAN

1. High Caliber. I'm sure you know about the reduction of ammo bug, essentially turning the Sniper Rifle into the Bolt Caster.

2. Lead the Target. Seems a bit odd, and I'd personally take Long Watch instead. Still fairly fun to use.

Overall, I love the Marksman. All they need is just a little bit of tweaking and bug fixing and they'll be damn near perfect.

TECH SPECIALIST


When I first saw them, I thought I wouldn't like them, but I was pleasantly surprised. However, they still do have a few issues IMO.

1. Aid Protocol To be perfectly honest, the base version of Aid Protocol is just more useful and better. I don't mean to be a ♥♥♥♥ but this one just seems to be changed for change's sake.

Random Ability Idea for them: Harassment Protocol. Basically an overcharged Aid Protocol that puts up such a dense holo field around the target that they can't see, and vice versa for enemies.

ASSAULT INFANTRY ( I can't think of a decent nickname to give them without spelling the whole name out.)

1. CQB Dominance. Maybe it's just how I play CQC classes, but I almost never noticed this ability, because of how close its range is.

2. Honed Edge Maybe bump up the aim/crit chance a bit (20 sounds right to me) and give a +1 to damage?

3. Zone of Control. Same issues as CQB Dominance. I think reintroducing Close Encounters would make better choice, allowing the Assault Infantry to be a more reactive pointman that you would want to walk into a room first, instead of running a Skirmisher or Templar instead. Or you could give some kind of Ablative Hit points ability that scales with armor or rank to emphasize their role as secondary tank to the SPARKs?

Thanks for the feedback, I'll try to get a more detailed response when I get time, but I am aware of the issue with High Caliber. Its a mod compatibility interaction of some sort, but it will be resolved in the next update by a new implementation method for this ability.

Originally posted by shiremct:

Thanks for the feedback, I'll try to get a more detailed response when I get time, but I am aware of the issue with High Caliber. Its a mod compatibility interaction of some sort, but it will be resolved in the next update by a new implementation method for this ability.

Oh jeez, I didn't actually expect a response. Sorry if I came across as dickish at all, I wrote that at like midnight.

Hello. I ve been playing with these classes for quite a while.
Here are some thoughts:
Assault infantry - unlike other classes seems to more about one explosive turn which is really powerful, with the exception of melee build. Otherwise its either tied to run and gun one powerful attack or free grenade and free actions that come from abilities that are tied to attacking controlled enemies. I do think that honed edge might also benefit from +1 damage boost, because otherwise why risk it when r&g shotgun is always better even if you spec into melee. Also i am not sure wha is the benefit of a knife except of a rare case when you start a turn next to an enemy. It also gives a bonus to stealth, but i never used assaults for that, but its nice to have an option.
Marksman - scout tree rarely worked for me , but i am unlucky with crits. Overall i usually spec reapers for that and they do seem to be a bit similar.
Tech. Specialist and medic seem to be fairly balanced and i did use all options for them, although trait for extra bleeding chance for the medic is very powerful in the legendary, maybe way too powerful.
I really like the sapper and tried different builds for it, although none reached colonel rank yet. Minefield is the only skill that i felt i underutilized, but it seems to be a niche skill overall, although i think it doesnt scale like plasma grenades do.
Those are my personal impressions from modded legendary run. Overal i say its my favorite class pack on workshop, very well done.

Marksmen scouts do have a lot of toned down Reaper parallels (like Silent Killer -> Ghost, etc). I feel Reaper's are way too easy/risk free so I've dialed things back, but I'm not happy with where the Vektor Rifle sits right now... I took the ability to crit away from Snapshot in the last update, but I think I need to give something to Vektors to make them more viable for mobile shooters.

This is a similar problem I have with the Assault Infantry and the Shotgun/Bullpup and Sword/Knife options and will be tackling with the Marine's primary... Making the weapon choices more balanced for the classes without changing the weapons themselves.

The Assault Infantry gets reduced Run And Gun cooldown also from the lighter weapons, but it's probably not enough to make most choose them. Shotguns are just too good in general. I have to play a little more with the melee build... The status effects they apply later on make them stronger than they first seem.

The Defensive Mine (and thus Minefield) is tricky to use and balance right now... I'm okay with it being situational, but it could probably be a little stronger... I'm considering increasing its radius up by one, either the base or as an additional effect from Minefield; however there is one particularly strong case I'm trying to be careful about, which is mining ladders to rooftops. Units move in on their turn, take explosive damage, might take fall damage, then end up in the open for your whole turn. I'm still playing around with this...

I'm glad to hear you are enjoying the classes and thanks for the feedback!