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Defensive abilities (left side) allow the Assault to effectively "dodge" enemy fire by increasing Defense, safely move under reaction fire and can protect from critical hits. Offensive abilities (right side) improve critical chance, critical damage, and offer free reaction shots in close quarters combat. Developing on defensive leans towards scout and tank duty, while developing on offensive leans towards assassin duty or frontal assaults.
 
Defensive abilities (left side) allow the Assault to effectively "dodge" enemy fire by increasing Defense, safely move under reaction fire and can protect from critical hits. Offensive abilities (right side) improve critical chance, critical damage, and offer free reaction shots in close quarters combat. Developing on defensive leans towards scout and tank duty, while developing on offensive leans towards assassin duty or frontal assaults.
   
Regardless of the chosen development path, it can be advisable to always pick Rapid Fire and Lightning Reflexes abilities due to the unique advantages they provide. Rapid Fire effectively doubles the soldier's gunfire output at close and middle range, and when flanking the enemy, while Lightning Reflexes allows to safely "soak" the gunfire from aliens on Overwatch, making the Assaults ideal point men for advancing the squad however; flush works quite well when paired with an assault rifle type weapon as it can be used over a much greater distance than with a shotgun and can be used on suppressed enemies to grant an immediate reaction shot to whomever is suppressing the enemy, conversely this also can be used on an enemy who is suppressing one of your units to force them to stop shooting and move to another location, also; it can be used as an inefficent but effective way to eliminate low health or otherwise weakened enemies that might otherwise not be hit by the soldier and can also be useful for weakening enemies that you are trying to capture thad might otherwise be killed by a normal attack. Close and personal is superb for shotgun wielding soldiers fighting in tight quarters and is partiularly effective versus melee opponents; this only increases in effectiveness with a soldier with all the offensive type abilities.
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Regardless of the chosen development path, it can be advisable to always pick Rapid Fire and Lightning Reflexes abilities due to the unique advantages they provide. Rapid Fire effectively doubles the soldier's gunfire output at close and middle range, and when flanking the enemy, while Lightning Reflexes allows to safely "soak" the gunfire from aliens on Overwatch, making the Assaults ideal point men for advancing the squad however; flush works quite well when paired with an assault rifle type weapon as it can be used over a much greater distance than with a shotgun and can be used on suppressed enemies to grant an immediate reaction shot to whomever is suppressing the enemy, conversely this also can be used on an enemy who is suppressing one of your units to force them to stop shooting and move to another location, also; it can be used as an inefficient but effective way to eliminate low health or otherwise weakened enemies that might otherwise not be hit by the soldier and can also be useful for weakening enemies that you are trying to capture that might otherwise be killed by a normal attack. Close and personal is superb for shotgun wielding soldiers fighting in tight quarters and is particularly effective versus melee opponents; this only increases in effectiveness with a soldier with all the offensive type abilities.
   
 
===Tactical Sense vs Aggression===
 
===Tactical Sense vs Aggression===

Revision as of 08:43, 12 November 2012

XCOM-EU Soldiers Class - AssaultXEU ClassAssault

The Assault Class is one of the Soldier Classes in the game XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

The primary role of the Assault Class is aggressive reconnaissance, flanking, and drawing enemy fire.

As the first and last unit on the ground, these troops are initially equipped with XCOM's proprietary combat shotgun

Rookie promotion is slightly weighted toward classes you have less of, but promotion is otherwise completely random.

Weapons

Assault Class soldiers can be equipped with rifles, sidearms, and it is the only class that can equip shotguns.

Abilities

When a soldier is promoted, certain ranks gives the player the option to choose 1 from the 2 available abilities to give to their soldier.

Rank Abilities Description
Rank1-Squaddie
Squaddie
XEU Assault RunAndGun  Run & Gun Allows to fire or enter Overwatch after dashing.
Rank2-Corporal
Corporal
XEU Assault TacticalSense  Tactical Sense +5 Defense per enemy in sight (Max +20).
XEU Assault Aggression  Aggression Confers +10% critical chance per enemy in sight (Max +30%).
Rank3-Sergeant
Sergeant
XEU Assault LightningReflexes  Lightning Reflexes Force the first reaction shot against this unit each turn to miss.
XEU Assault CloseAndPersonal  Close and Personal Confers +30% critical chance against adjacent targets. The bonus declines with distance from the target.
Rank4-Lieutenant
Lieutenant
XEU Assault Flush  Flush Fire a shot that causes enemies to run out of cover. The shot is easy to hit with, but does reduced damage.
XEU Assault RapidFire  Rapid Fire Take two shots against a single target in quick succession. Each shot carries a -15 penalty to Aim.
Rank5-Captain
Captain
XEU Assault CloseCombatSpecialist  Close Combat Specialist Confers a reaction shot against any enemy who closes to within 4 tiles. Does not require overwatch.
XEU Assault BringEmOn  Bring 'Em On Adds 1 damage on Critical hits for each enemy the squad can see (up to 5).
Rank6-Major
Major
XEU Assault ExtraConditioning  Extra Conditioning Confers bonus health based on what type of armor is equipped. Heavier armor increases the bonus.
Rank7-Colonel
Colonel
XEU Assault Resilience  Resilience Confers immunity to critical hits.
XEU Assault KillerInstinct  Killer Instinct Activating Run & Gun now also grants +50% Critical damage for the rest of the turn.

Builds & tactics

Defensive abilities (left side) allow the Assault to effectively "dodge" enemy fire by increasing Defense, safely move under reaction fire and can protect from critical hits. Offensive abilities (right side) improve critical chance, critical damage, and offer free reaction shots in close quarters combat. Developing on defensive leans towards scout and tank duty, while developing on offensive leans towards assassin duty or frontal assaults.

Regardless of the chosen development path, it can be advisable to always pick Rapid Fire and Lightning Reflexes abilities due to the unique advantages they provide. Rapid Fire effectively doubles the soldier's gunfire output at close and middle range, and when flanking the enemy, while Lightning Reflexes allows to safely "soak" the gunfire from aliens on Overwatch, making the Assaults ideal point men for advancing the squad however; flush works quite well when paired with an assault rifle type weapon as it can be used over a much greater distance than with a shotgun and can be used on suppressed enemies to grant an immediate reaction shot to whomever is suppressing the enemy, conversely this also can be used on an enemy who is suppressing one of your units to force them to stop shooting and move to another location, also; it can be used as an inefficient but effective way to eliminate low health or otherwise weakened enemies that might otherwise not be hit by the soldier and can also be useful for weakening enemies that you are trying to capture that might otherwise be killed by a normal attack. Close and personal is superb for shotgun wielding soldiers fighting in tight quarters and is particularly effective versus melee opponents; this only increases in effectiveness with a soldier with all the offensive type abilities.

Tactical Sense vs Aggression

  • Tactical Sense allows you to end a turn in partial cover, and still have similar cover quality to the rest of your squad, making risky run-and-guns survivable, allowing more viable direct attack paths to the enemy. As a side bonus, it helps when encountering additional enemy groups or being flanked when approaching the enemy, which Assaults are prone to. You also gain limited "tanking" ability, ideally when hunkering down behind indestructible full cover, while a Sniper takes free shots, and the rest of the squad moves in to assist or flank the enemy. If the soldier has a rifle in addition to this skill then they will be able to take pot shots at enemies while in cover from a significant distance and be less susceptible to return fire, especially when facing large numbers of enemies (assuming the soldier is not flanked).
  • If a Run & Gun fails to be lethal, the soldier can end up being flanked up close, and Tactical Sense's defense bonus is almost irrelevant at point blank range. Tactical Sense also has little effect against melee enemies such as Chryssalids and Berserkers. When the soldier is behind full cover, aliens will often ignore the Assault, and simply choose to shoot at another soldier. This can be used to your advantage to get the aliens into a killzone, but can also negate the advantage of Tactical Sense entirely.
  • Aggression's bonus critical chance is valuable against melee opponents, where it is often kill-or-be-killed. It also helps to overcome critical chance reduction on enemies with a "Hardened" property, such as Sectopods, Ethereals, and Cyberdiscs.
  • When flanking the enemy, the combination of +50% critical chance from flanking and a shotgun's 20% baseline critical chance with a +30% bonus from Aggression with three aliens in view results in 100% crit, making some would-be risky situations an assured win, especially run-and-guns.
  • Run-and-guns with more than one alien in sight are extremely dangerous, and generally it is advisable to perform the Run & Gun action as one of the last action taken in the XCOM turn, due to the possibility of shots missing their targets. Due to this, Aggression rarely stacks to 3 unless you are holding back on actions with rockets, sniper shots, or other guaranteed kills.
  • Run & Gun can also be used defensively when combined with defensive abilites such as tactical sense, close combat specialist along with overwatch and some type of rifle; such soldiers can be used to lock down significant portions of the map from behind cover and become very difficult to dislodge or to flank partiularly versus melee enemies that try to get within four grids of the soldier even more so if they have the resilience ability which grants immunity to critical hits and further reduces the effectiveness of enemies trying to flank.
  • Tactical Sense is and defensive abilities in general best paired with a soldier carrying an assault rifle type weapon and the offensive abilities lend themselves better to shotgun users.