Scout

Scouts are one of the Templar Classes you may choose to deploy on missions.

Overview
Scouts are recon specialists with the unique ability to use Stealth to avoid detection by enemies, a powerful talent to improve mobility, and several talents to deal with single targets from a long range. Scouts are physically frail and can die very quickly if attacked, but have the capacity for the highest single-target damage of any Templar.

Starting Attributes
Scouts begin with the following attributes, skills, and class features:

Class Features

 * Base HP: 88 + 1 per level
 * HP Modifier: + 4 HP per Fortitude
 * Toughness Modifier: 50% of Fortitude
 * Resistance Modifier: 100% of Willpower
 * SP Cost: 400 + 5 x Level, maximum = 450

Attributes

 * Fortitude: 3
 * Willpower: 3
 * Focus: 3
 * Strength: 2
 * Quickness: 4

Skills

 * Gunnery: 3
 * Warrior: 1
 * Tactics: 2
 * Evasion: 3
 * Stealth: 4

Starting Talents
The Scout starts with a single rank in Piercing Fire, Grapple, Sensorkit Scan, and Overdrive.

Usable Gear
The Scout uses Sniper Rifles or Needle Guns, Gauntlets, Sensorkit-Mods (War Gear also used by Engineers) and Pilot Suits (War Gear also used by the Captain). Scouts wear Light Armor.

Piercing Fire
Single-target ranged attack that hinders (debuffs) on hit for 6 turns. Lowers deflection and armor, softening up hard targets for allies. Becomes significantly more damaging and accurate at higher ranks, in addition to improving the debuff.


 * Weapon: Rifle
 * Hinder: 6 turns on hit
 * Max targets: 1
 * Range: weapon's range
 * Cost 1 AP, +3 Heat

Grapple
Single-target melee attack that ends movement when used but grants a short buff if it connects and deals damage. Uses only 1 AP and 3 Heat but still should almost never be used by Scouts due to requiring melee range, likely dealing little/no damage, and stopping movement. The buff becomes sizable at higher ranks, improving parry, dodge, and armor for 3 turns. However, this is easily the worst talent for a Scout to invest in.


 * Weapon: Gauntlet
 * Max targets: 1
 * Range: 1 (melee)
 * Buff: 3 turns on hit
 * Cost 1 AP, +3 Heat
 * Restriction:

Sensorkit Scan
Recon ability that dispels fog of war from a distance. May not be used when overheated, unless a certain powerful relic is equipped... Higher ranks allow for it to be used at a greater range and reveal a larger area. Costs 2 AP and 6 Heat but at rank 5 it only uses 1 AP, and at rank 10 it only costs 3 Heat! Unlimited uses. The only other class capable of performing scans is the Engineer.


 * Range: 7-12 (varies by rank)
 * Cost: 1-2 AP, +3-6 Heat
 * Restriction:

Crippling Fire
Single-target ranged attack that hinders (debuffs) on hit for 6 turns. Reduces MP and dodge of foes, with a further debuff to AP at higher ranks. Slightly less accurate than Piercing Fire and moderately less damaging. Extremely useful for 'kiting' (attacking from a distance and moving out of range of reprisal each turn), protecting vulnerable Templars that would otherwise be in range of a dangerous foe, and opening more evasive enemies to further ranged attacks. Quite powerful when paired with needle guns which deal damage over time; a single shot of this attack combined with moving out of the foe's range can allow your battleforce to ignore that enemy until it dies from the poison. See Leaderboards on how enemies dying from poison affect bonuses and the score.


 * Weapon: Rifle
 * Max targets: 1
 * Range: weapon's range
 * Hinder: 6 turns on hit
 * Cost 2 AP, +6 Heat

Headshot
Single Target Ranged attack with a large bonus to critical hit chance. Significantly more accurate than any other Scout attack and deals about as much base damage as Crippling Fire. At high ranks the critical bonus is massive and combines well with a high level of Stealth and Sniper Rifles for critical hit magnitude.


 * Weapon: Rifle
 * Max targets: 1
 * Range: weapon's range
 * Cost: 2 AP, +6 Heat
 * Restriction:

Overdrive
Self-buff that increases MP, Stealth, and Dodge. Either Overdrive or Null Field is required to make the innate Stealth skill active. The extra movement can be helpful for scouting as well as avoiding foes, but will rapidly increase your heat to dangerous levels (which will also disable your sensorkit scan.) Limited uses, but each use lasts 4 turns; higher ranks grant more uses per deployment.


 * Range: 0 (self)
 * Max targets: 1
 * Buff: 4 turns
 * Cost: 0 AP, +6 Heat
 * Restriction:
 * Ordnance: Deep Ops Resupply

Field of Focus
Self-only buff that increases damage and critical hit chance at the cost of MP. The damage and critical bonuses become quite powerful at higher ranks but the MP cost nearly prohibits movement at higher ranks.


 * Range: 0 (self)
 * Buff: 4 turns
 * Cost: 1 AP, +9 Heat
 * Restriction: ,
 * Ordnance: Deep Ops Resupply

Null Field
Self-only buff that grants a large amount of stealth for 3 turns. Either Overdrive or Null Field is required to make the innate Stealth skill active. Grants much more stealth bonus than Overdrive but costs 15 Heat, 2 AP, lasts 1 turn fewer, and doesn't have bonuses to MP or Dodge. On the other hand, the maximum effective stealth level (28) can only be reached with some points in this skill.


 * Range: 0 (self)
 * Buff: 3 turns on hit
 * Cost: 2 AP, +15 Heat
 * Restriction: ,
 * Ordnance: Deep Ops Resupply

Runner
A Runner is built to get to objectives quickly without support from the rest of the squad except for some initial buffs. For survivability, Fortitude and Stealth should be maximized. If the mission is longer than 3 turns, raise Willpower to 5 or 6, and the rest of the attribute points can go into Focus for the auto-block bonus or into Quickness or Strength depending on the weapon equipped. The rest of the Skill points should probably go into Gunnery. Evasion could be another option, but hitting reliably with Crippling Fire is a better defense.

As for talents, Crippling Fire 1 or 3 (-2 and -3 MP) is handy, but the main priority is raising Overdrive and Null Field. For high-level Scouts, maxing out Stealth at 28 (with bonuses) is possible with only a couple of points in Null Field. Otherwise, a compromise must be found, which typically favours Overdrive.

Equip armor with high deflection (Null Leviathan) and a gauntlet with high auto-block (Relliar's Gauntlet, Irid-Coated Gauntlet, or Aegis Gauntlet, in order of preference). Most importantly, use the Ballast Pilot Kit (+32HP) which is worth 8 points in Fortitude. Or if the risk is not too great, use the Blitz Kit (+2MP, -10 Heat), especially on short missions.

Just before separating from them, the Runner typically gets buffed by other squad members (Rallying Charge, Pressing Need, Warding Fire and Power Field to name some of the most common ones). She then moves away, turning on Overdrive after having exhausted the MPs. Initiate Null Field at the last possible moment as it is heat restricted.

Skirmisher
This is the default build for Scouts, especially low-level ones. Equip a Needle Gun that delivers bio-poison damage and put some points in Crippling Fire. You will probably want to have either rank 1, 3 or 8 in CF where the MP Hinder effect gets stronger. When on the move, even with the smallest, -2MP penalty most enemies can be left behind to die of poison. Shooting from behind Overwatch also works very well, because Overwatch seems to make enemies use up an extra MP when attempting to step on an overwatched tile. Although enemy MP cannot be reduced below 1, combined with Overwatch 1MP enemies can be completely immobilized.

Skirmishers tend not to rely on criticals, because bio-poision damage is not increased by them, so skill points simply go to Gunnery. Attribute points are split between Fortitude, Willpower and Quickness. Quickness becomes less important over time as the Scout's accuracy improves with better gear and more Gunnery. One point in Fortitude only increases HP by 4, but it is what keeps them alive should they ever get hit, apart from the Ballast Pilot Kit (+32HP) which is a great deal for Scouts. Some talent points are also allocated to Overdrive.

A subvariant of the Skirmisher only has 1-3 points in Crippling Fire, but a high-level Piercing Fire which is great on missions with bosses and other targets with high deflection, armor and a huge HP pool.

Sniper
This build is about pure damage in the form of criticals. Equip a sniper rifle, bump Stealth and Focus both of which increase critical damage by 6% of the base damage rolled. Pour points into Headshot, equip gear that increases critical chance. There is an obvious synergy with the Soldier's Calling Shots, the Engineer's Fortify Position, and the Captain's Fire Commander talents. Increasing Tactics for the critical hit chance is also a possibility.

Pure Snipers are fragile, because they don't have much Fortitude. Once again, the Ballast Pilot Kit may be needed.