There are eight main Templar classes: Captain, Engineer, Scout, Soldier, Hydra, Neptune, Paladin and Berserker. Each class fulfills different and important roles within the elite strike force.
Overview of Templar Classes
Captain
The Captain can specialize into a variety of different play-styles to compensate for, or augment, nearly any squad composition thinkable. Captain builds are typically first distinguished by whether they specialize in their Sidearm, a Blade and Shield, or a balanced combination of the two. Captains have rather high base attributes such as HP and Toughness that allow them better survival than perhaps any other class.
They represent the player on the battlefield as no additional captains may be recruited and their death is the only one that will always result in a mission failure; everyone else can be replaced.
Engineer
Engineers are a unique asset to the Templar forces. They are the only class capable of capturing Tact Points; this makes them required and auto-deployed on missions that cannot be completed without capturing at least one Tact Point. Engineers also have access to a variety of support skills including powerful group buffs, heat removal from allied Templars, the building of either machine-gun wielding Sentry Turrets, flame-spewing Pyro Turrets, placing Landmines, and even the capacity to repair turrets and tact points that have become damaged.
Physically they are weak and their ranged attacks are limited but combined with other Templars they can be a powerful force multiplier. Engineers have a variety of useful builds but a particularly interesting variant is the Flame Engineer which uses heavier Flame-Tank armor, a short-range flamethrower (shorter range than some of the Hydra flamethrowers), and has access to a couple special talents (while losing access to others.)
Scout
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.
Soldier
Soldiers are powerful, all-around combatants that often form the mainstay of Templar deployments. Soldiers have the immensely useful Overwatch talent that provides unmatched defense of choke points. Many soldier attacks can harm multiple foes, making them one of the go-to classes for dealing with clusters of foes. They also have multiple group buffs that can dramatically change the offensive strength and mobility of an entire squadron.
Soldier builds are usually typified by which kind of automatic rifles they choose to use. Plasma rifles with the shortest range make use of powerful short-range attacks for massive damage while standard assault rifles offer a balance between damage and range. They also have access to extended range assault rifles that trade some of the standard assault rifles' damage and penetration in exchange for the longest-range attacks a Soldier is capable of. Soldiers have significant resilience to enemy attacks, making them an asset in nearly any situation, no matter how thick the fighting.
Hydra
Hydras are the more mobile of the two heavy weapon wielding Templars, as most talents do not prevent movement after use, at the trade-off of short-medium attack range and rendering terrain hazardous to both sides.Their attacks are more reliant on fire damage than physical, due to the low penetration capabilities of the flamethrower, which leaves them vulnerable to foe with high fire res. Stat wise they are very similar to Neptunes but feature a stronger willpower gain over HP; they also require an investment in tactics to maximise their damage output. They are incapable of performing overwatch, instead they rely on area denial through residual flames.
They have access to specialist armours that are sometimes shared with flame tank Engineers, but will always provide Fire res along with 1+ other modifiers. As most of their talents generate lots of heat they have a wide variety of gear options to raise their maximum heat, in addition to a talent.
Neptune
Neptunes are similar to Soldiers in that they have access to a superior form of Overwatch and thus can hold down choke points extremely well. However, their stats vary in subtle ways and their skill set is decidedly different with a greater emphasis on AoE ranged damage, less on mobility and absolutely no group buffs. Many of the Neptune's skills will quickly add lots of heat. Fortunately the Neptune can reduce its own heat with the use of a particular talent.
Paladin
Paladins are powerful bulwarks of defense as well as wielders of the primary source of healing in the game. Paladins have no ranged attacks but compensate with excellent defenses, the ability to counter-attack, potentially powerful melee attacks, and excellent group buffing skills in addition to their life-saving medical abilities.
Paladin builds typically follow either a healer role or a melee combat role. The melee combat role is typically broken into two or three sub-roles depending upon whether defensive talents are emphasized, offensive talents are emphasized, or if the shield is entirely foregone in favor of the mighty warhammer and its associated offensive talents. Even the combat roles typically invest at least a little in the medic talents as battlefield healing is incredibly difficult to come by otherwise.
Berserker
Berserkers are the melee specialists of the Templar forces. They tend to be high-risk/high-reward attackers best used to kill foes in a single turn. Prolonged combat in melee against the Xeno is not advised even for these mighty Templars so it is their job to end things quickly. Berserkers have access to a single ranged attack in the form of their deadly Assault Grenades, but otherwise are reliant purely on their axe (or axes!) to deal with foes. Berserkers tend to have builds identified by whether they dual-wield axes, use an axe and a shield, or focus heavily on grenades.
Overview of Class Features, Attributes and Skills
| Captain | Engineer | Scout | Soldier | Hydra | Neptune | Paladin | Berserker | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Class Features | Base HP | 110 | 92 | 88 | 98 | 96 | 96 | 102 | 104 | + 1 per level |
| HP Modifier | 7 | 5 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | per Fortitude | |
| Toughness Modifier | 150 | 100 | 50 | 100 | 150 | 150 | 150 | 150 | % of Fortitude | |
| Resistance Modifier | 250 | 150 | 100 | 100 | 250 | 125 | 125 | 200 | % of Willpower | |
| Base SP Cost | 0* | 600 | 400 | 400 | 500 | 500 | 600 | 500 | ||
| SP Cost per Level | 0* | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Maximum SP Cost | 0* | 650 | 450 | 450 | 550 | 550 | 650 | 550 | ||
| Starting Attributes | Fortitude | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | |
| Willpower | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | ||
| Focus | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | ||
| Strength | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | ||
| Quickness | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | ||
| Starting Skills | Gunnery | 3 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | - | - | |
| Warrior | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | ||
| Tactics | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | ||
| Evasion | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | ||
| Grenades | 3 | - | - | 2 | - | - | - | 1 | ||
| Engineering | - | 4 | - | - | - | - | - | - | ||
| Medic | - | - | - | - | - | - | 3 | - | ||
| Stealth | - | - | 4 | - | - | - | - | - |
* The Captain leads every deployment.