XCOM Soldier Guide: Support Class

XCOM Enemy Unknown was released in 2012.  It is a remake of the popular 1994 game.  XCOM is a turn based strategy game in which you try to halt an alien invasion.  You choose what you want to research and what you want your engineers to build, as well as managing your troops and relations with all of the countries in the XCOM project until a mission comes up.  Once you accept the mission you get a taste of the real gameplay.

You will drop 4-6 soldiers into an area where they will have one of several objectives, though you will always have to fight aliens, which will develop and you will end up fighting stronger enemies the farther into the game you progress.  Each turn your soldiers get two actions.  One is to move, and then you can move again or fire your weapon, reload, etc.  You will need to move your troops into cover, hopefully flanking the enemy’s position in order to get bonuses to aim and  critical hit chance.

The support class is a must have for any squad because they are the ones who can effectively use medikits.  Without someone to use these then you won’t have any way to heal damage taken by squad members.  Support soldiers are decent rifleman, but most of their usefulness comes from being a medic.

With support, always choose the perks on the left side, these are the medic traits.  Increased movement speed, the ability to use a medikit three times in a single battle, the ability to revive a critically wounded squad mate rather than just stabilize them, dense smoke to further increase protection provided by a smoke grenade, and making medikits heal by four more points.  These will make it much easier to reduce squad damage.  You are required to choose the deep pockets perk.  I would put a medikit in one slot and some kind of armor like a nano fiber vest or preferably chitin plating in the other.

Since support are your healers, you need to make sure that they do not die.  Because of this, your healer should have the best armor.  Once they go down, that’s it.  Plus, losing a support soldier can be devastating, especially if you do not have a replacement.  Heavy, assault, and sniper are all interchangeable, but the support class is in a completely different category and is a necessity.  Without a decent medic, you will find yourself dying much faster and more often.

Whatever you do, make sure you take the perk that allows you to revive critically wounded squad mates over rifle suppression.  You think to yourself that you will never lose someone, there is no point to taking such a perk.  I know, I’ve been there.  You are not good enough.  Someone will get shot, and very well may be critically wounded.  This chance increases drastically when you take the corresponding upgrade in the officer training school.  When you stabilize someone, they are alive, but useless for the rest of the battle.  When you revive them, they can still move and fight, which is a massive improvement.  It is always good to have another gun pointing at those aliens.

I know I’ve stressed this in pretty much every article I’ve written about this game, but just be careful.  Keep your men in high cover at all times.  Avoid moving too close to aliens so that they can flank you.  Keep your men together, but not close enough to be hit by a grenade.  Keep your support close enough to heal anyone who gets shot.  Keep your support alive and try to have multiple high ranking support soldiers in case one gets wounded.

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