Gears Tactics offers dozens of skills, armor pieces, and playstyles that can drastically alter your experience with the game. It’s great fun to experiment with it all after finishing the campaign. Whether this is your first time through the game or you’re aiming to conquer the hardest difficulty, we will be taking a look at one of the best builds for each class to help you make quick work of those grubs.

The Coalition and Splash Damage teams have released a virtual skill table on GearsTactics.com, allowing you to create builds before you even boot up the game. This will let you act as though your character levels are capped out to test out which builds are within your reach. Follow along with the table or in-game and see the powerful effects of these builds in this brilliant tactical turn-based title.

6 Vanguard: The Grub-Killing Berserker

The goal for the Vanguard build is to set up an Incredible Hulk-esque powerhouse: the angrier you get, the stronger you become. Your warcry will strike fear in the hearts of your enemies, as you grow stronger with every hit against you.

Using the Intimidate skill will let your character unleash a feral shout that knocks enemies out of overwatch mode and causes them to stumble. This can be used to push enemies into friendly overwatch zones or proximity mines. These are secondary benefits, compared to the 30% bonus damage that all enemies are now open to receiving. Intimidate, when used in conjunction with Rage Shot, can devastate nearly any enemy in your way. A fully upgraded Rage Shot lets you attack with a damage bonus equal to 200% of your missing health. Intentionally taking damage can be a risky, but valuable, tool to winning missions and boss fights.

The Bayonet Charge is a skill immediately available to all Vanguards, but it can seem deceptively simple. Bayonet Charge can help reposition you, clear an enemy from the field, and buff your character.

  • Intimidate
  • Rage Shot
  • Bayonet Charge
  • Hair Trigger

5 Scout: The Sneaky Explosives Expert

Scouts are one of the more overpowered classes in Gears Tactics, and their skill tree can be manipulated to decimate the locust hordes quickly and efficiently. Your Scouts will be zipping across the map acting as saboteurs, leaving explosives and rubble in their wake. There are three focuses that will help your Scout become an explosive dynamo and remove enemies from the board as soon as they enter the fray.

The main goal of the Scout is explosive optimization. It will require a few skills that give you access to more proximity mines, reduces cooldowns, and increases your explosive damage. Build out the Recon and Commando portions of the scout’s skill tree for maximum effect. In a twist for a Gears of War game, you won’t need your shotgun.

Sprint will allow you to cover an immense amount of ground to get the drop on enemies. This is a vital tool in your belt when dealing with emergence holes and large groups of enemies. Tossing a grenade into an e-hole will earn you back two Action Points with the proper build, which will be critical to making your great escape and setting up your next play. If you can’t manage to escape an enemy spawn with Sprint, Cloak is your next best friend and usually a great option anyway.

  • Sapper

  • Proximity Mine

  • Sprint

  • Cloak

  • Utility Belt

  • Blast Zone

4 Support: The Dedicated Healer

Support is one of the tactically weaker classes in the game, but they can help out other players when they’re in a pinch. If you want to give Action Points to other characters or make sure the squad is properly healed, this is the build for you. Focusing on these skills will help keep your team up, mobile, and dangerous. The mysterious, powerful and parasitic fuel source, Imulsion, makes a brief return in this game, introducing stronger enemies that explode when killed. The Support can help negate some of damage you might take when dealing with this deadly foe.

Group Therapy, Recovery Patch, and Stim are the quickest way to dish out healing to your teammates from anylocation on the map. The Group Therapy skill targets all allies and heals them a set amount. Recovery Patch heals a teammate once per turn, resulting in the incredible healing potential. Stim can be used for an instantaneous flat heal and can even be used to revive players once the skill is maxed out.

Painkiller is a passive that gives units you heal a 30% reduction in damage taken. If you plan on performing a risky maneuver, this can be done beforehand to make sure your team is closer to full health and minimize the damage they might take.

  • Group Therapy

  • Recovery Patch

  • Stim

  • Painkiller

  • Potential

  • Expertise

3 Sniper: The Formidable Long-Range Glass Cannon

Sniper rifles can deal tremendous damage and net glorious kills in any shooter. The same is true in Gears Tactics. The Sniper class is rewarding to use, and we will make sure that you’ve got the best build to pop those Locusts from afar. Your goal with the Sniper should be to focus on skills that increase your critical hit chance or damage. This class is perhaps the most tactical, as you will have to activate abilities in certain orders to see the greatest benefit.

Lucky Streak gives you a 20% bonus to your critical strike chance after hitting another critical strike. Activating Bullseye, which ensures a critical hit in the next attack, will activate Lucky Streak and make your subsequent attacks more likely to score criticals. Critical hits also have the chance to activate Spree, restoring some Action Points. Combine these three moves with Headhunter, a flat 3% damage buff for every kill, and you will be making quick work of every enemy that comes your way.

  • Spree

  • Lucky Streak

  • Headhunter

  • Bullseye

  • Sleek

  • Optics

2 Heavy: The Almost Immovable, Constantly Firing Object

The Heavy is a class that receives benefits for staying in cover and continually firing. They can be massive damage dealers against single enemies,especially on missions that keep you centrally located. Ultra Shot is the final skill in the Artillery section of the Heavy tree, and it lets them unload every shot in their magazine until the enemy is destoyed or ammo runs out. This can get rid of those pesky Butchers or other tanky Locusts. It cannot be used on bosses, though, so plan those encounters accordingly.

Fragmentation grenades are a somewhat niche commodity, due to their high cooldown rates. Explosive Shot will see you turning any enemy you come across into a weapon themselves. If you can manage to kill an enemy with Explosive Shot, they explode, dealing up to 500 damage in a five-meter radius.

  • Ultra Shot

  • Explosive Shot

  • Extended Mag

1 Jack: The Bonus Buffbot Who Can Turn Enemies Into Allies

Jack is the only class type that was added after the initial launch of Gears Tactics and is playable in the “Jacked” campaign mode. Hijack allows Jack to take over an enemy unit and use it as an ally. For fans of mathematics, this is a simple equation: the enemy loses a team member and you gain one. Turn those new allies into flankers, distractions, damage sponges, or whatever else your heart may desire. As your skills build to unlock Hijack, you will most likely pick up the various capsule skills in the game which can help you interfere with enemies without Hijack.

The Utility tree allows Jack to place various auras on allies that radiate buffs in a radius around them. These can alter overwatch damage, accuracy, crit chance, and even healing. If your team is making a last stand and is grouped up, the use of these auras can turn the tides.

  • Hijack

  • Sonic Capsule

  • Shock Capsule

  • Toxic Capsule

  • Coordinated Assault

  • Support Aura

  • Jack cannot equip any gear

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