Character Builds For Outcast and Revenant

Hey guys,

Having done some theorycrafting, I thought I'd share some of my character builds with the wider community for feedback and critique.

All Builds will be put together with the Outcast and Revenant Missions in mind, specifically in relation to expected Intel Packs and the rate of gaining Specialty Cards.

OUTCAST

Raoul Spector -
Let's start with who I think is the weakest character in this Expansion, unfortunately his gimmick for taunting costs your ever important action ands doesn't apply anything else for the cost, giving you no movement and no damage application. At best this would be used after making one move action and still being outside of range to melee enemies. On top of this, Raoul has CC Weapons, but no means with which to get around Natural Born Warrior meaning that if he ever gets into Melee with an actual melee threat, he's not going to do very well.

Build 1 - CC Focus
Skills: CC Weapons 1-2, CC Weapons 3, CC Weapons 4 & Artillery Observer, Taunt 1, Versatile + Taunt 2
Item Purchase Order: Freeze Baton (9) or Longyuan (10), Path A or Path B
Path A - Hacking vulnerability for more damage on Defence: Endoskeleton with Nanopulser (6), Martial Artists Armor (6), Defensive Hacking Device (3) and Wakizashi (6, if using Revenant Content)
Path B - More survivability for less damage on Defence: Wakizashi (6, if using Revenant Content), Martial Artists Armor (3), Reinforced Helmet(4) or Teseum Helmet (7)

This build allows you to provide the most damage that you can to enemies that do not have the Natural Born Warrior Trait. Artillery Observer is a Free Action skill that can provide party benefits, and of the Specialist Operative options is the best to allow you to get to your Versatile Skill.

Build 2 - Taunt Focus
Skills: Taunt 1 & CC Weapons 1, Taunt 2, Taunt 3 & 4, Artillery Observer, Versatile + CC Weapons 2
Item Purchase Order: Stun Baton (5), Wakizashi (6, if using Revenant Content), Reinforced Helmet (4) or Teseum Helmet (7), Martial Artists Armor (6)

This build is essentially a lockdown build, run up to and Taunt the biggest thing you can, keep it stunned while taunting other enemies to ensure their damage to you is lowered, attack the big thing every time it attacks you, do your best to survive. No Big Armour hurts this as you really can't take too much punishment from ranged attacks.


Katherine Cho -
A fantastic character for control over the enemy Initiative Deck and also your main button pusher. While not as effective at button pushing as Jazz, her brought along Ally can really help to round out anything a Party may be missing.

Build - The Cho Show
Skills: O-12 Officer 1 & 2, O-12 Officer 3, O-12 Officer 4 & Target Acquired, Tactic 1, Tactic 2 & Command Officer
Escort: Marksman, Forward Observer, Veteran Forward Observer/TAG
Item Purchase Order: Smart Rifle (6), Multi Spectral Visor L2 (5) or Assault Helmet (6), Flamethrower Kit (6)
Blocked until Versatile: Armor with Nanopulser (5), ODD (5)


Uxia 'Cherry' McNeill -
A highly effective assault character with huge movement combos between her Versatile Ability, Always Prepared and Camo. Mobility is key here over raw damage, but she's not one to disappoint in that department either.

Build - The Artful Dodger
Skills: Camo 1 & Camo 2/Always Prepared, Always Prepared/Camo 2, Light Weapons 1 & Versatile, Camo 3, Light Weapons 2 & Light Weapons 3
Item Purchase Order: Silenced Pistol (3), Assault Helmet (6), Winterfor Armor (6), ODD (5)


Lei Gong -
A character that you can build entire teams around, popping smoke every turn is an absolutely insane bonus that can stack together well with Uxia and Shinobu. Having MSV included means that you can be more of a backline shooter through the smoke, albeit if you go with the SMG you're going to want to be close. Make good use of your Hidden state from your Versatile skill.

Build - Smoke and Mirrors
Skills: Rifles 1 & Mobility 1, Mobility 2, HI Combat 1 & Versatile, Rifles 2, Rifles 3 & Rifles 4
Item Purchase Order: SMG (9), Grenade Launcher Armor (6), Assault Helmet (6), Shock Ammunition (8, if using Revenant Content), Wakizashi (8, if using Revenant Content)


Fat Yuan Yuan -
I'm under the assumption here that the Grenade Bandolier Skill applies to all Grenades, unlike Lei Gong's I am Smoke skill that only applies to Smoke Grenades.

Build 1 - Frag Out!
Skills: Grenades 1 & 2, Grenades 3, Grenades 4 & Loot 1, Loot 2, Loot 3 & 4
Item Purchase Order: Napalm Grenade (6), Fat Yuan Yuan Chain Rifle (3), Work Overall (2), Reinforced Helmet (4), Grenade Launcher Kit (3)

This build is consistent and doesn't rely too much on how well armored an enemy is, it hits its streak quite quickly due to rushing the grenade skills and lets you later add stored 's from say your armor rolls to instead be pumped into your grenade explosions which do direct . He's also hella cheap to equip and thus can spend more money on things like ship upgrades or buying things for teammates.

Build 2 - The Mighty Paunch
Skills: Strike 1 & 2, Loot 1, Grenades 1 & Versatile, Loot 2, Strike 3 & 4
Item Purchase Order: Shock Knuckle Dusters (8), Fat Yuan Yuan Chain Rifle (3), Work Overall(2) Reinforced Helmet (4), Grenade Launcher Kit(3)

I feel that there's an inherent weakness in using Fight weapons over CC Weapons, and it's mainly to do with their reduced dice counts and lack of effective switches. I don't feel that this build is as effective as the one above, but it offers a pretty different playstyle.


Shinobu Kitsune -
A melee carry character, really synergises well with the LOS blocking that Lei Gong can Provide, otherwise relies upon No Mind to retreat from combat after a successful kill.

Build 1 - From the Shadows
Skills: CC Weapons 1 & Camo 1, Open Hand 1, Open Hand 2 & 3, Open Hand 4, Camo 2 & 3
Item Purchase Order: Onimaru (10), TO Cloak (9), Reinforced Helmet (4) or Teseum Helmet (7)

Build 2 - Overwhelming Violence
Skills: CC Weapons 1 & Open Hand 1, Open Hand 2, Open Hand 3 & 4, CC Weapons 2, CC Weapons 3 & 4
Item Purchase Order: Onimaru (10), TO Cloak (9), Reinforced Helmet (4) or Teseum Helmet (7)


REVENANT

John Hawkwood
A pretty straightforward character that gives you perfect information about exactly what enemy is activating next, this alone can truly help to make the game much more plannable and to really push your brinksmanship to get the most Intel Packs you possibly can. His bonuses for escorts get better the more team members that have them, and it's very very easy to be bringing 4 escorts along to most missions in Revenant.

Build 1 - Legion
Skills: Combat Unit 1 & Rifles 1, Leadership 1, Combat Unit 2 & 3, Versatile, Combat Unit 4 & Rifles 2
Escorts: Marksman, Your Choice! (Personally big fan of Veteran Forward Observer)
Item Purchase Order: K1 Precision Rifle (9)/Tohaa Sniper Rifle(8), Assault Helmet (6), Shock Ammunition (8)

Tohaa Sniper Rifle is an interesting choice here over the K1 Precision Rifle as long as you can fire at targetted enemies. Assuming you place your Targetted state onto an enemy you intend to shoot, the switches have a nice interplay in such a way that you're minimising self damage while trying to negate any 's they roll, example time:
K1 P. Rifle + Assault Helm + Rifles 1 + Shock Ammo + 5x >
Tohaa SR + Assault Helm + Rifles 1 + Shock Ammo + 5x > + 2x >
Tohaa SR probably has the higher swing, however the K1 P. Rifle is more consistent. Perhaps best to stick with the K1 P. Rifle then!

Build 2 - Marksman
Skills: Combat Unit 1 & Rifles 1, Leadership 1, Rifles 2 & Rifles 3, Versatile, Leadership 2 & Leadership 3
Escorts: Marksman
Item Purchase Order: K1 Precision Rifle (9), Assault Helmet(6), Shock Ammunition (8)

Rifles 3 makes the Tohaa SR not a worthwhile choice here as there is no to turn into a .


Kendrat
Kendrat is in my opinion one of the best made characters, allowing for some really solid build choices that can alter how she functions in a team on top of leveraging lower tier equipment in some interesting ways.

Build 1 - Close Encounters
Skills: Shotgun 1 & Boarding 1, Boarding 2, Boarding 3 & Boarding 4, Shotgun 2, Shotgun 3 & 4
Item Purchase Order: Panoceanian Boarding Shotgun (7)/Vulkan Morat Heavy Shotgun(8, if you have a Black Market Ally), Champions Fist (12), Assault Helmet (6)

Kendrat is the Shotgun Queen run up to within Range 1-2 of an enemy and start blasting, if you get a kill, start Blasting even more with a roll of (/) per shot. Every turn you should be able to perform this...
Move into range 1 of enemy, store on Boarding 2, Shotgun Enemy, Shotgun them again with Boarding 3, Enemy dies triggering Champions Fist, Shotgun another enemy. And this says nothing about chaining champions fist to clear a bunch of smaller mooks. She feels very much like Shinobu but with a Shotgun instead of a sword and completely against all forms of stealth! Just remember that Champions Fist only triggers within Range 1-1!
The most notable downside of this build is a complete lack of defence, this is an attrition based character, make sure you're keeping the enemy count low so they can't return fire.

Build 2 - Daturazi Threat Management
Skills: Shotgun 1 + Boarding 1, Warrior Monk 1, Warrior Monk 2 + Warrior Monk 3, Versatile, Boarding 2 + Boarding 3
Item Purchase Order: Panoceanian Boarding Shotgun (7)/Vulkan Morat Heavy Shotgun(8, if you have a Black Market Ally), Wakizashi (8), Assault Helmet (6)

This build gives Kendrat a bit more survivability, but obviously a lot less damage potential. The other trade off is massive control over Kendrat's Aggro, allowing you to reduce the amount of enemies spawning in at later stages in the campaign. I will admit I'm much more of a fan of the Glass Cannon build!



Father Lucien Sforza
Lucian Sforza seems fine. He's about as bog standard as you're gonna get, has decent damage output, can bring a friend and can unlock black market items. The one thing I would recommend that you don't get tempted by is Bounty Hunter 3. This skill shouldn't be viewed too highly. The early targetting out of the box is great however and really helps lean into whatever sort of build you'd like to do.

Build 1 - Total Reaction
Skills: Rifles 1 + Underworld 1, Underworld 2, Underworld 3 + 4, Bounty Hunter 1, Bounty Hunter 2 + Versatile
Escorts: Your Choice
Item Purchase Order: K1 Precision Rifle (9)/Tohaa Sniper Rifle(8), Assault Helmet (6), Shock Ammunition (8)

As can be seen Sforza is in direct competition for the same limited items that Hawkwood is wanting to use, keep that in mind as this will be a recurring problem. Ease of access to the Targetted State plus the fantastic K1 Precision Rifle/Tohaa SR Switches is very tempting. This build should be focused on softening up as many targets as possible to stun them and provide opportunities for Sforza to Aggro dump and to also Shoot back at them because of the wording of his Versatile skill, a spicy little combo!

Build 2 - Big Game Hunter
Skills: Rifles 1 + 2, Rifles 3, Rifles 4 + Bounty Hunter 1, Bounty Hunter 2, Bounty Hunter 3 + 4
Item Purchase Order: K1 Precision Rifle (9), Assault Helmet(6), Shock Ammunition (8)

This is to provide high damage target elimination from a long distance. When shooting at a targeted enemy you're rolling with 5x > it's gonna cause a lot of pain. This is the much more straightforward build to use because it should also keep his Aggro near zero at all times.



Jaan Staar
Jaan is a super solid melee status applier, his capacity to provide blind and immobilized in one attack is excellent, and the defensive nature of Tohaa weapons translates well into him being a frontliner. On top of this he doesn't have the CC Weapons tree, so his defensive bonuses aren't cancelled out by CC Specialists. Jaan Star does rely on his opponents already being poisoned though in order to be maximally efficient so bringing along Major Lunah as an ally is a massive buff for him. Jaan's only weakness is a complete lack of action economy improvement for himself, he makes up for this with the ability to ruin the enemies action economy.

Build 1 - Slow and Steady
Skills: Tohaa Combat 1 + Toxins 1, Toxins 2, Toxins 3 + Impersonation 1, Versatile, Tohaa Combat 2 + Tohaa Combat 3
Purchase Order: Pletis Ka-el Spear (8), Amplified Voorne (8), Symbiomate (4), Symbiobomb "Hellzone" (5)

This is a safer version of the below build that is less reliable at applying the double status effects but allows you to safer prevent everyone from attacking your for 1 round a game. On top of this it allows you to reduce the amount of Aggro that you're generating which can be helpful at preventing doom spirals in later rounds.

Build 2 - All In
Skills: Tohaa Combat 1 + Toxins 1, Toxins 2, Toxins 3 + Toxins 4, Tohaa Combat 2, Tohaa Combat 3 + Tohaa Combat 4
Purchase Order: Pletis Ka-el Spear (8), Amplified Voorne (8), Symbiomate (4), Symbiobomb "Hellzone" (5)

This trades panic buttons to instead give you the most offense available, this allows you to perform "ARO" attacks but doesn't offer much of a way to shed Aggro. This build would be well paired with Cassandra Kusanagi to act as your Aggro sink.



Cassandra Kusanagi
Holy cow, what a Versatile skill. Free action Focus every Character within 1-5 (This includes your allies as well), how busted is that?! I can't see a situation where any build wouldn't want to include this skill because some other combination is better than it. On top of this as long as she's in the Command Bridge she's providing a free escort to another character as well. Unfortunately this bonus can definitely conflict with having either John Hawkwood on the same team, or running her in Revenant with Cho, who would be wanting to utilise the TAG Escort.

Build 1 - Faith Leader
Skills: Rifles 1 + Warrior Monk 1, Clergy 1, Versatile + Clergy 2, Clergy 3, Rifles 2 + Rifles 3/Clergy 4
Escort: Reverend Healer
Purchase Order: SMG (9), Shock Ammo (8), Assault Helmet (6)

This is a staple build to rush out the extra ally from Clergy 3 and picking up Versatile as early as possible, this build probably reaches it's peak after it reaches Clergy 3, and I'm not sure it's got as much synergy as the below. The choice between Rifles 3 and Clergy 4 is one of preference, Rifles 3 is a constant buff and the reroll is very nice, Clergy 4 is on average more powerful but has some rough requirements for Aggro before activating.

Build 2 - Aggro Sink
Skills: Rifles 1 + Warrior Monk 1, Clergy 1, Versatile + Warrior Monk 2, Warrior Monk 3, Clergy 2 + Clergy 3
Escort: Reverend Healer
Purchase Order: SMG (9), Shock Ammo (8), Assault Helmet (6)

This build focuses on being able to absorb and dump Aggro from teammates and allies. It reaches peak performance once it has Clergy 3 as your Escort can pump its generated aggro into you which can then help fill your saved results and then release it with another attack. She still comes decently online quite early but I think this is the better Endgame build.



Valerya Gromoz
Our first hacker since Jazz, and while not as good at button pushing, Valerya feels like Jazz woke up and chose violence. After the first mission you can have both Hacking 1 and Rifles 1 that adds to all your hacking rolls, from there getting off the first switch of Carbonite is pretty simple with your base Hacking device giving you a roll of to attack any hackable enemy. With Underworld 3 procced you're at which on average will trigger the Carbonite switch twice for massive damage, and that's not even with the benefits of a Hacking Device Plus! Combine this with a reasonable gun to generate storable Symbols and you've got a really well rounded character, that also brings along a strong Mercenary.

Build - Hacker for Hire
Skills: Hacking 1 + Rifles 1, Underworld 1, Underworld 2 + Underworld 3, Underworld 4, Hacker 2 + Hacker 3
Escort: Your Choice
Purchase Order: Hacking Device Plus (9), Superior Tactical Armor (6), Tohaa Combi Rifle(8)/Spitfire (8), Shock Ammo (8)
Recommended Programs: Carbonite (+), Modified Vulnerable (Spotlight +), Skullbuster, Owned

 

Ah yes! Good catch, the Spitfire and Mk12 don't have the Heavy Weapons requirement at the bottom, the one at the top only matters for keywords.

As for Raoul, what interests you about him? After playing through all of the Core Campaign with Cadin, Qiaing, Jazz and Rahman I feel that he's gonna be a worse Rahman with a focus on Melee instead of and SMG. He lacks anything that can really alter his action economy outside of CCW 4, also Stun isn't that great of a CC and it still costs an action to use, consider comparing him to Qiaing with an ML, he both deals direct damage in AoE and stuns and can do it twice per turn. If I wanted someone good at melee I'd just lean Cadin or Shinobu since they scale with bonus damage and action economy.

Is he better than Trisha, who I think is the worst character from the core game, maybe? I'm not exactly sure. Suffice it to say I don't feel that either of them scale too well into the late game, and I'm going to guess it's because their Posthuman skill is overweighted.

 

He only removes the -1 Max HP issue, which is only an issue if you're going down a lot and spamming your auto-medkits. It doesn't make him any tankier beyond being able to go longer without needing to get to the Medbay in the Defiance between missions because he can keep stacking flipped down consequences until he dies permanently. He still has to suffer the face up consequences in the mission itself and his physical defence is basically exactly the same as any other melee character with the most basic of armor. Let's do an example!

Let's say you're in melee combat with a some enemy that's rolling and you're rolling defence which is gonna be because of CC Weapons 1 and your armor, on average the attacker is going to deal 0.45 damage, seems pretty good. But this implies that you're in CC with a range 1 weapon. What happens if you're not in CC, or stuck in CC with someone that has Natural Born Warrior.
Well against this same (relatively weak) attack, be it a gun or an NBW CC attack, the odds tip as your defence has dropped to meaning that every attack will be dealing 1.23 damage. Keep in mind that there's really no way to increase your defence with items as easily as with other characters.

You're going to have to end up relying on the stun to keep you alive but even that isn't gonna work as damage gets higher as you can't scale your defence as easily and enemies that have you in their line of fire with a gun can shoot twice.

What if we compare it to Shinobu?
Let's say you're in melee combat with a some enemy that's rolling and you're rolling defence which is gonna be because of CC Weapons 1 and a lack of armor, on average the attacker is going to deal 1 damage, ok, definitely worse than Raoul, but manageable, being shot is similarly worse, but it becomes exactly the same if we pick up Camo 1 to add to all our defence rolls. But we can get equipment that Raoul can't as well, and that's the TO Cloak. This bad boy is absolutely bonkers, + against ranged non-visor attacks, and you can also combine this with the range 2 of the Onimaru to get it while you're in CC range of an enemy. This can allow you to have while defending against a shooter standing 2 tiles from you.

As far as CC Tanking though, once an enemy is in melee with you, it doesn't really run out, it skips any movement based options and just starts attacking according to the rulebook as it is already engaged.

It's my opinion that Raoul has been poorly implemented, and that you would only need a simple change to make him way better. Change the Taunt into a Free Action once per turn. In no way would that make him busted, it would just allow him to be a strong early game character and maintain relevance into the late game (which is what our experience with Rahman was). In this game, as in most others like it, action economy is king and he just doesn't get access to anything that let's him alter it.

 

Are you talking about the Voodoo Tech Hacking Device?

So it provides on your normal hacking rolls when compared to the and 2 storage locations, so on the offense I'd say that the benefits of the Hacking Device Plus outweigh the Voodoo-Tech Device. The other powerful benefit that the Voodoo-Tech provides is the defence which is which is quite high, but this comes at a cost, taking 2when you roll a blank on the . Now in the majority of cases this is going to keep you far less damaged than the Hacking Device Plus (which only provides a ) but let's do some maths and see how much better it is and whether the difference is really as clear as it seems.

1 roll of each dice yields on average
= 0.66 + 0.166 + 0.33
= 0.833 + 0.5 + 0.33
= 0.5

Also Key to note is that you have a 1 in 3 chance of rolling a blank on the dice, so we can factor that in by saying that while using the voodoo-tech device your actual dice roll nets you:
= 0.66 + 0.166 + 0.33 + 0.66

Seems that that blood completely counteracts the natural 's over time, making it much less attractive.

Voodoo-tech Device defence roll expectation = 1.66+ 0.166 + 0.33 + 0.66
Hacking Device Plus defence roll expectation = 1.33 + 0.5 + 0.33

Add to this that the Hacking Device Plus lets you store excess symbols from any roll, and lets you store an additional hacking program, and the situation becomes more dire for the Voodoo-Tech device. Let's say you know that a powerful hacking enemy is on the board, you might decide to save up some extra 's in case it attacks you letting you soften their blows with the Hacking Device Plus, whereas you might instead have you brain blown out in one hit with a bad roll on the Voodoo-tech Devices dice.

If the Voodoo-Tech Device could be utilised by Jazz, who has the reroll on blanks and also the ability to shift up software much faster I think there's more of a case to be made. Unfortunately, on Valerya there's just no reason to go with it over the Hacking Device+.

 

I feel that the benefit of Skeleton Key is super dependant upon who else is in your party. The absolute strongest it could be would be with things like Jazz's Alert Reduction or Rahman's 2 to every enemy on the board combined with ways to generate ARO attacks, e.g. Rifles 4, Hacking 3 etc. Shifting inputs on a console is an interesting one, perhaps making it more useful if you're running her in the base campaign, doesn't seem to be as much of an issue in the expansions though. The Yellow to Green I'm much less sold on though, what's your goal in having a Green dice on your offensive hacks when really it seems that the most required symbol is and yellow is already giving you the most of those that it can.

I would consider Skeleton Key over Hacking 3 based on a party specific case, but would always default to Hacking 3. What's the current party that you're running Gromoz in?

 

If you're running those, I don't think that it's gonna be worth it to take just for the shifting inputs as Trisha can help as a reasonable backup button pusher with her focus every turn. I don't think Qiaing, Kendrat or Trisha are gonna make use of the Flip ability unless you're leaning into Heavy Weapons 4 on Qiaing, the other two don't even have flip or ARO abilities. In that party, I'd hard pass on the Versatile, you'll get more benefit from rushing an escort and having Trisha help button press with her auxbot as well.

I think I read in another thread that you're using the ML on Qiaing, enjoy it, IMHO it's by far his best weapon because you don't have to invest much for it to be amazingly consistent.