Assault (LWR)

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  Assault

The Long War Rebalance Assault is similar to the vanilla Assault. Their signature ability is Close Encounters.

Primary Weapons: Carbines, Assault Rifles, Battle Rifles, SMGs, Shotguns.

Secondary Weapons: Pistols, Machine Pistols, Sawed-off shotgun.

Class-Limited items: Impact Vest, Shredder Ammo, Breaching Ammo.

Abilities

Rank	Ability
Specialist	Close Encounters Close Encounters The first standard shot against an enemy within 4 tiles will leave this unit with 1 AP but reduces mobility to 3.3 tiles during their next action. Grants immunity to critical hits and reaction fire from enemies within 4 tiles.
Lance Corporal	Run and Gun Run and Gun Activate to allow shooting or overwatching at 0 AP if the last AP was spent moving. When active: Gain +20 crit, +20% crit damage, immunity to reaction fire, but the AP discount from Close Encounters is disabled. 2 turn cooldown. Cannot activate if out of ammo and does not work with the stun rifle.		Grenadier Grenadier Using a destructive grenade deals +1 damage and costs only 1 AP. Equipped destructive grenades and MEC launchers receive an additional use and have no weight.		Will To Survive Will To Survive Increases DR of all cover to 60% but grants 10 less defense. For XCOM, grants Steadfast. Steadfast Steadfast Provides +2 armor HP, immunity to panic, and reduces injury times by 30%.
Corporal	Extra Conditioning Extra Conditioning Grants +2 armor HP and +0.6 mobility, and a 10% chance for all end-in-idle actions to cost 0 AP.		Tandem Warheads Tandem Warheads Explosives employed by this soldier do full damage at the extent of their area of effect (instead of 50%).		Tenacious Defense Tenacious Defense Grants +2 armor HP. Grants +20 crit resistance when protected by cover.
Sergeant	Ranger Ranger Grants +1 damage to all weapons and equipment, +0.6 mobility, and +10% throw/rocket range. Sidearms additionally gain +2 damage, +20 aim, and 1 AP reloads.		Killer Instinct Killer Instinct Grants +30% crit damage.		Close Combat Specialist Close Combat Specialist Grants a reaction shot at any enemy within 4 tiles that acts. Reaction shot only activates on enemy's turn, once per enemy. [Basic reaction shots bypass half of cover DR/def, cannot crit, and require hit chance >30]
Tech Sergeant	Rapid Fire Rapid Fire Fire twice with your primary weapon; accuracy gains above 50% hit chance only contribute half to final hit chance.
Gunnery Sergeant	Aggression Aggression Shots gain +10% crit damage per enemy in sight.		Fragmentation Fragmentation Explosives critically hit exposed targets, have double the bleed chance, and apply 2 stacks if they cause bleeding.		Brawler Brawler If this unit is idle and has not been damaged this turn, incoming shots within 4 tiles graze (dealing only half of the original damage).
Master Sergeant	Sprinter Sprinter Grants +1.3 mobility and +10 defense. Doubles damage from Ram.			Opportunist Opportunist Reaction shots gain +10 aim and can critically hit.

Stat Progression

Rank	Attribute Gains
Specialist	+0-1 (50%)	+2-6	-	+4-12
Lance Corporal	+0-1 (50%)	+0-2	-	+1-3
Corporal	+0-1 (20%)	-	-	+1-3
Sergeant	+0-1 (20%)	-	-	+1-3
Tech Sergeant	+0-1 (20%)	-	-	+0-2
Gunnery Sergeant	+0-1 (20%)	-	-	-
Master Sergeant	+0-1 (20%)	-	-	-
Total	+0-7	+2-8	-	+7-23

Predictable Potential:

Rank	Attribute Gains
Specialist	+1	+4	-	+8
Lance Corporal	+1	+1	-	+2
Corporal	-	-	-	+2
Sergeant	-	-	-	+2
Tech Sergeant	-	-	-	+1
Gunnery Sergeant	-	-	-	-
Master Sergeant	-	-	-	-
Total	+2	+5	-	+15

Tactical Advice

Role: Mobile Offense, Tank

Long War Rebalance Assaults are more specialized than vanilla Assaults. They are more mobile than Infantry and capable of much greater burst damage output at close range. Since their innate ability is Close Encounters, they typically want to be close to the enemy at all times, whether they are tanking damage or dealing it, and Shotguns are a natural choice for their close range focus. However, SMGs are also viable due to their high crit, mobility and crit damage boost.

Assaults are fairly simple soldiers, and the choices in their builds tend to be a simple one of offense vs. defense at each rank, with some mobility thrown in.

Assaults make good covert operatives. They have high base HP, allowing them to survive better without armor.

Sample Builds

Crit Flanker

This build focuses the Assault on being able to push aggressively through enemy overwatch and score powerful critical hits. Their main focus is on keeping the enemy AI out of position with strong flank attacks, as such perks are selected that maximize this. Run and Gun makes the Assault immune to overwatch and grants the Assault free reign to move as needed. Aggression and Killer Instinct makes critical hits more powerful and likely to occur. Sprinter simply helps the Assault gain a mobility boost.

Sample Crit Build: Run and Gun -> Extra Conditioning -> Killer Instinct -> Rapid Fire -> Sprinter -> Aggression.

Run and Gun Run and Gun

Extra Conditioning Extra Conditioning

Killer Instinct Killer Instinct

Rapid Fire Rapid Fire

Aggression Aggression

Sprinter Sprinter

Notes: If your Assaults are using SMGs instead of Shotguns, you can swap out Killer Instinct, as SMG's grant the user Killer Instinct for free.

Recommended Equipment: Laser Sight, Targeting Module, Breaching Ammo.

Assault Grenadier

This build provides the Assault with pinpoint cover destruction and useful AOE damage utility. The assault grenadier is the fastest grenadier build to acquire both Grenadier and Tandem Warheads, granting powerful grenades. The rest of the build adds range and damage to the Assault's grenades, maintaining their relevance as the campaign goes on. The Assault Grenadier strikes a positional balance between the Crit Flanker build's aggression and the Tank build's defensiveness. Its weakness is being slowed down by his own equipment without the mobility or defense perks to resist a bad situation, where the intent is to instead rely on limited grenades. The Assault Grenadier remains useful on longer missions if psionically trained.

Sample Grenadier Build: Grenadier -> Tandem Warheads -> Ranger -> Rapid Fire -> Mayhem -> Sprinter

Grenadier Grenadier

Tandem Warheads Tandem Warheads

Ranger Ranger

Rapid Fire Rapid Fire

Mayhem Mayhem

Sprinter Sprinter

Recommended Equipment: HE/AP/Alien Grenades, Ceramic Plating, SMG

Notes:

• Some of the risk associated with the close-range role can be mitigated with protective equipment (ceramic/alloy plating) at the cost of mobility and equipment slots, an affordable tradeoff given that the grenadier does not need to flank to fulfill his role.
• As this build somewhat emulates the flank-utility role of the 'Runner' build from LW 1.0, an SMG or carbine is recommended for additional mobility.

Bodyguard

This build trades offense for defense, and builds strong bio tanks out of your assaults. The tanking perks are the first and second in the tree, with the rest of the tree building up to some offensive specialization. Keep in mind that the Bodyguard is a very passive build at first and lacks the mobility to push and deal damage up close. They will be sitting in front of the aliens taking fire without being able to effectively give any back until the aliens decide to push into your assault. The best way to mitigate the Assault Tank's weakness is to give them more utility through psionic training or by making making them officers.

Sample Tank Assault Build: Will to Survive -> Tenacious Defense -> Close Combat Specialist -> Rapid Fire -> Brawler -> Opportunist

Will To Survive Will To Survive

Tenacious Defense Tenacious Defense

Close Combat Specialist Close Combat Specialist

Rapid Fire Rapid Fire

Brawler Brawler

Opportunist Opportunist

Recommended Equipment: Ceramic Plating, Targeting Module, Breaching Ammo

Notes:

• Extra Conditioning can be taken over Tenacious Defense for more offensive ability.
• Assaults that use shotguns are nearly helpless against hardened foes, and Assaults that use breaching ammo to defeat the Hardened perk suffer from the equipment's weight, especially because traditional flanking assaults don't have the tanking perks necessary to resist fire from the numerous flying hardened foes that XCOM faces throughout the entire game. As such, this build is the most capable of using the shotgun with breaching ammo, and dealing with overly aggressive drones/cyberdisks/seekers/elite floaters/etc.

See also

Long War Rebalance: Soldiers
Soldiers	Soldiers Assault Infantry Rocketeer Gunner Sniper Scout Medic Engineer
MEC	MEC Troopers Marauder Goliath Jaeger Shogun
Sub-classes and abilities	Officers Psionics Gene Mods S.H.I.V.s