XCOM: EU/EW Class Builds - Assault
The Assault is only good at two things... Dodging plasma bolts, and shotgunning aliens in the face.
The Assault is an important class that excels at two primary skills: Disabling overwatchers with Lightning Reflexes, and running right up next to an enemy for an easy kill. These are very important tasks, and the Assault does them quite well. Here is how I build my Assault to maximize these capabilities:
Aggression
Lightning Reflexes
Rapid Fire
Close Combat Specialist
Resilience
Aggression:
This is a solid ability that will improve crit chance 10-30%. This is better than it seems. When the Assault is dashed into a dangerous position, it is usually with the hope that he can kill an enemy by delivering a crit. The damage range for a critical hit with a shotgun has a convenient floor, 6 points, which just happens to be the amount of health both Thin Men and Floaters start out with. Failing to crit means the Assault will do at most 5 points of damage, just short of what is needed to kill a full health Thin Man. There will be several times during the campaign that you will need the Assault to crit to keep your squad safe. This ability will change those odds from a coin flip to a solid favorite.
Alternative: Tactical Sense.
TacSense is a nice ability that is often made irrelevant by the lack of enemies (only +5 Defense when 1 enemy is visible) and the superior aim of your enemies (Thin Men have 85 aim at Impossible). If for example your Assault runs up next to the last Thin Man but fails to kill it, the Thin Man will have a guaranteed hit regardless of TacSense. Thin Men are fast, capable of jumping up to gain elevation, and do a lot of damage. Defense in XCOM is a losing game.
Lightning Reflexes:
This is one of the most important abilities in the game, and only the Assault can provide it for your squad. It enables the Assault to disable one overwatch per turn, without fail, so that your team isn’t tanking nasty overwatch shots from high aim enemies. Lightning Reflexes will be used frequently, because the aliens overwatch frequently. They overwatch when they are out of visibility range; They overwatch when they drop-in; Cyberdiscs and Mechtoids start on overwatch; Sectopods automatically overwatch after shooting, and so on. You don’t have many options for dealing with all these overwatches. You can suppress an overwatch, kill/disable the overwatcher, or run it with Lightning Reflexes, and that’s about it. Lightning Reflexes is often the only safe way to deal with overwatches such as when no one has line of sight to the overwatcher, and someone needs to run the overwatch and also get eyes on the target. That someone is the Assault.
Alternative: Close & Personal.
Close & Personal will give your Assault a free shot against an enemy within 4 tiles, which is fantastic, but still not as good as Lightning Reflexes. Part of the problem is that this skill is harder to put into use than you would expect, given that it cannot be used in tandem with Run & Gun. Another problem is that with limited ammunition, extra shot abilities have diminishing returns. With Rapid Fire an Assault will be able to exhaust all ammunition in 2 turns. Close & Personal grants an extra shot, but you won’t be able to take that shot and also Rapid Fire twice, without reloading. With Close Combat Specialist the drain on ammo becomes even more of a factor. You only get 4 shots before you have to reload regardless of how many extra shot abilities you select. Close & Personal is the extra shot ability that competes with Lightning Reflexes, and so it is the one to decline.
Rapid Fire:
This is a fantastic ability that will greatly improve your Assault’s firepower. It will allow the Assault to guarantee kills on high HP enemies such as Mutons, Zombies, Chryssalids, and Exalt. Later in the game, when your squad becomes more deadly from a distance, you may want to equip your Assault with a Rifle rather than a Shotgun. Rapid Fire will keep the Assault relevant, though not as deadly, even with this loadout.
Alternative: Flush.
Flush can be valuable when combined with Suppression, or when trying to finish off wounded enemies in cover. I have not experimented with Flush in this version of XCOM, but it doesn’t seem as useful as Rapid Fire.
Close Combat Specialist:
This is a great ability that proves extremely useful against Berserkers, and on Terror missions, or whenever an enemy is left alive nearby the Assault. As these are all scary scenarios, Close Combat Specialist is a great ability to have.
Alternative: Bring’Em On
Bring’Em On is also a great ability and worth selecting. While it is overkill against low HP enemies, there are plenty of foes in the late game that have very high HP. Against Mechtoids, Cyberdiscs, Berserkers, Heavy Floaters, Sectopods, etc. this ability will prove valuable.
Resilience:
With Titan Armor, Chitin plating, and Extra Conditioning your Assault will have 25 HP; already very difficult to kill. Taking Resilience will mean that the Assault can survive at least 2 hits from even the nastiest enemies, and probably more. You are not going to lose your Assault to anything other than critical hits if you are playing well. Taking this ability will eliminate even that possibility.
Alternative: Killer Instinct
This is a good ability that will often be overkill. A crit with an Alloy Cannon is at least 13 damage already. More damage could prove useful against the nastiest enemies, but most of them are hardened, and much less likely to be crit.