Gunner (Long War)
The Gunner class is similar to a suppression specialized Heavy in vanilla XCOM. Their signature ability is Suppression, and they are the only class that can use the Light Machine Gun and Squad Automatic Weapon line of weapons. Suppression is improved over vanilla, working to restrict the target's ability to use rockets and grenades as well as its vanilla effects. To compensate, the Gunner loses the vanilla Heavy's rockets.
- Primary Weapon: SAWs, LMGs, Assault Rifles, Carbines, SMGs.
- Secondary Weapon: None.
- Class-Limited items: Armor-Piercing Ammo.
Abilities
Rank | Ability | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
Specialist |
Suppression
Fire a barrage that pins down a target, granting Opportunist reaction fire against it if it moves. Imposes a -30 penalty to aim and reduces range of many area-of-effect attacks, including grenades. Also negates overwatch from the target while suppression is active. Lastly, enemy AI prioritizes breaking the suppression by shooting the suppressor, so it functions as a mini-taunt. Not possible with shotguns, sniper rifles, or strike rifles. | |||
No other bonuses. | ||||
Lance Corporal |
Flush Fire a shot that may cause non-flying enemies to run to new cover. The shot is easy to hit with (+30 aim), but does reduced damage (-50% base weapon damage), and consumes extra ammo (2 ammo). Hunkered units will not relocate. |
Covering Fire
Allows certain reaction shots to trigger on many enemy actions, not just movement (excludes reload, overwatch, and hunker down actions). |
Holo-Targeting
Shooting at or suppressing enemies confers +10 Aim to allies' attacks on those enemies until end of turn. | |
No other bonuses. | + 2 Aim. | No other bonuses. | ||
Corporal |
HEAT Ammo Your primary weapon, not including shotguns, does an additional 50% of its base weapon damage to robotic enemies after any damage reduction is assessed.
|
Opportunist
Eliminates the Aim penalty on reaction shots, and allows reaction shots to cause critical hits. |
Shredder Ammo The Shredder debuff causes any unit hit to take 40% additional damage (after DR, rounded down) from all sources. Gunners and MECs apply the Shredder debuff for the remainder of the current turn to any target struck by their primary weapon. Rocketeers get an extra rocket that is weaker than a standard rocket (60% rounded down), cannot penetrate cover, has a +50% larger blast radius, and applies the Shredder debuff to all targets struck by the rocket for the next 3 turns.
| |
No other bonuses. | No other bonuses. | No other bonuses. | ||
Sergeant |
Executioner Confers +10 aim and +10 critical chance against targets at or below 50% health. |
Ranger
Confers +1 damage with primary weapons, rocket launchers, MEC secondary weapons and sidearms. Negates the long-range accuracy penalty with sidearms when shooting beyond 14 meters. | ||
+3 Will | No other bonuses. | No other bonuses. | ||
Tech Sergeant |
Rapid Fire Take two shots against a single target in quick succession. Each shot carries a -15 penalty to Aim.
|
Ready for Anything
If the unit fires without taking any other costly action, it automatically enters overwatch at the end of its turn.
|
Double Tap Allows a second action restricted to Standard Shot, Precision Shot, or Disabling Shot as long as the first action was a Standard Shot, Precision Shot, Disabling Shot, or Flush provided no costly actions were taken. 1 turn cooldown. (Note: Double Tap is cancelled in the following cases: (1) the first shot results in a kill, and no more enemies are visible to the unit, or (2) for gunners only, the first shot depletes the ammo.)
| |
No other bonuses. | + 2 Aim. | No others bonuses. | ||
Gunnery Sergeant |
Resilience Confers immunity to critical hits. |
Platform Stability Shots taken before any costly actions have +10 Aim and +10% critical chance. Also grants +10 aim for purposes of reducing scatter if the soldier has not moved this turn, and increases range of Blaster Launcher (which does not scatter). |
Danger Zone Increases area of effect of Suppression, rockets, grenade launchers and proximity mine launchers.
| |
No other bonuses. | No other bonuses. | No other bonuses. | ||
Master Sergeant |
Extra Conditioning
Confers 1-4 bonus health based on which type of armor is equipped. Heavier armor increases the bonus. |
Sentinel
Allows two reaction shots during Overwatch, instead of only one.
|
Mayhem
Confers +2 damage for suppression, SAWs, LMGs, explosive grenades, proximity mines and rocket launchers. Confers +4 damage for sniper and long rifles, marksman's, strike and reflex rifles using Standard Shot or Precision Shot.
| |
+4 Aim, +4 Will, +1 Mobility. | No other bonuses. | No other bonuses. |
*Perks tagged with blue are fixed even with Second Wave Training Roulette option is enabled
Stat Progression
- Note that, even without Hidden Potential turned on, there is a chance of gaining 1 extra will per level (shown in parentheses above). Psionic soldiers can also gain 1-6 extra will per psi level (
1 + rand(6)
).
Tactical Advice
Role: Medium Range Offense / Offensive Support
The Gunner is akin to the vanilla Suppression Heavy, but with a key difference: the Long War Gunner has mediocre aim, compared to the vanilla Heavy's abysmal aim, meaning that unlike the vanilla Heavy she can put out reasonable damage with the machine gun when nothing needs suppressing.
In a sense the Gunner's first "perk" is their ability to use SAW and LMG-type weapons. Both LMGs and SAWs cause the reaction shot taken against a suppressed target to suffer no aim penalty and be capable of critting. SAWs have higher damage and larger magazines than assault rifles, with a mobility penalty. LMGs are even more restricted on mobility, but have even higher damage and larger magazines and have extended range. A major decision when building a Gunner is deciding if they will use a LMG or SAW-type weapon. SAW gunners have more mobility but shorter range, so will value some mobility and defense as well as offense. LMG gunners will be more interested in offense. Note that Suppression works at the LMG's full range.
Gunners have a lot of flexibility in their builds, with many viable combinations. Several strong utility perks are available, including Holo-Targeting and Shredder Ammo and of course Suppression. One potential offensive support build combines the debuff perks; Gunners can suppress in AoE with Danger Zone, apply Holo Targeting on those targets, make it inflict damage with Mayhem, and thus shred them with Shredder Ammo. Some strong offensive perks are also available in Double Tap, Rapid Fire and HEAT Ammo.
Sample Builds
HEAT Gunner
Bullet Wizard
Overwatch Gunner
Jack of All Trades