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 The first standard shot against an enemy within 4 tiles or destructive grenade thrown within 4 tiles will leave this unit with 1 AP but reduces mobility to 3.3 tiles during their next action. Grants immunity to reaction fire and critical hits from enemies within 4 tiles.
Lance Corporal	Run and Gun Allows shooting or overwatching at 0 AP if the last AP was spent moving. Disables the AP discount from Close Encounters. Shots gain +35% weapon damage and +35 crit until this unit's next turn. 2 turn cooldown. Cannot activate if out of ammo and does not work with the stun rifle.		Grenadier Using a destructive grenade deals +1 damage and costs only 1 AP. Equipped destructive grenades receive an additional use. Grants 1.3 mobility.		Will To Survive All cover DR increased to 70% but grants 15 less defense. Grants +3 armor HP and Steadfast. Steadfast Provides immunity to panic (except from flame/psi attacks) and reduces injury time by 50%.
Corporal	Extra Conditioning Grants +3 armor HP, +0.6 mobility, 10% throw range, and a 10% chance for all end-in-idle actions to cost 0 AP.		Fragmentation Explosives critically hit exposed targets, dealing 150% damage.		Tenacious Defense Grants +3 armor HP. Grants +20% crit resistance when protected by cover.
Sergeant	Ranger Grants +1 damage to all weapons and equipment, +0.6 mobility, and +10% throw range. For sidearms: No long-range aim penalty and reloading costs only 1 AP.		Killer Instinct Critical hits deal 200% damage.		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 Take two shots with your primary weapon against a single target in quick succession. Each shot carries a -40 aim penalty (-20 for shotguns). Grants +0.6 mobility.
Gunnery Sergeant	Aggression Grants the primary weapon +20 crit and additional crit damage equal to the number of enemies in sight or squadsight.		Tandem Warheads Explosives employed by this soldier do full damage at the extent of their area of effect (instead of 50%).		Brawler Grants +1 damage and +20 aim against targets within 4 tiles. Counterattacks melee attacks with damage equal to this unit's max base HP.
Master Sergeant	Sprinter Grants +1.3 mobility and increases the movement bonus when dashing to +40% (from +20%).			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

Extra Conditioning

Killer Instinct

Rapid Fire

Aggression

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

Tandem Warheads

Ranger

Rapid Fire

Mayhem

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.

Tank Assault

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

Will To Survive

Tenacious Defense

Close Combat Specialist

Rapid Fire

Brawler

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 Assault Infantry Rocketeer Gunner Sniper Scout Medic Engineer
	MEC Troopers Marauder Goliath Jaeger Shogun
	Officers Psionics Gene Mods S.H.I.V.s