Gunner (LW2)

The Gunner is trained to use heavy automatic weapons, able to cover the squad with suppressive fire or inflict significant damage in direct attacks.

Gunner: Primary: Cannon; Secondary: Combat Knife

Gunners are akin to vanilla Grenadiers that have specialized in Cannon use. They have a number of perks related to the cannon and suppression (with Suppression and Area Suppression as baseline class abilities).

"Saw Gunner" specialized Gunners (Left branch) invest in the raw direct damage potential of the cannon, essentially becoming a mobile heavy rifleman that can exploit a single target with multiple or unavoidable attacks, but have less raw battle control potential when using their weapons to suppress the enemy.

"Machine Gunner" specialized Gunners (Right branch) behave as mid-line fire support soldiers with enhanced and highly effective suppressive fire, capable of pinning an enemy squad down and victimizing any enemies dumb or desperate enough to try and break cover, but do not share in the raw single target damage potential of their SAW counterparts.

Cannons have an aim penalty at very short range, so Gunners carry a combat knife for close in defense. Gunners also enjoy many options in the Center branch for improving their survivability and utility in combat, allowing them to share the frontline with Assaults and Rangers without breaking a sweat.

Abilities

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Rank	Ability
Squaddie	Knife Fighter You may make a melee attack with your knife against adjacent enemies.	Suppression Fire a barrage that pins down a target, grants reaction fire against it if it moves, restricts the use of many abilities, and imposes a -25 penalty to the target's aim.	Area Suppression Fire a barrage that pins down multiple targets within a 4-tile radius, granting reaction fire against anyone that moves, and imposing a -25 penalty to all targets' aim until suppression is removed. Cannot be used when concealed.
	SAW Gunner		Machinegunner
Lance Corporal	Center Mass You do one additional point of base damage when using guns.	Combatives You may parry melee attacks and counterattack with your combat knife. Also gain +10 dodge.	Grazing Fire Missed shots with your primary weapon have an additional roll to become a graze.
Corporal	Hail of Bullets Unleash a hail of bullets that is guaranteed to hit your target, but uses a lot of ammunition.	Shredder Your primary weapon attacks shred armor.	Lockdown Gain +15 to hit against enemies who attempt to move when suppressed.
Sergeant	Flush Special shot with a bonus to hit that does little damage but forces target to change position if it hits and gives a penalty to defense and dodge.	Iron Curtain Special shot that does half damage but reduces target mobility for the following two turns. Cone-based attack with primary weapon.	Demolition Unleash a volley of bullets at your target's cover, significantly damaging or destroying it. Deals no damage to your target.
Staff Sergeant	Chain Shot Take a shot with an aim penalty of -10. If you hit the target, you take another shot on the target automatically.	Formidable Your gear includes an extra layer of protection, granting two extra points of Ablative HP and 50% less damage from explosive attacks.	Mayhem Gain 25% bonus damage against enemies who attempt to move when suppressed.
Tech Sergeant	Cyclic Fire Special Shot: Fire three shots at a target in a single attack. Requires both actions and all shots have aim penalties. Four-turn cooldown.	Danger Zone Area Suppression suppresses enemies in a 5-tile radius.	Cool Under Pressure You gain +10 Aim on Overwatch and other reaction shots, and they can critically hit.
Gunnery Sergeant	Saturation Fire Fire a cone-shaped barrage of bullets at every enemy in an area. In addition, the cover of those enemies can be damaged or destroyed. Uses a lot of ammunition.	Rapid Fire Fire twice in a row at an enemy. Each shot suffers an Aim penalty of -15. There is no cooldown on this ability.	Traverse Fire After taking a standard shot with your primary weapon with your first action, you may take an additional non-movement action.
Master Sergeant	Rupture A Rupture shot has a large bonus to crit chance and ensures that the target takes an additional +3 damage from all attacks in the future.	Combat Fitness Gain 4 aim, 1 mobility, 2 HP, 4 will, and 4 dodge.	Kill Zone Take a reaction shot against any enemy that moves or attacks within a cone of fire.

Stat Progression

Rank	Health	Offense	Will	Mobility	Dodge	Hacking
Squaddie	0	3	4	0	0	0
Lance Corporal	1	2	4	0	0	0
Corporal	0	3	0	0	0	0
Sergeant	0	2	0	0	0	0
Staff Sergeant	1	3	0	0	0	0
Tech Sergeant	0	2	0	0	0	0
Gunnery Sergeant	0	3	0	0	0	0
Master Sergeant	1	2	0	0	0	0
Total	3	20	8	0	0	0

This class also gains 3 points of strength, though it's not clear what that does.

See Also

XCOM Units in Long War 2
Starting	Soldiers Assault Grenadier Gunner Ranger Sharpshooter Shinobi Specialist Technical
Unlockable	Psi Operative SPARK Officers