Support (EU2012)

Support

A multipurpose class intended to serve as field medics, scouts, sentries or any other support roles. Supports can stay behind the front lines in order to heal damaged units and/or secure flanks, or provide suppressive fire for advancing units. Or they can join the advance, by scouting ahead and using smoke clouds to protect the squad's advance, helping to outflank opponents, if Assaults are pinned down or have been lost, or to provide Overwatch. Its drawbacks are the slighly lower damage from its primary weapon and lower capacity for critical hits as well as having no permanent Defense bonuses besides those of armor/cover.

• The Support's primary weapon is its Assault Rifle, which can also be used to Suppress enemies, if the Support acquires the Rifle Suppression ability. The main weapon can later be upgraded to Laser Rifle, Plasma Light Rifle or Plasma Rifle variants.
• The Support also carries Smoke Grenades which can generate clouds capable of offering half cover to any units inside them (both XCOM and the aliens) or even increase the stats of the soldiers inside the cloud.
• The Medikit is also essential to a Support, due to its abilities which allow it to serve as a specialized Field Medic.

Rank	Ability
Squaddie	Smoke Grenade Deploy a smoke grenade once per mission. The smoke confers +20 defense to all units, not just allies, and lasts during the enemy turn.
Corporal	Sprinter Allows the support to move 3 additional tiles.	Covering Fire Allows reaction shot to trigger on enemy attacks, not just movement.
Sergeant	Field Medic Allows medikits to be used 3 times per battle instead of once.	Smoke and Mirrors Allows 1 additional use of Smoke Grenade each mission.
Lieutenant	Revive Allows Medikits to revive critically wounded Soldiers at 33% of maximum health instead of just stabilizing them.	Rifle Suppression Fires a barrage that pins down a target, granting reaction fire against it and imposing a 30 penalty to aim.
Captain	Dense Smoke Smoke Grenades have increased area of effect and further increase units' Defense by 20.	Combat Drugs Smoke Grenades now contain powerful stimulants that grant +20 Will and +10% Critical Chance for all units in the cloud. (Also grants +20 Aim Bonus)
Major	Deep Pockets Confers an additional item slot in inventory.
Colonel	Savior Medikits restore 4 more health per use.	Sentinel Allows two reaction shots during Overwatch, instead of only one.

Additional Notes

• Support abilities upgrades are centered on medical, scout and sentry roles.
• The Field Medic perk dramatically improves the effectiveness of medikits, tripling the number of uses. Savior further improves medikit effectiveness, and Revive can allow the medikit to bring critically wounded soldiers back in to the fight.
• The Sprinter perk and additional smoke capacity makes for a good scout.
• Combat Drugs smoke gives an undocumented +20 to aim, and loses its defensive benefit.
• Support's two other specialized abilities are Rifle Suppress, allowing scouts or sentries to support attacks and Covering Fire (making it the only class that can react to enemy fire on Overwatch).
• The bonus in stats gained through rank promotions will give the Support a total of +24 Aim points upon reaching Colonel rank, together with a total of +4 HP and +14 Will.

Tactical Advice

Supports aren't sexy in the way that the other classes are, but they do bring a lot more to the table than many realize. Their Aim and HP are both on par with Assaults, giving them comparable offense for the early portion of the game. On top of that, they have great mobility, effective damage mitigation and healing, and get the opportunity to bring 2 Items along for unparalleled customization. It is not by any means a bad decision to bring a pair of Supports on a mission as you expand your squad, and it can be very helpful to do so on long missions such as the Alien Base or lengthy UFO assaults.

Abilities

Corporal

Sprinter vs. Covering Fire

Take Sprinter. You're welcome.

Sprinter gives an incredible amount of mobility to set up flanks. While the Assault's Run & Gun accomplishes this as well, Sprinter also helps set up grenades, stuns, or Medikit use. Accept no substitutes.

Covering Fire will almost never help you. Enemy units will very rarely fire when they're not in cover, and Overwatch's additional 15% penalty to hit means that this will almost never connect. It can be a nice extra after you pick up Rifle Suppression or Sentinel, but it simply isn't a good trade for on-demand mobility.

Sergeant

Field Medic vs. Smoke and Mirrors

There's merit to both picks, but Field Medic is probably the safer bet.

Field Medic gives you the ability to do some damage control after things go wrong. And they will go wrong. Maybe you'll accidentally eat an Overwatch, maybe they'll hit you while you're hunkered down behind cover, or maybe you'll get hit with a grenade. But the bottom line is that you're going to take damage on most missions, and you'll want to be able to pull yourself out of the danger zone. This does unfortunately lock you into using a Medikit, but the Support isn't a bad person to be carrying it.

Smoke and Mirrors is, under ideal circumstances, better than Field Medic, as avoiding shots is preferable to healing (some of) the damage from a shot. The issue with this is that you're playing without a safety net, so if you don't use smokes effectively (or you deploy them correctly and the enemy shots connect anyway), you're not going to find yourself in a good position. A side benefit of choosing Smoke and Mirrors is that you will never feel bad about packing an Arc Thrower, so consider that flexibility when making your decision.

Lieutenant

Revive vs. Rifle Suppression

Rifle Suppression will help keep you alive. Isn't that better than dying and using Revive? Yes. Yes it is.

Rifle Suppression is a great utility skill, keeping your squad safe from return fire and locking enemies in position. While Heavies can get Suppression as well (earlier, and with more ways to augment it), you will probably be relying and them for the big booms, which leaves Suppression duties to the Support.

Revive is a skill you use when you are already screwed. While it is admittedly nice to be able to bring a soldier back from the almost-dead, if you find yourself wishing you had this, consider changing your tactics or bringing along an additional Field Medic to keep your soldiers topped off.

Captain

Dense Smoke vs. Combat Drugs

Defense vs Offense choice.

Dense Smoke is a huge defensive bonus that will make units in any kind of cover nearly untouchable. The catch to this is that after the appearance of Mutons, aliens will start carrying grenades. And any time they decide they don't like their odds to hit, they're liable to hurl a grenade instead. This will do 5 damage to one or more unit and set you up for further pain by destroying your cover. This is a Very Bad Thing. Aside from that quirk, this is, again, a huge defensive bonus.

Combat Drugs provides a powerful boost to your Will and a small one to Crit Chance. And while this isn't listed, it loses its defense bonus and gets +20 aim bonus instead (this might be a bug, but it works this way now). Since the smoke lasts to next your turn, you can benefit from the aim bonus twice. Will bonus could be helpful when you want defense from Sectoid commanders or Ethereals, or using psi attacks against high will targets.

Colonel

Savior vs. Sentinel

No wrong choices here. Follow your gut.

Savior synergizes with Field Medic very effectively, and with the Improved Medikit project from the Foundry will give a unit 30HP worth of total healing to hand out. This is a huge boost to your longevity, marking almost double the healing even if you already have the Foundry Project. Perhaps more importantly, this 8-10 HP will often counteract an entire shot's worth of damage. After all, healing a solider from 1 HP to 7HP does you no good if incoming attacks are dealing 9.

Sentinel doesn't offer any specific synergy to other Support skills except perhaps for Covering Fire (which you should not have). But it singlehandledly solves the problem of Overwatch overkill. No long will you have embarrassing moments of your entire squad opening fire on a hapless Floater, only to watch a Muton wander unchecked into position and crit you in the face.

Equipment

Weapons: Generally your Supports will be using your Assault's leftovers. Because they have no ability to increase their damage output, you'll need good weapons to make up for it. Unlike the Heavy, they have very few non-primary-weapon damage or utility, so unless you're planning on using Suppression every turn, you'll need to stay up to speed here.

Armor: Again, probably playing second banana to the Assault. With Sprinter, Supports don't have a huge need for Skeleton Suits during the mid game, and later on a case can be made for Titan Armor. Ghost is still preferable in the long run, but given how expensive it is, Titan is not a poor alternative while you scrape together resources.

Item: If you took Field Medic and/or Savior, you'll be carrying a Medikit. Aside from that, Arc Throwers are handy, and Chitin Plating does a good job of filling in any question marks in the extra slot. Psionic Supports would do well to bring a Mind Shield in their bonus slot, as it gives them very good hit rates on Mind Control.

See Also

• Classes (EU2012)
• Weapons (EU2012)
• Armour (EU2012)
• Equipment (EU2012)