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. There are 3 main paths while choosing perks for Support soldiers rather than the common 2 of the other classes. Those can be combined together in several combinations, although the choice is between specialization vs. flexibility.

• Scout. Sprinter, Smoke and Mirrors and Dense Smoke
• Tactical Officer: Covering Fire, Rifle Suppression and Sentinel
• Medic: Field Medic, Revive, Combat Drugs and Savior

Abilities

Corporal

Sprinter vs. Covering Fire

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.

Covering Fire is essentially an upgrade to the Overwatch ability of your Support to restrict enemy actions. It can be also useful for a Medic since its role is usually more of a sentry unit and Covering Fire grants more Overwatch options.

Sergeant

Field Medic vs. Smoke and Mirrors

Field Medic gives you the ability to repair some/all damage to your squad after a major fight or when things go wrong. And they will go wrong. Depending on the opposition level it is normal to see 1-2 Medikits on squads so this skill is one of the most important to have present on any squad.

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 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), this is a great ability for Supports working as Scouts to have as well since they allow to lock newly seen aliens.

Revive is a useful skill but that can be tricky to use. While it is admittedly nice to be able to bring a soldier back from the almost-dead, if you can't protect the revived soldier from any alien shots then it will be killed and most likely your Medic with it afterwards. And if later the soldier will further require more healing before it can be relied not to die with a single shot. Sometimes it may just be better to stabilize the unit rather than revive him/her.

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

Savior synergizes with Field Medic (and Revive) 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 combines with Covering Fire and Rifle Suppression for a sentry unit that will shoot twice at any aliens that move or fire within its field of vision.

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)