Struggling to choose between the four Outriders classes? Each class has a different feel, so make sure you pick the right one to suit your playstyle. The campaign is pretty beefy, too—sitting at around 40 hours—so you'll want your class to still be fun all the way to endgame and beyond.
If you played the demo, you'll already know that the world of Enoch isn't the most hospitable of places. With that in mind you'll want to ensure you have some powerful abilities to help deal with everything that is thrown at you. Luckily, the demo lets you make new characters and skip the prologue so you can get a feel for them before you decide. It also lets you carry over your progress to the main game too.
But if you skipped the demo or you're still having trouble making a choice, this guide gives an introduction to each path available so you can choose the best Outriders path for you.
How Outriders classes work
When you reach the end of the surprisingly dark prologue, you'll be asked which path you want to take. But it's worth reiterating that you can easily start a new character in the demo and skip the prologue if your first choice isn't for you. At this point you'll get a brief intro to each class, along with each path's specific healing ability, and some clips of it in action.
Each class has three skills that can be equipped at one time, and these are unlocked by levelling up. These are then assigned to number keys 1-3 (you change firearm with ctrl). Some skills buff party members, whereas others deal class-specific damage and unleash status effects on enemies.
Separate to skills is the class tree, which you also upgrade by levelling up. Each class has a huge tree of passive skills (some more wide-ranging than others) in which you can plug a limited number of class points. That said, your class tree can also be set, so you have the opportunity to experiment with various builds.
Pyromancer
- Basics: Medium range, conjuror, fire.
- Damage: Cover foes in flames, incinerate entire squads, and heal your own wounds as enemies fall to your inferno.
- Healing: Recover health whenever enemies marked by your skill are killed.
Playing as a Pyromancer is pretty fun, but you may find it a tough path to solo. Marking enemies with fire skills such as Heatwave and then killing them to restore health recalls Doom's frantic resource management, but consider taking a tanky Devastator in with you if you can. Feed the Flames is one of the first skills you'll get to try, and it lets you pull an enemy towards you so that you can deal damage and drain some of their health. If you're looking for something a little more explosive, Thermal Bomb will see your enemies explode and damage others, if you manage to kill them quickly enough.
Technomancer
- Basics: Long range, support, gadgets.
- Damage: Manipulate the Anomaly to animate constructs and bend them to your will, aiding allies and killing enemies from afar.
- Healing: Recover a portion of the damage you deal as health.
The Technomancer is Outriders' support class: It's the only one that can offer external heals to other squad members, rather than just themselves. Again, you won't want to solo this one—this is for super-powered soldiers that like to hang back and pick off targets from afar. The Technomancer's long range weapon damage boost helps with that nicely. This class also makes use of gadgets to deal extra damage. You can place a turret for some extra firepower, and watch as it freezes your enemies. Make sure you save your Scrapnel skill for larger groups to make the most of its blast radius.
Trickster
- Basics: Close range, hit and run, spacetime.
- Damage: Bend the laws of space and time to appear out of nowhere, assassinate your enemies, and return to safety in the blink of an eye.
- Healing: Each enemy killed in close range heals you and grants a portion of shield.
The Trickster is the most difficult class to master, but it can be the most powerful path in the right hands. The fun starts when you get up close and personal with your enemies as some of your abilities can slow them down, and temporarily freeze them. Some of your early skills, like Temporal Blade, can take down low level enemies almost immediately, whereas Slow Trap covers an area of effect so that you can focus on neutralising a group swiftly. If you want to fully embrace the role of the Trickster, equip the Hunt the Prey skill to teleport behind an enemy and catch them off guard. This is also helpful for moving around the arena quickly to avoid feeling overwhelmed.
Devastator
- Basics: Close range, tank, stand your ground.
- Damage: Take point and defend your allies. Ground and foes alike will tremble as you pass.
- Healing: Recover health from slain enemies that stood too close.
The Devastator operates as the tank, so it's a great class for soaking up damage with its chunky health bar. Don't worry if you take a few knocks in combat, the Devastator can also recover health from nearby slain enemies. You unlock the Golem skill quite early, which lets you shrug off 65 percent of damage for eight seconds. Gravity Leap is also fun to use as it launches you into the air so that you can smash into an enemy across the arena. You have plenty of opportunities to deal lots of damage as the Devastator, and thanks to your additional health and armour, you won't be going anywhere.
