Best combo in your squad?

I have magnus in my squad, and i gave him pupeeter and two other mutations i cant remember. tested him out, went okay.

but i am so attached to the original trio. which one do people prefer? and what situation works best for each character?

right now, Dux is the sniper with his hat, and mutation passive alpinist that in total gives him 70% chance of critical when he is on a vantage point. and i always have bormin with, i just need to get better at knowing when i will be using his heal ability. Selma has pretty high accuracy thanks to mods, and the hat that gives 20% percent of critical hits when hidden

please and thank you :slight_smile:

I stuck with Bormin, Dux and Selma for most of the game. I occasionally swapped Selma for Magnus for Puppet Master. Unfortunately Puppet Master wasnā€™t quite as useful as Iā€™d hoped (specifically, when I used Puppet Master the enemies would know the stalkers were there and where they were even if none had been spotted.)

I too focused on Duxā€™s sniper abilities and he was at a point where his secondary weapon (I kept crossbow for silent work) could hit enemies almost on the other side of the map.

1 Like

:roll_eyes: Me too, with initial squad most of the time.
They worked best in ambush from above.
For first 2 targets, one twitch shot and two normal shots (four in total and two of them 100% crit). This is enough to take out an enemy with 28 health.
For the third target, while both Selmaā€™s and Borminā€™s twitch shot needs recharge, hog rushes.

Ferrow + Dux combo was used in the Field of Metal, against robot cops.

Twitch shot skill of Bormin and Selma is cruicial in middle to late game silent kills.
Bormin is the best character imo, with twitch shot and a good combination of Major Mutations. Hogs Rush not only can disable one enemy in combat, but grant the squad the capability to silently take down any target within 8 shots. Corpse eater is generally free medic kits - thereā€™s a trick to use it out of combat. Stone Skin is generally a full team disable against all enemies.
Selma has the best Passive Mutations. She can easily jump to a ventage spot, switch to airpline shot and lay down double 100% crit shots.
Dux is only decent. But he accesses 100% crit earlier than the other 2 characters. So heā€™s pretty much good.

1 Like

How does corpse eater work outisde of combat?

You need kill someone to create a corpse, and then enter ambush (near it) and use the skill on it.
Exit combat after this without alerting any enemy.
You can do this at anywhere in the same map, as your character can accurately travel in turn-based mode. But as this looks like an exploit, so I donā€™t recommend it.

wow. thats a nice exploit. i will try not to use it. but as i am now playing very hard on iron mutant mode, i canā€™t make any promices xD

Magnus was in my squad almost solely for Puppet Master. Either I was super lucky or it was bugged for me, but it never missed for me. And I mean ā€œneverā€, after using it maybe 20 times in my playthrough. Completely nuts. If it hadnā€™t been for that fact, Iā€™d probably stuck with Bormin. Though, Chain Lightning can be nice at times, too.

Farrow is just the most powerful damage-wise with her insane crit chance and her ability to blanket-fire. I have no idea why people donā€™t use her more, especially once you get frog legs for her. Itā€™s the same reason I took Selma along: With her high ground crit chance + the 20% crit chance from the top hat, you can make her crit almost always. Roots has its niche uses, but for the most part sheā€™s just the best damage dealer together with Farrow.

I played with Dux and Bormin as I ā€˜adoptedā€™ them as my main characters. Well, it is their story you play, no surprise I think. ,)
I never got warm with Selma. She was just a means for the purpose to get to the next interesting character, namely Magus. And his Puppet Master skill made the game so so easy. Even with a 50% chance he never missed to control an enemy. First I used him to take over Pyromants as I hate these guys. Even with FOW they always know where to throw their fire bomb, then I ever controlled the Marauder/Tank type. (I dunno how they are named in english as I play the game in german.)

Magus got the crit weapons, crit mods and the crit items, Dux got the improved range items/mods and Bornim got the best of the rest. With Dux I used his ā€˜Chameleonā€™ mutation to get a better position, Bormin used his ā€˜Corpse Eaterā€™ mutation very often, never used his ā€˜Hogs Rushā€™.

As Blastom said, to be honest you should switch Dux with Farrow. Guess Bormin, Farrow and Magus would made the strongest trio of all mutants.

I kept Bormin and Dux all game long, swapped my third to Farrow as soon as I got her. But this is because I absolutely love anthropomorphic animals, so I could not get myself to play with Selma or Magnus once I had Farrow.

In my next playthrough, I will vary a bit more.
Bormin is just the best, everything he has is useful
Dux can reach 100% crit from high ground + moth wings, he makes a decent sniper
Selma is very situationnal. She is extremely usefull against marauders, and even more against dogs, as she completely disables them in aoe since they canā€™t reach melee range. For the rest she is well rounded.
Magnus is a win or miss with puppeteer, but he dramatically lacks charisma
Farrow is a disappointement mutations wise as she is a mix of everyone but magnus and does not have a signature mutation of her own. It feels like itā€™s a late addition and they didnā€™t have the time to fully develop her skillset. But she is well rounded and the crit passive increase is great.

This is incorrect. Gunslinger is her unique mutation, that allows her to blanket fire on enemies in an area. I have to admit itā€™s a bit weak though, incurring a 25% accuracy penalty for every additional enemy beyond the first, i.e. -25% accuracy if you target two, -50% accuracy if you target three enemies and so on. Considering how hard it is to get a clean shot at three enemies at the same time, thereā€™s little reason for the penalty to even exist. Gunslinger should defnitely get a buff.

1 Like

when i got to mid-late game, ran dux, bormin and farrow. And iā€™ve been playing on very hard, where i rotate these three, every now and then putting in selma, when i know there is gonna be a prolongued fight and i have a vantage point where her and dax are sitting.

really like farrow, and her, dux and bormin will probably be my mains on my next playthrough. just died on very hard and i dont have the strength to get back to it again :stuck_out_tongue:

Yup, I missed this one, as it is a minor mutation, my bad.
Still, it is very underwhelming and I rarely got to use it on more than two ennemies with higher than 50% hit chance

Used with Mothwings or high groups + items and mutations which give bonuses from high ground, it gets better.

Unless I missed an item, bonus from high ground on items/mutations is only to critical chance, not to hit chance.
Native to hit bonus because of high ground is +25%, which compensates for the skill malus.
So unless you are at close range AND high ground, the max you can get is 75%.

And having 2+ ennemies relatively close, and with no cover is very unlikely. So most of the time you will at best have one 75%, and one or two 50%

Which is meh

Wingz seemed to give bonuses to hit chance. tbh I didnā€™t use it much but I am sure there were situations where I had penalties to hit and still a 100% hit chanceā€¦

ā€œShooting from high-ground has an innate bonus to hit chance, but more importantly certain passive Mutations and gear give you very high critical hit chances from high ground (like the Mutation Alpinist).ā€ [google LEARN THE IN-DEPTH TACTICS OF MUTANT YEAR ZERO: ROAD TO EDEN]

So I am pretty sure you could manage a 75% chance to hit on 3 enemies with 100 or close critical chance from say the laser rifle ā€¦

I donā€™t remember farrow having alpinist, but 100% crit chance is still relatively easy late game. But to have 75% to hit on all ennemies, you need high ground and 3 ennemies in a close cluster and none with any kind of cover.
I never saw the situation happening once.
Also, laser rifle wouldnā€™t let you use gunslinger as there is only one ammo. You need the laser assault rifle (which is just as good).

Farrow has Silent Assassin, not Alpinist.

Selma has Alpinist. Dux has both.

People seem to really like magnus because of pupeteer. but when i tried it out, it was kind of meh.
can anyone describe a situation where pupeeteer is better to use, than having and extra critical hit? Maybe i will start using him, if i see the utility :slight_smile:

Of course. Letā€™s say you killed all the ā€˜satelliteā€™ opponents and are going to fight a group of five Ghouls, maybe with a boss with psionic skills. If you mind control the Marauder and move him in open ground you have four advantages:
1.) the Marauder wont attack you
2.) you can attack an enemy with the Marauder
3.) if your team is behind cover the enemy probably will attack the Marauder, thus weaken or killing him (in every case a win-situation for you as Marauders are really tough opponents)
4.) the rest of your team can focus fire on another target

You can give all your mutants sniper weapons and shoot from far behind, with a possible additional advantage of an extra round the enemy needs to close up to you, while you can shoot at him.