Gears 5 horde classes X35 Earthwalker

Gears 5‘s current best mode is easily horde. No question about it. Due to the coalition never listening to actual wise feedback versus has lost so much players and attention. Escape is fun most of the time  as some challenges are just unfair and you need an actual team to get good results. Horde is the best and it’s gotten some changes, so X35 Earthwalker the best gamer in the world and universes ultimate strategies, is going to just talk about horde classes. Let’s take a look.

Now some of the classes got recent updates. Let’s just cover those first. Anchor and Combat medic got buffs. Anchor now does 30% additional pistol damage while Combat medic have 30% additional rifle damage. These were good changes and should have been done a long time ago. Anchor and Combat medic were underpowered. Demolitions mark duration actually lasts far longer now, like it was suppose too. The Brawlers soothing warmth card works with scorchers now. Not sure why it didn’t work before. There was a few others but you can go to the official website to read about them. Now that’s out of the way.

Demolition and infiltrator Gears 5 horde classes

We heard some people doing what seems like a tier list for the horde classes and majority of these guys aren’t that good at it. Someone said that demolition and infiltration are S tier classes even though they were suppose to take everything into account. Here’s our problem with this. Infiltrator should be A class because it has a major problem. You have to get close range! That alone is a big problem if you are playing on Inconceivable difficulty where a elite drone can down you with what feels like 4 bullets from their rifle. If you make one mistake or even miss a shotgun shot, you will die. Demolition’s problem is the same as infiltrator as they both have no health boosts meaning they go down the fastest out of everyone. The difference is that Demolition doesn’t have to get close. They can stay in the back but if they ever get pushed, it can be a serious problem. Both classes are pretty much the kings of damage though with consistency if done right. The demolitions ability to blow up everything, get their ultimate back real fast and then blow things up again, makes it the top not just boss but horde killer. Infiltrator can evaporate a boss if they firstly make the boss bleed, cloak, get a perfect active reload and then fire their shotgun (overkill preferred). If you master these two, then there’s truly nothing that can stand against you. X35 Earthwalker plays both classes and he is said to be the best player of these classes in the world. His main frustration with them is, as we mention before, how fast they die. A pouncer can one shot you. So if you make a tier list then take EVERYTHING into consideration like how much health they have and survivability. Sure they are the kings of damage but other classes like Combat Medic, Brawler and Tactician all survive longer and takes more hits. So demolition should be S class while infiltrator should be A class.

Gunner Gears 5 horde classes

Now let’s talk about gunner class. Overall the Gunner class is the most solid class in the entire game. It’s has the best balance of offence and defence. Good versatility too, with the best ultimate ability in the game overall thanks to what it can do in various situations. Sure the demolition does the most damage with his ultimate but you need to set it up and if something runs up to you your ultimate can’t save you in time. Not a problem for Gunner though. Let’s break this down semi style. The gunner can do heavy damage if equipped with a tri shot can do immense damage, especially when you get headshots. There’s a card called bait armour which gives excellent damage resistance for every bullet you take making you harder to kill. Your ultimate makes you invincible. You also reflect all ballistic damage back to the sender. You combine this with the bleed card and you have the nastiest combos. Multiple times I would see a group of ballistic weapon wielding enemies and just rush out there get their attention then activate ultimate. Watching them kill themselves is so much fun. Big enemies like DR-1’s and guardians with tri shots are worthless against Gunners. Bosses like stump and kestrel get completely demolished by gunners. 1v1 the Gunner class beats everything. Only a few things like a matriarch gives real problems. The Gunner overall therefore is the best class with solid offence and defence with the best ultimate. Gunner is so powerful. We sort of recently uploaded a gameplay video of Gunner gameplay against the horde on inconceivable difficulty. Go check it out, it’s on our Bitchute and youtube channel.

Anchor Gears 5 horde classesGunner Gears 5 horde classes

Class combos are where it’s at. Gunners work fantastically with Anchors. Anchors especially with their buff is now pumping out big damage. The Anchor’s ultimate is powerful. It stops everything. Ice, fire, explosives, bullets, torque bow etc. It stops everything (except something walking through it). It also lasts for a very long time, especially with supportive cards, which make it last longer or extends based on specific kills. This shield brings one of the nastiest combos in the game. X35 Earthwalker, Diamondz L45 and N63 Prodigy not held back the horde but pushed the horde back. Big difference. Diamondz L45 as the Anchor used the shield. X35 and N63 were both Gunners and stayed behind the shield firing at everything. Remember that firing through the barrier increases damage by 50%. It didn’t matter what was in the way. It died. All their attacks failed while we destroyed with loads of bleeding damage and heavy weapons. Seriously, we pushed the horde back. We were the monsters. Then when the barrier finally went down, one of us gunners went in front and used our ultimate. Funny thing was this was during a bold wave and our two teammates were back up in the base running for their lives from a matriarch. Now there are many more combos that make some things overpowered. Literally broken… but figure them out for yourself.

Robotic expert Gears 5 horde classesMechanic Gears 5 horde classes

Now we saw someone online say that the Robotic expert is better than the mechanic. That is terrible thinking. People can have an opinion but some opinions are just dumb. We compared the two classes with their cards and it’s one sided. Mechanic is better hands down. This doesn’t mean robotic expert is bad. Not at all. It’s still good just that when it comes to their main function which is building fortifications, strong defense that keep the horde back, Mechanic does it better. Straight up Mechanic has the card ‘Reinforced Fabrication’ which at max level increases all fortification health by 175%. That’s nearly 3 times the amount. So a quick example if the standard barricade has 1000 health, then the Mechanic’s barricade would have 2750 health! Huge difference. Remember this applies to all fortifications including guns, decoys etc. Not only more health but there’s a card called ‘Overload’ which increases the damage of ALL your fortifications, not just guns. At level 4 the damage increase is 30%. Combine that with your personal upgrades (which you spend energy on) you can increase the damage even more to make guns shred like no other. There’s also the ‘Efficient Fabrication’ card which reduces the initial cost of fortifications. At level 3 this card has a 25% cost reduction. All those savings add up.

Quick example. You start horde with 10000 energy. You can normally buy 5 barricades with that as they cost 2000 (we are not counting the passive ability discount). For mechanic each barricade costs 1500. So the mechanic can buy 6 barricades and have 1000 left over to go towards something else or for repairs etc. Also the mechanic has healing repair which grants stem as you repair. This helps with survivability immensely. Where the robotic expert and others would fall, the mechanic would survive. I, X35, have stayed at the front lines repair and moving behind my fortifications and repairing as they got damaged which gave me stem. The horde was mostly focused on me, who they couldn’t kill while my team killed the horde with my sentry guns. Robotic expert has ‘Precision repairs’ which means that every time you kill something with a precision weapon like ember or sniper, your fortifications get healed which is very powerful. You can communicate with your team to leave wet enemies for you to kill to instantly heal your stuff with having to spend energy big saving. That’s the best thing about robotic expert. Also Robotic expert has the MUCH better ultimate. A DR-1 is always better than two tracker balls. developers need to buff Mechanic ultimate or give entirely new one.

Architect Gears 5 horde classes

Speaking of engineers. The Architect class is one that we slept on the most. This class we can argue is actually better than the robotic expert class. I know, that’s crazy talk, especially since we hate the promotion classes as they are garbage. Still are… except Architect. Regenerative field gives stem if you don’t take damage for 8 seconds. Combine that with stem capacity which increase the maximum amount of stem you can have, makes you hard to kill.. harder than the robotic expert. Top of the line is the same as the Mechanics ‘Overload’ card which boosts fortification damage but it’s a rare card, not epic so it’s easier to get and max out. Architect fortifications do far more damage than robotic expert’s. Hologram extent seems like that one brown card. It at level 1 extends the duration of the hologram ultimate ability by 50% when you hit an enemy that isn’t facing you. This means, in theory, your hologram which detracts the horde and attracts them, can last the whole horde wave as long as you hit enemies with the snub pistol from the side or back. That’s over powered if it works as described. So you have easy to get shields, distract enemies with ultimate, fortifications shrewd and do massive damage and then keep the ultimate lasting forever with a few snub pistol shots. Sounds like an epic plan to me. We have seen someone use the architect and they actually impressed us. Only one player did it so well. Not our strategy but they did better than the mechanic or robotic expert we had before on the same map and conditions. We might just try this class next.

Now we saw someone make a tier list for the horde classes. They had a category labelled ‘never use’. He put nothing in there which automatically tells us he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Yes, there are three classes that should never be used on inconceivable difficulty… for the most part. Slugger, Striker and protector are the worst things in the game. Protector is the worst but this the best ultimate of the three. The protector to sum up is an inferior Blademaster. Anything the protector can do, the Blademaster does better and more. Striker can be good IF you have a breaker mace but then those cost money (energy) at the fabricator and can be destroyed by enemy ballistics which is stupid by the way and should be taken out of the game. Enemies can literally break your breaker mace by firing at it. The ultimate is basically useless as it’s no damage increase but does knock enemies away which is bad if you are a melee class. You want enemies close to you. We tested the ‘stem siphon’ card and it didn’t work properly at all. Not all the hits generated stim. So it’s trash. If you have breaker mace, get in, hit something to killl and get out. then you can work with this but progression in levelling up classes is horribly slow in this game and the best cards are too far away. Again Blademaster is better is every way. Lastly Slugger is the only one that stands above the other two and can be used but in only one way. The ultimate can be useful. Your shots knock back and stun enemies. You could activate your ultimate and shoot each enemy you see with one bulle6 from your lancer and that will stun them. Meaning you can lock down all the enemies or critical ones allowing your team breathing room and time to fight back. So the ultimate could save the day. There’s two cards that give some power: Grenade capacity and Modified frag. So increase the number of grenades you can carry and then increase grenade damage. Think about it. Grenades only cost 500 and every time you buy them, you get the maximum amount you can hold. Imagine a group of enemies approaching you and you hurl 8 grenades at them which do increased damage. That’s destruction. Then quickly by more by staying near the fabricator and repeat. If only the slugger had grenade bleed damage, then it would rise up the ranks rapidly but sadly no. It’s described as a shotgun class but it’s an inferior Infiltrator. So there’s truly no reason to ever use Protector (2nd hand Blademaster) and striker (3rd hand Blademaster). Slugger (2nd hand Infiltrator) can be used but only in one way and there’s always a better class.

We could go on for a very long time about the classes, their strengths, weaknesses, combos, issues, nerfs and buffs and more but we have to leave it there. Ended up typing more than originally planned. So yeah, appreciate that. Now there is lots to say about the classes but there’s far more to say about… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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XCOM 2 is just an excellent strategy game. There isn’t another like it. We at X35 Earthwalker were a big fan of the first XCOM but XCOM 2 really did improve the game and took it to a higher level. It isn’t perfect though as we have found a few faults with the game but overall it is amazing. We will be talking about the soldier classes and how tactical things can get. There are four classes in XCOM 2. Ranger, sniper, specialist and grenadier. Each one are not to be ignored.

The Ranger is probably the hardest to master and use properly. Many will get excited about the fact that they have swords and will want to slash everything in sight but it’s risky. Slash lets you run up to an enemy and then almost kill them straight up but normally leaves you in the open or run towards another group of aliens which usually results in death. Instead use the sword only when you know it’s safe and when you really need to kill a certain target. Once the Ranger has the phantom ability it will stayed concealed even after the team got exposed. Allowing you to move around the map and level by themselves to complete and objective single handedly or get a perfect flank on the enemy. Shadow step is another powerful ability which allows the Ranger to not trigger any overwatchs or reaction fires. This means your Ranger can move freely and even ignore suppression. Once X35’s Ranger was pinned down by suppression and straight away he made his Ranger leave the area with no consequences. Rangers are the best when it comes to mobility. Use them to complete objective, go solo from the group and kill enemies in close range style.

Snipers is probably the most favourite class amongst XCOM gamers from the first game because they can dish out high damage from far away and attack more than once. In XCOM 2 they are more versatile than before. The pistol can no longer be underestimated. Upgrade your pistols when you can. The sniper gets abilities like lightning hands which allows them to fire the pistol and it won’t cost an action. This means you always get to attack more than once. Shoot with pistol at a near enemy and then snipe that other one that’s far away. Always place your snipers in elevated positions as ‘Death from above’ ability allows you to have another action after killing an enemy who is at a lower elevation. Snipers are no longer weak in closer range combat as the gunslinger abilities for the pistol make them lethal like faceoff which allows your sniper to fire his pistol at every target in range once. The best ability and the thing that makes snipers great is squadsight which means, if your team mates can see it, then your sniper can see it (as long as there is a line of sight).

Grenadiers are lethal in XCOM 2 and probably more lethal than before. Their ability to launch grenades is essential. Use them to damage groups of enemies at once and even destroy enemy cover to expose them for your sniper and other units. The shredder ability makes this class the best at dealing with armoured enemies getting rid of their armour. Suppression will keep those melee enemies, like the stun lance using soldiers, in their place, preventing them from moving or more likely killing them as they attempt to come near. X35’s favourite grenadier ability is holo targeting which means whenever your grenadier takes a shot at an enemy, your whole team gets increased accuracy against that enemy. Chain shot is just for dealing immense damage as it allows you to shoot at an enemy twice as long as the first hit connects. This makes you think about what to do. Normally you will have the grenadiers make the first moves as they really set things up for the other classes. Maybe use the grenadier to blow away a part of a wall or building to reveal enemies for your snipers, or do you fire at a essential target first allowing your team to have better chances of hitting that target or do you have them move up right next to an enemy just to use chain shot for the real damage? The choice is yours.

Specialists are very interesting indeed. They are equipped with gremlin units which provide all their abilities. Firstly a specialist can hack advent security towers to gain certain perks like disorientating all enemies for 2 turns or grant extra intel. Specialists can also interact with objectives like the computers or alarm system from a distance making them essential to get there in time or hack from safety. It gets crazier. They can send the gremlin to increase the defense of themselves or any ally making them harder to hit for the duration of the alien turn. As the specialist is promoted he will gain the ability to Heal allies from anywhere, remove status problems like panic, poison and even stop bleeding out. Then inflict guaranteed damage against any enemy and then the best of all be able to hack mechanical units. X35 loves this. You can hack to disable or even better take control of those advent mecs which he then sends directly towards the enemies to reveal their location and fight to the death. Make sure to hack sentry guns to have them fire at enemies and then overwatch to keep bringing the pain. Specialists can do anything and once used correctly, will make your team officially OP (over powered). Lastly don’t underestimate the ability to deliver 2 points of guaranteed damage as there have been many moments when that has come in handy to finish of a certain enemy.

Off course there are many more abilities for the classes and each is useful in their own way but pick them according to your style. XCOM 2 is very strategic and makes you think for a bit before making any actions. Place your snipers in high places and combined with ‘Death from above’ you have potential double kills lined up. Have your specialists always using their gremlins to buff, heal or even grant soldiers an overwatch as these actions only cost one action, meaning you can still fire afterwards. Hack those mechanical units when you can to get the best possible advantage. Be masterfully strategic with your Rangers. Literally X35 once had his ranger with concealment go alone to the objective and complete it by themselves and got that Ranger back to the rest of the team alive. Rangers are also best at killing on the go thanks to ‘Run & Gun’ and their swords. Be careful though. Grenadiers must use what they have to control the battle field their abilities create new pathways with grenades, pin enemies and lay down the damage if need be. They can even get armour of their own with ‘Blast padding’ meaning you can have them at the front knowing that they are harder to kill.

We are really loving what XCOM 2 have done with the game and will continue to play it. What do you think of the classes in XCOM 2? Maybe you have strategies of your own. Whether you do or not make sure you know… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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