Gears Tactics has been out for a few days — just enough time to figure out 10 ridiculously overpowered tricks that’ll seriously help your gameplay experience. The game is only available for PC right now, but you can give it a try for extra cheap on the Microsoft PC Game Pass for only $1. That sounds like an advertisement, but it’s just a PSA. It can’t hurt to give this XCOM-like spin on Gears of War a try.
If you do plan on playing, you might want to quickly browse through our 10 tips. Gears Tactics doesn’t fully explain all of its mechanics, and some unlockable abilities are just straight-up useless. If you’re looking for the best weapons and classes, we’ve got everything you need to know below. There are some seriously weird mechanics — you can actually get upgraded versions of weapons just by raiding your recruits, but you won’t find them anywhere else. Grenades are infinite, and you can plant them before your enemies start moving. There’s a whole lot more stuff I wish I knew before getting started.
#1: Scouts are the best class for two reasons — they have Proximity Mines, and they can be equipped to speed up the grenade timer. Scouts can eventually use their grenades every turn. Proximity Mines are a great way to detonate E-Holes without having to plant a grenade.
- Heavies are ridiculously good for missions where you don’t need to move. When guarding Control Points, their Suppression / Explosives abilities are best.
- When using the Support Class, the Empower ability is 100% integral. Don’t sleep on it.
#2: Grenades are ridiculous in Gears Tactics. Grenades are an infinite resource, you’ll just have to deal with a timer. Use them as often as you can — and you can drop grenades to kill incoming enemies. If an e-hole appears, run and drop a grenade to destroy it when it appears next turn. If a group of enemies are about to spawn, drop (don’t throw) a grenade where they’re about to appear.
#3: Overwatch is cone-based, and you can accidentally kill your own soldiers if you point the overwatch cone over a friendly. Your soldiers will also waste overwatch shots if you overlap the overwatch cones. Try to stagger your overwatch so the shots don’t overlap.
#4: You’ll find better variants of the standard Snub Pistol on recruits. Every several levels, recruits will spawn with upgraded gear. Recruit them, then ditch them to collect their gear — then you can swap the improved gear on your main characters. You only need about 7-9 soldiers tops, so recruiting soldiers just to get their gear in the early game helps a lot.
#5: Don’t bother leveling up recruits too much. You’ll eventually get better recruits from Rescue Missions. These special missions will reward you with higher-level recruits — so there’s no good reason to stick with the low level ones. Your main characters need the most levels anyway.
#6: The Snub Pistol is a great way to save ammo on your primary weapon. If you can safely kill an enemy with the Snub Pistol, always use it. There’s no reason not to. It helps that the Snub Pistol tends to have higher accuracy than other weapons, so while it doesn’t do much damage, it is more likely to hit.
#7: Some abilities just aren’t worth taking. The Scout / Commando Class has a specific E-Hole skill that’s basically pointless. E-Holes are story-specific and ridiculously rare. Most of the time, enemies will simply spawn somewhere. You can always deal with E-Holes using Scout Proximity Mines anyway.
#8: Focus Gear comes with a 25% critical chance bonus. This bonus resets every turn, so you’ll constantly get a huge upgrade to crits. It only works once per turn, but that’s still a pretty big percentage boost.
#9: Vanguards are ridiculously good at breaking through enemy overwatch or tanking damage from boss enemies. Vanguards can unlock regen abilities to heal every turn, basically making healers unnecessary. Intimidate can be used to disable enemy overwatch. They’re incredibly useful.
#10: Snipers are great at delivering damage to a single enemy. While they aren’t as versatile as other classes, you’ll be able to send lots of accurate shots by unlocking skills that return AP to the Sniper after kills or knock-downs. Once that’s unlocked, you can go on a killing spree.
That’s all the tips we’ve got so far for Gears Tactics. Check back soon for more as we continue to shoot through the Locust Horde from a tactical perspective.
