Character Development

Character Progression

Stats, skills, gear and augmentations

Stats

Each character has the following stats:

- Health Points (HPs), when this goes to 0 the character dies (derived from the Strength attribute, 1 pt in Strength = 10 HPs)

- Armor, average of armor on all the body parts (for humans derived from armor/augmentations)

- Accuracy, expressed as a % bonus/penalty, adjusts the size of the aiming reticle (derives from armor, skills/perks, and augmentations)

- Perception, in tiles, determines the range at which the character will detect enemies in daylight (for humans starts at 35, bonuses and penalties derive from armor, skills/perks, and augmentations); at night reduced by 50%

- Stealth, a %, reduces the range at which a character can be detected by enemies, i.e. their Perception (for humans Stealth starts at 0%, bonuses and penalties derive from armor, skills/perks, and augmentations)

- Movement, in tiles, determines how much a soldier can move in one turn (divided by four, gives movement per AP) (derives from the Speed attribute, 1 pt in Speed = 1 tile; note that the Speed attribute can be modifed by armor, skills/perks, and augmentations )

- Willpower points (WPs), fuel the use of skills, cost of mind-controlling the unit to the enemy, if below 0 the character panics (loses 1 turn) (derives from Willpower attribute, 1 pt in Willpower = 1 WP; note that some skills and mutations can increase WPs)

- Carrying capacity, in weight units, determines how much a character can carry without suffering a penalty to the movement (derived from the Strength attribute, 1 pt in Strength = 1 additional weight unit carrying capacity; note that there is a skill - Resourceful - that can add +2 to the Strength attribute and increase the carrying capacity by 25%, but the +2 Strength from the skill doesn’t actually add additional capacity when in battle, even though it shows so on the Geoscape)

Skills & Personal traits or perks

Human characters belong to one of seven different classes of soldiers, each class having seven levels each corresponding to a skill, including a 4th level skill that enables dual classing. Finally, each PX operative can also unlock 3 random personal traits (often called third-row skills, because of their location on the character sheet). Among these the traits providing buffs to damage with certain types of weapons are particularly important.

So characters have 3 primary attributes (Strength, Willpower, and Speed) and 3 armor/augmentation slots (head, torso, and legs) which all together determine their derived stats, and human soldiers acquire experience points that unlock levels (and the skills associated to them) and receive Skill Points that can be used to purchase additional attribute points or skills.

For now, the big takeaway is that the stats that make a character distinct are derived from a number of things - some of them dependent on experience level (access to skills & perks), some of them on attributes and some of them on armor/augmentations.

Particularly, note that accuracy, stealth, and perception are mostly dependent on armor/augmentations. You can acquire some skills/perks that increase accuracy, but all except one of them ( Master Marksman are only available at random, as third-row skills.

Also, note that as skills/perks and stats cost SPs (which are given for completing missions (depending on difficulty level 12/10/7/5 SPs going to each soldier that took part in the mission, and a variable amount going to a common pool), gaining levels (20 SPs per level) and some geoscape events), there is an opportunity cost when spending SPs.

Phoenix Point soldies also have a Stamina stat, ranging from 1-40, indicating how tired the character is, with 40 being perfectly rested. Characters lose 2 pts of Stamina for every mission turn, up to a maximum of 10 per mission. When their Stamina descends to 10 they become tired, and at 0 they are exhausted. A tired soldier will have 3 APs to spend each turn, and an exhausted one only 2.

Character progression tips

There are many possible builds and arguably no wrong way to go about it. Be imaginative, try different things.

You may want to pay attention to the unlockable personal traits (aka third row skills). One approach is to consider these as the foundations defining the build. For example, a heavy class recruit with the [[File:Close_quarters_specialist.png |30px|link=Personal_perks]] close quarters specialist perk (profiency with melee weapons and shotguns and +20% damage) might make a particularly good… you guessed it, melee fighter. A sniper with the same perk can be a shotgun CQC specialist.

Don’t underestimate skills that are not flashy. For example, Ready for Action (assault LVL5 passive skill, allows reloading and inventory management for 0 AP) doesn’t seem like much, but combined with a heavy’s biggest booms (heavy LVL5, for 5 WP cost of using any explosive weapons reduced by 1 AP and their range by 50% until the end of the turn) and the Quarterback trait (+50% to grenade range and +2 to speed) a squaddie can be made into a devastating Grenadier. (It can also be used for weapon sharing during missions... The Assault with Ready for Action

Attributes are just as important as skills, don’t neglect them. For some builds/roles you don’t need that many skills (for example, melee fighters), but SPs invested in attributes can pay off nicely.

Strength determines the total HPs of the character, at the rate of 10 HPs for every point in strength. A squadie with 30 strength, 300 HP can withstand a lot of punishment. The damage dealt with the bash attack also scales with strength (weight of weapon * strength). I recommend that all you soldiers have enough strength to do 50 damage with a single bash attack. Why? Because that will allow them to one hit kill for 1AP worms, and attached mindfraggers. Some builds can also benefit from increased carrying capacity.

Willpower is important primarily for characters who will be using a lot of skills, which is usually those in support roles (techies, priests), but a minimum pool of 12 WP is advisable for any build. Bear in mind that WPs also act as defense against mindcontrol attempts.

Speed is the easiest attribute to recommend because of the importance mobility has in the game (given that accuracy is solely determined by range, being able to close the distance to a target is equivalent to having perfect accuracy).

You will be getting a lot of SPs - 10 for every mission, 20 for gaining a level, plus every mission and some text quests in the geoscape give SPs to the common pool. Currently there is no limit to how many SPs a soldier can gain, so you can have maxed out squaddies, though it will take a lot of missions.

The defensive approach

Strong preference for single class Heavies in heavy armor and top strength. (See Heavy below for reasons why)

Invest SPs in attributes and don’t rush to dual classing. It can be tempting to cross classes ASAP e.g. sniper with assault to get Dash and Quick Aim in a single package. However, these early multiclass builds are often too expensive in SPs (and WPs to power the skill combinations) for what they can accomplish. They are also fragile and encourage reckless behavior, such as Dashing far ahead and casting Quick Aim for a shotgun blast that may well score a kill but expose your squaddie to swift retaliation.

For the same amount of SPs, you can get an assault or a sniper with high strength (remember: = more HPs = higher survivability) and more than decent mobility.

Pay attention to personal traits (third-row skills) The damage buffs that some of them provide can make a huge difference in effectivity.

As a rule, it’s a good idea to have the soldier use the weapon for which he has a personal trait. So a soldier with the Trooper trait will be very effective with an Assault Rifle, a Strongman - with any Heavy Weapon (including Grenade Launcher), Close Quarters Specialist - using shotguns and melee weapons, or bashing, and so on and so forth.

Generally the Reckless personal trait is always a good pick. This is because the minor penalty to accuracy can be easily offset by higher mobility or an accuracy buff from armor. It’s especially useful for Area of Effect weapons, such as explosives and Mind Crash, and melee fighters and bashers, as they don’t rely on accuracy to deliver the damage.

Cautious, on the other hand, is not always interesting to have, because the penalty to damage is harder to compensate. In fact, I usually don’t take it unless the soldier also has the Reckless perk and I intend to use the soldier as a dedicated Heavy Weapons shooter, or give him a paralyzing weapon.

Some other personal traits can also give opportunities for interesting builds depending on the class/weapon proficiency of the soldier, such as:

Quarterback (increases grenade range by 50% and gives +2 Speed) - very interesting for an assault/heavy with Boom Blast and Ready for Action to make a grenadier build,

Biochemist (which adds +1 virus damage to each hit that does damage), for soldiers using burst weapons

Resourceful (increases Strength by 2 and carry capacity by 25%), for Heavy bashers, as it allows to maximize damage output.

- Each class can fulfill very different roles

Those of your early game veterans that survive past mid-game will have so many SPs that they will be master of all trades. Even if you don’t dual-class them at first, you will eventually, because they will have SPs to spare.

However, those of your soldiers with less experience, mostly brought up in the ‘stables’, will probably have to focus on specific roles.

One key idea to keep in mind is that roles are not determined by class. For example, assaults can be in a support role, casting Rally the Troops once per turn. Infiltrators can be frontline melee troops clad in regular armor (and preferably melee bionic torso that reduces the cost of melee attacks by 1 AP), using Vanish to close in and land devastating Sneak Attacks. Technicians can ditch the exo-arms in favor of higher mobility and used to launch turrets for a forward attack. Two Technicians can work together in this way: for example, one dual classed as an infiltrator to throw the turrets near the enemy while remaining hidden and another to manually control them. Technicians can also manually control spider drones launched by infiltrators.

Mixing things up is fun and can have a huge payoff. If you think something might work, try it out

- Armor and augmentations are just as important in determining the role of a soldier as its attributes and skills.

You can mix different kinds of body armor/augs parts to achieve the exact balance of accuracy, mobility, stealth, and perception you want. Just bear in mind that the enemies will aim for the body part with the least armor.

Classes and skills

Comments on class skills

Assault

If there is one class you can't do without, it's Assault. It doesn't take much imagination to see that all of its skills can be useful for any multiclass combination.

Let's take a look at them.

- Dash (cost 3WPs and 1AP) move up to 1/2 of the Speed attribute of the character (e.g. with a Speed of 20, a soldier can move 10 tiles casting Dash), limited to 2 uses per turn.

Dash is useful whenever you want to move 2 APs at the cost of one and you are willing to pay 3WPs for it, which happens very often. In fact, too much, as you can be tempted to cast it multiple times, e.g. to attack a faraway enemy, neglecting good positioning, exposing your soldier to retaliation and unnecessarily depleting its WPs.

How to achieve extreme mobility (and kinda break the game):

The max speed attribute is currently 20. Some armors and augmentations provide a bonus to Speed; a combination of the medium Anu armor and speed leg mutation provides a bonus of +7. The Quarterback trait adds 2 to Speed. Casting Frenzy (using a special Priest head mutation) provides a +50%. Bloodlust (LVL5 Berserker passive skill, increases the damage and speed up to 50% in proportion to damage suffered) can provide an additional +50%.

Thus, a soldier’s Speed can be increased to 58, while most maps in Phoenix Point are 48 tiles in length, a single Dash (29 tiles) allowing the soldier to move half the map at the cost of 1 AP and 3 WP.

- Return Fire (passive skill)

- Ready for Action (passive skill) reloading and inventory management costs 0 AP

This is useful for moving grenades from the backpack to the quick inventory slots. With Boom Blast (LVL5 Heavy skill - see below) and Quarterback personal trait the soldier can throw very long distance up to 4 grenades in a single turn (without taking into account AP refund skills, Rally the Troops and Rapid Clearance).

- Onslaught (cost 4WPs and 2APs) refunds 2APs to another operative within 12 tiles, can only be used once per turn by the same soldier

- Rapid Clearance (cost 5WPs), get back 2 APs for each kill.

This is perhaps one of the most abused skills in Phoenix Point and the most common ingredient in the 'Terminator Builds'.

If once activated, the soldier can consistently kill for 2 APs or less, he can clear large chunks, or entire maps of enemies on the first turn before they even had a chance to move.

Several things have to come together for this, but it's very easy for it to happen if you keep stacking buffs as the game encourages you to.

So first you need to maximize damage, which in the game you can currently do up to >+350% (+100% from Sneak Attack, +50% from Bloodlust (maximum), +20-30% from proficiency trait, +30% from Reckless and +50% damage to a target from Marked for Death), and you don't even need to go anywhere near that.

Second, you might need to reduce the AP cost of firing the weapon, which you can do with Quick Aim for direct fire weapons, with Boom Blast for explosives, or with Adrenaline Rush for all weapons.

Third, you need to deliver the damage to your helpless victims ... errh, I mean the awful, terrible, dangerous, and scary Pandorans! This can be easily done using a fraction of the extreme mobility that you can currently achieve in the game.

And you can have up to 8 soldiers on most missions so they can soften enemies for each other and cast Rally the Troops to keep the Rapid Clearance killer loops going.

The most effective and well-known abuse of Rapid Clearance is casting it by a berserker/assault and casting Adrenaline Rush afterward.

However, even something as basic as an assault with a PDW proficiency (and a Laser PDW to take advantage of it) can do obscene amounts of damage and keep recovering APs with each kill.

Heavy

This is one of the least understood and most unappreciated classes in the game. Many players can't see past their poor aim with the Hel Cannon/Deceptor, particularly when clad in heavy armor that inflicts a 30% penalty on their accuracy.

The Heavy is the best class in the early game - period. It's just not very good if you use it the same way you would an Assault, or a Sniper. So, don't do it.

At short distances the Deceptor and the Hel Cannon are very effective against all enemies.

If you invest enough in Strength, a heavy can easily one-bash kill most Arthrons and Tritons, or at least daze them (See Melee; in summary, bashing scales with Strength of the character and weight of the weapon, so a Heavy with, e.g. 20 Strength, wielding a Hel Cannon will do 20*5 = 100 damage, with Brawler skill, +50%, so 150 damage; with 30 Strength it goes up to 225).

As a heavy can bash after jetpacking, he can easily close the distance with enemies. What's more, with Warcry (probably the single most powerful skill in the game), he can neutralize the enemies around him for a whole turn. Plus, he has the HPs (from Strength - remember, each point gives 10 HPs) and that Heavy Armor is good against pretty much everything except sniper rifles (and dedication).

All this without the need to spend any SPs on Willpower, Speed, or dual classing, which makes it available from the very early game.

Later on this build only gets better, as you get Boom Blast, Inspire and Rage Burst, and access to mounted weapons.

Its biggest vulnerability is to Mind Control, but the most reliable defense to that is to keep the squaddies within a reasonable distance of each other, so that if (when) one of them gets mind-controlled his buddies can take care of the Siren.

Here is a closer look at the most interesting Heavy skills:

- Warcry (3WPs 1AP) limits the APs of all enemies within 10 tiles to 2.

In practice what this does is prevent most of the enemies affected by Warcry from attacking you on their turn. This is because usually, they want to move before shooting, and with just 2 APs they can't do that. Some enemies will never attack at all because they need 3APs for that (Chirons indirect fire, for example).

Plus this skill is also a detector of hidden enemy units even without activating it. Yep, just selecting the ability shows all the enemies that will be affected by it, even if you haven't seen them yet (reminiscent of that other exploit in Phoenix Point: if you can't move to that tile, it's because there is an enemy you haven't seen yet on it).

- Boom Blast (5WPs), reduces the cost of using explosives by 1 AP and increases their range by 50% until the end of the turn.

This is another skill that in some alternate universe Pandoran players are complaining about on the forum because it is the bane of their existence.

Even without combining this with an Assault with Ready for Action and Quarterback, taking a pure Heavy build, this skill allows us to launch 2 grenades from the Grenade Launcher *and* a rocket from a mount.

There are third-row skills that make these attacks even more effective (Strongman for a grenade launcher, Bombardier for rockets, and Reckless for both)

Ah, and you can cross a Heavy and an Infiltrator and top the whole thing off with another +100% to damage.

- Rage Burst (5WPs + standard AP cost of firing the weapon), fire the weapon 5 times in an arc, limited to one use per turn by the same soldier.

Sniper

Everyone likes Sniper Rifles because of their high accuracy and high damage per shot. It's an easy package for reliably overcoming armor at long distances.

Snipers skills make it even better with cheaper Overwatch (Focus) and cheaper direct fire (Quick Aim), even higher accuracy when there are no enemies nearby (Marksman), removal of armor from the body part that gets disabled (Weakspot) and a damage multiplier spell (Marked for Death).

Now, I'm not crazy about Sniper Rifles. Their damage per AP is the lowest of all types of weapons and they don't shred armor. However, the Sniper skills are useful with other weapons, whether through multiclassing or third-row weapon proficiency. Below some comments and ideas on a couple of them:

- Quick Aim (3WPs), reduces the cost of firing a proficient weapon by 1AP.

- Marksman

- Weakspot

The most common use of this skill is to shoot a Sniper Rifle twice in a single turn, but of course it offers interesting combinations for other weapons as well (Dash + Quick Aim to land a shotgun blast being a favorite). Even more interesting effects happen when this is used with weapons that cost only 1 AP to use, such as most pistols and all PDWs, especially in combination with Rapid Clearance, as it nets 2 APs per kill. So a broken rapid clearance chain can be resurrected with a pistol kill, perhaps with an assist from a buddy.

- Marked for Death (4WPs), increases damage suffered by the target by 10 from each hit until the end of the turn.

[quote="Yokes, post:5, topic:10746"] And won’t you mention with Sniper about Marksman that it can be useful to increase attack effectiveness with many different weapons? It helps to focus on other armor parts than those giving accuracy bonus. [/quote]

Berserker

Berserker is essentially a meta-class. There is no reason at all to use Berserkers as melee fighters. It's probably the one thing they are actually bad at, and this is neatly reflected by their skill set.

- Armor Break (3WPs), next attack will shred an additional 30 armor.

Using this with a melee weapon is a very poor choice indeed:

First, the one advantage of melee weapons is that they have the highest damage per hit of any type of weapon, so they naturally overcome armor; if you are close enough to someone to hit them with a hammer, just club them to death and forget about the armor.

Second, even if for some reason you want to strip armor from the target while standing right next to it, don't do it with a melee weapon, because you have no idea what part you are going to hit and if it needs removing armor or not (remember, it is not possible to target body parts with a melee attack).

- Close Quarters Evade (passive) attacks from enemies within 10 tiles deal 25% less damage.

It's nice, being a passive skill, but it's not a game-changer by any stretch. Also, it doesn't encourage the use of melee weapons.

- Bloodlust (passive) Damage and Speed are increased proportionally to the health lost (up to double).

It doesn't matter how, or when the health was lost, so friendly fire and denial of health care are fair (meta) game.

If anything, this encourages to keep the berserker away from the action, indulging in the Bloodlust high from a safe distance with, say, a sniper rifle.

- Ignore pain (passive) Disabled body parts remain functional. Cannot Panic or be Mind Controlled.

This makes Berserkers particularly useful for dealing with Sirens and Terror Sentinels in Lairs but doesn't really encourage using them as melee fighters.

- Adrenaline Rush (5WP) All abilities cost 1 Action Point until the end of the turn, can't use any abilities that cost WPs after casting it, accuracy reduced by 50% and you are dazed the next turn.

The first thing to take into account is that you can still use abilities that cost WPs *before* casting Adrenaline Rush... Like Rapid Clearance, for example.

The second is that you can use weapons that cost 3 APs at the cost of 1AP, particularly Heavy Weapons (including the Grenade Launcher) and Sniper Rifles.

The penalty to accuracy can be negated by armor/augmentations, or by extreme mobility. This is what the number one Terminator Build amounts to: Berserker/Assault with the Strongman perk and top Speed, wielding a Deceptor. It can clear maps in one turn all by itself. (Yes, that's an 'it', because it's clearly not human).

Last but not least - what Adrenaline Rush doesn't do is anything to make Berserkers more interesting as melee fighters.

[quote="Yokes, post:5, topic:10746"] that combo of Evade, Bloodlust and Ignore Pain makes them good as tanks which with better armor may want to attract enemy hits. [/quote]

Infiltrator

Infiltrators are very versatile, their skill set allowing them to fulfill very different roles even without multiclassing.

To use infiltrators properly it's important to first understand how detection works, which you can read about here.

Unlike with other soldiers, you always know when the infiltrator is undetected because of the blue hue and the crossed-out eye on top of the screen when you select him. (pending image)

Though infiltrators are stealthy because of their training (as long as they are undetected, they get a +25% boost to Stealth) and their class-specific armor, you can choose not to take advantage of it until they achieve a higher level of experience, because their armor makes them squishy and they don't get a buff to their damage for attacking from stealth until they are LVL7.

Their starting crossbow is not a bad weapon by any standard - it does the damage and has the AP cost of the NJ pistol, Iron Fury (60) but has nearly three times the precision (effective range of 34 vs Iron Fury's 14) and is also silent. The biggest drawback is the clip size (only 3 arrows).

The way I approach them, infiltrators have two defensive skills, Deploy Decoy and Spider Drone Pack, and two offensive skills, Vanish and Sneak Attack, while their armor is only really meaningful if they are used as scouts.

Deploying Decoys and/or a Spider Drone Pack is a great way to distract enemies by presenting them with convenient targets. Though spider drones can also be used offensively, without the Technician's skill to control them directly, they can't be relied upon to do significant damage, which, if at all, will come *after* the enemies turn anyway. needs correction

Vanish and Sneak Attack combination is one of the easiest and most reliable ways of doing extreme damage.

To benefit from the Sneak Attack buff the infiltrator must remain undetected at the time of the Sneak Attack, and the best way to achieve this is by casting Vanish. It's the only way to achieve it if you want the infiltrator to use melee weapons, because no matter his stealth rating he will be detected when getting close to enemies (at a distance of 5 tiles, to be precise).

Technician

need corrections

I have a confession to make: I don't remember the last time I used the Technician's signatory exo-arms for anything. Normally there is no reason to use them, and when there is (broken limbs) I forget they exist.

I don't get to use Electric Reinforcement much either. By the time I have Lvl7 Technicians in my game, the rest of my soldiers are so powerful that *they* don't need it; it's the Pandas who could use the extra armor.

What I like my Technicians for is the turret-throwing and manual controlling. Now, the turret you want is the laser one, which does 60 x 10 damage. You have to be very careful where your place them, and where you place your soldiers. The turrets have a nasty tendency to shoot at targets behind you soldiers: as their projectiles cannot curve around your guys, they attempt to go very much through them, with tragically predictable results.

Put the turrets somewhere high (a tall column is ideal), or far ahead: one interesting multiclass is infiltrator/technician, clad in stealth armor (so no exo-arms). He can scout ahead, remaining undetected, and leave a turret, or two, closer to the enemies than to your team.

Turrets (as well spider drones and turret vehicles) can be controlled several times by different soldiers and the 600 pts of damage that the laser turret can deliver per attack at the cost of 1AP and 3WPs is *a lot*.

Priest

The Priest is focused on decreasing enemy WPs (using Viral weapons and Psychic Scream) and taking advantage of it (Mind Control and Panic). He also has an area of effect attack that can be *metaed* into something wicked (Mind Crash), and what can be best described as a combined haste & bravery spell (Frenzy).

There is supposed to be another side to the Priest, more as a sort of defensive-support unit, with Psychic Ward ("Allies within 10 tiles are immune to panic and psychic damage attacks"), but when I tried I wasn't able to make it work [if anyone has had more luck, please do tell - I reported it as a bug]. Then there is also the Mind Sense passive skill ("All organic enemies within 15 tiles are automatically revealed"), but in Phoenix Point you don't need to be a psychic to spot most enemies much further away.

A particularity of Priests is that they have access to a different set of head Mutations, each of them adding another "spell" to their repertoire:

- Judgment Head: Instils Frenzy in friendly characters within 20 tiles for 2 turns, increasing their Speed by 50% and making them immune to panic

- Screaming Head: Scream, reducing Will Points of all enemy units in an 8 tile radius.

- Synod Head: Living allied units within 7 tiles recover 2 Will Points at the start of the turn.

However, the Judgement Head and the Frenzy spell that comes with it are the best choices by far in most circumstances. A 50% increase in speed *and* immunity to panic for 2 turns? Any of these effects would have been enough to make it a worthwhile investment, but together it's a no-brainer.

• How do Viral weapons work? Whenever a projectile from a Viral weapon inflicts any damage on the target, it also suffers a set amount of viral damage. The total amount of viral damage incurred by a character is subtracted from his pool of WPs at the beginning of its turn. The takeaway is that *some* damage must be inflicted with the weapon for the target to incur viral damage, meaning that the armor has to be overcome and that you have to wait until the enemies turn for the viral damage to take effect. This means that you can't use Viral weapons to reduce the WPs of an enemy to lower the cost of Mind Controlling it on the same turn or to Panic it.

• How to use Mind Control effectively.

The cost in WPs of initiating Mind Control of an enemy is its current WPs and the cost of maintaining MC on each subsequent turn varies on the type of character (1WP for worms, 2WPs for Arthrons and Humans, 3WPs for Tritons, 5WPs for Sirens and Chirons, and Scylla's currently can only be MCed in the current and only the first time it's attempted).

• Beware that

- if casting MC will lower your WPs to 0, you will lose the WPs and fail to MC the enemy;

- if the enemy is panicked, you can MC them but they can't do anything;

- while under MC the enemy is for all intents and purposes on your team, which means that it will gain WPs from Inspire and from killing enemies.

So what you want to do is reduce the WPs of your target before casting MC, and you want to start by reducing its max WPs by disabling its head. You will probably want to bring the WPs even lower by, for example, casting Psychic Scream, or killing some of its mates to bring down the morale. You don't want to reverse the order because if you first kill some enemies, or cast Psychic Scream, *and then* disable the target's head, the reduction in max WPs will absorb those initial losses and you will not lower the cost to MC.

All this means that with MC you want to carefully plan ahead and do some math before you pick a victim.

Finally, don't forget that you can release the critter from MC if it is convenient for any reason (for example, to avoid paying the cost of maintaining MC next turn, or because you want its water... I mean, WPs for dispatching it).

- Tuning the Mind Crush

Initially, Mind Crush does 100 damage to all enemies in a 10 tile radius. That is enough to kill all kinds of worms (though not mindfraggers), and do considerable damage to humans, Arthrons and Tritons, but you can stack it with Reckless or Sneak Attack to give it a more murderous touch. Or you can cross the Priest with a Heavy for the ultimate crowd control experience. Or with assault to gain Rapid Clearance. I haven't used any of these meta-Mind Crush builds in a long while, so if anyone has more recent experience with them, please do share it!