The biggest decision you’ll have to make when first jumping into the Outriders demo is deciding which character class is right for you. Spoiler: They’re all pretty good. That said, some are better suited for supportive roles in Outriders’ cross-play multiplayer, so if you want to play on your own, we’d advise you steer clear of them. If you’re thinking of going it solo, we recommend picking Trickster.
Both of the close-range classes (the Devastator and the Trickster) seem geared for folks looking to tackle Outriders’ campaign solo. But the hit-and-run specialist Trickster manages to inch ahead of the tank-like Devastator as the Trickster’s first four abilities are better geared towards crowd control. Whereas the Devastator largely survives through outright endurance, the Trickster can control space and time to teleport around the battlefield and slow the actions of enemies, making it a whole lot easier to get out of a jam and quickly deal tons of damage.
Why You Should Pick Trickster Over Devastator
We can’t overstate how valuable the Trickster’s abilities are. Hunt the Prey allows you to easily teleport across the battlefield, which is a great way to first take out a sniper that’s entrenched behind a dozen enemies and a crucial get-out-of-jail-free card when you’re surrounded and about to die. It also only has an 11-second cooldown, allowing you to use it a whole lot more often than the Devastator’s Gravity Leap (which fulfills a similar role) and its 20-second cooldown. Neither Pyromancer nor Technomancer have anything like it in the demo.
And to an even greater extent, the Trickster’s Slow Trap (the second ability the class unlocks, just at level 3) is the best ability in the Outriders demo of all four classes. Being able to easily slow all enemies and bullets immediately around you to an almost standstill is a powerful shield and weapon.
Slow Trap can save you from dying because everyone around you is too slow to hit you and snipers can’t shoot you because when their bullets enter the bubble, they slow down enough that you can see them in the air and easily dodge them. And once you know you’re not in immediate danger, you can pull out a shotgun or use the Trickster’s powerful starting ability, Temporal Blade, and blast away all the enemies caught in the bubble, easily killing them and healing yourself. Slow Trap lasts a long time (10 seconds) and also charges relatively quickly (31-second cooldown), so you’ll be using it often and typically getting a lot of kills with it.
Why You Shouldn’t Pick Pyromancer Or Technomancer
It’s worth clarifying that all four of Outriders’ classes can fit a solo run. But the spellcaster Pyromancer and summoner Technomancer are respectively mid- and long-range classes that specialize in more supportive roles. While you technically can solo as either one, it will be a whole lot harder, sometimes even frustratingly so. This is especially true for the Technomancer, a sniper rifle specialist class that may seem like an appealing go-to for lone wolves wanting to solo the campaign by picking targets off from afar. And for the most part, it is. Most battlefields are set up that you can take a sniper perch and just shoot your foes from the safety of cover.
However, there are some enclosed areas in Outriders that feature large groups of melee-focused enemies that rush your position, so unless you’re quick enough on the draw, you’ll find yourself rapidly surrounded with abilities ill-suited for the situation. Even worse, certain captain and boss battles will be punishing difficulty spikes for the Technomancer, as they don’t go down in a single sniper bullet and force you into prolonged engagements. The Technomaner (and to a lesser extent, the Pyromancer) need a companion to help mitigate these obstacles, someone to take the brunt of the assault while they do their thing from a distance.
Another consideration for picking a class when playing solo is how the class heals. Devastator and Trickster just need to kill enemies or damage bosses within close range, which is straightforward and simple to do (at least in the demo; who knows how that breaks down in the full game). The Pyromancer has to kill enemies or damage bosses that it has marked with its abilities first. Thankfully, all of its abilities have a wickedly fast cooldown, so you’ll be able to use them frequently. But the Pyromancer can’t easily cast its abilities when surrounded, so the class struggles to heal during moments when it usually needs to heal. The Technomancer is a little better in that it heals just by damaging enemies, but you only heal by a substantial amount when you’re damaging enemies from afar. So you run into the same problem where getting backed into a corner and taking damage can be a death sentence.
All that said, if you’re playing Outriders with one or two others, then Pyromancer and Technomancer are powerful classes that can dish out a lot of damage and keep the team alive through even the most hectic of engagements. So don’t write either one off as useless. In the right hands, and with good teammates who know how to pull aggro, Pyromancer and Technomancer can be the MVP of their squad.
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