XCOM: Chimera Squad - Agents Guide (Godmother, Cherub, Terminal)

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This guide concentrate on how to build and optimize your Agents (Godmother, Cherub, Terminal), as well as how to use them on the field to the best of their abilites. You will find informations about how to outfit your Agents’ weapons, a detailed explanation on their abilities and what to choose when leveling, and some example of synergetic team to help you face the various enemies you will encounter in City 31.

Contents

Guide to Loadouts, Abilities, Builds and Synergies

Guide to Loadouts, Abilities, Builds and Synergies

All credit goes to Bryock!

Godmother

Godmother is a highly mobile, shotgun-wielding agent that use her speed to easily flank and score critical hits on enemies. Her kit can further be enhanced by focusing on her strength and building upon her flanking capability.

Loadout

Godmother can make great use of the Lonely Herald legendary shotgun thanks to the Run and Gun skill attached to it. With it, she can more easily set up her scattershot skill to hit more enemies.

She can make great use of a Laser Sight and Expanded Magazine as modifications for her weapons. The laser sight will greatly help in scoring consistent critical hits. Most of her skills eat up her ammo reserve quickly, and her ultimate training option effectively replace the need of an auto-loader.

Early game, she will be one of your heaviest hitter. Giving her Tranq Round will help you in gaining additional intel. However, her aggressive kit makes her vulnerable to retaliation fire. Equip her with Plated Armor or a Mach Weave to boost either her armor or dodge to help her survivability.

Abilities and Build

Starting Skill: Scattershot

Scattershot is a great active skill that lets Godmother cover a cone in front of her where she will fire upon all enemies present. The cone is 4 square long, so keep that in mind when trying to setup Godmother to fire upon more than two bunched up enemies. Use this skill often if you see enemies bunching up in conjunction with her high mobility.

Deputy Agent: Alpha Strike

Alpha Strike make Godmother fire her shotgun for regular damage during the breach, make her act more quickly during the following encounter, and give her an additional action point.

Alpha Strike makes her one of the better second slot breacher in the team. As such, she can also make good use of breach gears such as flashbang bombs or target analyzers. By using Alpha Strike on the second slot, she effectively plays after the first character to breach. Use her additional action point to move around the field and secure objective in the first round, or to set up scattershot killzones.

Field Agent: Last stand or Flush

Last stand is a passive ability that can save Godmother for going down in combat. It’s not very flashy but it can help surviving a bad positioning that led to being outflanked. However, Last Stand is useless if Godmother is poisoned, burning and suffering from acid burn as she will be impaired on her following free turn.

Flush is an active ability that makes Godmother shoot at an enemy and force them to move. The shot does no damage, and can be somewhat useful if you make an enemy run into another agent’s overwatch zone or to force him to leave an objective zone.

I recommend picking Last Stand over Flush as the passive ability can sometimes save Godmother from getting K.O on the field, and flush is too situational to be consistent and useful.

Special Agent: Ventilate

Ventilate is an active ability that makes Godmother guarantee damage upon an enemy, in addition to destroying their cover and leaving them vulnerable to other Agents fire support. Ventilate is a great skill to finish off wounded enemies and make cars or explosive barrels explode if enemies are using them for cover. Use it often. Use it well, and give Godmother an expended magazine to alleviate the ammo cost.

Her training option upon reaching Special Agent makes her gain mobility and dodge, which can be helpful in combination with a Mach Weave to boost her dodge, but is not an urgent training to undertake.

Senior Agent: Close Combat Specialist or Untouchable

Close Combat Specialist is a passive ability that makes Godmother shoot at an enemy that move on one of her 8 adjacent square. She will fire upon incoming chryssalids, mutons melees and Ronin consistently and can save herself from being damaged. You can even provoke Berserker and Chryssalids to attack Godmother and potentially be killed in retaliation fire by moving her as close as possible to them. However, remind yourself that Ronin always dodge reaction fire coming their way, making Close Combat Specialist useless against them.

Untouchable is a passive ability that makes Godmother dodge incoming damage if she managed to down an enemy during her turn or during breach. Scattershot doesn’t activate Untouchable, sadly. It can effectively make her dodge a Soulfire attack or a Berserker bash, which greatly help her survivability if you can consistently kill enemies with her.

Both of the skills are great in their own way. Close Combat Specialist however ironically rewards aggressive play, and Untouchable is a defensive ability. In my own opinion, Close Combat Specialist is the better choice and works well with an expanded magazine.

Principal Agent: Overtime

Overtime is an one-use active ability that grants bonus crit and dodge to Godmother and, most importantly, makes her take an additional turn after 3 turn. It effectively lets her play two times in a single round, and combined with her Alpha Strike breach skill that lets her play earlier in the encounter, can make her cross the map and set up two effective scattershot. It is a great ability, that can potentially be combined with another agents “Team Spirit” ability to make her play 3 time during a single round. Use it on the last encounter of every mission, in combination with Alpha strike.

By reaching this rank, Godmother can undergo training that makes gives her Step Up and let her reload each time she manage to down a enemy, which effectively can grant her infinite ammo as long as she is not getting disabled by a Hitman and consistently kill enemy criminals.

Synergies and Favored Enemies

As an aggressive and mobile Agent, Godmother can works well with other tanky teammates. Axiom can synergize well with Godmother by being the designated first breacher, and Cherub can protect an aggressive Godmother from being outflanked thanks to his one-use shield. She can also synergize well with Terminal, as her heals and can greatly boost her survivability.

Godmother is efficient against all enemy factions. A Close Combat Specialist Godmother can be quite helpful against Sacred Coils many chryssalids, but be mindful of self-destructing androids that can catch her in their blast zone.

Final Ranking: A

Godmother is a good, aggressive unite that will often do the heavy lifting and secure kills. Use her Alpha strike on the second slot of the breach to make her play just after the first breacher’s turn. Use her high mobility to set up scattershot killzones and use Vaporize to secure kills.

Cherub

Cherub is a relatively slow tank-like character wielding shield and pistol. His main role is to mitigate damage around the team by making enemies waste their turn against his shields and to occasionally make a big damage spike when he has accumulated enough charges.

Loadout

Cherub suffers from being a relatively low-damage character, and as such can have quite some trouble with enemies that have lots of armor, especially on higher difficulty where his single-use shield won’t protect his teammates from getting damaged. However, he can make good use of the Endless Brevity pistol that grants him Fan Fire, a one-use skill that lets him unload his pistol on an enemy and can help him deal with a troublesome enemy.

You can equip him with a good Stock to deal consistent damage despite his low aim and damage and an Auto-loader to mitigate the ammo consumption from the Fan Fire and help him recover from having his weapon disabled by a hitman. You can also try to give him a good Scope to try to alleviate his low Aim due his pistol.

Equipping him with A.P Round let him bypass enemy armor, greatly enhancing his offensive range power. Consider also giving him a medikit as he will often be very close to his teammates and can help healing their or his own wounds.

Abilities and Build

Starting skill: Kinetic Shield

Kinetic Shield is a good active skill that lets Cherub place a one-use shield around any of his teammates, including him, that will absorb all damage for a single time. It can protect from Soulfire, from Berserker punches, from android self-destructing, and even from a Sectopod wrath canon. However, it cannot protect agents from being damaged by hazards such as poison, acid or fire. Kinetic Shield does not end Cherub’s turn, so it’s usually efficient to start his turn by putting down a Kinetic Shield first and deciding upon moving, shooting or charging with his second action.

Each time a shield is destroyed by damage Cherub gain one charge that will amp his shield charge to also damage enemies behind his target, which can be great to make multiple subdues against bunched up target. Cherub is often more useful towards the end of an encounter, but needs to be played early so that he can set up his shields around his comrades in arms.

Deputy Agent: Phalanx

One of his most useful skill, Phalanx is used during Breach to absorb almost all incoming damage from aggressive enemies. During the breach, you can know which enemies will fire upon your team by looking at their icon : if they have a little target near them, it means that Cherub can absorb their fire using Phalanx. It is a single use skill, so use it wisely, as it can potentially save your entire team from getting shot at by 6 to 7 different enemies on high difficulty.

Each shot blocked by Phalanx will give Cherub a charge, making him often begin a round fully charged and ready to charge. Please note that using Phalanx forgoes making Cherub actually shoot at anyone.

Field Agent: Generator or Guard

Generator is a straightforward passive skill that lets Cherub gain 1 charge at the end of each encounter. It’s usefulness is debatable, as Cherub often finish encounters at max charge if he’s using his shield regularly. Furthermore, some missions are contained in a single encounter, which makes Generator a wasted opportunity in those cases.

As such, Guard is no contest the more useful passive perk, as it grants Cherub a free 1 point of armor each time he finish his turn and makes him impossible to be flanked as he will always be considered at half-cover. He can also move himself on the side of a flanked Agent to provide half-cover and protect them from incoming fire. Note that if Cherub is damaged during the enemy turn he will always lose his free point of armor, but it will help to mitigate incoming damage.

Pick Guard over Generator if you value consistent damage mitigation. Generator is rarely useful considering the multiple ways Cherub can gain charge over the course of a firefight.

Special Agent: Overload

A straight up upgrade to Cherub’s playstyle. Overload is a passive skill that let him build 3 charges and grants him more mobility the higher his stored charges is. His added mobility can be quite useful during hostage extract missions and to cover greater distance to shield charge a bunched up group of enemies. Upon reaching this rank, Cherub can undergo training to boost his mobility which is useful, but not necessarily an important training to undergo and can be skipped.

Senior Agent: Recharge or Resonance Field

Recharge is a passive ability that lets Cherub get back 1 charge when he managed to subdue an enemy using his shield charge. It synergize well with his kit and is mostly a good way to keep Cherub charged and mobile through the firefight.

Resonance Field gives +15 Aim to an ally (or Cherub) when a kinetic shield is over them. A +15 aim correspond to a Superior Scope, which is not a negligible boost. However, due to the nature of kinetic shield (it will attract enemy fire and will disappear any time an enemy attack the shielded individual) it is hard for the aim boost to pay off in the long run.

I would recommend picking Recharge as it synergize well with Cherub base kit and is less situational than Resonance Field, but Resonance Field could help Cherub alleviate his low aim or help another character make the killshot where it counts the most. See what fits your long term aim better : a more mobile Cherub if he managed to subdue someone in melee, or a one-time aim boost that will disappear the next time an enemy shoots your way.

Principal Agent: Supercharge

Supercharge is an active ability that lets Cherub consumes all his stored charge to increase the weapon damage of his allies, and mark enemies to be easier to hit. It’s a great one-time buff for the entire team and can quickly turn a bad engage into a victory especially if you get the “Put all your units into overwatch” kind of breach. Use is at the last encounter of a mission when Cherub is fully charged, or in the opening turn following a Cherub-lead breach where he absorbs a lot of enemy fire with his Phalanx.

By reaching this rank, Cherub unlock a training that lets him Return Fire on enemies that shoot him. Which can combo well with a kinetic shield that he puts on himself. As long as he has ammo and a good type of munition, he can retaliate and help the team. However, the enemy still needs to actually shoot Cherub for Return Fire to activate, so you still run the risk of having Cherub or allies get damaged for no payoff. Still, it’s a worthy training to undergo.

Synergies and Favored Enemies

Cherub works well with an aggressive team that needs his shield to mitigate heavy damage. As such, Zephyr can use both her parry and a kinetic shield to protect herself from two different source of damage, and Shelter can use his relocation without fear of being instantly obliterated by outflanking enemies.

Cherub works well against most enemy faction, and his kinetic shield is the only way to protect a teammate or himself from one of the Progenies many Soulfire and Null Lance.

Final Ranking: C

Cherub is a tank that is there to protect his team by making enemies waste their turn shooting at his shield. However, his low damage, low mobility and one-use nature of his shield makes him feel slightly underpowered. He is there to absorb damage first and foremost, but he has trouble catching up to other Agents in term of power and usefulness

Terminal (1)

Terminal is an invaluable asset for the team as she can provide 4 points worth of healing for every of her turn. She can effectively mitigate the damage taken by her comrades and provides useful and versatile assets to the team. She becomes even more invaluable on higher difficulty, where the long range of her Gremlin heals and stabilization can save a bleeding out teammate on the other side of the map. If only she was a little less snarky about it…

Loadout

Terminal can make great use of both of the legendary submachine gun, but my own preference goes to the Crucial Symmetry and its Chain Shot ability that lets Terminal puts down heavy firepower in addition to her multiple heals.

As most of her actions does not end her turn, she can effectively use both the Holo-targetor to mark enemies for her comrade from the backline and a good Scope to accurately shoot enemies down range. Give her some Tracer rounds if you want to boost her aim, or some Tranq rounds if you want additional intel. She also makes good use of the various grenades, both defensive and offensive, and can be equipped with the Infiltrator weave as armor to let her use vents and use them during breach to accurately stun enemies while breaching.

She makes a great 4th breacher, as even if she’s late to come into play she can use her actions to heal her comrades, give a character an additional action or wait in Overwatch mode.

Abilities and Build

Starting Skill: Safeguard

Safeguard is an invaluable active skill. For a single action that does not end her turn, Terminal send her GREMLIN to heal another character for 4HP while providing a little boost to their defense. It is Terminal’s signature skill and one you will need to use very often, especially on higher difficulty.

Deputy Agent: Refresh

A simple and straightforward breach ability. Refresh lets Terminal heal the Agents at her breach location for 2HP, which can be helpful to top off a lightly wounded agent. It is effectively the same as the breach utility item medipatch, and should be used sooner rather than later.

Field Agent: Sustain or Pin Down

Sustain is very similar to Godmother’s Last Stand ability. If Terminal receive fatal damage during a fight, she is instead put into a statis bubble for 1 turn and reduced to 1HP. It can only happen one time per mission, of course, and it won’t stop Terminal from getting impaired on her following turn if she’s suffering from acid, burning or poison. A good defensive passive ability for higher difficulty where Terminal can get focused down quickly, but it still a risky ability to see put in use.

Pin down is an active ability that makes Terminal lay down suppressive fire upon a target to delay its turn. It has a short 2 turn cooldown, and can be used as Terminal’s first action without ending her turn. Pin Down can be quite useful during a “Neutralize the Hostage Taker” optional objective if the hostage taker hasn’t be neutralized yet and Terminal must choose between healing or shooting them down. However, be mindful that Pin Down can sometimes not prove enough to push a target’s turn under an ally’s turn in the timeline. Pin Down can also be quite effective at delaying a Ronin’s Tempo Surge action spam during a round.

The two skills are great in their own ways, but I always tend to choose Pin Down instead of Sustain. Terminal works better when she is far from the frontline, so she can concentrate on healing and be relatively safe from being focused down. As such, Pin Down synergizes well with her kit as it is a guaranteed success to delay a target’s turn at the cost of one ammo. Use it as often as possible if it means that an ally can play before an enemy.

Special Agent: Cooperation

Cooperation is a great skill that makes Terminal gift one immediate bonus action to another Agent, regardless of their position in the timeline. It doesn’t end Terminal’s turn if used as her first action and can be quite useful at helping another Agent deal important damage or prepare a defensive action while waiting for their turn. As such, cooperation works great on character such as Zephyr, who can use her momentum twice in a round. Use cooperation often, as a way to secure kills, help a character gets out of a complicated situation or to complete an objective.

Remember that Cooperation can also be quite useful in making a character puts out a burning status by using “Preparation” on their bonus action. The bonus dodge and defense can also help if their normal turn comes later in the timeline.

By reaching this level, Terminal unlock a training option that let her unlock a new utility item. While it is great to bring a special ammo type, a grenade and a utility item such as relocation disk, it’s going to be a while until you amass enough gadgets and items to fully kit out your Agents. Make her undergo the training if you want her to use a medikit as free action instead of using a turn to safeguard Terminal.

Senior Agent: Armor System or Resilience

Armor System makes Terminal’s Safeguard provide 1 pip of armor to the protected Agent. It complements very well Safeguard base healing by providing a small mitigation in incoming damage. It is a straight up upgrade to Terminal’s starting skill and even if it’s not very showy, that small point of armor can make the difference in the long run.

Resilience makes Terminal heal up to full at the end of every encounter. It is a good perk on the higher difficulty where the encounter-to-encounter healing ratio is either on half heal or no heal at all. As terminal can sometimes get focused down it can be very useful to cancel all her damage and use her heals on the others Agent. Remember, however, that some missions only features a single encounter, making Resilience not that useful.

Both choices at this level are very good, and your choice will mostly be determined if you want to mitigate damage on the long run or let Terminal heal up between the encounters of the hard “take down the gang” missions. At the end of the day, I’d recommend Resilience if you play on the harder difficulty, as it let Terminal not worry about getting wounded during a firefight too much and let her focus on healing her teammates. Armor System is a very good alternative, so do not worry if you picked up the armor buff instead of the full heal.

Principal Agent: Second Wind

A single-use active skill that lets Terminal send her Gremlin to heal all her teammates for 4HP and stabilizing wounded allies about to bleed out. Be mindful that using this skill will end Terminal turn, so use it on your second action rather than your first. It is a good skill, a straight-up one-use mega heal for the entire team that could very well turn the tide of battle during a long 3-encounter mission where everyone is a bit damaged by the end of it. Try to keep it for when things get desperate and you have more than two agents under 50% HP, or if you need to stabilize and heal multiple agents quickly.

Reaching this level let Terminal undergo a special training that let her unlock Guardian, a powerful passive ability that let her stay on Overwatch and shoot at any enemy crossing her line of sight for as long as she has ammo for her guns. It pairs exceptionally well with the special breach that makes all of your agent enter overwatch in the following round. Use her on the last slot and watch as she will shoot at anything that move. After undergoing this training, it would be a good idea to exchange her holo-targetor for an auto-loader for the free reload or an expanded magazine for more ammo.

Terminal (2)

Synergies and Favored Enemies

Terminal can synergize well with any team composition. She usually is a good 3rd or 4th slot breacher considering she can heal the wounded and use her cooperation to help complete an objective. Many characters can make great use of her cooperation skill such as Zephyr, who can engage momentum and parry a second time in a round, Claymore, who can spam his shrapnel grenades like no tomorrow, Torque who can use her tongue pull to take an enemy out of the fight after binding them successfully and Cherub, who can protect another character with his Kinetic shield.

She is most valuable against the Progenies, as their Soulfire skill bypass cover and is always accurate, making her heal invaluable to mitigate incoming damage. Against the Grey Phoenix, she will help counteract poison and protect Agents being targeted by Praetorians. Finally, against the Sacred Coil, she will help put out fire on burning Agents and delay the spammy Ronin’s turn.

Final Ranking: S

Terminal is always useful to the team, especially on higher difficulty where her heals let you go through difficult 3 encounters mission with more ease and less agent scars at the end. Use her cooperation skill often, to help other agent secure kills and objective, and make sure that she is healing someone every turn. She will tend to be immobile once she start the breach, so consider giving her a relocation disk to freely teleport her to a good cover.

XCOM: Chimera Squad – Agents Guide (Godmother, Cherub, Terminal)