Rogue
Base Skill
When a rogue scores a critical kill, the enemy drops money. Guaranteed! She even gets more than the normal amount.
Starting Skills
Small Gun 2
Rifle
Luck
Available Skills
Small Gun, Rifle, Luck, Aimed Shot, Burst, Killer, One Shot, Power Shot, Sense, Active, Negotiator, Quick Eyed, Robber, Threat
Tips
Rogues receive a number of skills that affect criticals (killer, sense, luck) which improves their money-making ability even further. Robber and Quick Eyed skills also contribute to rogue's wealth. Aside from criticals, their combat abilities aren't very impressive; however, more money means better upgrades for your castle and weapons.
Hunter
Base Skill
A hunter receives reduced range penalty and can fire a gun beyond its effective range.
Starting Skills
Small Gun
Rifle
Shotgun
Scavenger
Available Skills
Small gun, Rifle, Shotgun, Anti Air, Aimed Shot, Bow Master, Burst, Cripple Shot, Power Shot, Breeder, Cook, Engineer, Scavenger
Tips
Hunter starts with a crossbow, which is an excellent weapon, and becomes a real killing machine with skills like Bow Master, Cripple Shot, and Power Shot.
Surprisingly, scavenger skill isn't very useful as it only improves the chance and not quality of dropped items. Normal monsters will drop more worthless junk; boss drop isn't affected. Worse yet, it seems that drop rate goes down as you get further on in days until even with maxed scavenger you still only get one or two things per fight - and the overall value isn't very high.
Sheriff
Base Skill
Enemies shot by a sheriff will be knocked back and slowed down, making them easy targets.
Starting Skills
Shotgun 2
Fury
Available Skills
Shotgun, Anti-Armor, Cripple Shot, Dr Holliday, Fury, Last Hope, Defender, Insurance, Leadership, Quick Eyed, Taunt.
Tips
Sheriff is packed with impressive firepower and a good choice of party skills; however shotguns have poor range, accuracy and armor penetration ability. The base skill is useful but not amazing. Impact weapon mod and Cripple Shot skill will show better results, if that's all you're after. On the other hand, Sheriffs make excellent secondary characters, as they are quite well-built for keeping enemies away from your walls, and their utter focus on the shotgun leaves them with essentially no useless skills. They are something of a single-purpose character, but they serve that purpose quite well.
Militia
Base Skill
A militia can occasionally throw a grenade at a random enemy. The throwing rate also increases as he levels.
Starting Skills
Rifle 2
Big Gun (starting character militia get Big Gun 1. Level 1 hireling Militia generally have Big Gun 2)
Available Skills
Big Gun, Rifle, Anti Armor, Burst, Cripple Shot, Da Bomb, Fury, Killer, Love, Supplier, Taunt
Tips
Militia is all about shooting, shooting and throwing grenades. Being not much of a leader and lacking non-combat skills, militia makes best use of machine guns and grenades, both manually and automatically thrown. They are also good at the explosive Big Guns, although the Ranger is just as good, has better party skills, and a slightly easier time getting there. Another good class for a secondary character, as they have relatively few skills that will not apply. Note that if you want to play with a big gun militiaman as your main, you will have to both acquire a Big Gun in game and increase your Big Gun skill at least once with a level-up skill before you can switch to your weapon of choice. There are no skill 1 Big Guns.
Noble
Base Skill
A noble gains 40% more exp for killing enemies. Also awarded slight bonuses to damage and accuracy per level.
Starting Skills
Small Gun
Rifle
Shotgun
Big Gun
Available Skills
Big Gun, Rifle, Shotgun, Small Gun, Anti Air, Anti Armor, Bow Master, Burst, Luck, Accountant, Active, Cook, Insurance, Taunt
Tips
Nobles can do almost anything. They begin with all weapon proficiencies and have access to the critical skills for bows/bowguns and machine guns (Bow Master, Burst). Their scaling damage and accuracy bonus is valuable no matter what you do, and especially useful for weapon types that crave accuracy, like shotguns and machine guns. The 40% Exp bonus is no joke, either. Nobles have a huge variety of combat and party skills - in fact, they have way too many of them. Their big disadvantage is the number of useless skills you'll have to wade through to get to the ones you want. Note that this means that Nobles are generally a better choice as an initial character than as a secondary hire. You can largely control the build up of useless skills as main character, particularly if you max the capable skill as early as possible, but any hireling noble is going to wind up wasting a lot of their level-up skills on skills that either don't do anything or won't do anything for you. Note that there are no level 1 Big Guns. Nobles do pretty well as heavy weapons platforms, but you will need to raise their Big Guns skill to 2 before you can equip them with any. Finally, it's worth noting that nobles start with an excellent initial firearm - stats exactly the same as the Machine Pistol, but usable from skill level 1, and with a level 3 accuracy mod already installed. If you're intending to be picky about choosing your eventual hirelings, but you want someone to fill the space for the moment, and you intend to eventually have a duelist, small guns guardian, and/or small guns rogue, this can be a real benefit.
Ranger
Base Skill
A ranger gains adrenaline every time he kills an enemy. When it's full, all the troops go on a rampage and his adrenaline diminishes.
Starting Skills
Small Gun
Big Gun 2
Available Skills
Big Gun, Small Gun, Anti Armor, Bow Master, Da Bomb, Last Hope, Active, Breeder, Leadership, Scavenger, Supplier
Tips
"Not lacking anywhere when it comes to making Swiss cheese of enemies, ranger is also a good leader. The rampage ability shines as you progress through the game, as more and more enemies comes at you each day."
The lack of Burst and Cripple keeps them from being a top-tier HMG choice in the long run, but they have everything that you could want for the explosive Big Guns, and the fact that they start with a Big Gun and the skill to use it (the only class that gets either at charge in) simplifies the process. If you want someone with good party skills to fire the grenade launcher, they're as good as it gets. They also have good party skills like Leadership, Breeder, Supplier, and Active. If you're looking for something else, there is probably another choice out there that is better.
Please note that while Rangers are capable of learning Bow Mastery, they are not capable of learning Rifle. This means they can't use Bowguns (normal or rapid) - making the Bow Mastery skill nearly useless. Don't waste your effort getting it, it will be of no use whatsoever.
Duelist
Base Skill
When a Duelist shoots an enemy, her adrenaline and the damage bonus go up. Adrenaline diminishes quickly when not firing.
Starting Skills
Small Gun 3
Available Skills
Small Gun, Aimed Shot, Fury, Killer, Luck, One Shot, Power Shot, Sense, Engineer, Negotiator
Tips
The opposite of the Sniper, the Duelist deals an ever-increasing stream of damage (with occasional reload breaks). Her choice of weapons is limited but by no means poor - an SMG to take care of crowds and a laser pistol against armored enemies. They can also make good use of quickly reloading Revolvers with the Power shot Skill. The Duelist can also get a very useful Engineer skill. Duelists are also one of three classes that get the sense skill, and between that and the focus on constant assault, playing as a Duelist can be a good way to pick up the critical kills medals. Due to the way their adrenaline works, reload mods and ammo mods are more helpful than normal, as they improve the ratio between time firing and time reloading. Because of their focus on a single weapon, Duelists also have essentially no useless skills - meaning that, like other, similar classes, they work particularly well as secondary characters.
Sniper
Base Skill
While a sniper is not firing or reloading, his adrenaline and the damage bonus go up. Adrenaline diminishes once he misses a shot.
Starting Skills
Rifle 2
Killer
Available Skills
Rifle, Anti Air, Aimed Shot, Disarm, Killer, One Hit Kill, One Shot, Power Shot, Sense
Tips
One shot - one kill class, sniper has to rely on allies when facing crowds, taking out the strongest of them. Note that adrenaline actually decreases when reloading, and decreases badly on a miss, so automatic weapons are no go. By the same token, though, reloading mods are particularly useful for this class, as are ammo mods when not using manual reload. Snipers are the only class in the game with no party skills whatsoever, and every skill it has is useful when wielding a sniper rifle.
Guardian
This is an NPC only class.
Base Skill
Guardian: when an enemy attacks the castle, a guardian can inflict a certain amount of damage back to the enemy.
Starting Skills
Small Gun
Shotgun 2
Defender 2
Available Skills
Shotgun, Small Gun, Disarm, Dr Holliday, Last Hope, Accountant, Defender, Insurance, Leadership, Love, Supplier, Threat
Tips
A possible alternative to having a Sheriff class as a party member. With the shotgun, defender, and guardian skills, it should be useful for finishing off close range/weakened enemies.
Summary
Normal Skills
| Skill | Rogue | Hunter | Sheriff | Militia | Noble | Ranger | Duelist | Sniper | Guardian |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Big Gun | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Rifle | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
| Shotgun | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Small Gun | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Accuracy | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Capable | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Cool | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Reloading | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Anti Air | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
| Anti Armor | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Aimed Shot | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Bow Master | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes** | No | No | No |
| Burst | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Cripple Shot | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Da Bomb | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Disarm | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Dr Holliday | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Fury | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Killer | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Last Hope | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Luck* | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
| One Hit Kill | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No |
| One Shot | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Power Shot | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Sense* | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
*These skills can be achieved from medal. **Rangers can't use rifles, including bowguns. Bow Master has no effect for them.
Party Skills
| Skill | Rogue | Hunter | Sheriff | Militia | Noble | Ranger | Duelist | Sniper | Guardian |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accountant | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Active | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Breeder | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Cook | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Defender | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Engineer | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Insurance | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Leadership | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Love | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Negotiator | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Quick Eyed | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Robber | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Scavenger | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Supplier | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Taunt | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Threat | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |