Gears Tactics: Scout class guide – The best skills and items

The Scout class in Gears Tactics is unlocked after Act 1 – Chapter 1 (after rescuing two generic soldiers). They’ve got the Gnasher shotgun, but they can be a little tricky and frustrating to use. Here’s our skills and abilities mini-guide to help you out.

Note: This guide is based on a completed campaign where several characters reached level 6 to 7. For the other classes, you can refer to our leveling and recruitment guide. Anyway, you can see my ideal build for the Scout class below:

Gears Tactics: Scout class skills and abilities

What makes the Scout class in Gears Tactics extremely inconsistent is its ridiculously low accuracy, to the point that you could shotgun blasts from point-blank range can miss or only partially hit. Even the Heavy hits more often from a distance thanks to its default skill (Anchor). The Scout, meanwhile, has Cloak, so you can move around without being detected.

That’s fine and dandy, but most of the Scout’s abilities are also not tailor-fit for Gears Tactics‘ missions, except for Scavenger runs since you need to hightail it to reach chests. Even worse, a number of late-game mobs such as Disciples and Zealots will cause a poison nova around them when killed, and you won’t want to be the Scout who’s close to them when that happens.

In any case, the Scout has four archetypes:

• Raider – Double Shot and health regen.
• Slayer – Sneaky close-up kills and the Finisher shot for wounded targets.
• Recon – Additional movement points and Sprint boosts.
• Commando – Buffed grenade and proximity mine usage.

In my Gears Tactics playthrough, I mostly chose skills from the Raider branch. Double Shot and Rampage allow you to shoot a couple of times (different targets or the same target respectively), but it’s Bloodlust that takes the cake. This works a bit like the item mod where you’ll heal 20% of your HP whenever you kill an enemy with any action.

As for the other skills, I took Sprint (allows you to run in a straight line without breaking Cloak so you can get near mobs easily) and Frag Grenade Mastery (to reduce the cooldown of grenade throws and planting).

Weapon and armor mods

Here are my attachments for the Gnasher:

• Grip: Expertise – Skill cooldown reduction.
• Handle: Extended Mag – Additional ammo.
• Sight: Precision – Accuracy bonus.
• Barrel: Power – Increased damage.

For armor pieces:

• Helmet: Optics – Increased critical hit chance.
• Chest: Autoloader – Chance to reload one shotgun ammo at the start of your turn.
• Boots: Utility Belt – Frag and stim grenade cooldowns reduced; nicely complements Frag Grenade Mastery.

Gears Tactics is available via Steam and Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass for Windows. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.