Best XCOM Chimera Squad Characters TIER LIST
If you’re playing XCOM Chimera Squad, you’re going to want to know which of the 11 XCOM Chimera Squad characters you get access to are the best, so this tier list should help you make your decision. Even though there are 11 agents available, you only get to choose 8 of them for any given playthrough, further increasing the stakes of your agent selections.
You’re going to only want the best of the best on your squad, so be sure to read through this best XCOM Chimera Squad Characters Tier List before you make a terrible, terrible mistake and include Shelter on your team.
XCOM: Chimera Squad Agent Ability Guides:
Torque – Claymore – Shelter – Godmother – Terminal – Cherub – Verge – Blueblood – Patchwork – Zephyr – Axiom
S Tier – Best XCOM Chimera Squad Characters Tier List
Claymore
Claymore, despite his somewhat generic looking portrait, is probably the character with the highest damage potential in the game. Not only can he throw a grenade every round that deals 4 damage in a huge AoE (upgraded to 5 with an ability), but he also uses shotguns, a powerful weapon type, and he gets an ability that lets him use an equipped grenade every encounter, and an additional ability grenade that deals 5 damage (upgraded to 6).
Claymore can start off every encounter dealing 15+ damage in a sizable AoE and at max agent rank, he can keep dealing 10+ damage every round after that. No other character comes close. To top it all off, he’s beefier than the average character since his unlock potential training gives him an armor upgrade. Don’t sleep on Claymore. Definitely one of the best XCOM Chimera Squad characters.
Click here to view all of Claymore’s abilities
Patchwork
Patchwork starts off with an ability called Chaining Jolt, which has seemingly infinite range, a 100% chance to deal 4 damage (6-7 on robots) and can be cast every round with no cooldown. Keep in mind this game is full of robots, especially during the back half. Chaining Jolt also deals an additional damage point to enemies within 2 tiles (upgrades to 2-4 damage and 3 tiles through abilities and training).
Patchwork also gets a somewhat insane ability where anything that comes close to her gets a weak chain lightning cast on it. She gets, arguably, the best ultimate in the game, which deals great damage in an enormous AoE with a significant stun chance. Add to that, Patchwork automatically gets the ability to access security card breach points without having to use a breach item. Patchwork is the spellcaster in this game. Definitely add her to your squad. Easily among the best XCOM Chimera Squad characters.
Click here to view all of Patchwork’s abilities
A Tier – Best XCOM Chimera Squad Characters Tier List
Torque
Torque is not terribly useful when you first get her, but once she gets the Tight Squeeze, Poison Spit and Reinforced Scales upgrades, she becomes a real force to be reckoned with. During the later part of the game, or the Grey Phoenix arc, whenever you choose to do that, there are a lot of beefy, high armor enemies called Praetorians. Torque eats those, and similar high health enemies (like Sorcerers and Necromancers) alive. Her Bind skill takes them out of the fight and chokes them until they’re dead.
In addition to that, Torque gets probably the best breach ability in the game with Toxic Greeting (100% accuracy, 3 damage, guaranteed poison), and a fantastic AoE damage ability called Poison Spit. Has a bit of a slow start, but ultimately turns into one of the most formidable XCOM Chimera Squad characters.
Click here to view all of Torque’s abilities
Terminal
Terminal is the only healer you get among the XCOM Chimera Squad characters, and she’s indispensable for much of the game. Her Safeguard ability heals 4 HP every round and upgrades to add a point of armor. She’s also able to provide both offense and utility to your squad with her Cooperation skill, which instantly gives any party member an extra action.
So, while Terminal may not be able to throw super powerful grenades, she can transfer her turn over to Claymore. You can also use Cooperation to help teammates get out of a tight spot with an extra move. Her ultimate is a full party heal, which will probably get you out of a couple of sticky situations. Definitely invest some time in Terminal.
Click here to view all of Terminal’s abilities
Axiom
Axiom’s damage potential isn’t particularly high, but what he is capable of is never dying ever. Out of all the XCOM Chimera Squad characters, Axiom is the best tank by far. Axiom is so ridiculously tanky, I’m not 100% sure he can die. He gets the most health, the most armor, automatic HP regen that stacks with the Regenerative Weave you can buy after completing the Grey Phoenix arc, and an extremely high chance to reduce incoming damage to 1.
I had encounters where 5-6 enemies were beating up on Axiom, and Axiom just casually healed to full every time his turn came up. It’s somewhat ridiculous. Oh, also Axiom’s physical attacks have a fairly decent chance to apply instant death and he pretty regularly gets extra turns where he goes berserk and smacks the nearest enemy, so that’s something to keep in mind as well.
Click here to view all of Axiom’s abilities
B Tier – Best XCOM Chimera Squad Characters Tier List
Zephyr
Zephyr is just all-around good. She has high damage, high mobility and high survivability. Her standard attack deals significant damage, pierces armor, applies severe status effects and never misses. I’m almost certain she has the highest mobility of any character in the game, and she gains a skill called parry that let’s you end every one of her turns with a buff that blocks the next incoming damage source.
On top of all that, she has a strong AoE on a relatively short cooldown, and she gets one of the best ultimate abilities, which lets her keep taking turns as long as she gets a kill every turn. Very powerful unit. She drops off a little bit in the later stages of the game where she’s not able to OHKO everything, but she remains one of the best XCOM Chimera Squad characters.
Click here to view all of Zephyr’s abilities
Cherub
Cherub’s damage output is somewhat mediocre, although he’s able to do decent damage in a large cone every couple of turns. The main usefulness of Cherub is that he can cast an ability called Kinetic Shield, which blocks a single instance of damage on each character.
This is pretty huge, because you can usually get them onto most XCOM Chimera Squad characters, and Chimera Squad is a game where a single instance of damage is usually a pretty significant chunk of health. He adds so much survivability to the team that if you partner him with Terminal, you may get through encounters somewhat slower, but you’ll be at almost zero risk the entire time. As far as XCOM Chimera Squad characters go, Cherub provides a lot of utility to the team.
Click here to view all of Cherub’s abilities
Blueblood
Blueblood is incredibly equipment-dependent. His whole shtick is basically that he can attack twice per round with 50% increased damage, so if you load him up with the best scope, laser sight, mastercrafted epic pistol and damage boosting ammo, he can really pump out the hurt. If you don’t give him any of that stuff, he’s terrible.
He gets a decent line-based AoE move, but his main thing is really that he can attack twice. It makes him a bit of a one trick pony, but when that trick is critting for 8-10 damage twice per round, it’s a good trick. If you gear him right, he’s probably second only to Claymore when it comes to damage among the XCOM Chimera Squad characters.
Click here to view all of Blueblood’s abilities
C Tier – Best XCOM Chimera Squad Characters Tier List
Verge
Even though I put Verge in C Tier, I want to stress that Verge isn’t bad. Not like Shelter. Shelter sucks. But Verge is pretty good. He can stun enemies, mind control enemies, and he’s capable of getting insane HP regen and never dying.
If you have Verge on your team, you get the 20 Intel bonus for capturing enemies pretty much automatically, since he gets an ability that makes anyone affected by his neural net (100% to add 2 enemies per round) get captured instead of killed.
He doesn’t have any direct offensive skills except Mindflay, which is kind of underwhelming, but Mindflay is ok and his gun does decent damage. He’s basically a CC character, and a pretty good one, all things considered. Out of all the XCOM Chimera Squad characters, Verge is decent, but definitely not top tier.
Click here to view all of Verge’s abilities
D Tier – Best XCOM Chimera Squad Characters Tier List
Godmother
Every sci-fi military game has to include a milquetoast veteran soldier with no personality and in this game, that’s Godmother. She’s not especially bad, nor is she especially good. She has decent bulk, she does decent damage, and she’s able to shoot in a cone. The problem with her is twofold. First, she’s not as good as many of the other characters. At anything.
Compared to Claymore, she gets (substantially) less AoE damage and less survivability. The only useful rank ability she learns is Close Combat Specialist, which gives her automatic Overwatch, but she only gets 3 shots in her clip. Because she’s so reliant on her shotgun and all her shotgun moves take up more than 1 ammo, you have to reload every round, or equip her with an auto-reloader. She’s not terrible, but she’s very middle of the road. Almost all of the other XCOM Chimera Squad characters add more to the party.
Click here to view all of Godmother’s Abilities
F Tier – Best XCOM Chimera Squad Characters Tier List
Shelter
Shelter sucksssssssssss. His unique skill, Relocate, has situational utility at best, and he doesn’t get a single damaging move until Rank 3, where he gets a move that is weaker than what Patchwork gets right off the bat. It’s basically Patchwork’s guaranteed 4 damage skill, except without the chain lightning effect, a 2 turn cooldown, and it only works against organic enemies (aka roughly 60% of all enemies).
His ultimate is interesting and kind of cool, and he does get an additional spell if you spend 5 days training him after he hits Rank 5, but why on Earth would you want to train Shelter to rank 5 in the first place unless you’re running a website that publishes game guides? Pass on Shelter. Shelter is like an escort NPC in terms of what he brings to the table.
Out of all the XCOM Chimera Squad characters, Shelter is the bottom of the barrel.
Click here to view all of Shelter’s Abilities
That about covers it when it comes to the Best XCOM Chimera Squad Characters Tier List. Be sure to check out the Games Section for more content like this, and click here for more content related to XCOM Chimera Squad.
