Offense Classes

Offense classes are usually considered the most general-purpose of the class groups. Most games will find offense classes naturally make up about half the team, making them the most common classes in the game. Many games consider offense classes to be the “standard” class, and adjust other classes around them. Offense classes have one goal: to kill enemies and create space. They usually have a relatively high and consistent damage output over time, which is often disproportionately large compared to their health. Good examples of offensive classes in current games are the soldier from Team Fortress Two, Tracer from Overwatch, and Bomb King from Paladins. All three have unique play styles, but they all perform the same job. They all deal damage.

Linking Mechanics
All Offense Classes are designed to deal damage and push back the enemy team through superior firepower. Because of this, Offense classes tend to have the average health for their respective games, and the highest and most reliable damage over time in their games. Speed is generally middle-of-the-road, and what few special abilities they have are limited to augmenting either their damage or their ability to chase down and secure kills.

Classes within this group are unique, but each class is considered to be within a relative moderate margin of statistics.

The Common Classes
Within the Offense class group, there are several classes that can be found across most games. Here is a list of the most common classes in order of damage:

Speedster
Main Article: Speedster

A slightly leaner, speedier build, the speedster is the fast running, often fast-talking class that acts as an alternative for those who feel the rifleman and rocketeer are too slow. Speedsters are tailored specifically to run fast, chase down enemies, annoy them to death, and run away without anyone to catch them.

Speedsters tend to be the fastest runners in the game, save for specific specialists. They have lower than average health in order to make them easier to swat once caught. The highest skill speedsters use and abuse their mobility to make themselves near impossible to hit, and this is where they find their true strength. Damage on speedsters tends to be either in the form of a shotgun, with high damage per shot and low rounds per minute, or some form of SMG, dealing less damage than a rifleman's gun, but with greater rounds per minute.

Speedsters are often loud-mouthed, plucky characters that make up for their lack of health with incredible speed and the ability to whittle down opponents while dancing around enemy fire. Speedsters often attract those who are willing to spend the time maximizing potential and minimizing weakness. Because of this, a good speedster can easily overpower most other classes.

Rifleman
Main article: Rifleman 

The Rifleman is the most common class in any First Person Shooter, extending from the class based shooter into the Arcade shooter, where it's the only class, and even into arena shooters, though not quite as commonly as the rocketeer.

The Rifleman is the ubiquitous "Call of Duty" character, with a fast firing, relatively low damage assault rifle. He has average movement speed, average health, average damage over time, and few, if any abilities. Most often he can aim down sights to improve his accuracy and damage, and sometimes carries a grenade that he can throw intermittently.

This is the most "average joe" class in gaming, with most sitting directly in the middle of every statistics curve. Riflemen vary in effectiveness depending on the time to kill, with faster times resulting in more powerful riflemen. They excel at melting single targets, or providing limited cover fire over multiple enemies. Because of their average health, they can be taken out with relative ease once spotted. This means that riflemen rely on being the first in an engagement and having a more accurate and reliable source of damage to outpace their enemies with.

Rocketeer
Main Article: Rocketeer

Rocketeers are about as common as Riflemen. They act as a holdover from the classic arena shooter, where fast paced rocket jumping and dodging opposing missiles were not only features, but core mechanics.

Rocketeers tend to be slower than their "bullet hose" hitscan counterparts. Rocketeers fire projectiles that explode on impact, dealing splash damage and often capable of damaging the rocketeer themself. Because of their possible self injury, rocketeers tend to have slightly higher health pools to compensate. They also tend to walk a little slower, to both balance the higher health and to represent the weight of the rocket launcher they carry. They often deal similar damage over time as riflemen, but in larger bursts with more delay between each shot.

Rocketeers are the explosive staple of class shooters, with a slight reshuffling of the average statistics that make riflemen the middle of the pack. Rocketeers are a good explosive option for those who want a little more firepower per shot, and a little more forgiveness for missing their target.

Grenadier
Main Article: Grenadier

Grenadiers are the big brother of rocketeers, dealing more damage, with comparable health, and sacrificing more movement. Unlike rocketeers, grenadiers don't fire direct line explosives, but prefer to lob grenades in a large arc, limiting their effective distance, but causing much more damage from often unexpected directions.

Grenadiers tend to be slow under the weight of all the explosives they carry, though not excessively so. They have health comparable to the rocketeer, sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the game and exact purpose of the grenadier in it. Grenadiers tend to have two styles of grenade: impact grenades and sticky grenades. Impact grenades are usually primary weapons and explode on impact with other players, while sticky grenades tend to be either secondary weapons or abilities that stick to the surfaces they land on, and are detonated by the user. Grenadiers are usually capable of extremely high amounts of damage, by far the highest in the Offense class group, and is a solid contender for the highest damage output of any class.

Grenadiers are for those who don't care much about speed, they just want to lay down as much damage as possible to as many players at once as they can. If the speedster and the rifleman are a scalpel and a fillet knife, the grenadier is the meat cleaver, or possibly the sledge hammer. Of course, when it comes to war, a hammer might not be the perfect tool for the job, but it rarely hurts to have one.

Unusual Classes, Hybrids, and Subclasses
There are far more than just the classes listed above, but the four above are considered the norm among almost every game.

Below are a list of some of the less common classes that are still found in relative popularity among shooters.

Archer
Main Article: Archer

Archers are becoming quite popular, with Overwatch, Paladins, and even Team Fortress 2 having some style of arrow shooting mechanic.

Archers are statistically similar to rifleman, having average health and movement speed, but have a very different setup in their damage. Archers fire single shot projectiles that deal high damage with an extremely low fire rate. Archers often also have a "draw time" where they must pull the arrow back before firing, often with varying damage and range depending on draw time. Archers tend to have abilities to augment their movement to allow them to either escape or find better vantage points from which to engage enemies.

Archers are far more difficult to use effectively than any of the hitscan classes, but in more recent games they have become less of a novelty and more of a tactical choice. Archers are a fun challenge, and have become more viable in recent years. They provide an interesting challenge to both the player and to those facing them.

Archers are sometimes also classed as a sniper variant, which is in the Specialist group. This variant can be called a Longbowman.

Pyro
Main Article: Pyro

The Pyro class is an interesting one, with many roles in different games depending on their place in the meta. All pyros use fire, but in different ways.

Offense pyros use their fire to deal either lasting damage to multiple enemies, or intense close range damage to single targets. They often have health on par with rocketeers and grenadiers, but their flamethrowers have a limited range that forces them up close and personal.

Pyro as an offensive class is a relatively weak setup, often being outdamaged and outlasted by other offensive classes. Pyro is often better served as a form of specialist, being a flanker, or as a support class. See those class groups or the pyro class page for more.

Knight
Main Article: Knight

The knight is an unusual class, being a weaker form of the barbarian tank. Knights run across the battlefield, using slightly above average movement, damage resistances, and a melee attack to destroy foes.

This is the rarest offense class seen, and is not usually viable in games. Instead of being statistically valuable, knights rely on their novelty, a "fun factor" to attract use. Their unpredictability is their biggest strength, as the sheer foolhardiness and manic style of play leaves opponents dumbfounded as they attempt to understand why there is an opposing player racing at them with a simple sword. They become even more confused as said enemy manages to cleave through teammates with an effectiveness that is far beyond the statistical limit of the class.

Knights are far from effective in a competitive environment, but they know how to use and abuse the power of confused panic. A tactic they exploit to the fullest.

Offensive Strategy
Offensive classes have one goal: deal damage and make space. As such, they are very often seen on the front line, firing away with shameless glee. Offense classes are far from invincible, however, so there are many things that differentiate a great offense player from a mediocre one.

Stick with the team
This seems obvious, but many new players think that their damage can provide a magic wall of protection from enemies. This is sadly not true. These players tend to forget that the biggest weakness to offense players is other offense players, and it can be frustrating to run in just to die for the fifteenth time in one round.

Stay near the defense classes
A follow-up on sticking to your team is to stay with your defense classes. As offense classes lack health, defense classes lack damage. It takes the two groups pairing up to be most effective. A general rule is that an offense class should never be more than a second away from the tanks. There are exceptions to this, such as with opportunistic flanks or when chasing down kills, but in general, offense classes should find a space to hover around a second away from their defense classes, so they can quickly dive for cover when on low health.

Defend your supports
Of the four class groups, Offense is the best by far at dealing consistent damage available at a moment's notice. Because of how effective offense classes are at dealing damage, they are the best suited at defending the weaker, less capable support classes. The entire goal of the specialist is to prey on the weak, yet valuable support classes and clean up other weakened enemies. It is a goal of the offense to make sure that doesn't happen. Yes, this distracts from the ever-present urge to advance and destroy, but even simply checking up on the supports when running to them for health (yes, it's okay to retreat) can do wonders for the survivability of the team.

Pick fights intelligently
Every class is more useful alive than dead. This once again ties in to sticking with the team, and is a very broad subject in strategy. As said before, it's okay to retreat. A few seconds in the arms of a healer is much better than spending time at the respawn screen, then traveling back to the battle, all the while being unable to affect the flow of battle. To summarize this tip: never take a fair fight. Always engage in favorable situations, and never fighting the enemy on their terms. When attacking, have a teammate to aid in cover and damage. When defending, use terrain to create an advantage. Most importantly: it is better to give ground than to give a life. Unless a specific tactic is involved, such as "sacking" or performing a "wave reset," it is better to retreat and let a teammate fill the gaps than to lose a life and a source of pressure on the enemy team.