so if I were to rate classes by difficulty ..

[r4nd0m0ne]

From the way you have described the classes, it is likely that you haven't played mercenary or smuggler at all, or at least most of the way through.

For example, the mercenary has the second wind perk, earned at level five, that recovers half of the mercenary's health (somewhere over 200 from my vague recollection) and half of their max energy, an amount of restoration that the tech simply cannot match, with a skill that doesn't scale with leveling up, leaving it all but useless against level 8 enemies. Not to mention how the tech's shield restore skills don't recover energy, something incredibly important that they have no way to recover. Energy is critical to defeating everything other than trash mobs, something both smugglers and mercenaries have ways to recover, but techs do not.

You dismissed the smuggler's aimed shot as a mere "damage boost" but what you don't seem to know is that that damage boost allows you to destroy any boss faster than both other classes can, while at the same time taking next to no damage due to your foe's blindness stacked with your dodge rate, that is at the very minimum (it can be increased even more with accessories) 30% higher than the other classes.

If your foe isn't blinded and you don't feel like spending a turn doing so, you can just use the second shot ability, which so handily stacks with shoot first, to let you get three shots off per turn. Combine this with how smugglers have the option to be immune to stun locks and you have a class that floats over everything, not a class that is the weakest of the three.

I've played both Smuggler and Tech through the Frost Wyrm (level 8, 40 all stats). Haven't touched Merc so I'm just analyzing him based on what the skills do on paper (I missed second wind, sorry). I can tell you that the Smuggler absolutely SUCKS in that particular fight, and also struggles heavily late in Myrellion leading to some "unwanted" game overs. Took something like 10 tries with the best stats/gear on the smuggler to kill the Frost Wyrm, looking for ideal RNG just to survive. The Tech had such an easy time with it that I was able to fight and win twice in a row simply keeping Deflector regeneration active at all times.

Tech also has a 50% reduced vulnerability on shields. I'm not entirely sure how that works mechanically, but it should make his shields worth more than any other classes health in spite of not benefiting from armor.

I'll also note that the Smugglers Stealth Field doesn't really feel like it does anything at all. Blind isn't all that effective either. Even combined I still end up getting hit at least half the time, and with the cost to maintain those two status effects in both turns and energy it just doesn't pay for itself even with aimed shots.

Merc might be better than either, but Tech is FAR easier and stronger than smuggler. That's something I've tested and experienced rather extensively. Even without using damage skills at all (ie Volley) Tech is simply better at both offense and defense, and the smuggler doesn't even have any real damage skills to compare when the Tech starts pulling out Volley himself (which of course hits 3 times with Second Shot, at a higher accuracy than what the Merc can manage).

 

[Ormael]

@Nik_van_Rijn Lash was first (super endgame) boss we had. And over time he was made adjusted to still be somehow a treat despite two others join in copetition off be as tough as him.

For shileds there should be eventualy some sort of armor rating for shields too so then it may be something that Techs will get or get much more much easier compared to rest classes. And for Volley it req. I think now energy weapon to be usable and in general all moves for tech req. such weapon so as long energy wepaon is currently best range wepon it will be fine. But wait till we get some higher lvl enemies and some new non-energy weapon. Tech will fall to be not so good class till new best ingame weapon (and energy type at that will be included).

 

[Galgano]

Level 7- Weapon Hack vs Shield Hack: Finally we get to the good stuff! what makes the class earn the title of Specialist. No, wait. I was wrong. Doesn't it just suck how useless either hack skill is. Shield Hack only does shield damage for 25 energy. That's a big waste when either grenade skill will do around the same amount of damage for the cost, and with the bonus of splash damage against multiple enemies. Weapon Hack sounds better in theory, but as someone else has already pointed out, it's just a super bad version of the smuggler's Disarm Shot. I get not being able to 'hack' a kinetic gun, and that more humanoid enemies so far have used them than energy weapons. But my techie should be able to use 'Weapon Hack' against machine enemies to lock em down. That seems like it would be the entire point of the Tech Specialist is to have an advantage against the machines. Shield Hack does only superficial damage. This skill would be much better if it could do a large amount of physical shock damage when it managed to drop a shield. The game already talks about 'a concussive boom and tingling aftershock' when an attack breaks through a shield and hits the target on the other side. Call it a overloaded feedback loop, let it do real damage as it kills a shield.

When I think of shield hack I think it should be more like weapon hack in that it disables the shield. Basically it would make all the tech's attacks bypass the shield by temporarily giving it the bypass_shields flag. It would still be situational like the weapon hacks but against the right kind of opponent it would be devastating. And yeah weapon hack disabling robots and AI would be good too. Robots themselves are considered weapons in their own right, right?

 

[Couch]

I recommend Necromancer, the ultimate class.

 

[Savin]

I recommend the Mercenary Tech-Smuggler, myself.

 

[criticAlls]

Wait how are they,ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,I see how.

They're prolly trollin' you 'cause you necro'd a year and a half-ish old post. Shoulda just started your own thread to ask or asked in a relevant current post.
For me, anyway, I've tried smug, but nothing beats Merc, especially with heavy weaponry like the chaingun. But that's way later in the game and requires a ton of Phys or specific attributes in height and the like since we don't currently have power armor. However that's my definite suggestion.

Yet if relying primarily on aim and strength doesn't appeal as much many people seem to really like Smuggler yet the only ones I've seen that like Tech a lot are the ones that have also only played Tech. So Smug or Merc seem to be the most entertaining, from what I can tell. I'd pick one of those, and if you can't choose between the two just flip a coin!

 

[princezilla]

I STARTED MY OWN THREAD!AND I'M PROUD OF THAT!(sorry for the all caps it's just I want to help new comers to the game and hear others opinions.) WHOO!

... Are you sure you're old enough to play this game?