Which Outriders class should you choose?

When it comes to the four available Outriders classes, you're going to want to choose carefully. Not only because you'll still want to find each 'path' nuanced enough and fun to play after 40 hours of campaign story before you get to the endgame, but your inhospitable new home of Enoch means you'll need some powerful abilities to ensure your survival.

After a long-ish prologue in the surprisingly beefy Outriders demo, you'll have the chance to pick one of your classes, of which suit different playstyles and squad sizes. If you want to try them out before the demo ends, you can make new characters that follow the path you're looking for and skip the prologue each time, which is nice. Your progress from the demo will carry over to the main game, too.

So, which Outriders class is best for you? Here's an introduction to each path in the game, so you can make the right choice in the demo or get a head start when the full game arrives next month.

How Outriders classes work

When you reach the end of the surprisingly dark prologue, you'll be asked which path you want to take. But it's worth reiterating that you can easily start a new character in the demo and skip the prologue if your first choice isn't for you. At this point you'll get a brief intro to each class, along with each path's specific healing ability, and some clips of it in action.

Each class has three skills that can be equipped at one time, and these are unlocked by levelling up. These are then assigned to number keys 1-3 (you change firearm with CTRL). Some skills buff party members, whereas others deal class-specific damage and unleash status effects on enemies.

Separate to skills is the Class Tree, which you also upgrade by levelling up. Each class has a huge tree of passive skills (some more wide-ranging than others) in which you can plug a limited number of class points. That said, your Class Tree can also be set, so you have the opportunity to experiment with various builds.

Pyromancer

• Basics: Medium range, conjuror, fire.
• Damage: Cover foes in flames, incinerate entire squads, and heal your own wounds as enemies fall to your inferno.
• Healing: Recover health whenever enemies marked by your skill are killed.

While playing as a Pyromancer is pretty enjoyable, you may find it a tough path to solo. Marking enemies with fire skills like Ignite and then killing them to restore health recalls Doom's frantic resource management, but consider taking a tanky Devastator in with you if you can.

Technomancer

• Basics: Long range, support, gadgets.
• Damage: Manipulate the Anomaly to animate constructs and bend them to your will, aiding allies and killing enemies from afar.
• Healing: Recover a portion of the damage you deal as health.

The Technomancer is Outriders' support class: It's the only one that can heal other squad members, rather than just themselves. Again, you won't want to solo this one, this is for super-powered soldiers that like to hang back and pick off targets from a distance. The Technomancer's long range weapon damage boost helps with that nicely.

Trickster

• Basics: Close range, hit and run, spacetime.
• Damage: Bend the laws of space and time to appear out of nowhere, assassinate your enemies, and return to safety in the blink of an eye.
• Healing: Each enemy killed in close range heals you and grants a portion of shield.

Playing the Trickster takes the most skill, but it can be the most powerful path in the right hands. While you'll primarily be in your enemy's faces, like the Devastator, you'll need to make constant use of your strong abilities to deal heavy damage and use your agility and teleporting skills to dodge enemy responses.

Devastator

• Basics: Close range, tank, stand your ground.
• Damage: Take point and defend your allies. Ground and foes alike will tremble as you pass.
• Healing: Recover health from slain enemies that stood too close.

If you like fighting up close and personal, your choices are the Devastator and Trickster. However, the Devastator is the tank, so it's a great class for soaking up damage with its chunky health bar. With the Golem skill that shrugs off 65 percent of damage for eight seconds, and the fact that close-range kills restore health, you won't be going anywhere as the Devastator.