The first time you load up Outriders, you’ll play a brief prologue and tutorial. After about half an hour, you’ll gain access to one of the game’s four classes: Devastator, Pyromancer, Trickster, and Technomancer. Each class has its own quirks, strengths, and playstyles.
- The Devastator is a tank with a beefy health pool and plenty of defensive options, though its offense is lacking.
- The Pyromancer is your DPS of choice, focused on maximizing its killing potential at the cost of survivability.
- The Technomancer is focused on area denial and crowd control, inflicting status ailments and dividing enemies across the battlefield.
- The Trickster is the assassin with time-bending powers, focused on moving behind enemy lines and dealing big damage before zipping out again.
Can all of these classes be good choices depending on the general class/weapon/armor mods equipped and a specific armament loadout? Yes. Is there a best option? Yes.
The Best Solo Class in Outriders: Trickster
All of the Outriders classes have elements of offense, defense, and general survivability. None of them focus so heavily on any one trait to be a true specialist. You can start a new class at any time, and it’s recommended you try each of them out before you get too far into the campaign.
However, there is one class that stands above the rest: the Trickster. There are a few reasons why.
First, mobility. Outriders masquerades as a cover shooter, but because of the close ranges you’ll fight in and enemy aggression, you’ll be forced to reposition far more often than you can hold down a sightline. The Trickster has best-in-class mobility, with abilities that allow for instant teleportation in and out of danger.
The movement abilities come with the added benefit of debuffing close-by enemies. As a Trickster, you’ll spend your time popping in and out of engagements, slowing enemies, or reducing their damage or resistances. The cooldown on the teleport is fairly short, as well, making quick escapes a necessary and satisfying step toward survival.
Second, the Tricker offers the most active survivability of the four classes. No other class gives you the ability to slow down time in a local area. Everything in the slowing AoE comes to a crawl. I mean everything: enemies, bosses, enemy abilities, even bullets and acid balls.
The Devastator might be able to tank a few hits without losing health, but if there’s a barrage of buckshot headed their way, they have no means of getting away. The Trickster does.
All classes have the ability to regain health on a kill, and the Pyromancer even has a lifesteal ability on a fast cooldown, but the Trickster has another ace in their sleeve: shields. A Tricker’s abilities grant them an overshield that absorbs damage before their health bar.
This shield decays over time but keep killing, whether with pure damage or anomaly-powered abilities and skills, and you’ll not only refill it but add more time and shield energy.
Probably the only place where the Trickster might struggle is in a one-on-one fight. Their abilities rely almost entirely on getting kills or outmaneuvering masses of enemies. Their raw damage output is near top tier, but speed and survivability are their true trump cards. The Trickster is first and foremost an assassin, not an up-front brawler.
Trickster Abilities
- Temporal Blade
- Slow Trap
- Hunt the Prey
- Twisted Rounds
- Cyclone Slice
- Borrowed Time
- Venator’s Knife
- Time Rift
What Other Classes Offer
The Trickster might be the best all-around class in Outriders, but don’t count out the other classes for a bit of variety.
Technomancer
Battlefield control is the name of the Technomancer’s game. Turrets, mines, micro-missile launchers to clear trash mobs — expect all of these abilities and more.
The metagame for the Technomancer is getting a good feel for the flow of a fight and understanding the best locations to place your gear. You won’t be dealing the most damage or being the hero for your team too often, but you will consistently make everyone’s life easier, especially with your turret.
Technomancer Abilities
- Scrapnel
- Cryo Turret
- Pain Launcher
- Blighted Rounds
- Tool of Destruction
- Fixing Wave
- Cold Snap
- Blighted Turret
Pyromancer
The definition of glass cannon, Pyromancer is the closest Outriders classes get to a DPS specialist. There’s some defense here in health regen off kills, but you’ll be up in your enemy’s face more than any other option.
Pyro combines damage-over-time with AoE attacks to maximize the chaos caused. Solo players will need to keep their heads on a swivel and stay on the move. You’re probably better playing Pyro in a group, but high-level play here would be something to see.
Pyromancer Abilities
- Heatwave
- Feed the Flames
- Thermal Bomb
- Overheat
- Volcanic Rounds
- Ash Blast
- F.A.S.E.R. Beam
- Eruption
Devastator
Probably the most accessible class in Outriders, the Devastator is all about soaking damage, however possible, and acting as the aggression magnet. Like Technomancer, it won’t deal huge amounts of damage or won’t nuke entire fields of mooks as a Pyro can.
But played right, a Devastator can save the party from an ill-timed wipe with a single ability use. They’re also great for distracting high-value targets, as their role would suggest.
Devastator Abilities
- Earthquake
- Golem
- Gravity Leap
- Reflect Bullets
- Impale
- Tremor
- Boulderdash
- Endless Mass
—
Trickster is far and away the best class in Outriders, and it’s also the most technical. There are easier classes to use, especially in solo play (Devastator), but none as effective. No other class is as stylish or offers as much creativity in kills and movement. Learn to teleport, love to teleport. Turn your enemies to blueberry skeletons. Wait, what?
