I’ll try to make this brief, especially as most of these points have been made elsewhere.
NJ feels like it’s in a pretty good place, although I’ve not had much change to use the Technician yet, and when I tried using their manual control on a Scarab it did nothing but waste the AP and WP. And of course the Armadillo sucks, but we all know that. But as far as their generic troopers and guns, seem very nice in terms of tradeoff, and certainly have uses.
Synderion’s generic lasers are also really good. The Infiltrator’s leave a bit to be desired, mainly the crossbow bolts should cost less considering just how often you reload them (and ya know, typically the reason you use a crossbow is the cheapness, since apparently every gun doesn’t break their stealth lmao), and the spider drones have a tendency to blow up too close to crates and structures you’re supposed to protect.
Also perhaps one for a different post: but the “nanomachine” whatever research from Syn that’s supposed to like negate the first point of fire/virus/acid/poison per attack doesn’t seem to work against fire, or it’s just worded oddly (pretty sure it’s saying the application is negated).
But Anu feels like they really got the short end of the stick. Their assault armor is nice but still a sharp tradeoff, while the Berzerker armor feels pretty bad and the priest especially so.
Their shotgun isn’t bad, but is such a big tradeoff and the ammo costs a lot more than your shotgun for some reason.
The Handcannon is just bad. Yes, the fact it does 100 damage for 2AP instead of 50 for 1AP does make it better against armor, but considering how damn inaccurate it is, it’s just not worth it: ask yourself why does anyone use a pistol? Snipers and Heavies (with cross training) use it to have a 1AP weapon to compliment their heavy arms, this can’t do that, nor does it function as well with quick aim or the less-AP-overwatch; Anyone who can use an assault rifle or shotgun is better off using that, in every situation I’ve found. And then the bezerkers themselves, I’d rather they have a gun that fires for 1 AP to help close the distance if they’re melee; and if I am hell bent on maximizing damage, the NJ Iron Fury does it better in bulk of situations, also comboes better with their armor-break skill!
And adding to that, the melee sucks; everyone else says this, but just in case you don’t know: the damage per AP isn’t worth the amount of work and risk you have to do to close in, and then the blade and mace you research are just really bloody bad; I can see why they got a nerf from BB where they were weaker but cost 1 AP, but I think that idea should be revisited, especially since the enemies seem to have in general gotten harder from the BB (that is, you face individually stronger enemies instead of 30 weak gits that will be easily claimed by the ol’ rapid clearance + dash bezerker, plus the fact will no longert stacks over the max).
The Priest I feel a little less comfortable commenting on. I do like them, and I do think they fill a very unique and cool role, one of the funner and more interesting parts of the game for sure. I haven’t found the Viral guns as bad as other people do, but maybe I’m just better at employing them, or more realistically not good enough to end battles as decsisvely as they do (I should mention I’ve yet to get rage burst yet Maybe the virus needs a buff, as has been mentioned it actually works at the END of the turn, which I can see why that might be better for balance but at least the description should be changed to match that. The Psychic Scream head might need a buff; not used it yet but I think it says it deals 2 will damage? That’s absolutely not enough to do anything useful.
I just really like Anu for their flavor, they seem to lack in tech. Their mutation tech is very tradeoff-ey too, and for the most part the only one’s of the first 6 that seem useful are regen, stomping, and perception head; a nice QOL improvement would be for the stealth-kick legs and the electric-eel torso to tell you in their description their “damage”, especially since the shock damage needs to exceed the enemy hp in one hit to work.