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Retix classes

Eight classes, swappable on every respawn. Each one is a health total, a move speed, a primary weapon and one ability. No unlock gate, no level requirement.

Every class also carries the Sidearm Pistol as its secondary, and every class has a dash on the ability key by default. Bulwark spends that key on the shield and Medic spends it on the heal beam instead.

Reading the table

• Health is the full health pool, not a multiplier. A Gunner takes almost three and a half times the damage a Marksman does before going down.
• Move speed is a multiplier on the base movement rate. The Gunner's ×0.55 is the price of 200 health and an 80-round magazine.
• The ability is not a cooldown-free extra. The shield and the heal beam replace the dash; they do not add to it.
• Nothing here is unlocked. All eight are available from the first match, and you can swap on every respawn, including mid-match when the enemy composition changes.

The two ends of the range

Marksman and Gunner are the extremes, and reading them explains the rest.

The Marksman has 60 health and moves at ×0.85. It dies to a single Bolt Sniper headshot and cannot outrun anything. What it buys is a scope that arms while you stand still, on a weapon that already does 80 damage and doubles it on a head. It is only good where it chose to be.

The Gunner is the mirror image. Two hundred health and an 80-round magazine, at ×0.55 move speed, barely more than half of everyone else, on a weapon that itself takes another 15% off. It cannot rotate, cannot chase and cannot disengage. What it does is hold an angle somebody has to walk into, and the spin-up means it wants to start firing before the target arrives.

Weight compounds

Class move speed and weapon weight multiply. A Gunner at ×0.55 holding a Light MG at ×0.85 moves at about ×0.47 of the base rate, and a Bulwark at ×0.70 with a Pump Shotgun at ×0.95 sits near ×0.67. Meanwhile a Scout at ×1.35 with a Compact SMG pays no weapon penalty at all and keeps the full ×1.35.

That is a spread of nearly three to one across the roster, and it is the single largest source of asymmetry in the game, larger than any damage difference.

If a matchup feels unwinnable, check the speeds before the guns.

The abilities that are not a dash

Bulwark's shield absorbs 120 damage from any direction for four seconds, on a twelve-second cooldown. Absorbing instead of reducing makes it worth the same against a Railgun as against a pistol, and four seconds is roughly the time it takes to cross open ground, so the shield is a movement tool as much as a defensive one.

Medic's beam heals 18 HP per second inside 260 pixels, capped at 90 HP per eight seconds. The cap stops a Medic from being an unkillable pocket for a Bulwark: past 90 healed, the beam stops paying until the window rolls over.

Saboteur fades out after standing still and breaks the fade by moving or firing. Not an escape button. A positioning tool that costs you the thing you wanted the position for.

Demolisher's dash is the ordinary one, and its trait is a drawback. Its own explosions deal 40% of their damage back, so a Rocket Launcher fired at a wall two metres away is a self-inflicted wound.

Composition, and why swapping mid-match is the point

Because you can change class on every respawn, a class pick is a response and not a commitment. Dying to a Bulwark parked on a Domination point is information: a Demolisher's rocket does 100 damage plus splash into a 140-pixel circle the Bulwark cannot leave, and the shield only absorbs 120 of it once every twelve seconds.

The same logic runs the other way. A team of Scouts and Saboteurs, at 70 and 85 health, loses any fight that turns into standing still, and every objective fight turns into standing still. Something has to absorb the first exchange.

Only Bulwark and Gunner genuinely can.

Medic is the class whose value depends entirely on who else is there. Eighteen health a second inside 260 pixels does very little for a Scout that is never within 260 pixels of anyone. On a Gunner that cannot retreat and cannot rotate, it is most of a second health bar. The 90-HP-per-eight-seconds cap means it tops up one heavy target instead of sustaining a whole team.

Which class to start with

Trooper is the default and the one with no drawback: full-rate movement, a hundred health and a rifle that works at every range. Scout rewards knowing the map, Marksman rewards standing still, and Gunner rewards holding an angle somebody has to walk into.

Trooper is also the honest baseline for judging a weapon. Every stat on the weapons page is a base stat before class and upgrades touch it, so testing a newly unlocked gun on Trooper tells you what the gun does. Testing it on Gunner tells you what the pairing does.