tl;dr
Nader and Fragger, Arty and Skyhammer.
Nader:
SMG, sidearm, knife, 5 grenades and Martyrdom.
Fragger:
Rifle, sidearm, knife, 2 grenades.
Arty:
Rifle, sidearm, knife, ammo pack, artillery strike.
Skyhammer:
Rifle, sidearm, knife, ammo pack, air strike.
Thoughts?
Arty is clearly an inferior compromise between Kira and Skyhammer. As far as nader vs Fragger, well it looks like that at a glance but I know many people(higher tiered players) swear by him so…
Arty has the advantage that can quickly regain his air strikes at the price of having less coverage than Skyhammer, they are more controlled than Sky, but less so than Kira who has absolute control over her laser. His ammo packs make him a good source of quick ammo supplies if the player is reliable especially when he can shave off precious seconds like Skyhammer with direct hits, unlike Kira. His artillery id best used in a mindset of " if I were on the enemy team where would I be coming from", along with best used looking at the map’s walls and surfaces for unexpected strikes.
The unreleased fire support Stoker is best seen as a mini Kira/Sky oh Sky’s side he tosses his explosive (Molotov Cocktail like incendiary grenade) and works great in doors with 2 automatic rifles and 1 burster, while on Kira’s side he has an ammo station and area denial as his priority, also still as effective indoors as he is outdoors, something Arty and Kira can’t do and Skyhammer can at the price of low damage.
As for the Nader/Fragger thing I’ll bring in Rhino aswell.
Fragger fills a middle ground so to speak with quality over quantity, 2 powerful grenades that can be cooked for close range damage and an LMG/Rifles for good close/mid-range damage dealing.
Rhino is great at close range damage dealing with his minigun but lacks grenades for damaging enemies around corners and indirect fire, and his shotgun lets him have the reach his minigun lacks, his higher health makes him shrug off more than others but lacks speed, making him best used indoors where he can’t be sniped and near a medic, hopefully a healing station.
Nader has quantity when it comes to grenades, excelling at indirect fire and long range damage dealing but has an SMG for when her grenades can’t detonate fast enough due to the range and lacks health making her squishier and expected to be more on the move.
Edit: If you dropped 2 artillery strikes as Arty on a full health EV you’d be doing around as much damage as one Skyhammer Air strikes, but the lack of as much damage I somewhat believe is acceptable due to its range and better control.
uhm you do realize that this is still a classbased game. Mercs that fall into the same class will obviously share some characteristics but add their own spin on things.
Arty, Kira, Skyhammer, (Stoker) - are all firesupport/fieldops/soldiers (whatever you wanna call this class) they all give out ammo, they all do short but highdamage area denial. And they have weapons that are mainly for short mid to close longrange combat.
Fragger, Nader, Rhino, (thunder) - are all Assaults. They are the main combat mercs. they all have weapons (or weapon abilities) that deal good amount of damage, they are all a bit more tanky (even Nader is fairly beefy compaired to the rest of the women). They have to relay on the supportclasses (firesupport/medics) to really shine.
While you could general speaking play everyone in a class the same, it is not the best thing to do. Every Merc is different and you have to play them different to capitalize on their strength and weaknesses.
Arty for example has to be played totally different than Skyhammer to work. Arty needs longrange, flanking and generally speaking is best when he is not noticed. Skyhammer is far more direct and in the mids of battle.
Fragger and Nader is the same. Fragger is far more upfront and usually uses his Nades to take out 1-3 Enemies instantly and than kill the rest with his lmg (m4). While Nader has to constantly switch between nadelauncher and SMG softening up enemies with the first and finishing with the SMG. Nader also has to relay on her movement far more than Fragger.
Arty and Kira - That’s the only one really. Arty feels like a weaker version of Kira. The utility of his artillery gives him a slightly different feel but they have the same weapons, same type of designator and one of the abilities is far better than the other (lazor over artillery). I think this is why we have heard Arty is getting a pretty fair rework in the future. Neither play anything like Skyhammer. I think Stoker will be more like Skyhammer but still quite a different feel.
Nader and Fragger - Different weapons, vastly different feel (move speed, hit points, range) and vastly different use of explosives. These two share the fact they use explosives, but play very differently. While Nader is great at area denial over time and flushing out campers, Fragger flat out kills campers/choke points and isn’t much for area denial. Fragger is much, much, much better over all than Nader. Though Nader has her uses.