Best Starters in Jagged Alliance 3

There is a lot of information to take in when choosing your initial squad for Jagged Alliance 3. From 6 total classes: All Rounder, Mechanic, Medic, Marksman, Explosive Specialist and Leader, the differences between the picks can appear as simple as Base Stats. But knowing that each have a unique set of skills, Perks and Stats that can be trained by a good leader, the choice between the 4 Tiers has proven harder than it should be for player’s first playthrough. Strategy begins from the Main Menu and it is crucial that you do not waste your money or time on a poorly crafted squad. Because of this, this is Vincent’s guide on the best Mercenary starters to use in Jagged Alliance 3.

What Starting Mercs are Best to Use in Jagged Alliance 3?

Our first recommendation and possibly an obvious one is that when choosing which Mercs to bring on missions should be specialists in specific fields. You do not want to be walking around with a full squad of Mechanics or Medics as this does not resemble real life military groups executing missions. Not only this but, you will want to have either 4 or 5 Mercs on your squad. As previously stated, aim to have a Medic (Merc with Medical Training), Mechanic (Merc with Mechanical Training), All-Rounder and Explosives Specialist.

You should be mindful of pre-existing relationships with Mercs across the Tiers. Dependant on their negative relationship with working alongside specific squad mates can result in their asking of a higher pay to accommodate for their pain they are about to go through (and I am not talking about taking fire). It is important to refer to the amount of money you have for the Merc recruitment. You do not want to end with insufficient funds or risk spending all of your money on your starting squad where you cannot switch out a member for a Merc that requires higher pay.

The Mercs are divided into Tiers – Recruit, Veteran, Elite and Legendary. For the case of just getting started, we recommend the Tiers – Recruit and Veteran. There are a few things to keep out for when selecting your team and that is completely down to their Stats. To expand on this further we will go into what you should look out for when crafting your perfect starting squad of Mercenaries.

Important Starting Stats

As this is a turn-based strategy game, Jagged Alliance looks at movement being a key part of gameplay. You will have certain Mercs that can move farther than others, allowing you to either cover ground more or head into a prime position to get a stealth kill or gain an advantage against the enemy as you attack first. In strategy, positioning will always matter. Because of this, you will want a Mercenary that has high Agility and Dexterity. In this case, you will want to designate this to either the Medic or All-Rounder. Next, you will want a designated tank that has high Strength for a larger Inventory, best used for Mechanics with higher Mechanical Stats for repairing gear and lockpicking POIs.

High Wisdom is great for finding Medical Herbs and should be used for players who find themselves often wounded in battle. Wisdom is also great to level up the Merc’s Stats inside the A.I.M Evaluation. High Wisdom often goes hand-in-hand with Leadership as you have the ability to both scout other specialist Mercs whilst training others. Marksmanship and Explosives are crucial Stats to early game completion as you will be able to take out any enemies you run into whilst being able to preserve your health and reduce the amount of damage taken due to hitting critical shots against the opposition.

Perks are Essential in your Choosing

Each Merc has special Perks to make them stand out above the rest. When picking your starting squad, Perks are just as important as Base Stats. Because of this, you will want to evaluate what is best to bring with you into the 14 day period at the beginning of Jagged Alliance 3. For example, M.D feels like an obvious choice in the Recruit Tier as he demonstrates higher overall stats over Fox. However, Fox has strength under the Marksmanship Stat and with a small difference between the Medical Stat, she is a better pick over MD You should also note that if you pick Steroid, he cannot work with MD due to their difficult relationship and choosing Fox means you cannot have Buns, Mouse or Steroid on the team. By ignoring the relationships, it can result in moving members into new squads or having to increase the pay to recruit or extend contracts just to work with one another.

So Who Should you Recruit?

When selecting your Mercenaries, you will want to refresh the Tiers and the Online/Offline Mercs available for recruitment by exiting back to the Main Menu. This will allow you to see the best starting Mercs to recruit if they are not officially available at the time of your recruitment. You should also be sure to recruit your team for the full 14 days in their contract as this saves you more money long-term due to discounts given at a later stage on the same Merc recruitment. So who should you recruit? We recommend a team of 5 for the beginning of your playthrough and these are our starting picks for Mercs:

• Custom Merc – Remove Explosives and Medic, focus on Agility and Dexterity
• MD (Recruit) – Medic
• Livewire (Recruit) – Mechanic
• Barry (Recruit) – Explosives
• Buns (Veteran) – Marksman

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