Specops

A soldier of a special forces unit with the very best equipment and melee skills. Has ranged weaponry. Drops from the sky.

## Unlock Requirements

### Price

Obtained by purchasing the SpecOps Pack for 500 money

 **Specops** is a soldier of an overarching governmental force. He is armed with an AK-47 and a pistol, and dressed in a green camo uniform with the sleeves rolled up, green camo pants, a flak jacket, and a green military helmet with a green mandible guard and a dark yellow visor. He carries a green backpack with a bedroll secured on top of it.

To unlock Specops, players must purchase the SpecOps Pack for 500 money.

## Functionality

### Basics

Specops is a **shooter**, meaning he shoots a weapon with a high rate of fire that excels at crowd control and dealing a lot of damage in quick bursts.

Specops is a strong ranged unit, boasting high health and fast movement speed. However, his courage cost is quite high and takes a long time to prepare. He as well has a high Valor and Charisma, partially countering the Fear debuff.

Specops fires his gun in three-round bursts up to four times before having to perform a very fast reload. If he is approached and forced into close quarters combat, Specops does three melee attacks. All three hits deal crit damage if the attack is a crit. It's also notable that, unlike most other ranged units, he will prioritize using his melee attacks in close quarters instead of continuously shooting until their ammo runs out.

### Perks and Abilities

Specops is immune to poison, and has 90% resistance to bullet damage.

Similar to rage abilities, Specops can be dropped on the battlefield anywhere. After selecting the desired position for him to land, Specops will soon arrive and after landing will proceed to fight.

The gun Specops uses is fired in bursts, granting him a high rate of fire. This in comparison to other units with the perk, such as Sonya, is quite slow, meaning that his overall DPS will be lower.

Enemies struck by Specops' triple melee attack combo will be knocked back. Knockback for each hit remains the same regardless if it crits or not. Due to the multiple attacks, enemies can be knocked back more than once in one animation if they step forward.

When killed, Specops does not turn into a zombie. Instead, he fires three more shots with a backup weapon, each carrying normal damage values. This attack is subject to the Fury buff, if he was affected before his death. He will not be able to use this attack if his body is destroyed by incendiary sources or Energy Sphere.

Specops possesses a great level of fear resistance. More enemies have to be nearby to adversely affect his performance, and more nearby units will gain boosts to Valor.

Upon reaching level 13, Specops' special ability can be unlocked, guaranteeing that a random item will be spawned shortly after death, apart from Drone which cannot be spawned. Any support items will appear at level 13. Because of its random selection, the overall effectiveness of this ability is questionable. The dropped item can be:

* Empty Barrel. It is the simplest item that can possibly be summoned. However, its usefulness is limited as it doesn't do much except for possibly hurting/killing whoever was likely responsible for killing Specops (although it's likely to miss due to being dropped in front his corpse where enemies may have moved past by then) and becoming a small obstacle for other enemies. As usual, it still posses a threat to friendly units as it can still damage or kill them should they be near Specops when he dies;
* Medkit. Similarly to Medic's special ability, Medkits will spawn and cover the area in which Specops died. It is fairly useful as healing is always helpful in any situation and the Medkits always try to cover as much ground for healing as possible. There is an additional element of randomness as Specops may only spawn one Medkit instead which always spawns directly on his corpse;
* Red Barrel. It can be considered an upgrade from Empty Barrel. Thanks to its explosion and fire damage, it proves to be a much more useful and overall better item in almost any situation comparatively. It can also damage and kill units, but the weaker melee damage and the detonation being manual makes it easier to handle;
* Molotov Cocktail. Similarly to Firefighter's special ability, a Molotov will be thrown in front of Specops and burn anything in its radius. While powerful, it is also somewhat situational and fairly dangerous as other units just behind or ahead of Specops can get caught in its flames as well. The Molotov can also prove useless depending on if the enemies fought have fire resistance;
* Generator. It is the strongest item that can possibly be summoned health-wise. As usual, it can spawn ever-useful courage packs for summoning other units and act as a shield;
* Nitrogen. Similarly to Dr. Norman's special ability, a Nitrogen will fall and stun anyone nearby. While the slowdown it provides can aid greatly in slowing down the advances of enemies towards the bus, it can just as easily affect other nearby units and put them in a terrible position given that it spawns on Specops' corpse. It is overall a fairly risky item to summon;
* Turret. Possibly the best item that can possibly be summoned. Thanks to its insane damage output and multiple uses, it can prove to easily turn the tables back in a players after losing Specops. Even if it finds itself in a less than ideal position upon being dropped, it can still deal some decent damage and cause additional harm when destroyed;
* A grenade. Similarly to Grenadier's special ability, a grenade will be thrown forward. As usual, the grenade deals 160 damage. Despite its effectiveness, it is a bit situational and is still capable of unintentionally killing other units.

As an automatically upgrading unit, Specops' level will increase to match the player's bus level.

## Gameplay

### Main Campaign

Specops can be seen as an upgrade to Sonya, however this isn't entirely true. He has the same stats as Sonya but benefits from several more perks at the cost of a slightly higher courage cost. He has additional resistances and his triple melee attack combo comes out quick while causing knockback on every hit. Additionally, all three hits will deal double damage if it is a crit since the entire combo is treated as one whole attack. However, he can't quite reach the same DPS as Sonya as his attack pattern is much slower than hers.

Specops' most unique perk is one shared across all stationary units: the ability to be dropped on the battlefield. This gives Specops the distinction among all other human units as the only one capable of being sent out without having to step out of the bus. Upon choosing Specops' unit portrait, players must then select where he will land with a unique marker, similarly to rage abilities. Once a spot is selected, a red signal flare is dropped onto its position and Specops will soon safely arrive on a parachute harnessed to his backpack before taking it off and landing on the ground where the flare was placed. Players should be careful not to drop him into fire pools or near very dangerous enemies which puts him in unnecessary danger that can otherwise be avoided. The whole process takes approximately four seconds before Specops begins to do anything. Specops cannot be sent too close to the barricade, giving him a distinct restriction on his ability to drop on the battlefield, unlike rage abilities. As he is a still a ranged unit, Specops must stay behind a certain distance from the barricade in order to support melee units while they destroy it. Specops' signal flare does not alert idle enemies, and it is only until Specops himself lands on the battlefield before they start moving.

In exchange for being a paratrooper, Specops cannot be sent out of the bus normally and therefore has a very long deploy delay which further complicates his already high preparation time. He will only walk out like any other unit if he is deployed during a sandstorm.

Possessing both bullet and poison resistance, Specops can be used in missions containing marauders or Epidemiologist and Slob. In either case, it wouldn't be a bad idea to slightly improve Specops' aim by dropping him a bit close to the enemies. He's fairly advantaged thanks to his high health as well as the fact that Lubber is the only marauder fought that possesses bullet resistance and Slob's death explosion is relatively weak compared to other zombies with the same ability. Additionally, he can knock most enemies back if they do manage to get too close to him.

Specops' ability also tends to hinder more than assist in his success, given that it is down to random chance. The ability also creates the dilemma of possibly even hurting other units in the surrounding area whether it be burning them with a Molotov or crippling them with a Nitrogen, making him risky to even play if the stage sports an Insectoid. However, the benefits of the ability sometimes come into favor of the player and ally units, but the ability makes him far to inconsistent, thus making him essential to protect otherwise RNG might create a bad outcome.

Despite being a good ranged unit overall, Specops is considered to be less preferable in Main Campaign, mostly due to his DPS being considerably lower than his predecessors, most noticeably Carlos and Sonya. His unique perk to land anywhere on the battlefield, while sounds interesting, increases his practical preparation time, preventing him from providing any meaningful support frequently. This issue becomes more apparent in the late game progress, where most enemies are highly dangerous up close. As such, it is not necessary to purchase his expensive bundle pack.

### Skirmish

In League, Specops is a very strong choice thanks to his high health, high rate of fire, and speed which make him a very versatile unit. His bullet resistance and speed greatly increase his survivability against enemy ranged units, even to those with strong damage output. His on-death attack could be useful occasionally should an enemy unit gets weakened by himself and/or friendly units. However, his poor accuracy can hinder his damage potential against bullet-resistant enemy units. It should be noted that if Specops is killed last but manages to kill the last enemy unit with his on-death attack, the victor of that match will still be the enemy team as Specops technically died first (the pistol shots are simply an extension of his perk that prevents him from turning *after dying*).

With his special ability unlocked, Specops proves to be an unpredictable wild card in a fight due to the RNG of his items that can greatly aid or hinder his team. If Turret or Generator was summoned, units will always attempt to destroy it before attacking any enemies behind them, though enemy units can still miss their target and hit a unit behind it. However, Empty Barrel, Red Barrel, and Nitrogen will be ignored. It should be noted that Red Barrel, in particular, can be used to the player's benefit. If an enemy Specops spawns it after death, players themselves can manually detonate it as if it were theirs, potentially giving players an, albeit unpredictable and rare, advantage during the fight.

### Item Sets

Like most high fire rate units, Specops benefits most with Hunter. Military sets also work well especially since they are available at Tier 3 early-game. He has a very high preparation cooldown so it is recommended to get some preparation cooldown reduction% watches so he can be effectively used. Specops' high base health makes him benefit very well with % Health Books and substats rather than flat Health stats.

Specops' top priority stat should be flat damage boosts, especially to offset his middling damage output. He can also benefit well from + Melee Damage as it works well with his upper end melee damage and knock back allowing for higher self preservation, though this isn't necessarily something to lookout for. It is recommended to avoid +Valor given his already high stat, making any addition to such stat negligible in practice.

## Skins and Synergies

Specops is a part of the Military team.

 Team

Specops is a decently powerful choice for his team, and shines the most in Skirmish with the Military 3/3 team power, which has 20% chance to spawn another copy of him when a military unit has been slain, sometimes turning the tides even with the worst RNG. Outside of that, he actually works much better in company of other units due to the terrible performance of military synergies in campaign.

## Trivia

* Specops was inspired by the parallel universe Great Britain's Special Forces from Jasper Fforde's debut novel The Eyre Affair.
* He shares the exact same weapon, an AK-47, as Biker. However, Biker can fire an extra three round burst compared to him.
* Both Specops and Flamethrower are the only units to be negatively affected by a sandstorm other than its unit movement speed decrease.
	+ As Specops typically arrives from air, it can be reasonably inferred the choice was deliberate, as he would have been blown away otherwise.
* Specops, Pepper, and Sonya all have the distinction of being the only three ranged units in the game who prioritize using their melee attack in close quarters combat, as other ranged units will fire at point blank range, only using their melee if approached very suddenly, or if they run out of ammo. This was likely done since all three of them have knockback on their melee attacks, and they wouldn't be getting good use out of the perk if they acted like any other ranged unit.
* Specops used to have a bug where if he summoned Empty Barrel in Skirmish on death, the game softlocks because units in Skirmish do not attack the Barrel, and since it is considered a unit, the fight never ends until the player quits.
* Due to the patch 2.8.2 in 2019 improving movement near fire and Specops ability to drop a Generator in Skirmish, he can replicate the "fire bug", where a enemy unit is basically soft locked till the dropped Generator is destroyed or other, when there is a pool of fire nearby. The enemy unit will quickly turn left and right and is unable to go anywhere, till the generator gets destroyed, the fire extinguishes or the unit itself gets killed. This bug can heavily affect the outcome of a round, but occurs rarely and only when using or encountering certain other units.

 Humans
 TMF Squad