BRINK is a class-based shooter based around teamwork to attack and defend objectives. The following is a list of BRINK’s classes, along with their abilities and a few little tips and tricks you can use to your advantage with them.

Engineer

The Engineer is very versatile and probably the best all around class from what I've found in my time playing. They have a ton of abilities to enhance your team but also a ton of abilities to help yourself out.

• Engineers have two very important buffs, actually they are probably the best two buffs in the game in my opinion. The first is their ability to buff their teammates or their own weapon damage. They get this ability from the start but can unlock a Improved Weapon Buff ability that really stands out in game at later levels. If you can do more damage you obviously should win more firefights. Without this you barely stand a chance against someone who does have it.
  
  
• The second major buff they have it the Extra Kevlar buff which gives teammates additional armor protection. This buff lasts until they die and respawn and an Engineer cannot self administer this buff or give it out to a Soldier who already has the Kevlar Ability.
  
  
• Engineers play a key role when on the attacking side as they are the only class that can complete repair objectives which a lot of the primary objectives consist of in the different maps so they are very important to advancing and winning most matches.
  
  
• Engineers also play a major role on the defending side as well, being the only class that can complete construction objectives and they also are tasked with removing any enemy explosive charges. Lastly they are tasked with the removal of hacked devices by first removing the progress and then finally taking them off.
  
  
• TIP: More than one engineer can work on an objective to speed up the process. Use this to your advantage and work with a partner or your team to get in and finish it quickly before the enemy reinforcements arrive.
  
  
• TIP: Do not purchase the Sense of Perspective ability in the Universal section. It's a waste and you're going to want to be able to move around during the lengthy interactions while attempting to Build/Repair stationary objectives as an Engineer. Being able to move behind cover and away from danger is more important then seeing a 360° angle of the area.
  
  
• TIP: Watch your Radar instead of your progress bar when your completing an objective. Enemies that are firing, running, or using S.M.A.R.T will show up as red dots and you can determine when you need to stop the activity and pull out your gun to shoot the guy coming up from behind you or if they are getting too close from any which direction.
  
  
• Engineers can disarm enemy mines that a friendly Operative points out. Of course anybody can just shoot at it and explode it as well.
  
  
• Engineers have the ability to build Machine Gun nests that are scattered around the map at key areas. After they are built anyone can access them and use them. They are fairly accurate and deadly but they do overheat if used for an extended period of time.
  
  
• Engineers can plant down turrets that scan an area for any enemies and when it acquires a target fires at them even turning around in a 360° angle to track them. They can be very helpful in defending a key area or also in attacking a key area if you can manage to get one down before the enemy notices you. They greatly help in their damage output and can often be the difference between surviving a close tough battle. Turret's can be destroyed by the enemy and they generally don't kill an enemy by themselves but they'll take a bit of their health down and give you and your teammates an advantage as an enemy with less health is going to go down quicker and easier. Often you can use them to control the enemies movements as mainly they will directly avoid them if they know they are there. Your turret's status and health bar will show up on the HUD at the bottom left of the screen. After taking so much damage it becomes inoperable until any Engineer, you or a teammate comes and repairs it. Multiple Engineers can repair it at once and it doesn't take that long to get it up and working again. If the enemy continue to shoot it they will destroy it all together. Also if you plant a new turret down while the old one is still up the old one will be destroyed. There are three types of turrets; Light, Medium, and Gatling Auto-Turret which an Engineer unlocks at level cap. Each one is increasingly more deadly then the last.
  
  
• Engineers also have the ability to plant Mines down. They get this ability from the beginning levels. Your mine's status shows up on the HUD at the bottom left of the screen allowing for you to see when it's been destroyed. You can plant another one at any time however but not until later levels can an Engineer lay down two mines on the map at the same time. First they must purchase the Extra Landmine ability. Mines can also help a lot in trying to defend key specific areas. Mines don't show up on enemies maps unless the enemy is an operative or the mine is spotted by an operative and they interact with it for a few seconds to point it out to their teammates. They can only be planted some places on the ground, not on objects or right next to objects, so anyone using S.M.A.R.T can easily avoid them. Mines also don't explode until the person who steps on them steps off them. So if your walking and you hear the noise you can stand still and wait for a friendly engineer to come and disarm it. Honestly though nobody does this and most run around everywhere so they don't have time to stop making mines very effective to use.
  
  
• One of the strongest abilities an Engineer possesses is the Command Post Upgrade ability. If your team has captured and is in control of the health or supply command post an Engineer can with this ability can access the command post for a short period of time and in the center of the wheel you'll see a progress circle start up. When complete instead of one health pip or one supply pip EVERYBODY on the team now gets TWO pips which greatly helps them stay alive or use their own abilities. It's a big advantage because again that's for all teammates and it's there from every time at respawn as long as your team continues to control that command post.
  

Soldier

Soldiers are the most deadly fighting force in the game and ultimately the best killing machines so if that's your thing, although that's not what the game is entirely about, then you might want to pick this class.

• Soldiers can give themselves the Kevlar Vest armor bonus that Engineers can only give out to others.
  
  
• Soldiers are so formidable because they also get a weapon damage boosting ability, Armor Piercing Ammo, which is also for themselves only. This negates anyone who is using the Kevlar armor bonus as a Soldier can then do the full 100% damage to them negating the resistance.
  
  
• Soldiers also have exclusive access to Molotov ****tails which are a special type of grenade. They are more deadly and damaging then the standard Frag Grenades which tends to only knock an enemy down.
  
  
• Soldiers also get the exclusive use of Flashbang Grenades which temporarily blinds enemies who see them detonate.
  
  
• Later on, when they reach level cap, Soldiers gain the ability to use Satchel Charges (C4) with the choice to throw and detonate up to three of them all at once or individually.
  
  
• Grenades and special explosive abilities are a big part of the Soldiers arsenal and many of their abilities are based around improving their blast radius, damage, and the speed of the grenade recharge timer. Brink features an unlimited supply of grenades but has a cooldown period between uses to keep it fair and balanced. They also cost on pip of the supply meter when you use one, which also slowly regenerates.
  
  
• Soldiers have yet another ability to scavenge dead enemy bodies to refill their supply meter so that so they can use more and more grenades faster than other classes can.
  
  
• As deadly as they are they are not totally kill orientated. Soldier's do play a play a support role in the fact they normally are not tasked with an objective. Well mainly that is, They can do some main objectives by planting HE explosive charges but they play a bigger role on the team as they can keep the enemy at bay by killing them and pushing them back while the other classes go for the objective.
  
  
• While Soldiers focus on kills and guarding teammates they still also a major role to fill with their buffs. The Soldier's "buff" is more of a ammo refill than it is a buff but their biggest team benefit, ammo, is very important. Soldiers are the only way you can refill your ammo without running back to a friendly command post which takes you out of the front lines and could cost your team. Soldiers can give out an ammo buff to teammates and replenish their own ammo at any time as long as they have a pip on their supply meter.
  
  
• Soldiers can also give up an Extra Magazine buff which increases the total ammo capacity. This is very important as guns run out of ammo quickly in this game with most guns only carrying enough for one reload. Ammo is at a premium and it was done this way purposely to give Soldiers a bigger role in the game.
  
  
• Strategy: A couple of soldiers with all their abilities unlocked should be the main fighting force at the front lines of any team. You simply must have some at the front lines not only for their shooting and killing capabilities but if your team want's to be ready and able to stay in the fight for a long enough time you better have a soldier around to hand out ammo as well.
  

Medic

Medic's play a huge role in this game as Brink features a wave respawn system that has you not spawning on random spawn points scattered across the map but all the way back at your base. A medic however can keep you alive or revive you right were you lie on the battlefield to get you back in the action right away.

• Medics can give out a health buff which gives one extra pip to your overall health bar. This however doesn't last very long at all and it doesn't regenerate when the rest of your health bar does so I usually just save my supplies for their other more beneficial abilities.
  
  
• Medics also can give out another buff called Metabolism which increases the rate at which your health regenerates. They cannot give themselves this buff but it is a good buff to give out to teammates as it lasts until they die and respawn so even if they are downed and incapacitated but revived then they'll still have the health regen buff active on them. In general it's best to just back out of the line of fire if you see yourself low on health and let it regen really quick then get back in. This buff decreased their downtime and gets them back in the fight faster.
  
  
• In Brink when your shot to the point where you health bar is emptied your incapacitated and laying down on the ground, the enemy can then walk up to you and melee you or shoot you from afar to kill you but mostly you see them leave you alone especially if there's a raging firefight going on. If a player plays a medic right they can keep you in the fight without going down but if you do get incapacitated then they are also very important to the team with their Revive ability! Rather then wait for the wave respawn to come around and have to run back to the front lines of the battle they can simply toss you a syringe and you can use it to get back in the fight.
  
  
• Strategy: A medic usually isn't firing his gun or he shouldn't be because they should be behind those that are fighting the battle and not in the line of fire. They are best kept alive to their team rather than risking death by helping out shooting enemies. Medics should always be around teammates tough waiting to heal or revive fallen teammates. A smart medic should also know the maps and watch the teams back. Most the time nobody is watching from behind and the medic is in perfect position to be the one to watch from behind and make sure their team doesn't get snuck up on or flanked. In a heated firefight your going to want a Medic, or two even, if you want to come out on top they are very important.
  
  
• Medics have another key ability called Self Resurrection. You can revive yourself every so often, as this powerful ability has a very long cooldown period between uses, but it can often come in handy to revive yourself and then quickly revive some teammates and hold off the objective for that last crucial moment before they capture it and win. I usually don't waste it unless I know I can revive at least two of my teammates right away.
  
  
• At level cap Medic's also get the impressive ability to use Lazarus Grenades which revives all incapacitated teammates in the healing cloud.
  
  
• Medics also have a buff that increases their teammates run speed for a short period of time.
  
  
• Medics also get an Adrenaline Boost ability that they can give to a teammate to allow them to ignore all damage for a short period of time but when the effect wears off after a short period of time they will get all the ignored damage all at once. This can be effective if you give it to a heavy with a Gotlung Minigun and then time it for him to go into and clear a room but you'll have to revive him right afterwords as he surely will go down.
  
  
• Medics also got the ability to increase their supply meter by one or two pips and then another ability to transfer supplies to a teammate.
  
  
• Their main battle though is with their supply meter. Managing that with their revives and heals is very important. For this reason alone any medic will want to purchase the Supply Max Increase ability and the Resupply Rate Increase ability in the Universal section as it gives you one extra pip and regenerates your used supply pips at a faster rate. With both Medic abilities, a upgraded supply command post, and the Supply Max Increase ability a Medic can have an extra five pips for a total of eight supply pips to use for revives and buffs.
  
  
• TIP: I usually just save my supplies for revives because while their heals are good when a teammate is about to go down their health buff with the extra health pip is only so-so and that tad bit of health bonus goes away too fast and doesn't regen. Their heals can be the difference between who wins a battle and who is sitting on the ground incapacitated or dead though.
  
  
• TIP: A medic rarely wants to ever throw a grenade as he will waste of of his supply pips that he could use for the key revive in a heated battle.
  
  
• Medics play a key role in some missions that include escorting a human as the escort tends to go down often and only a medic can get them back up and moving. At those times it's probably best to have at least two to three medics on the team. When on the defending side it's best to make sure the medics don't get close to the escort by pushing the enemy back. If you can keep the escort down on the ground you can stop them from advancing any further.
  

Operative

The last class, Operatives, are probably the least sought after class to play but even they have a big role on the team if they are played right and can be extremely tricky and therefore deadly.

• Many consider the Operative the solo player's class but they do have a lot of team helpful abilities. While they do not have any buffs to give to teammates they can give the whole team a tactical advantage with every enemy showing up on the radar for a short while by interrogating a incapacitated enemy with their Comms Hack ability for example.
  
  
• Most of their abilities however do revolve around themselves by making them trickier or deadlier. Such as the starting ability to disguise themselves as a player on the other team. By interacting with their dead body for a short period of time Operatives can take that enemies shape and outfit as well as have their name displayed above their head. It is a pretty powerful ability and helps them get behind enemy lines where if the player is good and fast enough they can take down the main medic and a couple of other enemy players and if corresponding with teammates through chat can really help out with advancing past a tough area.
  
  
• At level cap they get to use EMP Grenades which can temporarily disable enemy turrets, mines, and radars as well as slow down the progress of enemy Hacks and HE charges.
  
  
• Earlier they gain the ability to use Sticky Bombs. Sticky Bombs are like plasma grenades on Halo or Semtex on Call of Duty but unlike those games it can be removed by your teammate. It's very funny to watch people run around in circles when stuck because they don't know what to do and are looking for a teammate to take it off.
  
  
• TIP: Stick Bombs work even if missed on the initial throw attempt because they can still be stuck onto enemies when they walk over them while it lies on the ground. Making it useful by purposely throwing it around an objective and an enemy will get stuck and explode just a like a engineers mine would. Though unlike the mine it can be spotted and shot at to be removed.
  
  
• They also get to use Caltrop Grenades which are a special type of grenade that upon explosion scatters sharp spikes across the area. These spikes remain in the world for the length of the ability's cooldown period. They hurt enemies but not teammates who cross over them, unless they move slowly (aka Crouching or Iron Sighting)
  
  
• One of the deadlier abilities they have is the Cortex Bomb ability which gives them the option to explode while incapacitated. This comes in handy and is hilarious as the enemy usually tries to finish the job with melee instead of wasting the few bullets they may have left and then finds themselves dead when they enter the blast range and you trigger the bomb.
  
  
• Operatives have the ability to spot enemy mines and point them out to teammates who normally couldn't see them. Then a friendly Engineer can disarm them and dispose of them or anyone can just shoot it and explode it. This is generally considered a waste of time but it can save your teammates life if you take the time out to do it.
  
  
• Operatives also get two abilities that have to do with turrets. The first is the ability to hack enemy turrets. The second is the ability to manually control friendly turrets. They can use this combo to take an enemy's turret and then remotely control it from a safe distance behind cover. That or just have a teammate set one up for them to control. Making an Engineer and Operative tandem very formidable.
  
  
• Operatives can also firewall a command post which makes it a tad bit harder for the enemy to capture it.
  
  
• Operatives role in primary objectives are not easy. In fact they are the only ones who can complete hacking objectives which there are a fair amount of in some maps and I consider them the hardest to complete because they take the longest to finish. In fact, it's not too uncommon to see a majority of the team switch to operative to get the main objective done because the more Operatives that are hacking the objective the faster the progress meter goes up and to be quite honest it takes too long to rely on just one Operative to do the job.
  
  
• At their core though Operatives are best played as a flanker and usually you'll only see one player playing as them at a time, maybe two. They just simply are not the best class but with their array of deadly abilities like disguise and self exploding it makes them a dangerous opponent and one to watch out for. but if played with some skill they can be a regular and deadly class to play as.
  

This class system reminds me of Team Fortress 2 and much like Team Fortress 2's four classes each one in Brink plays a key role in the team's success at winning. Experiment and try them all out. Don't be afraid to buy abilities your not sure about as they can be sold at the cost of one level. You lose a level but all your purchases abilities get reset and the points you earn by leveling up and then spend on unlocking them are returned. You'll want to figure out what you like best early though as you don't want to be dropping levels later on and losing massive amounts of experience. If you don't want to lose any experience you can create plenty of different characters, to try out each class to the full extent. I think the max is 16 right now.

General Tips and Tricks:

The game lets you choose between three different body types (Light, Medium, and Heavy) and with a Mirror's Edge movement system called S.M.A.R.T or Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain the choice of what body type you play as comes in play by how well your able to move as well as the amount of health you have and what weapons your able to use.

• Lights run the fastest and can climb and get to places on the map that neither of the other two types can. They also apparently can do special free running (parkour) moves like wall running and wall jumps. They are very agile and just quicker then the other two but in exchange they don't have as much health. They also are restricted to the types of weapons they can use with only having the option between Sub Machine Guns and Light Rifles (Sniper) as their primary weapon and Pistols as their secondary weapon.
  
  
• Heavy's cannot do much climbing and must resort to stairs and ramps usually to get anywhere but where they lack the ability to free run they gain the ability to use all the guns offered in Brink especially the deadly Minigun and Grenade Launcher. They also have the most health.
  
  
• The medium is a blend between the two. They are the only body type you have to use at level 1 until you unlock the other two. They can use a larger assortment of weapons and have a tad bit more health than a light and a tad bit less then a heavy. Their movement abilities also fall inbetween the two. They can climb a lot of the map's structures but it just takes them longer then a light. They are not as quick or agile.
  

• The game is a lot more about movement and evading fire then it is about being quicker or better at firing. If you come up against a group of enemies and you're alone by yourself or low on ammo it's better to just run away and avoid contact then it is to try and Rambo it out and kill them all off by yourself.
  
  
• Often check the scoreboard or the symbols above your teammates heads to see what class they are playing as. If you have no-one playing the main objective then switch yourself to the required class at any command post.
  
  
• Headshots do count to an extent. They do a bit more damage but they are not one shot kills. Even with a light rifle (sniper) so it's best to just go for the body and make sure your hitting them.
  
  
• If you use the S.M.A.R.T button to start running you don't have to continue to hold it down to run. You can just keep the analog stick up so your moving in a direction and you will continue to run. You won't climb or do any of the other stuff unless your holding that button down however, but you also won't accidentally start climbing when you don't want to either.
  
  
• The Underslung Grenade Launcher Bottom Attachment for Assault Rifles will shoot your frag grenades out from your gun instead of throwing them by hand and they will detonate on contact instead. You still use the same button to use them and there still is a cooldown.
  
  
• Melee attacks knock them over like frag grenades do allowing for you to quickly pump a few shells in their downed body to finish them off.
  
  
• If you use a pistol in your off hand you'll carry a knife and when you melee you'll no longer knock them over but instead do a ton of damage to their health allowing for you to quickly shoot them a few times with the pistol and finish them over. A deadly combo when up close or when sneaking from behind a group of enemies.
  
  
• If you run at an enemy and hit the crouch button you will slide and knock them over. Very effective tactic for light body types.
  
  
• The Silent Running ability in the Universal section is very useful as you will no longer appear on an enemy's radar for running.
  
  
• Also if you run and slide around corners you can shoot while sliding, just like you can shoot while climbing and doing any other S.M.A.R.T movement actions so it's best to do this when going around blind corners where an enemy might be waiting for you.
  
  
• A heavy won't be killed by a Sticky Bomb but it will take all but a sliver of their health.
  
  
• The Downed Fire ability in the Universal section allows for you to fire while incapacitated but only with your backup weapon. There will still be an initial delay plus you will lose a bit of health while incapacitated making it easier for them to finish you off and less likely a medic will be able to revive you.