Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad has just under 80 different operators that you can unlock and add to your squads in order to tackle the rising UMBRA threat around the globe. These operators consist of highly-trained agents proficient in many different tasks. While some are very situational and highly-useful at specific scenarios, others are better for general purpose, making them stronger in most cases.

However, as we mentioned in our rerolling guide for Elite Squad, most of these characters are locked behind the gacha summoning system, which can make it difficult to summon the best characters in the game. Nevertheless, before you try to reroll, you should actually know what characters to look for when summoning.

In this guide, we’re going to share our top picks for the best operators in Elite Squad in their respective categories:

Attacker Role

This role is all about defeating the enemy through sheer power. The characters in this category usually deal heavy damage with normal attacks, or have skills to instantly eliminate high-value targets. They’re an important part of most formations.

The Best Pointman

Dokkaebi is one of the strongest pointman (or pointwoman, in this case) in the game, featuring not only strong base damage with her sniper rifle, but also abilities to fear and incapacitate high value targets with her skills.

1. Logic Bomb: She targets the enemy with the highest ability damage, blinding them for 3 seconds and making all her allies to instantly reload and focus on the target with +20% accuracy and +35% weapon damage.
2. Virus: Whenever an enemy gets buffed, Dokkaebi also gains the same buff. Doesn’t work on permanent buffs.

The Best Striker

Sam Fisher is the obvious choice here not only because of his decent weapon damage, but because of his skills to finish off wounded targets, which makes him ideal for dealing with armored or tanky enemies, or with high-value targets, in general.

1. Mark & Execute: Sam marks the target with the lowest HP and shoots it 4 times for 80% ability power each. If the enemy’s health drops below 25% health with one of Sam’s shots, they will be instantly executed regardless of their remaining HP.
2. Silent Killer: Whenever Sam falls below 30%, he will gain stealth for 5 seconds, and automatically uses his active skill with 100% increased ability power.
3. Counterintelligence: Sam passively deals +10% weapon damage to AR and LMG enemies.

Defender Role

As their role title implies, defenders are all about provoking enemies into attacking them instead of their allies, while using defensive skills to absorb as much punishment as possible. They can make things easier if you have good defenders, but they can be replaced by more offensive compositions when necessary.

The Best Guardian

El Sueño is hands-down one of the best defensive units in the game. What he lacks in firepower, he more than makes up with sheer survivability. He has one of the best taunts.

1. Fearless Leader: Taunt all enemies and heal for 40% of his ability power per enemy taunted.
2. True Believer: Sueño takes 90% reduced damage from AoE attacks at all times. He also heals 0.5% HP per second for every enemy currently targeting him.
3. Bravado: Passively increases allied Santa Blanca Cartel unit’s HP by 15%.

Play Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad on PC

Play Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad on PC

The Best Enforcer

Tachanka is all about crippling the enemy with various status effects, while also absorbing tons of punishment. Though he lacks a proper taunt skill, he can keep allies safe by debuffing the enemy and dealing lots of AoE damage.

1. Sentry: Deploys a turret that shoots up to 20 rounds that deal 15% ability power each. This skill deals damage in a narrow line and can affect multiple targets. It has a 4% damage drop per bullet, and roots affected enemies to the ground for 5 seconds. While using it, Tachanka has +40% armor.
2. Barbed Wire: Tachanka reduces his target’s ability power by 10% with every shot, stacking up to 5 times. This effect persists for 1 second after he switches targets.
3. Obvious Target: Tachanka deals +30% damage to controlled targets, SG enemies, or opponents with the “Enduring” trait.

Specialist Role

Neither damage-dealers nor tanks, specialists are all about crippling enemies and keeping the team alive. Though you could definitely survive without them, their utility is unparalleled.

The Best Support

Doc, as his name implies, is all about keeping his allies healed in the field. He can both restore HP, as well as bring back a single fallen ally per stage.

1. Stim Pistol: Heals a target for 150% ability power.
2. Never Over: Doc can revive the first ally that falls in combat with 40% of their HP. This can only happen once per stage, and can include even Doc himself.

The Best Technician

Faye Lau has powerful CC skills that cripple the enemy for a few seconds, while also dealing considerable AoE.

1. Sticky Bomb: Launches a bomb at a target, causing them to run in fear for 2 seconds, and then explodes, dealing 95% ability power to enemies in a medium area.
2. Explosive Rounds: Her critical clips include explosive rounds, which affect all enemies in a small radius around the target for 4% ability power per shot.
3. Analytic Tactic: She deals +21% additional AoE damage to The Division enemies.

Since Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad just released a few weeks ago, there’s still no consensus on the current meta operators. Regardless, the characters we mentioned above are among some of the top rated in the current tier lists. Keep in mind that, as more characters are released, and strategies are developed, this meta will probably change, which is why having characters that can stand on their own without relying on team synergies is imperative.

With that being said, the operators mentioned above are some of the best in the game as of the time of writing this article. What are your favorite operators in Elite Squad? Leave us your recommendations in the comments below!