Grenadier

Grenadier
Regular Military
For him, there is nothing that cannot be blown up by a grenade.
Main Stats
Type	Damager
Rarity	Common
Health 54 Melee Damage 25
Explosive Damage	160 (grenade) 75 (on-death explosion)
Crit. Chance	1%
Crit. Damage	10%
Speed	10
Prepare Time	20
Courage Cost	25
Special	Grenade range: 400
Behavior Stats
Agility	60
Aggression	85
Detection Range	400
Agility Penalty	50%
Aggression Penalty	50%
Morale Stats
Charisma	300
Valor	350
Charisma Radius	80
Abilities
Perks
Ability Cooldown	10s
Special Ability	Throws a grenade in front of himself on death.
Resistances
Bullet	90%
Knockback	80%
Unlock Requirements
Price	1,150
Player Level	7

Grenadier is an IF member specializing in explosives. He carries grenades and a red nail bat, with an urban camo t-shirt with blue highlights, black armored vest, urban camo pants, light gray gloves, and a rusted blue IF combat helmet.

Modern Grenadier is Grenadier's first exclusive skin. He is armed with a combat knife and grenades and dressed in a green camo t-shirt underneath a tactical vest with pouches, green camo pants, beige gloves, and a green camo advanced combat helmet. He wears a pair of tinted ballistic eyewear and carries a green camo tactical backpack with an extra upper pouch attached.

He can be unlocked for 1,150 coins after reaching player level 7.

Overview

Grenadier is a Damager. His stats are average for his class, with the exception of slightly high preparation time. Grenadier's attack speed is swift, and his crits are landed as fast as his regular swings.

Grenadier has a manual ability to toss a grenade that always inflicts 160 damage on hit in a small area. It has a fixed flight arc and range. When used, he stops briefly to complete his throw, then immediately continues whatever he was doing.

Grenadier has 90% resistance to bullet damage, alongside very high knockback resistance. When killed, he does not turn into a zombie. Instead, he falls backwards, producing an explosion and a fire pool.

Special Ability

Grenadier's special ability grants him the ability to throw a grenade upon death. The throw will be made in a direction that Grenadier faces when he dies. However, in regular missions it will always be thrown towards the barricade.

In regular misisons, this ability is rather situational, and rarely provides meaningful input, acting more as a nice bonus since by the time enemies have killed him it is unlikely for his grenade to actually hit anything. However, it can see great use in skirmish, as it's possible for Grenadier to hurt backline ranged units this way, most notably Polina.

Gameplay

Main Campaign

Grenadier is one of the crucial units for progression, due to the way most mid-game missions are designed. They are rich with hordes of quick enemies, and his grenade is the most accessible option against these. Grenadier is a good unit for this stage of the game in general, as he is almost a direct upgrade of Builder, having higher DPS and a special ranged attack that allows him to damage certain threats, while not turning into a zombie when slain. The grenade is also useful for dealing with oncoming hostiles while Grenadier is fighting someone else, should you activate his ability with good timing as it has a fixed launch distance. It is also prone to hitting your other units, so you might want to wait a little unless you are sure Grenadier will miss otherwise, as not many units are resistant to explosions. A notable combination can be achieved with Firefighter when fighting Epidemiologist/Slob swarms, as he will be able to weaken Slobs and kill Epidemiologists to preserve Firefighter's lifetime.

Unfortunately, during endgame Grenadier quickly becomes a mediocre if not downright useless option, since he has nothing else to offer apart from his grenade. He is unable to stand against threats like Blues with their stun due to his lack of knockback perk. Not to mention that waves of Blue Runners aren't tightly packed, and so his grenade barely has any effect. Finally, his grenade is largely useless since enemies in endgame have increasingly higher health, meaning it will only barely damage them. Grenadier is best used in endgame stages to destroy Energy Spheres at range, since they pose a significant threat to melee units, and a well-timed throw will cripple them enough for ranged attacks to finish them off.

Skirmish

In League, Grenadier is overall a good melee unit due to his decent stats, consistent attacks and bullet resistance. His grenade is nothing to dismiss, either, as just like all manually activated abilities, he will throw it automatically as long as it is available. Strategic placement can be used to easily take out enemies with his first throw. With his special ability, Grenadier might avenge his own death by dealing with backline nuisances. Sniper Polina in particular is a common victim to this.

Grenadier's only real downside is his on-death explosion, which might harm his teammates who aren't resistant to explosions like Firefighter. Careful positioning is advised to reduce the chances of accidental ally deaths.

Item Sets

When it comes to upgrade items, Grenadier can be approached in the same way as all other damagers. Even though his natural crit. chance is miserably low, equipping him with Gentleman set and a respective book is still a good idea, since his crits are just as swift as his regular attacks. It's also a valid option to give him a +% health book, and a Surgery set, in case lack of knockback perk makes crit. builds sound unappealing. This approach is especially useful for Grenadier as a member of Military.

In context of Skirmish, Grenadier benefits most from Lucky Guy, since he's unable to capitalize on his melee damage in this mode. Instead, LG provides him with a safety net which can help Grenadier reach backline ranged units with a higher chance of success. This is especially true for Grenadier as a member of Military. Scout is an option that's also viable through a technicality, but it only really shines under very rare circumstances, and hence isn't reliable. It doesn't help that grenade kills don't provide Grenadier with shields from that set.

Like most damagers, Grenadier gets most use out of prep. time watches, with agility bonuses acquired as secondary buffs. He can receive a significant boost from percentage bonuses, but only when he's close to being maxed out. At low-to-mid levels, flat buffs are more preferable. If he is used in Skirmish only, then it's acceptable to give him an agility watch instead. It can also prove useful to give Grenadier cost reduction buffs in PvP, since he can't properly focus on his non-explosive damage there anyway.

Skins and Synergies

Grenadier, along with his respective skins, is a part of several teams: Internal Forces, and Military.

Name	Grenadier	Modern
Skin
Unlock Req.	–	300
Team	Internal Forces	Military

In all of the above teams, this unit is never a bad option. While he generally has no direct synergy with those teams' powers, he is one of the more efficient units in both teams due to their overall poor rotation. He is also one of the best options for 3/3 and 5/5 Military in context of Skirmish, being a generally strong unit in that mode. This isn't the case for regular missions, though, where he is more likely to be superseded by Glenn or Carol.

Trivia

• Up until update 3.6.0 Grenadier's name was misspelled as "Grenader".
  • Internally, this erroneous name is still used to refer to him.
• Before update 2.4.0, Grenadier was the only unit whose value is evaluated in courage points to be unavailable in League.
  • The developers never stated an exact reason why he was unavailable in Skirmish aside from his grenade being too powerful for this game mode. It's possible that they weren't sure how to make his manual ability work in that mode or how to balance him.
• Before update 2.4.0, Grenadier's grenades generated fire pools, though his death explosion still kept this attribute. With the introduction of special abilities in update 2.9.2, this idea was recycled and given to Queen for her SA.
• Grenadier previously had a similar AI script to Firefighter, and would target Fat Zombies over other enemies. This was changed with the removal of his fire and explosion resistances.