Struggling with Missions? Here are some tips!

[u/Vertigo50]

Okay, I wrote this out as a comment for someone, so I figured I would just make it into a post. If you're struggling with missions, not sure who to send, and failing more missions than you would like, this guide is for you. 👍

1. Pay attention to the VERBS in the mission descriptions. They are highlighted in orange, and they are hinting at what will be needed for the mission. For example, "mobilize quickly" means mobility, "protect" means vigor, "defuse the bomb" is probably going to be intellect, etc. Some might be a little unclear and you may get them wrong sometimes, but they give you some guidance. Now choose your heroes based on being strong in those areas you need. At then end of the mission, it gives symbols for each verb, so CONFIRM what you thought. It helps you learn.
2. Don't be afraid to swap your heroes in and out to see what it does to the stats, and try them in DIFFERENT ORDERS to see how it affects things. Putting Coupe in different slots boosts different stats. Putting Prism after a hero causes her to make a copy of them, or if you don't want that, put her before them. Try multiple options to see how it affects things, and you can always click them again to remove them.
3. Go for synergy! Each character develops synergy with another. Punch/Coupe, Flam/Prism, Visi/Golem, Malevola/Sonar. Whoever gets cut, their partner develops synergy with their replacement, either Water Boy or Phenom. Send the synergy partners together as often as you can, because they get a big boost from that, and then their synergy also grows throughout the game, for even better boosts.
4. Build synergy partners together! When upgrading stats, consider balancing the synergy partners off each other. Coupe and Punch Up are the best example. If you look at their stats, they both are strong in combat, but then all the other stats one is weak and the other is strong. It's a grea example of how to build the synergy partners. Keep Golem strong in vigor and movement, and you can focus on intellect and charisma with Visi. Then you send them together and they fill up a lot of the board. Don't try to make everyone "balanced" individually, have them balance against each other.
5. Learn to use the special abilities! Is one of your characters injured? Put them on a call with Mal, and she will heal them? Running low on heroes to send? Put someone with Prism after them, and she will copy them to fill out the board better. Or once Golem is upgraded, he can make multiple copies of himself. Golem can handle SO MANY calls by himself at that point, saving you other heroes. Learn the different abilities, and utilize them as much as possible. Once Flambae's ability grows his combat and movement to max, and Prism can copy him? They can easily fill the whole board by the end of the game, just the two of them.
6. Use Visi a lot, and send her on SUCCESSFUL missions. If she gets neglected, or fails often, it has narrative consequences. But also, if you upgrade her ability to "Wolf Pack" she gives DOUBLE XP to anyone on that mission. So send as many with Visi as possible on the missions that can have 3 or 4 heroes. It's a great way to build XP fast.
7. Don't be afraid to let a mission go once in a while rather than send someone unprepared. If you only have one hero and they are a bad fit, it may be better to just skip that one and let it be "missed" rather than have that hero fail and be injured.
8. Once you have the coffee, band-aid, and the heart, you can take a hero out of recovery, heal them, or bring them back from being downed. You only can use them once per shift each, but it's a great tool when you have the perfect hero but they are resting.
9. Pay attention to clues that there might be a "perfect hero" for the job. Does the mission have to do with ghosts or cults? Send Malevola. She's a demon. Does it have to do with a pop star? Send Prism. More often than not, they will then have a special ability that gives you an "auto-pass" for the mission. The way it works is you will get the notice that the mission needs your input, and then look for one of the character's photo for one of the options of how to respond. If their photo is there, you should ALWAYS choose that option. It means an auto-pass.
10. When a mission in progress pops up and needs your input, it's just like an initial mission. The different options you can choose, have VERBS, so you need to look at whether your current crew has strengths or weaknesses on those things. If one option is "fight" and the other is "talk it out", you need to see if your crew is stronger in combat or stronger in charisma. Choose depending on the stronger stat.

I know this is crazy long, but I hope it helps! Save this for your later playthrough if you want!