I'm not a veteran or anything, but the Fencer might be the secret best class. Dash canceling makes him almost as fast as the Wing Diver. The added armor almost makes him OP. Dash cancel and pretend you're playing Virtual On. Profit.
dash cancelling is the only way I was even able to stand moving around on the class but it's certainly not fast. I roll around like Sanic on Ranger too and I'm certainly not slower than a fencer. Maybe I'm doing it wrong? Will give it another shot later, a video might help.
To be clear I play a lot of mech games and I loved the idea of the fencer class. But so far the weapons just fundamentally aren't working out for me. You need a melee weapon equipped to dash, ok, but it takes too much effort to safely land a hit with one without dying yourself. I do like the idea of having two weapon sets as you can adapt to close or long range fighting. For example I ran around with:
Javelin/Hand Cannon
Lock-on missile/Big-ass mortar
And I would swap based on range. I only used the hand cannon up close because it was just better than the javelin in every way except raw damage. It worked well on mission 2 but the entire purpose of me building up Fencer was to use it on that underground ambush level where I just got DESTROYED - so much for being the close combat class. Worked poorly on Hectors too, handcannon DPS was too low and I'd get murdered up close. For clarification I always play on Hard, and if I can't beat the level I go back and farm an earlier stage on hardest/inferno.
I just really need the mobility of ranger/wing diver, in particular moving while shooting. Also Ranger in particular gets access to some completely batshit guns like the x20 grenade launcher, and you can just go into any level with the right tool. I feel boring just playing the 'EDF guy' but silly weapons are a big part of what I love about this game.
