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The Fire Support Specialist, played
KanaxStratz · Aug 28, 2026
Skill IDs Whiz Kid W EN 15,000 · WO 6,000 · CO 14,000 Energetic EN EN 4,200
Skill order
Skill1234567891011121314151617181920
Soldier Skills123
Call For Fire1
Joint Fires Observer12345
Indirect Fire Support1234
Call For Fire ×1, Indirect Fire Support ×4, Joint Fires Observer ×5, Soldier Skills ×3 · the mark is the rank the point brings the skill to

The Fire Support Specialist's game, top to bottom. It spends a pool of artillery shells the whole team shares, on a delay only it can shorten, and higher up its Joint Fires Observer tree it adds aircraft.

first

Call for Fire 1, then Indirect Fire Support to 4

The wiki's CFF-first builds agree on the first five points: Call For Fire once, then Indirect Fire Support to 4. Each IDF level takes 1.5 s off the landing time, 9 s down to 4.5 s, and the fourth brings White Phosphorous and the Rail Gun.

then

Joint Fires Observer for the aircraft

Joint Fires Observer 4 is the Attack Weapons Team, an AH-25 Hunter over the point for 18 s; 5 is Call for CAS. Or more Call for Fire levels first, if tier 1s are the problem: the community's guide page splits there.

always

Watch the pool, type before you click

The number on your class panel is the team's shells. -s, -r, -d and -i in chat set the pattern; F1 opens the direction wheel, F2 puts shells and interval back to 1 and 0.2 s. Every kill by your shells is credited to you.

The shell pool

Where shells come from

  • 175 at 0:00, one pool for everyone who can call for fire: you, the Platoon Leader and the CavalryScout draw from the same number.
  • +25 each time you learn a level of Call For Fire, so 275 with the skill at 4. The same point raises the Call for Fire upgrade for every player, which the tooltip says improves CFF for everybody and the wiki's CFF page says raises everyone's shell damage (the Platoon Leader's tooltip lists 1,000 a shell by default).
  • +50 when Chapter 2 opens, after TMthe mayor escort or the civilian escort of TThanatos ends. The same moment puts CAS on station for every player.
  • Nothing else refills it. A shell that would land off the map is handed back.
  • -cff on its own prints the pool and all four settings. -s on its own prints the pool, your shells per call and your radius. The panel's number is refreshed every second.

What spends them

  • A call is refused when the pool holds fewer shells than it needs. A Call for Fire whose -s is above what is left fires what is left.
  • The energy cost is per call, whatever -s says: at level 4, 30 energy buys ten shells.
  • With Call for Fire at 4 a shell is 3,400 damage. The Rail Gun spends 6 for 24,000 on one spot. White Phosphorous' seven are 200 a second for 20 s at the point.
  • During TPthe Plague Vectors mission every shell call is refused, Call for Fire and the four IDF abilities alike, until the mission ends. Aircraft and the orbital strike are not touched.
  • Binoculars FSS is the one Indirect Fire Support ability that costs no shells.
CallShellsLands afterWhat you get
Call For Fire-s 1 to 109 / 7.5 / 6 / 4.5 s by IDF level1,600 / 2,200 / 2,800 / 3,400 a shell by skill level. 60 / 50 / 40 / 30 energy a call, range 40 to 70, cooldown 6 to 3 s. Explosives hurt allies.
FDC Smoke IDF 23the sameSmoke on the point, disorienting personnel.
FCD Flare IDF 33the sameThree flares, 45 s apart: 135 s of light and slow over the point.
White Phosphorous IDF 47the same200 a second for 20 s on the point.
Rail Gun IDF 46the same24,000 in a small radius from an offshore warship. Explosives hurt allies.

Shell prices are read from the Immediate Effects trigger; the landing times are the Indirect Fire Support tooltip's, and every IDF call goes through the same clock and the same queue as a Call for Fire.

How a call lands

The clock

  • You click. One fire mission runs at a time, and yours waits while another one is between its click and its shells, anyone's Call for Fire or your own smoke, flare, phosphorous or rail gun. A Call for Fire holds the queue from the click to its last shell, so a long -i pattern blocks everyone. Smoke, flare, phosphorous and the rail gun let go at the end of their delay, just before the first shell is dropped, so a flare's later launches block nothing.
  • The script then waits 9 s less 1.5 s per Indirect Fire Support level, reveals 5 around the point to everyone for 8 s, plays the incoming sound, and 1 s later the first shell leaves: 10 s after the click with no IDF level, 1.5 s less per level. The tooltips give landing times: 9, 7.5, 6 and 4.5 s at IDF 1 to 4, and 10.5 s with no IDF level at all, by the Platoon Leader's tooltip and the wiki's CFF page.
  • As the first shell leaves, computer-controlled biological units within 5 of the point are ordered out of it. The undead get no move order, only a Sprint if they can. Human teammates get nothing: the tooltip's explosives hurt allies is on you.
  • In modes with an enemy team, they get a ping on the point for 8 s.

The pattern

  • -d c, the default: each shell lands at a random distance up to -r from the point, in a random direction. The marker is the big ring.
  • -d 0 to -d 360, or e n w s ne nw se sw (0, 90, 180, 270, 45, 135, 315, 225): the first shell lands on the point, each next one -r further along the angle. The ring shrinks by half and a small marker is drawn where each shell after the first will land.
  • -s 1 to 10 shells, -r 2 to 10 (whole numbers), -i 0.2 to 5 s between shells, give or take 0.1 s. Defaults 1, 2, circular, 0.2.
  • A command with no number prints settings instead of changing them. -cff prints all of them and shows the wheel for 20 s; -cff show and -cff hide keep it or drop it.
  • F1, with the class panel shown, toggles the wheel: 8 directions and circular in the middle. F2 resets shells to 1 and interval to 0.2, and nothing else: radius and direction stay as you set them.

The community's CFF page: -i 2 to 3 s is effective against everything, fast zombies included, 5 s is the most efficient against packs of slow ones, and only veterans should set a distribution angle; a direction with a moving interval or radius can walk the shells with a target. Its own advice to a new hand is to run nothing but -i .2, -r 2 and -d c until you are used to the ability. The FSS guide page's basic setting for a tier 3 horde is -s 1 -r 2 -d c -i 0.2; the page calls the same with -d 0 an improved version of it, and notes the blast is wider than the red circle.

Joint Fires Observer

Attack Weapons Team · JFO 4

  • Attack Weapons Team: 3 s after the call an AH-25 Hunter appears 30 units north-west of the point (on the point if that is off the map), flies three legs to random spots within 15 of it, 6 s apart, then leaves and is removed 6 s later. Its kills are yours.
  • The Hunter: 1,100 life, 6 armor, a 30 mm chain gun at 175 plus up to 50 every 0.125 s, range 22, ignoring 5 of the target's armor, with splash out to 2.5. Armored, mechanical and heroic targets take 70 % less from it.
  • Sky is the Way swaps it for a Liberator: 1,800 life, 8 armor, 360 plus up to 50 every 0.2 s at range 24, three 8 s legs, so 24 s over the point, and by the SI's text a +5 life a second aura and a 50 % chance to shrug off explosion damage. Unlocked by winning a Nightmare+ game as the class.

The rest of the tree

  • Orbital Strike · JFO 1. Fired from a dummy 4 units off the point; its kills are yours, and it takes your Whiz Kid like the shells do.
  • Laser Designator FSS · JFO 3. The designated unit is shown to every player and pinged for 4 s, and a laser icon with a red priority target label sits above its head until the designation wears off. One designation per unit at a time. A designated target takes one more multiple of the shot's damage when the Rjx-73's rail gun, with its Railgun 3, lands a critical shot.
  • Call for CAS · JFO 5. About 18,000 damage on the point, 6 s to arrive, hurts allies. The button needs the CAS On Station upgrade on top of JFO 5, and the script gives that upgrade to every player when Chapter 2 opens, at Act 2 in Invasion, at the PMC chapter break, and 30 minutes into Survival.

What the community picks

Skill identifiers

  • Whiz Kid first. The FSS guide page calls it the must-pick since Whiz Kid started applying to the class, and the script agrees: every shell is dropped by a dummy unit that is handed your Whiz Kid, and the orbital strike fires from its own dummy that gets the same. The aircraft do not. The page's arithmetic: +30 % damage is the same as 357.5 shells instead of 275.
  • Energetic second, for the energy. The same page says a careful CFF hand needs Energetic or a Kinetic Integrator (1.25 energy a second, does not stack), not both, unless you lean on binoculars and orbital strikes.
  • Situational, per that page: Always Ready to start at level 3 and reach IDF 4 sooner (Enlisted only, not sold to officers); Twinkle Toes (+0.06 speed) or Light Armor (+0.1 speed for 15 % less life) when tier 1 modifiers are on, since Soldier Skills 3 and its +0.1 come late on this class (Twinkle Toes is not sold to officers); Barbaric in Nightmare Outbreak, where the page says Soldier Skills 4 never comes; Self-Sufficient as insurance against a broken leg at 2 minutes (Enlisted only, not sold to officers).
  • The class page also lists Intellectual with Energetic: it is not sold on the Enlisted track, so it is an officer's pick. The page's Power User is Warrant Officer only, a track this class does not have.

Items

  • Energy first: energy cells (190 energy over 20 s) and a Kinetic Integrator. The guide page's point is that a good CFF hand does not waste energy on shells, and cells pay for an Attack Weapons Team or a CAS.
  • A Scope (+2 range, +1 sight) and the HK42 (+0.04 move speed, 45 to 51 damage). The class page's reason: you move about to get in range of your calls, so the speed helps.
  • Armor: Kevlar (+5 armor, blocks 50) or OPA (+6 armor, blocks 35, +0.05 speed, a 70 % chance to cut a hit by 40 %). Quik Clots for yourself, and a medic for the rest.
  • With Whiz Kid, the class page's explosive kit: the M5 MAR (an underslung 40 mm for 600), the MGL, 40 mm grenades, explosive charges, an MRL.

Skill orders the wiki gives

  • IDF and JFO, this guide's order: Call For Fire 1, Indirect Fire Support 1 to 4, Joint Fires Observer 1 to 4, Soldier Skills 1 to 3, JFO 5. Every ultimate on a regular clock; the author wants a Kinetic Integrator with it.
  • IDF and CFF: CFF 1, IDF 1, CFF 2, IDF 2 to 4, CFF 3 and 4, then Soldier Skills 3 and JFO 3 in any order. No integrator needed. The author's pick for Outbreak and Survival, where the team kites in laps with everything behind it.
  • JFO and SS: JFO 1 to 4, Soldier Skills 1 and 2, JFO 5, Soldier Skills 3 and 4, IDF 1 to 4. For public games with unreliable teammates, and by the author's own word for PMC only.
  • The FSS guide page's main CFF order is CFF 1 then IDF 1 to 4, and from level 6 Call for Fire if tier 1s need killing or JFO if not, aiming at the satellite and the Hunter; Soldier Skills 3 from level 11 for the +0.1 speed against Cacumen. Its main orbital strike order is JFO 1 to 4 first, then CFF 1 and IDF, with Soldier Skills or Call for Fire after 11. It calls the CFF route the harder one and the orbital route the beginner's, at the cost of tier 1 damage and energy.

Numbers are read from the map file: its skill and ability tooltips, its unit data, and the Call for Fire, Immediate Effects, Attack Weapons Team, Laser Designator and chat command triggers of its script. The advice is the wiki's, kept where it survived a check against them.

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