 Hey there lads and ladies, it is Petrifying Pumpkins here and I am back with a firewall zero hour video. Now this video is going to be all about the contractors of firewall zero hour, kind of going to be ranking them in order of most useful to least useful, as well as maybe doing a little bit of a discussion of what could be done to make the less useful characters a bit more useful, a bit more appealing. Now let me put a disclaimer here at the beginning, I'm a big firewall zero hour fan of course, but I wouldn't consider myself a high level firewall player. I'm not in the top 100s on the leaderboard or whatever so I'm going into this video through that kind of lens so maybe I'll incorrectly label a contractor here that has some potential in the right hands that maybe I don't see. So this list is by no means definitive and in fact I'm hoping you lads and ladies will chime in in the comments with your own thoughts on the subject. One other thing I should say before we start is that there is another contractor on the way coming up in DLC number two and I considered holding off doing this video until she's arrived but that could be weeks away and when she arrives I might just make a video focus on her and specifically and we can talk about how useful she is then. Okay so let's jump right in. So I'm going to give a rank of S, A, B and C tier to each contractor, S being the best tier, C being the worst. The embedded skill of each contractor is what really differentiates one contractor from another so that will be the main basis for this ranking, not what they look like, not their background stories or anything like that as that doesn't really affect gameplay at all. I'll go through these in the same order they appear in the contractor selection screen so that means we are starting with Okoro the Angolian contractor. Okay so Okoro's embedded skill is heavy juicy and that allows him to take extra damage from all explosives. What this translates to in-game is that his skill is the only one that will save your ass from grenades, mines or C4. I found that as the weeks have gone on more and more people are using C4, grenade launchers and the instant karma perk which allows you to drop a mine on yourself when you're down or when you die and as a result Okoro is becoming more and more useful I think. If you give Okoro the bullet sponge skill as a secondary you pretty much have a tank type character, if you give him double time as a secondary then you've got yourself an effective kind of vanguard that can rush the enemy and maybe cause them to blow a C4 or a mine while he still survives and clears a bit of a path for his teammates which may be most useful on a map like shoothouse as an attacker as shoothouse often involves lots of C4 and grenade barrages thanks to its layout. Now I was expecting to put Okoro in the A tier but after putting some more thoughts into it and as seen as the game has developed more and more and thinking about how the Mesa has evolved around C4, grenade launchers and instant karma I think I'm actually going to put Okoro in the S tier. Next up we've got Raha the afghan lady with the scarred face, her skill is called scout and what this does is it gives Raha heightened enemy detection. This does two things, first thing is that it makes enemy footsteps louder to the player which is pretty nice but the second and most important thing is that it lets you actually see the enemies on your wrist tablets as red dots as long as those enemies are within a certain range of Raha I believe it's something like 5 to 10 foot radius or something like that and it works through walls. Now I believe this makes Raha one of the best contractors in the game especially on defense and especially when paired with C4. What you can do as Raha is you toss up a C4 or have a teammate throw up a C4 on a door and then just stand near the door until you see a red dots approach the door then you just detonate your C4 or give the signal to your teammates to detonate their C4 and you've got yourself a relatively easy kill. Her scout skill is very useful on the smaller maps in particular or maps with lots of rooms for enemies to hide in like hotel throw heavy juicy on Raha as a secondary to increase your likelihood of surviving your own C4 blast to make her even more effective as a defender and if big if the new contractor brings with her a skill that allows you to carry a second C4 then that would go quite nicely with Raha too. Raha is an easy S tier contractor in my opinion. Moving on we have the Australian contractor called Skip. Now Skip's embedded skill is called loaded this allows him to carry an extra magazine of ammo for both his primary and secondary weapons. To understand how useful Skip is you should ask yourself do I often find myself running out of ammo in this game? For me the answer is not really. Now there have been some occasions where a match has like gone down to the wire and I've gotten myself in some really intense gunfights with equally matched enemies where I have run out of ammo but that's not very often plus there are ammo boxes gathered around every map that can make it fairly easy to resupply plus most people are using revive pistols as their secondary which is not affected by Skip's ability at all making him even less useful but before I write Skip off entirely I would say he is very useful for solo and co-op modes where you have wave after wave of enemies and you usually will actually run out of ammo so Skip is actually my main when I'm doing solo or co-op. No matter if I'm attacking or defending but that may not matter to you if you only care about PvP so I'm going to rank Skip as a B to your character but what could first contact do to make Skip more appealing? I think it might be no harm for them to get rid of the ammo boxes on the maps maybe leave them in solo and co-op only and also maybe nerf the ammo resupply bag I know if they did both of those things it would give me pause to think about actually selecting Skip in PvP. First up is the lovely Mako from Japan now her embedded skill is called Ninja and it reduces her movement noise making her this stealthy one of the group. You might often see Mako being picked as an attacker especially when she is combined with something like double time allowing her to silently rush or flank the enemy defenders at the start of a round combined with silenced weapons or a knife and in the right hands she can wreak absolute havoc but I feel like there's a bit of a skill barrier to use in her. To use her well you need to have a good map knowledge as well as good knowledge of spawn points for laptops and stuff like that. Not to mention you'd need nerves of steel if you plan on doing silent knife kills. Now I asked my pal Jermvorf whether Mako's Ninja skill makes her invisible on Raha's map as I don't often use Mako and he does. He told me that it seems to help against Raha's ability to hear footsteps louder but Mako will still show up on Raha's map. Thank you very much Jermvorf for that info. So Mako is somewhat of a foil to Raha's scout ability but not completely. I'm finding it quite hard to place Mako in the tiers. I think she's borderline S tier but I think I'll put her in A tier. So why not S tier? Well I think if she was invisible to Raha's scout skill entirely that would push her into S tier territory and make her generally excellent rather than only excellent with specific but somewhat limited tactics like rush and flanking. Next up we have Fang the Chinese contractor. So Fang's skill is called Lightspeed and it allows him to reload magazines faster. I feel like Fang is one of the least useful contractors in the game. I very rarely see him in PvP I never pick on myself simply because the standard speed for reloading weapons is pretty good as it is. Yes, there have been times where I was caught with my pants down and killed because I reloaded at a bad time and maybe Fang would have saved my ass in those cases. But those moments are few and fair between and I'd rather pick more useful skills and risk that happening than pick Fang. I will say that, like Skip, Fang could be quite useful in solo and co-op especially when combined with Skip's loaded skill as you'll be doing a lot of reloading in that mode but still I think I have to put Fang in the B tier. But what could first contact do to make Fang more appealing? This is a tough one but to keep it focused on reloading I think they could maybe slow reloading down for every other contractor and not only that but maybe make it so that Fang has extended magazine capacity even more so than the actual attachment for extended magazines. That would certainly make him more appealing in my eyes and bump him up a tier or two. Next up we have Red the Russian. His skill is called Bang Bang and allows him to carry an extra frag grenade. Now I like Red a lot, I use him a lot, getting frag grenade kills is extremely satisfying and having that extra frag has come in handy quite abyss even if sometimes it feels a bit like playing the lottery because boy do those frag grenades slide and bounce and travel. I feel like he is better suited to attacking rather than defending especially on a map like shoot house where you can see where the defenders are holed up and then just rain down frags none like artillery strikes. The downside of Red is that if he wasted that third and final frag then what was the point? That's less likely to happen in the hands of a skilled player but still that's why I think Red is an A tier contractor. Now what would push him into the S tier? Maybe if he carried an extra impact and sticky grenade too instead of just frag grenades only but as it stands he's a solid option and he has a big fun factor to him. Red is the British contractor Grimm and his embedded skill is called Quick Fix which reduces the time it takes to revive a downed teammate, giving him a bit of a medic vibe but how useful is Grimm. Now in my opinion he's not very useful at all, yes there have been times when I've died while reviving a teammate but it's very similar to Fang, these moments aren't frequent enough where I'd sacrifice a more useful skill for Grimm. Not to mention he's completely useless for solo play. For these reasons I'd put him all the way down in the C tier. Now what could first contact do to get me to pick Grimm? While there is a skill in the game that you unlock at a fairly high level that gives you a revive pistol 3 shots instead of 2, I can't help but feel like that should have been Grimm's skill, thus or maybe the ability to revive himself once per match from a downed stays. Either of those things would make Grimm much more appealing in my opinion and put him at least in the A tier. Terek or Tariq I'm not sure how he pronounces, the Syrian is next. His skill, wired, allows him to see enemy traps at a grazer distance. Terek is another one of the less useful contractors I believe. Ok, so I can see mines easier but wouldn't I rather pick Ghost which means I don't set off mines at all. That way I don't even need to see them. Because of this it feels like Terek is stuck with a bit of a dud skill and this is why I put him down with Grimm in the C tier. Now what would make Terek better in my opinion? Well maybe expand his wired ability to help him track down signal jammers more easily. Now signal jammers may not be as prevalent as they were a month ago but they can still catch you out from time to time so if Terek has this ability it would probably be worth it to bring at least one Terek on your team as an attacker. But that might only bring him up to B tier seen as it's only good as an attacker. So what if we get out Terek another buff against enemy traps? Perhaps mines take longer to explode when triggered by Terek. Maybe let him defuse a C4 by holding X on us if he's feeling brave enough. Stuff like that would bring him up a loss in my opinion. Texas from Texas is up next and her ability is called bullet sponge. This is probably one of the most beginner friendly of the contractors. Her skill lets her absorb more bullets, it's fairly straightforward. Although when tested it doesn't seem to apply to the head. But still, more often than not she can keep you alive a bit longer. Now how effective her skill is seems to be up for debate. Me and some of my subscribers did some testing in the past but we only used the beginner pistol. I believe we found that she was able to take something like 5 extra pistol shots But that was with a very weak pistol. With more powerful weapons that might translate into only an extra bullet maybe 2. But in a one on one situation that might normally result in a kill trade, Texas can give you the edge you need. And those situations are more occasional than you think. Because of this, I'd put Texas in the A tier. She'll help you get to grips with the game and combined with heavy juicy she can be a bit of a tank. You can add Ninja as an attacker and she'll have a good chance of taking out any stragglers on the enemy team who have been separated from the herd. Odin from Norway is up next and Odin brings with him the Iceman skill. This skill gives him reduced weapon recoil when firing his weapon. Odin is a bit of a mixed bag because of this. I say this because as an experienced firewall player you can learn to deal with recoil yourself. You can get a feel for your weapon and as a result you might not even need Iceman. But as a less experienced player or if you're thinking of trying out a new weapon and don't know what kind of kickback to expect, Odin could be a useful choice. I'd have to put Odin in the B tier because of this. Now what could bump him up a tier? Well, maybe decrease his weapon recoil even further while he's crouched or something like that. Or maybe less Odin see a red glow on the enemy's head, drawing the eye there and making accurate headshots easier to pull off. That could bump him up to an S tier in my opinion. Next up we have Diaz with his double time skill allowing him to run faster than any other operator. Quite a useful skill when complimented with the right secondary skill. Ninja, Ghost, Bullet Sponge and Heavy Doosy are all smart choices to apply to Diaz although I will say he is probably better suited to attacking than defending especially if you like to rush the defenders. I'd give Diaz a spass in the A tier seeing as he goes well with many of the other skills. Last but not least we have Nala. Nala comes equipped with the Ghost skill. The Ghost skill allows her to run past enemy mines without setting them off, making her a great choice for an attacking contractor and a great foil against the instant karma perk. Some people might tell you that Nala isn't as useful anymore because less people are using mines because too many people are running ghost for them to be effective but when you stop running ghost those mines will just come back and you'll be sorry you didn't have ghost. It's a bit of a chicken and egg scenario kind of but with instant karma still being on the rise I still think ghost is worth it and it's always good to have at least one attacker with ghost so that they can sweep the laptop room without setting off any of the mines that are usually set up there. Ghost has saved my ass more times than I can count and because of that I put Nala right up on S tier. Combine Nala with double time or ninja and you have a grace attacking option that can get that laptop hacked. And there you have it. This is my final tier list for Firewall Zero Hour. Well, until the new operator releases anyway. Again, this is all based on my own opinion. I'd love to know which picks you agree with, which ones you don't agree with or which ones you'd move up and which ones you'd move down and the reasons behind that. So let me know all that stuff in the comments below. One final thing I want to say before I end this video is that I want to extend my best wishes to all the folks over at First Contact Entertainment and to all their families and friends. I know there have been some crazy fires over there in that part of the world and I hope it hasn't affected them badly. My thoughts are with you guys. So that's it for this video, lads and ladies. If you enjoy this video and want to see me make more Firewall and PSVR content, then please consider doing all the usual shies. Thank you very much for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Bye for now.