It’s always daunting to pick up a hero shooter for the first time. You get sat down in front of a roster of characters you know nothing about, and you’re told to pick one of them and get in the fight. 

All of these characters have unique abilities, unique personalities, and completely different playstyles. It can sometimes feel like you’re subject to a virtual Rorschach test – that the devs are trying to parse out who you are through your pick.

For me, Exoprimal’s initial roster of seven exosuits was no different. After being forced to run Deadeye – the most generic third-person shooter character ever – for the entirety of the tutorial, I knew I wanted to bail out and try something very different.

My second pick was the Witchdoctor, a support suit that can stun dinosaurs in melee distance and produce repair fields to heal tightly grouped teammates at the same time. This gameplay was much more interesting to me. I felt like I was constantly watching my ability cooldowns to make sure I was healing my team and keeping enemies stunned as efficiently as possible. In truth, I basically only played Witchdoctor until I ranked the exosuit up to 20.

Still, something wasn’t fully clicking for me. I liked keeping my team alive, and keeping the large and threatening dinosaurs stunlocked was a bit of a rush. But the sniveling personality and annoying voice of the Witchdoctor exosuit really started to grate on me. Plus, I kinda missed shooting a gun!

Luckily, I was just about hitting the point where I unlocked the next exosuit. When players level up their account to 20, they gain access to the first of three locked exosuits: Nimbus.

I can’t say that Nimbus was very appealing looking to me initially. The pink girly-pop aesthetic, the headphones, the faux roller skates… everything about the character design clashed with the other exosuits. 

Exoprimal’s world of timeline shenanigans and dinosaur-killing wargames isn’t exactly realistic, but the existence of the anime girl exosuit still felt divorced from the game’s internal logic. Why would the Aibius Corporation ever create an exosuit like this?!?

There isn’t really an answer to that question, and frankly, I don’t give a shit. Because, as it turns out, Nimbus rocks, and I love her.

This exosuit is the most busted character in the game. In capable hands, she can dish out just as much damage as her teammates while still putting up the highest healing numbers in the lobby. Her abilities’ utility is unmatched, and they only get stronger with the proper module loadout.

Let me give you the rundown on just how cracked Nimbus really is.

Her weapons, Mars and Apollo, have two firing modes: one that damages enemies and one that heals teammates. Her damage output is incredible for a Support exosuit – with a fully upgraded Critical Shot module, she can do upwards of 500 damage per shot on large dinosaurs, like the Carnotaurus and T. Rex. Every time players switch firing modes, Nimbus’ bullets do 40% more damage or healing until she needs to reload. 

Instead of reloading, players can switch firing modes – fully replenishing their ammo. Normally, there’s a four-second cooldown on the firing mode switch, but a fully upgraded Rapid Switch module lowers the cooldown to a negligible one second. Players begin to find a tempo where they’ll DPS one magazine and heal the next, switching modes back and forth. Nimbus turns Exoprimal into something akin to a rhythm game.

Her firing mode switches augment another ability: Spreadshot. When this ability is activated, Nimbus summons an additional four guns and sprays down range for several seconds. 

When Nimbus has her healing mode on, she rapidly fills the health of any teammates grouped up in front of her. When Nimbus has her damage mode on, Spreadshot becomes an amazing crowd-control ability. It can tear through dozens of small dinosaurs at a time, giving the entire team some extra breathing room.

Finally, Nimbus’ movement ability might be her most impactful. Whereas most of Exoprimal’s exosuits have fairly underwhelming movement abilities, Nimbus derives an unbelievable amount of utility from hers. 

The Holo Warp ability lets Nimbus send forth a hologram in a straight line – she can teleport to it any time before it disappears. It’s one of the best escape tools in the game, allowing her to send it away from a dinosaur horde and get a running head start. Teammates are healed anytime Nimbus warps near them, too, making it great for joining a clustered team fight.

Most importantly, however, the Holo Warp hologram can be sent to revive teammates. This is the only way in Exoprimal that players get to revive teammates without manually standing where they were defeated. This powerful ability is on a 16-second cooldown, but that becomes much more manageable with the Quick Holo module, which shaves seven seconds off that count. 

Theoretically, Nimbus can revive a teammate every nine seconds without leaving the fight. This exosuit is stupid good.

The newly shipped Alpha variant of this exosuit is also pretty decent, swapping Nimbus’ mid-range hand cannons for dual shotguns. This more military-looking variant of the standard suit trades off some versatility for unmatched damage and healing at her effective range.

There’s nothing else in Exoprimal that’s quite as satisfying as learning the Nimbus tempo. Efficiently balancing healing and damage and keeping the whole team alive is a rush. There is no greater feeling than having the ability to come back from the brink of defeat by reviving a dead teammate in a pivotal moment.

I’ve fully converted to the Nimbus playstyle – and the Nimbus attitude. Really, she kind of reminds me of D.Va from Overwatch… which is fitting, considering that Exoprimal is one of the better team shooters that has come out in the last few years.

Every voiceline – every compliment, every taunt, every MVP feature – is filtered through the most generic perception of the saccharine sweet manic pixie gamer girl. It’s laid on so thick that it’s really not even grating. It’s just entertaining. 

The exosuit kicks so much ass; I’m just glad Nimbus’ personality gives me another chance to potentially piss someone off in PvP. She’s a jack of all trades… and a master of quite a few. If you’re playing Exoprimal, I cannot recommend Nimbus enough. This suit will carry you to an easy victory every time.

Have you been playing any Exoprimal recently? What do you think of the game’s Support exosuits? Have you given Nimbus a try before? Let me know in the comments down below!