"Element Troopers are masters of both Fire and Freeze. Heavy armor and versatility make them a true force of nature. In battle, they are anything but tepid."
The Elemental Trooper is a premium unit costing 60 Nanopods. The different pistol attacks allows this unit to provide different types of support, while the -type and -type reduction on the armor protects it from artillery-like attacks, and the high is useful for just about everything else. However, you should note that the armor has no reduction to piercing damage and can be shredded quite easily by it. The 1-3 range on all its attacks give the Elemental Trooper much flexibility and seldom does this unit need to be placed on the front line.
The Elemental Trooper starts with two attacks, both of which are of the -type and x2 shots per attack. The Burning Shots will apply a damage-over-time. However, given the x2 nature of this pistol attack, the actual damage-over-time is based on the higher of the two damages. The Freezing Shots do the same initial damage as the Fire Pistol's attack, but instead of a damage-over-time, this attack will inflict the freeze effect on the target.
replaces the afflicted's resistances with a 150% vulnerability to all damage-types. Other units can take advantage of this to deal extra damage to the target, or the Elemental Trooper can follow up the Ice Pistol attack with shots from the Fire Pistol to maximize this unit's damage potential.
After a few ranks of promotions, the Elemental Trooper can research and unlock an additional attack for each pistol. Both of these attacks have the added advantage of Precise line of fire instead of Direct, and the attacks affect all surrounding spaces to the target. The Flame Barrage will apply the DoT like normal to the target, but every surrounding space will take lesser damage and have a smaller chance to be affected by the DoT as well. The Freezing Barrage is the same, except instead of the DoT, there is a smaller chance to inflict Freeze to the surrounding units.
In a way, the reduced damage also means reduced damage-over-time for the Flame Barrage, and the DoT effect is not even guaranteed, making the research cost of 25 quite an investment for so little gain. However, in the case of Freezing Barrage, while the damage and chances are reduced, the potential to freeze multiple targets and take them out of commission for 2 rounds is certainly worth considering the Nanopod cost.
The Elemental Trooper's immunity to Cold damage-over-time and high resistance to -type damage comes in handy against the Silver Wolves and the battles in the Eastern Wastes, as the Silver Wolves tend to rely on high damaging rockets and artillery shells.
Although Elemental troops do well against facing tank fodder, beware of units that deal -type damage as they will deliver huge blows to this unit.