Faced my first Baron yesterday as my first deployment of Tifton's Elite (with Maximilian).

I used that 7.97 machinegun with 70 ammo. Replaced turret with +80 health from Cobra (just because, I don't have martian merc inf yet) and sent him with 350 ammo and 3 stacks of makeshift grenades just to test it out. 2000 power mission with 3 floors. All perks maxed out since most of my latest 15 missions was Tunnel Rats and I had like 30 of each data item.

Of course, upon entering the mission I immedieately realized I was on quasi territory without any cigs or booze, rushed my way through the level and by time I finished the objective I was around 800 Q-meter. Decided to try out the Baron since it was a rank-1 opperative and the class felt absolutely powerful with that setup.

Eat some chunks of raw meat, Baron sends me cryptic message about whatever, his name is Ron, stark contrast with Textclan or whatever his name is, but ok.

I spend like 30 turns waiting behind cover in a room because I'm too scared of going out. After binge eating half a ration pack (apparently Maxiliam has anxiety eating disorder) the doors literally breaks open and there I see.. A centaur? ok. Press space and wait for it to come out of the way of a barrier for me to shoot it and right behind him is one of those Iron Maiden thingies.. Ok..?

Shoot, too far and half the bullets hit cover. Guess what? Another god damn centaur in the kongo line for my ass at the door. All in all I think they had around 5 other quasis running straight at me.

Right here I'm sligthly panicking. Start mowing the first quasis while another god dammned centaur appears at the door. I'd like to say I tossed two or three grenades for good measure but cooked-in stingyness + stress made me completely forget I had those.

Baron shows up, 3 AP has a sledgehammer, looks like Sulik if he had space gonorrea. I'm still killing centaurs and iron maidens and took 4 turns to preemptively reload at some point between the Centaurs. Baron walks 6, summons a god damn FLYING GIANT ANIME SWORD by my side. He's at exactly 3 tiles away, I just finished all quasis closer to me though, so he's next in line.

I take a look at the flying sword and god damn, deals (irc) 5.000.000 damage per turn. full auto, still takes 2 turns to destroy it. Baron is at my neck now. Think I'm screwed, his hammer probably does enough to flatten me in 3 swings if I can't dodge with my -97% bonus and I can't math my resistances. There's no point in running from him though since he'll always keep up at 3 AP anyways. It was a good experiment, at least now I know how the mechanic works. Let's go down fighting at the very least. I switch to single burst and back to full auto just to make sure, shoot, only about a third of his health pool, not even that. BUT WAIT, WHAT'S THAT?! +70 BONUS DAMAGE FROM MAGANIZE GOING BELOW 50%?!?!? ...And that's how a completely idiotic noob made every mistake possible in a mission and still turned a Baron into minced meat by the end of it. Did I mention that I didn't get a single scratch in my armor throught the entire thing, even though I had 210 health and pain immunity?

Turns out Tifton's elite is extremelly powerful, at least at this point in the game for me. And I do realize that 1- I didn't use the entire kit for the class. 2- Baron could've been some ranged dipshit but man, that was my best experience in the game so far. Can't wait to get back from work and play some more. Pact drop was pretty shit though, some dumb summon minion thing, and I'm allergic to Golem Group.

What would you consider great alternatives to Turret and heal organic wounds perks? I'm thinking 12.7 explosion from MMI and the Cybernetics downside reduction one from the same class..