Another suggestion is to not take Livewire, her Talent is massive OP. With intel, you can know where every enemy is, making the game less fun, imo.
I would also say Ivan is too OP. I am deliberately not taking Ivan, Livewire, and Fox. In fact, the whole reason I trained Barry in mechanics was not to have Livewire. I agree that she is also annoying, but actually a rather realistic character that way. It's definitely a type that exists and it's amusing how they nailed this image. Although it wasn't nearly as pronounced in 2001.
But also, training is so fast that uniques, talents, and perhaps wisdom are the only things that really differentiate between mercs. The most clumsy mercs can quite easily get to 90 Agi/Dex, for example.
Both Ivan and Fox, while still great mercs in JA 3, are still fair game, not brokenly unfair like Livewire, the best merc by far.
In JA 2 Ivan was strong as well. But he is expensive till you control at least 2 or 3 mines and Fox is not an S tier merc, although she is great for the 100 DEX and Striking Looks Perk. She doesn't have great Wis, nor Medical and Marksmanship, but will be top tier by the middle to end game. She is probably the funniest merc, so I like to take her and only choose Dr. Q when I want a full melee/close range squad (with Fidel, Scully and so on). MD is a retard, I don't like him, although he is good if you bring him in the beginning and if he manages to survive till his wisdom score makes him top tier.
Barry is also top tier, S tier even, and better than Fox. He is 93 in explosives and with his high wisdom, you won't even need to hire a mechanic: he can do both roles and produce regularly one of the best grenades in the game. You won't need to hire Steroid nor the loony Ukrainian girl (although she is bad, in general, her perk is one of the strongest in the game, so it's alright to bring her if you think Barry is way OP). Vicky is too expensive for the early game on the highest difficulty. I like to take Raven-Charlene duo, cause his LDR is brutally good and in this game, we can't raise it when we train militia like in JA 2 (LDR is important for moving around quickly). Both are quite expensive, and it's tough to get Vicky alongside the cops.
I am playing with the following squad:
1.
IMP as the basic assault/sniper rifle user.
2.
Buns as a light sniper. I'm just a Buns simp in general, she was my favourite merc in JA2.
3.
Blood for some stealth. I also started using him for shotguns, whilst using his special for additional mobility. From an RP point, makes sense to have a black in Africa.
4.
Larry for a mixture of explosives and shotgun. He is a weak though as it takes forever to train him.
5.
Hitman as the heavy sniper. I originally thought he'd be good for machine guns as well.
6.
Grunty as the machine gunner. I put him on overwatch before the battle starts and he mows half the enemies down when they scatter.
I also wanted to take Nails because he makes a good shotgun user, and shotguns are kind of fun. But there's no space left really. And I kind of wanted one of the old mercs like Fauda and Len work with the magazines. Barry, Kalyna, and Meltdown are dead - the former mauled by a crocodile and the latter suffocated by a zombie.
Ivan just looks way, way too strong. Killing someone with a shotgun is 4 AP, he restores 3 AP and gets free movement. This is just endless AP.
I have no trouble with money as I am mainly using cheap mercs.
