To be honest, Needle Grenadiers are the only damaging grenadiers I ever make. They provide boringly reliable, incredibly strong AoE damage in a game with few boss enemies and tons of swarms of normal enemies, and they don't even destroy loot in the process.
I hear people talk about how nice Sapper+Combat Engineer can be... but I just can't buy into the idea of waiting until MSGT (and investing two perks) just to be able to destroy cover that Rockets, Shredder Guns, Demolition, and Saturation Fire have been successfully breaking since many, many missions prior.
Sapper by itself is so unreliable that I barely even notice it exists when I have it. It's a bad sign that I notice its existence more because it destroys loot than because of it visibly damaging cover.
So I just go Needle, for the damaging types of grenadiers. I leave cover destruction to my technicals and gunners (and anyone wearing an EXO suit).
I love my loot grenadier!
Re: I love my loot grenadier!
Needles or RD seem to be the only options atm. Sapper has so few situations where it actually works. I find it is not so much because of a lack of cover that is destructible by Sapper, but rather that enemy units tend to avoid that cover.
I also don't see myself ever picking Combat over Full Kit. By the time your getting to MSGT, your not relying on frags as much, tending to go with alternate grenade types that have nothing to do with cover destruction. Not that you can't of course, it would ultimately depend on the squad comp, but I find hybrid builds like RD/HO/BC/SG/BB/VM/FK to be far more useful then a straight frag sapper.
I also don't see myself ever picking Combat over Full Kit. By the time your getting to MSGT, your not relying on frags as much, tending to go with alternate grenade types that have nothing to do with cover destruction. Not that you can't of course, it would ultimately depend on the squad comp, but I find hybrid builds like RD/HO/BC/SG/BB/VM/FK to be far more useful then a straight frag sapper.