Tech Sergeant Hank is a Support hunter in Evolve, the 4v1 shooter from Turtle Rock Studios where four hunters chase a single player-controlled monster across the planet Shear. He is an alternate version of the original Hank, built around keeping teammates shielded and pushing the monster off its position with a strike called the Orbital Drill. During the free-to-play Evolve Stage 2 era, he fought with a Laser Cannon, a Shield Charger, the Orbital Drill, and a Shield Burst.
Quick answer: The Orbital Drill calls down a beam strike onto a spot on the ground. It lingers there, damages the monster, and forces it to move out of the targeted zone.
Tech Sergeant Hank’s four abilities
Hank sits in the Support role, so his job is utility rather than raw damage or healing. His kit mixes a reliable damage tool with protection for the squad and the area-denial strike that gives the character its reputation. His in-game description is explicit about the priority order, noting that when Tech Sergeant Hank really wants the monster to move, the Orbital Drill is best.
| Ability | Role |
|---|---|
| Laser Cannon | Steady, dependable damage |
| Shield Charger | Applies shield health to teammates |
| Orbital Drill | Ground-targeted beam strike for area denial |
| Shield Burst | Class ability shared by every hunter |
The character is rated Easy, which fits a playstyle that rewards positioning and timing over mechanical precision. He wears a heavy backpack that powers both the Laser Cannon and the shield generator, and the whole kit runs on energy charge rather than conventional ammo.
How the Orbital Drill works
Hank aims a target reticle at a point on the ground, marked by a blue circle, and calls down an orbital beam onto that spot. The beam does not track the monster. It stays fixed where it was placed and deals damage to anything inside the zone for its duration.
That fixed footprint is the whole point. A monster standing on the targeted ground either takes the hit or relocates, which breaks up its attack on a downed hunter or pulls it away from an objective. In practice the drill is used to deny space during a fight rather than to win a damage race on its own.
It pairs naturally with the Trapper’s Mobile Arena dome. Once the monster is sealed inside that cyan barrier it has far less room to escape the beam, so dropping a drill during a dome forces awkward repositioning in a confined space.
Shield Charger versus the original Hank’s Shield Gun
The split between the two Hanks comes down to how each one protects teammates. The original Hank carries a Shield Gun that shields an ally in real time while they are under attack, so the protection only exists while he is actively beaming someone.
Tech Sergeant Hank’s Shield Charger works ahead of the damage. It adds shield health to a teammate that persists, letting him pre-shield the squad before and during a fight. That shield health sits on top of a hunter until the monster chews through it, which buys the team a buffer going into an engagement rather than reactive coverage during one.
Why energy capacity drives the build
Because Hank’s gear runs on energy charge, the perks that matter most expand how much charge he carries. A common loadout stacks two energy perks for roughly a +35% capacity boost, extending both shield beam uptime and drill usage before a recharge is needed.
- Rocket Man (Minor): +5% jetpack flight efficiency, +5% jetpack recharge speed, +30% jump height
- Energy (Major): +13% capacity
- Superior Energy (Superior): +22% capacity
Capacity does more than hold extra charge on battery-powered hunters. Evolve defines reload as a fixed time to fully recharge rather than a fixed rate, so a larger battery that still refills in the same window effectively recharges faster per second. That quirk is why capacity is usually favored over reload for characters like Hank.
The Hank kit in a live Hunt match
A full Hunt match on The Dam shows how the character plays out against a monster. The four hunters drop from the dropship and pick up the monster’s trail through red glowing footprints and disturbance cues scattered across the rocky terrain.
The monster here is an Elder Kraken, a flying variant with a red health and armor bar. The Trapper’s dome catches it for the first fight, and Hank’s loop becomes clear inside that barrier. He shields the team, fires the Laser Cannon, and places a drill to keep the Kraken moving.
The Kraken reaches Stage 2, which refills and extends its health and opens up new attacks, and the second dome fight gets rougher. Hank is focused down and incapacitated before teammates revive him, and the squad loses its human Medic when the player controlling Slim disconnects and is swapped for an AI bot.
Hank dies twice across the back half of the match, once in a third dome battle and again near the Power Relay objective after respawning from the dropship. Even so, the hunters close it out. The surviving Trapper, Abe, lands the final damage on the low-health Kraken beside the relay to trigger the “HUNTERS WIN!” banner.
That outcome captures the character well. Tech Sergeant Hank is not the one landing the kill, but his shields soak damage going into fights and his drill keeps the monster from settling, which is exactly the Support role the game builds him for. Evolve’s servers were shut down in September 2018, so matches like this one survive as a record of how that kit held up against a monster across a full Hunt.
