does it matter what soldier i pick during extra ops?

[TrophyQuest]

do i pick the soldiers with low skills or the soldiers with high skills? or does it even matter?

[Trompinha]

It does matter. The high rank soldiers have more life and stamina, and this will make a HUGE difference when fighting against AI Weapons, Tanks and Monsters.
I didn't feel that the other skills were relevant though.

[Xernova]

But also; soldiers with high Run Speed will make things easier to finish some stages as quickly as possible, i.e. keeping your completion time low.

[godsavant]

The only thing to watch out for are soldiers with Decoy or Sidekick perks - frustratingly common traits among A-rank soldiers. Decoy can ruin your stealth, and Sidekick will blurt battle cries during combat during Co-Ops, preventing S ranks.

[RMPage]

There's some pretty helpful skills available too, like Channeler - lets you spot items and POWs on the detailed pause screen map. Green Beret is awesome if you're playing alone, or co-op but don't care about S rank while fighting the many bosses because sometimes your weapons will do many times their usual damage.

[RJ2112]

Originally Posted by TrophyQuest

do i pick the soldiers with low skills or the soldiers with high skills? or does it even matter?

It does matter, especially reloading, running and your psyche gauge when you fight the AI's. Also you can use these soldiers in main ops (in case you didn't know); usually after finishing the mission as Big Boss first.

Also as mentioned above, a soldier with the "Engineer" skill has a random chance of doing 3x damage against large scale weapons; "Green Beret" has a random chance of dealing higher damage (10x) when firing weapons - bring them for AI/Monster hunter battles. If you go in a 4 party co-op with all engineers, it's party time as your chances of dishing higher damage increases. A similar skill is "Agent" though I am yet to see a soldier with this skill. (basically Agent>Green Beret>Engineer).

The green beret skill is rare in-game early on (ie fultoning) so look for AP recruiting. When you get the gear to S-rank the 5 Skull vehicle missions, the commanders usually have this skill.