So, I restarted my game recently from where I left off after getting into the Dishonored train and such forth. As I now have all the DLC, I got messages about the alien rulers and shen's gift. Assuming that I couldn't get their actual stuff, because I wouldn't get the narrative mission, I wandered into my first mission. Not playing for a while, I derped and activated 3 pods, but handled it like a boss. Then I moved forward a bit after noticing a noise and ... it was the viper ruler! That took me completely by surprise, but I hadn't researched any of the ruler DLC stuff (Frost Bombs etc). Naturally I wasn't prepared for this fight and I dumped a flashbang on him. Mostly to keep it away while I thought of what to do.
So he reacted and scuttled a bit closer, but where my sniper could at least see the prick. Decided to take a shot, because why not: One shot. One kill. I completely forgot she had a repeater. Instant straight up death on the 60 HP (or whatever he is) Viper ruler. What a brilliant way to come back to XCOM 2.
Take a look at the foundry. There's something there for you too.
M A G I K A Z A M
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
So, I restarted my game recently from where I left off after getting into the Dishonored train and such forth. As I now have all the DLC, I got messages about the alien rulers and shen's gift. Assuming that I couldn't get their actual stuff, because I wouldn't get the narrative mission, I wandered into my first mission. Not playing for a while, I derped and activated 3 pods, but handled it like a boss. Then I moved forward a bit after noticing a noise and ... it was the viper ruler! That took me completely by surprise, but I hadn't researched any of the ruler DLC stuff (Frost Bombs etc). Naturally I wasn't prepared for this fight and I dumped a flashbang on him. Mostly to keep it away while I thought of what to do.
So he reacted and scuttled a bit closer, but where my sniper could at least see the prick. Decided to take a shot, because why not: One shot. One kill. I completely forgot she had a repeater. Instant straight up death on the 60 HP (or whatever he is) Viper ruler. What a brilliant way to come back to XCOM 2.
Take a look at the foundry. There's something there for you too.
Yeah I literally just noticed that was all there. I am now appropriately armed with frost bombs. Just in case of course. I also remembered to slap on two more advanced repeaters. I now have 4/5 soldiers with advanced repeaters now. I have every intent to make it 6/6.
So, I restarted my game recently from where I left off after getting into the Dishonored train and such forth. As I now have all the DLC, I got messages about the alien rulers and shen's gift. Assuming that I couldn't get their actual stuff, because I wouldn't get the narrative mission, I wandered into my first mission. Not playing for a while, I derped and activated 3 pods, but handled it like a boss. Then I moved forward a bit after noticing a noise and ... it was the viper ruler! That took me completely by surprise, but I hadn't researched any of the ruler DLC stuff (Frost Bombs etc). Naturally I wasn't prepared for this fight and I dumped a flashbang on him. Mostly to keep it away while I thought of what to do.
So he reacted and scuttled a bit closer, but where my sniper could at least see the prick. Decided to take a shot, because why not: One shot. One kill. I completely forgot she had a repeater. Instant straight up death on the 60 HP (or whatever he is) Viper ruler. What a brilliant way to come back to XCOM 2.
Take a look at the foundry. There's something there for you too.
Yeah I literally just noticed that was all there. I am now appropriately armed with frost bombs. Just in case of course. I also remembered to slap on two more advanced repeaters. I now have 4/5 soldiers with advanced repeaters now. I have every intent to make it 6/6.
It's real stupid that this is the best way to make the rulers managable. The rulers are so badly designed.
heenato on
M A G I K A Z A M
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
So, I restarted my game recently from where I left off after getting into the Dishonored train and such forth. As I now have all the DLC, I got messages about the alien rulers and shen's gift. Assuming that I couldn't get their actual stuff, because I wouldn't get the narrative mission, I wandered into my first mission. Not playing for a while, I derped and activated 3 pods, but handled it like a boss. Then I moved forward a bit after noticing a noise and ... it was the viper ruler! That took me completely by surprise, but I hadn't researched any of the ruler DLC stuff (Frost Bombs etc). Naturally I wasn't prepared for this fight and I dumped a flashbang on him. Mostly to keep it away while I thought of what to do.
So he reacted and scuttled a bit closer, but where my sniper could at least see the prick. Decided to take a shot, because why not: One shot. One kill. I completely forgot she had a repeater. Instant straight up death on the 60 HP (or whatever he is) Viper ruler. What a brilliant way to come back to XCOM 2.
Take a look at the foundry. There's something there for you too.
Yeah I literally just noticed that was all there. I am now appropriately armed with frost bombs. Just in case of course. I also remembered to slap on two more advanced repeaters. I now have 4/5 soldiers with advanced repeaters now. I have every intent to make it 6/6.
It's real stupid that this is the best way to make the rulers managable. The rulers are so badly designed.
Actually I like to abuse repeaters anyway, so this isn't a novel thing. It's just hilarious they designed these things, which are clearly designed to reward the stuff that costs actions, stuns etc but made them entirely vulnerable to an instant death mechanic.
So, I restarted my game recently from where I left off after getting into the Dishonored train and such forth. As I now have all the DLC, I got messages about the alien rulers and shen's gift. Assuming that I couldn't get their actual stuff, because I wouldn't get the narrative mission, I wandered into my first mission. Not playing for a while, I derped and activated 3 pods, but handled it like a boss. Then I moved forward a bit after noticing a noise and ... it was the viper ruler! That took me completely by surprise, but I hadn't researched any of the ruler DLC stuff (Frost Bombs etc). Naturally I wasn't prepared for this fight and I dumped a flashbang on him. Mostly to keep it away while I thought of what to do.
So he reacted and scuttled a bit closer, but where my sniper could at least see the prick. Decided to take a shot, because why not: One shot. One kill. I completely forgot she had a repeater. Instant straight up death on the 60 HP (or whatever he is) Viper ruler. What a brilliant way to come back to XCOM 2.
Take a look at the foundry. There's something there for you too.
Yeah I literally just noticed that was all there. I am now appropriately armed with frost bombs. Just in case of course. I also remembered to slap on two more advanced repeaters. I now have 4/5 soldiers with advanced repeaters now. I have every intent to make it 6/6.
It's real stupid that this is the best way to make the rulers managable. The rulers are so badly designed.
Actually I like to abuse repeaters anyway, so this isn't a novel thing. It's just hilarious they designed these things, which are clearly designed to reward the stuff that costs actions, stuns etc but made them entirely vulnerable to an instant death mechanic.
Well, there's an opportunity cost to that. Repeaters are by no means a guarantee, and the guaranteed damage/stun effects aren't usually repeater-enhanced.
You can generally just drop grenades on a ruler until it decides to leave, which is the "safe" way to do it.
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SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
So, I restarted my game recently from where I left off after getting into the Dishonored train and such forth. As I now have all the DLC, I got messages about the alien rulers and shen's gift. Assuming that I couldn't get their actual stuff, because I wouldn't get the narrative mission, I wandered into my first mission. Not playing for a while, I derped and activated 3 pods, but handled it like a boss. Then I moved forward a bit after noticing a noise and ... it was the viper ruler! That took me completely by surprise, but I hadn't researched any of the ruler DLC stuff (Frost Bombs etc). Naturally I wasn't prepared for this fight and I dumped a flashbang on him. Mostly to keep it away while I thought of what to do.
So he reacted and scuttled a bit closer, but where my sniper could at least see the prick. Decided to take a shot, because why not: One shot. One kill. I completely forgot she had a repeater. Instant straight up death on the 60 HP (or whatever he is) Viper ruler. What a brilliant way to come back to XCOM 2.
Take a look at the foundry. There's something there for you too.
Yeah I literally just noticed that was all there. I am now appropriately armed with frost bombs. Just in case of course. I also remembered to slap on two more advanced repeaters. I now have 4/5 soldiers with advanced repeaters now. I have every intent to make it 6/6.
It's real stupid that this is the best way to make the rulers managable. The rulers are so badly designed.
Actually I like to abuse repeaters anyway, so this isn't a novel thing. It's just hilarious they designed these things, which are clearly designed to reward the stuff that costs actions, stuns etc but made them entirely vulnerable to an instant death mechanic.
Well, there's an opportunity cost to that. Repeaters are by no means a guarantee, and the guaranteed damage/stun effects aren't usually repeater-enhanced.
You can generally just drop grenades on a ruler until it decides to leave, which is the "safe" way to do it.
My personal favourite is squadsight sniper round (with incendiary ammo) into full overwatch trap, preferably with an acid grenadier held back for boom+chain shot
I'm partial to Volatile Mix + Acid Bomb. Why, hello, Ms. Berserker Queen, how do you enjoy taking 7 damage every time your turn comes up?
Speaking of acid, I just finished an Iron Man run (only 3 deaths! One was a robut), and in the final mission my stealth ranger let me kill an andromedon at range. The suit re-animated, didn't see my team, and ran off to join another squad... still trailing acid.
For the rest of the mission I kept getting "acid burn" messages (what is this, Hackers?) and every pod I met had already taken serious damage from crossing the andromedan's acid trail. I eventually found it standing next to the Avatar. It ran out to attack me (well the zombies my dominated Gatekeeper made, at least), and BOTH of the Avatar's archon wingmen crossed the acid trail and started taking damage.
I was getting a little embarassed on the aliens' behalf, so I made sure to take out that andromedon suit ASAP, before it took out a load-bearing support for the base or something.
Dracomicron on
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited August 2016
So in preparing my body for the console release I've been watching a lot of ChristopherOdd runs.
Nice to see a lot of non-Mimic Beacon utility items used compared to the first month.
I'll be mindful of not triggering the rulers too early.
Also some of those mod classes are pretty cool if not a bit OP.
Mimic Beacons are supposedly a lot weaker than they used to be since they die basically in one hit. Though i bet getting something with high armor and HP to use the beacon would be pretty effective. That seems latergame to me, when you have more melee enemies you would want to group up
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited August 2016
Either way it was nice seeing more variety.
And utility items/non-standard grenades also seem a lot more generally useful than they were in EU/EW.
I started playing another playthrough after 4 month break.
There is still bug with soldier moving on lower level of the building, jumping on the ground, and teleporting immediately higher (or at least it looks like this in animation).
And utility items/non-standard grenades also seem a lot more generally useful than they were in EU/EW.
I feel its the other way actually. Because explosives still give corpses and because there is only one loot drop per mission there is very little disincentive to just blowing everything up.
In XCOM 1 Individual utility items were less varied, but more powerful, and more importantly, essential to keeping your income rolling though corpse sales.
And utility items/non-standard grenades also seem a lot more generally useful than they were in EU/EW.
I feel its the other way actually. Because explosives still give corpses and because there is only one loot drop per mission there is very little disincentive to just blowing everything up.
In XCOM 1 Individual utility items were less varied, but more powerful, and more importantly, essential to keeping your income rolling though corpse sales.
IIRC explosives didn't destroy bodies in EU either, but it did destroy any alien alloys/weapon fragments they would have dropped, which were super important early on for research as well as foundry projects. You also wanted to save grenades and rockets as a last resort for UFO missions, since blowing up a power source or nav computer, even if you didn't need it anymore, was still lost funds you could have invested in other pursuits.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
So, I restarted my game recently from where I left off after getting into the Dishonored train and such forth. As I now have all the DLC, I got messages about the alien rulers and shen's gift. Assuming that I couldn't get their actual stuff, because I wouldn't get the narrative mission, I wandered into my first mission. Not playing for a while, I derped and activated 3 pods, but handled it like a boss. Then I moved forward a bit after noticing a noise and ... it was the viper ruler! That took me completely by surprise, but I hadn't researched any of the ruler DLC stuff (Frost Bombs etc). Naturally I wasn't prepared for this fight and I dumped a flashbang on him. Mostly to keep it away while I thought of what to do.
So he reacted and scuttled a bit closer, but where my sniper could at least see the prick. Decided to take a shot, because why not: One shot. One kill. I completely forgot she had a repeater. Instant straight up death on the 60 HP (or whatever he is) Viper ruler. What a brilliant way to come back to XCOM 2.
Take a look at the foundry. There's something there for you too.
Yeah I literally just noticed that was all there. I am now appropriately armed with frost bombs. Just in case of course. I also remembered to slap on two more advanced repeaters. I now have 4/5 soldiers with advanced repeaters now. I have every intent to make it 6/6.
It's real stupid that this is the best way to make the rulers managable. The rulers are so badly designed.
Actually I like to abuse repeaters anyway, so this isn't a novel thing. It's just hilarious they designed these things, which are clearly designed to reward the stuff that costs actions, stuns etc but made them entirely vulnerable to an instant death mechanic.
Well, there's an opportunity cost to that. Repeaters are by no means a guarantee, and the guaranteed damage/stun effects aren't usually repeater-enhanced.
You can generally just drop grenades on a ruler until it decides to leave, which is the "safe" way to do it.
They aren't a guarantee, but as a DM of numerous tabletop games I am well away of the concept of "Weight of numbers". The more rolls against something, the more that repeater comes into play. With 6 of them, if I need to take a couple of rounds of shooting to kill something that really brings the repeater into "This might trigger". Against normal enemies I agree: They don't trigger that often, but against rulers they are amazing because rulers have the HP to make that 10% chance of death count.
I got super lucky yesterday though, because that 10% instant death shot from my sniper saved that playthrough. I had completely forgot rulers turn up if you activate them in an existing campaign WITHOUT doing their narrative mission.
To expand on aegeri's explanation. With repeaters the XCOM adage of "they only have to get lucky once" is reversed. You only have to get lucky once to make it worthwhile.
Its also pretty strong for XCOM operatives as well, since there isn't really anything else you would put in that slot. The best upgrades are the laser sight and scope, and you can only have one. After that its the stock(guaranteed damage means finishing off enemies is guaranteed), auto-loader/extended magazine, and repeater. But the auto-loader/extended mag is only particularly strong if there is something you really need to use the extra ammo for and a flat % kill might be stronger than that anyway.
Edit: Basically if you're attempting to maximize then everyone has either a scope/laser and a repeater or a scope/laser and an extended mag. There isn't much reason for anything else.
edit2: exceptions if stock damage triggers armor shred/ammo effects
Edit3:
Laser/Scope depends on whether or not you do your primary damage as overwatch/normal and whether you need the aim. Laser seems best for assaults and scope for everyone else.
Extended magazine synergies best with multi-attack abilities such as kill zone, hail of bullets, saturation fire, and guardian. Auto-loader would be OK for these(minus Kill Zone and Guardian) but isn't so much better than the extended that its worth looking for. Plus its benefit runs out and can be accidentally ruined. If you don't have one of these abilities you don't need anything really.
After that you have stocks. Stocks are good to great because they can guarantee finishing enemies off (especially for low aim soldiers). But they're not so good as to definitely use them, and they've got anti-synergy with scopes.
And then after that you have repeaters and hair triggers. A repeater almost dominates a hair trigger because there are very few situations where you would prefer an extra action to a straight dead enemy. Now whether or not a repeater is better than a scope/extended mag/stock is another question. But its not so obviously worse that you would never use them.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
So it turns out the Berserker Queen turns up on the first VIP mission you do after you deal with the Viper Ruler.
Oh noes I said. Until once again, ONCE AGAIN, my sniper kills off the queen first shot with a repeater.
She has earned the title "Regicide". Wear it proudly young woman. Wear it proudly.
And utility items/non-standard grenades also seem a lot more generally useful than they were in EU/EW.
I feel its the other way actually. Because explosives still give corpses and because there is only one loot drop per mission there is very little disincentive to just blowing everything up.
In XCOM 1 Individual utility items were less varied, but more powerful, and more importantly, essential to keeping your income rolling though corpse sales.
Does anyone ever use vests? Without a mod that adds a vest slot pretty much every grenade or utility item has a better cost/use ratio.
I use hellweave every once and a while. Its legit good for terror missions because the high amount of melee and burning shutting that down pretty much neutralizes any enemy that hits the vested unit.
Other than that, i would be tempted to use a plated vest with the RAGE suit and a padded heavy for 5 armor. But that would cost me a grenade.
Mainly i use them because i built some wanting to know what they were like and what else am i going to put in that slot when all my ammo sucks
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jefe414"My Other Drill Hole is a Teleporter"Mechagodzilla is Best GodzillaRegistered Userregular
My computer has never been able to run this, so I am so fucking excited for the console release
This right here. I'm a little bummed it got pushed back but at the end of the day I'm sure it's for the better. I've been working my way through another Enemy Within playthrough for fun. I've never used the ability roulette second wave option before and now I don't think I can ever go back.
My computer has never been able to run this, so I am so fucking excited for the console release
This right here. I'm a little bummed it got pushed back but at the end of the day I'm sure it's for the better. I've been working my way through another Enemy Within playthrough for fun. I've never used the ability roulette second wave option before and now I don't think I can ever go back.
Training Roulette/Hidden Potential/Not Created Equal kept me playing EW for ages. I tried the HP/NCE Long War mod and it messed up my GUI, so I'm hoping that Firaxis does it officially again, maybe with the inevitable expansion.
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jefe414"My Other Drill Hole is a Teleporter"Mechagodzilla is Best GodzillaRegistered Userregular
Hidden Potential/Not Created Equal were two things I felt should have been default even in the vanilla Enemy Unknown. Having a person with a super high aim but no willpower was classic XCOM.
Hidden Potential/Not Created Equal were two things I felt should have been default even in the vanilla Enemy Unknown. Having a person with a super high aim but no willpower was classic XCOM.
I far prefer not having Hidden Potential on. Having eighty aim rookies right from the get-go takes all the fun out of it.
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SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
And utility items/non-standard grenades also seem a lot more generally useful than they were in EU/EW.
I feel its the other way actually. Because explosives still give corpses and because there is only one loot drop per mission there is very little disincentive to just blowing everything up.
In XCOM 1 Individual utility items were less varied, but more powerful, and more importantly, essential to keeping your income rolling though corpse sales.
Does anyone ever use vests? Without a mod that adds a vest slot pretty much every grenade or utility item has a better cost/use ratio.
I would love if vests were their own slot, but with mods being a wee bit temperamental, I've not gone digging for one. Maybe next playthrough?
Hidden Potential/Not Created Equal were two things I felt should have been default even in the vanilla Enemy Unknown. Having a person with a super high aim but no willpower was classic XCOM.
I far prefer not having Hidden Potential on. Having eighty aim rookies right from the get-go takes all the fun out of it.
With how the game borderline cheats on classic ironman (not to mention the bugs that still exist), I respect your opinion but don't share it.
The only thing that I can think of is that the computer is notoriously good at knowing that you're in overwatch, and moving units into firing position without triggering reaction fire.
It isn't impossible for the player to replicate, but it would be annoying and time-consuming to do it all the time.
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jefe414"My Other Drill Hole is a Teleporter"Mechagodzilla is Best GodzillaRegistered Userregular
Yeah I mean, it's a game console, I know it's not actually cheating.
The only thing that I can think of is that the computer is notoriously good at knowing that you're in overwatch, and moving units into firing position without triggering reaction fire.
It isn't impossible for the player to replicate, but it would be annoying and time-consuming to do it all the time.
I would say the biggest bit of "borderline cheating" in XCOM EU is that, due to how aliens evaluate their moves, they will make a beeline for any spots that have glitched out LOS. There aren't THAT many spots where they can shoot you and you can't shoot back, but when they ALWAYS move something there when possible, it certainly can feel like it.
Yeah it's not really cheating, it's just that counting squares is incredibly tedious for a human player to do. I've lost track of the number of times that captain in Gatecrasher moves the exact distance he needs to pick off an overwatched rooftop rookie.
Well no. The aliens know exactly where every unit is even without vision. That is the cheat. You will notice that codex's always teleport to where they can make a flank (their one saving grace is that they tend to use their AoE ability first rather than shoot you)
This makes sense for a couple of reasons; its both hard to write AI to deal with this and easy to exploit AI that attempts to be aggressive with it.
OK, so here are the reasonable strategies i am aware of for legendary. Am i missing anything?
1) Grenade Spam: All Heavies all day. If you ever get any stocks you put those on first simply because there will be a lot of enemies you will have to "polish" off. After that you're looking for aim and extended magazines.
Your ideal squad is 4 Heavies + 2 more heavies when you're up. On a hacking mission you bring a specialist. You barely care about equipment drops because Plasma grenades are nearly as good as every other kind and you only need corpses.
Your general strategy is to rush GTS so you can pump out heavies. Unique to this strategy is that you don't pick up the shred skill basically ever, because you're going to be shredding with grenades.
May have problems lategame due to running out of ammo on the final menace. Make sure to train a few psions.
2) Phantom Menace: 1 Ranger with phantom and Conceal + 2 sharpshooters +1 specialist. Polish off with extra Heavy and sharpshooter. Ranger will not gain levels fast, but this is OK because phantom and conceal are low ranked abilities. Phantom, Shadowstep, Conceal, Bladestorm, Deep Cover, Rapid fire. Sounds strange but you don't attack a lot so deep cover is very nice. Rapid fire so when you have to kill something you can do it super hard.
Sharpshooters are long watch, Lightning Hands, Quickdraw, Kill Zone, Steady Hands, Fan Fire. Specialist should bring full right side abilities except maybe covering fire.... not because you actually want covering fire but because you might not like the CD increase on aid protocol. Not taking covering fire is individually stronger*. Every Vigilant is also very good(essentially its free run and gun)
Phantom is the old invisible squadsight cheeze from the first game, except you have the chance to sometimes fuck it up. You want to bring ancillary scanners so you don't run into something insane. The general construction is this.
Step 1: Find a group with your phantom. Step 2. Put one of your snipers into KILL ZONE covering the area of the enemies and the rest into regular overwatch. Step 3: Trigger the enemy group. Step 4: carnage.
Then you get to repeat. But its even easier the second time. Once your snipers are revealed they will be happy to shoot at enemies within their killzone without another trigger revealing them. Which means, so long as the enemy group moves its going to be a slaughter.
The specialist is there to hack things/trigger things as you will only really want 3 sharpshooters because you only need one killzone per group. Plus he can pull the phantoms butt out of the fire. You don't get any of the other sharpshooter abilities because they're all kind of bad compared to the pistol abilities. Which will be valuable in close quarters. Having one deadeye might be worth it. The heavy is there to blow up cover as necessary. But don't spam.
*Specialists get the ability to crit on overwatch shots with a GTS upgrade and i have found that enemies like to provoke a lot of overwatch shots by moving. Such, you want an enemy to be moving in order to capitalize on the shots. Moving enemies tend to not be in cover which means you get +40% crit bonus.
3) Mix and match from the above. Not as strong as either because you will either run out of grenades or run out of killzones when moving fast. Only real advantage here is that you can make it work without a lot of time training rookies at the GTS. Since you're going to get a good mix
4) Hack The Planet: 4 Psi Ops, a Heavy, and a Specialist. Self explanatory. Never stop training rookies and then soon enough you've got 4 pets and 4 rifts, and insanity, and... well good luck getting to this point i think.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
The Archon ruler turned up on a VIP mission, that got immensely hectic with an andromedon and 2 mutons right off the bat. This was going to be the end for certain, but wait.
WHAT'S THIS.
She did it again. First shot, executed the Archon King without him even getting a turn. This means, in an unbelievable series of numbers, that this one sniper has successfully rolled the 10% execute chance on their first shot against a ruler every single time. She's executed the Viper, Berserker and Archon kings without me even getting to see them have a single turn.
All hail the repeater! ALL HAIL CLAIRE, DESTROYER OF MONARCHS.
The Archon ruler turned up on a VIP mission, that got immensely hectic with an andromedon and 2 mutons right off the bat. This was going to be the end for certain, but wait.
WHAT'S THIS.
She did it again. First shot, executed the Archon King without him even getting a turn. This means, in an unbelievable series of numbers, that this one sniper has successfully rolled the 10% execute chance on their first shot against a ruler every single time. She's executed the Viper, Berserker and Archon kings without me even getting to see them have a single turn.
All hail the repeater! ALL HAIL CLAIRE, DESTROYER OF MONARCHS.
She's in your squad pool, right? You've saved her for all future games?
The Archon ruler turned up on a VIP mission, that got immensely hectic with an andromedon and 2 mutons right off the bat. This was going to be the end for certain, but wait.
WHAT'S THIS.
She did it again. First shot, executed the Archon King without him even getting a turn. This means, in an unbelievable series of numbers, that this one sniper has successfully rolled the 10% execute chance on their first shot against a ruler every single time. She's executed the Viper, Berserker and Archon kings without me even getting to see them have a single turn.
All hail the repeater! ALL HAIL CLAIRE, DESTROYER OF MONARCHS.
Posts
Yeah I literally just noticed that was all there. I am now appropriately armed with frost bombs. Just in case of course. I also remembered to slap on two more advanced repeaters. I now have 4/5 soldiers with advanced repeaters now. I have every intent to make it 6/6.
Actually I like to abuse repeaters anyway, so this isn't a novel thing. It's just hilarious they designed these things, which are clearly designed to reward the stuff that costs actions, stuns etc but made them entirely vulnerable to an instant death mechanic.
Well, there's an opportunity cost to that. Repeaters are by no means a guarantee, and the guaranteed damage/stun effects aren't usually repeater-enhanced.
You can generally just drop grenades on a ruler until it decides to leave, which is the "safe" way to do it.
My personal favourite is squadsight sniper round (with incendiary ammo) into full overwatch trap, preferably with an acid grenadier held back for boom+chain shot
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
Speaking of acid, I just finished an Iron Man run (only 3 deaths! One was a robut), and in the final mission my stealth ranger let me kill an andromedon at range. The suit re-animated, didn't see my team, and ran off to join another squad... still trailing acid.
For the rest of the mission I kept getting "acid burn" messages (what is this, Hackers?) and every pod I met had already taken serious damage from crossing the andromedan's acid trail. I eventually found it standing next to the Avatar. It ran out to attack me (well the zombies my dominated Gatekeeper made, at least), and BOTH of the Avatar's archon wingmen crossed the acid trail and started taking damage.
I was getting a little embarassed on the aliens' behalf, so I made sure to take out that andromedon suit ASAP, before it took out a load-bearing support for the base or something.
Nice to see a lot of non-Mimic Beacon utility items used compared to the first month.
I'll be mindful of not triggering the rulers too early.
Also some of those mod classes are pretty cool if not a bit OP.
And utility items/non-standard grenades also seem a lot more generally useful than they were in EU/EW.
There is still bug with soldier moving on lower level of the building, jumping on the ground, and teleporting immediately higher (or at least it looks like this in animation).
Firaxis, im not mad, im just dissapointed.
I feel its the other way actually. Because explosives still give corpses and because there is only one loot drop per mission there is very little disincentive to just blowing everything up.
In XCOM 1 Individual utility items were less varied, but more powerful, and more importantly, essential to keeping your income rolling though corpse sales.
IIRC explosives didn't destroy bodies in EU either, but it did destroy any alien alloys/weapon fragments they would have dropped, which were super important early on for research as well as foundry projects. You also wanted to save grenades and rockets as a last resort for UFO missions, since blowing up a power source or nav computer, even if you didn't need it anymore, was still lost funds you could have invested in other pursuits.
They aren't a guarantee, but as a DM of numerous tabletop games I am well away of the concept of "Weight of numbers". The more rolls against something, the more that repeater comes into play. With 6 of them, if I need to take a couple of rounds of shooting to kill something that really brings the repeater into "This might trigger". Against normal enemies I agree: They don't trigger that often, but against rulers they are amazing because rulers have the HP to make that 10% chance of death count.
I got super lucky yesterday though, because that 10% instant death shot from my sniper saved that playthrough. I had completely forgot rulers turn up if you activate them in an existing campaign WITHOUT doing their narrative mission.
Its also pretty strong for XCOM operatives as well, since there isn't really anything else you would put in that slot. The best upgrades are the laser sight and scope, and you can only have one. After that its the stock(guaranteed damage means finishing off enemies is guaranteed), auto-loader/extended magazine, and repeater. But the auto-loader/extended mag is only particularly strong if there is something you really need to use the extra ammo for and a flat % kill might be stronger than that anyway.
Edit: Basically if you're attempting to maximize then everyone has either a scope/laser and a repeater or a scope/laser and an extended mag. There isn't much reason for anything else.
edit2: exceptions if stock damage triggers armor shred/ammo effects
Edit3:
Laser/Scope depends on whether or not you do your primary damage as overwatch/normal and whether you need the aim. Laser seems best for assaults and scope for everyone else.
Extended magazine synergies best with multi-attack abilities such as kill zone, hail of bullets, saturation fire, and guardian. Auto-loader would be OK for these(minus Kill Zone and Guardian) but isn't so much better than the extended that its worth looking for. Plus its benefit runs out and can be accidentally ruined. If you don't have one of these abilities you don't need anything really.
After that you have stocks. Stocks are good to great because they can guarantee finishing enemies off (especially for low aim soldiers). But they're not so good as to definitely use them, and they've got anti-synergy with scopes.
And then after that you have repeaters and hair triggers. A repeater almost dominates a hair trigger because there are very few situations where you would prefer an extra action to a straight dead enemy. Now whether or not a repeater is better than a scope/extended mag/stock is another question. But its not so obviously worse that you would never use them.
Oh noes I said. Until once again, ONCE AGAIN, my sniper kills off the queen first shot with a repeater.
She has earned the title "Regicide". Wear it proudly young woman. Wear it proudly.
"Take control of a random enemy for 2 turns"...
I got the sectopod
edit: Enemy will reduced by 50%... well sure i will dominate that gatekeeper at 97% chance, don't mind if i do...
Does anyone ever use vests? Without a mod that adds a vest slot pretty much every grenade or utility item has a better cost/use ratio.
Other than that, i would be tempted to use a plated vest with the RAGE suit and a padded heavy for 5 armor. But that would cost me a grenade.
Mainly i use them because i built some wanting to know what they were like and what else am i going to put in that slot when all my ammo sucks
This right here. I'm a little bummed it got pushed back but at the end of the day I'm sure it's for the better. I've been working my way through another Enemy Within playthrough for fun. I've never used the ability roulette second wave option before and now I don't think I can ever go back.
Training Roulette/Hidden Potential/Not Created Equal kept me playing EW for ages. I tried the HP/NCE Long War mod and it messed up my GUI, so I'm hoping that Firaxis does it officially again, maybe with the inevitable expansion.
I would love if vests were their own slot, but with mods being a wee bit temperamental, I've not gone digging for one. Maybe next playthrough?
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With how the game borderline cheats on classic ironman (not to mention the bugs that still exist), I respect your opinion but don't share it.
It isn't impossible for the player to replicate, but it would be annoying and time-consuming to do it all the time.
I would say the biggest bit of "borderline cheating" in XCOM EU is that, due to how aliens evaluate their moves, they will make a beeline for any spots that have glitched out LOS. There aren't THAT many spots where they can shoot you and you can't shoot back, but when they ALWAYS move something there when possible, it certainly can feel like it.
This makes sense for a couple of reasons; its both hard to write AI to deal with this and easy to exploit AI that attempts to be aggressive with it.
1) Grenade Spam: All Heavies all day. If you ever get any stocks you put those on first simply because there will be a lot of enemies you will have to "polish" off. After that you're looking for aim and extended magazines.
Your ideal squad is 4 Heavies + 2 more heavies when you're up. On a hacking mission you bring a specialist. You barely care about equipment drops because Plasma grenades are nearly as good as every other kind and you only need corpses.
Your general strategy is to rush GTS so you can pump out heavies. Unique to this strategy is that you don't pick up the shred skill basically ever, because you're going to be shredding with grenades.
May have problems lategame due to running out of ammo on the final menace. Make sure to train a few psions.
2) Phantom Menace: 1 Ranger with phantom and Conceal + 2 sharpshooters +1 specialist. Polish off with extra Heavy and sharpshooter. Ranger will not gain levels fast, but this is OK because phantom and conceal are low ranked abilities. Phantom, Shadowstep, Conceal, Bladestorm, Deep Cover, Rapid fire. Sounds strange but you don't attack a lot so deep cover is very nice. Rapid fire so when you have to kill something you can do it super hard.
Sharpshooters are long watch, Lightning Hands, Quickdraw, Kill Zone, Steady Hands, Fan Fire. Specialist should bring full right side abilities except maybe covering fire.... not because you actually want covering fire but because you might not like the CD increase on aid protocol. Not taking covering fire is individually stronger*. Every Vigilant is also very good(essentially its free run and gun)
Phantom is the old invisible squadsight cheeze from the first game, except you have the chance to sometimes fuck it up. You want to bring ancillary scanners so you don't run into something insane. The general construction is this.
Step 1: Find a group with your phantom. Step 2. Put one of your snipers into KILL ZONE covering the area of the enemies and the rest into regular overwatch. Step 3: Trigger the enemy group. Step 4: carnage.
Then you get to repeat. But its even easier the second time. Once your snipers are revealed they will be happy to shoot at enemies within their killzone without another trigger revealing them. Which means, so long as the enemy group moves its going to be a slaughter.
The specialist is there to hack things/trigger things as you will only really want 3 sharpshooters because you only need one killzone per group. Plus he can pull the phantoms butt out of the fire. You don't get any of the other sharpshooter abilities because they're all kind of bad compared to the pistol abilities. Which will be valuable in close quarters. Having one deadeye might be worth it. The heavy is there to blow up cover as necessary. But don't spam.
*Specialists get the ability to crit on overwatch shots with a GTS upgrade and i have found that enemies like to provoke a lot of overwatch shots by moving. Such, you want an enemy to be moving in order to capitalize on the shots. Moving enemies tend to not be in cover which means you get +40% crit bonus.
3) Mix and match from the above. Not as strong as either because you will either run out of grenades or run out of killzones when moving fast. Only real advantage here is that you can make it work without a lot of time training rookies at the GTS. Since you're going to get a good mix
4) Hack The Planet: 4 Psi Ops, a Heavy, and a Specialist. Self explanatory. Never stop training rookies and then soon enough you've got 4 pets and 4 rifts, and insanity, and... well good luck getting to this point i think.
WHAT'S THIS.
She did it again. First shot, executed the Archon King without him even getting a turn. This means, in an unbelievable series of numbers, that this one sniper has successfully rolled the 10% execute chance on their first shot against a ruler every single time. She's executed the Viper, Berserker and Archon kings without me even getting to see them have a single turn.
All hail the repeater! ALL HAIL CLAIRE, DESTROYER OF MONARCHS.
She's in your squad pool, right? You've saved her for all future games?
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I believe it must be said:
That's XCOM, baby!