Do we know if there will be Training Roulette in the new game yet, or are all of the rank perks more integral to the classes now?
There is no Training Roulette, but, the Officer Training School equivalent building (don't remember the name off hand) has an upgrade that gives each soldier a chance to grab random perks from other classes for free each time they level up.
Are you taking into account that the damage on the sword will be lower due to the accuracy penalty?
No, and I was fully aware of that going in. All I'm calculating is *raw* base damage as seen on stats, not percentage over time, since all I'm looking at is how much damage they deal upon actually hitting, rather than factoring miss chances.
Do we know if there will be Training Roulette in the new game yet, or are all of the rank perks more integral to the classes now?
While EU/EW style Training Roulette is not in, XCOM 2 has randomized soldier perks in the form of "Hidden Abilities" granted by the Advanced Warfare Center, a building you can make. Once built, the AWC grants a chance that a soldier, upon promotion, will gain a single random perk from other classes, or even unique exclusive perks like Lightning Reflexes.
There is no Training Roulette, but, the Officer Training School equivalent building (don't remember the name off hand) has an upgrade that gives each soldier a chance to grab random perks from other classes for free each time they level up.
You're thinking the Guerilla Tactics School, which is a completely different building from the Advanced Warfare Center that does give those random perks.
SayuriUliana on
0
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Are you taking into account that the damage on the sword will be lower due to the accuracy penalty?
No, and I was fully aware of that going in. All I'm calculating is *raw* base damage as seen on stats, not percentage over time, since all I'm looking at is how much damage they deal upon actually hitting, rather than factoring miss chances.
Unfortunately, that's not a valid analysis because how often they hit really makes a huge difference and impact. That 100% chance for the shotgun isn't a minor thing, even if it's only 10%, it's a really big difference to their total damage output. If you attack an even amount of times with the sword and shotgun, a single miss with the sword not only puts you in a precarious position, it also reduces the total damage it did vs. the shotgun. You have to factor in chance to hit and also the chance to critically hit (Shotgun is higher IIRC).
Is there any information on whether or not the Resistance Warrior pack will be available to buy after launch? I'm still mulling over pre-ordering this...
I'm assuming that it will be, since most cosmetic packs are available after launch.
Rechecking some stats on swords vs shotguns, a Blademaster sword actually outdamages a shotgun of equivalent tier at the first tier, i.e. Shotgun vs Sword, where while the shotgun deals more base damage, the sword with Blademaster perk will always deal 1 more damage compared to the shotgun. The damage equalizes at Tier II with the Shard Gun, where a Blademaster Arc Blade deals equal damage to it. It's only at Tier III with the Storm Gun vs Fusion Blade that the damage balance shifts around in favor of the shotgun. Practically though shotguns at all tiers still have a higher damage potential than swords due to use of weapon mods like the Laser Sight (+crit chance) and special ammo, though of course those require luck or resources unlike Blademaster that comes for free.
Swords will still have their moments of course, such as when defending against melee units using Bladestorm, killing multiple enemies per turn with Reaper, or the ability to negate enemy cover in situations where the Ranger is unable to close the distance with a shotgun in point-blank range for an attack and has to use the sword to do so. For "optimal" play though, shotguns at the moment do seem to be the better weapon in terms of overall damage. Of particular note though is that in order to fully take advantage of point-blank shotguns, a Ranger must pick the Run & Gun perk to be capable of using shotguns after dashing, but that comes at the cost of not choosing Conceal, which is an ability that can be more effective than Phantom depending on the circumstances.
.... In fact, if you want to spec a Blademaster Ranger who still maintains the ability to stealth scout, then you can just get Conceal at Lieutenant Rank.
Then again, given my own playstyle, I've never been much for "optimal" plays since my time in Enemy Within was spent rolling around MECs and punching all the things.
Yeah; if there's going to be an argument in favor of Blademaster, it's got to be that Conceal vs Run & Gun is a choice heavily in favor of Conceal and ergo the Phantom Ranger will have their only gold move attack reduced by 2 damage.
But it's a flat 2 damage. That matters a lot in the early game, but falls off of the face of the planet as enemy hit points increase. By the time that Conceal is supposedly granting this boon to Blademaster, you can get that 2 damage (and more!) with any number of other tools and laugh all the way to the bank.
Are you taking into account that the damage on the sword will be lower due to the accuracy penalty?
No, and I was fully aware of that going in. All I'm calculating is *raw* base damage as seen on stats, not percentage over time, since all I'm looking at is how much damage they deal upon actually hitting, rather than factoring miss chances.
Unfortunately, that's not a valid analysis because how often they hit really makes a huge difference and impact. That 100% chance for the shotgun isn't a minor thing, even if it's only 10%, it's a really big difference to their total damage output. If you attack an even amount of times with the sword and shotgun, a single miss with the sword not only puts you in a precarious position, it also reduces the total damage it did vs. the shotgun. You have to factor in chance to hit and also the chance to critically hit (Shotgun is higher IIRC).
Keep in mind though that a shotgun's 100% chance to hit is also dependent on it getting into point-blank range, which depending on your positioning may or may not happen due to the fact that attacking also takes an action point and thus limits mobility, while a sword almost always has the ability to get into ideal attack range due to being able to attack while maintaining full mobility.
Note that I am not saying that the sword is superior to the shotgun: I've already noted the raw damage disparity going up the tiers, and my own gripes on the imbalance. However, numbers wise the Tier I sword with Blademaster does have a raw damage edge over the shotgun.
Rechecking some stats on swords vs shotguns, a Blademaster sword actually outdamages a shotgun of equivalent tier at the first tier, i.e. Shotgun vs Sword, where while the shotgun deals more base damage, the sword with Blademaster perk will always deal 1 more damage compared to the shotgun. The damage equalizes at Tier II with the Shard Gun, where a Blademaster Arc Blade deals equal damage to it. It's only at Tier III with the Storm Gun vs Fusion Blade that the damage balance shifts around in favor of the shotgun. Practically though shotguns at all tiers still have a higher damage potential than swords due to use of weapon mods like the Laser Sight (+crit chance) and special ammo, though of course those require luck or resources unlike Blademaster that comes for free.
Swords will still have their moments of course, such as when defending against melee units using Bladestorm, killing multiple enemies per turn with Reaper, or the ability to negate enemy cover in situations where the Ranger is unable to close the distance with a shotgun in point-blank range for an attack and has to use the sword to do so. For "optimal" play though, shotguns at the moment do seem to be the better weapon in terms of overall damage. Of particular note though is that in order to fully take advantage of point-blank shotguns, a Ranger must pick the Run & Gun perk to be capable of using shotguns after dashing, but that comes at the cost of not choosing Conceal, which is an ability that can be more effective than Phantom depending on the circumstances.
.... In fact, if you want to spec a Blademaster Ranger who still maintains the ability to stealth scout, then you can just get Conceal at Lieutenant Rank.
Then again, given my own playstyle, I've never been much for "optimal" plays since my time in Enemy Within was spent rolling around MECs and punching all the things.
Yeah; if there's going to be an argument in favor of Blademaster, it's got to be that Conceal vs Run & Gun is a choice heavily in favor of Conceal and ergo the Phantom Ranger will have their only gold move attack reduced by 2 damage.
But it's a flat 2 damage. That matters a lot in the early game, but falls off of the face of the planet as enemy hit points increase. By the time that Conceal is supposedly granting this boon to Blademaster, you can get that 2 damage (and more!) with any number of other tools and laugh all the way to the bank.
You forget armor, and how that can change the effective damage an attack can have, especially if you have nothing that can shred it at the time. 2 extra damage on top of an attack that does 8 is just a 25% increase, but that % increase gets bigger with every point of armor you have to punch through (29% with one point, 33% with two points, 40% with three armor pips, and so on)
0
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Are you taking into account that the damage on the sword will be lower due to the accuracy penalty?
No, and I was fully aware of that going in. All I'm calculating is *raw* base damage as seen on stats, not percentage over time, since all I'm looking at is how much damage they deal upon actually hitting, rather than factoring miss chances.
Unfortunately, that's not a valid analysis because how often they hit really makes a huge difference and impact. That 100% chance for the shotgun isn't a minor thing, even if it's only 10%, it's a really big difference to their total damage output. If you attack an even amount of times with the sword and shotgun, a single miss with the sword not only puts you in a precarious position, it also reduces the total damage it did vs. the shotgun. You have to factor in chance to hit and also the chance to critically hit (Shotgun is higher IIRC).
Keep in mind though that a shotgun's 100% chance to hit is also dependent on it getting into point-blank range, which depending on your positioning may or may not happen due to the fact that attacking also takes an action point and thus limits mobility, while a sword almost always has the ability to get into ideal attack range due to being able to attack while maintaining full mobility.
Actually, if you search the thread I have already argued this myself earlier, but actually watching how the game is played it's not a significant boost to the sword in reality. I did think this would be important, but it's really not and the times where you couldn't easily blue move to get a flanking shotgun shot (you don't really need to be right next to them, you can be a handful of tiles away) are times where you wouldn't want to gold sword attack. This is because you'd be very likely to run into some other alien pods in the distance doing that.
However, numbers wise the Tier I sword with Blademaster does have a raw damage edge over the shotgun.
And again, taking accuracy and the shotguns higher critical chance into account, it doesn't.
and also the chance to critically hit (Shotgun is higher IIRC).
Forgot this, but from the stats I see, both sword and shotgun have identical base critical chances - for instance, both the Fusion Blade and the Storm Gun have a 20% base crit chance. Shotguns are only able to get the edge in critical chance because they can augment said crit chances with mods and items (ex. Laser Sights and Talon Rounds).
The one real advantage that the swords have at this point over the shotgun at higher tiers is their innate status effects - stuns for the Arc Blade and burning for the Fusion Blade, both which can reduce the enemy's combat effectiveness, and in the case of the Fusion Blade even deal additional damage over time.
And again, taking accuracy and the shotguns higher critical chance into account, it doesn't.
What is it about the term "raw damage" that is difficult to understand? I'm not talking practical damage, I'm talking base, solid damage, aka the numbers they do deal when they do hit, in which case the Tier I sword with Blademaster does have the higher numbers.
The Dev team are included as a character pool in the game by default
That's kind of asking for it a bit good natured abuse isn't it?
"You coded this bug, now march out into the middle of the map with no cover and stand there and think about what you did!"
and also the chance to critically hit (Shotgun is higher IIRC).
Forgot this, but from the stats I see, both sword and shotgun have identical base critical chances - for instance, both the Fusion Blade and the Storm Gun have a 20% base crit chance. Shotguns are only able to get the edge in critical chance because they can augment said crit chances with mods and items (ex. Laser Sights and Talon Rounds).
The one real advantage that the swords have at this point over the shotgun at higher tiers is their innate status effects - stuns for the Arc Blade and burning for the Fusion Blade, both which can reduce the enemy's combat effectiveness, and in the case of the Fusion Blade even deal additional damage over time.
And again, taking accuracy and the shotguns higher critical chance into account, it doesn't.
What is it about the term "raw damage" that is difficult to understand? I'm not talking practical damage, I'm talking base, solid damage, aka the numbers they do deal when they do hit, in which case the Tier I sword with Blademaster does have the higher numbers.
Base raw damage is irrelevant to this discussion. You need to take into account the accuracy and critical chance, because this is the "real" damage it will actually do. In every situation where you use the actual numbers modified by the accuracy and critical bonuses of the shotgun, the shotgun does better damage.
This is the kind of thing that I discuss often and how people fall into "Traps" because the game leads them to think "Oh the sword is about the same" when it's nowhere near it.
Are you taking into account that the damage on the sword will be lower due to the accuracy penalty?
No, and I was fully aware of that going in. All I'm calculating is *raw* base damage as seen on stats, not percentage over time, since all I'm looking at is how much damage they deal upon actually hitting, rather than factoring miss chances.
Unfortunately, that's not a valid analysis because how often they hit really makes a huge difference and impact. That 100% chance for the shotgun isn't a minor thing, even if it's only 10%, it's a really big difference to their total damage output. If you attack an even amount of times with the sword and shotgun, a single miss with the sword not only puts you in a precarious position, it also reduces the total damage it did vs. the shotgun. You have to factor in chance to hit and also the chance to critically hit (Shotgun is higher IIRC).
Keep in mind though that a shotgun's 100% chance to hit is also dependent on it getting into point-blank range, which depending on your positioning may or may not happen due to the fact that attacking also takes an action point and thus limits mobility, while a sword almost always has the ability to get into ideal attack range due to being able to attack while maintaining full mobility.
Actually, if you search the thread I have already argued this myself earlier, but actually watching how the game is played it's not a significant boost to the sword in reality. I did think this would be important, but it's really not and the times where you couldn't easily blue move to get a flanking shotgun shot (you don't really need to be right next to them, you can be a handful of tiles away) are times where you wouldn't want to gold sword attack. This is because you'd be very likely to run into some other alien pods in the distance doing that.
However, numbers wise the Tier I sword with Blademaster does have a raw damage edge over the shotgun.
And again, taking accuracy and the shotguns higher critical chance into account, it doesn't.
I get what you mean Aegeri, re: 90% vs 100%, I really do; but discrete encounters don't care about longterm stats. Yes, in pure infinite-trials maths, 90% of 11 damage is worse than 100% of 10 damage. In a single encounter, fighting an alien with 11 health...
+3
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Are you taking into account that the damage on the sword will be lower due to the accuracy penalty?
No, and I was fully aware of that going in. All I'm calculating is *raw* base damage as seen on stats, not percentage over time, since all I'm looking at is how much damage they deal upon actually hitting, rather than factoring miss chances.
Unfortunately, that's not a valid analysis because how often they hit really makes a huge difference and impact. That 100% chance for the shotgun isn't a minor thing, even if it's only 10%, it's a really big difference to their total damage output. If you attack an even amount of times with the sword and shotgun, a single miss with the sword not only puts you in a precarious position, it also reduces the total damage it did vs. the shotgun. You have to factor in chance to hit and also the chance to critically hit (Shotgun is higher IIRC).
Keep in mind though that a shotgun's 100% chance to hit is also dependent on it getting into point-blank range, which depending on your positioning may or may not happen due to the fact that attacking also takes an action point and thus limits mobility, while a sword almost always has the ability to get into ideal attack range due to being able to attack while maintaining full mobility.
Actually, if you search the thread I have already argued this myself earlier, but actually watching how the game is played it's not a significant boost to the sword in reality. I did think this would be important, but it's really not and the times where you couldn't easily blue move to get a flanking shotgun shot (you don't really need to be right next to them, you can be a handful of tiles away) are times where you wouldn't want to gold sword attack. This is because you'd be very likely to run into some other alien pods in the distance doing that.
However, numbers wise the Tier I sword with Blademaster does have a raw damage edge over the shotgun.
And again, taking accuracy and the shotguns higher critical chance into account, it doesn't.
I get what you mean Aegeri, re: 90% vs 100%, I really do; but discrete encounters don't care about longterm stats. Yes, in pure infinite-trials maths, 90% of 11 damage is worse than 100% of 10 damage. In a single encounter, fighting an alien with 11 health...
This discussion is ignoring that a shotgun at point blank will get about a 60%+ critical rate as well, which severely impacts the numbers massively. Also in terms of damage you're correct, but your argument is wrong for a different reason: In 10% of cases the sword deals 0 damage at all, doing nothing to the enemy. In 100% of 100% of cases, the Shotgun deals all of its effective damage (plus a higher crit). Average damage is actually being generous to the sword, because it doesn't really acknowledge the situation that "Well in reality, this can do 0".
I get what you mean Aegeri, re: 90% vs 100%, I really do; but discrete encounters don't care about longterm stats. Yes, in pure infinite-trials maths, 90% of 11 damage is worse than 100% of 10 damage. In a single encounter, fighting an alien with 11 health...
Found the save scummer.
XBL GamerTag: Comrade Nexus
+1
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I'm going to repeat a point that may have been missed:
Note that I am not saying that the sword is superior to the shotgun: I've already noted the raw damage disparity going up the tiers, and my own gripes on the imbalance.
So I'm not arguing in favor of the sword, nor claiming that it is superior. I'm just pointing out that the Tier 1 Blademaster sword does in fact deal higher raw damage than the shotgun. "Raw damage", as in the base numbers of guaranteed damage upon hit.
There's also a reason I don't take the critical chance into account: just as a 96% chance to hit for the sword is taken as being inferior due to the 4% chance to miss, critical chances are also dependent on them actually proccing to deal all that bonus damage. So even a 60% chance to crit is still a 40% chance to not crit.
At this point the theorycrafting is pretty much useless since while all of us agree on the same thing - aka, the shotgun is superior -, it's the details that we disagree with. Or rather, I'm comparing base raw numbers while everyone else wants to compare the actual practicality of those numbers.
SayuriUliana on
0
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
So I'm not arguing in favor of the sword, nor claiming that it is superior. I'm just pointing out that the Tier 1 Blademaster sword does in fact deal higher raw damage than the shotgun. "Raw damage", as in the base numbers of guaranteed damage upon hit.
And when crits are taken into account, the sword does nowhere near the damage of the shotgun. RAW damage means utterly nothing. I can take a shot that will do 20 damage to a target, if I have a 5% chance to hit I'm effectively only going to do an average of 1. The chance to hit and critical hits make a huge impact to the total damage between them.
If nothing else, Blademaster should add more damage to compensate and be more competitive against the shotgun as a choice.
There's also a reason I don't take the critical chance into account: just as a 96% chance to hit for the sword is taken as being inferior due to the 4% chance to miss, critical chances are also dependent on them actually proccing to deal all that bonus damage. So even a 60% chance to crit is still a 40% chance to not crit.
Which is why you calculate the average damage added by the 60% crit, just like you would for the damage multiplied by the chance to hit. In both cases, the sword ends up dealing significantly less damage than the shotgun over an equal number of shots - especially when its base crit is 10%-20%. This isn't theorycrafting, it's just the numbers flatly state "The shotgun will, over time, deal significantly more damage than the sword and has much higher potential damage".
There isn't anything more to it than that
Edit: Also I got the time wrong in that video I linked. The epic fail is a bit later but it's all worth it. I promise!
Are you taking into account that the damage on the sword will be lower due to the accuracy penalty?
No, and I was fully aware of that going in. All I'm calculating is *raw* base damage as seen on stats, not percentage over time, since all I'm looking at is how much damage they deal upon actually hitting, rather than factoring miss chances.
Unfortunately, that's not a valid analysis because how often they hit really makes a huge difference and impact. That 100% chance for the shotgun isn't a minor thing, even if it's only 10%, it's a really big difference to their total damage output. If you attack an even amount of times with the sword and shotgun, a single miss with the sword not only puts you in a precarious position, it also reduces the total damage it did vs. the shotgun. You have to factor in chance to hit and also the chance to critically hit (Shotgun is higher IIRC).
Keep in mind though that a shotgun's 100% chance to hit is also dependent on it getting into point-blank range, which depending on your positioning may or may not happen due to the fact that attacking also takes an action point and thus limits mobility, while a sword almost always has the ability to get into ideal attack range due to being able to attack while maintaining full mobility.
Actually, if you search the thread I have already argued this myself earlier, but actually watching how the game is played it's not a significant boost to the sword in reality. I did think this would be important, but it's really not and the times where you couldn't easily blue move to get a flanking shotgun shot (you don't really need to be right next to them, you can be a handful of tiles away) are times where you wouldn't want to gold sword attack. This is because you'd be very likely to run into some other alien pods in the distance doing that.
However, numbers wise the Tier I sword with Blademaster does have a raw damage edge over the shotgun.
And again, taking accuracy and the shotguns higher critical chance into account, it doesn't.
I get what you mean Aegeri, re: 90% vs 100%, I really do; but discrete encounters don't care about longterm stats. Yes, in pure infinite-trials maths, 90% of 11 damage is worse than 100% of 10 damage. In a single encounter, fighting an alien with 11 health...
This discussion is ignoring that a shotgun at point blank will get about a 60%+ critical rate as well, which severely impacts the numbers massively. Also in terms of damage you're correct, but your argument is wrong for a different reason: In 10% of cases the sword deals 0 damage at all, doing nothing to the enemy. In 100% of 100% of cases, the Shotgun deals all of its effective damage (plus a higher crit). Average damage is actually being generous to the sword, because it doesn't really acknowledge the situation that "Well in reality, this can do 0".
The base raw damage is advantageous in a situation where the shotgun would be unlikely to kill in one hit, but where the sword would.
Does the sword have crit chance? If it does, this window extends a few health points. Like, if the shotgun deald 5-7 and the sword does 6-8, then the sword is more likely to kill any enemy with 6+ HP unless the shotgun's critical chance far exceeds the sword's. If the sword has a very small chance to crit, then the numbers are close enough that the sword's advantage is negligible.
An alien with 7 health for instance has a 67% kill chance from the sword at 25% crit chance, and a 60% kill chance from a shotgun with 40% crit chance. Ish. Numbers are kind of fuzzy, but the point is if the sword has better base damage then there exist theoretical windows of advantage for it. If those windows are common, it's a much stronger argument for them.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited February 2016
The sword has a 10% to 20% crit rate, which seems ridiculously low to me. The starting initial sword has a 10% crit rate and the shotgun gets up to 60%. It's once I understood this that I changed teams to "Team Ender", because I honestly thought the sword would have an equal or higher critical chance.
And basically your second paragraph is exactly what's going on here.
Edit: The point is, in an odd way, you're actually rewarded more for being bold with the shotgun than the sword. It's very counter intuitive.
The sword has a 10% to 20% crit rate, which seems ridiculously low to me. The starting initial sword has a 10% crit rate and the shotgun gets up to 60%. It's once I understood this that I changed teams to "Team Ender", because I honestly thought the sword would have an equal or higher critical chance.
And basically your second paragraph is exactly what's going on here.
Right that's what I'm clarifying.
If the sword ends up with even a roughly comparable crit chance to the shotgun, then it absolutely has windows of advantage over the shotgun. Less reliable, but more likely to kill. However, if a shot from the same position results in a ~40% difference in crit chance, then the sword's advantage has been reduced to 3-7% or something like that, at which point it makes little sense.
There's also a point to be made that since the sword is a secondary weapon and that the shotgun is a primary weapon, that you could have the best of both worlds.
In all these cases the sword isn't bad, it's just significantly riskier. than a guarantee. If you like to roll with a rifle on your cutman, then the sword is no longer playing second fiddle to a better weapon, it's fulfilling its role fully. The question is, is that versatility worth the risk you take on, or is that soldier's number one job running up to an alien and ensuring it is dead immediately after?
0
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited February 2016
Of course this might be entirely different in the release version of the game, but I do hope the sword got a bit of tweaking.
This is of course fairly immaterial, because the real problem is that Phantom and +2 Sword damage are on the same tier. Unless blademaster really gives the sword a huge edge, which if you decide to run the maths it doesn't, then your best choice at that tier is definitely phantom by default because of the sheer utility of it. The sword is definitely brilliant when used with the perk that gives you a free attack when an enemy attacks you in melee or gets near you though, but that's further up and not part of this initial problem.
Rechecking some stats on swords vs shotguns, a Blademaster sword actually outdamages a shotgun of equivalent tier at the first tier, i.e. Shotgun vs Sword, where while the shotgun deals more base damage, the sword with Blademaster perk will always deal 1 more damage compared to the shotgun. The damage equalizes at Tier II with the Shard Gun, where a Blademaster Arc Blade deals equal damage to it. It's only at Tier III with the Storm Gun vs Fusion Blade that the damage balance shifts around in favor of the shotgun. Practically though shotguns at all tiers still have a higher damage potential than swords due to use of weapon mods like the Laser Sight (+crit chance) and special ammo, though of course those require luck or resources unlike Blademaster that comes for free.
Swords will still have their moments of course, such as when defending against melee units using Bladestorm, killing multiple enemies per turn with Reaper, or the ability to negate enemy cover in situations where the Ranger is unable to close the distance with a shotgun in point-blank range for an attack and has to use the sword to do so. For "optimal" play though, shotguns at the moment do seem to be the better weapon in terms of overall damage. Of particular note though is that in order to fully take advantage of point-blank shotguns, a Ranger must pick the Run & Gun perk to be capable of using shotguns after dashing, but that comes at the cost of not choosing Conceal, which is an ability that can be more effective than Phantom depending on the circumstances.
.... In fact, if you want to spec a Blademaster Ranger who still maintains the ability to stealth scout, then you can just get Conceal at Lieutenant Rank.
Then again, given my own playstyle, I've never been much for "optimal" plays since my time in Enemy Within was spent rolling around MECs and punching all the things.
Yeah; if there's going to be an argument in favor of Blademaster, it's got to be that Conceal vs Run & Gun is a choice heavily in favor of Conceal and ergo the Phantom Ranger will have their only gold move attack reduced by 2 damage.
I don't agree with this at all.
First of all, I'd say that tier is heavily in favor of Run & Gun. Concealment is great, but Phantom seems like enough for me. I wouldn't give up an extremely powerful combat tool just to double down on it. And second, the only reason you'd ever take Conceal is if you already had Phantom and wanted more. If you have Blademaster + Conceal, you'd just end up immediately using Conceal to mimic the effect of Phantom 95% of the time, at which point you just traded away Run & Gun for Blademaster, which is obviously wrong.
Of course this might be entirely different in the release version of the game, but I do hope the sword got a bit of tweaking.
This is of course fairly immaterial, because the real problem is that Phantom and +2 Sword damage are on the same tier. Unless blademaster really gives the sword a huge edge, which if you decide to run the maths it doesn't, then your best choice at that tier is definitely phantom by default because of the sheer utility of it. The sword is definitely brilliant when used with the perk that gives you a free attack when an enemy attacks you in melee or gets near you though, but that's further up and not part of this initial problem.
Maybe have Blademaster give a huge crit bonus to the sword? It does feel like if you want a "blade Ranger" to be a thing you really need to offset the fact that blades have no attachments.
Also, it seems at some point hot pink was added to the swatches, cause a lot of those people are rocking it, and I remember TB pointing out it was missing.
+3
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Of course this might be entirely different in the release version of the game, but I do hope the sword got a bit of tweaking.
This is of course fairly immaterial, because the real problem is that Phantom and +2 Sword damage are on the same tier. Unless blademaster really gives the sword a huge edge, which if you decide to run the maths it doesn't, then your best choice at that tier is definitely phantom by default because of the sheer utility of it. The sword is definitely brilliant when used with the perk that gives you a free attack when an enemy attacks you in melee or gets near you though, but that's further up and not part of this initial problem.
Maybe have Blademaster give a huge crit bonus to the sword? It does feel like if you want a "blade Ranger" to be a thing you really need to offset the fact that blades have no attachments.
I honestly assumed that the sword had an equal crit to the shotgun when I made my initial arguments it was about even, especially with the shotgun being guaranteed to hit. I just assumed the sword had more raw base damage and then the crit chance offset the 10% to hit. I was really surprised to learn I was wrong, but Blademaster giving the sword much more crit would work really well also.
Also, it seems at some point hot pink was added to the swatches, cause a lot of those people are rocking it, and I remember TB pointing out it was missing.
Well....
... we kinda trolled ourselves.
Most of us created our characters before pink was an option, and when pink was inserted, one of the black swatches that we had selected became pink.
Fortunately this won't affect any new characters made, but I look ridiculousawesome.
I get what you mean Aegeri, re: 90% vs 100%, I really do; but discrete encounters don't care about longterm stats. Yes, in pure infinite-trials maths, 90% of 11 damage is worse than 100% of 10 damage. In a single encounter, fighting an alien with 11 health...
Found the save scummer.
Lies! First playthrough of XCOM EU was Classic/Ironman. Ditto with EW.
I like it when my dudes and gals run around with swords and hack up aliens. Maybe one day, after Shen's last gift, I can have MECs that run around with swords and hack up aliens, too.
That's all I feel needs to be added to the conversation.
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There is no Training Roulette, but, the Officer Training School equivalent building (don't remember the name off hand) has an upgrade that gives each soldier a chance to grab random perks from other classes for free each time they level up.
No, and I was fully aware of that going in. All I'm calculating is *raw* base damage as seen on stats, not percentage over time, since all I'm looking at is how much damage they deal upon actually hitting, rather than factoring miss chances.
While EU/EW style Training Roulette is not in, XCOM 2 has randomized soldier perks in the form of "Hidden Abilities" granted by the Advanced Warfare Center, a building you can make. Once built, the AWC grants a chance that a soldier, upon promotion, will gain a single random perk from other classes, or even unique exclusive perks like Lightning Reflexes.
You're thinking the Guerilla Tactics School, which is a completely different building from the Advanced Warfare Center that does give those random perks.
Unfortunately, that's not a valid analysis because how often they hit really makes a huge difference and impact. That 100% chance for the shotgun isn't a minor thing, even if it's only 10%, it's a really big difference to their total damage output. If you attack an even amount of times with the sword and shotgun, a single miss with the sword not only puts you in a precarious position, it also reduces the total damage it did vs. the shotgun. You have to factor in chance to hit and also the chance to critically hit (Shotgun is higher IIRC).
I'm assuming that it will be, since most cosmetic packs are available after launch.
Yeah; if there's going to be an argument in favor of Blademaster, it's got to be that Conceal vs Run & Gun is a choice heavily in favor of Conceal and ergo the Phantom Ranger will have their only gold move attack reduced by 2 damage.
But it's a flat 2 damage. That matters a lot in the early game, but falls off of the face of the planet as enemy hit points increase. By the time that Conceal is supposedly granting this boon to Blademaster, you can get that 2 damage (and more!) with any number of other tools and laugh all the way to the bank.
Keep in mind though that a shotgun's 100% chance to hit is also dependent on it getting into point-blank range, which depending on your positioning may or may not happen due to the fact that attacking also takes an action point and thus limits mobility, while a sword almost always has the ability to get into ideal attack range due to being able to attack while maintaining full mobility.
Note that I am not saying that the sword is superior to the shotgun: I've already noted the raw damage disparity going up the tiers, and my own gripes on the imbalance. However, numbers wise the Tier I sword with Blademaster does have a raw damage edge over the shotgun.
You forget armor, and how that can change the effective damage an attack can have, especially if you have nothing that can shred it at the time. 2 extra damage on top of an attack that does 8 is just a 25% increase, but that % increase gets bigger with every point of armor you have to punch through (29% with one point, 33% with two points, 40% with three armor pips, and so on)
Actually, if you search the thread I have already argued this myself earlier, but actually watching how the game is played it's not a significant boost to the sword in reality. I did think this would be important, but it's really not and the times where you couldn't easily blue move to get a flanking shotgun shot (you don't really need to be right next to them, you can be a handful of tiles away) are times where you wouldn't want to gold sword attack. This is because you'd be very likely to run into some other alien pods in the distance doing that.
And again, taking accuracy and the shotguns higher critical chance into account, it doesn't.
Forgot this, but from the stats I see, both sword and shotgun have identical base critical chances - for instance, both the Fusion Blade and the Storm Gun have a 20% base crit chance. Shotguns are only able to get the edge in critical chance because they can augment said crit chances with mods and items (ex. Laser Sights and Talon Rounds).
The one real advantage that the swords have at this point over the shotgun at higher tiers is their innate status effects - stuns for the Arc Blade and burning for the Fusion Blade, both which can reduce the enemy's combat effectiveness, and in the case of the Fusion Blade even deal additional damage over time.
What is it about the term "raw damage" that is difficult to understand? I'm not talking practical damage, I'm talking base, solid damage, aka the numbers they do deal when they do hit, in which case the Tier I sword with Blademaster does have the higher numbers.
The Dev team are included as a character pool in the game by default
That's kind of asking for it a bit good natured abuse isn't it?
"You coded this bug, now march out into the middle of the map with no cover and stand there and think about what you did!"
PSN : Bolthorn
Base raw damage is irrelevant to this discussion. You need to take into account the accuracy and critical chance, because this is the "real" damage it will actually do. In every situation where you use the actual numbers modified by the accuracy and critical bonuses of the shotgun, the shotgun does better damage.
This is the kind of thing that I discuss often and how people fall into "Traps" because the game leads them to think "Oh the sword is about the same" when it's nowhere near it.
I get what you mean Aegeri, re: 90% vs 100%, I really do; but discrete encounters don't care about longterm stats. Yes, in pure infinite-trials maths, 90% of 11 damage is worse than 100% of 10 damage. In a single encounter, fighting an alien with 11 health...
This discussion is ignoring that a shotgun at point blank will get about a 60%+ critical rate as well, which severely impacts the numbers massively. Also in terms of damage you're correct, but your argument is wrong for a different reason: In 10% of cases the sword deals 0 damage at all, doing nothing to the enemy. In 100% of 100% of cases, the Shotgun deals all of its effective damage (plus a higher crit). Average damage is actually being generous to the sword, because it doesn't really acknowledge the situation that "Well in reality, this can do 0".
Found the save scummer.
In all honesty, wouldn't you beat people to the punch?
So I'm not arguing in favor of the sword, nor claiming that it is superior. I'm just pointing out that the Tier 1 Blademaster sword does in fact deal higher raw damage than the shotgun. "Raw damage", as in the base numbers of guaranteed damage upon hit.
There's also a reason I don't take the critical chance into account: just as a 96% chance to hit for the sword is taken as being inferior due to the 4% chance to miss, critical chances are also dependent on them actually proccing to deal all that bonus damage. So even a 60% chance to crit is still a 40% chance to not crit.
At this point the theorycrafting is pretty much useless since while all of us agree on the same thing - aka, the shotgun is superior -, it's the details that we disagree with. Or rather, I'm comparing base raw numbers while everyone else wants to compare the actual practicality of those numbers.
And when crits are taken into account, the sword does nowhere near the damage of the shotgun. RAW damage means utterly nothing. I can take a shot that will do 20 damage to a target, if I have a 5% chance to hit I'm effectively only going to do an average of 1. The chance to hit and critical hits make a huge impact to the total damage between them.
If nothing else, Blademaster should add more damage to compensate and be more competitive against the shotgun as a choice.
Which is why you calculate the average damage added by the 60% crit, just like you would for the damage multiplied by the chance to hit. In both cases, the sword ends up dealing significantly less damage than the shotgun over an equal number of shots - especially when its base crit is 10%-20%. This isn't theorycrafting, it's just the numbers flatly state "The shotgun will, over time, deal significantly more damage than the sword and has much higher potential damage".
There isn't anything more to it than that
Edit: Also I got the time wrong in that video I linked. The epic fail is a bit later but it's all worth it. I promise!
The base raw damage is advantageous in a situation where the shotgun would be unlikely to kill in one hit, but where the sword would.
Does the sword have crit chance? If it does, this window extends a few health points. Like, if the shotgun deald 5-7 and the sword does 6-8, then the sword is more likely to kill any enemy with 6+ HP unless the shotgun's critical chance far exceeds the sword's. If the sword has a very small chance to crit, then the numbers are close enough that the sword's advantage is negligible.
An alien with 7 health for instance has a 67% kill chance from the sword at 25% crit chance, and a 60% kill chance from a shotgun with 40% crit chance. Ish. Numbers are kind of fuzzy, but the point is if the sword has better base damage then there exist theoretical windows of advantage for it. If those windows are common, it's a much stronger argument for them.
And basically your second paragraph is exactly what's going on here.
Edit: The point is, in an odd way, you're actually rewarded more for being bold with the shotgun than the sword. It's very counter intuitive.
Right that's what I'm clarifying.
If the sword ends up with even a roughly comparable crit chance to the shotgun, then it absolutely has windows of advantage over the shotgun. Less reliable, but more likely to kill. However, if a shot from the same position results in a ~40% difference in crit chance, then the sword's advantage has been reduced to 3-7% or something like that, at which point it makes little sense.
In all these cases the sword isn't bad, it's just significantly riskier. than a guarantee. If you like to roll with a rifle on your cutman, then the sword is no longer playing second fiddle to a better weapon, it's fulfilling its role fully. The question is, is that versatility worth the risk you take on, or is that soldier's number one job running up to an alien and ensuring it is dead immediately after?
This is of course fairly immaterial, because the real problem is that Phantom and +2 Sword damage are on the same tier. Unless blademaster really gives the sword a huge edge, which if you decide to run the maths it doesn't, then your best choice at that tier is definitely phantom by default because of the sheer utility of it. The sword is definitely brilliant when used with the perk that gives you a free attack when an enemy attacks you in melee or gets near you though, but that's further up and not part of this initial problem.
First of all, I'd say that tier is heavily in favor of Run & Gun. Concealment is great, but Phantom seems like enough for me. I wouldn't give up an extremely powerful combat tool just to double down on it. And second, the only reason you'd ever take Conceal is if you already had Phantom and wanted more. If you have Blademaster + Conceal, you'd just end up immediately using Conceal to mimic the effect of Phantom 95% of the time, at which point you just traded away Run & Gun for Blademaster, which is obviously wrong.
Here's the full pool
The XCOM is real.
Gamertag: PrimusD | Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
It was glorious.
Maybe have Blademaster give a huge crit bonus to the sword? It does feel like if you want a "blade Ranger" to be a thing you really need to offset the fact that blades have no attachments.
I honestly assumed that the sword had an equal crit to the shotgun when I made my initial arguments it was about even, especially with the shotgun being guaranteed to hit. I just assumed the sword had more raw base damage and then the crit chance offset the 10% to hit. I was really surprised to learn I was wrong, but Blademaster giving the sword much more crit would work really well also.
I actually got the wrong one. It's the one afterwards about 22ish minutes or so.
And then everything that happens afterwards is non-stop hilarity.
Edit: Seriously though, don't rely on my bad memory and just watch all of it. It's worth it.
Oh I did and it was hilarious. Just more terrible positioning than anything sword-specific
Oh absolutely.
Every single thing that happens in that video is 100% Northernlions fault.
That would instantly raise it to competitive against phantom, but not sure about the ramifications later into the game...
It always surprises me when LPers apologize for playing X-COM badly.
Seeing their favorite units go up in flames or lose a critical mission, thats usually the most entertaining part.
Well....
... we kinda trolled ourselves.
Most of us created our characters before pink was an option, and when pink was inserted, one of the black swatches that we had selected became pink.
Fortunately this won't affect any new characters made, but I look ridiculous awesome.
Lead Gameplay Programmer
Firaxis Games
Lies! First playthrough of XCOM EU was Classic/Ironman. Ditto with EW.
That's all I feel needs to be added to the conversation.