ysbreker

XCOM 2

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Yeah, I didn't get a lot of those tactical options on my first play through due to lack of cash. I only every built one suit of power armor and only a couple batches of experimental ammo and armor, no psi chamber, and a fairly late Advanced Warfare center. I didn't have any idea how much I had handicapped myself until I started doing some research for my second attempt.

 

It's tough to make wise decisions in this game.

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I tended to run double specialist in most missions, all with medical protocols one with haywire and one with revival and always restoration. I guess they were just always heal bots for me.

 

As a side note what armor did people run late game?

 

i tended to stick ghost suits on snipers & rangers and the heavy suits on everyone else apart from my hacking specilist who had normal armor so he could have one slot for his hacking tool and one for the med kit

 

this was my final mission set up

 

post-24580-0-54017500-1457040499_thumb.jpg

 

& yeah god i love shredstorms

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I find that having combat protocol is invaluable to keep from having to waste grenades. There are so many times that a specific alien absolutely has to die, and I can't even risk an 80% shot, where having something that never misses is so great. If you don't have combat protocol, that's pretty much just grenades.

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Man I don't agree with that at all. Shredding enemy armor is way more important than having a bonus point of armor (and explosive damage is too infrequent to prioritize). Supression and demolition are both kinda good, I wouldn't prioritize one over the other. Holo targeting is supremely useful though, it just makes the rest of your team better. If you combine that skill with a weapon upgrade that gives the grenadier a chance at a 2nd action you can sometimes holo target two enemies, and that can turn a really bad fight into a fight where suddenly you have an overwhelming advantage (personally experienced this, not just speculating here).

 

I definitely think salvo is way beter than hail of bullets though.

 

I'm bringing in like... 10 explosives per mission (3 x 2 for grenadiers and 4 heavy armors) around the time when 3+ armors are common so explosives that shred armors seem so plentiful so far.  Like sighting of all late game aliens died the turn they spawned good of explosive spamming.  With volatile mix all the dot grenades straight up kill anything lesser than Archon

 

@Bjorn yeah demolition vs suppression seems weird cause both are hardly ever used.  But demolition is super awkward (chance to miss lolwut) so I would take suppression for off chance at at least having some bit of utility.

 

as for the specialist I only have 1 lvled up running all right side and it's been great thus far but like you said left side should have its  own merits.

 

 

The most notable advantage that the gunner tree has over the grenadier tree, it is still useful when you are out of grenades. It does happen, I've gotten into a couple of long fights where I've completely used up all my consumables. I mean look at some of those screenshots up higher in the thread. I think one of them had 40 alien kills on it?

I usually keep one skilled gunner, and then send the rest up the explosives tree.

 

Hmm I did go for like 50 on base defense for xp farming but haven't seen anything higher than 16 (due to zombies) so far, but I'll keep an eye out for something larger and like you keep one as machine gunner in case.

 

BTW guys, umm stock and reapter can combo so time to see if saturation fire can proc stock cause then gg.

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Oh man great discussion

For Specialists, I tend to give them all haywire and not worry too much about revive. To be honest once mechs turn up haywire is useful per mission, while revive is only useful if anyone needs reviving. In my games it's not that common for stun lancers to knock people unconcious, and bleeds are similarly not that common (alas your guys are more likely just to be dead)

After that though it's pick and choose. Anyone who get medic protocol has to have field medic. Without it you can't remote heal and that's, tactically at least, a real Arse. Of the final level I don't think I've given anyone anything other than Restoration though. I keep one out and out hacker build (combat protocol & scan) for retaliation and 'recover Intel' missions.

My rangers I dither with. I love blade storm and reaper (most kills with that currently at 7 aliens in one turn. OK 3 of them were psi zombies but she was having so much fun I didn't want to stop her) but can totally see the advantage of rapid fire as well. I'm not sure shadowstep is that useful because it doesn't trigger the OW (unlike lightening reflexes, which I have had from the AWC) and if you can't flank the OW alien then I find it of limited use. Phantoms great if a little one shot. I tend to find that being able to conceal again is only useful for about a turn before that ranger gets exposed again, or has to run so far away from the combat zone they aren't any use.

Out of interest is there an ammo type from the proving grounds that shreds? Or is it just AP which bypasses it?

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Out of interest is there an ammo type from the proving grounds that shreds? Or is it just AP which bypasses it?

 

Just AP.  Other units already have heavy weapons and grenades, I'd suspect that giving them a default armor shredding ability like that would be cutting into the Heavy's role too much.

 

On Rangers, I just can't bring myself to build them any other way than:  Blademaster, Shadowstep, Run n Gun, Implacable, Untouchable, and Reaper.  

 

The sword is just crazy useful to give it up for occasional stealth bonuses. 

 

I've never taken Blademaster though.  It doesn't feel like enemies come within melee often enough for it to be worth it, and Implacable lets me play incredibly aggressive and still be able to pull back after a kill. 

 

Late game, my rangers already have 100 percent crit rates, so being able to run into an overwatched enemy makes more sense than a one off crit/hit bonus, even if it isn't something I need to do often.

 

Run n Gun is the defining skill of the class for me, like it's not even a thought to not take it.

 

Untouchable is another skill that encourages highly aggressive play while allowing for a relative measure of safety for my Rangers. 

 

Reaper and Rapid Fire should probably be a coinflip, but I've only taken Reaper so far.  Multi-kills in a round is too awesome, and late game where my Rangers have the 100 percent crit are already doing massive damage, very few things survive a single shotgun blast, let alone a second one. 

 

I'm sure a stealth build is useful, but man, it's just too much fun to have a class that can consistently just get right up in groups of aliens grills and walk away from it. 

 

 

After the posts yesterday about Heavies, I ended up taking Holo-targeting on my next level up (just happened to be that level on my backup Heavy).  And, yeah, I can see me going with it over Heavy Ordinance.  I had one moment where I really wanted that third grenade, but the holo-targeting did come in handy several times, giving me some flexibility on positioning other troops I might not have had otherwise (and great for taking down a flying archon).

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Man, swords never seem that useful to me. They miss more often then it feels like they should, they don't do significantly more damage than a sniper and ,unless the enemy is the front enemy and positioned on the other side of a half cover wall, it leaves the ranger open to be shot.

 

Frankly, I rarely take a ranger with me anymore.

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A ranger with blademaster is such a great counter to chryssalids though.

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Fuck, I'm about to get a ranger killed by saying this.

 

 

 

 

I have never missed a sword swing. 

 

 

Also, it I don't know what the proc chance is, but the stun ability of the second sword has a very high rate, to the point that if an enemy survives being hit, I've never not seen it stunned.  This includes a Codex, and stunning a Codex prevents her from cloning herself. 

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I've missed several 90% accuracy sword swings. Maybe it's just a string of bad luck that made me stop using the class, but the penalties of missing are so damn high. I'll take another heavy and three more grenades instead.

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I agree with you there, I think the Ranger is the least valuable class in what it brings to the table, and that subbing any other class would probably be equal or better.  I just really like shooting things in the face with a shotgun and slicing and dicing with the sword.  A heavy for more 'nades, a second Psychonaut for more domination, another Sniper (on non-timed missions) for high accuracy or even a combat Specialist all ultimately bring more to the table than a Ranger does. 

 

The sword should probably just be a guaranteed hit, or one of the sword perks should also add a guaranteed hit or something.  I'm also not sure why Reaper has the diminishing damage when Snipers get Serial which does more damage at less risk.  Reaper should either be

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I'm okay with the sword not being a guaranteed hit, but there should be some sort of parry ability from other melee attacks.

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The sword should probably just be a guaranteed hit, or one of the sword perks should also add a guaranteed hit or something.

 

Some others feel the same - Accurate Swords mod.

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I'm okay with the sword not being a guaranteed hit, but there should be some sort of parry ability from other melee attacks.

The problem with the sword is that very often the gun had a higher to hit %, which made thinking about using it stupid in a lot of situations.

I don't think the sword needs to be 100% to hit all the time either, but it needs to be something that pays off much better than it currently does.

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See I like that just because your gun consumes ammo. If the sword has a 100% success rate that makes it too OP I think. A weapon with perfect accuracy, no reload, that can scale well into the late game is just ridiculous.

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The fact that a reload doesn't end a turn anymore makes the ammo consumption a little less of a priority.

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Assorted stupid questions about in between missions stuff. My current situation is that the first facility is in one of the regions I have made contact with, and there is another facility in a region that I have not yet contacted. The first facility is white, and the second facility is red and has a pip below it. The avatar project has 5 pips in total (1 on the facility and 4 on the floating statue thing). I assume that I can set back the avatar project by 1 pip by attacking the second facility, but is there a way to remove the other 4 pips? Or did I fuck things up permanently by not attacking the first facility earlier (I did not pay attention whether it had pips below it or whether it used to be red)? I guess my main point is whether I should attack the facilities as soon as possible to prevent permanent increment in the doomsday clock, or just make sure that I destroy them before it reaches 12 o'clock.

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Fuck, I'm about to get a ranger killed by saying this.

 

 

 

 

I have never missed a sword swing. 

 

 

Also, it I don't know what the proc chance is, but the stun ability of the second sword has a very high rate, to the point that if an enemy survives being hit, I've never not seen it stunned.  This includes a Codex, and stunning a Codex prevents her from cloning herself. 

I just upgraded my sword so I am pretty pumped to hear that, I think i will finally skulljack if that is the case.

 

I like the Ranger's Run and Gun ability, it still is pretty damn useful for the tightly timed missions.

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Yeah, that's another cool thing about XCOM 2. Different classes are more appropriate for different mission types. I wish they had pushed that a little further, but I like that I would actually think about appropriate squad composition going into missions whereas with XCOM 1 I was just thinking about "what's the best lineup?" (the answer was always two snipers).

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So legend is pretty hard.  Just had a run where I got super lucky with advanced stock from mission 2 but still, one bad move in retaliation mission and I lost my ranger (to a faceless and a bugged out floating viper) led to this spiral where right now all my non squaddies are injured for like 30 days.  The timers on legend is insane!

 

 

Assorted stupid questions about in between missions stuff. My current situation is that the first facility is in one of the regions I have made contact with, and there is another facility in a region that I have not yet contacted. The first facility is white, and the second facility is red and has a pip below it. The avatar project has 5 pips in total (1 on the facility and 4 on the floating statue thing). I assume that I can set back the avatar project by 1 pip by attacking the second facility, but is there a way to remove the other 4 pips? Or did I fuck things up permanently by not attacking the first facility earlier (I did not pay attention whether it had pips below it or whether it used to be red)? I guess my main point is whether I should attack the facilities as soon as possible to prevent permanent increment in the doomsday clock, or just make sure that I destroy them before it reaches 12 o'clock.

 

I finished a campaign with 4 permanent pips so I guess it's clearly possible for you to have 'screwed' yourself with un-removable pips (pips that are on the pacific icon itself and has no tie to any land based facilities).

 

That being said, for 90% of that campaign I let the pips build up all the way to max and let the count down roll til like 2 days left to clear out blacksites while also farming for the last mission for like 6 months straight so I think ignoring those un-removable pips is a safe strategy.

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Ok, thanks for the clarification. What is the cause of the pips on the pacific icon? My worry was that I had let the facility complete whatever it was doing, so that attacking it now was pointless, but it sounds like that is not the case. Are the non-facility related pips there so that you can reduce them by completing storyline objectives?

 

It feels like this game expects you to either read a bunch of guides before you start playing, or to be willing to restart the campaign once you realize you have fucked things up completely. For example, the first building I constructed was the proving grounds. This was one of the first campaign objectives, and because I have played a recent video game, I assumed that the objective was helping me get started with the base building. If I was to restart the game now, the proving grounds probably wouldn't be among my first five construction projects. I have managed to do quite well despite my poor initial decisions, so the game already seems more forgiving that the previous XCOM, but then I'm also playing on the second easiest difficulty and relying on save scumming in some of the more surprising situations. I imagine things getting quite brutal on going-in-blind runs on harder difficulties.

 

This issues aside, I'm enjoying the game a lot. I was worried that the ramped up brutality of the game would make it less enjoyable for me, but so far this has not been the case. Some of the timers have been quite unforgiving (especially if your first moves are in the wrong direction), and many of the enemies are absolute dicks (looking at you sectoids, stun lancers and snake ladies), but as I said, so far I have been doing ok. I have been quite liberal with save scumming and will continue that in the future, simply because that makes the game a more enjoyable experience for me. I can see the appeal of an ironman sort of run, but I already know that it is not for me.

 

This game can look absolutely gorgeous, especially the maps with urban decay. I also love how destructible the environments are.

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Ok, so I built a Guerrilla Tactics School, researched the technology of having 5 soldiers in the same area, upgraded some of my weapons and armor, and tackled the first facility mission. I was a bit scared because this was the first mission with a difficult difficulty that I had tried, but it went relatively smoothly: 23 enemies killed and all my soldiers wounded to varying degrees. After the mission I was a bit panicked, though, because I had like 3 healthy soldiers and all but one were newbies. I recruited a new rookie and changed the HQ scanning effect to faster healing. After a couple of days of scanning I got a red UI elements event where I had to choose between 3 missions. One of the status effects was a UFO that chases you hovering HQ. I did a bit of digging and it sounds like this is something I definitely want to avoid, but the mission to prevent that was marked as difficult. I managed to heal enough soldiers to have a full squad of non-rookies, but if this mission goes similar to the alien facility mission, I might end up with a really bad situation healthy soldiers-wise. I guess I will have to pray that things will be a bit quieter for a while after the next mission.

 

In short, I really wish that I had built Guerrilla Tactics School and Advanced Warfare Center earlier on.

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ahh yeah GTS is I think always the first that needs to be built (unless you are going for that 4 squad size achievement?), same with AWC as second building cause it gives your squad free random perk while lvling (when they get it is kinda random).

 

Game looks beautiful but man only way for me to maintain solid 60 fps lock on 970 is on minimum! So sad :(

 

Edit: So fucking pissed right now that another Legend Ironman has to end cause a zombie crit my grenadier from 2 tiles away, not even sure wtf happened there since when did zombies get range attacks?

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