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Author Topic: X-Com Chimera Squad  (Read 686079 times)

Mephansteras

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Re: X-Com 2: Et Elegit Sanguis Infectus
« Reply #6930 on: September 22, 2017, 12:20:17 am »

For me it depends heavily on the map and the enemies I'm facing. And, of course, what stage of the game you're in. Snipers are amazing on a lot of maps, but if you can't get line of sight they can kinda suck. Had one facility mission where my snipers barely did anything at all. My Templar and Grenadier did almost all the work. My grenadiers are also my go-to whenever there are enemy mech units around, especially Sectopods. Chain shot with shredder and bluescreen rounds will pretty much take them out in one go. And definitely in one go if I've got a claymore strapped to them.

Psi-Ops are still pretty much god mode for versatility and reliability, and of course domination. They do lack massive damage potential, though.
Snipers are super strong at all ranges now with the Training center. I haven't tried a Reaper/5 Sniper team yet, but that does sound like it has potential.
Rangers are quite powerful, especially with a Reaper giving you knowledge on what to expect.
Grenadiers I find to be quite good. Note that I like to buff their Aim stat a lot through Missions, which helps a lot. That gun is super strong, and with the right training center perks they can get disgusting. And liberal use of explosives can solve many problems.
Specialists are decent and serve a nice 'make this work' role. Probably my favorite class to have be part of a bonded pair.
Reaper is battlefield control and probably the only class that is amazing at its role even at squaddie. They can get some nice damage options, especially Banish with top tier expanded mags and repeater.
Skirmishers are good all-around troops. Lots of mobility and decent damage potential, but I feel for them to really shine you have to get their breakthrough techs.
Templar are interesting in that they are either doing very little or performing clutch actions for the team. Also the #1 troop to get you in trouble if you aren't paying close enough attention. Still, I've had my Templar get me through a lot of difficult missions and for fun factor they are my favorites.
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EnigmaticHat

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Re: X-Com 2: Et Elegit Sanguis Infectus
« Reply #6931 on: September 22, 2017, 12:42:21 am »

For me what puts specialists and skirmishers over the edge is their ability to perform multiple actions in one turn.  Specialists in particular just give and give and give, every turn doing 2 things both at 100% success rate.  Even when they fight directly they have a version of danger zone that is more practical on every level.  IIRC two specialists can use threat assessment on each other then OW for 4 cascading OWs in one turn, possibly all on the same target and two of which can interrupt shots before they happen.  Combine with a scope and extended magazine for maximum effect.  Plus specialist colonel perks may not be dramatic, but they're the closest thing the game has to MOBA ultimates.  Remember, the medical one is a single action and it doesn't just heal, it revives.  That means removing panic, daze, disorientation... and shadowbound.  To say nothing about how a specialist heavy team shits on sectopods and elite MECs.

Skirmishers are basically the mario of Xcom soldiers except instead of being average in every way they're above average.  But that's not why I like them.  I play them like a madman, usually laughing like a madman too.  I swear that every other use of justice I take a screenshot, just because of how glorious that grapple is.

This is my favorite of those screenshots BTW:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
You cannot escape justice.  And yes, the animation did take a lot longer than normal.
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Parsely

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Re: X-Com 2: Et Elegit Sanguis Infectus
« Reply #6932 on: September 22, 2017, 11:04:48 am »

My main problem with sharpshooter is simply they physically fall behind if you squadsight them, and aren't *quite* as good as the AR classes in close combat.  But, yeah.  MILES better than in the base game.  For missions with no timer, reaper + sharpshooter is win button.  What's funny is you literally need one of each; two sharpshooters just makes it less tedious.
In vanilla that's why I have a gunslinger for timed missions. 2 grenadiers is usually what you want on timed missions though.
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EnigmaticHat

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Re: X-Com 2: Et Elegit Sanguis Infectus
« Reply #6933 on: September 22, 2017, 03:50:18 pm »

Personally I prefer strategies that let me take timed missions at a dashing speed.  Rangers, at least one specialist*, any hero units.  High speed no drag.  However its worth pointing out that I intentionally prioritized upgrades for rangers, heroes and sharpshooters because I used specialist + grenadier so much in the base game.  Honestly if we put aside psi ops and the double freeze grenades strat, class balance is really good right now and you can get away with whatever.

For me grenadiers depend on what you're fighting:
Terrible: The lost
Bad: Archons, codex and spectres; the chosen
Good: Shieldbearers, MECs and Sectopods
Great: Andromedons, Shieldbearers and Gatekeepers
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GiglameshDespair

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Re: X-Com 2: Et Elegit Sanguis Infectus
« Reply #6934 on: September 22, 2017, 04:01:33 pm »

Personally I prefer strategies that let me take timed missions at a dashing speed.  Rangers, at least one specialist*, any hero units.  High speed no drag.  However its worth pointing out that I intentionally prioritized upgrades for rangers, heroes and sharpshooters because I used specialist + grenadier so much in the base game.  Honestly if we put aside psi ops and the double freeze grenades strat, class balance is really good right now and you can get away with whatever.

For me grenadiers depend on what you're fighting:
Terrible: The lost
Bad: Archons, codex and spectres; the chosen
Good: Shieldbearers, MECs and Sectopods
Great: Andromedons, Shieldbearers and Gatekeepers
I wouldn't call them bad at all against archons. They have grenades  and autohit abilities to counter their innate defence and holotargeting to help others hit as well.

Actually, I'm not sure what would make them bad against spectres and chosen, either, because even the chosen immune to explosives still has armour to be shredded.
Spectres have immunity to overwatch, which isn't really relevant to the grenadier, but as cover-using enemies they fall prey to the same methods of using a grenadier. Hell, I've even say they're a prime example of a grenade-worthy foe, as their ability means they need to be taken out pronto.

Also you have shieldbearers in both good and great
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EnigmaticHat

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Re: X-Com 2: Et Elegit Sanguis Infectus
« Reply #6935 on: September 22, 2017, 05:21:39 pm »

Archons have high health and don't use cover.  Codexes (codicies?) and specters spawn together in pods that collectively gave huge HP and no armor, then quickly spread out.

Chosen are grenade sponges, and grenadiers aren't agile or accurate enough to get damage in otherwise.  At least 4 of the possible strengths counter grenadiers.

Grenadiers can have good single target damage, but every other class can do better.
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TheDarkStar

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Re: X-Com 2: Et Elegit Sanguis Infectus
« Reply #6936 on: September 24, 2017, 11:31:57 pm »

Did you know that if you lose Gatekeeper your game immediately ends? I was curious and lost three of my soldiers to bad luck so I idled my last one until it died.
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umiman

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Re: X-Com 2: Et Elegit Sanguis Infectus
« Reply #6937 on: September 24, 2017, 11:33:36 pm »

Did you know that if you lose Gatekeeper your game immediately ends? I was curious and lost three of my soldiers to bad luck so I idled my last one until it died.
Doesn't it just give you the option to restart the mission?

Every time I take even a single point of damage I just grenade myself and restart.

Though now there's a mod to fix it.

EnigmaticHat

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Re: X-Com 2: Et Elegit Sanguis Infectus
« Reply #6938 on: September 25, 2017, 03:10:34 pm »

So I've noticed a personal list of things that could screw you over if you don't know them in advance in WoTC.  Some of these aren't technically glitches, some of these might be in the base game, and some of them might just be my imagination.  Hopefully it will help someone.  Anyway, shit to know:

1.  Upgrading a soldier via the training center is never free, even if the perk would be free from the promotion screen.
2.  Using the "free up weapons" button will not just remove unique items, it will also remove upgraded weapons to be freed for everyone else.  It can be difficult to remember who has which gun or why.
3.  Some new Xcom stuff sometimes straight up don't do anything, or work differently than you expect:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
4.  Some alien stuff also doesn't work like you'd think.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
5.  Tiredness and will are the same thing, with will being the sole stat used to resist psi and panic.  So yeah, will can be very important, but it has no other effects besides mental defense and tiredness/exhaustion.  Psi stat for abilities is its own thing unrelated to either mechanic.  If you didn't get the memo, panic works completely differently in the new game; it can apply for more than one turn, but it can only be triggered by bondmate death, severe will depletion, seeing an enemy they're afraid of, or psi attacks.
6.  Resistance soldiers have seperate rules than you.  They can't miss or almost can't miss, and their HP and weapon damage seems to very mildly scale with time despite their tech and abilities being the same.  If you don't trigger alien pods, the resistance soldiers won't even if they shoot them; so resistance soldiers will fire all their shots on the aliens, and then the aliens will take their one or two shots at the civies.
7.  The GTS and training school do almost nothing for the first month, and are pretty weak even after that.  The ring on the other hand is more valuable than it might seem, covert ops give all the benefits of combat including promotions and level ups, at basically 0 risk.
8.  On all difficulties, advent units will almost never crit you if you're in cover, and their base damage is bad.  Its not intuitive, but being on opposite sides of the same trashcan is FAR better than being flanked.
9.  The effects of destruction may or may not have been enhanced.  Some (all?) ladders and staircases can be destroyed, and roof tiles will often be destroyed causing fall damage.  This may just be the fact that purifiers are causing me to notice this more often however.
10.   Fighting chosen stops explicit timers, even if you make objective progress during the fight.  However it doesn't stop aliens from targeting civilians or VIPs.  Two of the three chosen have abilities usuable without being revealed.  This does not start round timers or reveal the chosen, which means they will not use their normal combat abilities until you reveal them. 
10a. If chosen get access to a dazed soldier to capture or mindread them, they exit the map, which is the same as killing them except with no AP or experience rewards and a high likeliness of at least one soldier getting a phobia.
10b.  Chosen strengths and weaknesses are random, except that one of their weaknesses is always enemy: X.  The actual chosen abilities, however, are all present from the start.  It might not seem so since some abilities (like standard shots) are quite rare, but for example the assassin actually has a certain DBZ anime attack right from square one.
11.  Covert ops are refreshed every supply drop, and remain available the whole time.
12.  Supply raids can be abandoned with 0 consequences.  There's nothing to stop you from grabbing one or two crates and getting out of dodge, or sending in the B team for a couple cheap kills then run away.
12a.  Guerilla and resistance actions can be abandoned with objective completion and the mission will be listed as a failure, but actually be mostly successful.  Between the different objective types it doesn't seem 100% consistent what happens; you shouldn't lose a region, you probably cancel the dark event if there is one, and you may or may not get the listed rewards.  Usuallyyyyy you get all the non-optional victory rewards but I wouldn't bet anything on that.
13.  You can replace dead hero units.  Under the advanced start options you can choose to start with a hero unit; this seems to be more of a standard start option rather than a "second wave" option, it has relatively little effect on game balance and the effects are mostly positive.  Whichever faction you select, you should eventually get an option to recruit a second hero unit, and if you fall under two you might eventually be able to recruit more for that faction.  If you didn't explicitly chose a faction, it defaults to reapers.
14.  The reaper excavation order and skirmisher base bonus fully multiply with with everything including each other (so a 2x boost + a 2x boost equals 4x as fast).  This isn't true of everything in the strategic game, for example research is far less generous.
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GiglameshDespair

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Re: X-Com 2: Et Elegit Sanguis Infectus
« Reply #6939 on: September 25, 2017, 03:29:23 pm »

Resistance soldiers can miss, they just have really high hit. Combined with ADVENT not taking cover or fighting back properly it means they go through the bad guys like a woodchipper.
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Tack

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Re: X-Com 2: Et Elegit Sanguis Infectus
« Reply #6940 on: September 26, 2017, 02:17:30 am »

3. I've found interrupt to be useful, though battlelord sucks.
With interrupt I could grapnel to a better position, lash one enemy and shoot another.

13. I didn't explicitly choose a faction and I started with skirmisher.
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Re: X-Com 2: Et Elegit Sanguis Infectus
« Reply #6941 on: September 27, 2017, 12:26:17 pm »

Eurogamer put out a video where they had a nice long talk with Jake Solomon, the lead designer behind XCOM's revitalization, and it features a lot of never-before-seen footage.

Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU8qFleUTOs

It's a good video. I think Jake and his team probably had one heck of a challenge to bring back this series from the dead. Especially considering back then, everyone considered the title to be a non-starter. He mentions that they needed the pitch video just to show everyone what the intended final product was, because no one actually knew what they were trying to do.

I think another interesting take away is that he mentions how huge Sid Meier was a part of helping along development. Sid isn't just selling his name at Firaxis but rather acts as a mentor and guiding light to the other developers, sharing his experience with strategy game design to help the team. For example, Sid was actually made digital prototypes of the strategy layer and such for XCOM.

There's another video they did here where they detail how Firaxis managed to save this practically dead franchise and skyrocketed it to success: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U168v1-3YbA

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Re: X-Com 2: Et Elegit Sanguis Infectus
« Reply #6942 on: September 27, 2017, 03:40:43 pm »

Boy I'm not a massive fan of 2 though. The super hammy dialogue is a legit mood-kill, and the obvious "THE COMMANDER IS U" is charming at gatecrasher but very awkward when you're playing you commanding you in a clonepuppet assaulting a base.

Can't remember if 1 was much better but at least it had the Firestorm.
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DolosusDoleus

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Re: X-Com 2: Et Elegit Sanguis Infectus
« Reply #6943 on: September 27, 2017, 05:12:50 pm »

Boy I'm not a massive fan of 2 though. The super hammy dialogue is a legit mood-kill, and the obvious "THE COMMANDER IS U" is charming at gatecrasher but very awkward when you're playing you commanding you in a clonepuppet assaulting a base.

Can't remember if 1 was much better but at least it had the Firestorm.

I've pretty much accepted that I despise the mood in 2. It helps if you're playing more for the strategy than for the story or tone.
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EnigmaticHat

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Re: X-Com 2: Et Elegit Sanguis Infectus
« Reply #6944 on: September 27, 2017, 05:42:32 pm »

The characters are all hammy military stereotypes and I'm ok with it.  If you thank about Xcom there's no way it ends besides immediate irreversable human defeat.  Might as well be GI Joe badasses in an unusually kid-friendly 80s action movie.  Least that makes stylistic sense.

I actually thought 2 was more subtle than 1.  Compare Vahlen to Tygan for example.  Or Sweater Bradford to Stubble Bradford.
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