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Lotta skirmisher talk, so I got a question since I'm getting back into xcom 2. Is there a way to have humanoid skirmishers? Or at least a class that makes good use of the ripjack? I found the 'Recruit and train' mod which allows for human skirmishers, but that uses the default skirmisher abilities, which can be kind of lackluster.
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Aug 13, 2021 23:25
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Vengarr posted:Yeah... Mutons are a similar trap. Fortunately you cannot ripjack mutons. Or anything else that isn’t 99% shaped like a human!
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Aug 13, 2021 23:41
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Vengarr posted:Melee is a trap in general unless you have 100% certainty you won’t trigger another pod. Hope they fix that next game. I hate having to bite my fingers every time I reveal a square of FOW. I actually quite agree with this. So much of the XCOM / XCOM 2 difficulty revolves around adapting to the idea that vision is somehow a bad thing. Apparently in the land of the ayys, the blind man is king.
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Aug 14, 2021 00:15
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melee is extremely good when a fight is joined, but there's a definite skirmish and standoff mode that you reasonably want to be in for a lot of a map. it's closer to 50/50 than people are implying right now i think but there's a reason rangers are one of the stronger xcom classes. e: amusingly and connected to our previous topic: skirmishers are in fact extremely bad at this skirmish and standoff mode except for the Justice power which is fantastic for it Coolguye fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Aug 14, 2021 |
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Aug 14, 2021 00:56
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Coolguye posted:melee is extremely good when a fight is joined, but there's a definite skirmish and standoff mode that you reasonably want to be in for a lot of a map. it's closer to 50/50 than people are implying right now i think but there's a reason rangers are one of the stronger xcom classes. Yeah melee is really strong for sure, it's just risky until you're tracking which tiles you're unveiling and develop a sense of what unrevealed pods are going to do. Not to mention you'll want to get an idea of what enemies are likely to do when confronted with a melee unit, which generally takes a fair amount of experience. At that point you can probably break the game over your knee unless you're on the highest difficulties. As I'm sure you know, melee is good but it can really get you into trouble.
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Aug 14, 2021 02:16
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Speaking of ayyys, did anyone make a chatspeak mod for XCOM2? Like the one that shows “ayyyy lmao” when a soldier gets hit with a frog
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Aug 14, 2021 02:26
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Kaal posted:melee is good but it can really get you into trouble. Ask me about templars
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Aug 14, 2021 02:35
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What's the deal with Templars???? \ 
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Aug 14, 2021 03:56
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I tried out Amalgamation Classes, but it didn't really land for me, the classes it makes are a little too hodgepodge. Dropped that and went for a training roulette mod instead, the one by Teddy. I really like how it handles the faction classes, their usual abilities get shuffled together with a handful of abilities from other classes, and then those are all dealt randomly to the promotion levels. So, a little variety, but you still keep that strong class identity. The basic classes though, you seem to just get completely random abilities from any class with each level up. I feel like I'm being a little picky here, looking for something with just the right balance between adding variance/randomness while also preserving class theme/identity, idk, maybe there's a perfect mod out there for me. Any suggestions?
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Aug 14, 2021 05:35
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Fenn the Fool! posted:I tried out Amalgamation Classes, but it didn't really land for me, the classes it makes are a little too hodgepodge. Dropped that and went for a training roulette mod instead, the one by Teddy. I really like how it handles the faction classes, their usual abilities get shuffled together with a handful of abilities from other classes, and then those are all dealt randomly to the promotion levels. So, a little variety, but you still keep that strong class identity. The basic classes though, you seem to just get completely random abilities from any class with each level up. I feel like I'm being a little picky here, looking for something with just the right balance between adding variance/randomness while also preserving class theme/identity, idk, maybe there's a perfect mod out there for me. Any suggestions? Sadly I think if Amalgamation Classes are too hodgepodge, you're a little stuck. Most any other class mod is either gonna be more rigid than that or it's RPGO, and while RPGO's Random Classes aren't gonna make anything completely worthless, it's very much the same as Amalgamations. Maybe RPGO Random Classes with some Commander's Choice thrown in to let you pick specialisations (or just RPGO Commander's Choice), but you weren't interested in RPGO because of the stat level ups, IIRC?
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Aug 14, 2021 11:27
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Kaal posted:Yeah melee is really strong for sure, it's just risky until you're tracking which tiles you're unveiling and develop a sense of what unrevealed pods are going to do. Not to mention you'll want to get an idea of what enemies are likely to do when confronted with a melee unit, which generally takes a fair amount of experience. At that point you can probably break the game over your knee unless you're on the highest difficulties. As I'm sure you know, melee is good but it can really get you into trouble. I've developed a tendency of almost always using my melee attack first on my turn because then I can respond with the rest of my squad if I gently caress up my reveals. Templar's parry or movement after attacking is great for melee, but though I usually have to feed them some easy kills to grind focus. Not to mention the 100% hit chance, which is required imo. A ranger without blademaster is pretty much useless for melee since you're pretty much always better just going for the shotgun shot and with run and gun you lose the range advantage. The burning effect of the tier 3 sword mostly doesn't matter and the stun effect of tier 2 is just worthless I find.
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Aug 14, 2021 11:39
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Basic Chunnel posted:Speaking of ayyys, did anyone make a chatspeak mod for XCOM2? Like the one that shows “ayyyy lmao” when a soldier gets hit with a frog yes. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1125601165&searchtext=ayy there's some slurs and stuff in there though. but you can also just edit the files to change them to anything you want. the enemy reinforcement warning text says something like "rapesquad incoming" so i changed it to "motherfuckers" instead as an example.
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Aug 14, 2021 14:19
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The stun on the tier 2 sword is fantastic when it procs, but lmao at controlling that or planning for that. The ripjack stun used to proc like 100% or the time and was a real argument both for running skirmishers and for never upgrading their ripjack to tier 3, but as folks mentioned it’s been a long while since that nerf.
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Aug 14, 2021 16:19
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Tier three swords should be a straight upgrade from tier two imo. Which means rolling once for stunning and once for burning. Alternatively the burning effect should be what you get with tier 2 and the stun effect should be associated with tier 3 because stunning is so much more obviously useful to have I don't know how it even made it out of the concept phase as is.
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Aug 14, 2021 16:26
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Didn't burning used to prevent enemies from making most forms of attacks?
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Aug 14, 2021 16:37
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Drunk in Space posted:They should make an XCOM based on The Boys instead where you have to find creative ways to take down shitlord supes. Intel obtained : bathroom cctv from the vought helicarrier.
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Aug 14, 2021 16:40
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Angry Diplomat posted:Didn't burning used to prevent enemies from making most forms of attacks? Still does! Cue stunlancers taking 4 actions.
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Aug 14, 2021 16:44
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 But you know what does all of that AND they can't move and shoot on the same turn? Stunning them.
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Aug 14, 2021 16:54
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I could have sworn it used to automatically unload firearms, on top of all that other stuff. Maybe I'm thinking of a different game or something. Anyway, yeah. The fact that it doesn't work against robots and merely hinders certain actions makes it strictly inferior to removing actions altogether. I never understood why the upgrade progression didn't simply add a chance to burn, rather than inexplicably downgrading from a chance to stun. Angry Diplomat fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Aug 14, 2021 |
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Aug 14, 2021 17:17
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reignofevil posted:
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Aug 14, 2021 17:30
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Torchlighter posted:Sadly I think if Amalgamation Classes are too hodgepodge, you're a little stuck. Most any other class mod is either gonna be more rigid than that or it's RPGO, and while RPGO's Random Classes aren't gonna make anything completely worthless, it's very much the same as Amalgamations. Maybe RPGO Random Classes with some Commander's Choice thrown in to let you pick specialisations (or just RPGO Commander's Choice), but you weren't interested in RPGO because of the stat level ups, IIRC? Yeah, fiddling with stats is something I'd want to avoid; I'd deal with it if the rest of the mod was right on the money but it looks like it'd have the same problem as Amalgamation. Playing with that on really gave me an appreciation for how the base classes are built from complimentary parts. The pistol only makes sense in conjunction with the sniper, you'd use it once you got some of the powerful abilities at the top of the tree, but until then you'll basically never have any need for it. Same sorta deal with rangers and concealment stuff, rangers want to be in front of your other troops, concealment lets them both scout and set themselves up, concealment stuff on a sniper makes a lot less sense. I was thinking about what I'd want, if I could have anything. I landed on: every time a soldier promotes you get offered 3 random abilities from their class and you choose one, from there the game rolls a die. 2/3rds of the time you get the ability you picked, the other 1/3rd you are instead given both of the other abilities. This would make every soldier a little different, make every promotion a unique surprise, and would bring abilities you'd never voluntarily pick into play. Though you'd probably have to give more abilities to each class if you wanted to have enough variety, while still keeping that class strong class theme.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:55
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Angry Diplomat posted:Didn't burning used to prevent enemies from making most forms of attacks? Unlike in previous titles, in WOTC burning effects allow melee attacks in addition to ranged attacks. They only prevent cooldown abilities. Combined with giving standard attacks to most psionic enemies, this has had a significant impact as it means most enemies will still do damage despite the burning effect. They also reduced the damage of burn attacks (both initially and over time). The end result is that while burning is still a negative effect, it isn't really a control effect and you can't rely on it. I think that the intent was to push players to choose between Fire, Poison, and Acid effects, the latter two being more effective against specific enemies. You can really see how this carries into Chimera, where each ammo type specializes against each faction. I still prefer Dragon Rounds on the whole, but in WOTC burning effects are frequently pitted against stun effects, which generally outclass them but are accompanied with lower damage weapons like the Arc Blade and Ionic Ripjack, so there's certainly folks who prefer delaying upgrades or not upgrading at all. My take is that an effect that only triggers 25% of the time is so unreliable that I just assume it won't happen. Kaal fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Aug 14, 2021 |
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Aug 14, 2021 18:11
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Coolguye posted:The stun on the tier 2 sword is fantastic when it procs, but lmao at controlling that or planning for that. Yeah, exactly. The issue I have with it is that if I'm sending my ranger to melee someone, they will end their turn right next to an enemy with no cover, so I only send them to do the attack if I know that the enemy is going to die, otherwise my guy is gonna get minced in retaliation. And the three big Ranger abilities that might help that are implacable and reaper (to move away again) and untouchable (so they can soak the hit). But those all trigger on a kill, so they don't work for those purposes. And this is Xcom so I'll be hosed if I'm going to gamble on a 1/4 chance to stun a guy, this is a game where taking a 75% shot is kind of dogshit. So the only time the stun is useful is when I don't have run and gun or it's on cooldown and I send my Ranger to attack an enemy while planning on having another squadmate finish it off. In that situation, I can then use that squaddie to do something else, a quarter of the time, which is really nice and all when it happens but... Meh.
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Aug 14, 2021 18:17
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Kaal posted:My take is that an effect that only triggers 25% of the time is so unreliable that I just assume it won't happen. I think it was either in here or the roguelikes thread that I saw someone say "dead is the best status effect," and honestly, that sums it up perfectly. It seems insane to turn down a universal melee damage boost for a relatively small chance of stunning.
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Aug 14, 2021 23:47
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Angry Diplomat posted:I think it was either in here or the roguelikes thread that I saw someone say "dead is the best status effect," and honestly, that sums it up perfectly. It seems insane to turn down a universal melee damage boost for a relatively small chance of stunning. It is. But pre nerf it was either a guaranteed chance or so close nobody could tell the difference.
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Aug 15, 2021 00:04
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Angry Diplomat posted:I think it was either in here or the roguelikes thread that I saw someone say "dead is the best status effect," and honestly, that sums it up perfectly. It seems insane to turn down a universal melee damage boost for a relatively small chance of stunning. Totally. I think some folks carry over their tactics from previous patches where the stun / burn chance was 100%, which meant you had to sacrifice a pretty useful guaranteed effect in order to increase your damage. And I also think that there's a lot of old guides that just haven't been updated and don't explain their underlying thinking.
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Aug 15, 2021 00:07
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Ok so I’m tired of these chosen and I’m gonna start systematically killing them off. I think my initial kill team should be 2-3 psi operatives, a grenadier, a reaper, a medic specialist, and a wildcard depending on what shadow chamber tells me to expect. As an aside, I haven’t found much use for sharpshooters in this game, what am I missing here?
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Aug 15, 2021 01:51
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TheWeedNumber posted:Ok so I’m tired of these chosen and I’m gonna start systematically killing them off. I think my initial kill team should be 2-3 psi operatives, a grenadier, a reaper, a medic specialist, and a wildcard depending on what shadow chamber tells me to expect. Sharpshooters in XCOM2 are excellent, but not as dominant as they were in XCOM. They do particularly well against Lost and on maps where the enemy will attack your position. Their Gunslinger perks tend to be very good, and they can demolish robotic enemies with Bluescreen Rounds. In WOTC their Sniper abilities improve and they can do very well against Rulers and other elite enemies by attacking from beyond their sight. Capturing the Chosen's unique Darklance sniper rifle can return your snipers to their prior status as team carries.
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Aug 15, 2021 02:14
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Kaal posted:Sharpshooters in XCOM2 are excellent, but not as dominant as they were in XCOM. They do particularly well against Lost and on maps where the enemy will attack your position. Their Gunslinger perks tend to be very good, and they can demolish robotic enemies with Bluescreen Rounds. In WOTC their Sniper abilities improve and they can do very well against Rulers and other elite enemies by attacking from beyond their sight. Capturing the Chosen's unique Darklance sniper rifle can return your snipers to their prior status as team carries. So I’ve been ignoring right side skills in my sharpshooters. Is that why they haven’t seemed so effective to me?
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Aug 15, 2021 03:23
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gunslingers are generally easier to use than snipers, yes. however, if you give a sniper a spider suit or some other armor that incorporates a grappling hook, they become much, much easier to use effectively in their 'native' role.
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Aug 15, 2021 03:30
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Coolguye posted:gunslingers are generally easier to use than snipers, yes. however, if you give a sniper a spider suit or some other armor that incorporates a grappling hook, they become much, much easier to use effectively in their 'native' role. I guess spider suits need another look heh.
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Aug 15, 2021 03:41
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Also if you're taking down the chosen do that and it can help a bit.
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Aug 15, 2021 03:46
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TheWeedNumber posted:I guess spider suits need another look heh. The mobility from spider suits is amazing, and even though they don't have as much armor/hp as the war suits, I think for general purpose use they are better.
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Aug 15, 2021 03:47
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reignofevil posted:
My favorite status effect: Death.
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Aug 15, 2021 05:22
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Since some people asked about enemy mods and I've used a TON of them, here are some recommendations I have to play with if you want a harder campaign. Note that I've done most of my playing with 8 man squads and increased pod sizes so more enemies will be on the field and I also have more tools to deal with them. Also I mostly ignore the gear added in alien mods as its usually very strong and I want the game harder, so I can't speak for the quality of that. Also this list is by no means comprehensive, just mods I felt deserved mentioning based on my experience with them. BIGGER ENEMY GROUPS AND OVERHAULS A Better Advent: This is a big one, it not only adds a ton of new enemies but it also modifies the AI of a lot of vanilla enemies to be more threatening. This changes too much to really summarize here, so check out the page for it. A great choice to add more danger to your campaigns, especially late game. Also feels very fair despite the extensive changes. Diverse Pods: Doesn't add any new enemies BUT it makes the base game pods much more varied. It also dynamically increases the size of the pods based on force level. This is a good mod to use if you are increasing your squad size to 8 as it puts more aliens on the field and in more varied setups. Its also easily customizable, letting you tweak the pod sizes to fit the exact needs of your campaign. Highly recommended. If you don't want the pod size increases, there's a version that only diversified alien pods without giving them additional spawns. Golden Path Revamp: So, if you've played enough Xcom 2 you'll know that the story missions (golden path) have some inexplicable guaranteed spawns. These pods are often incredibly weak and out of place. This mod changes those spawns to pull from a more varied list of enemies appropriate to your force level. Advanced Aliens: Adds a variety of aliens to the game, ranging from moderate threats to EXTREMELY dangerous. Good if you want extra challenge. Also adds a fun sitrep too that utilized all the mutons it adds. Bio Division: This is a massive addition of enemies themed around poison and acid. Adds A LOT of them. As in, don't install this unless you want to regularly encounter the units from this mod as they are quite common. All of the enemies it adds are pretty well designed, though they definitely fall towards the difficult end of the balance spectrum. Further complicating matters if that this mod adds a great deal of gear that is extremely strong to the point where it feels cheap to use. A mixed bag, but one worth looking into. The Fanatics: Adds some really nasty late game psi units. The combination of skills they have is very annoying at times, and they do A LOT of damage with some potential for cheap tricks. Nothing you can't play around, but they will definitely amp up the difficult later on if you add them. Muton Harriers: Adds some very spicy muton enemies with good models and tactical differences. Can't speak for the balance of the blackflame grenade it adds, probably OP like most mod gear. Even More Robots: Adds a variety of robotic enemies that work pretty well, but their addition changes a few missions in a way that may not be to your taste. Overall enjoy it though. Never seen the ultimate Sectopod it adds so I can't speak for how 'fair' that is. Asari Adept/Turian Striker/Krogan Champions: Mass Effect aliens. Potentially immersion breaking, but they sound like Advent and wear full armour so its not that weird. More importantly, they are good 'filler' troops. Not super hard, but presenting potential tactical pitfalls for you to consider versus your standard Advent grunt. INDIVIDUAL ENEMIES Sectoid Abductors: One of the best enemies I've played with. They pose a very unique tactical danger with their ability to abduct soldiers. It sounds unfair since its basically an 'instant kill', but its easy to avoid if you play smart and don't let them combo with other enemies/abductors. Muton Elite: A stronger muton with a bigger gun and some shielding. Not a crazy enemy but a good 'squad leader' type alien. Celatid Alien: Completely unique model and animations, which is pretty great. Fits really well into Xcom 2's alien designs. Gear it adds is totally OP though. Armored Viper: Similar to the Muton Elite, its basically a viper but better. I find it good to add these kind of aliens because Xcom 2 doesn't have advanced version of aliens that appear later for some reason. Also adds a psionic armored viper which uniquely functions as a melee unit and is capable of weird psionic spit. Muton Hunters: Adds some beefy mutons that fit well into the pod leader role. The prowlers can get around suppression, making them a more unique tactical threat that can disrupt your toolkits. Warning though: their weapon is painfully bright if you're sensitive to lights. Archon Shamans/Warriors: Adds two new Archon variants that function differently and appear much earlier. Another good alien to fill out the roster with. Muton Commandos/Centurions: Even more mutons. Modders love them. These guys are pretty nasty too, especially the commando. Great leader type aliens to mess you up. Advent Hunters: A sniper. Actually an enemy cut from the final game, possibly due to their horrendous green suit. If you can look past their abysmal fashion they are a decent troop to pad out Advents ranks, though not particularly dangerous. Pure Priests: Very cool enemies with great models and animations. Potential to be hideously OP, but not as bad as they might seem if you play smart. The Archbishop is absurdly strong but across 3 modded late game runs I've only seen them once so they are also absurdly rare. Salarian Engineers: Another Mass Effect alien, but I seperated them from the others because they are more 'unique' in their gameplay function. When engaged in combat, Salarians will autospawn a drone unit, effectively making them 2 units in one. This also makes them much more dangerous than your average pod follower. An additional wrinkle here is that if discovered on the alien turn, the drone will get a free action which usually means a cheap hit. A neat enemy design but its gonna make your game harder to include em, more so than with most enemies. Synthoid: Another good 'trooper' type enemy with some unique mechanics going for it, though nothing to crazy. Only problem with this mod is it requires you to download some seemingly superfluous mods, but its no big deal. Pathfinder/Pathfinder Hunter: Adds Pathfinders, a heavily armoured but low HP troop that will appear all throughout the game. Nice models and unique battle function, but they can be pretty brutal with how early they spawn. In my experience, they are almost always on the first retaliation mission where their high armour will make them a huge problem. Pretty fair when you encounter them later on though. ENEMY CHANGES Berserker Revamped: Makes berserkers less of a pushover and also makes their associated researcher less finicky. Fair Lost Targeting: Makes Lost target Advent and Xcom at a 50/50 split, in case you were annoyed that they favored hitting Xcom more. Advent General Revamp: Makes Advent generals look flashier, and also gives them abilities appropriate for their ranking. Also gives them a very rare chance to show up as enemies in the field. Spectre Revamp: When spectres shadowbind your soldier, the solution is always to just kill the spectre to instantly kill the shadowbind. This mod makes the clone not instantly die so its actually a tactical consideration. Purifier Revamp: Vailla purifier AI is, well, garbage. They are clumsy, prone to double moving and wasting their turns. This mod drastically changes them, making them use their pistols at a distance and be willing to fire grenade much more often. Also gives them return fire, which is really quite nasty! Avatar Buffs: Remember how Etherals could reflect projectiles? Do you for some reason want them to be able to do it again? Makes Avatars more threatening, given they are the big bad. DISRECOMMENDED (Mods I'd say to avoid based on personal experience, but your mileage may vary) The Hive: EXTREMELY UNFAIR AND SOMEWHAT BROKEN. This mod is extremely tempting because of what it promises and the amount of content, but it is TERRIBLY balanced. Adds many enemies that function in a tedious, vague, and annoying way. Adds some enemies that can straight up ruin an entire mission with little room for counterplay. Also just doesn't work properly sometimes. Tried to use multiple times over two versions, but always ended up regretting it. Custodians: Rally cool enemies. Really unique gameplay functions. Really well done models. The problem? They have WAY too much HP. Granted, the entire point of them is too have a bunch of HP. They kind of need it to preform their role. The problem is, they have so much HP that if you're playing with vanilla timers, you can't fight them. Unless you have really OP Xcom abilities, chewing through custodian packs on a timed mission just isn't feasible. If you have extended timers though, go crazy. PSI Ops: This is a tricky one. The enemies it adds are honestly pretty good. Certainly very dangerous and disruptive, but nothing that can't usually be managed. The problem however, is that the modder decided to let them break the rules of Xcom and take aggressive actions on reveal. This makes them function completely differently from other enemies and has the potential to let them do extremely cheap moves. For example, a PSI Operative could appear in reinforcements and kill your VIP without you realistically being able to do much to stop it. Only play with this if you're willing to stomach some cheap bullshit due to RNG once in a blue moon. Sorry for the  but maybe it will help some of you.
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Aug 15, 2021 09:48
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binge crotching posted:The mobility from spider suits is amazing, and even though they don't have as much armor/hp as the war suits, I think for general purpose use they are better. Unless I'm dumb, I feel like the game does a poor job of communicating the fact that the grapple is a free action, which put me off using spider suits until WOTC forced me into realising how it worked with skirmishers.
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Aug 15, 2021 10:48
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Vagabong posted:Unless I'm dumb, I feel like the game does a poor job of communicating the fact that the grapple is a free action, which put me off using spider suits until WOTC forced me into realising how it worked with skirmishers. I mean, it's readily apparent the first time you activate it, so unless you literally never built one to try it out...
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Aug 15, 2021 12:32
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Blaster bomb/shredder cannon warsuits are just so hilarious though.
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Aug 15, 2021 13:51
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Ravenfood posted:Blaster bomb/shredder cannon warsuits are just so hilarious though. Especially on grenadiers. Nothing like a soldier who can single-handedly destroy a quarter of the cover on the map 
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Aug 15, 2021 16:52
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What do you do when exo suits become obsolete?
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Aug 15, 2021 17:13
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