X-COM XCOM 2 + War of the Chosen Expansion Thread

[typical user]

I had domino effect on Retaliation Op. Go save the day, kill aliens while civilians are retarded type of mission. So I proceed with a mindset "can't reach civilian without exposing my troops, then don't". So aliens killed bunch of idiots while giving me free turns to deal with them until suddenly a car on the edge of the map explodes, kills two civilians, failing the mission and making Bradford talk crap about you. I killed the shit out of aliens since it's still free xp and may be there loot and too avenge those pricks. Back to base I noticed by failing this mission I have lost a region. Worse I lost a region with radio relay so I got even less money. Next month I was practically broke as that was my only radio relay and I desperately needed supplies to build new relay and reduce the intel cost to access new region with AVATAR facility that I needed to destroy. The doom clock was one block away from finishing.

I still made a comeback but at late mid-game I didn't really have time to reestablish the contact in Mexico which was giving me with a relay something around 170 supplies. Also the game was bitchy and next facilities I needed to destroy were 2 or 3 regions away.

 

[veevoir]

I had domino effect on Retaliation Op. Go save the day, kill aliens while civilians are retarded type of mission. So I proceed with a mindset "can't reach civilian without exposing my troops, then don't". So aliens killed bunch of idiots while giving me free turns to deal with them until suddenly a car on the edge of the map explodes, kills two civilians, failing the mission and making Bradford talk crap about you. I killed the shit out of aliens since it's still free xp and may be there loot and too avenge those pricks. Back to base I noticed by failing this mission I have lost a region. Worse I lost a region with radio relay so I got even less money. Next month I was practically broke as that was my only radio relay and I desperately needed supplies to build new relay and reduce the intel cost to access new region with AVATAR facility that I needed to destroy. The doom clock was one block away from finishing.

I still made a comeback but at late mid-game I didn't really have time to reestablish the contact in Mexico which was giving me with a relay something around 170 supplies. Also the game was bitchy and next facilities I needed to destroy were 2 or 3 regions away.

Well, you werent *that* fucked, at least your A-team was alive. The most important thing to bounce back.


Tip of the day, using your beautiful catastrophe as an example: if you have facility lead - always, always keep it for the darkest hour like that. Throw in 50 intel, wait few days, bam! facility raid.

 

[Jimmious]

So I'm finally past the mid game and kinda cruising now. It's true that the game becomes much easier after you get the mid game armor, a team of 6 and a bunch of experienced guys.

It's normal though, you get to have so many tools and abilities in your disposal that it gets hard to rely in luck which is generally the reason you can get fucked early on.

Unless you manage to royally fuck up and trigger 2 or more pods in the end of your turn or something, you can dish out so many stuff that you can deal with most situations.

I don't mind that though. Playing Ironman from day 1 it took me 13 tries to finally reach that point safely. About half of them failed in the first couple of missions, the rest somewhere in the first 2-3 months.

Ive to do some stuff until I finish though so I don't want to jinx it

 

[Jimmious]

Btw Zombra you're always an Engineer in my last 4 games. And usually the first one I save. You've done some work for the Resistance, I can tell you that

 

[veevoir]

If you ever wondered what is the most bullshit mechanic in xcom2 - I give the oscar to dodge. Everything else you can counter, prepare for, calculate. Dodge is just a bullshit superpower. What is worse, it comes in the calculation before crit, so dodge triumphs crits.

Fuck this kind of shit:


By my count, 3-4 dodges (everything that hit).

 

[ArchAngel]

Dodge cannot counter explosives or psi powers

 

[veevoir]

Later in the game explosives fall behind though due to HP bloat (Archon being the prime example of a dodgy motherfucker with tons of HP).
Psi is a pretty much non-existant in early to mid game and later on still a pretty limited resource.

Quick list of shit that dodges:

- Vipers (up to 33 dodge on commander and legendary!)
- Codex
- Archon, notorious because he also has a high defense so hitting him in the first place is hard
- Stunlancer
- Officer
- Chryssalid

And higher level versions also have defense as an addition to dodge. So harder to shoot and can dodge. Doesn't matter if stunned, disoriented, on fire, flanked and attacked by a concealed sniper from half the map.. they still dodge.
And dodge overrides crits, making a overkill shot into a flesh wound.

Also, afaik, some explosives can be dodged - fuse skill as well as prox mine (which is buggy anyway)

Dodge is bullshit and it is much, much harder to plan for than anything.

 

[Jimmious]

Well something like that was necessary to be honest... When you first meet an archon you can throw 8 grenades at him before he even moves. Also chryssalids without dodge would be target practice tbh

 

[veevoir]

You really need the grenades throughout the whole mission

 

[Bliblablubb]

For some reason Chryslerids can even dogde 'nades (no popup tho). Or the game was being buggy again. Would have been a wonderful hit, but it just destroyed the shrubbery around them. Yeah, probably buggy again, considering that I spend 5 mins synching to the tree movement so I could even fire it...

But enemies being able to dogde a concealed shotgun blast behind them is pretty shitty. Reminded me of Skyrim at once, where enemies would pull that stunt all the time.

EDIT: Aren't Arrrrchons the hood ornaments? They didn't get speshul entrance in my game, they were just there in one mission.
I think the only ones I haven't seen yet are Gaykeepers and the Avaturds themself, since I haven't touched the 2 story missions.

 

[Stompa]

Stuff about dodge.

Dodge drives me up the fucking wall because there's no proper counterplay to it outside of very limited shit (either hard limits like explosives and Gremlin or cooldowns like psi). You forgot that Avaturds can dodge as well, which coupled with their fun teleports can fuck you in the ass during last mission. I have no idea why Firaxis thought that adding this kind of RNG was a good idea.

 

[Galdred]

For some reason Chryslerids can even dogde 'nades (no popup tho). Or the game was being buggy again. Would have been a wonderful hit, but it just destroyed the shrubbery around them. Yeah, probably buggy again, considering that I spend 5 mins synching to the tree movement so I could even fire it...

But enemies being able to dogde a concealed shotgun blast behind them is pretty shitty. Reminded me of Skyrim at once, where enemies would pull that stunt all the time.

EDIT: Aren't Arrrrchons the hood ornaments? They didn't get speshul entrance in my game, they were just there in one mission.
I think the only ones I haven't seen yet are Gaykeepers and the Avaturds themself, since I haven't touched the 2 story missions.

Gatekeepers appear regardless of story missions. I had my first one pop up during an UFO mission.

 

[ArchAngel]

Later in the game explosives fall behind though due to HP bloat (Archon being the prime example of a dodgy motherfucker with tons of HP).
Psi is a pretty much non-existant in early to mid game and later on still a pretty limited resource.

Quick list of shit that dodges:

- Vipers (up to 33 dodge on commander and legendary!)
- Codex
- Archon, notorious because he also has a high defense so hitting him in the first place is hard
- Stunlancer
- Officer
- Chryssalid

And higher level versions also have defense as an addition to dodge. So harder to shoot and can dodge. Doesn't matter if stunned, disoriented, on fire, flanked and attacked by a concealed sniper from half the map.. they still dodge.
And dodge overrides crits, making a overkill shot into a flesh wound.

Also, afaik, some explosives can be dodged - fuse skill as well as prox mine (which is buggy anyway)

Dodge is bullshit and it is much, much harder to plan for than anything.

Then you didn't have enough grenadiers. I suggest at least 2 and research plasma grenades asap. I never found dodge to be a problem.

 

[veevoir]

I have 3. Usually. But grenadiers are there for their all around usefulness, not doge countering. And it still won't help in the pre-final mission where you can only take 3 people and it is full of archons. Or other fun occasions.

It is as Stompa says - there is no proper counterplay against that, no proper risk management (out of the whole to-hit equation I can increase hit/crit chance by positioning, but there is nothing to decrease dodge chance).
Only thing that remains is general good practice in the field against everything aka "blow everything to kingdom come twice". Nuke-com

 

[Stompa]

Nuke-com

I'm suddenly reminded of Baby Nuke-wielding faggots in X-Piratez. I should probably get back to that.

That's from one rocket

 

[ArchAngel]

I have 3. Usually. But grenadiers are there for their all around usefulness, not doge countering. And it still won't help in the pre-final mission where you can only take 3 people and it is full of archons. Or other fun occasions.

It is as Stompa says - there is no proper counterplay against that, no proper risk management (out of the whole to-hit equation I can increase hit/crit chance by positioning, but there is nothing to decrease dodge chance).
Only thing that remains is general good practice in the field against everything aka "blow everything to kingdom come twice". Nuke-com

I had 4 people in that mission. And by that mission you should have one full trained PSI and he takes care of it all.

And counterplay is blow them up or PSI them. You lower their hp to levels where even a dodge does not help.

 

[Galdred]

I have found finisher skills, like serial or death from above on non snipers to work pretty well against dodging codices :
hit one, if it doesn't dodge, it is toast, otherwise, you can serial the 2 clones for no AP cost.
But I have been gifted with a lot of serials, so the CD is not really a problem for me (2 on my grenadiers on top of my snipers).

 

[Vault Dweller]

Later in the game explosives fall behind though due to HP bloat (Archon being the prime example of a dodgy motherfucker with tons of HP).
Psi is a pretty much non-existant in early to mid game and later on still a pretty limited resource.

Quick list of shit that dodges:

- Vipers (up to 33 dodge on commander and legendary!)
- Codex
- Archon, notorious because he also has a high defense so hitting him in the first place is hard
- Stunlancer
- Officer
- Chryssalid

And higher level versions also have defense as an addition to dodge. So harder to shoot and can dodge. Doesn't matter if stunned, disoriented, on fire, flanked and attacked by a concealed sniper from half the map.. they still dodge.
And dodge overrides crits, making a overkill shot into a flesh wound.

Also, afaik, some explosives can be dodged - fuse skill as well as prox mine (which is buggy anyway)

Dodge is bullshit and it is much, much harder to plan for than anything.

Dodge is a minor annoyance, no more than that.

Grenades aren't meant to kill things in one throw but to soften them up. There is absolutely nothing in this game that concentrated fire can't kill in a single turn, regardless of dodge and armor.

 

[veevoir]

If you have the time and resources to concentrate fire on one target.

I agree it is just an annoyance, but its the one that gets me the most. Probably mostly because of the bullshit hit equation that promotes dodge over crit chance.

 

[typical user]

Yesterday I had viper that consequently dodged 4 times my soldiers attacks. That's bullshit in early game when they can a) grapple b) venom spit c) fire their plasma rifle or d) venom spit and fire their plasma rifle.

This is one of those "FUCK YOU" mechanics. You positioned your squad so they have high ground advantage, flanking position and destroyed viper cover? Nope, this sucker will dodge even when you had 100% chance to hit and 50% to crit so pray to RNG god while you throw your superior tactics out of window.

It's the same as Slash ability which I very often miss even with 85-95% chance to hit. If I am close enough to shotgun them in the face then I'll just do it as it has higher crit and point blank range chances is almost always 95-100%. Slash is a lesser Run n' Gun but very often your soldier will be in very dangerous spot so again, RNG gamble.

Anyway I had retaliation op and activated somehow 7 alien units which consisted of 5 regular troopers (or maybe 4 and one stun lancer), MEC and regular Muton. You could say I already lost that fight but AI somehow decided that I am in really hard situation so it tried to help me as much as it could by clustering their units around gas tank and wasting almost every unit turn on firing at civilians. It's like someone programmed this game to let players make a comeback in sticky situations. I got lucky and had my sharpshooter pistol kill two troopers with 50% chance to hit each. She already has 19 kills after 7 missions. It was intense experience as I had to waste 4 grenades, combat protocol and two flashbangs. I thought regular snipers are weak but gunslinger changed my mind.

And this game is really nasty in terms of providing information for new players. Scope mods have +5% chance to hit. What it doesn't tell is this chance increases with distance. It really changes my view on sniper class. Previously I thought "wow, this nerf on squadsight has killed their potential" as they usually had from 50% to 70% in most cases. With basic scope and high advantage I can get from 70 to 85 % which is game-changing. But then again, what changed my tactis was realisition that I can kill turrets by destroying the floor underneath them or disorienting sectoids with flashbangs to disrupt their psi-abilities (which then makes them shoot more often while usually they will attempt to do their usual psi-annoyances).

I still struggle with doom clock. I don't know how to buy myself time as everytime I feel AVATAR progression is too fast for my taste to experience everything this game has to offer. Not to mention this game's RNG gave me middle finger and rolled a facility which is located 6 regions away from my starting position and 4 regions have only one connection nods so there is no way I will hit that facility. It is located in West America which connects only with East America which then connects only with Mexico which connects again only with Colombia, and I have starting position in Asia and only got access to India and I am on my way to establish connection and build radio relay in Middle East. Is there anyway to reduce the progress other than destroying facilites, hitting blacksite and killing first codex? I don't want spoilers but can I reduce the heat with Shadow Chamber or get a mission to reduce the counter like in Blacksite?

 

[Monocause]

Is there anyway to reduce the progress other than destroying facilites, hitting blacksite and killing first codex? I don't want spoilers but can I reduce the heat with Shadow Chamber or get a mission to reduce the counter like in Blacksite?

1. Destroying alien facilities lowers the doomsday counter by how many dots you can see under the facility on the geosphere
2. Most (if not all, can't remember) story missions lower the doomsday counter by removing the dots from the unreachable avatar statue that's there on the geosphere in the middle of the ocean
3. Sometimes you get guerilla ops that reduce avatar progress.
4. If the doomsday counter reaches max you still have about 21 days before game over so the best safety net you can get is always try to have a region contacted with an alien facility available, or a story mission you can do. Keep in mind though that the counter doesn't reset from what I noticed, so if you have 21 days and take 6 days to drop the av progress, then gain some progress again, you'll still have 15 days instead of the original 21.
5. Avatar progress slows considerably after the first couple months. I remember sweating like hell in my first playthrough as there's this month (April?) where you get about 3 or 4 points of progress in quick succession, making me very WTF.
6. You really don't need more than the above 5 points to research everything, build everything and generally do all that is worth doing

 

[Zombra]

Dodge drives me up the fucking wall because there's no proper counterplay to it. I have no idea why Firaxis thought that adding this kind of RNG was a good idea.

Because you are not supposed to be in 100% control of everything in the game.

 

[Alienman]

Nuke-com

I'm suddenly reminded of Baby Nuke-wielding faggots in X-Piratez. I should probably get back to that.

That's from one rocket

Holy shit. Is that from one bomb?

 

[Jimmious]

Just to notice that in Commander it's 11 days after the counter is full, not 21. You don't have so much time and especially if you don't have contacts/a facility ready to attack, you're more or less fucked.

 

[Ironmonk]

Well, this might help with the dodge butthurt:

No Crit Dodging http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=624758302
or
Enemy Unkown Aim Rolls http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=624799134