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

[Zombra]

So you've never ever used the sword to save ammo? You've never ever used it for a free double move? And no one you know has either? (Hint: I have.)

 

[Moink]

Bladestorm has saved the life of my ranger many times.

I wish I could play this game again, it's nearly been a week where's muh patch firaxis

 

[Zombra]

Firaxis design philosophy is about having interesting/meaningful choices. But 99% of the time, the sword is inferior to the shotgun.

Good lord. Three people in a row who lie about numbers.

 

[Jasede]

I'll just say even the great Beagle himself has modded the sword to do twice as much damage and hit 100% of the time - and still barely uses it... (Though more often now that he modded it! Before, he never used it. I mean, like, ever.)

 

[hivemind]

will this run on my shitty i3 lenovo laptop ?

 

[Zombra]

Just stop saying things like zero (or "never" ) when you mean "not much". Crazy that, in an argument about optimizing numbers, so few can use them correctly in a sentence.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Bear in mind that this is my second playthrough. I played the first on veteran non-ironman and didn't have any issue at all.

Not saying the game is bad(it's a good game), just that I don't fully enjoy how RNG is implemented here.

Did the end cutscene work properly for you? Mine keeps crashing on me.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So you've never ever used the sword to save ammo? You've never ever used it for a free double move? And no one you know has either? (Hint: I have.)

Also keep in mind that reaper only procs with sword attacks. With careful planning you can slaughter everything on the screen and still get into good cover.

 

[Monocause]

Re: the sword discussion, while the sword found some niche use in my playthrough I definitely find focusing on the shotgun with my ranger way more versatile - to the point that when plasma weapons are around, I barely use my sword anymore as it's too demanding on positioning and also enemies usually have too much health by that point to one-slash them - and there is no way you should use the sword unless you can kill whoever you're fighting.

The positioning really is a dealbreaker. Thing is, if you rush the ranger to an enemy you're close to other soldiers OR, even worse, you can activate a new pod which will flank the shit out of your dude. Of course, reaper/implacable improves things slightly but it's a wild card. And what's the pay-off? Meagre damage at major risk.

I would agree it needs a buff - although I'd say it shouldn't be a flat TH or DMG bonus. Why not make it deal 50% more damage against organic targets? Makes perfect sense in terms of verisimilitude (way easier to cause terrible damage to flesh than metal with a sword), would make the ranger a good choice against powerful organic enemies. We have quite a few items/perks that do extra damage to mech units but barely anything that impacts organic guys more, except for acid/incendiary rounds and nades. Also would keep the sword's damage output to keep being useful lategame.

 

[Cyberarmy]

With careful planning you can slaughter everything on the screen and still get into good cover.

You can do this with shotgun and implacable (spelling?) perk to better effect.
Or you can just use face off with a gunslinger far away.
Or null lance.
Or gremlin aoe.

Slicing aliens maybe fun (till you try it on muttons...) but other options are much more safer for higher difficulties with ironman.

will this run on my shitty i3 lenovo laptop ?

Is 4 FPS enough for you?

 

[typical user]

I have to say RNG in this game is funny thing. I had 80% shot missed in point blank range on flanked alien but hour before that incident I had rookie with whooping 28% chance to hit so I left him on overwatch and he sniped ADVENT soldier that tried to repositioning himself. Overwatch has aim penalty to hit mind you. So yeah if I am in stalemate I just use Beaglerush tactic to back off and set overwatch on everyone. Aliens will have to respond to that. Of course that is not always effective when you have limited turns to win scenario but better to overwatch and aid protocol or flashbang than roll a dice.

But I am no Beaglerush I got my ass handed on first Impossible mission. Yes I kept forgeting to cover flanks and aliens killed me in two turns. And now and then I make mistakes like keeping soldiers in close range of 2 enemies when they should back off or bum-rushing to active even more pods, things like that. I ragequitted my first campaign because I knew I fucked up to that point with researching pointless stuff, having too many people wounded and wasting time on World map with flying around when I could be scanning. But ragequit came after I activated two pods with 2 stunlancers, ADVENT MEC, Turret, ADVENT Commander and Viper. What I did? I focused on viper who had dodge skill so I was doing half the damage because I was afraid he would pull one of my guys into turret range. I should've back off or focus ADVENT MEC because I had good starting positions with 90% chances to hit. So ADVENT Commander wounded one guy, MEC used grenade to finish him off and setting panic on two other guys. I still managed to overcome this but later on I had reinforcements called and another pod activated near evac zone (VIP Ops). I deleted my saves as I did retarded thing: told my grenadier to bum-rush Sectoid on overwatch. I didn't check if he had overwatch or not, and you don't want to set off overwatch if your soldier has no shadowstep or good amount of armor.

So long story short, I suck at this game and tried commander difficulty. That's XCOM 2 baby.

 

[Jimmious]

Fuck this Beaglerush guy, just play the game people.

 

[Jimmious]

Firaxis design philosophy is about having interesting/meaningful choices. But 99% of the time, the sword is inferior to the shotgun.

Good lord. Three people in a row who lie about numbers.

Interesting that I am "lying", and not "mistaken". God forbid that people can have genuine disagreements with you!

By your own account, the scenarios in which the sword is superior are few and far between. Taking a yellow move, often into no cover, possibly revealing another pod, to do less damage than a shotgun would, with a chance of missing entirely - that is simply not conservative play. I stand by my number.

However the game does not always promote conservative play. There are times you just HAVE to kill fast and slashing them to death is an option. Zombra was right about 99% being an overstatement.

 

[Monocause]

will this run on my shitty i3 lenovo laptop ?

No. I also have a shitty i3 lenovo laptop with a geforce IIRC 710M inside and gave it a try. The loading times are absolutely terrible (think 3-4 mins before a mission loads) and the game runs like absolute garbage even at the lowest of the low settings. If you fiddle with .ini settings to disable all the unnecessary graphics you might get it to a playable state, but it's really not worth it IMHO.

 

[Jasede]

Try hitting Caps Lock while you load.
If you wanna use a Lenovo you'll want 8 GB DDR3, an SSHD, and at least a 840M or better. And i5 of course.

 

[Galdred]

I went for a blademaster build (I play bronzeman legendary : with a backup save every supply drop), but after the second pod triggered, and some operatives lost because of Mr ninja, I retrained the guy and now run with phantom + 2 snipers... it is awesome on non timed missions (obv), but even timed missions are not that much of a problem. More often than not, you can find a good vantage point to the neighborhood of the objective, and camp your snipers there. Granted, they won't be able to shoot in the later turns of VIP+evac missions, but that's about it.
I wish the melee UI was more clear about 100% chance of downing a Mutton = 100% chance of getting pre emptively striked before achieving anything.

 

[Zombra]

Interesting that I am "lying", and not "mistaken". God forbid that people can have genuine disagreements with you!
By your own account, the scenarios in which the sword is superior are few and far between. Taking a yellow move, often into no cover, possibly revealing another pod, to do less damage than a shotgun would, with a chance of missing entirely - that is simply not conservative play. I stand by my number.

OK, OK, you weren't lying, you were probably just saying something that wasn't true without really thinking about it. Fine distinction.

I find it difficult to believe that over the course of 12 missions or so (assuming approximately 8 attacks per mission? If you attack fewer times than that, please increase the number of missions accordingly), you never found it advantageous to conserve a shot of ammo, and that Run and Gun was always ready when you wanted to double move and attack. (And that you have never been in a situation where Conceal might have been useful.) None of those has been the case for me. I don't know if any of my Rangers have even done 12 missions yet, and I've stabbed several guys to death when my shotgun was empty, instead of having to wild fire at them from across the map, or waste a turn repositioning.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

With careful planning you can slaughter everything on the screen and still get into good cover.

You can do this with shotgun and implacable (spelling?) perk to better effect.
Or you can just use face off with a gunslinger far away.
Or null lance.
Or gremlin aoe.

Slicing aliens maybe fun (till you try it on muttons...) but other options are much more safer for higher difficulties with ironman.

will this run on my shitty i3 lenovo laptop ?

Is 4 FPS enough for you?

Can you do it in one turn with a shotgun?
I think not, as implacable does not permit you to attack.
Reaper does, however.
In fact, implacable + reaper + untouchable would be quite a nasty combination, as the sword kills give mobility, and you can end your combo with a shotgun blast at a flanked enemy to get yet another move, and untouchable ensures that at least one enemy attack will be wasted.

 

[Zombra]

I think there's no point in discussing this further, not because either of us is wrong, but because we have completely different playstyles. You will not convince me, nor will I convince you.

That's fine, but even if you want to turn it subjective, you were still wrong. "99% of the time I feel the sword is inferior because it doesn't dovetail well with the way I prefer to play" is not the same as "99% of the time the sword is inferior".

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I found its pretty rare to get the perfect concealment ambush.
Apparently proximately mines can be deployed without breaking concealment, which theorhetically means that you can drop a mine, go whole squad overwatch, and hope the enemy triggers it.
I wish there was a lure though..

 

[Zetor]

Also, if you get lucky with the AWC RNG, your shotgun-spec Ranger may end up with Serial. Add a superior autoloader and let the good times roll! Rambo bandana optional.

 

[barker_s]

My ignorance almost cost me the campaign. I had to focus on the geoscape management a lot, but I made it - I'm currently assaulting a major Blacksite with only 23 hours left until the completion of Avatar Project. Gotta admit I dig the tension though.

 

[Zombra]

I will freely admit that for an aggressive player, not averse to taking big risks - yes, the sword can be useful in more situations. So for the record, for risk-averse people like me who prefer to play conservatively on higher difficulty settings, the vanilla-balance for swords makes it virtually unusable.

That ... actually is an interesting contrast! It's possible the sword was purposefully designed for a more "balls out" playstyle, instead of being nothing more than a statistically inferior tool for top difficulty optimizers. This whole time I assumed that it really did suck like people are saying, but playstyle subjectivity may make that simply untrue in many cases.

More likely they just didn't balance it that well though

 

[Trash]

Shotgun or smg? Which is better and why? Discuss!

 

[Monocause]

Shotgun or smg? Which is better and why? Discuss!

Depends on how do you use the SMG. It's a nice addition but to be frank, it's not balanced very well ATM.

One particular way to abuse it is by stacking mobility buffs on a phantom+concealment scout. Phantom scouts are already OP, but give them grapple armor and a mobility PCS and they can be all over the place within a few turns. Even now a mobility boosted phantom scout and sniper sharpshooters are a very OP combo, ESPECIALLY once you get kill zone for all of them. Just for shits and giggles, I recommend getting three sharpshooters on a mission along with a phantom scout. Fill the remaining slots with whatever you need as they probably won't need to move unless it's for evac.

Scout + sniper combo actually can break the designed mission flow in a few places. For insstance, on the defend the avenger mission i didn't move anyone out of the starting ramp. I simply sent the scout ahead to provide LOS on the disruptor and positioned my sniper so that he can shoot it - meanwhile, the rest of the squad + the turrets were overwatching everything that moved into the ground. Good times, but with the +2 mobility that the SMG confers it would be even more potent.

Putting the SMG on a psi user also makes them too maneuverable for my tastes. The SMG worked in Long War as everything was balanced around the fact that you have a choice between different weapon types. The mod smashed on top of vanilla X2 doesn't feel that well.

BTW, I really miss the red fog second wave option.