LW2 Soldier classes and skill choices

[Jacke]

I'm really excited about Long War 2. I'd played XCOM EU and XCOM 2 (that up to Legendary), as well as hearing about Long War 1, but had never played it. Looking at Long War 2, it is really a much better way of gaming an insurgency against an occupying alien force. But some things about the game are going to be challenging.

I'm wondering how players are managing the wide variety of soldier classes and the large number of skill variants possible.

In XCOM and XCOM 2 there were 4 soldier classes and reflecting my desire for troop interchangeability, I tended to decided on a similar skill set within each class. The only class for which I often had 2 variants was the Support / Specialist, where I had a combat / hacking and medical types. I also used custom troop colours to easily identify the classes and the Support / Specialist variants on the battlefield. When troops were out of action due to wounds and other causes, I wanted the replacements to be similar and familiar.

In XCOM Long War 2, there's now multiple missions in progress as well as troops recovering, in training, and posted as Haven advisors. And there's now 8 initial soldier classes after ranking up from Rookie. Who get to choose from 3 skills per rank. That's complex (even before adding in Officer and AWC skills).

I can look to do something similar to what I did in XCOM and XCOM 2 and group the classes (e.g. scout (Shinobi), close-ranged-swing (Assault, Ranger, Technical), ranged (Grenadier, Gunner, Sharpshooter), and support (Specialist in combat-hacker and medical variants), but of course one class isn't a true substitute for another but can often be used for most roles.

So how do you handle all the possibilities here?

[8wayz]

This is more for the Strategy forum but I will give it a go.

Here are some of the main roles soldiers can fill in and what class can help you excel in each role:

Scouts:

- Shinobis make great scouts and spotters, whether you go for the Ninja or Kenshi paths, both will give you a very able front-line scout.

- Then you have the Holotargeter Sharpshooter, which can use the device from stealth and can act as a spotter. It can be of great help on non-timed missions where you have big pods coming your way.

Storm troops:

These guys go close and personal, and usually are quite beefy to draw enemy fire on them and survive to tell the tale.

- Assaults are you go-to class if you want to dance with the aliens. Run and Gun, Rapid fire and a few defensive perks make them a great addition to your squad.

- Rangers can get close to dish out some crits and can fire 2 times per turn right from the start. Also the sawed-off shotgun is great when you get in front of a beefy alien.

- Kenshi Shinobis rely on mobility to survive, but with Coup de Grâce and Implacable, plus Reaper at the end of the tree, they can massacre whole pods by themselves. Just make sure to end the turn somewhere safe with them.

- Technicals specialised in flamers can also do some significant damage at close quarters and also deny the enemy access to terrain and cover. Make sure to give them a SMG and some grenades, so they can contribute once the charges of the flamer have been used.

Reaction troops:

- An Overwatch Ranger can set some great traps. With a Hair Trigger, Extended Magazine and Laser Sight it can locked down a whole pod.
It can also fire 2 times per turn when needed and has the great sawed-off shotgun as a backup against mêlée adversaries.

- Suppression Gunner with some good aim and good special ammo (Dragon Rounds are my choice) can be pretty nasty against aliens.

- Specialist can also go for Overwatch perks, but you are better off having Hackers or Medics, since you will need both.

- Sniper Sharpshooters with Long Watch can be of great use when you are trying to set an ambush. But you will more likely use them to terminate high value ADVENT troops and aliens.

The Big Bang/ Heavy Ordnance troops:

Grenadiers and Technicals are what you need here. You might want to spec a Grenadier for support grenades and prepare a special assault squad for non-timed missions with 3-4 grenadiers in it.

Support troops:

Specialist prepared for Medics and Hacker fall in here, as well as an Assault focused on the Arc thrower.

Flankers/ Light Infantry:

- Shinobis focused on the SMG with Hunter's Instict and Rapid Fire. Give them an Autoloader just be safe.

- Sharpshooters trained for Snapshot and Serial.

[Jacke]

Here are some of the main roles soldiers can fill in and what class can help you excel in each role:

Thanks for posting that.

There is something that I mentioned in my original post but I feel didn't emphasis: the problem of having so many variant soldier classes and variant skill sets and the need (as I see it) to deliberately limit those variants by mostly picking the same skills. When those variants aren't limited, problems come up. I've see this a number of times in watching LW2 LP videos. I'm wondering if other players do the same thing.

Selecting the skills of your troops tends to favour certain solutions to battlefield problems. Example Grenadiers picking Sapper to aid in destroying cover to kill enemy in cover, as opposed to other solutions, like flanking, use high aim troops, or closing with weapons with high close-range aim bonuses. Each has places it's better suited to and each has its own complications, like flanking and closing moves having the risk of activating another enemy pod.

The problems comes if you don't always pick the same skills. Example: you're in the middle of battle, you can't flank and it's too risky to close with the enemy in cover. And you go for your Grenadier, except she's got Needle Grenades instead of Sapper. Another case: your Shinobi has Cutthroat instead of Ghostwalker and the timer is running out and you need to sneak past two pods, but without Ghostwalker he can't.

With enough time you can work around not having particular skills, but in most missions you're on the clock, maybe reinforcements are coming in, and extra time you don't have. And with so many soldiers and so many missions, the burden of checking skills can be high: when promoted, when adding to a squad, when launching on a mission, during a mission. Knowing that for example LCpl and up Rangers will always have Walk Fire can help limit that burden.

This is why in XCOM EU and XCOM 2 I skilled my soldiers all the same except for making Support / Specialist non-medics and medics. It was hard at times picking which of the skills to take. I suspect it's going to be harder in LW2 having 3 skills per rank.

[8wayz]

You shouldn't limit yourself to the same set of skills, on the contrary.

When preparing your squads, just add some redundancy - a Med kit not on a Specialist, extra frag grenades on non-grenadiers, etc.

Even if they are not trained to make the best use of said equipment, they can still do a decent job. Needle grenades still shred armor though, so even if the cover is there, you can just suppress or overwatch against that enemy.

You either colour-code your soldiers - medics in red/white for example, put an abbreviation in their nickname (MD) or use other methods to recognize which soldier is what build.

[GamingCthulhu]

I think the squad system of LW2 actually helps with the building soldiers differently to fit with teams. I tend to diversify soldiers based around their normal squad. So that while I have 3 Active Grenadiers right now only 1 of them has Sapper the other 2 Needle as the Sapper is in a squad mostly built low mobility heavy hitters for my "Demo" team and I want to clear terrain and obliterate everything. My other 2 Grenadiers are part of squads that operate with more shinbi and assaults who I regularly use to clear out high profile higher health targets and I just need to ensure I can eliminate the weaker enemies quickly with limited loss of cover so the rest of the team have places to hide after the enemy has been sliced up or tazed.

This is a lot different then what I need in vanilla where every body was basically carbon copies of each other with the exception of specialists and even then there was only 2 builds.. medic or combat..

[Jacke]

You shouldn't limit yourself to the same set of skills, on the contrary.
....
You either colour-code your soldiers - medics in red/white for example, put an abbreviation in their nickname (MD) or use other methods to recognize which soldier is what build.

I've used colour-coding before and I'm using it again for LW2. Right now just have colours for the main soldier classes (along with an extra one for medic Specialists) and putting helmets ("Delta 2") on everyone for those colours to stand out.

But I'm really interested what other players have found out about the different skill choices for all soldier classes. Some of them are not easy to choose between. Examples: Assault 1st one, Slug Shot or Electroshock (Lightning Reflexes would be good but enemy Overwatch can be countered in many other ways). Or the 6th one, Close Combat Specialist or Untouchable. Another, 6th one for Grenadiers: Volatile Mix or Bombadier?

So what's been your experience with different skills? Which one would you pick over another?

[ZenGilgamesh]

I'm comfortably managing six hand-picked squads (three squads of eight, three of three; so thirty three dudes) plus a small cadre of more specialized soldiers/SPARKS that aren't in any squads. I'd say I've toyed around with almost nearly all builds. It's tough to pick out any builds that stand out more than others, as you tend to need a little bit of everything.

And that's the thing. In LW2, you need a very deep roster. You will never be able to get to a point where you think "... Yeah, I'm not scared at all. Ready for anything!" Because any number of unexpected situations can occur in this mod.

The main point I guess I'd try to make is to try and step back and stop pondering the million "what-if" scenarios that you think of when picking between perks for single characters. Rather, focus more on tailoring your certain squads. Once you've got those visions clear in your mind (okay I have my light Infiltration teams or my Killer teams) the perks will fall into place. You're going to have/need multiple Shinobis, multiple Specialists, etc. You will taste everything.

At least, this train of thought is what helps me with all of the micromanagement that LW2 brings to the table.

[trihero]

One brief thing I want to note is that it indeed is super important to pick your skills well: even though you can retrain a soldier at the AWC, it costs a blistering amount of time as they get highly ranked. Taking 21+ days to switch around even just a skill or two is very punishing when you have a lot of contacted regions with missions flying all around.

Let me give you some specific thoughts on difficult choices I made, and ones I outright regretted, and why

1) grenadiers - these guys are easy to build. Either go full down the left, or full down the right. I have no regrets here. Volatile mix imo is better. I can usually chuck grenades as far as I need to, and this becomes even more trivial when you get advanced grenade launchers. Mix really helps out those specialized grenades like incendiary/frost which have a really shitty radius. Tossing them farther doesn't allow them to hit more than 1 target at a time, but volatile at least gives you the potential to hit more than 1 at a time.

2) assaults - tricky; at the end of they day I would take electroshock. Lightning reflexes feels amazing in the early game when advent sentries are taking a dump on you, but like you said there's a lot of ways to clear overwatch. Ironically, electroshock is one of them, although it does use up your turn to do so. Electroshock also gives your assaults the ability to actually do something in midrange battles instead of crying behind cover with your shitty shotgun accuracy at long range. After electroshock I would do my best to pick everything that maximizes run and gun + crits. That's what they're there for, to absolutely murder targets or else you're paying too high a price of getting into melee range. You may want one assault focused on the higher arcthrower talents if you are scared of alien rulers/generals, but most assaults again should be focused on getting in there and one shotting things, with electroshock to round things out.

3) technicals - I use them for haven defense, and nothing else. I pick everything that doesn't directly help rockets or flamethrowers: suppression, fortify, shredder, etc. The baseline rocket/flamethrower is enough to deal with rendezvous missions, the other skills help if you get a retaliation mission and this guy shows up for backup. You won't level up that high anyways because they're just sitting in havens.

4) SPARK - take shredder and rainmaker, than all the overwatch perks you can get your filthy hands on. With the recent buffs he's a decent advance scout and overwatcher. Let the assaults do the melee.

5) specialist - I would actually advise taking all the overwatch perks, and full override at the end. I know combat protocol is good for the early game (some would say mandatory), but it falls off like a rock as the game progresses, haywire protocol is your main robotic anti robot anyways, and I only use specialists for small man missions. I regret not getting cool under pressure, even if combat protocol game me some early game kills against surveillance drones just not sure it's worth it in the long run, while I do miss having better overwatches. At least with the overwatch perks you'll have a half-decent fighter to throw into emergency situations, and suppressing targets is better than just trying to shoot through their high cover. Healing doesn't make too much sense in the early game; health pools are too small, and taking a healer vastly decreases your damage potential. Plus you can "heal" with flashbangs/smokes. I don't even like healing in the late game, but it can be useful on long slogs against chrysallids.

6) gunner - there are some really really killer decisions to make here. Tier 1 shredder vs center mass. Center mass helps you SIGNIFICANTLY get through the early game, but shredder with plasma = 3 armor shred late game when you're fighting jerks like sectopods and muton elites. I heard generals get 10 armor or something like that. I went center mass, but I'm beginning to regret it now that I can't quite one shot enemies anyways even with it. Tier 2 hail of bullets is unfortunately just too good to pass up for both early and late game, as much as I would like the other perk in that row. Tier 3 feels a little trashy, but iron curtain is nice for ambushes (until you get sat fire). Flush is a little silly, demolition is ok but on a long timer. The tier where you pick saturation fire vs traverse fire vs huge area suppression is a killer choice, but I think saturation fire is absolutely beastly for opening battles. If you splash 3+ targets with it, it's nuts. Rupture's a no brainer. Sat fire is also surprisingly usable when you have an officer Command your gunner after a dash.

7) shinobi - easy to build, make them all heavily covert biased, with defense skills like lone wolf/tactical sense otherwise. They're there to scout and do infiltration missions, and are indispensable at these. I think I will take the pains to retrain one of them at max rank into a sword specialist to help against network tower missions where you need every drop of damage you can get to finish the map after you hack the console (which shouldn't require too much covert skill to get to with better mobility gear as time goes on).

8) rangers - the hardest pick is in the row with cool under pressure; I think it's vs center mass or locked on, both of which are really good in the early game, but at the end of the day because of rapid reaction I would pick cool under pressure. I regret not taking it.

9) sharpshooters - kinda simple, make 2 sharpshooters. One goes down the left side for the most part, the other goes down the middle for the most part. When you have a tier that doesn't complement their main focus (I think the left and middle have covert perks at some point), then just pick a direction that works for you. For my holotargeter I chose that +10% from deadshot in order to sync with kubikiri later on, because I don't care about either stealth, nor multi holoing.

10) psi - no comment, I'm trying them but they can't train all perks like in vanilla, and they take combat training time

The hardest choices are the ones that force you to choose between early and late game (like shredder vs central mass, combat protocol vs cool under pressure). I would try to think to weigh things more heavily in favor of the late game (like the above guy said, the "what if" situations), but on the other hand you don't make it to tomorrow if you don't live today so it's a tough choice.

[GavinRuneblade]

I've tested both slugshot and electroshock, and I prefer electro very strongly. It is guaranteed. Hit it and that enemy is either stunned for two or disoriented for two. There is no failure option. It is reliable and that is way more valuable to me than maybe hitting maybe not at farther range.

Especially for all the ways disorient is useful. Maybe that slugshot kills the sectoid and ends mind control. But maybe you miss or you hit and don't do enough to kill. Electroshock means never having to worry about that again.

I'm still wishy washy on the others though.

[Sines]

Electroshock is VERY good. There are lots of times when you're not sure if your Assault can safely push forward without activating another pod. And Disorient is a huge part of play in this game. Units with special abilities can completely ruin your day, but all it takes is a Disorient to stop them from using it (and their odds of shooting you ain't too great either). However, I'm not sure if I'd always put it over Lightning Reflexes.

Lightning Reflex is only good for clearing out Overwatch, while Electroshock can do that, and have a chance to Stun. However, LR can clear multiple overwatches (you need a lot of people on Overwatch for the LR Assault to get hit), and it can do so without ending your turn. You just need to move, something Assaults are well known for. It's essentially a passive reading "This squad is immune to overwatch shots". Even if you don't want to move your Assault forward to avoid activating pods, you could just have them run in a loop big enough to catch all the overwatch shots. And you can do it every turn, there is no cooldown.

Guaranteed ST disorient with chance to stun usable every other turn is great. But so is an effective party wide immunity to overwatch. Slug Shot seems to be the big loser here, as you're rarely going to promote High Aim rookies into Assaults (especially given that you want your assaults to have high mobility and health, so Aim tends to get sacrificed). And any situation where you don't want to risk moving your Assault forward is a situation where you're more focused on controlling the enemy than on directly killing them, so Electroshock wins out.

I also feel that the Shinobi is best used as a purely stealth class. Swordsmen need high mobility, health and decent aim (you don't want to be standing next to a living target because you missed). If you somehow manage to roll all these stats well, then their will is probably going to be low, and the last thing you need is a front-line troop panicking. It's high risk, only moderate reward. On the other hand, Stealth Shinobis are incredible. First off, the simple ability to scout is a huge bonus. You can know when it's safe for your Assaults to move up and flank without activating other pods, you can decide whom you want to engage and how, and you can even make them officers and have them issue orders without breaking concealment! (some orders, at least, I don't know about all of them)

But most importantly is the solo Shinobi stealth mission. Got a mission with only 2 days to infiltrate? Shinobi are actually pretty good at these missions. They can play a lot differently, but once you get the hang of them, you can get in quite a few extra missions you wouldn't otherwise be able to. The best part is that while they aren't always easy to pull off, most of them (especially the ones with pre-set evac zones) are really easy to bail out of if you don't think you can accomplish it. Too many enemies around the objective? Oh well, run away. You weren't going to do the mission anyway, and all you wasted were 2 days of a single soldiers time.

So, honestly, I don't see much benefit to doing anything other than stealth with Shinobis. They're just so damn good at it, and swords (while very fun), just aren't worth the risk. There's a mid level Assault talent that lets you Run and Gun every other turn already, and being able to double move and attack is largely why you want a Swordsman anyway. Sure, Shinobi can still do it every turn, but regularly double-moving and attacking in melee range with a Shinobi is an excellent way to activate other pods.

Next, I suggest being careful with Sharpshooters early on. A lot of your early missions are going to be very mobile, and Sharpshooters are anything but. Especially without a few ranks to up their Aim, they just don't bring a lot to the table besides the Holotargetter. Now, the Holotargetter is very nice, especially while upgraded. It lets your Sharpshooter set up targets for allies to attack. With Rapid Targetting, you can potentially tag 3 enemies in a single turn (and that's before you get the multi-target ability). As you progress into the game, and you get more raw Aim, Spider Suits, specialty ammo, and more missions that let you stand still for a bit, Snipers get to be a better option. I'd also add that Snipers make the best Gunslingers (as they should). They can pick a talent at all but the final level that will help their gunslinging, in addition to the fact that the Sniper Rifle is still a fine weapon to use when Fan Fire and Showdown are on cooldown and you're not moving for the turn.

When starting off, learn which missions have a fixed evac point, and which ones let you summon it. Generally speaking, missions where you are rescuing someone has a fixed evac point, and all others let you call it at will. Snipers do much better on the ones where you can place the evac zone, as you can ensure that it's always within double move range of wherever your Sniper is camping. On fixed-evac missions, early Sharpshooters can only do some basic holo-targetting, and there's pretty much always someone better to put in that place.

And on that note, I finish up with a reminder to keep in mind troop mobility and longevity. Fixed evac missions require a lot of mobility, so you want troops that can do lots of damage to multiple targets very quickly, while moving. Technicals and Grenadiers are the kings of this, but Gunners and Assaults can contribute as well. Player placed evac missions require you to hold your ground for a few turns while you wait for evac to make it. Rangers and Sharpshooters work best here, because they need to keep in place for maximum efficiency. Then there are missions where you just need to kill everyone, with no timers. Longevity becomes a bit more important here, as these missions tend to have a lot more troops in them. While you might be willing to use up a Flamethrower charge on a single troop in a small, fast mission, you can't do that in a mission with a lot more troops. A couple of Grenadiers or Technicals are a good idea, but in a larger mission, you want them to start fights, while more sustainable soldiers finish them.

However you set up troops, if you can at least keep in mind a Soldiers mobility and longevity, you can generally know when you should and shouldn't assign them.

[trihero]

I also feel that the Shinobi is best used as a purely stealth class. Swordsmen need high mobility, health and decent aim (you don't want to be standing next to a living target because you missed).

Good post, I'm just going to be a bit nit picky here and say that it's not quite as bad as you think to be standing next to a living target, once you get bladestorm. Bladestorm's almost like a free second sword swing if your first didn't kill the target.

I do think there's value in spending AWC time retraining one of your max ranked shinobi into a swordsman to help dps down network tower missions; it's usually not so much of a problem getting into the room to hack it but surviving that first turn you leap into there, and then killing everything before the stun wears off. You want some real badasses when those network towers start to get filled with things like sectopods and codices.

Also, you want to pay attention to your AWC perks. Some of them have changed my builds entirely. Like one of my gunners was offered shadow strike and ghostwalker: HELLO saturation fire! I just had an amazing pull on a 0% advent troop ambush mission where 2 groups clumped up; I used ghostwalker to get much closer than I normally could (at 0% their sight radius is annoyingly large) then I crit for 10-12 on ten aliens, only one of those ten survived and then I mopped up whatever trash that wasn't in the blast radius.

One of my assaults was offered rupture, sprinter, shredder, so I decided to turn this one into a stun gunner since rupture/shredder "make up" for lacking killer instinct and close encounters.

Getting things like damn good ground, lock on, executioner, lethal, are excellent icing on your shooters or make you consider building around it.

[Jacke]

Wow! This is all really helpful.

Thought of two more questions: which soldier classes and skill choices for Officers and Haven Advisors ?

BTW, from trihero's comments about Gunner skills, I'm thinking the swapping around of some skills with LW2 v1.1 has made some of the trade-offs very different. I use this page, which seems to jive with what I see in-game.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 1100053040

One set of skills I usually avoid are those that are based upon the number of enemy in sight. Seems to be too conditional and the other choices are usually more flexible.

Anyhoo, here's my proposed builds. 3 of the classes have alternate builds (Assault Shocker, Shinobi Blade, Specialist Medic) for special missions. Still some uncertainty on all builds.

EDIT: A few builds updated after later discussion here.


Assaults
Lightning Reflexes - Trench Gun - Killer Instinct - Extra Conditioning - Close Encounters - Close Combat Specialist - Street Sweeper
EDIT dropped Close and Personal & Chain Lightning for Trench Gun & Street Sweeper

Assault Shocker
Electroshock - Arc Pulsar - Stun Gunner - Formidable - Rapid Fire - Close Combat Specialist - Chain Lightning
EDIT dropped Extra Conditioning for Formidable

One or two Assault Shockers for maximum Arc Thrower against tough targets, as well as swapping in Rapid Fire instead of Close Encounters. Might do that with my 1st Assault, who's a high-aim slowpoke.

Sines' comments made me seriously reconsider Lightning Reflexes. I'd given up on Slug Shot partly due to the 3-turn cooldown and high-aim AP rounds being better, instead going for the certain disorient Electroshock can give. But now I'm thinking Lightning Reflexes could still be a good choice despite other ways to deal with Overwatch. Still not sure, which is bad considering it's the first skill choice for Assaults.

As for the rest...ugh. Even the 2nd choice is already between 3 good ones. But watching videos of Technical's flame attacks, I've noticed cone lineup is tricky, so that's a stroke against Trench Gun and Street Sweeper. Still painful to pass up 3rd Fortify, 4th Formidable, and 6th Untouchable, because they would make the Assault more likely to survive running in close. And no 5th Rapid Fire because within 4 tiles, Close Encounters is better. Still wondering about 7th Chain Lightning without Electroshock.


Grenadiers
Needle Grenades - Heavy Ordinance - Bluescreen Bombs - Sting Grenades - Biggest Booms - Volatile Mix - Full Kit

Grenadier Sapper
Sapper - Heavy Ordinance - Boosted Cores - HEAT Warheads - Biggest Booms - Volatile Mix - Combat Engineer

Grenadier Ghost
Rapid Deployment - Protector - Bluescreen Bombs - Sting Grenades - Dense Smoke - Ghost Grenade - Full Kit

EDIT changed around build and have 2 variants.

Ended up with a mixture general purpose build and what trihero suggested: 2 pure left-side and right-side builds.

Main mixed Needle build for more loot and good Flashbang ambushes. Siapper is a left-side cover and armour destruction build. Ghost is a right-side support build with Dense Smoke and Ghost Grenade when they are needed. Soldiers with the main Needle build and the Sapper build should have AWC skills that boost crit damage to make best use of Biggest Booms.


Gunner
Grazing Fire - Shredder - Iron Curtain - Chain Shot - Cool Under Pressure - Saturation Fire - Rupture

Appears Gunner skills are now seriously swapped from what trihero is familiar with. The decisions are still tough at all ranks and may also be linked.

Center Mass is still a 1st choice along with Combatives and Grazing Fire. I don't think Combative is going to cut it even with +10 Dodge. But if 1st Grazing Fire works with 2nd Shredder, that's a skill combo that would be good the whole game. But Shredder is now combined with Hail of Bullets and Lockdown. And the difficult choices don't let up. It was painful passing up so many good skills.


Rangers
Walk Fire - Locked On - Cool Under Pressure - Grazing Fire - Ever Vigilant - Rapid Reaction - Rupture

EDIT: Followed trihero's revised advice. Walk Fire and Rupture to help against hard targets. The rest to support strong triple-shot overwatch via Rapdi Reaction as much as possible.


Sharpshooters
Rapid Targeting - HiDef Holo - Deadshot - Independent Tracking - Vital Point Targeting - Multitargeting - Double Tap

I went with mostly the holotargeting skills. With 4th Independent Tracking and 6th Multitargeting the Sharpshooter could keep all enemies he sees permanently holotargeted. And though 7th Serial is powerful, I think 1st Rapid Targeting with Double Tap is more flexible.

EDIT: Switching back to 6th Multitargeting with my general holotargeting build.

EDIT: Adding a more left-side build to emphasis sniping as suggested by trihero and others. This works on pushing up crit chance and getting kills.

Sharpshooter Sniper
Death From Above - Damn Good Ground - Deadshot - Low Profile - Aggression - Kubikiri - Serial


Shinobi
Ghostwalker - Shadowstep - Covert - Evasive - Conceal - Tradecraft - Rapid Fire

Shinobi Blade
Cutthroat - Shadowstep - Blademaster - Bladestorm - Coup de Grâce - Tactical Sense - Reaper
EDIT dropped Covert for Blademaster

Mostly max stealth oriented. Decided 2nd Shadowstep was just too good to go for Lone Wolf. Also picked 6th Tradecraft over Tactical Sense to make the stealth Shinobi, needed by almost all squads, as light in infiltration impact as possible.

Again, one or two variant builds to slice and dice as needed.


Specialists
Cool Under Pressure - Revival Protocol - Suppression - Failsafe - Sentinel - Killzone - Full Override

Specialist Medic
Medical Protocol - Revival Protocol - Field Medic - Field Surgeon - Savior - Scanning Protocol - Restoration

Main build is a combat hacker, mostly overwatch and suppression as advised by trihero.

Overwatch is powerful when used right, especially as you usually catch the enemy in the open. I have some criticism of some YouTubers not setting up enough other troops with overwatch before they spring an ambush attack; they end up with the survivors now in cover. On my Gatecrasher mission, overwatch hits and kills are the only thing that saved my squad when the ambush activated two pods instead of just one.

I still take 2nd Revival Protocol and 4th Failsafe. Clearing a negative mental status and avoiding all hacking negative effects are just too good to pass up. Thought does a failure still reveal the squad? And trihero is again right about going for 7th Full Override.

For the one or two medics, especially for those full press 8+ squad missions, a build from a single column. Ever since XCOM 2 and playing on Legendary, I've seen the utility of healing builds drop off. It's better to not get hit and neutralize and kill the enemy rather than heal. Especially in a long multimission campaign. However, I wonder if Field Surgeon alone would make it worth it at times.


Technicals
Suppression - Fortify - Shredder - Tandem Warheads - Incinerator - Salvo - Rapid Fire

Technical Rocketeer
Fire in the Hole - Biggest Booms - Concussion Rocket - Tandem Warheads - Javelin Rockets - Salvo - Bunker Buster

EDIT: To get the most out of rockets, a full left-side build for a few soldiers. As with Grenadier Sapper, the Rocketeer should have AWC skills that boost crit damage to make best use of Biggest Booms.

If you set up the ambush, that first BURNINATE (as Trogdor and @xwynns would put it ) can nearly take care of a full pod just by itself. But trihero's got a good point about skilling the Technical for its primary, despite some of the attraction of the other skills.

4th Tandem Warheads to get the most out of the rocket and grenades, considering the other two choices are likely less useful. I like 5th Incinerator better because it makes the 2 flamethrower shots wider and a bit deeper, partly solving the cone-aiming difficulty. Otherwise it's all about the primary. I think this makes the Technicals a good squad soldier as well as very good for Haven Advisor.


SPARK
Shredder - Rainmaker - Cool Under Pressure - Guardian - Holo Targeting - Hunter Protocol - Sacrifice
EDIT dropped Nova for Sacrifice

Got to agree with trihero about the SPARK: scout and overwatch. Tempted to take 5th Wrecking Ball just for the LOL's. Could almost be worth it. 6th Bombard might be worth it too.


Officer
Oscar Mike - Get Some - Jammer - Lead by Example - Fire Discipline - Air Controller - Scavenger
EDIT dropped Focus Fire for Oscar Mike

Picked mostly the more offensive oriented skills. Oscar Mike is to give the squad a rare and possibly much needed movement boost.


Psi
The Psychics are going to be a work-in-progress. Open to suggestion if there's any choice involved.

[trihero]

Haven advisers - to me, technical. You want to strongly avoid classes that require high ranks to function offensively. You should base your decision off of a lance corporal with 4 rookies and whether they can take on a pod of two 12 hp faceless + officer + sentry or not. Specialist should be an obvious no-no. Technical's rocket does super crazy damage for no investment and blows up cover too, quite excellent for weakening the last pod and exposing that stupid 7+ hp officer hiding behind high cover. Due to the nontimed nature of the rendezvous mission and your starting in concealment, it's easy to set up the technical's rocket as his first move so it doesn't miss like crazy. Some people recommend like ranger for rapid reaction but I just shake my head, you don't have the luxury of stationing high ranking soldiers in every haven. I make certain to train a buttload of technicals into bare minimum officers (it's easy, turn rookies into technicals via GTS, then put smgs on them and have your shinobi/technical team hatch them into lance corporals on some easy hacking mission, then stick them in officer training school).

Grenadiers can do ok (the one time you might pick needle nades is a haven grenadier), but still lack the mega punch of the rocket at rank 1. Assaults and rangers are passable (assault has an easy time flanking advent troops, lightning reflexes is good against sentries, shotguns have high dps to finish faceless, ranger can shoot twice and can double barrel a faceless to death), but you might still get rekt when you pull 2 faceless + officer + something.

You don't want to lose your rebels, as it takes quite a bit of time/luck to replenish them, and obviously you don't want to lose the officer either.

On your Assault builds, I don't understand chain lightning unless you pick up the accuracy for the stun gun.

For grenadier, you somehow crossed left and right paths thinking it doesn't make a difference, but you forget that Boosted Cores also upgrades any DoTs you inflict, making it a clear choice over bluescreen bombs. I don't see bluescreen bombs as all that useful unless you also take Sting grenades, so it's either go full left or go full right or go home. I guess one exception is it's OK to take full kit instead of combat engineer, but I don't understand any crossing the trees earlier than that.

Gunner oh I remembered the trees wrong. I like your choices there.

Ranger looks all right.

Sharpshooter you should definitely try one non-holotargeter, the "sniper on the rooftop" left side build. It's ridiculously more accurate and hardhitting than the holotargeter for those long range pulls/support from far.

If you want a sword shinobi, I'd just go balls to the walls with all the sword skills. You're missing like blademaster for instance I think, and hunter's instinct. Accuracy and damage go a long way, especially with bladestorm. You can also consider that getting a critical hit with a fusion blade inflicts absolutely beastly fire DoT damage...I've seen the DoT tick for 7 damage....

Your specialists look ok. I'm not clear about how failsafe works; I'm about to try it more extensively as I have it on 2 specialists. Ironically the last 3 times I hacked low % on purpose to try, I succeeded so I have no idea how it works with regards to concealment. Field surgeon is equivalent to adding 1 ablative armor to your squad (well not quite, but at least in terms of wound recovery). It makes sense if you're going to a slogfest AND you have enough firepower already, like you said ending battles is the first concern. Medical specialist is very handy for that one mission with a million chrysallids to remove the stupid infinite poison.

One comment about SPARK is take Sacrifice for the last skill - it's a hard counter to Archon King's armageddon attack, and the other two skills are somewhat junky/suicidal anyways.

For officers, all the rank 1 officers in havens just take focus fire, but I've never actually used it. Oscar mike might be suitable to help your rebels get flanking shots. (I do use Command occasionally as a ghetto Run & Gun for a rebel with a shotgun).

All shinobis take oscar mike (you should have at least 3 shinobis running around doing odd jobs or scouting for your squads). The difference between having an officer shinobi and regular shinobi is astounding, even at rank 1 officer. Command lets you pull that specialist or civilian way far back or have him hunker down, oscar mike helps even more with this as well as with vip extracts.

You should aim to have two highly trained officers who lead the real battles (i.e. not havens/stealthy stealth). Going all the way down the right side is a fair choice, although I deviate for Air Controller on higher difficulties since the reduction to evac time is a breath of fresh air and Fire Discipline for dat overwatch, and I deviate for Lead by Example on my sharpshooter (put your best aim pcs on him too) to maximize the aim of your team. Combined arms is too good to pass up imo unless you're like super cash starved. The +1 applies to dots as well.

I'd train one sharpshooter for sure (prolly holotargeter since he has actions to spare using officer abilities) as your end game officer, and another class eh I dunno. Specialist is passable, but BE WARNED if you have a high ranking specialist, he will likely outrank any shinobi he goes on stealth missions with which is bad since only the higher ranked officer can use officer abilities in a squad. So just don't send that specialist on stealth missions if you still want to use one as a leader.

Officers are super good; command allows for some rather astonishing tactics. Some are really simple - like allowing your grenadier to unload twice in a turn without requiring the last tier perk Salvo, and some allow for omg moments like dashing your gunner into a nice position for a saturation fire (just make sure your commanding officer is within sight range!).

Psis I'm still working on them; their trees are the same and the overall training progression is the same where you choose out of 3 perks to train, but you can't learn them all anymore. So far I would try not train the soulfire healing or the sustain perk, they just aren't that strong of defensive perks compared to like stasis or stasis upgrade, and you're really trying to fish for void rift, stasis, null lance, domination, bastion, fortress as it is.

[Jacke]

Thanks for the feedback, trihero. I've updated some of my builds above and described below.

Haven advisers - to me, Technical. [Rarely other soldier classes.]

I think you're spot on about mostly using Technicals as advisors.

On your Assault builds, I don't understand Chain Lightning unless you pick up the accuracy for the stun gun.

I looked at Street Sweeper and though it might have the same cone-aiming issues I've see with Technical's pre-Incinerator flamethrower. And Lethal just giving +2 damage for a top-rank skill seemed underwhelming. That left Chain Lightning. Really better with Electroshock, Arc Pulsar, and Stun Gunner, but still it's an all-visible-targets potential stun.

For a non-Arc Thrower build, may be better to go with Street Sweeper or Lethal. What do you think of them?

For Grenadier, you somehow crossed left and right paths thinking it doesn't make a difference, but you forget that Boosted Cores also upgrades any DoTs you inflict....

I had forgotten about the DoTs, so I'll replace Bluescreen Bombs and Dense Smoke with Boosted Cores and Bigger Booms. One potential "problem" with Full Kit is that the Grenadier may not run out of grenades in most battles.

I'm already at 3 variant builds and am trying to avoid more. Is there sufficient use for a full-rightside support Grenadier, worth it enough to pass up the left-side explosive build?

Gunner oh I remembered the trees wrong. I like your choices there.

Ranger looks all right.

Thanks! Pavonis has been fiddling with the skill trees. I really really hope there's a good synergy for Gunners with both Grazing Fire and Shredder. Hate to get that first skill choice wrong.

Sharpshooter you should definitely try one non-holotargeter, the "sniper on the rooftop" left side build. It's ridiculously more accurate and hardhitting than the holotargeter for those long range pulls/support from far.

Something like:
Death From Above - Damn Good Ground - Deadshot - Independent Tracking - Vital Point Targeting - Kubikiri - Double Tap

I still stuck with two higher-rank holotargeting skills, but ones that work with the other skills. (And Center Mass still feels underwhelming with just +1 damage.) If you kill with Death From Above, I imagine the Sharpshooter can't fire the sniper rifle as that takes 2 actions. That 2nd action could be holotargeting for the team. With Independent Tracking and Vital Point Targeting, it makes the next turn's sniper shot holotargeted and hurt more.

Will think it over, but I'm not quite convinced about a left-side build. Would help if ADVENT Drones didn't like to hang out on rooftops so much.

If you want a sword Shinobi, I'd just go balls to the walls with all the sword skills. You're missing like Blademaster for instance I think, and Hunter's Instinct.

Hunter's Instincts is a ranged-attack-only skill now. And it comes at the same 3rd choice as Blademaster. But similar to the Grenadier build, you've convinced me to replace Covert with Blademaster for sword Shinobis.

Your Specialists look ok. I'm not clear about how Failsafe works; I'm about to try it more extensively as I have it on 2 Specialists. .... Field Surgeon is equivalent to adding 1 ablative armor to your squad (well not quite, but at least in terms of wound recovery). It makes sense if you're going to a slogfest AND you have enough firepower already, like you said ending battles is the first concern. Medical specialist is very handy for that one mission with a million chrysallids to remove the stupid infinite poison.

I figured there'd be limited but vital need for the Specialist Medic. I remember the damn bugs in XCOM EU missions. Looks like they're still a major pain.

One comment about SPARK is take Sacrifice for the last skill - it's a hard counter to Archon King's armageddon attack, and the other two skills are somewhat junky/suicidal anyways.

That sounds like a better choice, so I'll replace Nova with Sacrifice.

For officers, all the rank 1 officers in havens just take Focus Fire, but I've never actually used it. Oscar Mike might be suitable to help your rebels get flanking shots. (I do use Command occasionally as a ghetto Run & Gun for a rebel with a shotgun).

All Shinobis take Oscar Mike (you should have at least 3 Shinobis running around doing odd jobs or scouting for your squads). The difference between having an officer Shinobi and regular Shinobi is astounding, even at rank 1 officer. Command lets you pull that Specialist or civilian way far back or have him hunker down, Oscar Mike helps even more with this as well as with VIP extracts.

I think I will replace Focus Fire with Oscar Mike for all officers. That small movement boost to all in Command Range could really make a difference at a critical moment, while just being able to take out one target faster may be important too, but there are other skills on other soldiers to do that.

You should aim to have two highly trained officers who lead the real battles (i.e. not havens/stealthy stealth). Going all the way down the right side is a fair choice, although I deviate for [Lead by Example, Fire Discipline, and Air Controller] on my Sharpshooter (put your best Aim PCS on him too) to maximize the aim of your team. Combined Arms is too good to pass up imo unless you're like super cash starved. The +1 applies to dots as well.

I plan to go with Lead by Example, Fire Discipline and Air Controller on all my officers as they are usually more important than the alternatives. I'll think about Combined Arms instead of Scavenger as well. And thanks for all the other advice on officers.

Psis I'm still working on them; their trees are the same and the overall training progression is the same where you choose out of 3 perks to train, but you can't learn them all anymore. So far I would try not train the soulfire healing or the sustain perk, they just aren't that strong of defensive perks compared to like stasis or stasis upgrade, and you're really trying to fish for void rift, stasis, null lance, domination, bastion, fortress as it is.

Thanks for that guidance about Psis. Will just have to learn more later in my campaign.

[Jacke]

On your Assault builds, I don't understand Chain Lightning unless you pick up the accuracy for the stun gun.

I looked at Street Sweeper and though it might have the same cone-aiming issues I've see with Technical's pre-Incinerator flamethrower. And Lethal just giving +2 damage for a top-rank skill seemed underwhelming. That left Chain Lightning. Really better with Electroshock, Arc Pulsar, and Stun Gunner, but still it's an all-visible-targets potential stun.

For a non-Arc Thrower build, may be better to go with Street Sweeper or Lethal. What do you think of them?

And then I saw this 20s video of 2nd Trench Gun in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E2vvu1ZWJc

The cone is as tight as the Technical's flamethrower, but I think it's a workable AoE. And that means wounding and killing faster. Makes me think 7th Street Sweeper might be worth it too.

So I've revised my main Assault build. Here it is along with the Arc Thrower variant. Which I've also changed.

Assault
Lightning Reflexes - Trench Gun - Killer Instinct - Extra Conditioning - Close Encounters - Close Combat Specialist - Street Sweeper

Assault Shocker
Electroshock - Arc Pulsar - Stun Gunner - Formidable - Rapid Fire - Close Combat Specialist - Chain Lightning

For the regular Assault, Extra Conditioning meant a Run and Gun every other turn instead of every third turn, which triggers Killer Instinct and its +50% crit bonus more often. But the Shocker doesn't have Killer Instinct nor does it have Lightning Reflexes. Decided to swap out Extra Conditioning for Formidable to give some extra damage protection for those times the Assault Shocker runs in to incapacitate/stun, especially when Chain Lightning is unlocked.