Sword attack strength

[wizard1200]

I think that strength of the sword attack is currently too low, because the shinobi gets not many perks to improve his sword attacks.

Sword damage: 4 - 6 (currently 3 - 5), 6 - 11 (currently 5 - 9), 9 - 15 (currently 7 - 13)
Sword critical damage: 3 (currently 2), 4 (currently 3), 6 (currently 5)

Blademaster:
+1 damage and +15 critical chance

Shadowstrike:
+40 critical chance and +4 critical damage

Coup de Grace:
+20 critical chance and +2 critical damage against disoriented targets
+40 critical chance and +4 critical damage against stunned targets

[Goumindong]

Remember that

1) Swords only use one action to attack. So against an adjacent target you can attack twice
2) Fleche grants bonus damage based on the distance between you and the target, which can easily make up the difference in base damage.

Swords were definitely weak in Vanilla; where they did not increase in damage fast enough compared to regular weapons. But in LW2 i don't see that as an issue. They don't increase in damage as fast; same as before. But they also don't necessarily need to, because they have other advantages that make them powerful.

[Arcalane]

Any serious Blade Shinobi should be using Cutthroat as well, for the armour ignore on organic enemies. This isn't a huge deal early on, but once most enemy forces are sporting 2-3 points of armour it's a pretty big deal.

Cutthroat is also +15% Crit and +2 Crit Damage. Sword crits are savage.

[cerebrawl]

Remember that

1) Swords only use one action to attack. So against an adjacent target you can attack twice
2) Fleche grants bonus damage based on the distance between you and the target, which can easily make up the difference in base damage.

Swords were definitely weak in Vanilla; where they did not increase in damage fast enough compared to regular weapons. But in LW2 i don't see that as an issue. They don't increase in damage as fast; same as before. But they also don't necessarily need to, because they have other advantages that make them powerful.

The adjacent target thing hasn't come up yet for me. It requires an enemy to end their move there. Not much of a bonus.

Fleche is supposed to give you 1 more damage per 4 squares you ran into the attack, this is frequently 2-3 points of damage, rarely do you ever get a nice hefty 5 or 6. I don't think detouring with waypoints count for the distance either. However I've noticed problems with this, where I've counted 16 square dashes and ended up doing only 4 damage, no graze, where the minimum should be 7.

Honestly I felt the sword was stronger in vanilla. Might be rose-tinted glasses though.

[wizard1200]

The shinobi has to move to a target first and stand adjacent to it during the enemy turn to attack a target twice. This means that the target will likely flank the shinobi and inflict a lot of damage before the shinobi can attack twice. It would work if Fleche would NOT end the turn of the shinobi.

It is currently better to use a shotgun with a shinobi, because the shotgun has much better damage, can not miss a target at close range and can be upgraded.

[Shadow86]

An officer could technically provide an extra action to a Shinobi who has just run up to an enemy and sliced it, allowing them to perform another attack in the same XCOM turn.

[wizard1200]

An officer could technically provide an extra action to a Shinobi who has just run up to an enemy and sliced it, allowing them to perform another attack in the same XCOM turn.

Yep, but attacking again with a shotgun would work, too.

[Devon_v]

Swords are fantastic on missions where the enemy drops squads every other turn, you just run back and forth building up Fleche damage and chopping heads. You really want to focus on all the sword perks, plus Shadow Strike and Conceal if you are going to do this. It's kinda like having Run and Gun every single turn.

I do agree sword damage is on the bottom of the viability scale, but the phenomenal mobility of a properly built Shinobi usually balances this.

Add Musashi's Ninjato mod and things get REALLY interesting, -1 damage and all.

[wizard1200]

Swords are fantastic on missions where the enemy drops squads every other turn, you just run back and forth building up Fleche damage and chopping heads. You really want to focus on all the sword perks, plus Shadow Strike and Conceal if you are going to do this. It's kinda like having Run and Gun every single turn.

I do agree sword damage is on the bottom of the viability scale, but the phenomenal mobility of a properly built Shinobi usually balances this.

A shinobi with a shotgun and hunters instincts is useful on every mission, because the shotgun has much better damage, can not miss a target at close range and can be upgraded. Another advantage is that the shinobi can select the ghostwalker perk without missing anything, because cutthroat is useless with a shotgun.

The sword perks are currently not very strong, because the aim bonus of blademaster and shadow strike is useless (sword attacks have already a very high chance to hit). That is the reason why i replaced the aim bonus with a critrical chance bonus.

An assault has roughly the same mobility and a shotgun can inflict much more damage with perks like close and personal.

[aimlessgun]

The Alien Hunters axe helps a lot is is maybe nearer to what the sword damage should be.

[8wayz]

Well, the main idea of the ordinary sword is to take out key targets and also to act as a defensive weapon.

I had a Tower Assault mission where my Shinobi hid behind a wall, next to a window and reinforcements would literally move next to her, on the other side of the wall. I could kill two enemies on their turn with Bladestorm, and another two using a combination of Slash+Fleche.

And this continued with the next two reinforcement pods as well. The Shinobi could take on 4 enemies within a turn and a half.

This is where the extra Offence with melee comes handy, since Bladestorm does not always hit the moving enemy.

The blade is not designed to take any target and for bigger ones you will need Rupture or some other help.

[wizard1200]

Well, the main idea of the ordinary sword is to take key targets and also to act as a defensive weapon.

The blade is not designed to take any target and for bigger ones you will need Rupture or some other help.

You are right, the sword is a great support weapon, but the sword perks are currently a trap in my opinion, because they will not increase the strength of the sword enough and the shinobi will loose perks like ghostwalker.

[Hazelnut]

I have found that swords are really very strong for me. I've got the tier 3 one now, and 2 shinobi's with reaper. So they can either take out a single target and move back into cover with indomitable. Or, and this is what has essentially saved my whole campaign from being bogged down in advent HP, they reap all of the mobs damaged by the rest of the squad.

So, if you engage 2-3 8man pods (which happens to me a lot now) the plan is do as much damage to as many as possible shredding armour etc. Don't worry about leaving alive at 1-2hp, just leave em at 8 ish. Go and reap all that can be reliably killed - essentially finishing off all the damaged ones. Have a go at a higher health target if it wont leave shinobi exposed too bad for a non-kill. Sting grenade any that are left.

I was really struggling to kill things in 1 turn when engaged by 16-24 at once, often leaving 8+ of them at 1-3 hp and it was killing me. Reaper + sword spec is just the best cleanup tool IMO. Should give the Shinobis a mop rather than sword!

[wizard1200]

So, if you engage 2-3 8man pods (which happens to me a lot now) the plan is do as much damage to as many as possible shredding armour etc. Don't worry about leaving alive at 1-2hp, just leave em at 8 ish. Go and reap all that can be reliably killed - essentially finishing off all the damaged ones. Have a go at a higher health target if it wont leave shinobi exposed too bad for a non-kill. Sting grenade any that are left.

Good point. I tried to use three shinobi against single targets in my campaign (commander difficulty) and they were not very useful.

I noticed strange results with fleche: The damage is lower if the shinobi moves directly to the target (yellow range) and higher if the shinobi makes a blue move first and uses fleche with the second action.

[LordYanaek]

Add Musashi's Ninjato mod and things get REALLY interesting, -1 damage and all.

<ignore>Is it this mod? http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =677573817</ignore>
Second time i hear of the "ninjato" mod but i don't see any ninjato mod in Musashi's workshop so i guess you are talking about the combat knife.
EDIT : Looks like it's this one http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =698579656 but i could swear last time i checked it didn't have LW2 in the name.

Swords totally rule the first months and become less useful later but remain helpful in a number of situations. However i have to agree that a complete saboteur shinobi does almost as good a job as a kenshi. The issue seem to be more in the swords perks than in the sword itself. Blademaster was +2 in vanilla and was often considered "meh" until they added +10% to hit, but sword hits are already more reliable in LW2. Bladestorm's best use was to run a Ranger on the red flare and kill/soften every incoming reinforcements, now i can only see it reasonably useful against faceless/crysalids (that tower assault situation is fun, but rare in practice). Cutthroat is probably the best perk but competes with the incredibly useful ghostwalker. Finally comes Reaper : the really useful sword perk for me, better in LW2 than it was in vanilla with bigger pods. This means a "sword" shinobi could actually go full saboteur until MSGT and take only reaper while loosing only 1 point of damage overall.

[8wayz]

Please note that like firearms in Long War 2, swords also have a very wide damage bracket. Thus why sometimes you may inflict lower damage since the RNG rolls the lowest possible digit.

You will need to run quite a few tests to determine the mean damage point with and without using Fleche.

[Arcalane]

Swords are fantastic on missions where the enemy drops squads every other turn, you just run back and forth building up Fleche damage and chopping heads. You really want to focus on all the sword perks, plus Shadow Strike and Conceal if you are going to do this. It's kinda like having Run and Gun every single turn.

I do agree sword damage is on the bottom of the viability scale, but the phenomenal mobility of a properly built Shinobi usually balances this.

Add Musashi's Ninjato mod and things get REALLY interesting, -1 damage and all.

I really dig his specops knives mod for shinobi types too. He nerfed the (OP-as-hell) throwing knives recently, but the combat knives themselves are great in the right hands. Implacable Shinobi can sprint over to fleche-stab a guy and then fade into the shadows, much lower risk of pulling pods, with a pretty much guaranteed chance of a crit even if you don't have shadowstrike.

[LordYanaek]

Question to those using the Musashi mods? Since they are not made for LW2 but work with LW2, do they come with the right techs, are built LW style (1 at a time), how are their damage compared to the (stronger) swords? Do you have to ini-edit the stats to make them more in line with the rest of the LW2 equipment or do they adjust automatically?

[Devon_v]

Question to those using the Musashi mods? Since they are not made for LW2 but work with LW2, do they come with the right techs, are built LW style (1 at a time), how are their damage compared to the (stronger) swords? Do you have to ini-edit the stats to make them more in line with the rest of the LW2 equipment or do they adjust automatically?

They're fully LW2 supported now. Stuff builds one at a time, the stats look like meaningful choices compared to the LW2 stuff. Ninjato do -1 damage, but access to Silent Takedown is really interesting. Katanas armor pierce but never get a stun/burn effect. Haven't looked into the battle axes yet, nor used a wakizashi. Actually I don't use the katanas either.

Finishing off the occasional wounded trooper without breaking concealment is really fun.



As.to the Fleche damage question, the bonus is the distance between the Shinobi and the target as the attack is activated. If you blue move so that that distance is greater, the damage bonus is applied appropriately. You got a running start.

[wizard1200]

The issue seem to be more in the swords perks than in the sword itself. Blademaster was +2 in vanilla and was often considered "meh" until they added +10% to hit, but sword hits are already more reliable in LW2. Bladestorm's best use was to run a Ranger on the red flare and kill/soften every incoming reinforcements, now i can only see it reasonably useful against faceless/crysalids (that tower assault situation is fun, but rare in practice). Cutthroat is probably the best perk but competes with the incredibly useful ghostwalker. Finally comes Reaper : the really useful sword perk for me, better in LW2 than it was in vanilla with bigger pods. This means a "sword" shinobi could actually go full saboteur until MSGT and take only reaper while loosing only 1 point of damage overall.

Yep, that was the reason why i suggested the perk changes.

As.to the Fleche damage question, the bonus is the distance between the Shinobi and the target as the attack is activated. If you blue move so that that distance is greater, the damage bonus is applied appropriately. You got a running start.

Are you sure? I ask, because i think that the tiles of the blue move AND the tiles of the yellow move with fleche increased the damage, because otherwise the shinobi could not get a base damage of 7 - 9 with the standard sword.

[Devon_v]

As far as I understand it, it's the distance as the attack is activated. Wether that's a blue move or a yellow move is not relevant. If you're standing right next to the guy there's no bonus. If you blue move 8 tiles away, then target, you get +2. If the guy was 16 tiles away when you targeted you get +4.

It's pure distance. The trick is you can improve your damage in close quarters by using the blue move to increase the distance when the attack is activated.

[8wayz]

Now I am considering starting a new campaign with those Mushashi mods and a few more. They look and feel quite good.

[Tuhalu]

As far as I understand it, it's the distance as the attack is activated. Wether that's a blue move or a yellow move is not relevant. If you're standing right next to the guy there's no bonus. If you blue move 8 tiles away, then target, you get +2. If the guy was 16 tiles away when you targeted you get +4.

It's pure distance. The trick is you can improve your damage in close quarters by using the blue move to increase the distance when the attack is activated.

Just tested this in game. Your Fleche bonus appears to be based on your distance to the target at the start of the turn.

Using the 2nd tier sword with a 5-9 damage range.

1st test: Standing at 3 tiles, so the shown damage is 5-9. Run away to 10 tiles range. Fleche still shows 5-9 damage. Tested the 3 tile attack and the run away and charge back in strats. Both do same damage on same seed.

2nd test: Standing at 15 tiles, the shown damage is 8-12. Blue moved to a position 10 tiles away (and 10 tiles from start position) and the damage shown is still 8-12. On testing, both do same damage on same seed.

Shame really. Counting tiles is so much fun

[JulianSkies]

As far as I understand it, it's the distance as the attack is activated. Wether that's a blue move or a yellow move is not relevant. If you're standing right next to the guy there's no bonus. If you blue move 8 tiles away, then target, you get +2. If the guy was 16 tiles away when you targeted you get +4.

It's pure distance. The trick is you can improve your damage in close quarters by using the blue move to increase the distance when the attack is activated.

Just tested this in game. Your Fleche bonus appears to be based on your distance to the target at the start of the turn.

Using the 2nd tier sword with a 5-9 damage range.

1st test: Standing at 3 tiles, so the shown damage is 5-9. Run away to 10 tiles range. Fleche still shows 5-9 damage. Tested the 3 tile attack and the run away and charge back in strats. Both do same damage on same seed.

2nd test: Standing at 15 tiles, the shown damage is 8-12. Blue moved to a position 10 tiles away (and 10 tiles from start position) and the damage shown is still 8-12. On testing, both do same damage on same seed.

Shame really. Counting tiles is so much fun

On the other hand that makes light armor an amusing buff to fleche, as you get free movement tiles with hook/jump allowing you to go so much farther ahead.

[gimrah]

IMO mobility and low detection radius is always valuable to a shinobi because it will spend most of its time scouting. The pushes you towards SMG, which sucks as a weapon, so you rely on your sword to fight.

Now for sneaky missions you want all stealth as you won't be able to fight your way out of trouble if you do find it.

But on fighty missions the shinobi is only going to stay stealthed for part of the mission and then ideally he would join the fight. As I see it you can then either have a tanky shooty build or a sword build. I prefer the idea of the latter: assaults do shooty better but a sword is great for those hard to reach ayys in a big fight. Not least the shooty build is either stuck with an SMG or limited in utility/stealth by taking another weapon.