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the sec arc thrower on assault said it can incapacitate a target and damage mechanical enemies. incapacitated targets are effectively taken out of the fight right can assults really do that or does that skill just let you damage mecs

also do aliens panic normally other then said with the flamer perks? or psi attacks

The description for the arc pulser perk is slightly confusing; it's really just the same thing as the original arc thrower where you stun organic units, but with the addition that you can target mecs with it. Mecs do not get disoriented or stunned; they take damage and get hack defense lowered instead.

The incapacitate part works on organic aliens and stuns them for 2-4 action points depending on your arc thrower tec level. Some enemies are resistant like the codex who has like -2 resistance to this. (so don't learn like me the hard way of r+g then arc thrower level 1 on a codex hoping it gets stunned, it doesn't lose any action points at all).

I can't think of anything that panics aliens except as you mentioned, flamethrower perk and Insanity from a psi. Well ok I thought of one thing, the alien ruler armor set pieces. And who knows there might be some fringe cases where you Dominate something with the ability to panic.

Hrm... what if an Assault has Electroshock, and targets a Codex with a basic Arc Thrower? Wouldn't that mean that hitting the Codex would actually be worse than missing?

Seems like something should be done there...

thx for the codex info it really was a potential safe. i was purposely holding off on skulling jacking officers just to avoid codex till i am ready to move on to avatar so i can minimize codex encounters.

It's not like in vanilla, where if you spawn the codex then they show up regularly in pods.

In LW2 codexes show up later in the game, regardless of whether you skulljacked the officer or not. They are pretty rare, although I seem to always find one in a UFO as well as the Gate mission.

Not regularly, sure, but after spiking an officer I've seen them in the wild - two popped up during a generic Blacksite assault, and another pair appeared in a counterinsurgency op to destroy a relay.

As for sources of panic, SPARK Intimidate can panic enemies when it succeeds. Which isn't very often, unfortunately.

Arcalane wrote:Not regularly, sure, but after spiking an officer I've seen them in the wild - two popped up during a generic Blacksite assault, and another pair appeared in a counterinsurgency op to destroy a relay.

As for sources of panic, SPARK Intimidate can panic enemies when it succeeds. Which isn't very often, unfortunately.

Yah, it feels like it's less than 10% even with T2 armor. When you compare it to Repair, it's just a terrible talent pick right now.

Arcalane wrote:Not regularly, sure, but after spiking an officer I've seen them in the wild - two popped up during a generic Blacksite assault, and another pair appeared in a counterinsurgency op to destroy a relay.

As for sources of panic, SPARK Intimidate can panic enemies when it succeeds. Which isn't very often, unfortunately.

I've tested it; I never skulljacked an officer and codexes will still show up later in the game. I've also skulljacked an officer super early and never saw any in the wild until later in the game. These 2 scenarios only lead to one conclusion: the appearances of codexes in the wild is unrelated to when you skulljack an officer in LW2 (very different than in vanilla).

trihero wrote:I've tested it; I never skulljacked an officer and codexes will still show up later in the game. I've also skulljacked an officer super early and never saw any in the wild until later in the game. These 2 scenarios only lead to one conclusion: the appearances of codexes in the wild is unrelated to when you skulljack an officer in LW2 (very different than in vanilla).

I'd guess it's tied to overall/global Force Level, since both instances were in relatively low-strength zones.

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Sines wrote:Yah, it feels like it's less than 10% even with T2 armor. When you compare it to Repair, it's just a terrible talent pick right now.

I think it most depends on the mooks. ADVENT goons ramp up their Will pretty fast, but I had two successful intimidates in a row on Naja snipers.

Arcalane wrote: I think it most depends on the mooks. ADVENT goons ramp up their Will pretty fast, but I had two successful intimidates in a row on Naja snipers.

yep, i can tell from Insanity chances of success that starting on T2 advent troopers have better will than most aliens including the big mutons
I guess that's why the Ehtereals were interested in human DNA. It was certainly not for our strength, probably not for our intelligence, must be our stubbornness