Best single class team

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The Boz
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Best single class team

Post by The Boz »

OK, so... What do you think is the strongest class in terms of "teams composed of nothing but this class"?
Not just on a single mission basis, but strategically. As in, there are no other classes. All rookies become this class.
And what are the primary disadvantages of each?

Here's my ranked take:
TIED FOR FIRST PLACE:
Specialist - They start off entirely unimpressive, save for their "Grab A MEC" skill, but boy, do they grow. These have a lot of tools in their shed. Defense, healing, overwatch, guaranteed damage, hacking...
Gunner - Excellent start, lots of tools in the swiss army machine gun, not a bad stat progression (AND YOU GET 3 STRENGTH!)... However, unfull teams might struggle, SAMGs and infiltration don't gel...
Grenadier - Starts off very strong. Great reach, a solid primary weapon, gets more resources pretty early, can build for destruction or disable, and Aim isn't a key stat against targets standing out in the open.

TIED FOR FOURTH PLACE:
Ranger - Good start, and can be built into many, many offensive combinations, even good defensive option for frontliners, but... their "conventional" approach to combat leaves them limited.
Sharpshooter - They start off miserable. They get much, much, MUCH better, though. Muton Elite in high cover and smoke? Shoot right through it. Not a problem. One slow trick pony, though.

SIXTH PLACE:
Technical - Excellent pod wiping capabilities, if the RNG and concealment and patrol gods favor you. They can run out of steam on longer missions, but, you know, quantity has a quality all its own.

SEVENTH PLACE:
SPARK - Easier to field ten of these than ten Psi Ops, but not by much. Excellent start (but they come really late, so YMMV), but their progression sucks, their repair times suck... Can hack. Meh.

EIGHTH PLACE:
Psi Operative - This will not happen. Ever. You will never field 10 Psi Ops on a troop mission. And if you somehow do, they will... be OK. Out of that many, some good tools are guaranteed. Not great.

TIED FOR SHIT TIER:
Assault - Starts off in a weak place because getting up in peoples' faces makes more people not like you. Doesn't get much better with levels or tech. Rifle + Arc Thrower build can work, but isn't great at all.
Shinobi - The absolute kings of infiltration missions. They aggressively suck at everything else, though, same weakness as the Assault. They do get to grab a few hack objectives, so tiny strategic advantage...
RXTXK
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Re: Best single class team

Post by RXTXK »

Gunner probably, can kill things and destroy cover.


Disagree about the specialist, if you have a pod with no mechanicals your basically hoping not to run out of combat protocol to win and at best can kill one thing per person per turn.
Dwarfling
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Re: Best single class team

Post by Dwarfling »

Gunners must be ridiculous. Kill all the important targets with 100% shots, double and triple shot the big targets in the open, supress the crap out of the rest. Probably wouldn't hurts to have a Support Grenadier to Sting the ability users you can't finish between HoB cooldowns.
cerebrawl
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Re: Best single class team

Post by cerebrawl »

Bump the ranger up a tier. Their build flexibility lets you have a mix of aces who snipe hard targets and crit like crazy, and the best natural overwatchers in the game, who can also rush flanks and shoot the enemies as they try to reposition. The sheer weight of fire of an all-ranger team can get quite nuts.
The Boz
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Re: Best single class team

Post by The Boz »

RXTXK wrote:Disagree about the specialist, if you have a pod with no mechanicals your basically hoping not to run out of combat protocol to win and at best can kill one thing per person per turn.
You're underestimating the toolbox. Even if you're somewhat lacking in offensive power when compared to grenadiers or gunners, specialists get tons of defense buffs, overwatch perks, and just overall staying power. Between grenades, standard shots, and combat protocols, it's easy to reliably take out the most dangerous target in any fight, if they're not a hackable. And if they are, oh boy...
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Devon_v
Long War EU Crew
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Re: Best single class team

Post by Devon_v »

I'd take Rangers if I had to choose. The volume of fire is enormous, they have Shotguns as a frigging secondary, Walk Fire deals with cover, you can Overwatch spec and ambush the crap out of things. They may not be flashy, but they don't rely on cooldowns and limited use abilities. Light 'em Up into Walk Fire, Rapid Fire, or Overwatch lets them work around enemy defense values. The only thing they need from you is a steady supply of expanded mags and autoloaders.
trihero
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Re: Best single class team

Post by trihero »

I agree with Devon, rangers are actually kind of powerful. Ironically I was considering doing a Rookie all Ranger run through for the fun of it. Being able to attack twice right off the bat is often underrated (not sure why).

One of my all time favorite moves is dash into ever vigilant/covering fire flanks. The overwatch traps you create are simply disgusting, often snapping off half of an 8 pod as soon as they come into range (if it's a proper concealment overwatch ambush, I've killed 7/8 with 3 rangers). And if you don't go overwatch spec, you can actually hit pretty accurately for pretty hard with things like aggression, executioner, etc. Rupture is kind of like a pick-me-up shredder if you face ridiculous things with too much armor. And they even have some tanky builds with tact sense and formidable for you to take advantage of. The lack of cover destruction is annoying but can be made up for by high aim, ever vigiliant flanks, and also shredder guns.

Grenadier sure yeah probably top tier, but there are indeed missions where you have to expend 2-3 grenades just to kill one alien due to how they scatter apart and you can easily run out of grenades - then what? Tickle them with SMGs?

Technicals might be a little underrated - I suspect they only "suck" in extremely long missions versus like fifteen million elite mutons/archons/gatekeepers, but in shorter ones the complaint about lack of ammo is overrated - you only need one I win button to win, so why complain when you don't have two? I actually have another feeling that they don't even suck in extremely long missions; you just might have to play differently like herd/hunker until they gather up for a huge rocket burst.

Maxed out assaults are actually probably overpowered. Have one of them r+g into chain lightning, whoops everything's stunned, then the rest can do things like street sweeper/close encounters. Untouchable is also an interesting option that is very swingy in nature; essentially in one turn you kill a guy and absorb an attack which is very efficient.
nightwyrm
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Re: Best single class team

Post by nightwyrm »

Not much love for Sharps I see. A team of squaddie Sharps is miserable, no doubt, but this is the only class that can both Phantom/Conceal scout and shoot well.
cerebrawl
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Re: Best single class team

Post by cerebrawl »

nightwyrm wrote:Not much love for Sharps I see. A team of squaddie Sharps is miserable, no doubt, but this is the only class that can both Phantom/Conceal scout and shoot well.
Still a slow squad that lacks options for dealing with big/multiple pods, at least until you hit MSgt and can grab Serial. Pistol tree and other AWC skills can help, and you can build them as a mix of holotargeters, DFA snipers and snapshotters, it's not all bad, but it's still lower tier, if nothing else because of its vulnerability to mission timers.

I'd take the all-shinobi team over them. Shooty builds(especially with AWC), reaper sword builds and stealthy scouts. By abusing stealth you can know when flanking and sword kills are safe, heck as long as you've got one as a scout, you can go for a full on medieval infantry charge. Swords are very accurate, and Reaper an excellent mop up ability. The weakness with the Shinobi is the 0% infiltration supply raids and such, on the other hand if you're patient enough you can make sure to active pods one by one, using stealth to know when it's safe to activate one, and well, with 10 Shinobi, you can afford to do an 8 man sword charge. Just remember to shoot the Mutons.
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Devon_v
Long War EU Crew
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Re: Best single class team

Post by Devon_v »

I'm just not sure all Sharpshooters would survive to get good. They do get really good, but you have to deal with that awkward phase before Phantom where your Snappers are just crappy Rangers and your DFAs can't ignore cover yet. I think you'd need to rush the AWC and pray for good pistol perks.
regloh70
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Re: Best single class team

Post by regloh70 »

The Boz wrote:OK, so... What do you think is the strongest class in terms of "teams composed of nothing but this class"?
Not just on a single mission basis, but strategically. As in, there are no other classes. All rookies become this class.
And what are the primary disadvantages of each?

Here's my ranked take:
TIED FOR FIRST PLACE:
Specialist - They start off entirely unimpressive, save for their "Grab A MEC" skill, but boy, do they grow. These have a lot of tools in their shed. Defense, healing, overwatch, guaranteed damage, hacking...
Gunner - Excellent start, lots of tools in the swiss army machine gun, not a bad stat progression (AND YOU GET 3 STRENGTH!)... However, unfull teams might struggle, SAMGs and infiltration don't gel...
Grenadier - Starts off very strong. Great reach, a solid primary weapon, gets more resources pretty early, can build for destruction or disable, and Aim isn't a key stat against targets standing out in the open.

TIED FOR FOURTH PLACE:
Ranger - Good start, and can be built into many, many offensive combinations, even good defensive option for frontliners, but... their "conventional" approach to combat leaves them limited.
Sharpshooter - They start off miserable. They get much, much, MUCH better, though. Muton Elite in high cover and smoke? Shoot right through it. Not a problem. One slow trick pony, though.

SIXTH PLACE:
Technical - Excellent pod wiping capabilities, if the RNG and concealment and patrol gods favor you. They can run out of steam on longer missions, but, you know, quantity has a quality all its own.

SEVENTH PLACE:
SPARK - Easier to field ten of these than ten Psi Ops, but not by much. Excellent start (but they come really late, so YMMV), but their progression sucks, their repair times suck... Can hack. Meh.

EIGHTH PLACE:
Psi Operative - This will not happen. Ever. You will never field 10 Psi Ops on a troop mission. And if you somehow do, they will... be OK. Out of that many, some good tools are guaranteed. Not great.

TIED FOR SHIT TIER:
Assault - Starts off in a weak place because getting up in peoples' faces makes more people not like you. Doesn't get much better with levels or tech. Rifle + Arc Thrower build can work, but isn't great at all.
Shinobi - The absolute kings of infiltration missions. They aggressively suck at everything else, though, same weakness as the Assault. They do get to grab a few hack objectives, so tiny strategic advantage...
You underestimate the capabilities of shinobis.
Stealth shinobis are outside of stealth missions useless, true. But you can also make him an unstoppable killing mashine. Killing so many aliens that every other class should be ashamed.:D
Weaken the pods with a grenadier and than go mayhem with your shinobi.
SRSChaos
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Re: Best single class team

Post by SRSChaos »

regloh70 wrote:You underestimate the capabilities of shinobis.
Stealth shinobis are outside of stealth missions useless, true. But you can also make him an unstoppable killing mashine. Killing so many aliens that every other class should be ashamed.:D
Weaken the pods with a grenadier and than go mayhem with your shinobi.
The point is there is only one class on the mission. You can't weaken the pods with a grenadier when all you have are shinobis. That also makes abilities like reaper much less powerful in this situation than it is with a normal, well balanced squad.
nightwyrm
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Re: Best single class team

Post by nightwyrm »

Devon_v wrote:I'm just not sure all Sharpshooters would survive to get good. They do get really good, but you have to deal with that awkward phase before Phantom where your Snappers are just crappy Rangers and your DFAs can't ignore cover yet. I think you'd need to rush the AWC and pray for good pistol perks.
Considering the nature of LW2 missions....could I just send in a lone soldier (or rookie) to suicide hack the mission objective while the rest of the team stand in the evac sucking up XP until they get good enough rank? :lol:
Ithuriel
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Re: Best single class team

Post by Ithuriel »

The Boz wrote: Gunner - Excellent start, lots of tools in the swiss army machine gun, not a bad stat progression (AND YOU GET 3 STRENGTH!)... However, unfull teams might struggle, SAMGs and infiltration don't gel...
....where are your gunners getting their steroids from? Can I get some plz?

...gunners have 2 Aim/level progression and my top level gunner is sitting on 75 aim as a Staff Sergeant >.<
nightwyrm wrote:
Devon_v wrote:I'm just not sure all Sharpshooters would survive to get good. They do get really good, but you have to deal with that awkward phase before Phantom where your Snappers are just crappy Rangers and your DFAs can't ignore cover yet. I think you'd need to rush the AWC and pray for good pistol perks.
Considering the nature of LW2 missions....could I just send in a lone soldier (or rookie) to suicide hack the mission objective while the rest of the team stand in the evac sucking up XP until they get good enough rank? :lol:
From what I recall you mostly can't do this; whoever hacks the mission objective receives a buff that means they need to extract to win. Tbh I can't remember confidently- I know at least the "Retrieve an Item" mission requires you to have the hacking soldier extract to succeed.
aimlessgun
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Re: Best single class team

Post by aimlessgun »

The entire campaign? Oof. I'd probably go with gunners but not being able to use an SMGs means trying to do stealth missions is probably right out the window and your ability to scout would be severely compromised. But they have crowd control, aoe, cover destruction, very high damage, and are good at all rank/gear levels.

Now, if this scenario were talking about MSGTs, I'm 100% going full Assaults :D I don't care how many extra pods I pull, that's just more guys to get stunned by Chain Lightning or blown away by Street Sweeper.
cybersol
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Re: Best single class team

Post by cybersol »

For me it's a team of sharpshooters and it's not even close. Killing without ever being seen is just better than any crowd control or one-shot abilities. Sure it's all about positioning but since XCOM-EU I've been trained to break down a map to find the longest possible shot with line-of-site and preferably high ground. When I take the shot it's going to be 2-4 rounds before they even see me, and they will arrive spread out in the rare event they make the trip alive. It doesn't matter if they are clumped together, I can easily activate a single pod or shoot the turret right next to them if they can't see me.

I hear your complaints:
1) You can't move and shoot! Why are do you want to move in the first place, you can hit things across 3 map lengths? If you absolutely have to move outside of conceal, half the snipers cover the over half in staggered fashion. If you have conceal, setup up your sniper nest on the high ground, near the corner or right by the evac.
2) It takes too long to get started! All you really need is DFA and a stock to start the killing cycle, and with taking the closest squad size to 3 that will get the job done you will be rolling them soon enough. It will take a bit more to level your spotter-targeter-officer-in-one build soldiers into phantom, but they help everyone else in the meantime. And if that's your biggest beef, then your only other viable class for a solo group is Shinobi.

You might be tempted to take snapshot, but its a complete trap. Did I mention the most OP skill in the game is killing without being seen from the next state over? So the general MO is just a bunch of classic DFA snipers combined with a single spotter-targeter-officer-in-one leader. You can use more spotter builds for stealth-only type missions, but they can also come out of stealth and still kill things across the map.

Honestly if you choose anything other than Sharpshooter or Shinobi for this exercise, you are in denial about the critical importance of stealth and spotting in LW2. And between the two, killing things from the next state over without ever being seen beats killing them up close and personal.
Icreatedthisforyou
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Re: Best single class team

Post by Icreatedthisforyou »

First Rangers: In LW2 I consider rangers to be weak, not because the class is bad, but because other classes are really good. Rangers don't really stand out at anything, other classes often bring the rangers capabilities plus other options, as a result I feel they are weak. HOWEVER Rangers I feel are the most balanced class, they are the most versatile class. So rangers win by a pretty wide margin for me as a single class team. You maintain decent consistent damage and volume of fire. You have the ability to equip smg's which allows for more mobility making stealth missions easier. You have the sawn off which allows for high damage close range, and you can even double down by giving a ranger a shotgun. You can still pick up abilities like suppression for control, but lets face it the best control is killing everything. Base rangers are solid early on, and once your OW rangers start getting their late perks you are rarely going to be taking a lot of fire through the campaign. Solid early game just because of double shots, solid mid game because of volume of fire with a couple options (close range burst and suppression) to get over any really challenging spots, strong late game just due to volume of fire plus the strength of multiple OW rangers.


Second Assaults: I think people probably tend to underestimate assaults because they view them as shot gun wielding, close range, pull the whole map, machines. The reality is that Assaults can equip smg's, to help with stealth missions. They can equip rifles if they have good range to fight at range. They have very strong arc thrower perks, including guaranteed disorients available basically from the beginning. Most of all though they get hands down the best single perk in the game. Run and Gun. The name is deceptive, it isn't run and shoot, it really needs a new name "run and do whatever you f-ing want." It opens up so many tactical decisions. Dashing and hacking (like when you know you will be safe on a jail break missions) greatly simplifies these missions. The same can be said for a lot of stealth missions. The ability to dash and use officer perks. The mobility on a fire line is huge, you always have the option to run and gun to areas to the left or right that you know are safe to get flanks. The ability to use run and gun defensively to throw a grenade/flashbang/smoke is similarly exceedingly valuable. Similar to rangers, late game they just start taking off. Few things can go 1v1 with an assault, hell things struggle to go 2v1 or even 3v1 with an assault once they get close encounters. The ability to run up close encounters, then fall back into cover means activating additional pods are not as big of a deal, since they will still need to often times dash up to get shots...or if you have run and gun up on everyone just pop it after close encounters and go and kill that pod too!! The combined mobility, durability, and damage that an all assault squad brings to the table is higher than any other class, and that will carry them. Slightly rough early game, but having so many run and guns helps them through this. Solid mid game. Excellent late game once they are able to take multiple shots per turn and they have the durability to take a hit or two. General versatility that assaults bring, between different weapons, run and gun, and the ability to reliably control enemies with stun/disorient means I put them way higher than most people seem to.

Third Specialists: See ranger and assault, but remove the versatility those two have (double shots and sawn off for ranger, extreme mobility and tactical options with run and gun for assault). Specialists are going to lack damage that rangers and assaults bring, but they still can swap weapons, the ability to hack helps on stealth missions and larger missions due to things like hacking towers and haywire protocol. Utility abilities like aid protocol, the ability to bring utility grenades and air drop grenades means you ALWAYS have options and it makes AWC perks involving grenades VERY strong. Let's face it the final tier perks for specialists are all REALLY strong. Plus the ability to finish off low health targets with combat protocol. Just in general once specialists get options they are going to be pretty comfortable throughout a campaign. Lack of damage is their biggest potential set back. Worth noting I had them at 4 until I wrote this at which point I upgraded them to 3rd. slightly weaker early game and low damage are their biggest disadvantages. The damage can be fixed with some pretty heavy investment on a couple high aim soldiers into AWC pistol perks, but even then it isn't as reliably, as high damage, or as versatile as a ranger or assaults damage. SMG's and ranged hacks help with stealth missions a lot. Mid and late game after you get perks you will always have options and multiple restorations means you can take risks and you have the staying power to grind down Advent in extended fire fights if you need to.

Fourth Gunners: At a certain point it doesn't matter how slow you are a good class is a good class. They will struggle early game and with any kind of stealth mission, but gunners can do everything. A squad of gunners can do everything A LOT. They are lower than rangers than assaults simply because the other two classes bring more versatility the ability those two classes would have to succeed without too much difficulty at ALL missions is why they are above gunners, who will out perform the other two once they can comfortably get +5 gunners on a mission (point where you can have some control, you can have some damage, and you can reliably rotate cooldowns and you won't feel out of options outside of suppress and weather the fire on any turns). Rougher early game until they get abilities, and your gunners with good aim get abilities that let them really push that advantage. Rough stealth missions simply because they are slow pokes. Mid-Late game on I would say they are the strongest single class team in the game as long as you are not rushing anywhere.

Fifth Grenadier: Raw explosive power means everything dies, keeping track of your needle grenadiers is going to be important otherwise you will end up really struggling with resources through a campaign. Weak early game when you can't rely on guns to kill people, you can't rely on having enough grenades to kill people. You have to decide whether your mobility or ability to do damage is more important. Single target killing power is very likely going to be an issue, making mid and late game significantly harder, but with enough grenades you can control these targets. Weaker early game, going to struggle on single target late game which makes a bunch of really dangerous enemies pretty scary. Once they get more grenades and better grenades equipped things will get much easier.

Sixth Sharpshooters: Stealth missions early on will be rough just due to lugging around the rifle. Killing power early while aim is low will be rough. Mid game once you are able to basically one shot anything and late game when you have both single target killing power and multi target killing power the game will be a breeze, add in that once you get a phantom (sgt) Advent will never see a single soldier you have due to range, it will make the game pretty easy. But that early game is going to be rough. Probably the weakest early game of any class, once you have the ability to scout for the rest of the squad it makes most missions low risk and you will probably breeze through them, timers will still be a pretty big headache. Possibly the easiest mid-late game just due to volume of squad sight range fire all maps will be killing fields. You don't need mobility if you never have to move taps finger on head.

Seventh Technical: I feel technical would be hurt the most by going one class, they will crush the early game, but the reality is their damage falls off, they won't have good ways of dealing with extended missions with high health enemies. They don't receive any benefits to guns, means they will be relying heavily on their gauntlet and that is going to lead to some really sketchy situations (fighting at close range without good ability to close the gap). Flamethrowers are great but you need to be in range AND you are setting tiles on fire that you can't use in the future to move up AND you are dealing with the possibility of friendly fire on pretty much all your abilities. Killer early game, but late game will start getting pretty sketchy, it will be a race whether you run out of abilities or the ability to continually USE those abilities or advent runs out of troops. Friendly fire concerns make things harder as well.

Last Shinobi: I want shinobi's to be awesome at this but they just wouldn't be. They would do okay early game when they can pretty much just dash and slice through missions. Stealth missions obviously are easy. But late game there are going to be some enemies that will simply wreck havoc on them. The lack of control abilities, the lack of raw damage for guns. It is just going to be rough. Okay early game, simply due to the damage of fleche and the ease of stealth missions. Rough, RNG heavy, and possibly borderline impossible late game just due to certain enemies means I got to put them down here.
regloh70
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Re: Best single class team

Post by regloh70 »

SRSChaos wrote:
regloh70 wrote:You underestimate the capabilities of shinobis.
Stealth shinobis are outside of stealth missions useless, true. But you can also make him an unstoppable killing mashine. Killing so many aliens that every other class should be ashamed.:D
Weaken the pods with a grenadier and than go mayhem with your shinobi.
The point is there is only one class on the mission. You can't weaken the pods with a grenadier when all you have are shinobis. That also makes abilities like reaper much less powerful in this situation than it is with a normal, well balanced squad.
Yeah, my bad. I schould not lurking in forums when i'm tired. Silly me.
Dwarfling
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Re: Best single class team

Post by Dwarfling »

I recently did a troop colum... I think Light-Moderate, with 4 Gunners, a DFA Sharpshooter and a Support Grenadier. Here's how it went down: Saturation, Saturation, Saturation, Hail of Bullets, camp, camp, camp, camp, Saturation... They never stood a chance, even with Archons.
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