Questionable Perks

Jacke
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Questionable Perks

Post by Jacke »

I'm wanting to go over some perks that at first glance may seem a possible choice, but with all considerations aren't really a good choice.

First one up is Cutthroat. Melee attacks against bio enemies ignore armour, crit chance +15, crit damage +2. But as someone pointed out a while back, against what targets? All Mechanical targets are out. All Mutons and Berserkers you don't melee because they preemptively counterattack. I believe that leaves Shield Bearers, HQ Generals, and eventually Gatekeepers? Shield Bearers might be good targets, but the other 2 are kind of tough and more of a squad effort to kill. So wouldn't either Ghostwalker or Low Profile be better choices?
nightwyrm
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by nightwyrm »

There is a TDE that gives everybody a pip of armor so that's something to consider.
chrisb
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by chrisb »

Cutthroat is a bit lackluster. But that could really be said for almost the whole right side of the Shinobi tree. If it didn't have the check on mec then it might be somewhat more useful. Also it's position should really be swapped with Blademaster at least. If your going to build a sword shinobi, Blademaster is the perk you want to make your sword more useful.

Bladestorm is pretty meh. It might sound ok on paper, CCS with a Sword, except it has 1 tile range instead of 4, and a sword is no shotgun. I'm not sure how you would go about fixing this perk. Especially having it compete against Evasive... if anything you would want Evasive just to feel somewhat safe putting them in a place to use Bladestorm. I think it should just be removed and replaced with something more useful.

Coup de Grace has the same non-mec check, and requires someone else to setup the disorient/stun. If you role with a sting grenadier then you might have the 50% shot more often, but otherwise anything that is going to have high enough chance to kill outright is going die anyway just from raw damage. And yet again, being up against Hard Target...

Finally Implacable is sort of ok. If you kill you get to run back to decent cover. I'd like to see Implacable earlier in the tree, maybe SSGT? Replace Failstorm with it and do something else nice at GSGT. And if you skipped all of the above and went Evasive/Hard Target, Tac Sense is a sensible option in preperation for...

Reaper.

This basically makes Sword Shinobi a very hard carry that is nearly useless to you the whole time, until they get the one perk that makes them good. Give them good ablative/nanofiber + Evasive/HT/TS and they become nearly impossible to hit. But the fact that you have to hit MSGT before they become a contributing member to the kill counts is a hard sell. And it's really only so good. It's still going to pull lots of fog of war, and if you miss or come up short on dmg, you can be left in a really bad spot.

The big problem with all this is, your basically down a man in almost every squad they go in. Best case would be to carry them on free xp from stealth missions and never use them in combat until you get reaper and at least an Arc Blade.
chrisb
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by chrisb »

Other perks I would pick on.

Concussion Rocket - Really, a smoke grenade for the ayys? Is this a joke?
Field Surgeon - This wasn't good in LW1 and isn't any better here. Especailly up against Failsafe.
JoINrbs
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by JoINrbs »

Failsafe does something quite unique and potentially powerful. Consider the situation where you're racing against the AVATAR timer and have to beat a few lategame missions with your best soldiers, but they're taking wounds in the process. Reducing wound time for them can greatly increase of the squad you'll have available in time for the next big mission.

Shinobi sword perks are definitely a bit mediocre. They can take off as combat soldiers with good AWC perks (and generally get quite good defensive AWCs!) but are probably not worth it unless you roll something saucy.
trihero
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by trihero »

All the psi ops perks. Oh yes, I went there. :o
chrisb
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by chrisb »

JoINrbs wrote:Failsafe does something quite unique and potentially powerful. Consider the situation where you're racing against the AVATAR timer and have to beat a few lategame missions with your best soldiers, but they're taking wounds in the process. Reducing wound time for them can greatly increase of the squad you'll have available in time for the next big mission.
I think you meant Field Surgeon?

The problem with this argument is that the perk does not scale with HP. By the time your in endgame your sitting on soldiers that have 15+ HP. And the more damage you take, the less useful the perk is. If you take 2 points of damage, the perk reduces wound time by 50%, if you take 10 it reduces it by 10%. I think at the top end of HP bars your looking at reducing wound times by as little as 5% for critical wounds. Not to mention the fact that it does not do anything at all if you are bleeding out.

Now if the perk had some sort of scaling with HP, like it reduced wound time by 1 HP per 3-4 HP lost then at least it would scale a bit. If you lose say 12 HP, it knocks that back to 8-9 HP would be a nice perk. Also it would help if this perk lived up to it's name. Have it provide a single charge of stabilize without requiring a medkit.

This would at least make it an "interesting choice" against Failsafe. But right now, failsafe wins by a wide margin.
JoINrbs
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by JoINrbs »

failsafe is very very bad. i have no idea why people like that perk. the relevant consequence of failing a hack in any situation where you care about the hack is always that you didn't get the hack success reward, not that you have to suffer the hack failure punishment.

the times i can remember me having or not having failsafe being relevant in my L/I campaigns have been:

1) when i've deliberately failed tower hacks to get RNF pods for extra corpses at the end of troop columns
2) one time i failed a hack on a drone, so i haywired with a second specialist and controlled it with that one and it had +20 defense

in both cases not having failsafe has been better than having it. i don't remember ever failing a hack and caring about the defense buff to the enemy, i either am in control of the situation and just kill them or am not in control of the situation and care an awful lot more about the bunch of dudes who are going to shoot me instead of the robot i was trying to hack.

meanwhile field surgeon is passively strong in much the same way that the awc scientist is strong, or stay frosty is strong in LW1. it isn't quite as strong as either of those perks, but in a game with considerable strategic pressure having your soldiers active sooner than they would be otherwise always carries some benefit. it's very uncommon for any of my soldiers to have downtime in my campaigns, field surgeon is more-or-less a pure force multiplier for the strategic layer, even if it's only a small one.
Goldenmonkey
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by Goldenmonkey »

JoINrbs wrote:failsafe is very very bad. i have no idea why people like that perk. the relevant consequence of failing a hack in any situation where you care about the hack is always that you didn't get the hack success reward, not that you have to suffer the hack failure punishment.

the times i can remember me having or not having failsafe being relevant in my L/I campaigns have been:

1) when i've deliberately failed tower hacks to get RNF pods for extra corpses at the end of troop columns
2) one time i failed a hack on a drone, so i haywired with a second specialist and controlled it with that one and it had +20 defense

in both cases not having failsafe has been better than having it. i don't remember ever failing a hack and caring about the defense buff to the enemy, i either am in control of the situation and just kill them or am not in control of the situation and care an awful lot more about the bunch of dudes who are going to shoot me instead of the robot i was trying to hack.

meanwhile field surgeon is passively strong in much the same way that the awc scientist is strong, or stay frosty is strong in LW1. it isn't quite as strong as either of those perks, but in a game with considerable strategic pressure having your soldiers active sooner than they would be otherwise always carries some benefit. it's very uncommon for any of my soldiers to have downtime in my campaigns, field surgeon is more-or-less a pure force multiplier for the strategic layer, even if it's only a small one.
Well, it is usefull in stealth missions though. Path is blocked by a tower? Hack it without fearing consequences. Nice reward for hacking, but low chance? Hack it without fearing consequences.
I think both are perfectly viable. I take field surgeon for bigger squads and failsafe for small stealth squads
saroscycler
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by saroscycler »

Kill Zone on Specialists. It should be replaced by a Hack-related perk.
LordYanaek
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by LordYanaek »

JoINrbs wrote:failsafe is very very bad. i have no idea why people like that perk. the relevant consequence of failing a hack in any situation where you care about the hack is always that you didn't get the hack success reward, not that you have to suffer the hack failure punishment.
Failsafe doesn't exist to promote 30% haywire on a sectopod as being a good idea. As you say failing a hack and doing nothing is almost as bad as boosting the enemy unless you didn't have to do this hack in the first place.
But much like Goldenmonkey i consider Failsafe a valid perk to hack towers. Sometimes i have an action to "loose" on my specialist and there is a tower nearby. Do i want to risk reinforcements for a chance at some alien alloys ... not sure, is there a tower near the evac zone ... not sure, do i have failsafe ... ok let's try to get some free alloy :)
I see it useful for specialists operating mostly in towns and in smaller squads.
It does also combo pretty well with Full Override. Sometimes you want to attempt to master a Mec for your haven but don't want to make it harder to kill for the rest of your squad if you fail the hack. Because of the strategic reward Full Override is a hack that you will attempt even if you don't need it unlike Haywire.

Doesn't make it an auto-pick but i think it does have it's uses.
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Arantir
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by Arantir »

I think Cutthroat is undervalued, it just dont give you much early-game. Most of late-game ADVENT have armor on higher difficulties though and you can still slice flashbanged/burning/suppressed mutons. Also +15% crit equals +3% to not graze in melee and some bonus overall % to actually kill the target with more HP than your minimal melee damage because of critical hits. I don't regret picking it on my melee cleanup Shinobi guys, it helped me to maintain Reaper killing spree several times and some occasional crits were also helpful in some cases.

Implacable is super-strong, I can't Imagine ever picking Tradecraft instead of it. The later one theoretically allows you to bring more killing power on a mission but that's just tiny 25% worth of a soldier! Implacable makes Shinobi the killing power instead, especially once you hit MSGT.
While Implacable seems like a perk for a sword-focused Shinobi and Bladestorm is an obvious synergy, it's mostly a way to get into cover after slicing enemy from a suboptimal position, which is pretty decent by itself but it is especially powerful on rifle/shotgun killers with Serial.
In LW1 my guy with the most kill count was ITZ shotgun scout in ghost armor who can move right next to an enemy cluster > kill 5 things > ghost > reaload. In LW2 you can activate serial > move > start killing > move further with Implacable bonus > kill more stuff > grapple > kill some more if possible > move to better position with the last action when you've done the job + you can return in concealment if you picked it at TSGT. That's a lot more than you can do in LW1 in a period of 1 turn, and while you can't do it every turn the damage don't decay after a few shots and you've got autoloaders & stuff. The only other upside of an LW1 scout is innate crit capability, giving the same capabilities for Shinobi would be OP of cource. Still, if you're can ramp up the crit somehow (which is totally possible but requires investment) - you can solo obliterate multiple pods.

Regarding the questionable perks...

I'd say Infighter is the candidate for the worst pick in the game. It worth almost nothing to have 25 dodge for attacks withing four tiles. It's not a lot and even if you're mad enough to go facetank with your shinobi - the AI don't really like shooting at close range and would instead fall back to some cover and take a midrange flanking shot. Now count how often you actually get melee'd, subtract all misses and instances when the target is not your shinobi, divide it by 4 and you'll have an estimation of how many times this perk actually does something. It stands against Shadowstep and Lone Wolf. Well, +10 aim would wastly reduse the instances of not killing guys with Fleche so they end up within 4 tile range on their turn in the first place and +10 defense is superior by itself even if it would be +25 dodge at any range unless you're planning something really mad with your Shinobi.

Long Watch is extremely poor choice cause it goes against the idea of what sharpshooter should be doing in general and there's no synergies in the perk tree to make it work. Without some AWC shenanigans it's pretty worthless. There's always better things to with a sharpshooter than take a random overwatch. If it would at least work with Specialist's Threat Assessment then it could've been somewhat viable but currently it's not the case.

Flush while somewhat useful in specific situations is underwhelming when you've got Demolition on the same rank. Perk description is misleading, it does no damage whatsoever. It looks really silly by the way when you shoot & see the blood and then the enemy calmly runs to another cover like it was nothing. LW1 version of this perk (and also the animation) was perfectly fine, why completely strip the damage off? If it is for the sake of not being similar to Walk Fire then consider it's 2 ranks higher and Gunners also have more uses for their ammo and not always can afford to spend extra 2 rounds and still have optimal actions available next turn. It needs some damage to have at least some amount of flexibility so it won't be so useless until you level up your troops to have OW multishots.

Combatives is weak, extremely situational and placed against really strong options. Combat knife is the least useful secondary weapon in the game and there's also no late-game version of it so you're not even likely to kill anyting on counterattacks, dodge bonus is also too small to make a difference. The main problem of this perk is still far stronger other options though and I don't really know how you rearrange the Gunner tree so the Combatives can be a viable choice.
Last edited by Arantir on Fri Mar 17, 2017 2:38 pm, edited 3 times in total.
LordYanaek
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by LordYanaek »

Arantir wrote: Long Watch ...
Funny you talk about it. Long watch is the reason i removed Overwatch All from my mods list after accidentally setting my Sentinel-Long Watch sniper to overwatch instead of steady and triggering a pod when i wanted to wait for my cooldown abilities to recharge :lol:
Yeah, pretty bad on it's own thought with a bit of AWC luck it can become interesting in some situations (but even then it's still situational).

My personal "favorites" are (not counting AWC only perks or Psi perks and not considering the opportunity cost associated with not taking another perk at the same rank) :
Tier 1 : At least they make the choice at this rank easier
  • Combatives (do i have to explain why?)
  • Infighter Have been explained by Arantir
  • Bladestorm Too situational to be really useful and requires you to be in an awkward position to possibly trigger
  • Coup de Grâce If they are disoriented, stunned, or unconscious they are low priority targets
  • Concussion Rocket Only reason it can be useful is because it's buggy (it's not supposed to destroy cover)
Tier 2 : Maybe i'll finally be able to find a use for this
  • Phosphorus Low damage, no fire, no panick ... uh, i guess it doesn't hurt to deal some damage
  • Interference Plenty of other ways to remove or ignore overwatch
  • Covering Fire Can often hurt your build more than it helps and is particularly bad as an AWC perk! Can be somewhat useful on Specialists with Sentinel.
  • Flush-Roust (both in the same boat). Making your enemy move to trigger overwatch seems like a good idea but rarely works the way you planned/hoped it will. Crappy damage (especially roust)
  • Slug Shot My Shotgun users usually have low to crappy aim to begin with, ignoring long range penalty won't make them hit anyway, they need the short range bonus to hit reliably.
Tier 3 : Can have some uses with the help of some AWC perks
  • Long Watch Useful if you have some sort of multi-shot overwatch perk.
  • Biggest Booms Good if you have Agression and/or Bring em on. Not that great without either.
stefan3iii
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by stefan3iii »

JoINrbs wrote:failsafe is very very bad. i have no idea why people like that perk. the relevant consequence of failing a hack in any situation where you care about the hack is always that you didn't get the hack success reward, not that you have to suffer the hack failure punishment.

the times i can remember me having or not having failsafe being relevant in my L/I campaigns have been:

1) when i've deliberately failed tower hacks to get RNF pods for extra corpses at the end of troop columns
2) one time i failed a hack on a drone, so i haywired with a second specialist and controlled it with that one and it had +20 defense

in both cases not having failsafe has been better than having it. i don't remember ever failing a hack and caring about the defense buff to the enemy, i either am in control of the situation and just kill them or am not in control of the situation and care an awful lot more about the bunch of dudes who are going to shoot me instead of the robot i was trying to hack.

meanwhile field surgeon is passively strong in much the same way that the awc scientist is strong, or stay frosty is strong in LW1. it isn't quite as strong as either of those perks, but in a game with considerable strategic pressure having your soldiers active sooner than they would be otherwise always carries some benefit. it's very uncommon for any of my soldiers to have downtime in my campaigns, field surgeon is more-or-less a pure force multiplier for the strategic layer, even if it's only a small one.
The purpose of failsafe is to hack from stealth without risk of breaking it, not for haywire, which is quite useful on 1 or 2 man stealth missions. So yeah it's pretty useless on actual combat missions, but specialists don't really belong on combat missions anyway.

Field Surgeon is ok though, I think of it as converting 1 HP to 1 Ablative HP for my entire squad.
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Arantir
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by Arantir »

LordYanaek wrote:
  • Bladestorm Too situational to be really useful and requires you to be in an awkward position to possibly trigger
  • Coup de Grâce If they are disoriented, stunned, or unconscious they are low priority targets
  • Concussion Rocket Only reason it can be useful is because it's buggy (it's not supposed to destroy cover)
  • Phosphorus Low damage, no fire, no panick ... uh, i guess it doesn't hurt to deal some damage
Bladestorm could be pretty good if it would trigger on enemy movemet away from melee range. I feel like it's the main concern at the moment.

Coup de Grâce I would say is bad for another reason cause stunned enemies are still executable for a turn before they awake so they're no longer are low priority targets. The description could be read just like "50% to execute stunned target within blue move range" cause you should be really desperate to yolo 25% disoriented ones and unconscious targets as far as I know don't need to be dealt with at all, not saying that you've got no means to render enemy unconsciouss apart from mind controlling the ones who can (or sometimes berserkers can randomly punch their allies). Yeah, it could be more than 50% based on remaining health but with less HP on the enemy there's less benefit from execution and chances are that you've got a better way to kill the poor thing. The initial chance is just too low to rely on it and I think you also have to actually hit in the first place. The fact that you can't use it like Fleche makes it even worse.

Concussion Rocket I thought wasn't completely awful until I realized that it doesn't even guarantee the disorientation and I literally tossed a smoke grenade for 1 damage at the enemy pod. Late-game enemies got tons of will by the way so... yeah, you just give 'em teh smoke. :D

Phosphorus would be an OK perk for a flame-focused technical if it would additionally make so your flamethrower can bypass armor.
hewhoispale
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by hewhoispale »

I recently rolled a gunner with fleche in their AWC tree. I feel a small boost to combatives might make it a more interesting choice when the AWC gives some melee synergy.
If the parry worked versus the premier melee enemy of Longwar, the Faceless, it would probably pick it for all of my haven gunners.
Elder_Basilisk
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by Elder_Basilisk »

In defense of killzone for specialists: if you have a decent aim specialist, you can give them an expanded magazine and hair trigger and-especially if they picked up shooty AWC perks like grazing fire or center mass- turn a pod cracking manuever like a rocket or saturation fire into a pod deleting manuever. Get a good setup and you end up with 1 or 2 survivors rather than 8 injured survivors now hiding in cover.

Now, how useful is that? In my experience, it can be really useful on combat heavy missions like the network tower, troop column, ufo assault, and supply raid. The biggest point of vulnerability is the first few rounds and if you can kill an entire pod with two soldiers-one of whom is not normally able to contribute terribly effective offensive actions, you are ahead of the curve. And this missions are also ones where it can be most helpful to have a specialist along too. There are usually multiple robots to haywire or full override, there are often situations where you want aid protocol and while you want to do all your missions without injuries, those tendencies to be missions where early injuries can have a cascading failure effect so having medical and revival protocol on hand makes you a lot more resilient. It doesn't actually require anything else to work either. I imagine it's good with cool under pressure but if you have decent aim, it's pretty good without​ it too-especially from concealment.
trihero
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by trihero »

Phosphorus would be an OK perk for a flame-focused technical if it would additionally make so your flamethrower can bypass armor.
I second this. Usually robots (on legendary) have 3 armor, so phosphorus is just tickling them. Bypassing armor in general would be worthy of a perk, and not overpowered.
chrisb
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by chrisb »

JoINrbs wrote:failsafe is very very bad. i have no idea why people like that perk. the relevant consequence of failing a hack in any situation where you care about the hack is always that you didn't get the hack success reward, not that you have to suffer the hack failure punishment.
I think your missing the point of the perk. It's to get resources more reliably. Getting bigger guns, better ammo, stronger armor, lower infiltration times is ages better than 1-2 days less in the infirmary and will likely lead to less time in the infirmary over a campaign.
JoINrbs wrote: meanwhile field surgeon is passively strong in much the same way that the awc scientist is strong, or stay frosty is strong in LW1. it isn't quite as strong as either of those perks, but in a game with considerable strategic pressure having your soldiers active sooner than they would be otherwise always carries some benefit. it's very uncommon for any of my soldiers to have downtime in my campaigns, field surgeon is more-or-less a pure force multiplier for the strategic layer, even if it's only a small one.
I don't get why you argue this is a good perk. Taking a specialist on a fighting squad seems silly, sort of like taking a Shinobi, they're dead weight. They provide no offensive firepower other than being able to tickle the aliens twice per mission, and provide a single target defense buff. Just about any other soldier/spec would serve better and likely reduce wound times more than Field Surgeon ever could.

Every time I took a Specialist on a combat mission, I regreted it. All I would think is, damn I could sure use another Gunner/Infantry/Sniper/Grenadier... even an arc thrower speced assault would provide more value. Ever since I stopped using Specialists for real missions, I've never thought, damn I could use a Specialist right now.
Icreatedthisforyou
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by Icreatedthisforyou »

Assaults: hit and run. CE does everything hit and run does +90% of the time only it does it 100x better. It just is really really REALLY lack luster.

Grenadier: Salvo...or it does almost the same thing as the LCpl support perk only worse. Plus your grenades are way less reliable in cover destruction OR your Grenadier can now their load in 2 turns. Again pretty terrible perk.

Grenadier: bombardier, 2 tiles means so little for grenadiers PLUS it is against volatile mix which does 50% of bombardier AND also hits more area. It is basically worthless to a Grenadier.

Gunner: combative, your gunners almost never get meleed and guess what if you dodge while suppressing you still lose suppression. Soo basically worthless, fortunately every advent you fail to kill with a gunner shot week remind you never to take it again.

Gunner: flush, you can use flush to let someone take a reaction shot, the enemy gets to run further away and into cover...or you could just pick demolition destroy their cover and let someone take the free shot, and if they are not dead their first action is moving which shuts down a lot of scary things the ai does. Also demolition explodes vehicles. There just isn't any reason to ever take flush over it.

Sharpshooter: kubikuri, mostly just buggy otherwise it would be okay.

Shinobi: cut throat, the perk is fine the rest of the tree is not so honorable mention.

Shinobi: infighter, 25% to take less damage very situationally...or the ability to take no damage pretty much anytime you are out of stealth AND almost always bump your sword attacks up to 100%. Replace infighter with combative.

Shinobi: blade storm, it is like a garbage version of ccs. Make it so it triggers on the initiation of an action within any adjacent tiles, and if the action is a movement then the attack deals +1 damage. It is against shadow strike an auto crit on your opener and evasive two of the stronger perks for someone using a sword.

Shinobi: coup de grace, flip a coin to flip a coin to see if you kill your target...oh and have it be within a blue move...or take conceal for the synergy with shadow strike or hard target one of the best defensive perks in the game.

Specialist: interference, combat protocol does the same thing and if you need to rely on your specialist to break OW so frequently you need interference there are probably other problems. Plus revival protocol is one of the strongest perks in the game. Revival Protocol and field medic really should be swapped it would make the trees way more balanced. I would also argue interference should disoriente mecs only have 2 charges and then it would be balanced.

Specialist: fail safe, you can cheese hack pulls (should be removed imo) and you can disable towers on stealth missions (legitimate but also infrequent). I did try fail safe and I felt field surgeon would have more value, I didn't miss not taking it.

Technical: concussion rocket, I understand the idea and goal...but it really just doesn't work as well in practice.

Technical: javelin rockets, I have never needed to shoot a rocket that far

Technical: Fire and steel, damage upgrade is minimal, incinerate makes flame thrower WAY more functional, you hit 1 more guy with a flame thrower and the perk paid off.

Technical: rapid fire, why? Just why? For the Salvo rapid fire dream? No shooting perks and then rapid fire at msgt? Just give them a variation on full kit, that gives them another rocket and flame thrower.

Edit:
chrisb wrote: I don't get why you argue this is a good perk. Taking a specialist on a fighting squad seems silly, sort of like taking a Shinobi, they're dead weight. They provide no offensive firepower other than being able to tickle the aliens twice per mission, and provide a single target defense buff. Just about any other soldier/spec would serve better and likely reduce wound times more than Field Surgeon ever could.

Every time I took a Specialist on a combat mission, I regreted it. All I would think is, damn I could sure use another Gunner/Infantry/Sniper/Grenadier... even an arc thrower speced assault would provide more value. Ever since I stopped using Specialists for real missions, I've never thought, damn I could use a Specialist right now.
First in regards to fail safe (I deleted that portion of your quote) a fail safe hack and a non failsafe hack have the same chance to succeed or fail. By not taking fail safe. It isn't like anything is really given up in that regards, maybe you pick up a handful of towers on stealth missions, but having soldiers in the med bay means they are not in missions, if you get those soldiers out on even one more mission then field medic is going to net more than fail safe over a campaign.


Onto the quoted portion. Specialists are usually going to be the officers in these missions because your other soldiers need to be doing things, specialists can do a lot of things in the first action and still use officer perks to support the squad. Air drop let's your Grenadier continue to throw out grenades. Aid protocol let's you protect valuable members of the squad in sketchy places or grant an OW soldier another shot. Combat protocol can one shot drones through most the game, contribute meaningful damage against mecs or finish of low health enemies. The ability to shut down problematic enemies or control them are huge in a fight. Revival Protocol saves lives and missions, it basically gives you 2 actions on a high priority soldier for the cost of 1, when you really probably need it. Restoration is arguably the strongest perk in the game.

Specialists have some of the highest potential in the game when used well to support the rest of your squad. And yes those days they shave off in the med bay do add up quickly, in particular since some roles are going to get hurt a lot and taking damage is really important and you really feel it when you are replacing a high ranker with a lower rank on a critical mission but you couldn't wait that day or two.


Shinobis are similarly indispensable right now due to the vision they provide on pretty much any mission. Going on missions with out then is asking for more wounds and deaths then necessary.
Tuhalu
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by Tuhalu »

Mostly agree, but....
Icreatedthisforyou wrote: Specialist: fail safe, you can cheese hack pulls (should be removed imo) and you can disable towers on stealth missions (legitimate but also infrequent). I did try fail safe and I felt field surgeon would have more value, I didn't miss not taking it.
Fail Safe + Full Override are a potent combo. Sectopods and Super Heavy MECs are hard to hack and failing the hack can make you take extra actions to finish it off (due to higher defense). Having one of these beastly machines on your side can save your team from taking any wounds at all on a tough mission, which is arguably better than shaving off a day or two of recovery time. If you aren't taking Full Override, I agree that it isn't really that impressive.
Icreatedthisforyou wrote: Technical: javelin rockets, I have never needed to shoot a rocket that far
Shinobi + Javelin Rockets = 2 pods that get wrecked from beyond visual range because they are all standing together instead of activated (your first activation should be with some other weapons). It's a great force multiplier for your rockets if used right.
Icreatedthisforyou wrote: Technical: Fire and steel, damage upgrade is minimal, incinerate makes flame thrower WAY more functional, you hit 1 more guy with a flame thrower and the perk paid off.
You do +1 damage with the direct damage of the flamer and the burning effect after will be +1 damage as well. You also get to add +1 damage to your rocket/s.

Incinerate's 1 tile further range is just not that good. The tooltip claims that Incinerate gives a wider flame, but that is not the case. If it did give more width, I'd be more likely to agree that it's competitive.
josna238
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by josna238 »

Flush: I can't find a situation where it was more useful than ironcurtain (concealed opener to dense pods) or demolition (can blow up cars without wasting a grenade).

All the melee perks. I hardly ever use melee in a pod that is not the last one. And when I do +2 dmg or +10% to critical doesn't mean too much difference...

I dissagree with Failsafe, I almost never try to hack traffic lamps because failing breaks concealment and bring reinforcements. With failsafe you can clear a lot of red tiles and, who knows? maybe you earn some supplies...
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rifleman
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by rifleman »

Is Will to Survive good? None of the classes have this perk. The only way to get Will to Survivein is from AWC. Reducing 1 damage from gun while taking cover sound not that useful for me.
LordYanaek
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by LordYanaek »

rifleman wrote:Is Will to Survive good? None of the classes have this perk. The only way to get Will to Survivein is from AWC. Reducing 1 damage from gun while taking cover sound not that useful for me.
On it's own, it's marginally useful.
Together with other armor perks (formidable) and some good armor/vest combination, it goes a long way to bring the LW1 "biotanks" to LW2
If you stack it with all other damage reduction options and high dodge it's borderline to outright broken.
chrisb
Pavonis Dev
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Re: Questionable Perks

Post by chrisb »

Icreatedthisforyou wrote:Assaults: hit and run. CE does everything hit and run does +90% of the time only it does it 100x better. It just is really really REALLY lack luster.
It is a shame they nerfed this perk, it used to be really good for rifle assaults and scouts.

Your first standard shot of each turn against an uncovered or flanked target does not cost an action.

Which made it competitive against CE/Rapid Fire because it was at least 2 shots, maybe it will get buffed back to what it was at some point.
Icreatedthisforyou wrote: Grenadier: bombardier, 2 tiles means so little for grenadiers PLUS it is against volatile mix which does 50% of bombardier AND also hits more area. It is basically worthless to a Grenadier.
Another nerf from LW1. It used to be 150% throw range, which I think amounted to ~6 tiles. Made for some pretty epic battlescanner tile scanning :P

Edit:
Icreatedthisforyou wrote:
chrisb wrote: I don't get why you argue this is a good perk. Taking a specialist on a fighting squad seems silly, sort of like taking a Shinobi, they're dead weight. They provide no offensive firepower other than being able to tickle the aliens twice per mission, and provide a single target defense buff. Just about any other soldier/spec would serve better and likely reduce wound times more than Field Surgeon ever could.

Every time I took a Specialist on a combat mission, I regreted it. All I would think is, damn I could sure use another Gunner/Infantry/Sniper/Grenadier... even an arc thrower speced assault would provide more value. Ever since I stopped using Specialists for real missions, I've never thought, damn I could use a Specialist right now.
First in regards to fail safe (I deleted that portion of your quote) a fail safe hack and a non failsafe hack have the same chance to succeed or fail. By not taking fail safe. It isn't like anything is really given up in that regards, maybe you pick up a handful of towers on stealth missions, but having soldiers in the med bay means they are not in missions, if you get those soldiers out on even one more mission then field medic is going to net more than fail safe over a campaign.
I'd say your underestimating it quite considerably. Given the current meta where 50-60% of the missions you run are stealth missions, being able to hit the the big reward with no consequence of breaking concealment adds up. Maybe if they add more non-stealth missions then this wont be the case. It would be interesting if there was a mod that would track the amount of resources I got, maybe next campaign I'll actually track them, but I'm certain the amount of gear I can get because of those hacks far outweighs a couple of extra days in the med bay.

Either way, neither perk is stellar or game changing. I could easily do without either and wouldn't lose a campaign because of it. The only reason I take specialists at all is for the super cheesy long range hacks and rewards from hacks/towers.
Icreatedthisforyou wrote: Onto the quoted portion. Specialists are usually going to be the officers in these missions because your other soldiers need to be doing things, specialists can do a lot of things in the first action and still use officer perks to support the squad. Air drop let's your Grenadier continue to throw out grenades. Aid protocol let's you protect valuable members of the squad in sketchy places or grant an OW soldier another shot. Combat protocol can one shot drones through most the game, contribute meaningful damage against mecs or finish of low health enemies. The ability to shut down problematic enemies or control them are huge in a fight. Revival Protocol saves lives and missions, it basically gives you 2 actions on a high priority soldier for the cost of 1, when you really probably need it. Restoration is arguably the strongest perk in the game.

Specialists have some of the highest potential in the game when used well to support the rest of your squad. And yes those days they shave off in the med bay do add up quickly, in particular since some roles are going to get hurt a lot and taking damage is really important and you really feel it when you are replacing a high ranker with a lower rank on a critical mission but you couldn't wait that day or two.


Shinobis are similarly indispensable right now due to the vision they provide on pretty much any mission. Going on missions with out then is asking for more wounds and deaths then necessary.
I guess this is just a matter of different playstyles. My officers are holobot sharpshooters with Phantom. I can put them just about anywhere on the battlefield and they wont get shot. They can buff aim, crit, damage on pretty much whole pods. Since he has phantom he can see a pod coming at me from far away, holotarget it before it arrives so my overwatch hits harder and more often. The crit helps to reduce grazes alot, I rarely graze even against snakes. There is no way a specialists comes even close to adding +10/15/20 aim/crit, +1/2 dmg on a pod of 8 or even 16 sometimes if the stars align. And the more infantry/sniper/gunner you stack your squad with, the more it amplifies the power of holobots.

As for the rest of their perks, yes, they are not useless, but there are other classes that are far more useful. I guess for people that like the one-of-each type of squads they can do things. I'm not one of those players. I think stacking classes is far more powerful since you can get some pretty awesome offensive synergies, like I mentioned above with the holobot.

I'm currently playing with a squad of 3 Cooldown based gunners, 2-3 Crit Infantry, 1-2 DFA Crit Snipers, the holobot officer and a support with Sting/Dense Smoke for Plan B. They seem to be doing quite well so far. Just finished a Very Heavy troop column that I had to push at 30% due to a pending supply retal. Almost all the pods were in 1 corner of the map, I pulled all 28 in 4 turns, had 18 active at one point. Only got shot at 3 times and took 1 Graze shot for 1 HP damage after armor/ablative. Was a lucky roll on an 8% hit chance. Had to use both actions on my support to sting grenade, otherwise would have had smoke.

Either way I see little value in replacing anyone on this team with a specialist. It would be a net loss in almost every situation. Anything less than 10 active aliens on the map is dead on my turn. Anything more than that and I have ample supression/flashbang to nullify aim and shut off dangerous abilities. I used to fear pulling to pods of 8, now I revel in it.

As for restoration being the strongest perk in the game, I have a hard time taking that seriously. It doesn't even come close to Serial, let alone a number of other MSGT perks. Rupture, Kill Zone, Street Sweeper... Restoration... Really?

As for Shinobi. The words Dead Weight and Crutch come to mind. Ever since I stopped doing Shinobi (it is kind of like an addiction), my squad kills more aliens faster than ever before. Even moreso since I stopped doing Specialists and Technicals. Yay to no more dead weight!
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