LW2 - Grenadier - balance and ammo

[Korval]

Thanks to the designers for all their great work on both LW & LW2... Greatly enjoyed LW1 and LW2 (1.2).

So a really basic question on Grenadiers. I get the whole class split from vanilla to LW2 and I mostly love it... Except for Grenadiers, which I find myself thinking are seriously wimpy... In vanilla, the Grenadier had both Grenades and Cannons as support weapons, very flexible. And while grenade ammo was limited, the cannon served as their "main" or very good alternate weapon, so the very limited grenade ammo was a non-issue.

In LW2, the Grenadier has a "primary" weapon with *no* intrinsic ammo, other than what little can be carried in utility slots (I know skills improve this). Their other weapon is typically a mere rifle (not a bad choice, if grenades were better). If we contrast the capabilities with the Technical class, who gets 3 intrinsic ammo (1x rocket 2x flame) and is *not* required to use their utility slots for ammo, the Grenadier suffers significantly by comparison.

The lack of grenade ammo is further weakened by the game's relative range of thrown vs. launched grenades. Just as real world reference point, thrown grenades have a range of about ~40 meters, while a launched grenade (M203) has an effective range of ~150 meters and max range of ~400 meters. Contrast w/ Xcom2/LW2 where the launcher gains a mere +1 (vanilla) or +2 (LW 1.3) range. In game, most of the time thrown grenades have all the range you need. (ranges from Wikipedia, cause I don't remember).

So just a suggestion... Give the grenadier some intrinsic ammo (maybe 2-5; 1 ea explosive, smoke, flashbang, buckshot round ???) so they aren't forced to fill their utility slots to get even minimal use out of the "primary" weapon... I would also seriously consider reducing thrown grenade ranges and increasing grenade launcher ranges.

As it currently stands, I see grenadiers as seriously underwhelming...

BTW, for what is worth, explosive grenades also tend to stun enemies... Especially in enclosed spaces... Just don't use them near civilians... Flashbangs are used mostly for training or when bad guys and civilians are intermixed. Something I learned in a galaxy far far away - Fort Benning Georgia, US Army Infantry School... :>

Thanks again for the great work...

[JulianSkies]

But... Grenadiers do have 2 ammo intrinsic to their primary role, as you've asked. Admittedly not a Squaddie rank, but they do (unless you choose not to, then it's 1). The grenade slot comes from Squaddie rank and at the first rank you gain you choose whether you want two damage or support grenades, and that slot only works for grenades and is extra from the other utility slots so it's not sacrificing anything for it.

Also from a game sense there's a split between "crowd control" and "killing" grenades, more or less. Definitely not quite a realistic effect but makes for interesting decisions.

[chrisb]

Grenadiers are pretty strong actually. They're not a solo class, they complement the rest of your squad. So far my favorite goto build for them in 1.3 is:

Rapid Deployment > Heavy Ordnance > Boosted Cores > HEAT > Sting > Salvo > Full Kit

Typically load them out with a mix of frag/flash. This lets them use 2 actions in 1 turn if they need some burst. There are other combos as well, but this one gives a nice balance of dps and support. String vs Dense is interesting, although I don't like Dense smoke that much, the defense is overkill too often. Plus I tend to put smoke on other units.

[crimsonsun]

Grenadiers are pretty strong actually. They're not a solo class, they complement the rest of your squad. So far my favorite goto build for them in 1.3 is:

Rapid Deployment > Heavy Ordnance > Boosted Cores > HEAT > Sting > Salvo > Full Kit

Typically load them out with a mix of frag/flash. This lets them use 2 actions in 1 turn if they need some burst. There are other combos as well, but this one gives a nice balance of dps and support. String vs Dense is interesting, although I don't like Dense smoke that much, the defense is overkill too often. Plus I tend to put smoke on other units.

That's pretty interesting because I find that mixing between Damage and Support grenades just doesn't feel effective enough, the issue with that of course is that I generally ignore support grenades entirely because I can't justify support abilities over kills and armour shreds.

Needle Grenades > Heavy Ordnance > Formidable > Heat > Biggest Booms > Volatile Mix > Full Kit is my current build on my guys

I do feel there's a lot of hard choices in that list though with Bombardier, Salvo and Boosted Cores being difficult to turn down. The only issue I have with the main weapon of the Grenadier is that you can't take Ammo easily at least before full kit and I find the various Ammo types become invaluable for countering successful dark events on the battlefield by keeping basic weapons within one tech step effective. Only issue I really have with these guys is keeping pace with the squad as I want them to be in fire-fight range and they tend to be on the slow side.

[chrisb]

Grenadiers are pretty strong actually. They're not a solo class, they complement the rest of your squad. So far my favorite goto build for them in 1.3 is:

Rapid Deployment > Heavy Ordnance > Boosted Cores > HEAT > Sting > Salvo > Full Kit

Typically load them out with a mix of frag/flash. This lets them use 2 actions in 1 turn if they need some burst. There are other combos as well, but this one gives a nice balance of dps and support. String vs Dense is interesting, although I don't like Dense smoke that much, the defense is overkill too often. Plus I tend to put smoke on other units.

That's pretty interesting because I find that mixing between Damage and Support grenades just doesn't feel effective enough, the issue with that of course is that I generally ignore support grenades entirely because I can't justify support abilities over kills and armour shreds.

Depends on the OP and what stage of the game I'm at. Sometimes I take all damage, or all support. For example during a 0% mission I'd likely go support to combo with area suppress. They combo well to break the AI when there's 15+ enemies and half of them can't find good cover. Being able to dump 2 flash in 1 turn can be a strong combo with 2 gunners running double area suppress.

[Dwarfling]

New Sapper is pretty strong. You blow up almost anything at center square except whole trees and other very strong materials. Damage Grenadiers and Fireman Technicals in particular seem to carry my early and mid-game on their backs while I get the very much needed levels on the other classes. Hell, I try to never do GOps without any of those two, and most of the time I pack both a Grenadier and a Technical on the same team.

As far as ammo goes, well, you get thru most of the game packing 5 grenades, which most of the time is enough, plus a Shredder Gun, and sometimes you get two extra frags/plasma out of a Specialist. Seems more than enough to me. I don't even do rifles anymore, I prefer to go with the extra mobility of an SMG, even on high aim Grenadiers (which I make Support). Mobility is king.

[trihero]

On my current run I've been trying 2 styles of grenadiers - one frag based, one fire grenade based. The frag based one is going for cover destruction to support the team (sapper, volatile mix, tandem warheads, combat engineer), while the fire based one is going for a sniper-like feel (needle, bombardier, HEAT, full kit) using fire grenades/bombs as essentially a "delete this organic unit" button. They both seem pretty strong.

The frag based one does 8-9 critical damage in a large aoe and destroys environment which is probably the best offensive buff you can give your team, and the fire based one, remember that fire grenades always set their targets on fire and fire in this game disables almost all enemy actions. Fire grenades also do quite a bit of damage.

They both sort of taper off in the late game when stuff has 20+ hp, but early to mid game they are beasts who don't care about accuracy rating, which is where most other classes struggle for quite some time.

[crimsonsun]

New Sapper is pretty strong. You blow up almost anything at center square except whole trees and other very strong materials. Damage Grenadiers and Fireman Technicals in particular seem to carry my early and mid-game on their backs while I get the very much needed levels on the other classes. Hell, I try to never do GOps without any of those two, and most of the time I pack both a Grenadier and a Technical on the same team.

As far as ammo goes, well, you get thru most of the game packing 5 grenades, which most of the time is enough, plus a Shredder Gun, and sometimes you get two extra frags/plasma out of a Specialist. Seems more than enough to me. I don't even do rifles anymore, I prefer to go with the extra mobility of an SMG, even on high aim Grenadiers (which I make Support). Mobility is king.

Technical class I've been disappointed by truth be told, on paper they look great but I just don't get the damage out of them I do out of a Grenadier or Assault, I build for Fire as I don't treat rockets as anything but a pot luck shot even with fire in the hole which is a skill I'm giving serious consideration to dropping in favour of Roust as that skill is really good while Fire-in-the-hole just seems to reduce the margin by which my rocket misses by to the point where on average I'll at least hit one of the targets.

SMG may be the way to go for Grenadiers, I dislike the lack of Ammo and damage but normally your firing a grenade unless your not in range to get a good shot off which will be reduced by having a SMG.

[sacho]

In 1.3 the turn pressure isn't as high so technical may not be as good early game as it used to be, but in 1.2 you would definitely feel a crunch on the amount of actions you could take and technical was a great safety valve when you mess up.

There's quite often problems that a grenadier cannot fix but a rocket can - flanked by a yellow alert pod at a car? Blow it up. Triggered a pod in a building full of high cover and no easy entrance? Blow it up. Max-range sentry shooting you that your grenadier can't even reach? Channel your inner XCOM 1994 and blow it up. The flamethrower gives you a good dice roll on handling enemies by itself(grenadier often just softens them up and requires mop-up shots).

I feel like the technical and grenadier have more well-defined early game roles now that Sapper was buffed. I take grenadier with my shooty, long-ranged squads(sharpshooters/rangers/shinobis), where they are the tank(a great outlet for the 6-7 hp soldiers!) - they clean up cover that the sharpshooter cannot penetrate. Meanwhile, I take my technicals on urban warfare, close range?! squads(assault, gunner, shinobi) - this lets me clean up pull mistakes or lower the number of active enemies to my squad's "delete" limit. Flashbang grenades don't quite do it in close range combat due to flanking shots/close range aim bonus, but burning does.

[crimsonsun]

In 1.3 the turn pressure isn't as high so technical may not be as good early game as it used to be, but in 1.2 you would definitely feel a crunch on the amount of actions you could take and technical was a great safety valve when you mess up.

There's quite often problems that a grenadier cannot fix but a rocket can - flanked by a yellow alert pod at a car? Blow it up. Triggered a pod in a building full of high cover and no easy entrance? Blow it up. Max-range sentry shooting you that your grenadier can't even reach? Channel your inner XCOM 1994 and blow it up. The flamethrower gives you a good dice roll on handling enemies by itself(grenadier often just softens them up and requires mop-up shots).

I feel like the technical and grenadier have more well-defined early game roles now that Sapper was buffed. I take grenadier with my shooty, long-ranged squads(sharpshooters/rangers/shinobis), where they are the tank(a great outlet for the 6-7 hp soldiers!) - they clean up cover that the sharpshooter cannot penetrate. Meanwhile, I take my technicals on urban warfare, close range?! squads(assault, gunner, shinobi) - this lets me clean up pull mistakes or lower the number of active enemies to my squad's "delete" limit. Flashbang grenades don't quite do it in close range combat due to flanking shots/close range aim bonus, but burning does.

I get what your saying and that's precisely how I use my Technical soldiers but my missile always misses that car, flies either out the back of the building or on more than one occasion failed to make it in instead crippling my cover and guys in front of it. Max-range sentry shooting my Grenadier can't reach, the missile could but doesn't even come close to hitting it. Agreed the Flame Thrower is fine, no arguing there though it is difficult to get the most out of due to mobility.

For me the only thing holding my Grenadiers up is mobility so I'm going to try and run some with SMG's and see what happens, my Technical builds I've had most success with giving shotguns and sending them up with my Assaults to provide AoE damage or targeted high damage via the shotgun. The Missile might be amazing if it were to ever hit but I'd rather take my 100% hitting grenade damage over my possibly self harming Missile (its a rocket I believe but having a while ago looked up the difference out of curiosity I'll stick with missile as that's not incorrect). The best example is your car with my missile I may not hit so I could be wasting an action with my grenade I'll get the same result but with no random element at a slight damage and AoE penalty, but the bonus of not destroying loot (though the car might, I'm not 100%) and having more Ammo.

I'm not saying they are terrible because I do get good mileage out of mine with there defensive and flame thrower skills but I feel I'm being somewhat gimped in choice as I have an entire perk tree I'm not using so much so I'd rather the Flame guy was a class of its own and then the missile could be a class an alternative heavy weapon option, this would actually create some interesting combos with AWC perks that boost explosives that on some builds are a real wasted investment.

[Psieye]

The lack of grenade ammo

is solved by the specialist Airdrop perk. Back in 1.2 I always brought 2 specialists along so a single (tank-spec) grenadier would have a lot of ammo.

my missile always misses that car, flies either out the back of the building or on more than one occasion failed to make it in instead crippling my cover and guys in front of it.

Are you using both actions to fire the rocket? Do your rocket Technicals have high base Aim?

[gimrah]

A squaddie grenadier can carry 3 grenades (the grenade only slot is your intrinsic ammo) or 4 if you leave the ablative off. That's enough for one per pod on the early ex light missions. You can then increase the number and power with perks. Grenadiers are fine on GOps. You may prefer cooldown-based classes for very long missions like HQs.

Technicals are a bit different for me. With only one rocket timing is everything: it can be very powerful but it is unreliable and very loud. It gets a lot more reliable with perks and aim progression. The flamer is like a very powerful support grenade but you have to be very close to use, so as not useful in a ranged fight as a grenade launcher.

[Thrombozyt]

Don't forget, that Air Drop supplies extra grenades but not extra rockets/flame thrower fuel.

[Korval]

My mistake, Grenadiers do get *1* ammo, but given that it reduces their mobility, I wouldn't say it's "intrinsic" - but largely semantics.

I still consider Grenadiers to be too weak with only 1 ammo. They shouldn't be forced to use their utility slots for ammo to get a decent load out.

Technicals get 3 ammo (intrinsic)
Rangers get 2 ammo (intrinsic) 4 with a talent pick

STRONGLY suggest that Grenadiers need more starting ammo, at a minimum +1 (so start w/ 2 base). Could give them another grenade slot OR just let all grenades a Grenadier carries get +1 use.

Would also recommend that for Grenadiers (only) grenades should not reduce mobility...

I would not view it as a bad thing if Grenadiers were able to use their grenades as their primary weapon and not only 1-3 times per mission.

BTW - I view "airdrop" as a extremely weak and poor conceptually in relation to the Grenadier. The Grenadier shouldn't have to rely on another class to use their primary ability/weapon...

[Franzy]

Grenadiers are very strong as it is, at least in querilla ops. Remember grenades have very long range (with launcher), always hit and are 100% accurate. And greandier can use them every turn! And with right perks up to 3 grenades per turn (protector+salvo)! I really don't think they need another bonus.

[Severian]

I found support grenadiers (with sting grenades) a little op in 1.2. In 1.3 and on though they have been substantially nerfed and now it is not so clear to me whether I should take the support or damage route. I agree with some people here though that to be properly effective you need to chose early on which role they will take. I think they are not underpowered at the moment, as evidenced by being one of the classes that I would rarely leave out of a squad. Rangers on the other hand, while still good, don't have an essential role; grenadiers do.

[RookieAutopsy]

Effectively a Grenadier has 4 ammo, very quickly increased to 5 with a second tier perk. I think they are fairly competitive as mentioned above, they can be relied on 100% of the time, something you cannot say about any other class.

[Daergar]

Four incendiary grenades, plus two explosive grenades from specialist airdrop perk.

I never feel the lack of artillery from my grenadiers. The only time would be hq missions where you might end up spending grenades on single enemies, or the final mission of course (which is why they tend to stay home at that point).

[trihero]

I think grenadiers feel fine. I don't usually run out of ammo, especially now where most of missions you fight are like 8-10 enemies. For longer missions bring sharpshooters, but even still you might appreciate a grenadier for their specialized effects. You really ought to try incendiary grenades. They are essentially a "delete this organic unit" button until the late game. They get to press the button 4-5 missions per mission. Before my fire/frag grenade tech is sufficiently developed, I actually just give them 3-4 flashbangs even though they are learning all the offensive grenade perks. Basic frag damage is pretty disappointing in the early game (min roll for 2, sigh, and the falloff damage even one square off from the center is disappointing) and grenadiers can just make such great use of flashbangs in the early game might as well, even though not specifically speccing for them.

Plasma grenades are pretty strong too if you can make it all the way to combat engineer. Wrecking cover left and right and critting regularly for 9-10 damage in a very sizable aoe is nothing to scoff at.

Also just a minor thing I noticed: you should probably rarely if ever take the HEAT ammo perk. For one, it doesn't seem to work with special (non-frag) grenades, as I reported in a bug thread despite the wording "all grenades." For another, tandem warheads is just a huge dps increase that can easily make up for the armor piercing and more. Fall off damage is ridiculous....my fire grenades were listed as 5-10 damage but a measly one square away from the center of the explosion, I got a 3 damage roll. Tandem brings up the damage so greatly on all hit squares that it's hard to imagine not picking it up. I guess if you were specifically relying on a grenadier to shred armor, then heat makes sense, but there are plentiful other options that don't kill the aoe damage like shredder rounds, shredder perk, etc.

[Korval]

"Remember grenades have very long range (with launcher), always hit and are 100% accurate."

Yes and *thrown* grenades (which any class can use) are exactly the same... Launched grenades have (very) slightly more range than thrown...

Grenadier has to use a ton of skill picks to get grenades to be decent and even then barely has enough ammo to be useful.

"Effectively a Grenadier has 4 ammo"... Only if he uses a skill pick (+1) and utility slots.

From what I have seen, I would *much* rather have a different class. The occasional times I would like a Grenadier are more than offset by the 100% utility of a ranger/technical/gunner/assault/etc.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree, I think it is a dang shame that the "Grenadier" gets only 1 shot, unless he uses skills picks and utility slots. And think it compares damn poorly with other classes.

[RookieAutopsy]

"Remember grenades have very long range (with launcher), always hit and are 100% accurate."

Yes and *thrown* grenades (which any class can use) are exactly the same... Launched grenades have (very) slightly more range than thrown...

Which come at a much higher opportunity cost. I very rarely carry grenades on my other troops because the Grenadier handles that so they can wear armour, carry special ammo and usually have a free utility slot for faster movement. I don't want my Gunner throwing grenades. They're busy chaining reload & CD or Suppression. Rangers - double shoot. Assaults possibly if they cannot move into a flanking position.

Grenadier has to use a ton of skill picks to get grenades to be decent and even then barely has enough ammo to be useful.

The only class that arguably doesn't need skills to be useful is the technical and that only really applies early on. When the guaranteed damage and lockdown of Grenadiers is also very strong. Possibly also Shinobis if all you do is spot with them.

"Effectively a Grenadier has 4 ammo"... Only if he uses a skill pick (+1) and utility slots.

So what are you packing on your Grenadier? Specialist ammo to make the most of Center Mass that you picked instead of Heavy Ordinance/Protector?

From what I have seen, I would *much* rather have a different class. The occasional times I would like a Grenadier are more than offset by the 100% utility of a ranger/technical/gunner/assault/etc.

They actually make pretty good officers if you're sparing with grenades. Even more so with Rapid Deployment as you can flashbang, focus fire and command in one turn. They're also an excellent class to make the first move into FOW if you have no concealment as they are nearly fully effective irrespective of how a freshly activated pod scatters. You can move up into cover, oh noes, we activated and still bomb something regardless while the rest of your squad repositions for their shots.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree, I think it is a dang shame that the "Grenadier" gets only 1 shot, unless he uses skills picks and utility slots. And think it compares damn poorly with other classes.

I guess we will. They are more than just their dedicated grenade spot.

[trihero]

@ Korval, the grenade launcher is both a significant range and aoe upgrade. It essentially lets you stack all the grenades on one guy who does it better than any one of the individuals. Try incendiary grenades...you won't be disappointed. If you have patience, try sapper + combat engineer with frags. There is no more powerful buff in the game than removing high cover from a bunch of units at once, effectively giving your team +45% to hit and +40% to crit on flanked units.

[chrisb]

@ Korval, the grenade launcher is both a significant range and aoe upgrade. It essentially lets you stack all the grenades on one guy who does it better than any one of the individuals. Try incendiary grenades...you won't be disappointed. If you have patience, try sapper + combat engineer with frags. There is no more powerful buff in the game than removing high cover from a bunch of units at once, effectively giving your team +45% to hit and +40% to crit on flanked units.

It's also worth pointing out bluescreen bombs. There were some fixes to the way hacking defense malus stacking works and it should properly work with redscreen rounds. I'm going to be trying that in my current campaign to see how reliable I can get hacking mecs. Sectopods make a hell of a bullet magnet.

[trihero]

Oh yeah for sure chrisb, both sides of the grenadier tree are amazing. I don't feel the lack of "ammo" at all, really. Put an SMG to deal with the bad movement and load them with 3 or 4 grenades in the loadout. You're probably doing something wrong if you run out of "ammo" in most guerilla ops (8-12'ish enemies if you're infiltrating properly).

Also in the middle game I start putting exo suits on grenadiers. The extra heavy weapon is very useful and gives them extra "ammo" if you are lacking it. The shredder gun is particularly useful for "blindly" shooting through walls for massive aoe damage (you can use battle scanners or just good phantom scouting to determine where enemies are behind walls).

I don't see the specialist's airdrop as necessary whatsoever to keep the grenadier going. It's just an interesting synergy, and I oftentimes skip over it for the other perks even when I have grenadiers on the team alongside the specialist.