Is it just me or is cover useless?

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Krosly
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Feb 06, 2017 2:56 pm

Is it just me or is cover useless?

Post by Krosly »

I recently started my first playthrough of 1.4 on Veteran. Had completed 2 or so before on 1.2. Had a lot of situations were it seemed that the cover didn't matter at all. Granted most of my units had negative dodge paired with negative defense so I just lived with it. Anyway, I just started a new playthrough on Commander/Ironman and its the same thing again but this time even my rookies and squadies with double digit defense or dodge and without any negative stats get blasted to pieces by disoriented enemies. I don't remember experiencing such scenarios in earlier builds. I mean I did savescum in previous playthroughs more than I should so thats why I maybe never noticed it. And if this is how its always been then how do you guys even progress past the early game on Commander?
dstar3k
Posts: 91
Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2017 4:11 am

Re: Is it just me or is cover useless?

Post by dstar3k »

Krosly wrote:I recently started my first playthrough of 1.4 on Veteran. Had completed 2 or so before on 1.2. Had a lot of situations were it seemed that the cover didn't matter at all. Granted most of my units had negative dodge paired with negative defense so I just lived with it. Anyway, I just started a new playthrough on Commander/Ironman and its the same thing again but this time even my rookies and squadies with double digit defense or dodge and without any negative stats get blasted to pieces by disoriented enemies. I don't remember experiencing such scenarios in earlier builds. I mean I did savescum in previous playthroughs more than I should so thats why I maybe never noticed it. And if this is how its always been then how do you guys even progress past the early game on Commander?
Cover doesn't mean you can't be hit, it means you're less _likely_ to be hit. On Commander, a Muton Centurion has 80 Aim, so half cover is only a 37.5% reduction; full cover, if you can find it, is a 56% reduction, but neither is a guarantee that you won't be hit. (That's assuming that I'm remembering right that the bonuses are 30 and 45; oddly, I can't seem to find it on ufopedia.)

On the other hand, the crit bonus for being flanked means that in addition to the higher chance of being hit, you're very likely to be screwed if you are.

Cover is _critical_.
Krosly
Posts: 10
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Re: Is it just me or is cover useless?

Post by Krosly »

dstar3k wrote:Cover doesn't mean you can't be hit, it means you're less _likely_ to be hit. On Commander, a Muton Centurion has 80 Aim, so half cover is only a 37.5% reduction; full cover, if you can find it, is a 56% reduction, but neither is a guarantee that you won't be hit. (That's assuming that I'm remembering right that the bonuses are 30 and 45; oddly, I can't seem to find it on ufopedia.)

On the other hand, the crit bonus for being flanked means that in addition to the higher chance of being hit, you're very likely to be screwed if you are.

Cover is _critical_.
Of course I am not expecting to never get hit. I just never experienced getting hit and put down so much by regular early game troopers. Simply got to get used to not savescum I suppose.
Psieye
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Re: Is it just me or is cover useless?

Post by Psieye »

If those 'early game troopers' are gunners, you should expect to lose someone whenever they are allowed to shoot. Murphy's law.

Cover on its own is never enough. Stack other buffs in addition to drop Advent's hit chance to 0 or below and then you won't be shot. Have a plan for the OW wall that Advent will set up if they can't find a good shot.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
dstar3k
Posts: 91
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Re: Is it just me or is cover useless?

Post by dstar3k »

Psieye wrote:If those 'early game troopers' are gunners, you should expect to lose someone whenever they are allowed to shoot. Murphy's law.
Advent Gunners can _miss_?!

You learn something every day.... :shock:
Dwarfling
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Re: Is it just me or is cover useless?

Post by Dwarfling »

Well, half cover is pretty risky early game, but you can make it work is whatever is left is disoriented and suppressed/red fog'd. High cover is still risky against non-controlled enemies, but most of the time you get grazed, not straight up hit, tho with the amount of shots ADVENT takes, some are bound to hit.

Late game even on high cover they'll have around 50% against you, so you either kill all the stuff or you hard-control it with fire, stasis or whatnot. Half cover is almost as good as no cover unless you have smoke and fortify up. Still with all the HP you can stack hardly anything can one-shot you.
llll BlackFlag
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Re: Is it just me or is cover useless?

Post by llll BlackFlag »

Cover is critical as mentioned above, learning how to use LOS for cover and knowing when to hunker has made a huge difference in my campaign success. This is part of a bigger conversation about tactics where on higher difficulties you have to be prepared to kill everything on the turn it activates. In my experience there is really no avenue for defensive play, long shootouts, or DOT abilities. This is not necessarily bad, but it makes the likes of venom rounds and gas grenades near-obsolete. I don't think any realistic buff will make these items more than a novelty when the play style is locked to "kill everything on activation." Again, this isn't necessarily bad, just a part of the larger conversation about the effectiveness of anything that isn't instant death.
gimrah
Long War 2 Crew
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Re: Is it just me or is cover useless?

Post by gimrah »

Remember the graze band as well. Their chance to at least graze you is 10% better than their headline chance to hit.

So muton with 80 aim shooting at 0 defence soldier in full cover still has 50% chance to at least graze you.

Cover is the bare minimum protection but you shouldn't feel safe unless you also take it further with suppression/flash/smoke/whatever.
Psieye
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Re: Is it just me or is cover useless?

Post by Psieye »

Isn't High Cover 45 in LW2, not 40 as in vanilla? So 80 aim - 45 cover + 10 graze = 45% chance to land at least a grazing hit. Before crit/dodge rolls tweak that.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
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2nd
3rd
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WanWhiteWolf
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Re: Is it just me or is cover useless?

Post by WanWhiteWolf »

Psieye wrote:Isn't High Cover 45 in LW2, not 40 as in vanilla? So 80 aim - 45 cover + 10 graze = 45% chance to land at least a grazing hit. Before crit/dodge rolls tweak that.
By default yes.

But usually Advent gets one of the +aim dark events quite early (in my case they had 2 of them completed by August +5 aim each).

In January most troopers had 90-105 aim. That's a 55-70% chance to land a hit on you if you were in full cover.

In late game controlling means pure stun/ disable (e.g. fire , stasis ...etc). Simply suppressing doesn't bring that much to the table. It's still a 40%-ish chance to hit in full cover. Unless suppression is changed to be % aim debuff instead of a fixed amount, suppress gunners fall hard later. All of them go to respec.
caseywills
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Re: Is it just me or is cover useless?

Post by caseywills »

It is just you.
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