OW Tactics

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CryeHavok
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Joined: Wed Jul 05, 2017 8:34 pm

OW Tactics

Post by CryeHavok »

So I've classically been a "build squad to kill everything possible on my turn" player, but as LW2 kicks my butt over and over again, I am looking to branch out strategically and better understand some different builds. I know some folks swear by OW Rangers and Suppression Gunners

Can someone walk me through how you optimize a squad built to do most of it's damage during the alien phase. Ie, you're on a normalish mission, your shinobi/other stealthed unit spots a first pod, its pretty nasty... go
Steelflame
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Re: OW Tactics

Post by Steelflame »

Overwatch rangers are good because they let you amp the number of hits you can do per turn from 2 all the way up to 4. Thanks to Cool Under Pressure and Covering Fire, you get an aim bonus, the ability to crit, and apply an aim malus on the enemy. Ever Vigilant lets you aggressively move for the flank to get those crits off.

Gunners meanwhile take advantage of the now flanking ranger making the enemies want to move, and Area supression gets boosted damage to take them all out as they now try to leave the flanked position. If they don't, they instead get a second aim malus on any attacks they may try, meaning they are doing terrible aim shots while taking free damage pretty much on the next turn as well as from the ranger's Covering Fire shots.
Psieye
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Re: OW Tactics

Post by Psieye »

Personally I swear by snapshot snipers and tanks who drop enemy hit chances down to 0%. Kill/control anything that does something which doesn't play by the hit chance rules and the rest become harmless if you kill them as they try to flank the tank. Note I say "the" tank - nobody else should be visible to the enemy: everyone else is either a backup tank (positioned at the flanks), stealth scouting, making the tank unshootable or is sniping enemies as they expose themselves.

A lot of the time, this ideal doesn't happen and you thus have a challenge adapting to the imperfections. But I will say: suppression is great if the AI concludes it has no shots from any blue-move position. And by no shots, I mean "everything is 0%".
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
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WanWhiteWolf
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Re: OW Tactics

Post by WanWhiteWolf »

You have to consider that you do damage on Alien + XCOM turn.

That said, an OW ranger can attack 5 times (3 OW shots + 2 standard shots), instead of 4 (1 OW shot , 1 standard shot , rapid fire).

The advantage of OW ranger vs a standard ranger:
- Takes one additional shot
- Has 3 accurate OW shots that are likely to hit and crit (most OW are vs non-covered enemies)
- No shots suffer from aim penalty (rapid fire).

The advantage of shoot rangers vs OW ranger:
- 1 extra damage on shots (center mass)
- You can select one enemy where you are likely to do more damage.

Overall - The OW Ranger does more damage but less flexible on where that damage goes as you cannot control - for the most part - which enemies you shoot on OW.

You also have some options like ...scout officer shinobi commands a Ranger to go on OW; next turn the officer can command again / do do something else. That means you are gaining burst damage. However, OW rangers come only late online; before that they are - for the most part - on par with shooting rangers.

I don't think suppresion gunner is on the same chapter as a ranger. He doesn't have the aim to hit; most enemies will simply run the suppresion and you get nothing in return.

Specialist is overall a better OW but weaker during your turn.Specialist has the advantage that he comes online earlier. You are basically looking for multiple shots + Cool Under Pressure for any "OW" spec.

Most OW specs shine on non timed missions. However, the Ever Vigilant let's them do decent on timed missions as well. For example, you can dash a specialist point blank next to 2 enemies. 2 OW shots with 100% chance to hit and high chance to crit without any consumable spent.
Psieye
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Re: OW Tactics

Post by Psieye »

WanWhiteWolf wrote: I don't think suppresion gunner is on the same chapter as a ranger. He doesn't have the aim to hit; most enemies will simply run the suppresion and you get nothing in return.
Personally I never build a shooty gunner. If a gunner has low aim, they are relegated to tank duty. If a gunner has high aim, they are suppression gunners who I expect to be killing things. If I don't want enemies to run suppression, the front line adopts a "sole visible tank" formation. If I want them to run it, I smoke/hunker-creep or show up from around a corner to threaten a flank. If I want to kill with suppression, I'll want to blow up cover and/or holo target - preferably while my suppression gunner is within a frag throw of the target.
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Zork
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Re: OW Tactics

Post by Zork »

Two rangers + Two Specialists is a good base for simple impressive OW phases:
- Specialists: Sentinel/Ever Vigilant/Cool Under Pressure/Threat Assessment
- Rangers: Ever Vigilant/Cool Under Pressure/Rapid Reaction

This can easily provide you OW phase where they'll cumulate 12 shots. But this is much more from an ambush point of view. The problem is if an enemy doesn't move you'll need Over Vigilant skill, but then you'll lost plenty OW shot done on wrong targets too far or with a too high protection. Still an OW ranger with Threat Assessment will ensure 4 reaction shots, it's clearly not a neglect-able tool.

Sentinel is great for a huge mobility and to plan not shoot but overwatch. This can even help setup an ambush better, or to anticipate enemy movements.

Otherwise when you are overloaded and don't have timer or know you can manage lost of time, retreat and over-watch can be very efficient, you can cumulate some by splitting team in two, a half dash retreat, other half retreat and OW.

Finally, it's more about not forget you have OW in your arsenal.

For Gunners and suppression they are more tactical tools than killers. The problem is it's tactically more complex so it's easy do errors and be less efficient. Suppression is more a way to disable a target or force it move, not to make move and then hit a target and hope for some kill. For me it's a topic more complicated and I have yet to use well the few suppression build I did for gunner. I use them more as shooter with some extra suppression abilities, some extra tactical tools, and with bigger and better gun but not allowing very close range.
NOT a tactical/strategy expert player, playing LW2 at Easy. Rather old so I appreciate not be bothered by excessive familiarity, I'm not your friend and will never be. Refuse to learn English well so don't attempt learn it to me, thank you. :-)
hamds28
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Re: OW Tactics

Post by hamds28 »

Ever Vigilant is a game changer, especially in timed missions. If I have high aim specialists, they can do Sentinel and Covering Fire, but they can't take EV (for competing perks).

I usually build two types of rangers. The majority go full OW with Covering Fire with a Combat Awareness PCS. In cover and overwatching, these are incredibly deadly and hard to dislodge. A few rangers on the other hand go Locked On and Centre Mass, Implacable, and instead get Hyper Reactive Pupils as their PCS. Without Cool Under Pressure, they aren't as deadly on OW and so they focus on making the most out of Light Em Up.

When I do bring two rangers, I like to have one of each. Prescamper, the OW does good work, and post scamper, the Infantry cleans up. I find Infantry actually to be stronger than OW midgame.

The shot count presented above on OW vs Infantry is inaccurate. An OW ranger gets four shots per cycle, while an Infantry gets three. The trade-off is that the OW ranger has no control over three of the shots and they cannot hit the same target, while the Infantry suffers from an aim penalty (locked on and CuP cancel out).
aedn
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Re: OW Tactics

Post by aedn »

In general, you do not need to pick OW perks to perform OW actions on the enemy turn. Its more a matter of positioning, and using stealth, battle scanners, or scanning protocol to identify enemy pod locations. OW perks will help you do damage if your focusing specific classes or builds on OW specs. A full blown OW team, is going to run into issues as soon as you can't kill aliens through reaction fire.

Typically, you want to place your squad out of range of enemy pods who are patrolling, and let them patrol into your squad, which will trigger overwatch actions. To do this successfully you have to tile count to prevent your team from activating enemy pods on your turn. I would suggest installing gotcha flank preview which does the tile counting for you and is a solid mod all around.

As far as running a pure OW squad, i would not recommend it personally, but i do think that OW builds are extremely useful as part of a squad. Outside of AWC perks, IMO your best OW soldier is the specialist, and second best is the ranger. This is largely due to the Specialist being able to get multi shot perks early as well as giving the specialist semi valuable actions on lower aim/lower value soldiers in general, and OW rangers really do not come online until Gsgt. With some random rolls, pretty much any class can be decent at overwatch, gunners who get Guardian are exceptionally good since they can take CUP or other perks to boost aim.

I would look at Joelrnb's class reviews and Faleg's class reviews on youtube for additional information. I normally build general infantry rangers, but the OW build Joelrbs lists is the ideal OW build for rangers.
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