...about Xwynn's near disastrous mission last night...

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1Warmonger
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...about Xwynn's near disastrous mission last night...

Post by 1Warmonger »

Love to watch Xwynn's series, he is a very good player, however, I do have one pet "beef" with his style - smgs.

I think smgs are an acceptable trade off in mobility vs damage early on, but as the campaign progresses, and aliens increase in hp, especially in Legendary mode, it is not sustainable.

In Xwynn's last episode (#97?) this becomes more evident, as he has flanks on enemies he really can't follow through on because he can't kill them, even with crits, using smgs. Yesterday it was close to a squadwipe, and mostly because he couldn't finish off wounded, stunned or flanked enemies. Just not enough killing power in the squad.

So, question is:

In the late game, is it advisable to carry multiple smgs in your squad, vs more rifles/shotguns?
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SonnyWiFiHr
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Re: ...about Xwynn's near disastrous mission last night...

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

He still uses SMG spawn aka. always flank ?
In 97th mission ?
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Dwarfling
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Re: ...about Xwynn's near disastrous mission last night...

Post by Dwarfling »

Nah the reason some missions are a struggle is because a large part of his barracks is underleveled (his Memorial has more than a page and he takes a lot of wounds getting impatient) and he doesn't have a good amount of good scopes, so whenever he has to take shots they're terrible because of T3 defense. #97 was also a training operation... In October.

Up to date SMGs are totally fine.
gimrah
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Re: ...about Xwynn's near disastrous mission last night...

Post by gimrah »

I look forward to watching it. I prefer the ones that go badly. More drama, more learning. Not just schadenfreude, honest!

In general I'd say the opposite is true. SMGs are weak early on when 1 damage difference is a big deal. Later on the difference to a rifle is negligible. You just need to be at close to mid range, with stats, perks and/or weapon attachments that allow you to shoot straight.

You also need it to be at a relevant weapon tier of course. Laser SMGs are finishers at best in late game. But high tier SMGs are an expensive luxury if the soldier won't use it.

In general I'm not a huge fan of SMGs and wouldn't put them on anyone likely to shoot much except for soldiers built around them like centre column rangers or shooty shinobis.
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SonnyWiFiHr
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Re: ...about Xwynn's near disastrous mission last night...

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

Early - I have trouble to throw the bombs so below 70 aim is SMG Grenadier. I can flank better for more aim with them.
And yes SMG are crap early on.
SMG for solo or double mission is another thing.

Lets watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP2cO5tG7-s
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DerAva
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Re: ...about Xwynn's near disastrous mission last night...

Post by DerAva »

I don't think SMGs were an issue there. If I remember correctly he had 3 soldiers with SMGs: The Shinobi (Ballistic SMG), who pretty much only sliced. The Technical (Coil SMG) who mainly used rockets/flamethrower and officer abilities, and the Assault (Coil SMG) who... not sure, I think that was some weird Stun Gunner with SMG assault build?
Jacke
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Re: ...about Xwynn's near disastrous mission last night...

Post by Jacke »

I'm way behind on Xwynns' latest series, so I've not seen the video in question. What I would think from knowing how Xwynns usually plays is sort of like surfing. He really knows a lot about XCOM 2 and LW2, especially how the tactical level works. And as others have mentioned, he often gets impatient, but part of this is knowing how things can tend to get worse during a battle. So he often goes what appears to be all ham, but are only partly so. But he still gets into problems, some of which lead to him not paying the best of attention to some things. He also plays the game both to be different from how he played it before and to make it more entertaining to him and his audience. This can be hard on his barracks. He also sometimes doesn't have sufficient depth in some soldier classes.

So I'm not surprised he's got a full wall of memorial photos and his barracks is underleveled. Nor that he had a near disastrous mission. It's not the first time.
gimrah
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Re: ...about Xwynn's near disastrous mission last night...

Post by gimrah »

I particularly enjoy the way he always thinks officers will just move and mark, and more often than not they just shoot him in the face.
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SonnyWiFiHr
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Re: ...about Xwynn's near disastrous mission last night...

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

Who is flanking whom in this episode ? .
Poor Shinobi was left in the open.
Str 6 Light mission with Rookies. I watched his Str 5 Lib 1 (or 2) - it is always (natural) disaster. He knows that.
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1Warmonger
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Re: ...about Xwynn's near disastrous mission last night...

Post by 1Warmonger »

I guess the point is whether, late game, the extra mobility/less damage is worth it.

For me, it is extremely rare to move to maximum range to seek a flank, the danger of activating is just too great, IMHO. So, if most of the time the extra mobility will not be used, is it worth the tradeoff in damage?

Xwynn's strat this season is the "Rockets ahoy friends" cover removal. Ideally, you'd follow with maximum dps to clear the field. Failure to do that means surviving aliens will scamper into cover-again....

I find it hard to include one, let alone three smgs in my squad loadout. IIRC, Xwynn's squad carried three.
gimrah
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Re: ...about Xwynn's near disastrous mission last night...

Post by gimrah »

Having watch it, I think there was quite a number of issues.

It was a Light. Those are no joke at this stage in the game. Frankly the enemy composition could have been even worse. There was a muton elite but no other top tier enemies. I've had some dicey ex lights at this stage of the game with similarly ranked but better equipped squads when the enemy composition is nasty.

Some of his guys had no armour. At all. Others are in exo suits with apparently no vest, so only +2HP.

He got into a stand-off fight with a long way to the objective and RNFs coming down, which tied him up.

He kept pushing forward when the situation was looking pretty grim. E.g. the turn he rushed a soldier to the van door, he was leaving an uncontrolled muton elite with actions right in front of his squad. Not to mention leaving the shinobi with 4HP flankable by an uncontrolled m3. It was a low value missions so I don't understand why he didn't just bail early on.

Some pretty bad rolls when the chips were down. On the other hand the enemy missed quite a few big shots as well. Xav noticed the lowish % shots the enemy hit but there were a lot of quite high % ones that missed.

Red fog yet again showing that it makes the game very swingy. Massive buff to XCom most of the time but then turns bad situations into disasters.
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SonnyWiFiHr
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Re: ...about Xwynn's near disastrous mission last night...

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

Almost naked and green vs whole map.

@gimrah
E.g. the turn he rushed a soldier to the van door.

Yeah, that confused me . He exposed to many soldiers .
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RookieAutopsy
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Re: ...about Xwynn's near disastrous mission last night...

Post by RookieAutopsy »

Hindsight is a wonderful thing :)

Though, having said that, I expected quite a mission when I saw he was actually going to play it. I was not disappointed.

I do agree though, rockets ahoy really needs rifles and cannons to follow up with exposed shots. Its why I rarely use them as openers. Fire works much better with SMGs as it allows you to close for point blank flank shots.
infidel901
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Re: ...about Xwynn's near disastrous mission last night...

Post by infidel901 »

Not about SMG's.

It was a "training mission" where he brought too many underleveled troops (bad ratio of low level to high level troops vs late game aliens), and then screwed up with the initial placement of the first evac, then forgot to place his second evac at the right time.

It is totally amusing to watch xwynn's RNG fail though. Too many times the lucky bastard makes crazy 50% shots with crits, while I and the rest of us mortals fail to make 85% shots. So, ha.
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