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So I am curious, are the shinobi's any good with an SMG? And a much broader question... Are SMG's even good at all? They were absolutely trash in Vanilla, is there anything that makes them even worth considering? I mean before they did less damage, less magazine, and at best a minor bump to your mobility.

Any reason to ever take one over the AR?

I think it all ends up in mobility and the fact that Shinobi have swords. Imo use need to use the sword to fight, it is always better than the smg. Also. Smg has a lower impact on infiltraton

mobility is extreamly huge
and being able to move unhindered is amazing

also Shinobi's get hunter instinct which affects there SMG
which means they can be hugely mobile and Do even more damage than what an AR Does
it also decreases your infiltration time i do believe

Didn't play vanilla X2, but still can't see why it's not worth to take an SMG for a sole mobility bonus. Mobility is probably the most crucial stat in XCOM, especially for a class who suppose to move a lot. Looking at the Shinobi perk tree I also see a great deal of synergy with an SMG for both melee and ranged options.

Lone Wolf (+10 aim/crit) + Hunters Instincts (+2 dmg on flanked) + Serial (any kill with SMG is free) seems like a good offensive SMG combo for example.

Arantir wrote:Didn't play vanilla X2, but still can't see why it's not worth to take an SMG for a sole mobility bonus. Mobility is probably the most crucial stat in XCOM, especially for a class who suppose to move a lot. Looking at the Shinobi perk tree I also see a great deal of synergy with an SMG for both melee and ranged options.

Lone Wolf (+10 aim/crit) + Hunters Instincts (+2 dmg on flanked) + Serial (any kill with SMG is free) seems like a good offensive SMG combo for example.

small thing if you kill an enemy with serial after moving it only returns one action point sadly but you can still rack up flank kill's with the right possition

I'm only saying this just incase somebody gets the same impression i did and it refunds both action points

SMGs also impact the detection tile range of enemies. So units with SMGs can get generally a tile or so closer (depending on a few other factors) before detection. This is one of the reasons Shinobis get them by default.

Also, the mobility bonus is +3, which is fairly hefty.

HI Amineri long time no see, since lw1 and my ranble about genetics and my prays to not nerf the goliath, still salty about that
either way yes, since the sword is the main damage dealer it is fine imo usign the smg

When you're using an SMG, it's not your primary damage dealer. Instead you're going to be wanting to use Slash and Fleche as much as possible.

See, the thing about SMGs as others rightly point out is that they give +3 mobility. Fleche deals more damage the more ground you cover. It's something like +1dmg per 2 tiles, I think?

With one of their melee-line perks, Shinobi can ignore the armour on biological units and have a higher chance to crit.

All in all, Shinobi can sprint across the field, shank somebody important-looking (like that sectoid that just MC'd your tech), and gtfo.

They're great assassins. As long as you're careful and manually set where you want them to run to when using Fleche (so that they can remain in cover) or get the perk that allows them to take a free move after making a kill (for hit-and-run strikes) a Shinobi can do a lot of damage.

I put SMGs on every soldier who isn't primarily a shooter, which typically means Grenadiers, Shinobi, and Technical. The +3 mobility bonus is huge.

Amineri wrote:SMGs also impact the detection tile range of enemies. So units with SMGs can get generally a tile or so closer (depending on a few other factors) before detection. This is one of the reasons Shinobis get them by default.

Also, the mobility bonus is +3, which is fairly hefty.

For me the reduced detection is huge.

I had a map where I started on a rooftop. South and east were map walls. North was a patrol. West was two patrols. North West was a roof with one of those lurking solo drones on it, plus a lamppost checkpoint on one side. I was completely surrounded by unpassable detection except for a single tile wide opening along the east wall. But my SMG users had a 2-tile wide column between the lamppost and one of the patrols.

In Vanilla I had a map where thanks to an SMG one, and only one, tile of a computer hack destination was available without breaking concealment and I was down to 2 turns before mission loss.

Another way to look at the movement bonus is to remember that Fleche does +1 damage per 3 tiles moved. SMGs give +3 move = +1 melee damage.

SMGs definitely have their uses.

I concur, I used SMG heavily in vanilla, on Shinobis and Specialists, and the movement and detection benefit can be huge. I had one soldier who had 15 mobility, I GTSed her to Shinobi, got Covert, slapped an SMG on her and she was almost undetectable. I actually once got her completely passed the enemy patrols, all the way to a VIP cell and opened it without breaking concealment. And that was with the vanilla AI.

Hrm a lot of love for Shinobi, I really enjoyed Ranger in Vanilla and was upset that I can't basically have a Ranger with a sword again, I loved the versatility of having a long range fighter who could chain kill a dozen+ a-lines in the last mission when properly using Grenadiers.

But how about Shinobi officers? Anyone use them as officers?

Valaska wrote:Hrm a lot of love for Shinobi, I really enjoyed Ranger in Vanilla and was upset that I can't basically have a Ranger with a sword again, I loved the versatility of having a long range fighter who could chain kill a dozen+ a-lines in the last mission when properly using Grenadiers.

But how about Shinobi officers? Anyone use them as officers?

Several of our testers love Shinobi officers. Officers can (at higher ranks) get an ability that reduces infiltration time for the whole squad, or can choose instead one to reduce the evac timer. All officers can also use an ability (costing intel) to add extra turns to the mission timer.

On top of this, many of the officer abilities can be used without breaking concealment. Command, Focus Fire and Oscar Mike at the beginning all will retain concealment on use.

Amineri wrote:

Valaska wrote:Hrm a lot of love for Shinobi, I really enjoyed Ranger in Vanilla and was upset that I can't basically have a Ranger with a sword again, I loved the versatility of having a long range fighter who could chain kill a dozen+ a-lines in the last mission when properly using Grenadiers.

But how about Shinobi officers? Anyone use them as officers?

Several of our testers love Shinobi officers. Officers can (at higher ranks) get an ability that reduces infiltration time for the whole squad, or can choose instead one to reduce the evac timer. All officers can also use an ability (costing intel) to add extra turns to the mission timer.

On top of this, many of the officer abilities can be used without breaking concealment. Command, Focus Fire and Oscar Mike at the beginning all will retain concealment on use.

Cool beans, I am going to attempt to re-create my Vanilla Ranger officer. Sword and gun at the same time were absolutely tantamount to her whole character haha.

I think I can count with one hand the number of times I've fired a SMG in my current campaign. Mobility bonus & sword FTW!

redscare wrote:I think I can count with one hand the number of times I've fired a SMG in my current campaign. Mobility bonus & sword FTW!

I shoot mine reasonably often. Mostly on reaction shots, but I give them to a number of my troops, like offensive specialists who need to be adjacent to stabilize because no gremlin heals, etc.

redscare wrote:I think I can count with one hand the number of times I've fired a SMG in my current campaign. Mobility bonus & sword FTW!

Actually i think the SMG is probably the best secondary weapon in the game

Tower Liberation mission, yeah Shinobi actually seem pretty good after-all.. lol. Also, how amazing is the blacklight retribution helmet mod? Still waiting for Reaper though.

SMG = more speed and faster infiltration. For Shinobi, more speed = more damage when using their special sword magic. Honestly I think they get SMG just because all classes are required by game code to use some kind of gun. Rarely do I ever find myself using it for anything other than a place to stick a suppressor, however. It's all about this sword.

Amineri wrote:SMGs also impact the detection tile range of enemies. So units with SMGs can get generally a tile or so closer (depending on a few other factors) before detection. This is one of the reasons Shinobis get them by default.

Also, the mobility bonus is +3, which is fairly hefty.

This sums it up for me. Mobility bonus plus smaller detection radius. My shinobi is usually a full blue move in front of my squad scouting out the enemy patrols, or crossing the battlefield slashing people up. The SMG helps with both of these, toss a silencer on it mixed with shinobi perk and it's almost a free soldier on mission.

Valaska wrote:Hrm a lot of love for Shinobi, I really enjoyed Ranger in Vanilla and was upset that I can't basically have a Ranger with a sword again, I loved the versatility of having a long range fighter who could chain kill a dozen+ a-lines in the last mission when properly using Grenadiers.

But how about Shinobi officers? Anyone use them as officers?

On my fast mover squad absolutely. Gives them something to do if they're still phantom.

On my other squads... well i don't use shinobi on them