Sapper/needle grenades, heat/tandem, combat engineer/full kit

[Elfich]

If you are going for then boom grenadier, several of the voices are straight forward (heavy, boosted, biggest, volatile). The other three choice shave some trade offs that I am not settled on yet.

Sapper/needle grenades: having the option to knock things down and blow cover away early is a good strength. Yes I destroys loot left and right. But from early surviabilty killing Aline's first and cleaning up second seems to take a priority. I will revisit needle grenades below because they have an issue with combat engineer.

Heat/tandem: more damage at the center or everyone takes more (lower) damage? That is a clumping question.

Combat engineer versus/full kit: if you want to knock walls down but keep the loot you go needle engineer.

If you want to have loads of endurance you go sapper/full kit. I expect as the campaign moves along, more. Missions will be heavy/swarming than not.

Side note: i am split on volatile/bombardier. I really like the extra area of effect paired with tandem warheads. I do miss the big robot grenade launcher from long war 1.

I'm looking for other people's opinions onthis subject and what they have found to be successful.

[Saracan]

No full level grenadiers on my playthrough yet, so no opinion on combat engineer vs full kit.

Sapper/Needle Grenades: I like needle grenades early on, because there are quite a few enemies you can blow up with a single grenade. Midgame Sapper is more useful for me, because I like to open up with a grenade, and most enemies have too many hitpoints do die outright, and blowing up their cover and then shooting them preserves the loot anyways.

HEAT vs Tandem Warheads: torn on this one. Extra shred could come in handy vs. tough enemies, but tandem works better with Sapper if you go for maximum cover destruction and have multiple enemes at the edge of the blast radius. I'll have to see which choice I regret more getting later into the game

[trihero]

Imo, sapper > needles - your grenades shouldn't be killing things on the initial explosion that often especially as the game progresses. That sapper though helps remove low cover 25% reduction and blows up cars pretty easy. You could make an argument for learning Needles for haven advisers since in those missions the advent doesn't seem to scale all that high up and they are often carrying loot. To me needles is a luxury that can't be afforded; offense/survivability come over loot.

I choose heat over tandem. Tandem is pretty tasty for some clumps, but those don't happen all THAT often except that first pull from concealment. You're going to want heat to get through that damn armor as the game progresses. The later tier grenades are more about their secondary effect than straight up damage anyhow.

Combat vs full kit is a super tough choice. Like super ridiculously hard. I would say just think about what kinds of situations you find yourself in: do you wish you had more cover removal ala vanilla? Then combat engineer brings you back to the glory day of alpha striking + shooting flanked targets. If your grenadier wants to have quite the array of exotic weaponry, then full kit is there for you...I mean damn son, 2 incendiaries, 2 acids, 2 gas, and 2 plasma grenades....forget hoarding, just bomb the crap out of everything. But also think about that full kit might tempt you into making a glassy grenadier without room for a vest. If you don't get all your utility slots with grenades, it doesn't feel that amazing.

Volatile makes more sense to me. Usually I have enough range, an SMG helps to sneak close for openers or just in general maneuvering, and range is fairly lenient especially once you get the advanced launcher. Can't really argue with a bigger area for those special bombs like incendiary/gas, or being able to clip 1 or 2 extra aliens with one bomb.

[Goumindong]

Sapper/needle grenades:

Heat/tandem:

Combat engineer versus/full kit:

The solution depends mainly on how many explosive focused grenadiers you're expecting to bring, and what you're expected to do with them. The fewer grenadiers you're bringing the more you want to move towards Sapper/Heat/and (counter intuitively) Combat engineer.

The reason for this is simple. If you have only one explosive focused grenadier then you want every grenade to be as effective as possible. Your wide assortment of other options means that the Grenadier doesn't need to use a grenade every round or maybe even every engagement. You clean up cover and armor on an initial strike, your offense buzzes down the units open, and then you lock down the remaining.

If you have a lot of grenadiers then you're going to expect to need damage from explosive grenades more than utility. You could clear cover on a small squad but then you've got a regular old grenadiers weapon to kill whatever is open. Now, not only might you be dumping multiple grenades in an encounter you might be dropping multiple grenades on a single target. You maybe need one heat grenadier. But everyone else is more concerned with doing full damage to the periphery. You might maybe consider a sapper... but if you're following up that grenade with another grenade who cares if the cover is still standing.

For me, i always attempt to get a large number of grenadiers so that i can swamp supply missions. This means that i want a large number of needle grenadiers. And that means that most of my grenadiers are Needle/Tandem/Full Kit.

[nightwyrm]

So I've been thinking, is Sapper redundant after you've taken Combat Engineer? If I take CE, is there any reason I shouldn't just retrain away my Sapper perk.

[xwynns]

So I've been thinking, is Sapper redundant after you've taken Combat Engineer? If I take CE, is there any reason I shouldn't just retrain away my Sapper perk.

It is not. Base environment damage is now 9, sapper adds 3 and Combat Engineer adds 8. Also factor in that LW2 adds a 20% spread to that (or maybe it was just + 0-20%). Vanilla alien grenades used to be 20 with no spread.

[LordYanaek]

I've been strongly disappointed by Sapper. Couldn't even blow up a cactus with my sapper grenadier. Needle grenades OTOH is quite handy in a squad doing materiel recovery missions, but not very useful in most extraction missions (you will destroy some loot from time to time).

About the Combat Engineer/Full kit discussion, if CE really allows you to blow up cover reliably (i'm not there yet), i'll take it over full kit every day (on an explosive specced grenadier) and provide additional grenades with Airdrop from a specialist

[Devon_v]

I take Sapper every time because you don't get to take home the bodies most of the time anyway, and you get to plan ahead for those missions that do allow it. Cover destruction is still the best move next to auto-hits.

Tandem seems better to me because pod sizes just keep going up, and so does the potential damage gain. You want to focus fire on hard targets, it not really a job for grenades anyway.

Full Kit and Combat Engineer are genuine choices. Grenades for days is great, and so is the enemy never having cover ever.

[JulianSkies]

I've been strongly disappointed by Sapper. Couldn't even blow up a cactus with my sapper grenadier. Needle grenades OTOH is quite handy in a squad doing materiel recovery missions, but not very useful in most extraction missions (you will destroy some loot from time to time).

About the Combat Engineer/Full kit discussion, if CE really allows you to blow up cover reliably (i'm not there yet), i'll take it over full kit every day (on an explosive specced grenadier) and provide additional grenades with Airdrop from a specialist

Amusing note, trees and cacti are the second most resilient cover of the game, the only thing harder are alien alloy heavy cover objects

[Jacke]

In my game I'd just gotten my first LCpl Grenadier and was mulling over the Sapper versus Needle Grenades decision yet again, as well as Grenadier skill choices to come. Lots of them are tough. And then I saw this topic.

Base environment damage is now 9, Sapper adds 3 and Combat Engineer adds 8. Also factor in that LW2 adds a 20% spread to that (or maybe it was just + 0-20%). Vanilla alien grenades used to be 20 with no spread.

Sapper shifts environmental damage up significantly, but no where near double the effect of the base grenade. Trees and cacti might still be safe until Combat Engineer, but I imagine little else is.

I'd still be tempted to pick Needle Grenades. Some weapon upgrade loot is already lost due to expiring before pickup, so it would help not to destroy those that can be grabbed. And for those missions allowing corpse recovery, it would be good to avoid losing any by having the Grenadier firing the explosive grenades. But trihero is right: taking out cover faster and blowing up more cars saves wounds and death. And it can be tough especially early on to take multiple Grenadiers on a mission to compensate.

What about other sources of cover destruction? Any idea about the environmental damage for Gunner's Demolition and Saturation Fire?

Has anyone gone completely without Sapper? What was that like throughout a campaign?

As for Heat versus Tandem, I'd go with Heat. It's shredding 1 additional armour and piercing 2 more. That's going to really matter with heavily armoured targets of which there are many mid to late game. Do DoT grenades actually have to cause damage to have a chance to apply the DoT? And what is the damage reduction of a non-Tandem grenade at the edge of its blast?

Combat Engineer versus Full Kit is tough. almost double environmental damage versus more grenades. And using Airdrop on a Specialist to make up for not taking Full Kit means the Specialist can't take Field Medic or Suppression, as well as requiring the Specialist to accompany the Grenadier.

In another topic, trihero talked about a right-side Grenadier for support. Rapid Deployment has a 3-turn cooldown, which makes it a special tool to free-fire an initial support grenade. What are the other special grenade skills like (Bluescreen Bombs, Sting Grenades, Dense Smoke, Ghost Grenade)? Did they seem worth it?

I was trying to avoid going with multiple builds for the Grenadier, but I may need to.

[Poobah]

Sapper seemed an obvious choice to me but so far I feel like it's a waste of time. My grenadiers still don't seem to be able to destroy cover worth a damn which leaves me feeling very disappointed with the perk. Definitely taking needle or rapid deployment if I ever get another grenadier, seriously considering adding a support type grenadier to some of my rosters.

[UraniumOverdose]

Support grenadiers are WAY better than frag grenadiers.

Rapid deployment allows you to simultaneously smoke and flash.
Blue screen lets you take mecs out of the picture and make them easier to hack.
Sting grenades have saved my ass so many times over.

I exclusively use support grenadiers over damagers now.

[nightwyrm]

In another topic, trihero talked about a right-side Grenadier for support. Rapid Deployment has a 3-turn cooldown, which makes it a special tool to free-fire an initial support grenade. What are the other special grenade skills like (Bluescreen Bombs, Sting Grenades, Dense Smoke, Ghost Grenade)? Did they seem worth it?

Sting grenades are awesome. 50% chance to stun means you cut down on an enemy pod's shots by half for a turn. One of my favourite soldiers to bring on missions where I'm expecting huge pods.

[trihero]

What are the other special grenade skills like (Bluescreen Bombs, Sting Grenades, Dense Smoke, Ghost Grenade)? Did they seem worth it?

Bluescreen bomb lets flash grenades disorient mechs, and also reduces mech hacking resistance by 25 points (it makes a pretty massive difference). Sting grenades gives flashbangs a 50% chance to stun units affected (codex is resistant to stun and is stunned for 1 turn less, i.e. zero turns so don't get surprised by that). Dense smoke is ANOTHER +20 defense on smoke grenades, it's pretty silly. Ghost grenade lets you conceal someone on your team. I like the "right side" grenadier.

Support grenadiers are WAY better than frag grenadiers.

I wouldn't go that far. Frag grenadiers actually kill things, and are amazing concealment openers. Sometimes I really wish I could just end the battle or get that punk out of cover, and flashbangs aren't going to do that. I will say that frag grenadiers take some more money investment into better nades as time goes on, but you get respectively better results (flashbangs don't have improvements, and smoke does have 1 improvement but it's nothing compared to buying 3-4 alien/fire grenades/bombs for your offensive nader).

What about other sources of cover destruction? Any idea about the environmental damage for Gunner's Demolition and Saturation Fire?

Gunner's demolition does more environmental damage the higher tier the weapon is. Initial tier can't wipe out cover worth a damn, and plasma tier kills most high cover in one shot. Sat Fire from my usage is real good for killing cover, but the 6 cooldown on it means it's more for like doing massive opening damage than killing the cover on one target.

A simple source of cover destruction if you're interested, are rockets from the E.X.O. suit. Or just the technical's basic rocket. You could try something like use technical's for rockets, and defensive grenadiers, if you don't feel like investing in grenades or trying the frag grenadier route. The rockets seem to have abundant cover destruction built into them right off the bat with no perks, it just reks high cover easily.

As for Heat versus Tandem, I'd go with Heat. It's shredding 1 additional armour and piercing 2 more. That's going to really matter with heavily armoured targets of which there are many mid to late game. Do DoT grenades actually have to cause damage to have a chance to apply the DoT? And what is the damage reduction of a non-Tandem grenade at the edge of its blast?

Even though I suggested Heat earlier in this thread, I'm actually waffling back towards Tandem. The frag grenadier's job isn't really to beat up armored targets that hard anyways, and I looked at the plasma grenades - even though the tooltip says it has the same shredding as regular frags, the stats on it has 2 shredding points. Tandem really really ups the aoe damage. DoT grenades do not have a chance to apply the dot (incendiary, gas), they ALWAYS apply the dot as long as they hit. The damage reduction for a non-tandem grenade at the edge, what it does it lower the minimum damage all the way to 1, while keeping the same max damage.

[nightwyrm]

Speaking of using grenades to open engagements and break concealment, I've had some success in using support grenades (sting grenades, frost bomb) for that task. Sting grenades leave half the pod stunned in the open and severely limits the rest's ability to scatter to cover. My favourite use of the frost grenade was during a Supply Raid where a pod of 8 (which included Archons, Mutons, Sneks, and Sectoids) very conveniently bunched themselves together in a 3x3 grid. Frost grenade and then two turns of hilarious turkey shoot.

[GavinRuneblade]

My favourite use of the frost grenade was during a Supply Raid where a pod of 8 (which included Archons, Mutons, Sneks, and Sectoids) very conveniently bunched themselves together in a 3x3 grid. Frost grenade and then two turns of hilarious turkey shoot.

Give that soldier the nickname "Marianas" ~.^


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_ ... ippine_Sea

[Jacke]

Bluescreen Bomb lets flash grenades disorient mechs, and also reduces mech hacking resistance by 25 points (it makes a pretty massive difference). Sting Grenades gives flashbangs a 50% chance to stun units affected (Codex is resistant to stun and is stunned for 1 turn less, i.e. zero turns so don't get surprised by that). Dense Smoke is ANOTHER +20 defense on smoke grenades, it's pretty silly. Ghost grenade lets you conceal someone on your team. I like the "right side" grenadier.

This and other comments about the utility of the special right-side skills has me thinking I'll need to have at least 2 Grenadier builds.

I've heard that there are some source of stun that are for 4 actions, so that should affect Codices for 2. Can't remember what though. Are they affected by disorient?

Gunner's Demolition does more environmental damage the higher tier the weapon is. Initial tier can't wipe out cover worth a damn, and plasma tier kills most high cover in one shot. Sat Fire from my usage is real good for killing cover, but the 6 cooldown on it means it's more for like doing massive opening damage than killing the cover on one target.

I really don't want to pass up Gunner's Iron Curtain as it's an AoE half-damage snare attack that'll just get better with improved weapons. By the time Demolition is worth it, there are many other sources of cover destruction available. Having some Grenadiers with Sapper and Combat Engineer will both damage and remove the cover at the same time.

Even though I suggested Heat earlier in this thread, I'm actually waffling back towards Tandem. The frag grenadier's job isn't really to beat up armored targets that hard anyways, and I looked at the plasma grenades - even though the tooltip says it has the same shredding as regular frags, the stats on it has 2 shredding points. Tandem really really ups the aoe damage. DoT grenades do not have a chance to apply the dot (incendiary, gas), they ALWAYS apply the dot as long as they hit. The damage reduction for a non-tandem grenade at the edge, what it does it lower the minimum damage all the way to 1, while keeping the same max damage.

I'm assuming DoT's aren't affected by armour. (Can't remember.)

From what you said about non-Tandem grenades, they will average about half their max damage at the edge of the blast zone. I think Heat might still be better, because I think when an attack shreds armour, it still loses damage to do that. Heat also pieces 2 armour. That's just enough to counter the average damage drop going from Tandem to Heat for standard grenades and almost for plasma grenades. And ambushing a pod with plasma Heat means the tough armoured targets--which wouldn't be killed--are now down 3 armour for the followup attacks instead of 2.

So I'm going to use at least 2 Grenadier builds. Maybe a third to substitute in Dense Smoke and Ghost Grenade.

Grenadier
Needle Grenades - Heavy Ordinance - Bluescreen Bombs - Sting Grenades - Biggest Booms - Volatile Mix - Full Kit

Grenadier Sapper
Sapper - Heavy Ordinance - Boosted Cores - HEAT Warheads - Biggest Booms - Volatile Mix - Combat Engineer

Grenadier Ghost
Needle Grenades - Heavy Ordinance - Bluescreen Bombs - Sting Grenades - Dense Smoke - Ghost Grenade - Full Kit

Going primarily with Needle Grenadiers to get more loot and use Bluescreen and Sting to Flashbang ambush from concealment. Biggest Booms to add crit considering the large number of AWC crit chance and damage skills there are (like on my new LCpl Grenadier). Volatile Mix to expand the zone for all grenades to hit more enemy. Grenadier Sappers pure leftside build to max cover and armour destruction, making each grenade as destructive as possible. And maybe Grenadier Ghost for those Grenadiers without the AWC crit skills and if I really need better Smoke and freely selected Conceal.

[cmdrspyker92]

Sapper takes the cake imo.
Needle grenades, especially on the higher difficulties where 1 grenade will rarely kill enemies anyway, is just a luxury perk.

It could be useful with haven advisors, as those missions are significantly easier and are more about just blowing up 1 of the pods before the other can respond. Or in squads were the all the cover destruction comes from technicals / gunners. But I would argue that those strategies are suboptimal, especially early on when infiltration times are such a bother and its more about bodies you can send then what their primary is.

Needle grenades probably need some stat points to help even up the par vs Sapper.

[LordYanaek]

Sapper takes the cake imo.
Needle grenades, especially on the higher difficulties where 1 grenade will rarely kill enemies anyway, is just a luxury perk.

Can't really talk about the higher difficulties, i'm playing on veteran, but my needle grenadier rarely outright kills non-wounded enemies. What she often does is finish the job of the tech after he have thrown the opening rocket or sprayed some aliens with his flamethrower. Finishing several enemies, especially hard to hit ones, without worrying about loosing corpses is also useful.

The sapper grenadier that goes with that squad when i can field the whole 10 men barely blows more cover than her and i'm considering respecing him totally as a support grenadier. The 2 gunners are much more reliable for cover destruction ("Sledgehammer" is an extremely subtle squad as you can see )

[nightwyrm]

My grenadier with Sapper and Plasma Grenades still has trouble blowing up normal walls. It's pretty frustrating at times.

Obviously, Sapper grenadier and Needle grenadier fulfill different roles. Sappers are debuffers who attacks first to remove cover while Needlers are finishers who you can rely on to kill off someone without praying to the RNG god.

[cmdrspyker92]

My grenadier with Sapper and Plasma Grenades still has trouble blowing up normal walls. It's pretty frustrating at times.

Obviously, Sapper grenadier and Needle grenadier fulfill different roles. Sappers are debuffers who attacks first to remove cover while Needlers are finishers who you can rely on to kill off someone without praying to the RNG god.

I personally don't like the concept you need BOTH sapper and Combat Engineer to consistently blow up cover. I understand why it's a thing, just I don't like it.

[nightwyrm]

My grenadier with Sapper and Plasma Grenades still has trouble blowing up normal walls. It's pretty frustrating at times.

Obviously, Sapper grenadier and Needle grenadier fulfill different roles. Sappers are debuffers who attacks first to remove cover while Needlers are finishers who you can rely on to kill off someone without praying to the RNG god.

I personally don't like the concept you need BOTH sapper and Combat Engineer to consistently blow up cover. I understand why it's a thing, just I don't like it.

Me neither. I hate having to take two perks that does essentially the same thing (one perk is better than the other of course, but still....).

[LordYanaek]

Yeah, maybe sapper is great once you have Combat engineer in addition to be able to blow every cover but one of them is your first perk and the other one your last one. I don't really want to have a dead perk until i reach master sergeant.

[cmdrspyker92]

Yeah, maybe sapper is great once you have Combat engineer in addition to be able to blow every cover but one of them is your first perk and the other one your last one. I don't really want to have a dead perk until i reach master sergeant.

With a few missions under my belt, I've been consistently going for Rapid Deployment on my Grenadiers. TBH. Access to long range flashbangs/smoke is consistently more valuable then questionable cover destruction. It seems the rest of my squad just has better luck with regular grenades and since theyre more spread out, there's less points for failure. The 1 turn cooldown is occasionally an issue, but not overly so.

I'll definitely respect 1 or 2 when they hit Master Sergeant though. But that's AFTER several months of play.

[Jacke]

With a few missions under my belt, I've been consistently going for Rapid Deployment on my Grenadiers. TBH. Access to long range flashbangs/smoke is consistently more valuable then questionable cover destruction. It seems the rest of my squad just has better luck with regular grenades and since theyre more spread out, there's less points for failure. The 1 turn cooldown is occasionally an issue, but not overly so.

When I was checking things for my post above, I test out Rapid Deployment on my just promoted LCpl Grenadier. In LW2 v1.1 it has a 3-turn cooldown. Decided to go with Needle Grenades.

But after getting a few missions done in my Legendary campaign, I'm starting to get a better feel for the various battles. A initial pod cracker is really needed and the Grenadier and Technical do it very well. Others with hand grenades can make due. The Grenadier with Sting Grenades dropping a Flashbang is very good, perhaps including Bluescreen Bombs, for their teammates to overwatch and get the runners as well as slaughter the ADVENT stunned in place.

But those Rescue VIP from ADVENT Vehicle missions, likely all the vehicle missions, those are a pain. Especially if you had to slip in a small team and even at Extremely Light they're really outnumbered. And all of the pods are hanging out near the truck.

Missions like those is what Rapid Deployment is for: to drop 2 Flashbangs or a Flashbang and a Smoke Grenade in quick succession. In my game, I'd did it with 2 soldiers throwing one of each. The Scientist only got hit once, still had 1hp, and all evacuated, so yay! Of course they just have to run across the map the whole game to stay under the timer limit.