Don't get me wrong, if I could only pick one I'd take a grenadier end of story. But there will always be a place on my roster for stungun spec assaults no matter what. Being able to reliably shut down a specific enemy and ensure that they can do absolutely nothing is invaluable.
Yeah, but incendiary grenade......100% > 70% and it does quite a bit of damage too. You can't acknowledge incendiary grenade then pretend it doesn't exist to make it look like stun gun is the only thing "being able to reliably shut down a specific enemy and ensure they do absolutely nothing."
Anyhow, I probably will have 2 assaults in my back pocket in future campaigns: one for close encounters/streetsweeper for network towers (amazing), and one for stunning alien rulers (that's a pretty long stun and incendiary doesn't disable ruler abilities). Streetsweeper is effing bonkers. It usually does twice the damage of a shredstorm cannon, in a better aoe, though of course it can't blow up cover and in fact gets blocked by it.
Right now I have 6 assaults on my roster and they've been dragging their feet. Every time I brought a stun gun version I was like um, why not just...kill the target instead? Or bring proper incendiary/sting grenades?
They are possible. In fact on Legendary so far I've taken every supply raid offered to me with 10 people/minimum infil because I feel that's the easiest way to do them. The 8 man pods don't get 8 yellow alert moves, they get like 3. It's really annoying if the shieldbearer gets the move.
I tried it with save scumming and couldn't do it. The yellow alerts are devastating; I had a gunner suppress 6 men, and a viper tongue lash someone way out there, g_g. That being said, maybe I was pushing it at too low level tech, like it was a month 1 supply raid, and it was also a bit of luck as my opening area had no high ground and the mobs were so dense no matter how long I waited when I pulled the first group, 2 more immediately came.
Are you saying you find it easier to do supply raids with less people and more infil? What number and infil do you usually go for instead?
Also after I get the gts perk for it I'm perfectly fine with just letting some soldiers get critically wounded during supply raids and then stabilizing them. That may be what it takes it certainly isn't easy. Try your best to fight the pods that aren't clumped.
You will typically have to fight one wave after another, but you're just trying your best not to have to fight two at once, so it's important to hunt for an isolated pod and try not to use explosives and alert the other pods unless you have to. (At least do your best to ambush the first pod without loud weapons, but I hardly ever manage that anyway.)
Another thing is that you can choose a good location. Where if an enemy stumbles upon you their cover is bad. Also for pods of eight many of the enemies will be forced to take easily flanked positions (not a bug, there's just no good spots left, this happens to you too). So it's not quite so bad.
Last edited by Manifest on Tue Feb 07, 2017 8:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
trihero wrote:why not just kill the target instead
There's a mechanic in hearthstone called "discover". In some discover cards, basically you use up a card and pay a cost simply to choose another card from a random pool of three. Essentially you're paying extra for versatility, but it turns out it's a good trade.
After you lock down a target with sting grenades or something, you still need to kill them, and if you don't bring enough damage you'll need to lock them down again. You probably don't want to use one of your limited use grenades to do this, but an assault has killing power and limited lockdown. They can freely contribute to either role with little penalty, and their arc thrower practically costs nothing and has an insane cool down (and better range than a grenade of course). Of course the sting grenadier is better at their specialty, but the assault has its own damage specialty and can lock down targets safely and for free to boot if you need it.
Also this isn't too relevant but I've had an incendiary grenade wear off immediately. (They burned for one tick, stopped burning, and THEN their turn started) so just thought you should know it's not necessarily a guaranteed disable.
trihero wrote:Yeah, but incendiary grenade......100% > 70% and it does quite a bit of damage too. You can't acknowledge incendiary grenade then pretend it doesn't exist to make it look like stun gun is the only thing "being able to reliably shut down a specific enemy and ensure they do absolutely nothing."
Moving into a better-covered position and hunkering down is still not "absolutely nothing". I mean nothing, period, at all.
Don't get me wrong, incendiary grenades are good (they're how I shut down the first ADVENT General I met, kept him busy for a good 2-3 turns) but Stun is still superior from a complete-and-total-shutdown standpoint. If I want to ensure somebody is doing absolutely nothing at all, arc thrower will be my go-to choice.
Compare to the second time, where I used a Tech to blast everyone's cover into dust with a rocket, leaving half a dozen pissed-off-and-wounded ADVENT troopers standing around with the General in the open. I stungunned the General, and was then able to start mopping up the wounded before the other pods showed up. Two of those pods contained a berserker each; I was then able to stun the closer one (which had high ground) and gun down the other after flashbanging it.
trihero wrote:why not just kill the target instead
After you lock down a target with sting grenades or something, you still need to kill them, and if you don't bring enough damage you'll need to lock them down again.
Of course you do. You always need more firepower than just the Grenadier (or the Technical). Consider two scenarios for cracking a pod with a Grenadier:
1. Drop explosive grenade. Most hurt and armour shredded. Maybe some dead. All alive scatter into cover. Maybe more hits and kills with overwatch. If on yellow alert, some fire back, only affected by Red Fog. Some go on overwatch. Some continue to move.
2. Drop flashbang grenade. Goes farther. Covers more area. With Bluescreen Bombs and Sting Grenades, all are at least disoriented. Half the non-mechs are stunned and stay put. Mechs are primed to be hacked. The disoriented that scatter into cover trigger overwatch and get hit and some are killed. They can't use some skills. They can't go on overwatch or suppress. And if yellow alert won't have good shots back.
If Grenadier fired flashbang with Rapid Deployment, still has two actions. Move, another grenade, shoot, overwatch, whatever's best right now. Gunner starts firing area suppression on those in open, possibly over those in cover too. Or puts a Killzone on it. Specialist hacks a mech. High aim shooters hit those in cover. If scouted clear, some are flanked by Shinobis, Assaults, and Technicals. Everyone else with a shot takes it. At stunned targets in open. Which will still be in open on the next turn.
One final point: at higher difficulty and with Dark Events and as tougher troops come out in later months, explosive grenades won't kill as many right away, will leave them with more hit point, and may even be mostly stopped by armour. But flashbangs will still have the same effect, except with the rare stun/disorientation resistance troops. And the other troops with the Grenadier will bring more firepower to deal with the tougher enemy.
Last edited by Jacke on Tue Feb 07, 2017 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Moving into a better-covered position and hunkering down is still not "absolutely nothing". I mean nothing, period, at all.
You're still ignoring 100% > 70%, and the incendiary grenade does a TON of damage. Arc thrower does none, and not even guaranteed to "lock" the unit down.
Stun is not superior. Your argument boils down to your arc thrower is lucky and always seems to hit even though it says 70%, and you don't care about damage since moving and hunkering is apparently not worth the massive damage.
I wish people would stop ignoring 70%......it's not reliable, at all. Stop everybody saying it is reliable, please ; )
70% is not superior to 100%.
70% is not superior to 100%
70% is not superior to 100%
70% is not superior to 100%
There is no comparing apples to oranges here, it's 70 apples to 100 apples.
(and no, I'm not saying arc thrower needs a buff, I just don't understand the willful ignoring and calling 70% reliable)
I thought the key of the Arc Thrower was that if you get Electroshock you have a tool that can stop an overwatch or suppression and prevent the enemy from using some skills (but not the only or best tool to do so). And when you need to capture live aliens, you can if you're careful and lucky (and hopefully have the next two Arc Thrower skills, a high aim, and lots of support). Unfortunately have to pass up Lightning Reflexes (and Slug Shot) to get it.
trihero wrote:You're still ignoring 100% > 70%, and the incendiary grenade does a TON of damage. Arc thrower does none, and not even guaranteed to "lock" the unit down.
No, I get that. Incendiary grenades are great and fun and I use them pretty regularly. But the stun gun will continue to hold a place in my roster because it has proven to be an extremely effective tool over several engagements.
trihero wrote:Stun is not superior. Your argument boils down to your arc thrower is lucky and always seems to hit even though it says 70%, and you don't care about damage since moving and hunkering is apparently not worth the massive damage.
Again, I'm not saying I would take a stun gunner over a grenadier (I always give my grenadiers frag/plasma grenades, flashbangs, and either of incendiary/gas) given a hard choice between the two but that it's not the worst choice for a mission. Stun gun use has been a very effective complement to the team, same as grenadiers. Rocket Tech blasts away cover, Grenadier disorients the mass-mob (which was too spread out for damaging grenades), Assault disables the General or whoever needs to sit down and shut up, everyone else mops up.
It's another tool in the box that shouldn't be discarded simply because assaults are liable to pull pods if you run them as critflankers. That was my initial point. If you prefer taking grenadiers, that's fine. OP asked for suggestions, I offered one.
trihero wrote:I will grant that they're heavily dependent on the high-ground bonus, though, which brings up one question: is a map with literally no high ground at all actually possible? I'm pretty sure I've never come across one, but I'm quite willing to admit that that doesn't prove they don't exist. It does seem like they must be uncommon, though, given just how many of the terrain pieces do offer an elevated position.
Yes, it's possible. I had one on a heavily graveyard themed map, and I've had close enough to make no difference on a disabled UFO map(only high ground was a shed roof in the middle of the map, and the roof of the UFO itself, which would've required grapling hook to reach).
from full health which makes initiating with rockets/grenades highly effective on these incredibly dense 0% infil ambushes an raids.
You have to be careful on 0% missions; I'm not sure if they are possible on legendary. If you open with such explosives you pull two other 8 man pods into you from the sound of explosives. With all the yellow alert moves, you just get murdered.
I haven't tried legendary yet, but the key to successfuly pulling that off is probably smoke grenades, especially with dense smoke. They can't yellow alert murder you if they can't hit you. Put the tactical sense guys up front, smoke up, overwatch turtle. Even viper tongue grabs have a hit roll.
I would do them with something like:
1 Stealth scout(typically, but not necessarily a Shinobi).
1 Assault with arc thrower spec.
2 DFA sharpshooters.
2 Support grenadiers
2 Gunners
1 Medic/overwatch specialist
1 Overwatch ranger
Just to add one thing on the matter of the Flashbang and Arc Thrower discussion, remember the higher tier Arc Throwers stun for 3 and 4 AP, meaning another half a turn or a turn of stun, with a T3 thrower you can keep any single enemy permanently locked out and that is useful for incredibly powerful singular enemies like Muton Elites and ADVENT Generals. How that compares to having a hundred flashbangs I can't tell, I do know I tend to field both, however.
Something that the game doesn't really tell you and that you won't discover until you've played (and likely lost) a few campaigns is that you need to do as many supply raids as possible. If you don't, then you will both not counter some Advent strength increases and you will fall too far behind in resources.
The problem is that you often can't infiltrate these, so you need to "go loud" and take ten soldiers. Which can be a massive difficulty spike unless you savescum and / or take a lot of control abilities and items. And again, it's critically important that you do supply raids (especially the first one you get) or else you simply won't have the resources to start building your lasers and armor and the like.
Ambush missions are more forgiving but you don't get the alloys or elerium that you do from supply raids.
I don't understand why supply raids aren't just instant launch missions instead of missions that you can barely infiltrate, if at all. It'd make more sense if you could just take 8 soldiers or so and have the mission be +1 or +2 above the baseline enemy activity by default.
Enhas wrote:Something that the game doesn't really tell you and that you won't discover until you've played (and likely lost) a few campaigns is that you need to do as many supply raids as possible. If you don't, then you will both not counter some Advent strength increases and you will fall too far behind in resources.
The problem is that you often can't infiltrate these, so you need to "go loud" and take ten soldiers. Which can be a massive difficulty spike unless you savescum and / or take a lot of control abilities and items. And again, it's critically important that you do supply raids (especially the first one you get) or else you simply won't have the resources to start building your lasers and armor and the like.
Ambush missions are more forgiving but you don't get the alloys or elerium that you do from supply raids.
I don't understand why supply raids aren't just instant launch missions instead of missions that you can barely infiltrate, if at all. It'd make more sense if you could just take 8 soldiers or so and have the mission be +1 or +2 above the baseline enemy activity by default.
Well that might explain why I am doing so bad.
Maybe next game will be recruit, as lame as I feel doing that.
Also playing on Veteran in July -- completed vanilla commander ironman without too much trouble -- and getting my ass handed to me in these missions. I've had three missions this month, troop column, network tower, and a supply raid. I've lost 4-5 troops on every mission, but managed to complete the network tower, just. I rushed too much on network tower, had a civilian spot me coming off a building in troop column, got too greedy with my technical on the supply raid.
It felt like I was doing okay up to this point, like the game was in the balance. Mistakes have been punished much harder in these missions. I'm pretty sure I've put together crappy loadouts for these missions. I've also been used to putting soldiers in half-cover because enemies don't live long enough for it to be a problem, and that doesn't seem to cut it on these missions. Snakes' bind has been particularly deadly, having multiple soldiers die to that alone. It seems if you don't pay specific attention to snakes, then you're in trouble. I feel generally a bit unsure how to play when multiple enemies are left alive at the end of my turn. I think after having trouble with timers earlier on in the game, I now tend to rush too much, and now I need to dial it back.
Inemuri wrote:Also playing on Veteran in July -- completed vanilla commander ironman without too much trouble -- and getting my ass handed to me in these missions. I've had three missions this month, troop column, network tower, and a supply raid. I've lost 4-5 troops on every mission, but managed to complete the network tower, just. I rushed too much on network tower, had a civilian spot me coming off a building in troop column, got too greedy with my technical on the supply raid.
It felt like I was doing okay up to this point, like the game was in the balance. Mistakes have been punished much harder in these missions.
All XCOM games change their nature radically with difficulty level. Long War 2 is extra detail and difficulty layered on top. Less resources and tougher enemies make passable strategies and tactics that worked in easier games either fail or deliver Pyrrhic victories. It's why I decided to jump in the deep end carefully with Legendary--and not Ironman, still too much a chance of bugs and me making a mistake that just want to back up and fix now. There's also an argument that some details of how Long War 2 is current tuned are too often too difficult. It's just released and will likely be revised several times.
I think you're getting hit too much and suffering Pyrrhic victories. You can't afford to lose 4-5 troops each on 3 missions. That must have gutted your Squads. And the temporary loss of the wounded is on top of that. The first rule of XCOM Club is don't get hit. Strategy and tactics have to support that and deliver tactical victories and contribute to strategic victory. And learning how to do so in a long game like LW2 is punishing. You can get into no-win tactical and strategy situations. People may say "That's XCOM baby!" but that gets tiring.
There's a lot to know about XCOM to play it well. How to run your strategy, including research and resistance management. The threat provided by ADVENT and how that changes over time. How to train and equip your squads of soldiers and tactically employ them on the battlefield. I'm going to suggest you check on what works at the Legendary level as that will work on lesser difficulties.
I'd suggest reading more here on the forums and watching some Legendary YouTuber's video series and Twitch streams like JoINrbs and xwynns. JoINrbs recently finished a Legendary/Ironman campaign and posted a summary. Take note of their strategic and tactical play. Other good stuff is linked in the Long War 201 subforum.
Inemuri wrote:I feel generally a bit unsure how to play when multiple enemies are left alive at the end of my turn.
If multiple enemies are alive and are not debuffed, whether by fire, disorient, stun, panic, or whatever, you're in a bad place. Remember that you will always be outnumbered, so those control effects are absolutely vital for levelling the playing field.
Jacke's right though, you're losing way too many soldiers and this is surely gutting your squads, leading to a vicious cycle. Your soldiers aren't getting enough experience that they can reliably hit things when they do need to shoot, and that causes them to die when put into a tight spot.
Barely related, but I ended up starting a new game, but this time on easy mood because I suck.
Hopefully things get more interesting because right now it is too easy. I'm sure actually going into supply raids fully loaded might still be a challenge, and now I may have too many long ranged stationary snipers.
moroniccinamun wrote:Barely related, but I ended up starting a new game, but this time on easy mood because I suck.
Hopefully things get more interesting because right now it is too easy. I'm sure actually going into supply raids fully loaded might still be a challenge, and now I may have too many long ranged stationary snipers.
I've done exactly the same. Had a squad wipe on a VIP rescue mission, on top of the previous string of disasterous missions, so I've decided to start again on Rookie.
Jacke wrote:I'm going to suggest you check on what works at the Legendary level as that will work on lesser difficulties.
I play casually, and am not particularly concerned about being the best at the game, so I doubt I'll be doing anything like that. I do pick up bits and piece from here and YouTube, but I'm also mostly content to learn as I go.
Ok, I have some insights having beaten my first 0% 10 man supply raid on legendary (it was April when it hit, forgot exactly the date). I will admit straight up I did save scum, but I'm ok with it for learning purposes and only reloaded when I made a stupid pull or whatnot, I did not micro-save scum to hit every shot possible and dodge every shot possible. It's a first learning step to figure out what the general picture is and what stupid things to avoid. My end result was 4 wounded soldiers and none dead, if that holds any weight. I never reloaded when I took a hit, nor when I missed a "sure" hit.
TLDR: half the team is gunners constantly area suppressing, learn grazing fire. Gradual siege with high cover + suppression you will win the day as long as you don't pull more than 1 pod at a time.
- I did not bring a shinobi, and I did not bring a sharpshooter. When your tech level and items are low, the loss of firepower from a scouting shinobi is considerable, and you want to end each pod encounter before wounds accumulate. I also purposely did not bring a sharpshooter, although I do not think it would have hurt very much to bring one, I didn't see the necessity because no scout shinobi, and also because there is no guarantee of convenient high ground (it turns out when I loaded the map I guessed correctly, there was no high ground at all for my DFA sniper to take advantage of). Still an early sharpshooter might be fine especially with a stock and holo targeting to help you focus down things.
- The "build" I used was 5 gunners, 2 technicals, 1 ranger, 1 specialist, 1 grenadier. I do not consider this completely optimal but it worked out in the end. The ranger/grenadier felt out of place actually and were basically just overwatch sticks. The specialist is a medical specced one with the eventual idea of being the mule for medkits, field surgeon to reduce inevitable wound times, and being the leader to Command others (he wasn't an officer at the time, and only had the rank 1 gremlin heal skill for this supply raid). Technicals learn suppression, biggest booms.
- the core idea is to use gunners to suppress/area suppress the crud out of everything. It has no cooldown, so can be maintained indefinitely with reloads in between. My gunners were so low rank they didn't even have hail of bullets yet (they learned it after the raid), so it should be even easier with hail of bullets. I purposefully learned grazing fire on my gunners of which I only had 2 lance corporals at the time (contrary to the popular opinion of central mass), because you will do a lot of both overwatch firing + shooting through high cover. Grazing fire is effectively a *massive* aim increase at the cost of damage. A 25% shot behaves like a 75% with grazing fire, it's kinda like a permanent walk fire...but better. Of course, it does nothing for your dps if you hit straight up so that's the tradeoff.
Suppression/area suppression is bread and butter and essentially a fountain of limitless flashbangs. As long as you tuck your suppression guys behind high cover, they will essentially not get hit (-30 from suppression, -45 fro high cover, most aliens especially early on have 5% and usually lower aim after that). Keep everything locked down at all times so you rarely get grenaded/rocketed/licked whatever bs the enemy normally does that's irritating. Red fog generally works in your favor as you whittle down the alien hp, they have even less chance to hit you while suppressed.
It is extremely tedious as most of your team is suppressing things, and the others either overwatch if you think they are going to move, or lamely/slowly shooting through high cover, with it not being uncommon to miss four 25% shots in a row, as your tech isn't nearly high enough to blow up cover, and you don't want to get too close to flank for fear of pulling more mobs. You're trading shots with the aliens through high cover, except you have the advantage of an endless stream of suppression/area suppression. When I felt confident I had some of my troops move up to get flanking shots (at range mind you, not like run and gun flanking shots) while the gunners kept everything locked down.
- you must learn to pull slowly. It took me a while to figure it out but at swarming, the mission is extremely dense and right off the start there are usually three 8 man pods near your starting location and they will all pull if you open with a rocket or something (and they have huge detection radius at 0% infiltration). On rookie I didn't give a crud and was able to just knock them all down, but legend it's a little different what with yellow alerts and all
- the first move is to immediately retreat to a corner of the map. Do not stay where you spawn, it is bad because it is very likely to pull many pods at once in 1 or 2 turns. Don't literally pack your 10 men in the corner: make sure that everyone has some kind of cover. Observe the troop movements for a while. It shouldn't be the case that three pods wander into you while in the corner. One pod should wander close by, and that is the one you want to ambush. Do your best to find high cover for everyone - it makes a big big big difference in the long slog. At the least, put your most wounded men behind high cover.
- I try to have my ambush be a reactive one; i.e. a "beagle-rush" type where they wander into my overwatch trap. You might say why not just open up with a rocket, well you don't want to start off that loud, and your rockets should be saved for later. Your first ambush should be pretty efficient with the concealed overwatch, and the first pod doesn't get yellow alert moves on it either.
- you can use rockets when you think a pod needs to die right now; i.e. they are super clumped up and annoying mofos. But preferably don't rocket the first pod. You can somewhat safely rocket the 2nd/3rd pod because usually it doesn't pull any more pods as long as you stay in the corner where you did your first ambush. You should probably stay in that corner for the whole time unless you find a much better area with lots of high cover.
- I ran out of flashbangs and rockets by the 3rd pod, but then I really learned the beauty of suppression creeping which carried me through the remaining two 8 man pods.
- everyone carries a medkit, armor, and a flashbang. I used half (5) medkits throughout the slog.
- after you ambush your first pod, make sure you're all reloaded and probably pods 2 and 3 will follow shortly when patrolling and seeing the bodies or hearing your gunfire. You can use rockets if you want, especially if both show up at the same time.
- after the 2nd/3rd pods are done, you have some breathing room in your corner to sit and relax/reload/heal up, but then of course you have to go out to find the pods. With no scout shinobi, you have one "pink elephant" scout preferably not a gunner and not the specialist either (the specialist's Aid Protocol has literally limitless range and doesn't require sight, same with gremlin heal, so it's the ultimate support for your lonely guy who is drawing fire from 8 people). He should be very careful and creep up one blue move + hunker at a time, and even wait a couple turns after every hunker to get sound cues from where the enemy is. As soon as he activates a pod, hopefully at the edge of his vision and not because you ran deep into one, it's time for him to run like hell carefully back, with judicious help of aid protocol, back to your overwatch trap. I reloaded a lot because I scouted like crap and got my scouter needlessly killed. Life's hard when you're not a shinobi, but you can learn good practices to make it consistent and safe.
- your lifespan goes down considerably if you're behind low cover and you didn't suppress something, so minimize this situation as much as you can
- you might want to sit out the next supply raid if you are missing too many gunners. Your AWC might not be up yet this early in the game which makes those 30 day wounds a sore eye. My second supply raid came shortly after the first, and I'm not sure I want to tackle it. I think I will, but I have to replace 2 gunners with fresh ones from the GTS, and ranger and a technical got wound rekt as well... I don't have any extra technicals right now but hopefully I can scrape by without that rocket.
- I think the mission will be much less sloggy once hail of bullets comes online, since with many gunners you can just outright snipe a bunch of things on each pull and wait for the cooldown to massacre the next pod.
- the supply raids should get easier with better ranks of gunners and more options like scouting shinobi, sharpshooter, grenadier with good grenades, etc open up.
The point of this wall of text is to show you how to "get your foot in the door:" that you can do 0% infiltration on legend with a bunch of crappy rank 0/1 people without the need for high ground, and it should only get easier from there (unless you let them out tech you heavily).
I'm glad it worked out for you, but that sounds incredibly tedious and boring. I don't think Legend is for me. How long did it take for you to finish the mission?
trihero wrote:
- the core idea is to use gunners to suppress/area suppress the crud out of everything. It has no cooldown, so can be maintained indefinitely with reloads in between. My gunners were so low rank they didn't even have hail of bullets yet (they learned it after the raid), so it should be even easier with hail of bullets. I purposefully learned grazing fire on my gunners of which I only had 2 lance corporals at the time (contrary to the popular opinion of central mass), because you will do a lot of both overwatch firing + shooting through high cover. Grazing fire is effectively a *massive* aim increase at the cost of damage. A 25% shot behaves like a 75% with grazing fire, it's kinda like a permanent walk fire...but better. Of course, it does nothing for your dps if you hit straight up so that's the tradeoff.
A 25% shot is still a 25% for a full hit and you still have the basic 10% graze band (unless you changed the number in options). This means you only have a 65% chance to miss . 50% of 65% is 32.5%. So you have a 25% hit chance and a 42.5% graze chance. Of course, the more accurate you are, the less useful it becomes. In the mid-game, you might have 50% chance to hit through heavy cover, so now your benefit is only 20% more grazes. I'm not sure there is a better skill for suppression grinding though. Semi-reliable grazing is better than not hitting at all.
trihero wrote:
- the first move is to immediately retreat to a corner of the map. Do not stay where you spawn, it is bad because it is very likely to pull many pods at once in 1 or 2 turns. Don't literally pack your 10 men in the corner: make sure that everyone has some kind of cover. Observe the troop movements for a while. It shouldn't be the case that three pods wander into you while in the corner. One pod should wander close by, and that is the one you want to ambush. Do your best to find high cover for everyone - it makes a big big big difference in the long slog. At the least, put your most wounded men behind high cover..
I've found that the game loves to put you at one end of the convoy and usually on the side with the least room. I try to rush to the wider side of the convoy using starting concealment and then search that side for good cover/elevations at either end of the convoy. It takes a long damn time to get setup, but once I have, I can be sure that the aliens are going to be walking into a deathtrap rather than the other way around
A 25% shot is still a 25% for a full hit and you still have the basic 10% graze band (unless you changed the number in options).
I change it to zero, forgot to mention I hate the graze band, so I suppose grazing fire is more valuable in this circumstance.
I'm not even sure what you mean if I kept the 10% graze band, because a 25% shot is a 15% for a full hit with a 20% for a graze, but whatever. I thought 10% is the half-width of the graze band unless I completely misunderstood how it works.
I've found that the game loves to put you at one end of the convoy and usually on the side with the least room. I try to rush to the wider side of the convoy using starting concealment and then search that side for good cover/elevations at either end of the convoy. It takes a long damn time to get setup, but once I have, I can be sure that the aliens are going to be walking into a deathtrap rather than the other way around
How do you accomplish this with the massive ayy detection radius/ o.O
A 25% shot is still a 25% for a full hit and you still have the basic 10% graze band (unless you changed the number in options).
I change it to zero, forgot to mention I hate the graze band, so I suppose grazing fire is more valuable in this circumstance.
I'm not even sure what you mean if I kept the 10% graze band, because a 25% shot is a 15% for a full hit with a 20% for a graze, but whatever. I thought 10% is the half-width of the graze band unless I completely misunderstood how it works.
IIRC that's how it works, yeah. Personally I dropped mine to +/- 5. It keeps the graze mechanic intact without being quite as ridiculous, especially against high-dodge targets - I mean, LW2 doesn't have vanilla's dodge mechanic which fulfilled a similar purpose - annoying as it was.
Plus it's pretty entertaining when your top sniper gets a 'graze' for 13 or 14 damage that outright kills the intended target anyway. Perks of using high-caliber weaponry, I guess?
Interesting breakdown of the raid though. Probably not something I'd try myself due to the time/risk and other requirements, but some good points to keep in mind all the same.
