Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

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moroniccinamun
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Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by moroniccinamun »

So yea, I need some help.

I am playing on Vet. I see people on here saying they don't even infiltrate, they just straight up run in with guns blazing.
I get to 200% infilitration with an intel boost and still have a hard time. I don't think I'm a bad player, maybe it's just that my squad comp and equipment sucks (I'm at a point where I am strongly considering starting a new game). Leveling target's cover with explosives only works to a point, because they are limited. Flanking with assaults/shinobis/etc. tend to just activated more enemies and make matters worse.

And that's all just Ambushes.

On the topic of Supply Raids, so far I've never had one with more than ~2 days infiltration. Is this a thing that's coded in, or am I just unlucky/need to put more into scanning?

I see one strategy a lot of people love is shinobi + sharps, allowing you to take your sweet time and rain hell from complete stealth. Unfortunately I am not even close to being able to field such a thing this game (All my sharps that aren't basically squadies are either snapshot or holo-target officers).

Am I just a total nub that needs to get good? Bring more rockets/sappers?
trihero
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by trihero »

Supply raids are hard to detect with a good timer, so just don't worry about it, it's luck.

Yes, don't bring assaults/sword shinobis if there are a ton of enemies. All you do is pull until you die.

You only need/want one sharpshooter + one scouting shinobi, and the sharpshooter doesn't have to be good. It could be a squaddie, or it could even be a snapshot sniper or holotarget guy. Well maybe snapshot guy is a waste of time for pulling from squad sight, but here's why it's ok: a) not all maps have high ground to take advantage of damned good ground b) the only purpose of the sharpshooter is to force pods from far away to walk into your overwatch trap. It's great if you can take out like a rocketeer or other squishy target from squadsight, but after that first shot connects on a far away pod your sniper will be hard pressed to hit them as they hide behind cover when they advance regardless what talents he has. Make sure your sharpshooter has a stock on his weapon, it makes a night and day difference between what he can do.

Do your best to open on a big pod with a rocket or grenade. Barring that, try to get them to walk into your stealthed men so you get the overwatch turn then it's your turn again immediately. Bring appropriate troops; gunners are quite excellent (I try to maintain 4 of them, even if all can't be put on same mission they are pretty useful for hail of bullets through high cover) for these kinds of missions. Area suppress can help out a lot especially since it doesn't have limited charges. Rangers give you volume of fire and get nutty overwatch capabilities as you level them up.

If you're failing ambushes/raids at 200%, I can almost certainly say you're just doing something completely wrong. Troop column ambushes are very easy at 200%, find/ambush the 8 pod then wait for the others to impale themselves on your overwatch, done. Supply raids are similar.

Recognize that your sharp + scouting shinobi offer very little firepower in the grand scheme of things, so the rest of your men gotta go big on offense/overwatch capabilities. I found that going 2 sharps is not recommended until you have good gear/ranks; in the early game they kinda suck for volume of fire/overwatching.

TLDR: Try gunners with hail of bullets, try 1 sharp of any type + 1 scout shinobi, try overwatch traps. Try to open big on the first huge pod. Should be easy at 200%. Make sure you use officer abilities like command to do things like lob 2 grenades with a single grenadier, or double dash into flamethrower, whatever works.
Skyfire
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by Skyfire »

trihero wrote:[T]he only purpose of the sharpshooter is to force pods from far away to walk into your overwatch trap. It's great if you can take out like a rocketeer or other squishy target from squadsight, but after that first shot connects on a far away pod your sniper will be hard pressed to hit them as they hide behind cover when they advance regardless what talents he has. Make sure your sharpshooter has a stock on his weapon, it makes a night and day difference between what he can do.
I'm only in mid-game on veteran, so I can't say if sharpshooters drop off in value late-game or on higher difficulties, but in my experience sniper-focus sharps on the high ground can virtually ignore cover. I regularly get 100% shots on enemies in low cover, and even high cover barely fazes them.

Pick a high-aim rookie, and a SSgt with mid-level weapon mods gets ~70 base, +18 from levels, +10 height, +10 Damn Good Ground, +10 Adv Scope, +20 Adv Stock for around +138% to hit. Since 1.1 Death From Above cancels all squadsight range penalties as well, so if you can get eyes on it, he can hit it. Between the stock, Deadshot, Aggression, and the weapon bonus he can get respectable crit rates as well; I see 40-50% crit on non-flanked targets regularly, and on at least one occasion I've seen 100% hit/100% crit on a flanked target.

Also, in my experience, enemies who don't actually have eyes on your squad can be a bit sloppy about choosing their cover. They almost always do take cover, yes, but they don't always manage to put said cover between them and the sniper. This one does depend on engaging at very long range - once they get at least member into sight of your troops they get smarter - but if you push your stealthed spotters more than just a blue-move or so ahead of your main force, you'll probably start seeing free flanking shots as the AI fumbles around to find you.

They certainly don't have the raw crowd-control abilities of some of the other classes (the occasional Serial rampage notwithstanding...), but give them room to work and they can be a very reliable source of damage.
trihero
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by trihero »

I'm only in mid-game on veteran, so I can't say if sharpshooters drop off in value late-game or on higher difficulties, but in my experience sniper-focus sharps on the high ground can virtually ignore cover. I regularly get 100% shots on enemies in low cover, and even high cover barely fazes them.
Perhaps you missed a couple points I made very clear -

1) not all maps give you high ground
2) early on, you don't have enough items/ranks to "ignore" cover

I have late game snipers and I can confirm they are beastly and can 100% through high cover, not to mention serial which is another beast on its own, but I'm offering advice towards early game supply raids/ambushes which the OP cannot deal with at 200% infiltration. He also clearly said he couldn't make mass sharpshooters work, so I demonstrated you only need 1 for the purpose of pulling stuff into your overwatch fire.
Manifest
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by Manifest »

moroniccinamun wrote:So yea, I need some help

Full infiltration is not necessarily good, well it is in a vacuum, but what did you have to give up to get that full infil? It's not always worth it to infil to 200 or even 100. From 0-100 enemy strength drops 12 levels, from 100-200 it only drops 3. You're probably better off taking one or two more guys and infiltrating to 100 or a little less (Probably not less than 92) on a combat mission. Its always about finding the best troop-to-infil ratio, not just about getting 200%.

On a super big mission with little time (like a supply raid) you could 200% infil if you bring like... one guy. And that guy will have to fight like 18 people. Okay, maybe you could bring 3 guys and get to 100% and then you'd still have to fight like 25 people. See the conclusion here?

If you can't get good infil you might as well take the maximum number of guys since you're going to be at around 0% infil anyways. You can take eight guys and get 15% or just take the full ten and get 7%, the difference starts getting smaller and the choice becomes clear. You might as well just take ten guys and fight ~43 enemies.

Also supply raids are like the harder version of ambushes, you don't necessarily "have" to do them, but you're encouraged to do ambushes even if you can't do supply raids.
Skyfire
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by Skyfire »

trihero wrote:snip
If that came across as confrontational, I apologize; it wasn't meant to be. Most of your advice is spot on, and I expect that the OP will find it very useful. I wasn't trying to present a full answer to the OP's problem - you've covered that nicely - just to expand on one point that I felt you skipped over too lightly.

The main reason I'm emphasizing this is that the OP said he can't make sharpshooter-heavy tactics work because he has no sniper-spec sharpshooters. If that's the case, he quite possibly doesn't know what a properly built sniper is capable of - which may be contributing to his problem, because no-time-limit, kill-em-all missions like these are exactly where snipers are most useful. Therefore, in addition to 'here's how to handle those missions with what you have', it seems worth spelling out what a good sniper build takes, and what you get out of it if you do put the effort in.

A high-aim-stat Corporal with a basic stock can potentially hit 86%/71% through low and high cover respectively, and Corp + one basic mod isn't exactly a major investment even for early game - it's not much harder to pull off than a Hail of Bullets gunner. He's not going to carry the battle for you, certainly, but "hard pressed to hit them [...] regardless what talents he has" is going too far.

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.
mudcrab69
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by mudcrab69 »

moroniccinamun wrote:Bring more rockets/sappers?
No. I mean having a second rocket is fine, as long as having second grenadier, but the hole point of ambush/raid missions is to get as much corpses and supplies as possible.

I have only done 1 raid and 1 ambush so far, and my experience is somewhat limited, but here is my approach on thees mission.

If you are early in the campaign - don't bring less then 8 man. If you are unable to do ambush due to low infiltration timer - do not do it. Your goal is to bring a 8 man squad on a LIGHT mission (and you can almost always get this level of activity with intel boosting).
Both times I was relying on 2 gunners + 2 snipers squads. Bear in mind that "snipers" absolutely MUST have a stock equipped (scopes are good too). If you bring assaults - DO NOT use them for flanking - it will get you killed. Depending on how you spec them - slugshot on attempt to do reliable damage, use arc-thrower to keep the most dangerous target disoriented, or you can try to eat enemies OW shots (and deplete their ammo) - just do not move towards the enemy.
My plan was to take cover, sit tight and wait until first pod patrols into range. Ideally you want to take the corner of the map if you have the good cover / elevation there, otherwise try to stick to the map's edge. Wait until enemy pod comes as close as possible, so they could be killed quickly.
I used my 2 gunners to suppress the hole group and 2 snipers taking care of most dangerous targets, while my other squad members shooting at the rest. Since typically there is not enough high cover for every alien, they tend to clump up - and this is where AoE suppression is godlike. If you have managed to wipe the first pod or have 1 alien remaining, you should set up an extraction zone right away. This way you will have a bail option in case things go bad. Do not set up extraction zone too early (f.e. if you killed only 1 alien out of 4), because this will make unrevealed pods move towards it.
After you have set up the EZ, you want to stay put, OW and wait for other pods to come to you.

On my supply raid 3 soldiers where lightly wounded and 1 heavy wounded, but stabilized. Ambush - 4 light wounds and a KIA, because disoriented sneks do not respect full cover bonus :mrgreen:
redscare
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by redscare »

Well, I think ALL maps have some high ground, but some of them have none near your starting point. Some raids I've had to move through the edge of the map all the way to the opposite side just to get my troops up a building. That's very hard to do if you went at 0% infil and there are a gazillion pods. Then again, you're not supposed to win every battle. If you get a really bad combo of infil time and map layout... I'd say to gtfo.

My guys are now between SSGT and TSGT. Cover is not a big issue anymore. If you're at extreme range, who cares if you miss, you have infinite turns. And if you're not at extreme range: Sapper, hail of bullets, demolition. Save demolition for trees, as trees are made of concrete reinforced with steel and sapper is not enough :lol:
moroniccinamun
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by moroniccinamun »

Well thanks guys! It will take some time to fully soak this in.

I should note I didn't fail the mission due to save scums. I tried it at ~100% infil at normal density, it was unwinable even with multiple restarts to try different placements and openings.

I reloaded before mission forces to start and used intel; it was either that or abondon completely, hence the 200%. I pulled through but lost a guy (our medic ironically) and suffered more wounds than I thought acceptable.

I guess my biggest mistake was I had no shinobi, no gunners, no technicals. I just didnt have them available for this mission and felt it was too good to just completely pass up.

That and strategic mistakes that mean I am probably really far behind, spread too thin with no liberated regions, only a couple of lasers and almost no armor while advanced +2 health formidable X-rays show up, etc. But that is a seperate topic I woukd say ;)
Poobah
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by Poobah »

mudcrab69 wrote:
moroniccinamun wrote:Bring more rockets/sappers?
No. I mean having a second rocket is fine, as long as having second grenadier, but the hole point of ambush/raid missions is to get as much corpses and supplies as possible.
Honestly I think it's always worth having at least a single needle grenadier in your roster just for these mission types to finish off several enemies after the initial ambush. That said it's also worth noting that later (or even earlier on higher difficulties from what I've seen on youtube) on it's rare for a single rocket or grenade to kill enemies from full health which makes initiating with rockets/grenades highly effective on these incredibly dense 0% infil ambushes an raids. The sheer amount of raw damage that a rocket hitting 10+ enemies does is insane and may not even cost you corpses, but just leave them very low for overwatch cleanup or whatever, but early on when you're just struggling to survive these missions killing with explosives is definitely worth it if it saves you a lot of wounds or just y'know, makes the mission possible.
trihero
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by trihero »

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.
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Arcalane
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by Arcalane »

trihero wrote:Yes, don't bring assaults/sword shinobis if there are a ton of enemies. All you do is pull until you die.
I'll contest the assaults part, but only because I spec 99% of mine into the arc thrower rather than shotgun flankers. The ability to pick one guy out of a crowd and just say "sit down and shut up, the adults are talking" is incredible. My lead Assault often gets kinda beat up, but he also saves the team a lot of hurt by shutting down critical opponents long enough for the team to focus them down or clean up the trash.

In my most recent HQ Assault, he was able to stun a Berzerker, a Muton Elite, and the ADVENT General, making what would have been a clusterfuck into a far more manageable affair. And to give you an idea of how much of a mess it was, here's the corpse list: http://i.imgur.com/l9vd7qq.jpg

As for advice for OP, on the lower end-- pack flashbangs on your grenadiers. The radius is absurd and with the right perks you can cripple enemy mobility/aim and even hack defense on MEC units, plus disorient by ltself shuts down most powers - ongoing or otherwise. Sectoids pulling up zombies and controlling your dudes, and you can't reliably destroy their cover/hit them? Flashbang!

At slightly higher tiers, gas grenades also make fantastic openers - they have pretty a decent radius compared to incendiaries. The real points of them, though, is that the Poisoned status massively reduces unit mobility, increasing the chances of the ambushed pods moving into bad positions. The damage over time effect is small (but ignores armour) and can also chip down or finish off opponents. Because the damage is so low, you also have a much lower risk of destroying corpses and loot.

Basically when you're badly outnumbered and/or outgunned, control effects (stuns, disorients, etc.) are your friend.
trihero
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by trihero »

I'll contest the assaults part, but only because I spec 99% of mine into the arc thrower rather than shotgun flankers. The ability to pick one guy out of a crowd and just say "sit down and shut up, the adults are talking" is incredible. My lead Assault often gets kinda beat up, but he also saves the team a lot of hurt by shutting down critical opponents long enough for the team to focus them down or clean up the trash.
But what about bringing a support grenadier instead of stun assault? Flashbang = aoe arcthrower....hmm! It's an AoE sit down shut up tool. What am I missing here? Limited ammo is not really a consideration considering how many flashbangs a support grenadier can bring.
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Arcalane
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by Arcalane »

trihero wrote:
I'll contest the assaults part, but only because I spec 99% of mine into the arc thrower rather than shotgun flankers. The ability to pick one guy out of a crowd and just say "sit down and shut up, the adults are talking" is incredible. My lead Assault often gets kinda beat up, but he also saves the team a lot of hurt by shutting down critical opponents long enough for the team to focus them down or clean up the trash.
But what about bringing a support grenadier instead of stun assault? Flashbang = aoe arcthrower....hmm! It's an AoE sit down shut up tool. What am I missing here? Limited ammo is not really a consideration considering how many flashbangs a support grenadier can bring.
Disorient is good, yes, but when I say sit down and shut up, I mean Stun. Complete disable. No movement, no shooting, no actions period. The only things immune to Stun are things that are also immune to Disorient, and even then only by virtue of maybe having Solace.

I mostly use it for HVTs. I'll take my chances on six lower-tier troopers shooting at me relatively unopposed vs a Muton Elite or the ADVENT General getting shots off. The latter two are much better shots and can do a lot more damage to armoured targets. More often I'll flashbang the large group and disable the most critical target.

Arc Throwers can also do a lot of armour-ignoring damage to mechanical units on top of stunning them.

The two complement each other quite nicely, to be honest. Now, if enemies could resist control effects even some of the time, then I think things would lean far more in favour of the flashbanger approach -- but simply being able to pick a specific target out and ensure that they cannot do anything no matter what? Stungunners will always have a special place in my roster.

Nevermind my ace assault just got Chain Lightning, so now he can do both at once. ;)
Jacke
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by Jacke »

Arcalane wrote:
trihero wrote:But what about bringing a support grenadier instead of stun assault? Flashbang = aoe arcthrower....hmm! It's an AoE sit down shut up tool. What am I missing here? Limited ammo is not really a consideration considering how many flashbangs a support grenadier can bring.
Disorient is good, yes, but when I say sit down and shut up, I mean Stun. Complete disable. No movement, no shooting, no actions period. The only things immune to Stun are things that are also immune to Disorient, and even then only by virtue of maybe having Solace.
A Support Grenadier is completely right-side build. Rapid Deployment, Protector, Bluescreen Bombs, Sting Grenades, Dense Smoke, Ghost Grenade, Full Kit. Flashbangs stun half the targets, disorients the rest, and make the mechanicals easier to hack. And with Rapid Deployment can drop a 2nd flashbang or a smoke grenade in the same turn.
moroniccinamun
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by moroniccinamun »

I have recently been seeing the power of support GLs and Stun gunners, but then what?

I stun/flash/etc., but then I need a way to kill them. Wouldn't that involve explosives to pop cover? Or just have sharps/rangers stack aim boosts and hope for best?
Jacke
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by Jacke »

moroniccinamun wrote:I have recently been seeing the power of support GLs and Stun gunners, but then what?

I stun/flash/etc., but then I need a way to kill them. Wouldn't that involve explosives to pop cover? Or just have sharps/rangers stack aim boosts and hope for best?
This is usually a pod cracking attack from concealment. The Support Grenadier can drop that flashbang with Rapid Deployment, which makes the flashbang not cost any actions. Mixed build Grenadier with Bluescreen Bombs and Sting Grenades just use an action. Overwatches are set up and then drop the flashbang.

The stunned enemy don't move. The disoriented ones will run and trigger overwatch shots. Same turn follow up with rockets, grenades (including from the Support Grenadier), and gun fire to take out the stunned ones before they recover. And next turn, drop another flashbang on the group to hold half of what's left if it's worth it. A Corporal Support Grenadier can have 4 support grenades and still have a spare utility slot.

When not in concealment, it gets trickier. Grenades and rockets aren't bothered by cover, but the gun fire will be less effective. But skill-boosted flashbangs fire by grenadiers cover a lot of ground. As you suggested, use the other standard tactical tools to neutralize and defeat the weakened enemy.
trihero
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by trihero »

Disorient is good, yes, but when I say sit down and shut up, I mean Stun. Complete disable. No movement, no shooting, no actions period. The only things immune to Stun are things that are also immune to Disorient, and even then only by virtue of maybe having Solace.
I still need further explanation; if you are literally stunning (not disorienting) the enemy with the arcthrower either you got lucky shooting through high cover, or you are shooting at a flanked unit. If you got lucky shooting through high cover well uh, nothing special going on here I coulda got a lucky sniper shot or something else through high cover as well. If you are shooting at a flanked unit, why not just...kill it with someone who has a strong attack instead of stunning it. Meanwhile my flashbang grenadier is stunning/disorienting multiple units even when they're behind high cover.

I don't get what the benefit of a midrange stun assault is. Flashbang grenadier takes a massive dump on the arcthrower if you're looking to lock down units, and I still don't see the reasoning otherwise. Heck, even a frag grenadier takes a dump on the arcthrower because incendiary grenades act effectively as stuns as well.

(chain lightning is great though, no argument there, except it competes with streetsweeper which is really sweet and finally makes up for assault's lack of aoe)

If you're just carrying an assault along to have one for the end game alien rulers/gatekeepers I guess the stun gun makes more sense than pulling extra enemies with run and gun, but I totally don't get the benefits of one over someone dedicated to locking down units.
GavinRuneblade
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by GavinRuneblade »

trihero wrote:
I still need further explanation; if you are literally stunning (not disorienting) the enemy with the arcthrower either you got lucky shooting through high cover, or you are shooting at a flanked unit. If you got lucky shooting through high cover well uh, nothing special going on here I coulda got a lucky sniper shot or something else through high cover as well. If you are shooting at a flanked unit, why not just...kill it with someone who has a strong attack instead of stunning it. Meanwhile my flashbang grenadier is stunning/disorienting multiple units even when they're behind high cover.

I don't get what the benefit of a midrange stun assault is. Flashbang grenadier takes a massive dump on the arcthrower if you're looking to lock down units, and I still don't see the reasoning otherwise. Heck, even a frag grenadier takes a dump on the arcthrower because incendiary grenades act effectively as stuns as well.
The arc thrower has a decent accuracy bonus. Many times I'm looking at a ~40-55 to hit with a laser gun or a ~65-70 with the arc thrower. Against shotguns it's even better because shotties have nasty range penalties.

But incendiary grenades are autohit, so I'd guess that is better still. Unless they only have a chance to burn like the flamethrower? Because arc thrower is stun or disorient, never miss. Failing to burn means the alien is uncontrolled.
trihero
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by trihero »

The arc thrower has a decent accuracy bonus. Many times I'm looking at a ~40-55 to hit with a laser gun or a ~65-70 with the arc thrower.
So your assault's role is to maybe 70% have a shot to maybe stun one unit (and disorient if that doesn't go through).

I'll pass - grenadier's sting grenade gives me a massive area of effect, guaranteed baseline disorient like the arc thrower but on many many units, with a half chance of stunning any of those units.

edit: incendiary never fail to burn (unless of course the target is immune like robots)
Manifest
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by Manifest »

trihero wrote:
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.
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.
trihero
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by trihero »

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.
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Arcalane
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by Arcalane »

trihero wrote:
The arc thrower has a decent accuracy bonus. Many times I'm looking at a ~40-55 to hit with a laser gun or a ~65-70 with the arc thrower.
So your assault's role is to maybe 70% have a shot to maybe stun one unit (and disorient if that doesn't go through).
Here's the thing- that "maybe 70%" ace assault either has the dumbest luck or is straight up cheating. Now that he's past being a complete noob and has the stungunner perk (+20% aim at CV, +25% at MG, +30% at BM), I haven't seen him miss a shot, and I'm normally very cautious with my shot percentages. It's also not a "maybe" stun-- I've not seen anything only get disoriented by a direct hit.

Arc Thrower doesn't seem to give a shit about distance, either. I haven't ever seen range penalty be a thing for it -- there doesn't even seem to be a range value defined in the files at all. Guess it runs off LOS and that's that. So it's extremely accurate compared to your primary a lot of the time.

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.

To be entirely honest if the arc thrower was any more powerful/effective, it would probably be too good at what it does.
Last edited by Arcalane on Tue Feb 07, 2017 11:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
GavinRuneblade
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Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by GavinRuneblade »

trihero wrote: So your assault's role is to maybe 70% have a shot to maybe stun one unit (and disorient if that doesn't go through).

I'll pass - grenadier's sting grenade gives me a massive area of effect, guaranteed baseline disorient like the arc thrower but on many many units, with a half chance of stunning any of those units.

edit: incendiary never fail to burn (unless of course the target is immune like robots)
good to know on incendiary, I haven't used them much. Also never used sting grenades, been looking forward to the opportunity.

And no the role is to remove one target per turn reliably. Mostly by killing them, but alternatively by controlling.
azarga
Posts: 25
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2017 5:18 pm

Re: Ambushes and Supply Raids kicking my a**

Post by azarga »

For missions where around 50 enemies are expected I prefer to bring 3 hair trigger Gunners to area suppress the living hell out of Advent, plus 1 support+sting 'nade Grenadier fully stocked on Flashbangs in case something goes wrong, plus 2 rangers with best aim and best ARs I currently have, plus 1-2 Specialist in case disoriented Mutons start oneshotting my guys in full cover across the map.

Veteran.
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