(LW1.3)Sawed-off-focused Ranger is awesome 1.1!

[bingo12345]

First perk
Close and Personal
Confers +30 critical chance against adjacent targets. The bonus declines with distance from the targe

Ever Vigilant
If you spend all of your actions on moves, you are granted an automatic overwatch shot at the end of the turn.

both perks are fine

Second perk
Pump Action
Gain two extra ammo in your sawed-off shotgun

this topic is for this perk.

Third perk
Aggression
Gain +5 critical chance for each enemy you can see, up to a maximum of 30.

Center Mass
You do one additional point of base damage when using guns.

both perks are fine

Fourth perk
Fortify
Activate to grant +20 defense until the beginning of the next turn. Does not cost an action. Has a 5-turn cooldown.

you have to use this perk while specialist's Aid Protocol(20~30 defense increase) is on cooldown

5th perk
Implacable
If you score one or more kills on your turn, you are granted a single bonus move.

very good with sawed-off focused ranger

6th perk
Tactical Sense
Gain 3 defense for each enemy you can see, up to a maximum of 15 defense.

Final perk
Combat Fitness
Gain 4 aim, 1 mobility, 2 HP, 4 will, and 4 dodge.


Team back-up
Gunner suppression
Essential. he can negate overwatch and ability, and he can put -25 aim debuff. if enemy run away. he will fire reation-shot

Specialist Aid protocol
Essential. sawed-off ranger is basically exploiter of close range aim bonus, but enemy can shoot him at close-range as well. if ranger is likely to be hit. use it.

Officer Command
use sad-off and use Command to bring him to safe place or make him use hunker down. ranger can dash to point blank and you can use command to make him shoot sawed-off. sawed-off ranger is nothing without this command skill.

Shinobi Concealment
Scouting is essential to avoid additional enemy activation.

Psionic Stasis Shield, Mind merge.
you can just shoot the sawed off in point-blank and use stasis shield . mind merge was buffed hugely in 1.3, it gives temp hp, will, crit and no longer ends your turn(use one action point).

instruction
Scout ahead with your shinobi and clarify whether more enemies are at back of current actived pod or not. when you don't have possibility of activation. move your sawed-off ranger and kill, or you can just dash to point blank because you can use Light 'em up with 30~60 close aim bonus in next turn. use your command to hunker down or give him a safe place back. sawed-off ranger is basically exploiter of close range aim bonus(30~60. quite huge), but enemy can shoot him at close-range as well. if ranger is likely to be hit, use Aid protocol. this ranger may has Aggression, Tactical sense and Close and Personal. this means sawed-off focused ranger is much more strong if he is frontline. Supression is always your friend. suppression from team will help sawed-off ranger a lot. you can just shoot the sawed off in point-blank and use stasis shield for saving ranger. mind merge was buffed hugely in 1.3, it gives temp hp, will, crit and no longer ends your turn(use one action point). if it's non-timer-reinforce mission, don't use this ranger. this ranger is good for speed-run mission.


equipment
SMG
sawed-off focused setting. it is especially good if you have Implacable.

Shotgun
it is weak when additional enemy activation possibility is there. without activation possibility, it is strongest when you dive(60 point-blank aim bonus).

Assault rifle
Recommended. good for mid-range fight and dive as well(30 close aim bonus).

Armor equipment.
use vest and plating at the same time. he uses close range aim bonus, but enemy do as well. he is tank if you use sawed-off based perk.

Armor
Rage series is the best armor for him cause it has slam(uses no AP).

[bingo12345]

Rage suit slam is one of best combination.

[chrisb]

I think this type of build can be really strong for short missions with < 12 enemies. Having 2+ guaranteed kills is a really great tool to have, especially since it can work well with high HP enemies like Sectoids and Mutons in the early game.

I think it really falls off in usefulness once you go beyond 12 enemies though. You'd be much better off with a soldier that can actually do something for more than two turns, since your likely to need to them to kill 5+ enemies, and the sawed off just can't do that.

[bingo12345]

The team should deal with rocket and heavy explosive if many enemies are there and stay together densely. This ranger build is basically hybrid. He has light 'em up. Still not bad at mid range.

[Dwarfling]

I think you missed one of the most important requirements for this Ranger: It needs to have high mobility.

[crimsonsun]

I get why you've gone down this path and I can see the appeal but Assault does this stuff so much better. First up you've got Run and Gun so you don't need command, you can then stack close and Personal + Aggression, but you've got Close Combat Specialist, Close Encounters, Bring Them on, fortify and Formidable. You can also get Lone wolf and Shredder via the AWC and just unleash carnage. Put a Hair Trigger, Expanded Mag and Laser Sight on that gun along with combat Awareness and you've got a one man/woman killing machine. I give mine either Rage Armour, Warden Armour or a Warsuit depending on my tech and what available, the best plating I have and then Ammo of some kind, Talon rounds by preference but depends on what's going.

As long as your Shotgun is within one level of the current tech there's very little that can take 3 shots to the face with +90% or above crit chance. With how the skills work you want to go after the toughest most bad ass target first park next to it and mess it up with your action, then your free action and if its still not dead if it tries to act then close combat specialist kicks in and you shoot it again.

[bingo12345]

I get why you've gone down this path and I can see the appeal but Assault does this stuff so much better. First up you've got Run and Gun so you don't need command, you can then stack close and Personal + Aggression, but you've got Close Combat Specialist, Close Encounters, Bring Them on, fortify and Formidable. You can also get Lone wolf and Shredder via the AWC and just unleash carnage. Put a Hair Trigger, Expanded Mag and Laser Sight on that gun along with combat Awareness and you've got a one man/woman killing machine. I give mine either Rage Armour, Warden Armour or a Warsuit depending on my tech and what available, the best plating I have and then Ammo of some kind, Talon rounds by preference but depends on what's going.

As long as your Shotgun is within one level of the current tech there's very little that can take 3 shots to the face with +90% or above crit chance. With how the skills work you want to go after the toughest most bad ass target first park next to it and mess it up with your action, then your free action and if its still not dead if it tries to act then close combat specialist kicks in and you shoot it again.

"Awesome" meant its play style was badass. it's not major tree for ranger. it's for fun definitely. both-barral with Mag Shorty(next tier sawed-off, very cheap) inflicts 18~30 damage at a single shot. this tree is for the real man.

Actually my mission is with a bunch of flankers including support psionic, specialist, gunner, assault, sawed-off ranger(for fun), snap-shot shooter, blade shinobi and explosive master for two or more pod activation.

[MacroNova]

Completely agree that this build is hella-fun and very effective on Guerrilla Op missions or even light troop columns.

Really you should be doing this with any Ranger that has terrible aim and decent mobility. Give them an SMG and keep it up to date, and they will generally perform very well.

[Dwarfling]

Completely agree that this build is hella-fun and very effective on Guerrilla Op missions or even light troop columns.

Really you should be doing this with any Ranger that has terrible aim and decent mobility. Give them an SMG and keep it up to date, and they will generally perform very well.

Speaking of the devil, current Mr. BOTH.BARRRRELS in Xwynns' campaign shows up. I do cheer for your character everytime I see him.

[rakoon79]

Completely agree that this build is hella-fun and very effective on Guerrilla Op missions or even light troop columns.

Really you should be doing this with any Ranger that has terrible aim and decent mobility. Give them an SMG and keep it up to date, and they will generally perform very well.

Speaking of the devil, current Mr. BOTH.BARRRRELS in Xwynns' campaign shows up. I do cheer for your character everytime I see him.

I especially love how Xwynns' voice gets all so theatrical every time he shouts "POINT BLANK."

Best of luck, Macro-Barrel-Nova

[MacroNova]

Haha, thanks guys.

It's funny because he was so skeptical that I would like that my character had that spec, but I already had a low aim, high mobility sawed off ranger in my 1.2 campaign and she was kicking untold amounts of ass. No complaints here!

[Dwarfling]

I got a 17 mobility 57ish aim Sawed-off ranger running around executing people left and right. We'll see how the build holds after I'm done with the early game, but so far it's very useful on Ex Light missions where he can handle both the Drones and the high health aliens like Mutons and Captains.