[General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

nightwyrm
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by nightwyrm »

Mooncabbage wrote: I can see that a snapshot marksman might be beneficial if their movement was sufficiently high. Usually I train fairly average or low movement guys with high aim as sharpshooters, which might be part of my problem. I think it's ridiculously punishing to have the snapshot perk apply even when you haven't moved yet though. As I have said before, given a pistol and a few AWC pistol perks, it's just a better proposition if you want a moving shooting marskman. Pistols (especially cheap higher tier ones) do fairly decent damage too.
Well yeah, you don't want a Snapshooter with 13 mob. My current one had base 15 and Sprinter from AWC, and then I gave her a +2 Speed PCS and Spider armor. She moves fast enough to keep up with my SMG-toting Shinobi and Specialists.
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NoDebate
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by NoDebate »

cmdrspyker92 wrote:Assaults would be fine with earlier access to CQC, some bonus health / armor somewhere in the tree, and letting run and gun be a 3 turn CD instead of 4. People have complained about the assault since the first days of LW1 and "pod mechanics", yet to me, they're one of highest return rate units I use. They're still in a good place, but if you're looking to improve be my guest. :lol:
I feel like Extra Conditioning should offer a -2 turn C/D to Run and Gun as opposed to shaving a point off the base. Assault's early game is strong. If you're going loud on a map with Ext/Very Light, the risk of pod activation is lower, and shotgun to face hurts a lot more. With most pods wiping in a turn or two, the lower base C/D does little to impact Assault's excellent start.

However, with a three turn RnG (note: not RNG) you give reasonable cause to bypass Extra Conditioning in favor of Formidable (for the tank) or Aggression (for more Shooty McFace). With Slug Shot and Street Sweeper, you're cycling as you do now, without the perk level. Increasing the value on opposed perks leads to tough decisions - a key component to the XCOM experience.

To further "buff" Assault, Untouchable needs to be fixed. Not really a buff, I know. Also considering Street Sweeper and Chain Lightning as the "penultimate" abilities, surely we can replace that Lethal with AMF? I mean - it's Assault. If not AMF then, perhaps scooting Lethal up the Breacher tree somewhere and finding a spot for Combat Fitness.
NephilimNexus
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by NephilimNexus »

My 2 cents: Ranger, to me, is just a chassis upon which I build my officers later. They are the most likely to be positioned within the center of my group to begin with due to their default skill & equipment sets, which avoids the leadership radius problems that happen if you try to turn someone like a Shinobi or Sharpshooter into an officer.

What really makes Rangers good as officers, however, is that they have nothing better to do. Officer powers take an action, and most end their turn. Well, my Shinobis are always playing ginsu behind enemy lines, my Assaults are busy rushing in, my Sharpshooters are either shooting or holotargeting, etc, etc. Everyone else is always busy doing something worthwhile, except maybe the Technical who becomes kinda useless after they've shot off their one-hit wonder. But what does a Ranger have to do that's so critical? What superpower do they bring to the table? Nothing. All their powers revolve around overwatch for the most part. Plus their basic ability let's me have them fire off one regular shot and still be able to use an officer power second. No other class can do that. Anyone else tries to use an officer power, welp, that's their turn.

It is precisely their vanilla lack of utility that makes them so great for tacking officer skills onto later. Seriously, try it. They're ideal.
Sir_Dr_D
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by Sir_Dr_D »

For those UI changes listed, yes, they absolutely must be done.

Most people have found the PSI weak, and there are about three active threads right now on people complaining about the technical. So these are obviously classes that need improvement.

I haven't got to PSI yet, and I am still on early game for technical but here are my comments.

For PSI:
Someone with the capabilities to mind read and mind control sounds like they would be great at infiltration. I like the idea of them being weak at first and you have to build them up. Trying to use someone weaker effectively can be a fun challenge. Just give them enough of an infiltration bonus that you can add them to squads for free. If you take a PSI soldier along you can take more soldiers along on a mission. That is more then enough reason to take them.

Or conversely swap their abilities around. Don't give the most powerful last. Give them something strong right off the bat, and then as they level they just increase in utility and options. The other classes really have their most powerfully abilities given first.


For Technical:
What gets me about them is they have that Gauntlet attached to their arm (which must be convenient to use) but the game treats them exactly is if they have this huge bulky rocket launcher that is attached to their back. The mechanics of rockets in lw2 are exactly like
the mechanics of rockets in lw1, despite the equipment being completely different. In the build I would really like to feel the power of the Gauntlet. The technical should not be as good as destruction as the grenadier. They are someone who should be good at fighting, and can do some destruction as bonus abilities. But so much of their tree is spent making their lackluster abilities put on par with other abilities in the game that there isn't options to build them as a fighter. They are also the only class where the abilities seem to only work sometimes. This includes rocket scatter, and flames that only have a chance to burn, and concussion rockets that only work sometimes. But flashbangs work all the time, and have no scatter. Here are some thoughts:

1) if lw2 is like lw1,then the devs really wanted to put scatter on grenades and note just rockets. But the engine wouldn't let them add it to the grenades, so they only did it to rockets because they could. And I agree that scatter on grenades would make sense and the best way to balance them. But if rockets scatter, and grenades don't, and you have very limited rockets, scatter of rockets should be greatly reduced. I don't want to spend perk choices for reducing rocket scatter. I want to have different options for building the character, and not forced into taking perks, just to make one of their starting abilities relevant. Short story is rocket scatter is not fun. And using perks to reduce scatter feels like putting a bandaid on, instead of making your character better.

2)They should have salvo as one of their squaddie starting perks. The rockets are attached to their arm after all, so it should be quick and easy to shoot a rocket, and then attack after. It would make the gauntlet seem cool. And yes this would give them the ability to throw a grenade and attack the same term, but that can be their thing. They are fighters with destructive capabilities.

3) To also make the gauntlet seem cool and balanced, flame throwers should recharge. They look like alien technology powered by elerium after all. They can start off with just one flame throw, with a cooldown of 6.Then they can get rouste later to give them a second type of flame throw. And concussion rockets should be rechargeable too.

4) Ideally the chance of burning should depend on whether the flamer is shooting through cover or not. If the alien is behind heavy cover, they can have a 40% chance of burning, and 60% if it is behind light cover. But if they are completely out in the open, the chance should be close to 100%. If you hit something point blank range and they don't burn, it seems weird. And if you take a risk to flank aliens with a flamethrower it should almost guarantee burning.

5) Clear up some of the perks in the perk tree to give more character choices. Their should be different options to build fighter builds wit them, with optimizing for short medium or long range. Don't just make the fireman track about flames. Make it about close combat. They wouldn't be as good as assaults but assaults wouldn't have the option of shooting flames either. Clear up some of the abilities by including it in the proving grounds and technology upgrades. When you get the ability for incendiary grenades for example you should be able to get flamer technology that keeps up. And some of the abilities for flames and rockets can be combined. So something like biggest boom could improve the flame thrower as well as rockets,etc.

Short answer, make the gauntlet really feel alike a tool that is an advantage, and cool. And the tree should be about someone who is a fighter, who has these destructive abilities as backup, and not simply have most of the tree put into improving limited use abilities.
Sines
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by Sines »

NephilimNexus wrote:It is precisely their vanilla lack of utility that makes them so great for tacking officer skills onto later. Seriously, try it. They're ideal.
They're up there with Stealth Shinobis and Specialists, I'd say. Stealth Shinobis work well because officer commands don't break concealment. Very few actions don't break concealment, so this gives them something very useful to do when you don't need to keep scouting, but don't want them to lose concealment.

Specialists are notable in that they have no real 'regular' turn ending abilities. Combat Protocol and Haywire Protocol do end their turn, and are uniquely Specialist abilities, but you also don't need to always use them, especially since you have limited charges of Combat Protocol, and Haywire is a gamble if you don't have Failsafe. If you don't spec for overwatch or suppression, then all you can end the turn on is a basic untalented gunshot. Even non-turn ending abilities help you avoid the relatively boring non-talents basic shot or overwatch option, simply by giving you the ability to Aid Protocol and Focus Fire, or the like.

Now, as far as other classes balance goes...

Assault: I'd really like for them to have more options at range. Too many of their perk choices affect only the shotgun (or the shotguns playstyle), so you can't go Assault Rifle + Stun Gun. Which feels a bit necessary because of the Arc Throwers two-turn cooldown. When an Assault can't move ahead (for whatever reason), taking a single shot with the Arc Thrower every other turn feels a bit limiting. I'd like for there to be an option to make the Arc Thrower usable once per turn (or remove the cooldown entirely, if you want to allow Commands to allow it to double fire). Alternatively, Slug Shot could get a buff to it's cooldown, and allow it to be used every other turn. Alternate it's use with the Arc Thrower would allow the Assault to maintain a distance when needed.

Yah, I know the Assault is all about getting in close, but the amount of time I spend holding them back because I can't verify that advancing will be safe is annoying. More frequent Slug Shots or Arc Thrower would help that a bit. I wouldn't say no to letting them carry a pistol in the place of the Arc Thrower either. I loved Rapid Fire pistol being an decent long range option for my Assaults in EU.

Sword Shinobi: A lot of the same issues of pod activation as the Assault, but they can more comfortably shoot from a distance with an AR or SMG. Bladestorm should be upgraded to hit enemies running away from you as well, since I don't think it does that, and that greatly reduces the abilities effectiveness. A skill that reduces the distance at which enemies can spot an unconcealed Shinobi would help the pod activation problem, and be thematic.

Psi Ops: I do kind of like the idea of lowering their infiltration rate, for both lore and mechanical reasons. However, for both lore and mechanical reasons, their infiltration can go up later on. At low levels, their ability to pull Jedi Mind tricks helps infiltration. But at higher levels, the mind tricks simply can't make up for the fact that there's this glowing beacon of psionic energy that is not under the Elders control, which is attention grabbing as hell. If Psi Ops are powerful enough at higher levels, this could also balance out their power, in addition to the cost put into getting them. I'm not sure they're powerful enough to warrant a penalty on top of their investment cost, though. Stasis and Domination are still great, but the improvement of CC options in LW2 has made Stasis not nearly as unique as it used to be.

Technicals: My big complaint about technicals is that they're a class with an identity crisis. Their Gauntlet gives them Rockets and Flamethrowers, yet there is only a single ability in their whole tree that benefits both (Fire and Steel, and honestly, that's much more of a Flamethrower buff). This is particular bad for talents that buff rockets, as you only have 1 starting off, and talents that exist solely to improve a single-use per mission ability are hard to balance, especially when they have to be balanced with later larger arsenals. I'd really like for the Technical to get a Grenadier style extra slot, wherein they can choose to go with the standard mixed loadout, or ditch the flamethrower charges for an extra rocket, or vice-versa. Flamethrower is mostly fine as it is, though perhaps it could stand to get some improvements to balance it against late game incendiary grenades.

Sharpshooter: Snap Shot comes across as questionable. I'm not really sure what it brings to the table that an equivalently build Gunner or Ranger doesn't. As I understand, getting it so that it deactivates squadsight on moving isn't easy for the devs. But I'm also not entirely convinced it needs a penalty to begin with, mostly because of the perks it's competing with. DfA allows you to steady after every kill, or avoid having to waste a turn reloading. Rapid Holotargetting allows you to play an excellent support role, targetting two or three units per turn to help your party mow down enemies, or even just quick targetting a unit themselves so they can be sure to blow it's brains out. Those two perks are just so incredibly good, that I don't really feel that a non-penalizing Snap Shot would be an automatic choice over those two. Especially since the whole point of Squad Sight is that you rarely need to move anyways, so Snap Shot only helps out so much. Though, to be fair, I haven't really tried a Snap Shot Sharpshooter, so maybe I'm underestimating.
Mooncabbage
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by Mooncabbage »

Sir_Dr_D wrote:To also make the gauntlet seem cool and balanced, flame throwers should recharge. They look like alien technology powered by elerium after all. They can start off with just one flame throw, with a cooldown of 6.Then they can get rouste later to give them a second type of flame throw.
This is the single best (and easiest to implement) technical suggestion I've heard so far. Having only 2 uses on the flamethrower makes it's limited utility vastly more frustrating. Just the simple tweak of giving it a 2-3 turn cooldown, instead of limited uses, means the technical wouldn't have the problem of being "just another rookie" after they've used their rocket and two charges. It's brilliant! Heck, you could even have a perk reduce the cooldown from 3 to 2 turns, to balance the flamethrower spec vs the rocketeer spec!
Hazelnut
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by Hazelnut »

NephilimNexus wrote:My 2 cents: Ranger, to me, is just a chassis upon which I build my officers later. They are the most likely to be positioned within the center of my group to begin with due to their default skill & equipment sets, which avoids the leadership radius problems that happen if you try to turn someone like a Shinobi or Sharpshooter into an officer.

What really makes Rangers good as officers, however, is that they have nothing better to do. Officer powers take an action, and most end their turn. Well, my Shinobis are always playing ginsu behind enemy lines, my Assaults are busy rushing in, my Sharpshooters are either shooting or holotargeting, etc, etc. Everyone else is always busy doing something worthwhile, except maybe the Technical who becomes kinda useless after they've shot off their one-hit wonder. But what does a Ranger have to do that's so critical? What superpower do they bring to the table? Nothing. All their powers revolve around overwatch for the most part. Plus their basic ability let's me have them fire off one regular shot and still be able to use an officer power second. No other class can do that. Anyone else tries to use an officer power, welp, that's their turn.

It is precisely their vanilla lack of utility that makes them so great for tacking officer skills onto later. Seriously, try it. They're ideal.
Weird, this is what I did in the beginning but I stopped, instead preferring specialist/grenadier/technical officers. My rangers need to move & shoot or shoot twice, and rarely have any time where they can simply lamely shoot an SMG with low tohit% like these classes.
Hazelnut
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by Hazelnut »

Mooncabbage wrote:
Sir_Dr_D wrote:To also make the gauntlet seem cool and balanced, flame throwers should recharge. They look like alien technology powered by elerium after all. They can start off with just one flame throw, with a cooldown of 6.Then they can get rouste later to give them a second type of flame throw.
This is the single best (and easiest to implement) technical suggestion I've heard so far. Having only 2 uses on the flamethrower makes it's limited utility vastly more frustrating. Just the simple tweak of giving it a 2-3 turn cooldown, instead of limited uses, means the technical wouldn't have the problem of being "just another rookie" after they've used their rocket and two charges. It's brilliant! Heck, you could even have a perk reduce the cooldown from 3 to 2 turns, to balance the flamethrower spec vs the rocketeer spec!
Oh god no, when I need burning to happen I don't want the thing on cooldown! I love my flamer techs, and once you have EXO/WAR 4 flame charges are plenty for a mission. If you did this suggestion, quickburn would only be half as useful. If you find techs underwhelming then use SMG and have good movement on em plus lots of armour. Burnout & fortify & aid protocol and charge in there! :-)

All they need is a buff to burn chance. Because charging in and setting only 1 guy on fire is when missions go FUBAR... 75 ish % chance to burn would be nice.
Mooncabbage
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by Mooncabbage »

Hazelnut wrote:
Mooncabbage wrote:
Sir_Dr_D wrote:To also make the gauntlet seem cool and balanced, flame throwers should recharge. They look like alien technology powered by elerium after all. They can start off with just one flame throw, with a cooldown of 6.Then they can get rouste later to give them a second type of flame throw.
This is the single best (and easiest to implement) technical suggestion I've heard so far. Having only 2 uses on the flamethrower makes it's limited utility vastly more frustrating. Just the simple tweak of giving it a 2-3 turn cooldown, instead of limited uses, means the technical wouldn't have the problem of being "just another rookie" after they've used their rocket and two charges. It's brilliant! Heck, you could even have a perk reduce the cooldown from 3 to 2 turns, to balance the flamethrower spec vs the rocketeer spec!
Oh god no, when I need burning to happen I don't want the thing on cooldown! I love my flamer techs, and once you have EXO/WAR 4 flame charges are plenty for a mission. If you did this suggestion, quickburn would only be half as useful. If you find techs underwhelming then use SMG and have good movement on em plus lots of armour. Burnout & fortify & aid protocol and charge in there! :-)

All they need is a buff to burn chance. Because charging in and setting only 1 guy on fire is when missions go FUBAR... 75 ish % chance to burn would be nice.
I disagree, for a few reasons. First, needing the EXO/War Suit for "enough charges", isn't a good justification for not having enough to start with. Second, it's a good way to differentiate the flamethower build from the rocketeer build, without making the starting abilities completely useless either way. A Fireman build with a free rocket, is still a free rocket. And even if you don't upgrade your flamethrower abilities at all as a Rocketeer, you still have a more or less unlimited use flamethrower, rather than a dinky 2 use thing. Thirdly, it's only a relatively small change to your playstyle really. The difference between flaming twice in a row, and once per encounter, is relatively minimal. IMO, being able to continue to use your technical in later encounters without loss in utility, more than compensates.
Hazelnut
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by Hazelnut »

Mooncabbage wrote: I disagree, for a few reasons. First, needing the EXO/War Suit for "enough charges", isn't a good justification for not having enough to start with. Second, it's a good way to differentiate the flamethower build from the rocketeer build, without making the starting abilities completely useless either way. A Fireman build with a free rocket, is still a free rocket. And even if you don't upgrade your flamethrower abilities at all as a Rocketeer, you still have a more or less unlimited use flamethrower, rather than a dinky 2 use thing. Thirdly, it's only a relatively small change to your playstyle really. The difference between flaming twice in a row, and once per encounter, is relatively minimal. IMO, being able to continue to use your technical in later encounters without loss in utility, more than compensates.
I actually found 2 was usually enough early on when missions were <= LIGHT and advent had sub 10 hp anyway. Maybe 2-3 times a third charge would have been nice, but by that time the battle is usually wrapping up. Now I have the 4 charges, I flame twice in 2 turns a lot, and often twice in a single turn with quickburn. When you activate more than one 8pod, you need to disable as many as possible that turn. Changing it to a cooldown would mean I couldn't use my flamers in the same way.
AlexTFish
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by AlexTFish »

You say "disable as many as possible in one turn", but with the current low set-on-fire percentage isn't that only a smallish fraction of the targets within the cone anyway? Or are you using advanced skills that increase the set-on-fire percentage?
Hazelnut
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by Hazelnut »

AlexTFish wrote:You say "disable as many as possible in one turn", but with the current low set-on-fire percentage isn't that only a smallish fraction of the targets within the cone anyway? Or are you using advanced skills that increase the set-on-fire percentage?
It's 60% chance to burn. Add in setting tiles on fire, which then burns ayy and usually get more like 75+% burning, so at times the second flame is because RNG was being uncooperative and others it's when two groups need doing in different directions. Might prefer to use firestorm for that now I have it, but have to be a good distance away from rest of squad for that.

I count on reducing the number of active threats to between 3-6 which is easily dealt with by rest of squad. Mix in sting nades and you can stun/burn most of 2 8pods with just 2 troopers. Obviously depends on scamper & cover. Most important stat for a flamer is speed - need that reach.
Sir_Dr_D
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by Sir_Dr_D »

Mooncabbage wrote:
Hazelnut wrote:
Mooncabbage wrote:
This is the single best (and easiest to implement) technical suggestion I've heard so far. Having only 2 uses on the flamethrower makes it's limited utility vastly more frustrating. Just the simple tweak of giving it a 2-3 turn cooldown, instead of limited uses, means the technical wouldn't have the problem of being "just another rookie" after they've used their rocket and two charges. It's brilliant! Heck, you could even have a perk reduce the cooldown from 3 to 2 turns, to balance the flamethrower spec vs the rocketeer spec!
Oh god no, when I need burning to happen I don't want the thing on cooldown! I love my flamer techs, and once you have EXO/WAR 4 flame charges are plenty for a mission. If you did this suggestion, quickburn would only be half as useful. If you find techs underwhelming then use SMG and have good movement on em plus lots of armour. Burnout & fortify & aid protocol and charge in there! :-)

All they need is a buff to burn chance. Because charging in and setting only 1 guy on fire is when missions go FUBAR... 75 ish % chance to burn would be nice.
I disagree, for a few reasons. First, needing the EXO/War Suit for "enough charges", isn't a good justification for not having enough to start with. Second, it's a good way to differentiate the flamethower build from the rocketeer build, without making the starting abilities completely useless either way. A Fireman build with a free rocket, is still a free rocket. And even if you don't upgrade your flamethrower abilities at all as a Rocketeer, you still have a more or less unlimited use flamethrower, rather than a dinky 2 use thing. Thirdly, it's only a relatively small change to your playstyle really. The difference between flaming twice in a row, and once per encounter, is relatively minimal. IMO, being able to continue to use your technical in later encounters without loss in utility, more than compensates.

And lets also add that you would still have two different type of flames each on its own cooldown cycle. You would have the regular one, and then roust. So you could shoot a flame, and then shoot a roust. Each should have a cooldown of 5 or 6 or similar.

COncussion rockets could recharge too. But I don't know about regular rockets though. Them recharging would be okay for timed missions, but not for untimed crawls.
Hazelnut
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by Hazelnut »

Sir_Dr_D wrote: And lets also add that you would still have two different type of flames each on its own cooldown cycle. You would have the regular one, and then roust. So you could shoot a flame, and then shoot a roust. Each should have a cooldown of 5 or 6 or similar.

COncussion rockets could recharge too. But I don't know about regular rockets though. Them recharging would be okay for timed missions, but not for untimed crawls.
I took roust on one of my four flamer techs, used it twice... not a fan as it doesn't seem to set burning on anything. All the others have crap aim so get fire in the hole so I can land the rocket accurately (ish)
nightwyrm
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by nightwyrm »

Hazelnut wrote:
Sir_Dr_D wrote: And lets also add that you would still have two different type of flames each on its own cooldown cycle. You would have the regular one, and then roust. So you could shoot a flame, and then shoot a roust. Each should have a cooldown of 5 or 6 or similar.

COncussion rockets could recharge too. But I don't know about regular rockets though. Them recharging would be okay for timed missions, but not for untimed crawls.
I took roust on one of my four flamer techs, used it twice... not a fan as it doesn't seem to set burning on anything. All the others have crap aim so get fire in the hole so I can land the rocket accurately (ish)
I took Roust but found it to be not much use. Rousting a Stunned enemy also makes it teleport to cover.
Sir_Dr_D
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by Sir_Dr_D »

It would be different though if roust gave a complete new ability and not compete with flamer fuel, and was improved just a bit.
guypapyrus
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by guypapyrus »

It's kinda hard to talk about class balance without talking about the enormous role some lucky off/def perks can have in offsetting things. Like, I agree with the OP for the most part; but a decent defensive AWC perk on an assault (tac sense, deep cover, low profile, etc.) can really make a difference: it's just not something you can rely on and build around, especially when you can only see the first tier off the bat. (The same goes for pistol perks, to an extent, given that the order of availability varies and the investment in training time that can amount to.) I kinda like the variability of it, tbh, in principle. But having to train something underwhelming to see what comes next ends up making at least that part of the AWC tree effectively a dead end.

As to psi soldiers specifically: I agree that they're underwhelming at best. In the campaign I just abandoned, I got a top tier one with Dominate, which strikes me as the most powerful ability (not only decreasing the enemy force count and augmenting your own by 1, but doing so with one of the most powerful enemies). But I ended up shooting with them most of the time (I trained high aim rookies specifically to make sure they'd have something to do). Most abilities could use some significant buffing (E.g., Soul Fire also disorients; Solace or Bastion has some kind of Regen Biofield effect; Mind Merge adds defensive bonus; etc.)
Mooncabbage
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by Mooncabbage »

Sir_Dr_D wrote:It would be different though if roust gave a complete new ability and not compete with flamer fuel, and was improved just a bit.
TBH, I thought Roust had it's own charge, like the Concussion rocket. Explains why I ran out of flames faster than expected....

Anyway, Roust isn't really meant to do damage or set fires. It's a utility attack intended to flush enemies out of difficult cover, so they can be mowed down by suppression fire or a squadsight sniper. On it's own, it's not much use.
NephilimNexus
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by NephilimNexus »

Sines wrote:Bladestorm should be upgraded to hit enemies running away from you as well, since I don't think it does that, and that greatly reduces the abilities effectiveness.
It does.
nightwyrm
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by nightwyrm »

Mooncabbage wrote:
Sir_Dr_D wrote:It would be different though if roust gave a complete new ability and not compete with flamer fuel, and was improved just a bit.
TBH, I thought Roust had it's own charge, like the Concussion rocket. Explains why I ran out of flames faster than expected....

Anyway, Roust isn't really meant to do damage or set fires. It's a utility attack intended to flush enemies out of difficult cover, so they can be mowed down by suppression fire or a squadsight sniper. On it's own, it's not much use.
But like Flush, the enemy often just moves one tile to round the corner on his cover, sometimes making them even harder to hit....

And Roust seems to prevent overwatches as well. I once Rousted some aliens and none of my overwatches triggered.
KevlinTallfellow
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Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by KevlinTallfellow »

Saph7 wrote:
Jacke wrote:Don't know what the Flamerthrower's chances for setting fires are, but it should approach what the Incendiary Grenades do.
Incendiary Grenade is 100% as far as I can tell, which by the time you get them means that they're far more reliable than Flamethrowers. An incendiary grenade fired by a decent grenadier does nearly 10 damage upfront, with another 5ish added from burn and a turn worth of disable. That's just ridiculously powerful, especially when you go up against those Tac Sense/Tac Upgrades elite ADVENT troopers who have so much defence that even when they're standing in the open your odds to hit them are 50% and below.
Currently, I believe that the flamethrowers, by definition, are working incorrectly. They're not supposed to be setting things on fire. They're supposed to be setting fire on things. The fuel sprays out all over the target area and anything in that area, that fuel is burning and will continue to burn, and it really doesn't matter what the targets in the area are doing at the time or directly after. The Technical should have 100% chance for at least a 1 turn burning effect on any target they hit with the flamethrower, as well as a 100% chance to set the targeted tiles on fire for at least 1 turn. You could even make it so that the Technical flamethrower will only burn for 1 turn and no longer (the fuel is quickly consumed), as long as it is guaranteed to do so. This would make the Technical flamethrower significantly different from the incendiary devices, especially if the phosphorous perk let you set mechanical units on fire with a burning effect (which I believe is not possible due to mechanical fire immunity, but one can hope!). This would also allow you to use the flamethrower proactively on a reinforcement spawn point, so that the new enemies arrive in a fire and start the 1 turn guaranteed burn during their deployment action.

The way I've been using my Technical (flamethrower) guys is as follows:
Give them EXO armor, so they can take high pressure tanks to double their flamethrower charges!
Give them SMGs for better movement to position the flamethrower, and make it a bit easier to set up ambushes during concealment.
Give them Quickburn, so they can run out in the middle of the street and FIRESTORM everything before running back to cover!
Use Quickburn to burn groups of guys TWICE in one turn! THRICE with Command!
Use Roust to make groups of guys run out of cover for your Lockdown Gunners or Overwatch Ranger and Specialists!
Consider wearing a Hazmat vest so all those fires aren't so dangerous to you.
The Technical can reliably hit enemies in heavy cover without flanking them, if you can't risk running up an Assault or Shinobi.
Dropping small smoke clouds with every use of flamethrower lets you be a lot more aggressive with your Technical.

Sure, you could just stop training rookies as Technicals and make them Grenadiers instead, but some of us just REALLY like the flamethrower! Lately I've realized that some classes are just better at some mission types than others, and that in general, you probably shouldn't be taking very diverse squads out on missions. There are plenty of mission types where the flamethrower isn't terribly easy to use or useful at all, but there are some other mission types where it's just a blast to have a couple firebugs up front melting everyone's faces off.

To each his own, I suppose.
trihero
Posts: 1099
Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2017 7:01 am

Re: [General Feedback] Strategic layer and class balance

Post by trihero »

Hazelnut wrote:
AlexTFish wrote:You say "disable as many as possible in one turn", but with the current low set-on-fire percentage isn't that only a smallish fraction of the targets within the cone anyway? Or are you using advanced skills that increase the set-on-fire percentage?
It's 60% chance to burn. Add in setting tiles on fire, which then burns ayy and usually get more like 75+% burning, so at times the second flame is because RNG was being uncooperative and others it's when two groups need doing in different directions. Might prefer to use firestorm for that now I have it, but have to be a good distance away from rest of squad for that.

I count on reducing the number of active threats to between 3-6 which is easily dealt with by rest of squad. Mix in sting nades and you can stun/burn most of 2 8pods with just 2 troopers. Obviously depends on scamper & cover. Most important stat for a flamer is speed - need that reach.
The only way I learned this was through watching xwynns; if you have a gauntlet MKII, the flamethrower has a total composite chance of 90% to either burn the enemy directly or burn the tile he's standing on (which burns him immediately on his turn). Thus putting enemies on fire is fairly reliable actually as long as you know the secret of burning the tiles they're standing on. I would also take napalm X (I have no idea what the detailed numbers on this are) to help control anything not set on fire.
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