How is the Covering Fire perk useful?

[Poindexter]

How is Covering Fire useful?

If an enemy moves, you don't need Covering Fire to get a reaction shot.

If an enemy shoots without moving (and you have him as a target), you could have shot at him on the previous turn, instead of activating Overwatch (and thereby have a crit chance, and avoid any aim penalty).

Okay, if you have Sentinel, I suppose you might get two shots "for the price of one" by Overwatching.

However, without Sentinel, under what circumstance is Covering Fire useful?

Are there any circumstances under which the following are all true:

A) You get a shot
B) You would not have gotten the shot without the Covering Fire perk.
C) You did not give up the opportunity to take a "regular" shot on the previous turn (to be on Overwatch).

Overwatch is very useful, because an enemy, at whom you have no shot, might move, granting you a shot.

I don't see how it's useful to take an Overwatch shot at an enemy who's firing, instead of just taking a (probably better) shot on the previous turn.

Am I missing something?

P.S. I suppose there's the situation in which you'd like to be ready for an enemy who moves, but would like to shoot at a firing enemy if that doesn't happen. Of course, you probably can't control which of those events happens; I suspect that the first qualifying event triggers your fire.

[Stardustfire]

Covering Fire is Godlike with the changes they made for it in EW, i never waste that Skillslot for the useless Sprinter Option. Happens enove times that an enemy just looks around a corner without my Sqaud seeing him before, want to fire and dies BEFORE he can shoot.

[runequester]

Originally posted by Poindexter:

Hmm. That would imply A) there is a maximum range at which movement allows an overwatch shot, and B) Covering Fire does not have this range limitation, when reacting to a fired shot.

Are you sure those are both true? Even if so, that's a rather limited scenario.

If a unit takes one step in sight, it won't trigger reaction fire. So an alien stepping into sight and popping off a shot can't be retaliated against.

The AI doesn't do this very often but it does happen.

[Mulqueeny]

Originally posted by red255:

Do you miss alot of meld? I mean in a worst case scenario and you have alot of time and the enemies don't have grenades and nerfed AI I can see that working.

But usually I just kill them when I see them.

In long war and on higher difficulty Meld is priority No.2, Charging on Meld will likely get your squad whiped.

[arnaud_defrance]

Playing in Long War and covering fire is very useful for the infantry. The aim bonus is welcome, but the combination of covering fire+opportunist is really lethal for the aliens. It discourage the aliens of shooting at your units, and it's very nice when a pod happens to run into your overwatching infantry and get critical hits all over the places. (You don't tend to overwatch with infantry if you don't have the perks.)

Notably, I have had multiple outsiders stay nicely where they are, often getting shot, rather than walk up to my men and point-blank a flanking shot.
The later scenario happens a frustratingly high amount of time without overwatch, given that LW outsiders have ten or twenty hit points, that isn't a trivial concern.

The other is indeed flying floaters. I have seen many cases where their movements don't trigger ovewatch (typically because of getting just in firing range rather than flying inside it.) Then the only reason I don't lose more people is because covering fire reacts to their attacks.

So yes, covering fire and overwatches perks are extremely useful. Though I must note that my playstyle involve careful advance with group-wide overwatch so as to catch patrolled pods in the open with a squad-salvo.
Not the fastest play-style, but given how Long War love to throw thirty hit points berserkers in duo with three mutons, one turn later accompanied by two cyberdisc, I will stick with it.

[Fredericks of Cursewood]

One of the worst ways to find out how good Covering Fire is with Opportunist is to get on the other side of it by having a Muton with the two perks use it against you. I am pretty sure you will see how effective it is.

[Jarmam]

I hate Covering Fire, but when I asked Beaglerush why he always takes it he gave me this example, and it's actually a good one:

Say you're up against 3 Floaters. They're all flying around in their usual way, but they can only take shots against people in highcover or in smoke or something. Floaters in Long War have a really dumb tendency to Overwatch constantly, something that will hopefully be fixed, but while it lasts it means that since their shots aren't that great, they will quite likely just Overwatch and not move (due to your Inf Overwatching them). However, quite often only 2 of them will OW and the last one will shoot at you, which, with high ground aim, might actually kill or seriously hurt someone. This is when Covering Fire is actually good for once. Since you cannot know WHICH Floater will shoot BEFORE their turn, you cannot take the shot to defend your people during your turn. But with Covering Fire your Infantry will automatically shoot the Floater that's taking a shot, while ignoring the Floaters that do pointless things like OW. This way you maximize the value of Opportunist Overwatch Inf in certain situations, even in a direct firefight.

It's waaaaay too situational for me, but it's an example I never thought of and it's good. However in LW the biggest bonus of having Covering Fire for me is the +3 aim. If the perk was just +5 aim and nothing else I'd take it every time.

[Nebhead]

Yes, Long War makes full use of Covering Fire, mostly for the Infantry sub-class, but it really shines with the use of both Opportunist and Sentinel, all of which are available as choices for Infantry at various levels of experience. (i.e., you can choose all them)

I think I've heard Beaglerush state the best thing about Covering Fire overwatch, and overwatch in general - Aliens (and EXALT) who see a soldier go into Overwatch will very rarely move. Beagle says he uses this to inimidate the AI into not moving, or making silly moves.

Without Covering Fire, you could overwatch an enemy to prevent them moving to a flank, but they will often not move and simply shoot or do something else.

With Covering Fire, however, you can overwatch and have that Soldier shoot at the Alien anyways AND prevent them moving for a flank. Really needs Opportunist to have any chance of hitting, but the intimidation factor really works in your favour.

In my own game, I have a number of Infantry Officers with these perk setups and one of them, Julia Kowalska, has saved the lives of so many my own soldiers with Covering Fire + Opportunist so far. I've also given them Aggression so they crit like crazy with their overwatch fire. She's actually my star soldier so far with 215 kills in 44 missions.

Oh actually, one of the best uses of Covering Fire I've seen in so far is an Alien that attempts to suppress one of my Soldiers, gets shot by Covering Fire (and gets hit but doesn't die) - the Alien now ends up not suppressing my soldier, because they were injured after they attempted suppression.

[red255]

Unfortunatly I've decided on Steadfast for the +5 will on my guys though, because while +3 aim and improved overwatch is nice in long war, +5 will really helps by the time you get Psionics for mindfray and panic. for shutting down enemies. you can mindfray and panic mutons, (not beserkers) Outsiders. muton elites, Mectoids, and landed floaters/heavy floaters (the flying ones get off a shot so its best not to panic those)

[Fredericks of Cursewood]

It's a good perk for infantry, but is there any situations where it is worthwhile to take on any other classes?

I think on a LMG gunner if the Ready for Anything and Sentinel are to be taken it could be somewhat useful. Not taking Flush or Holo Targeting is pretty tough call. Not having Opportunist is a definite drawback from going this route.

Medics may have a some use if their initial aim is high enough to combat their poor progression. Covering Fire, Opportunist, Ready for Anything, and Sentinel gives them a chance to shoot 3 times a turn. I would still take Packmaster over Sentinel no matter what, but the other 3 in combination would make for a somewhat effective soldier. However, giving up Smoke Grenades as LCP is pretty tough choice for me, especially since at SGT the only perk that fits in is Ranger if you don't take Smoke Grenades and don't carry any smoke.

Rocketeer, I can't think of any good reason not to take Heat Warheads.

[arnaud_defrance]

Weirdly enough I am unsure whether covering fire trigger when a suppressed unit fire upon the gunners... It logically should but I think it doesn't happens, but having so many gunners I am perhaps mixing with another having holo.
Anyone can confirm?

Gunners can later get an item that gives them the Advanced fire control perk, canceling the aim malus. It doesn't gives critical, but since I tend to suppress Cyberdisks and mechanical units with HEAT-ammo gunners most of the time, this isn't much of a problem. (Hardened would prevent critical anyway)

Medics: not really good as overwatching soldiers. Their low aim per rank gain makes them subpar for this task, and the alternative perks are far more useful to keep your squad alive. The smoke grenades three perks work very well to cover infantries at half-covers, plus one of the perk for smoke increase both critical damage and will in addition to defense... so yeah.
->Most importantly, smoke can protect your MECs.

Never go overwatch road on medics. If you happens to have a high-aim soldier that you feel waste on medic/engineer (both low aim), then use the "random class" of Long War. I got a couple high-aim snipers that way.


Rocketers: Tried the overwatch perks road. The full set looks interesting since Ready For Anything + sentinel + opportunist allow to fire and then get two overwatch shots in the same turn. However since rocketers gun have three ammo, requiring full ammo to get all shots, plus requiring being already in position for RfA to trigger... not the best.
I have one maxed rank rocketer with that. The build might have been saved if Ready For Anything triggered if you shoot a rocket without moving, as I hoped, but it doesn't.
->Avoid overwatch perks on rocketers.
->Do consider getting ONE rocketer with full overwatch perks, to add him/her for large ships invasion. The overwatched-rocketers are arguably more useful in long maps with another rocketers, as that one still has his rockets but can also provide a very efficient protection to its allies even after all explosives are used.



P.S. Considering that the above means that only infantries really shines at overwatch... it's also likely the reason as to why I gives overwatch perks to pretty much all my infantries.

[DashThrowing]

Trust me, you'll have fun with Overwatch Perks if you're lucky...
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=311475387
It's always nice to take two shots on the enemy turn, with good chance for Critical, and no Cover penalty. Yes, I used Not Created Equally, Hidden Potential, and Training Roulette. But Covering Fire can be fun in Enemy Within, where you fire just after the enemy steps out of cover. Basically a shot where your soldier, whether they're the target or not, says,"Nope!"

[Hustiche]

Originally posted by Poindexter:

How is Covering Fire useful?

If an enemy moves, you don't need Covering Fire to get a reaction shot.

If an enemy shoots without moving (and you have him as a target), you could have shot at him on the previous turn, instead of activating Overwatch (and thereby have a crit chance, and avoid any aim penalty).

Okay, if you have Sentinel, I suppose you might get two shots "for the price of one" by Overwatching.

However, without Sentinel, under what circumstance is Covering Fire useful?



Am I missing something?

I think what I was missing on this was the Sentinel's next upgrade choice "ever vigilant" then it's pretty handy since I usually move these guys last just to keep up after healing.

If you order your movements correctly this a pretty solid safety net especially in the heavy attrition missions.

[Hydra_360ci]

Way da revive a 2014 thread....

Anyways... -30 aim penalty and enemy overwatch removal are the only benefits.