War of the chosen just seems unbalanced ... is it just me?

[Darth Master Windu]

I do feel like wotc is a great dlc but I have to say the difficulty had made me quite frustrated.

I played the base game (plus previous dlc) on commander difficulty and it is hard, but never unfair.

Wotc is completely different story and here are some of my major issues:-

(1) The new units added to xcom side are initially too weak to play a meaningful role at first in the team.

(2) The chosen grew too powerful too quickly with overwhelming abilities like not triggering overwatch, immune to explosions, teleportation, summoning enemies ... etc and could take multiple actions in one turn (e.g. dazing a team member and then run away).

(3) Then we got the lost ... which would appear on surface quite easy enemy. I tend to think that they pose huge threats in later game with the enemies using explosives without regard and generate plenty of them. I find that there is a tendency that the lost tend to be drawn towards/ attack the players rather than AI.

There are other things as well but I do not want to make a lengthy post. Plus, I am not sure how many would read this and it would probably die in the forum. Just want a chance to rant I guess.

I am so frustrated at this point that I just want to uninstall the game and never play it again.

[Roderick]

1) The Reaper is the only new unit I am playing. The templer needs to kill to get stronger in battle, which just isn't always at hand. I prefer the ranger here.

2) Playing only on normal so far, had no problems with the choosen so far (played campaign twice now)

3) Keep an eye for those who don't die with one shot (brute) and equip some expended mags.

All in all you have to specialize more. There is nor room for researching everything and upgrading everything. The game seems unbalanced if you try it, because you neither will have the time nor the resources.
Go after the choosen quickly and they are easy to beat AND give you high end weapons which make everything easy fast. That said... yes, it is a bit imbalanced all in all. Especially with the Hunter DLC on.

[kagemusharanger]

It's not the 'new' addons that make it extremely harder, it's that it feels that they buffed original common enemies and nerfed the players' is what it makes it harder. I said on the other thread, playing veteran feels like playing commander in vanilla. The new addons definitely make it more challenging, but had it just been then it'd just add exciting 'spice'...when they buffed enemies (now they use more grenades, they have armor at the get go with 50% more HP, hits and crits a lot more often) that really makes it sometimes quiet impossible to finish mission.

For example, in veteran in vanilla start game, two Advent (one commander, one lancer and one trooper) was easy battle. Now I get SUPER crit-ed by stun lancers that can run across vast spaces (knocking out two of my soldiers in two consecutive turns...one of them did actually killed with 18 damage...when my soldiers are barely around 15 hp) the animation for the KO is even funny, it literally sends your soldiers over the ledge or flying several feet across LOL

[kagemusharanger]

PS Also I do feel like the new enemies are harder. Very good addition to gameplay but definitely punishing.

[.O.]

i actually felt it's significantly easier. Perma stealth scout with only like 1 tile concealment range in the Reaper makes the reaper a much better scout than the Ranger. So you can basically hit everything with sharpshooters without them being able to reach you and as long as you don't place your scout too close to the enemy pod, there's zero risk of being revealed. In the early game I take 1 Reaper, 1 Specialist(heals) and 2 sharpshooters for the difficult missions and as soon as I get the squad upgrade last spot goes to either grenadier or ranger depending on what's likely to show up on that mission.

[KRON]

I tried vanilla on commander and got my ass kicked hard. Now I'm playing WotC on commander and the game feels easier than vanilla on veteran.

[Neo_Scorpio]

Ahem I feel your pain and anger at this moment! I trying to find reconfort here after Losing 6 best soldiers to the Assassin Stronghold.

I never completed Wotc before so the mission was new to me. This was my fouth campaign in Commander, Ironman mode. This last game was going on kind of smoothly even if I had lost 12 XCOM soldiers from which a couple were at above LT.

I found many things were unfair. Like the Chosen skill to teleport a mind controlled squad member behind an other and killing my soldier instantly, or the assassin skill to go unoticed especially in the beginning when you dont have scans. I also found that the Lost were getting more on me than on Advents. And those raid missions getting the crates or sitreps Huge monster, Psi!? But all of these I managed to survive on this fourth campaign with certain satisfaction!

Now the things that made no sense to me. First of all, when having 92% chance to hit and missing, leaving 1 hp to an enemy when critically needed and also doing the minimum damage back to back were thing that happened a lot to me. Here and there I would lose soldiers because of that.

Unnaceptable things that did happened, and you will have to believe my words. In a VIP recovery mission with a chance of recovering two random soldiers also a map with the Losts and the Mind controlling Chosen, I was exploring the map with my Reaper. The whole squad was hiding in the landing spot. I had recover the VIP and I was going to try to find a way to get the soldiers. I've been spotted from nowhere in a turn beginning. This caused the VIP to get killed from an advent robot and my best ranger by a control minded newly acquired ranger that the chosen. Think I lost another soldier but I still managed to get most of my guys out of there safe but wounded.

One other thing that happened took place at the end of the mission for the black Vial. When you get the black Vial there always is an Advent reinforcement before you can get to the extract. I had one dead soldier I had to bring back in order to get his gun and pc's upgrade back with us. There was an advent stun lancer who had 1 hp left and was burning. I almost I had to bring back this dead soldier, I left him near the extract earlier, so all my squad had left the mission except my cloaked reaper. Now here's what happened, Had to end turn to give me one more turn to get the corpse back. Turn ends, the fire on the lancer vanished doing no damage to him, his turn begins, he runs riiiiiiiiiiight beside my reaper (he was 8-10 tiles further) and spots my reaper. You see it comming heh? He throws a trust from his baton and do a 6 clean damage to Elena, which dies instantenously. I've lost my only reaper and the upgrades for this ♥♥♥♥.

Other miscellanous stuffs did happen. Like doing 3 damage with a shotgun (min dmg is 4) throwing grenades and doing 2, or missing an opponent with great chances to hit. Most situation would cause one or more Xcom to die. Situations for which I was really pissed indeed! But so far I had manage to get there.

I killed a couple time each of the 2 first chosen and one time the third one. the first two had almost completed their respective meter. They were not easy, as I said, I lost 12 soldiers in this campaign and had restarted four time. But still I did found a way to survive or win.

I had 8 region contacts, just constructed the psy training, had unlocked most of the second tier guns and amor, had 2 Majors, 4 captains, 4 LT and 5 lower levels and I was on my way to make the Assasin pay for all the frustration she made me endure :).

Killed all the minions before ascending with minor damage but by using most of my one time abilities. When Acended I managed to kill her once easilly and then the most unfair thing I ever seen started to happen! the 4 turns respawn is insanely unfair especially considering that my soldiers had depleted their will and abilities. Not only that but the creatures that spawns, holy wariors and 2 units each turns!? WTF.

For a first timer this mission was way too hard! I might change the difficulty to vet now instead of restarting over. But for now I'm angry at this game and at the developpers. As someone said before, vanilla was hard but fair, this one isnt.

[SeriousCCIE]

Just a quick note on the lost; explosions can be your friend, if you can get the Lost to focus on the Xenos. Sometimes the Lost attractor grenade (whatever it is called) works well for that, provided you can get it to land in a group of *activated* Xenos.

It frustrates me to no end that they can just mingle politely with each other, like guests at a costume party that don't realize that they hate each other when in their regular outfits/as seen at school, etc.

Then when you show up, they awaken and realize wait I am socializing with THE ENEMY and then start to slap each other and hiss like angry tweens slighted via a social media mistake.

If you can attract the Lost to an already activated "pod" of marauding xenos, you can get the Lost to menace them appropriately, and vice versa. But, if you launch a grenade into a group where they are already socializing, chances are good both will decide you need to die first rather than each other.

It is even better when you can get the stupid mec robots to shoot their grenade/bombs. They then just get mobbed after that. It seems the mecs have no real capacity for rational thought when it comes to preventing that sort of thing, and will happily grenade anything on a Lost populated map.


I've found that just lobbing the grenades as a distraction doesn't work so well; it has to be in an already active group and preferably something far away, so either I use a grenadier from a elevated rail track, or a hunter or reaper in concealment to go blow something up. The reaper can remain in concealment with the claymore use if the right perks are chosen, and that can work pretty well as no one sees you, they go on the alert, and then see each other and start softening each other up.

[Martial.Lore]

Originally posted by vicoloc:

Killed all the minions before ascending with minor damage but by using most of my one time abilities. When Acended I managed to kill her once easilly and then the most unfair thing I ever seen started to happen! the 4 turns respawn is insanely unfair especially considering that my soldiers had depleted their will and abilities. Not only that but the creatures that spawns, holy wariors and 2 units each turns!? WTF.

For a first timer this mission was way too hard!

I would be surprised to hear that anyone had a good time playing a blind ironman campaign. But once you have encountered all of the game's mechanics then missions like this should never be insurmountable problems. I would recommend that any new player NOT begin with ironman enabled, especially at Commander + difficulty which is intended for "experienced" XCOM 2 players.

[Neo_Scorpio]

Originally posted by Martial.Lore:

Originally posted by vicoloc:

Killed all the minions before ascending with minor damage but by using most of my one time abilities. When Acended I managed to kill her once easilly and then the most unfair thing I ever seen started to happen! the 4 turns respawn is insanely unfair especially considering that my soldiers had depleted their will and abilities. Not only that but the creatures that spawns, holy wariors and 2 units each turns!? WTF.

For a first timer this mission was way too hard!

I would be surprised to hear that anyone had a good time playing a blind ironman campaign. But once you have encountered all of the game's mechanics then missions like this should never be insurmountable problems. I would recommend that any new player NOT begin with ironman enabled, especially at Commander + difficulty which is intended for "experienced" XCOM 2 players.

You think I would even try if I wasnt "experienced"? I've been able to recover on that game with a full squad of top soldiers. Avatar Project had 15 days left when I assaulted a facility that dropped the counter by 6! Let's say Veteran helped a bit.

[Garou]

The Chosen are supposed to be difficult by design. Why add new enemies who are apparently children of the Elders if you can push them around. Btw I've just completed Warlock's stronghold and he folded like a chair without even damaging anyone once. Assassin is by far the trickiest of the 3, Warlock is much weaker and Hunter is even weaker as far as my encounters with them went. Also I don't know why the 1st replier thinks that reapers are the only good new soldiers. My favorite is templar for sure, especially with full skill tree - the attack effects, the look and near invincibility with parry and reflect makes them a melee tank that is fun to play and nice to look at. They almost took my love away from psi units, almost.

[Mr Compassionate]

Yeah the game is for sure harder. Everything before you hit magnetic weapons is terrifyingly random and dangerous.

[Mhblis]

No honestly I think your are just getting caught out by the changes.

Most people I've spoken to have felt that WoTC made it far easier.

You soldiers gain way more abilities and are thus stronger.

More soldier buffs in general like bonds.

All three new classes are really really strong in their niche. Reaper and Templar especially. Most complaints here are that they don't fit a person's particular playstyle. Like me who doesn't use melee units.

The resistance ring makes the avatar project a non issue. It also smooths out many of into stat and leveling problems.

The chosen are hit an miss. Honestly I was hoping they would be more Alien ruler like. But sadly rarely do they get a trait combo that makes them a challenge. The hunter in particular is a disappointment.

[ErikVeland]

For us that are constantly looking to make the game HARDER you'll be happy to learn that once you get good at this game, nothing feels inherently unfair or unbalanced, even the RNG gods (okay, maybe once in a while). Currently about to mop up a legendary campaign with The Few and the Proud AND The Untouchables.

[Telum]

Those who are saying that you looking to make it harder... maybe turn off "PowerUp" xD

I never ever use cheats, but this DLC made me look for cheats after three missions, cause I lost half my manpower by that (commander/ironman). Sure would love to beat it, but for now its back to Veteran and no Ironman :)

[RexEviL]

Beginning is harder since you don't have access to important skills etc. While late is game is easier than main game.In fact although late game has stronger enemies such as sectopod,gk,archon weaker enemies like advent and sectoid are more deadly.
Chosen? Reaper banish. Thats it.
Kill aliens? Get 2 reaper and claymore your way in.
Sabotage? Reaper
Capture or kill target? Reaper
Escape? Reaper
You can massacre entire map with reaper using talon.
Send reaper to aim and movement operations.
In terms of balance Reaper is the most unbalanced unit in game.