So Xcom is a rogue like now?

[Yoarashi]

Only playing on veteren and any time a chosen shows up its 75% chance of entire squad kill, 25% of half squad kill. How are you supposed to deal with an enemy that can cover the entire map in one turn, use multiple abilities, then run the entire map again all in one turn?

I've played every xcom game in the series and enjoyed them, until now. The series has always been challenging and i've enjoyed that but this difficulty spike is way way way too much.

[Harmania]

Battle scanners, reapers, concealment, platforms, scanning protocol, etc.

[Maedhross]

I played veteran. And I though the chosen were very underpowered. Total pushovers. Except for the final confrontation with each, where circumstances make the fight harder.

[Yoarashi]

How? The assasin shows up when you have the entry assault weapons, she runs in, takes somebody out, then runs far enough away that you can't even get shot on her. If you do happen to somehow take a shot, you're doing very little dmg to her. All the while she's summoning new enemies on top of the ones you're dealing with already.

[anynamewilldo]

bring your 1-2 lowest ranking soldiers you named cannon fodder, ensign redshirt, stinky, charlie brown, the it girl, grandma, leeroy jenkins, or my %^&#$@ ex bf/gf/spouse.

[theworld]

If you're doing the playthrough with default options on you'll have Reaper with Shadow. Keep her in front.

She follows the same rules Concealed units do, even better her range of being detected is your entire Line of sight so if you flank her you will reveal her on your turn.

It's not that hard to guess where she is - she makes sounds of broken windows, opened doors and ladders climbed. If you reveal her then you can take her out without her doing any damage to you.

[Black Raven]

If your undergears and caught off-guard just evac, sure they be concquences but you can recover from that much easier than a wiped squad.

You eventually be better gears, better prepped, better undstanding of thier weakness, and you start to think about how easy they are to deal with.

You don't need to win every battle, only the war.

[telos]

I agree with the expansion this game is basically more RPG than strategy

great example is attacking the chosen's base at the final confrontation with them where you have to pass a DPS check to win. gg

would have been nice to know that that was basically a double mission too so I would conserve my resources............

[Kameh]

Have yet to have a problem with the Chosen on veteran. The game does tell you if they can appear in the mission, prepare for that. Easy.

[thrax7545]

Be aggressive with them.
I did my first play through on v/i and the warlock wiped my squad twice. When I started again, I went for the kill as quickly as possible and didn't have any more problem. Also mind sheild protects from daze attack, so use it.
Finally, if there's no timer, let the hunter and the assassin come to you without activating any more pods. Conversely you can take your time with the pods until you get to the warlock. That is again, if there's no timer...

[V-Fib]

That's XCOM, baby.

[leandrombraz]

Originally posted by Yoarashi:

How? The assasin shows up when you have the entry assault weapons, she runs in, takes somebody out, then runs far enough away that you can't even get shot on her. If you do happen to somehow take a shot, you're doing very little dmg to her. All the while she's summoning new enemies on top of the ones you're dealing with already.

You need to do your best to set the fight where you can fight her alone. This isn't always possible (e.g. Retaliation missions, the aliens will keep killing civilians, so you need to rush) but when a Chosen show up the timer in timed missions will pause, so more often than not you can clean the first pod fast and just wait for her. Keep your units positioned in a way that make it hard for her to hit more than one soldier with her AoE abilities, try to cover a large area to look for her if you don't have battle scanner but don't go too far so you don't get out of reach for one soldier to lift up the other and careful not to trigger another pod. She will inevitably expose herself, then it's a matter of playing to her weakness.

Keep in mind that the Chosen is trying to get information and capture soldiers, so even though they can do damage they aren't really trying to do it and they will often daze your soldiers but do no damage. This mean that you can afford to be patient most of the time, get your dazed soldiers up, position and wait, the Chosen really love to put themselves in a bad spot where you can flank them or just explode their cover. If the fight is too hard, just let her get the info, leave one of your soldiers dazed. There's the risk she will capture the soldier and that mean she will attack the avenger sooner but it's better than getting everyone killed.

Mindshield is in WotC what mimic beacon was in vanilla: OP as hell and I won't be surprised if it get nerfed. As soon as you can, build mindshields, they negate most of the Chosen abilities, mostly the Warlock, I feel sorry for the guy. The Chosen don't show up for 2 missions after one they did, there's a 50% chance they will show up in the third and the fourth is guaranteed, so be prepared. I think they are also guaranteed to show up in the Blacksite and maybe in Avatar project facilities, so prepare for that one too.

[arekasama]

It's not mandatory to prevent the Chosen from extracting information or capturing one of your soldiers. Take the hit asap so you can focus on your regular mission.

Or resist and have a more complicated, but hopefully fun, mission.

[archonsod]

They're not too hard to beat once you figure out their patterns. Early game pay attention to their weaknesses - if you expect them to show up, configure the squad accordingly.

[Sines]

Originally posted by KaneBlackHand:

She follows the same rules Concealed units do, even better her range of being detected is your entire Line of sight so if you flank her you will reveal her on your turn.

It's not that hard to guess where she is - she makes sounds of broken windows, opened doors and ladders climbed. If you reveal her then you can take her out without her doing any damage to you.

This is something the game could have done a better lesson teaching you. Her animation suggests she has some true invisibility option, and not something that is functionally identical to the Rangers Conceal command. Once I realized that I could just look around to find her, and she'd be perfectly vulnerable, she became a lot easier.

Though she can be a huge pain if she spawns with Shadowstep...

[Yoarashi]

yeah mine has shadowstep and explosion immunity.

I didnt know about the mind shield negating the daze attacks, thats huge, thank you very much for that tip!