Is this me, or Blue Screen rounds are markedly better than the other ones ?

[francjac6]

Considering the amount of Mech ennemies on pretty much all maps and their health (oh god, gatekeepers and secto), is this me or those rounds are much better than crit (except maybe for snipers ?) or DOT ?

[Rezeak]

I always have a blue screen rounds with a sniper it's so overpowered with a pistol.
Lighting hands > Pistol shot (w/ Q/Draw) > Fan fire = 25 Damage from blue screen rounds + 5Xnormal pistol dmg (which can offset any armor)

The chosen pistol with bluescreen is so insane.

[Player]

I have never used them lol

[arekasama]

You don't need bluescreen rounds. That said, they make easier to kill big robotics faster. Considering that those enemies tend to be the hardest or more dangerous, if you are going to use ammo, you may as well use bluescreen rounds. Except Ranger. Talon rounds are best. A gunner could use tracer rounds if you lack access to good scopes and/or aim chip.

[Eggy]

Blue screen all round except for ranger, they get talons.
I sometimes put viper or dragon on my pistolier just for fun, but it seems less combat effective in wotc.

You can even see that the devs planned it this way.
All the experimental ammo and grenades are randomly built in the proving grounds and they take time to build, except for EMP and Bluescreen. Once you have researched "blue screen protocol" in the proving grounds, you can use the standard engineering lab to build as many as you like instantly.

[Fringehunter7719]

Bluescreen are the generally the best ammo in the game, since they are always strictly better than AP against mechanical targets (and that does include gatekeepers as someone mentioned, as well as chosen sarcophagi and any other objectives you have to destroy), but the others have their places, if you're fighting a mixed bag then taking 1 dragon/1 bluescreen is often better than 2 bluescreen, and talon rounds have a particular use for units going for 100% crit.

It's worth bringing something for the occasional heavy armored organic you meet, acid bombs and shredstorms do nicely, and they have other uses too.

The way fixed damage multiples up with shot count (and the fact they work with pistols) also heavily favours bluescreen. +5 damage is great, +30 damage because you fired 6 times is obscene. So strongly consider using them on skirmishers or sharpshooters.

[Martial.Lore]

I consider AP rounds superior still and partly that based on the sheer difficulty of obtaining them. Bluescreen round capability is virtually gifted to you but I have presently done well over a dozen Proving Ground experimental ammo research efforts and still can only equip AP rounds on two soldiers.

And even in my late game (vanilla, legend), my AP sharpshooters are taking down codex, vipers, hunter drones, lancers and mechs with one shot, freeing up the rest of my squad to deal with the more challenging but less troublesome enemies in each pod.

Don't get me wrong -- I won't go into a fight without one soldier equipped with Bluescreen rounds (usually my gunner) -- I like having them, but I highly value my AP rounds because they make most fights much easier for me.

There are lots of other ways to deal with sectopods, and I find andromedons and gatekeepers are much more rarely encountered than almost all other enemies except berserkers (I've killed at least 16 sectopods in this playthrough but only 2 andromedons and 1 gatekeeper).

It does sound like WotC might present different challenges which may cause me to revise my opinion, but until I have finished my vanilla legend campaign, that possibility is moot for me.

[theworld]

Originally posted by Martial.Lore:

And even in my late game (vanilla, legend), my AP sharpshooters are taking down codex, vipers, hunter drones, lancers and mechs with one shot, freeing up the rest of my squad to deal with the more challenging but less troublesome enemies in each pod.

Let me get this straight: You are telling us you are killing Heavy MECs with 1 shot with your Sharpshooters in Vanilla?

[The.Spaz.]

I generally experiment around with the ammo types on different classes. Normally I use AP and Poison rounds for my snipers. Dragon rounds for Ranger, Talons for the gunner and blue screen rounds for my specialist. Poison was great early on but is losing its potency, fire still works as it tends to eat more than one HP slot per turn.

[Včelí medvídek]

until I learned bluescreen has some not obvious use (codex, gatekeeper, chosen sarcofage..) I prefered AP cus larger variability, but now.. bluescreen yeah.

[GeminiEclipse]

Oh I didnt know bluescreen worked on the sarcophagus. I'll have to try those out.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by KaneBlackHand:

Originally posted by Martial.Lore:

And even in my late game (vanilla, legend), my AP sharpshooters are taking down codex, vipers, hunter drones, lancers and mechs with one shot, freeing up the rest of my squad to deal with the more challenging but less troublesome enemies in each pod.

Let me get this straight: You are telling us you are killing Heavy MECs with 1 shot with your Sharpshooters in Vanilla?

Deadeye I assume. With just base damage Codex, Lancers and Mechs (assuming the later 2 are the late game variants) can't be oneshot without a crit. Not sure what those 'hunter drones' are tho.

[theworld]

You likely need 147% aim to hit a Heavy MEC with 10% defense because of the way Deadeye aim penalty works. Could be 144% if defense is subtracted after Deadeye penalty, but it's still A LOT to ask.

[Demon of Razgriz]

Originally posted by KaneBlackHand:

You likely need 147% aim to hit a Heavy MEC with 10% defense because of the way Deadeye aim penalty works. Could be 144% if defense is subtracted after Deadeye penalty, but it's still A LOT to ask.

Yeah, I gear my snipers so they pretty much have 100% aim, even on Deadeye. They get superior scopes, superior aim PCS, high elevation aim bonus and tracer rounds. When you combine all of that, my snipers are usually in the 150% range, so even when using Deadeye, I usually have 95-100% hit chance, even on enemies in high cover. It is awesome.

[theworld]

You still need to do 18 damage to kill Heavy MEC, how much does Deadeye add at Plasma?

[Demon of Razgriz]

Originally posted by KaneBlackHand:

You still need to do 18 damage to kill Heavy MEC, how much does Deadeye add at Plasma?

Well, deadeye with no crit does 13-16 damage, and I have about a 50 percent chance to crit, so killing a heavy MEC in one shot is not at all impossible.