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 ?

[theworld]

Pray tell how you have 50% chance to crit vs MEC when you have Tracer rounds?

[Demon of Razgriz]

Originally posted by KaneBlackHand:

Pray tell how you have 50% chance to crit vs MEC when you have Tracer rounds?

Ok, now that I am at my computer, I looked at it. If I have the laser sight installed, its a 50% chance to crit VS Mec. Steady Hands-10%, Base crit-10%, Deadshot-10%, Superior Laser sight-20%. If I don't have laser sight and have scope instead its 30% chance to crit.

Edit: Corrected some numbers

Edit2: As soon as I get Icarus Armor, I throw it on my snipers. Using the jump ability that Icarus armor gives, I rarely actually move my snipers.I find a spot high up where they can shoot most of the map and if they need to relocate to catch up to my squad, I use the jump. So, I usually do missions and my sniper only moves 2 or 3 times the entire mission. So Steady Hands is almost always active.

[Martial.Lore]

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?

Yes. Emphatically. Brigadier sharpshooter with plasma and superior scope. Deadeye + AP rounds = mechs are soft targets. I think I just took out a heavy mech but let me check in on my saves and get back to you for sure on this one. Just to be 100%.

[Jackal]

A.P rounds are useless since all you need is a grenadier to fully shred the whole armor of a gatekeepr or sectopod with chain shot, get him blue screen rounds and probably close to an instant kill. Talon rounds for rangers, bluescreen for grenadiers and sharpshooter, Reaper gets dragon rounds of venom for extra damage for silent kills, or talon rounds for extra crit 'cause of the crit stacking skill reapers have

[Martial.Lore]

Originally posted by jfcaldeira:

A.P rounds are useless since all you need is a grenadier to fully shred the whole armor of a gatekeepr or sectopod with chain shot, get him blue screen rounds and probably close to an instant kill. Talon rounds for rangers, bluescreen for grenadiers and sharpshooter, Reaper gets dragon rounds of venom for extra damage for silent kills, or talon rounds for extra crit 'cause of the crit stacking skill reapers have

Yeah, no reapers in vanilla. We're not all quite on the same page in this discussion, and I can't comment because I haven't started WotC yet. But in vanilla, AP rounds are very very good to have.

[Elevrai]

Blue Screen is vital against most of the "must kill before it shoots" enemies. It also allows anybody to one shot codexes before they clones and start their psi bomb annoyance. Also, if you have a reaper with tactical rigging, you can use BS ammo to kill those codexes before they annoy you or finish the mechs from behind.

[Rezeak]

In WoTC you can have both serial and fan fire making bluescreen the best ammo for snipers. (The reward for killing the chosen for the sniper pushes this fact even more)

Bluescreen + Pistol is insane dmg like the most you can deal in the game. I mean you can use serial and kill all the squishies then use the 5 pistol shots to like 50ish dmg nothing comes close.

Before, for me it was between both talon and bs. (used to have 2 snipers for that anyway one with talon + serial and one with bluescreen + fan fire).

Either way, i think pistol sniper with BS can kill anything in a single turn which is handy for scetopods and gatekeepers.

[Angela™]

Originally posted by -SG1-Shadowscall:

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.

You can get an additional +2 i think from breakthough research. That would put the margin for error a lot closer.

Basic sniper damage is 8-10. 10-12 with upgrades, 15-17 with bluescreen.
Elite mechs have 4 armor.

[The.Spaz.]

I generally found stunning or disorienting codex to keep them from cloning. Too bad you cannot throw grenades in overwatch then again its sort of obvious why... I still find AP quite effective on a gunner or Sniper in vanilla although Bluescreen is getting incresinly demanding. I imagine once i unlock these beam weapons for my crew, things will be a little more managable.

[Martial.Lore]

In my vanilla legend campaign my sharpshooter just crit hit and killed a slightly injured gatekeeper for 22 dmg with AP rounds. Edit: And now she killed a heavy mech, 18 for 18, no crit (with 80% deadeye chance at ground level). It will be interesting to see how things might be different once I get into WotC.

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by Martial.Lore:

In my vanilla legend campaign my sharpshooter just crit hit and killed a slightly injured gatekeeper for 22 dmg with AP rounds. Edit: And now she killed a heavy mech, 18 for 18, no crit (with 80% deadeye chance at ground level). It will be interesting to see how things might be different once I get into WotC.

Lucky crits with deadeye + bluescreen would hit both of those targets harder than lucky crits with deadeye + AP.

There's a question over whether discussing maximum values on a lucky crit is wise, but it's orthogonal to the thread topic, since it has no impact on whether AP is as good as bluescreen or vice versa.

[krabdr]

I do like the bluescreen round + fan fire attack, but I also like putting talon rounds on my sharpshooter as the sheer damage output is amazing with a pistol, especially combined with the weapon upgrade to pistols. There are so many ways to take down the big armored targets that one doesn't really need them; however, I do like to put one on Mox as he gets two shots off per turn minimum and the bsrounds are great for hacking.

[Val]

Originally posted by 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 ?

I never actually use bluescreen rounds since I always have a grenadier to shred their armor.I personally prefer Armor Piercing rounds since rangers and snipers generally 1 shot everything with em (2 shots for sectopods)

[Demon of Razgriz]

Originally posted by Valzeras:

Originally posted by 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 ?

I never actually use bluescreen rounds since I always have a grenadier to shred their armor.I personally prefer Armor Piercing rounds since rangers and snipers generally 1 shot everything with em (2 shots for sectopods)

Ah, I usually give AP rounds to my grenadiers so that all of their damage goes through the armor (since it is full at the time the damage is applied) and they also shred some of it along the way.

[ShunBrokuSatsu]

So one thing I have not noticed anyone mention here is that blue screen rounds actually do one other thing to deal with a later game annoyance known as the shield bearer. One thing not a lot of people seem to be aware of is that blue screen rounds actually completely bypass shields. Actually not only do they bypass shields but they break the shield on contact so if you have an elite shield bearer use his shield for 5 points on a target you want to kill you can hit it with any sort of damage from a gun with blue screen rounds and the shield will drop not matter how much damage the shot did (so if you shot at it with a pistol that did 2 damage the 5 point shield will still drop).

This on top with the crazy damage boost to mechanical units makes blue screen hands down the best ammo in the game.