When to use overwatch and when to engage manually?

[Pandasaurus]

^title

[Benkyo]

Only use overwatch if you think the aliens are going to patrol into your overwatch (by revealing you, or when already revealed). Otherwise, if you are engaging from stealth, forget overwatch.

[SBlack]

Originally posted by Benkyo:

Otherwise, if you are engaging from stealth, forget overwatch.

Overwatch ambushes can be useful in the early game. Set everyone but one to Overwatch and shoot with one person.

But generally Overwatch is more something you use when you have nothing else to do. Can't see an enemy. Can't get into a better position. So stay where you are and overwatch.
Or on non-timed missions when you creep forward, but don't want to risk revealing pods.

[drager55891]

From what I understand there is a reduce to aim when the shoot is in overwatch.

[Xuhybrid]

Overwatch lowers your Aim so only use it if you're expecting an enemy in cover to move out of cover or are catching a new enemy who is out of cover, moving into cover.

[.O.]

Overwatch is for when your shot chances are sub 50% and you literally can't do anything else e.g. suppress, grenade, flashbang, move to a better position for next turn or this turn using grapples etc.

That and maybe for initial engagement while you're still concealed. But I personally don't do that except for during GateCrasher.

[Pandasaurus]

Originally posted by SteveS:

Originally posted by Benkyo:

Otherwise, if you are engaging from stealth, forget overwatch.

Overwatch ambushes can be useful in the early game. Set everyone but one to Overwatch and shoot with one person.

i used this move quite often, but the problem is, the enemies move reaction often flank my squad while my squad cant move out of that flanked position because of overwatch

[Benkyo]

Originally posted by Pandasaurus:

Originally posted by SteveS:

Overwatch ambushes can be useful in the early game. Set everyone but one to Overwatch and shoot with one person.

i used this move quite often, but the problem is, the enemies move reaction often flank my squad while my squad cant move out of that flanked position because of overwatch

This is the problem. Sure, you get reasonable odds on overwatch shots from stealth, but you can't choose their targets, and if any enemy survive you have no way of reacting to their initial re-positioning + full turn to flank you. It's all about flexibility - overwatch ambush is too inflexible.

I think the only time using overwatch ambush is viable (aside from when the enemy patrols into your concealed unit, revealing them and triggering a squad full of overwatch, which is great) is some niche situations when you are on a tight timer.

[leandrombraz]

Originally posted by Pandasaurus:

Originally posted by SteveS:

Overwatch ambushes can be useful in the early game. Set everyone but one to Overwatch and shoot with one person.

i used this move quite often, but the problem is, the enemies move reaction often flank my squad while my squad cant move out of that flanked position because of overwatch

Overwatch from concealment don't have penalty, so it's a waste not to use it. Instead of leaving only one unit without overwatch, try to read the situation. More often than not it's better to overwatch only a few, 2 or 3 units depending on the composition of your squad and how good is their chance to hit. Try to always leave a unit with mimic beacon or flashbang without overwatch, if s*** hit the fan you have a way to protect yourself. Also leave a supporter for aid protocol. Armor is something you always need to consider, no point hitting a overwatch shot if it will be almost entirely absorved by armor.

I usually overwatch my sharpshooter, my grenadier give the first shot or grenade, I leave at least a ranger and a specialist for the aftermatch and the other two units depend on class, position and circunstances. This is no hard rule, off course, different problems call for different solutions but that's the most common scenario.

[talemore]

Overwatch has 30-40, lower cover has 20. You figure it out.

[Fringehunter7719]

The short answer for when to use overwatch is there are 4 situations where you want to do it.

• On gatecrasher for your first ambush from concealment. if you have a good position in elevated cover that can't be flanked. Toss a grenade and have the rest of the squad on overwatch.
  
• If the unit in question is a specialist with threat assesment/guardian/Cool Under Pressure.
  
• When you can't shoot anything and don't want to move with your last action.
  
• When you have a concealed/shadowed scout and want enemies to patrol into your overwatch volley on their turn. Doubly effective with a long watch sharpshooter to make sure they get activated.

The last one is the one that comes up the most.

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The longer answer is that overwatch shots come with several penalties:

• They cannot crit (except for specialists with Cool Under Pressure from the GTS).
  
• Shots against targets making a blue move get their accuracy multiplied by 0.7.
  
• Shots against targets making a yellow move get their accuracy multiplied by 0.6.
  
• You cannot move or react after you shoot, so are stuck with bad consequences if shots miss.
  
• You cannot choose which target gets shot.
  
• If your unit on overwatch is mind controlled, such as by a sectoid, you now have that overwatch pointing at your soldiers instead.

What this means is that in terms of pure accuracy, if you know a unit will move then overwatch is more likely to hit than firing into cover when accuracy is less than 47% if the target is in low cover or 93% if the target is in high cover.

However, the penalty of never critting and not having control over which targets are fired on, as well as not being sure the target will move and trigger the overwatch means it's very rarely the right thing to do if you can just fire.

The exception to that is units that can take multiple shots in overwatch but only one active shot if they fire manually. The archetype for that is specialists who can get aim bonuses and the ability to crit on overwatch from the GTS, which means they don't have the same level of accuracy and damage penalty as other units - in fact since most overwatch shots are flanked they often get more crits this way. They also get the very powerful guardian ability, which can chain activate, meaning that while you're only guaranteed to take 1 shot it can produce up to 8 shots, with 2 shots being the average.

It's also worth knowing that threat assessment overwatch stacks with regular overwatch, meaning a specialist who applies aid protocol with threat assessment to himself and then activates overwatch with his second action gets 2 shots minimum, with each shot being able to activate guardian separately.

Killzone is another option for multiple overwatch shots in place of a single active shot. It combines well with a mimic beacon that will draw enemies into a particular area.

[PictusCZ]

Guess we are talking about overwatch "ambush". It's quite nice in early game, becomes less useful in mid and late game, when you have lots of skills to choose from, some soldiers have skills that require no action, grenadiers can launch a grenade and shoot in the same if they have salvo and so on. Which is quite different from the situation in early game, where you can typically choose between firing your main weapon and throwing a grenade.

But overwatch can still be useful if you know (for example, from scouting with a shadowed Reaper) there is a patrol incoming, it is not triggered yet and you expect them to walk into your LOS.

But as for overwatch ambushes from concealed squad position, it's (from my point of view) as i stated in the first paragraph...

[Hasefrexx]

Originally posted by talemore:

Overwatch has 30-40, lower cover has 20. You figure it out.

An ennemy moving out of full cover is more likely to get hit by overwatch (unless dashing) with the added 40% extra crit. Also I sometimes overwatch if I want to hit a given alien but can not see him from my position. Works best on high ground to negate most of the aim penalty.

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by Hasefrexx:

Originally posted by talemore:

Overwatch has 30-40, lower cover has 20. You figure it out.

An ennemy moving out of full cover is more likely to get hit by overwatch (unless dashing) with the added 40% extra crit.

Overwatch cannot crit, unless the unit is a specialist with the GTS perk Cool Under Pressure.

[necro55]

From my experience there are very few instances when you would overwatch rather than just firing. I had 1 instance like that last weekend, it was a retaliation on haven, and the cover was spread very awkwardly and between the sectopod stomping on things and purifiers melting everything, so much cover was on fire moving closer was difficult due to lack of cover, and where i was the best shot % i had was 47, the others were teens and 20s. That alone seemed odd, maybe a glitch as i was too close, but rather than most likely guaranteed misses i OW everyone, and let advent charge me. I killed 2 and injured 1 like that.
Normally i would never suggest OW over attacking but that low of a hit chance means you will most likely miss anyway. So there are exceptions like above but in general if you have a good shot, take it.

[Twelvefield]

I'm not fond of overwatch if the soldier isn't under full cover. Without full cover, I'd rather hunker down.

In the later game when you have weapons with larger clips and your soldiers can aim, then you can go overwatch more and get cheap kills for cheap thrills. However, there's usually a better option by that time.