Sharpshooter seems underpowered and reaper overpowered.

[Richard]

Hi guys I would like to ask how do you build your sharpshooters and skirmishers? I tried to place them into the my party composition but they seems to be useless in most situations.

I builded sharpshooter purely as a sniper he was good only with his killzone and serial abilities but those were really positioning dependend and situational. On the other hand there is also grenadier class. He has something similar to the killzone with his grenades which can also shred armor, he can shred with his basic attack and has a holo targeting. And he doesnt need any special positioning. Enemies are atop of building jut demolish it whole with bombs. I feel that grenadier is a lot better pick then sharpshooter. And it fulfills similar role in the party.

Then there is the reaper class. They are just insane. Best of the three factions I whink. Im really interested about your opinions on reapers. They can scout in timer missions which is invaluable. It gives you something as a sixth sense. They can also blast enemy parties with claymores or assist your troops by sting kills. And their ability Banish its amazing. With superior magazine you can one hit a chosen or deal half health damage to the ruler. Reapers are best class in game i think. And psy operatives straight after them.

I would rate it like this:
1: Reaper
2: Psy
3: Specialist
4: Grenadier
5: Templar
6: Ranger
7: Skirmisher
8: Sharpshooter

[NoTime]

I build all my sharpshooter like this:

Long Watch
Lightning Hands
Quickdraw
Kill Zone
Steady Hands
Fan Fire

After i get the Chosen Hunter down and get his thing (Not mentioning it because of spoiler just in case) i train them:

Serial
Death From Above
Faceoff

via ability points.

With that he is deadly in close - midrange and can turn a lot of battles because he isn't limited to his sniper.


Skirmisher no idea though i try to like them but i always end up with better classes in my 6 man squad. But i agree with the reaper part imo the best class and makes the game a lot easier. I personaly would take sharpshooter behind with the above mentioned things, 3. Ranger 4. Specialist 5. Psy 6. Templar 7. Grenadier 8. Skirmisher

[red255]

Wow.

Yeah so I always train my sharpshooters.

Long Watch
Lightning Hands
Death From Above
Faceoff
Steady Hands
Serial and take Fanfire for 15 AP.
Maybe buy deadeye, maybe buy Aim if I get deep cover.

Good AWC secondary perks:

Shredder ammo
Run and Gun
Deep Cover (+aim)
Rupture.
Unplacable.

Chain shot might work, rapid fire doesn't work good not sure how its coded but rapid fire doesn't trigger serial or death from above if it kills with the second shot.

Give it the hunter weapon. superior Perception PCS, put it up on a building, shoot everything.

lots of dead aliens.

give it a wraith suit and bluescreen rounds. Fanfire doesn't end your turn, so you can fan fire a large enemy, then death from above with the sniper rifle once you get the hunter weapon.

not sure why you'd bother with quickdraw.

[Aranador]

See - I like the Templar the most. It is alomost like different people have different playstyles and preferences.

[wckowalski]

One thing that helps sharpshooters a lot is having an armor with a grapple, so you can more easily get into a shooting position without using your first move. Also, once you get them in a good position on the edge of a rooftop, you can often use squadsight to keep them there for a long time making shots turn after turn. Also, if you get the hunter's weapon you can snipe after moving.

[NoTime]

Originally posted by red255:

not sure why you'd bother with quickdraw.

3 Pistol shots in one turn with Lightning Hands combined with bluescreen or dragon rounds and he shreds through everything. I don't really like Death from above to much before the hunter weapon because you can't shot a second time anyways with your main weapon.

[CTHOMP]

Also, if you've never had a serial ranger you've not explored the op awesomeness of rangers.

[_ALuX_]

Reapers are "Hero Units" and were pretty much meant to be a bit broken.

Secondly, whats the matter this the Reapers being broken? Especially if the odds happen to be in your favor?

[Mr. Nice]

Originally posted by red255:

Chain shot might work, rapid fire doesn't work good not sure how its coded but rapid fire doesn't trigger serial or death from above if it kills with the second shot.

Neither work on second shot kills. Mechanically, chain shot &rapid fire work in an identical way.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1129878719 fixes them though.

[steveg700]

I'm not sure why a reaper is being compared to a sharpshooter, other than they both enjoy high accuracy. The reaper's rifle does amongst the lowest weapon damage, while the sharpshooter's rifle ranks at the top. Reapers should be up front scouting, while sharpshooters can find perches and stay far away from the action. I don't see them filling the same roles in a squad. Also, reapers don't have the likes of Deadeye, which grants a great ability to one-shot. (Banish is pretty close, granted).

As for comparing sharpshooters to grenadiers, the grenadier has low base accuracy and less range, so he can miss with his cannon a lot when there's cover. Sure, he can laugh at cover and throw grenades, but grenades tend to soften enemies up rather than kill them outright. Even when they do kill, they destroy loot. In my WotC campaign, grenadiers have been the slowest to reach colonel. Not sure why.

If anything, I swap out a reaper for a ranger (because they both have stealth abilities) or a veteran reaper for a low-level grenadier (because they both toss explosives).

I don't get why people feel it's best to standardize against only a single version of any class. Have multiple builds for diverse situations. My thinking on sharpshooters is this:

Build a gunslinger to make the most of a soldier bond. These are particularly good for timed missions where mobility is key. They are good for splashing damage around. Maybe bond them to a grenadiers, so they can use Lightning Hands, Face-Off, and Quickdraw to finish anyone the grenades shred. I always take one along on a mission with Lost or a codex.

Build a sniper for missions for gatecrashing supply raids and alien facilities. Pair them with a spotter (ranger or reaper who take pains not to get revealed). Snipers really get screwed by bonds, because both giving and receiving bonus actions are less useful, but you might as well at least get the bond's spotting bonus to attack rolls. The spotter goes forward and finds targets, the sniper uses squadsight to neutrailize them. Mobs will literally not know what's hitting them. Great for pegging sectopods and gatekeepers.

Mind what extra-class abilities are available to a sniper, and retrain as necessary. If you can get Deep Cover, then you got a good sniper argument. If you get Untouchable, that's a case for a gunslinger. And so on.

[wckowalski]

I have a reaper who's extra abilities include both squadsight and deadeye.

[steveg700]

Originally posted by wckowalski:

I have a reaper who's extra abilities include both squadsight and deadeye.

Okay, I'm jelly.

Didn't even know a base class ability like Squadsight was available via the AWC.

Both of my reapers have Shredder, Holot-Targeting, and Killzone. I assume all faction soldiers get Tactical Rigging at some point.

[wckowalski]

Originally posted by steveg700:

Originally posted by wckowalski:

I have a reaper who's extra abilities include both squadsight and deadeye.

Okay, I'm jelly.

Didn't even know a base class ability like Squadsight was available via the AWC.

Both of my reapers have Shredder, Holot-Targeting, and Killzone. I assume all faction soldiers get Tactical Rigging at some point.

Remember the extra abilities were changed for WotC. Only one of my 4 faction soldiers got tactical rigging (my skirmisher). Templar can get some of the ranger sword abilities and some of the sharpshooter pistol abilities possibly.

Anyway, that reaper also has shredder and killzone. My other reaper has deadeye, holo targetting, shredder, and killzone. My skirmisher got volatile mix, tactical rigging, return fire, lightning reflexes, and saturation fire. My templar got lightning hands, bladestorm, quickdraw, and sustain.

[red255]

Originally posted by NoTime:

Originally posted by red255:

not sure why you'd bother with quickdraw.

3 Pistol shots in one turn with Lightning Hands combined with bluescreen or dragon rounds and he shreds through everything. I don't really like Death from above to much before the hunter weapon because you can't shot a second time anyways with your main weapon.

option 1. use your second action to use a teamwork charge.

option 2, use your teamwork charge to give your sniper a second action so he can shoot again.

option 3, reload.

Option 4, move up.

option 5, shoot with your pistol.

option 6 use run and gun to get a second shot

option 7 use inspire to get a second shot.

Basically with quickdraw you get 2 pistol shots.

with death from above you get one sniper rifle shot and one pistol shot.

provided you kill the first enemy with the sniper shot.

its just better. there are no situations where its not better. until you get the hunter rifle, then yes, quickdraw is good ON TOP of death from above. though i usually just give away my first action to my team member if I am not going to move.

[Enorats]

I've actually trained up entire squads of sharpshooters. With squadsight and long watch they can be absolutely insane. I typically play Long War 2, with a silencer mod that makes it so that attacking enemies doesn't always instantly reveal you (it can, but doing things like wiping out the entire group instantly ensures you're not revealed).

The sharpshooters just climbed to a good location, then spent basically the rest of the mission on overwatch. The stealthy characters (shinobi in this case, but Reapers would work as well or better) did all the sighting, and everything on the map died without ever even seeing one of my characters. Every pod that patrolled by or was uncovered by a stealthed character was instantly wiped out by the snipers. Heck, in one mission they cleared out something like 50 enemies without ever being detected.

Granted, the silencers help a LOT as my snipers stayed in stealth. But realistically they were sort of unnecessary. The snipers could kill anything that popped up before it ever became a threat to them anyway.

[red255]

Originally posted by Aranador:

See - I like the Templar the most. It is alomost like different people have different playstyles and preferences.

Templars are a hero unit and their AWC perks are a bit of a crapshoot.

If I managed to get a templar with bladestorm...bladestorm is probably enough, I'd probably use him like I use my late game bladestorm ranger with the asssasin katanna.

but yeah templars have their uses, they get parry at a very low level. if you parry, then use team work on them and parry again they will parry the next two attacks.

later on they get deflect and reflect. and finally they get a heal spell that also imprisons an enemy unit for some amount of turns.

but you only get the one. and without bladestorm their killing potential is rather limited.