I hate the Lost SO Much. (mission report/rant)

[C4Warr10r]

Not the motorcycle gang, though this is bordering on Trevor Phillips hatred. I always suspected the game wasn't using them fairly and now I know for a fact, at the cost of two of my best Rangers' lives. RIP Zeliska and Flash. Your sacrifice will never be forgotten.

So it went down like this. We're a little slow in taking out the Warlock in vanilla WoTC because I thought it would be hilarious to just throw robots at him. "You have no power here, Gandork." A SPARK squad will never be as epic as an all-SHIV squad, not without mods, but they're still robots and robots are cool.

Of course, the expense and need for training, not to mention development time, means that I had to focus on an "A" team of troops to get the covert ops to get at the Chosen to begin with. The B-team is somewhat lackluster, and also composed almost entirely of Grenadiers. What do I need them for when I have SPARKs? Two were decent because I got them from guerilla missions whether I wanted them or not. Can't have the Avatar project making breakthroughs or ADVENT making their troops OP. We're not about that life.

Thus I had a captain and a lieutenant, along with two sergeants who were only that rank because I kept using them as filler in covert ops. There are also several squaddies who have never seen combat for the same reason. I just kept getting Grenadiers because RNG wants me to die.

Speaking of, the game has been very uncooperative up to this point. I have some of the worst orders you can possibly get, and am notably lacking the headshots order. I started with "Heavy Equipment" and have a bunch of supply and intel gain ones, not that I need any of those. I've got something like, eight ADVENT datapads and we can go to the Black Market any time we're short. Time is the thing we do not have.

Still, the game insists on covert ops needing extraction. With no lost headshot order. I just have to dead sprint them. No pun intended. It's not hard, nobody ever died from that, but they usually get wounded when they didn't have to. As such, my soldiers were already a bit taxed. Then right before the assault on what I presume to be Isengard, everyone and their dog decides they have more pressing missions to give me. Save the Skirmishers, get an Advent VIP, better get these supplies or ADVENT takes the whole region, here's a retaliation, too. Since all that wasn't punishing enough.

And then I got a guerilla mission, assassinate an Advent general. However, it came with the Scout perk. Well, that's EASY! Seeing as how the troops are all tired and we can't risk the precious SPARKs since we need them to beat up the wizard, we can send the grenadiers. Doesn't matter if they can't aim worth a damn, they've got three inventory slots. We'll just bomb the opposition that we can see at all times. I sent the aforementioned very good rangers just in case the general tried running. Not getting away from Slash and Bladestorm on mobility-enhanced troops.

We were all set, and then I notice we're not only in the sewers, but the Lost are all over the place. Y'know, doing their thing, casually chatting with Advent because they're buddies like that. Purifiers? They're just for bringing enlightenment to the Lost. I KNEW this game was cheating.

It was clear that I'd never get through all of them in time, not before the general escaped, conveniently positioned on the far end of the map. So we took the very scenic and very aromatic route around everyone to strike him first. On the plus side, one of the few decent orders I acquired was the defector one from the skirmishers, and they gave us a Stun Lancer. Perfect! We'll stun the general and then blow him up. I don't know if Lancers can knock out generals like they do my troops, but it was worth a shot.

Good thing we had one, too, because the rest of the enemy troops were six Codexes ( I think), two Spectres with an Andromedon, two Shielbearers, a Priest, a trooper thrown in because he drew crap duty, and my very first Gatekeeper in this play. Lovely. How much damage could be wrought with Gateway with so many Lost around? Best to tackle them one at a time.

Ah, but when we got to the general, a very bad thing happened. XCOM2 only make Lost and aliens fight when you would normally be able to see it. A few were hanging around a Shieldbearer, making casual conversation, when that dude said something really offensive. Maybe making fun of them having no boy parts. I don't know, I don't speak Mor Belaten.

I thought maybe the game would reveal us, snickering in the shadows, but it didn't. No did it cause the general's evac timer to show up. How perfect! We could just sit there while they killed each other. I moved my squad back just a bit to watch the action, for I am taktikul geenyus.

Sadly, the game had other plans. I've always noticed the un-zombie-like tendency of the Lost to sprint right past Advent targets like they've got somewhere else to be. Probably job interviews as dead ringers for Lindsay Lohan. Or maybe groupies for Rob Zombie. Couldn't tell you, but usually it's just to go after my troops. Except they couldn't find my troops, we were concealed, and they just did it anyway. Snarling, moaning, falling and clawing right past the most obvious targets. And then, right into that damned Gatekeeper, plus two Codexes.

They passed like ships in the night, what with the Gatekeeper wanting to admonish that foul-mouthed Shieldbearer near the general before anything else, taking his two Codexes with him. Not just as planned. Very bad.

Now we've got The general, his bearer, his two Codexes, a Gatekeeper, and a bunch of Lost all in the same place. Worse, they activated another pod of Lost who again, mostly charged right past Advent to meet the Trooper and his bearer. Then THEY headed over. Of all the things. No way I can wipe all that out in one turn, even with plasma grenades.

The zombies, being zombies, ignored their usual prey of living targets, enticed by the Codices' visible brains. Of all the thing to start attacking, they picked those $%&(#es first. And you know what happens when a Codex gets hit. It clones itself.

Within one turn we went from six Codices to eight. One of whom teleported her clone right into the pod of three, and then they came over to lend a hand. Why can't I ever get normal women to do this?

Predictably, the zombies munched on them, bringing us up to eleven, teleporting all over the place. And it gets worse. The Gatekeeper decided it didn't care so much about its own allies and launched Gateway right in the middle of all that. Apparently, that's a noise loud enough for the Lost to hear because it triggered a horde. Pure Chaos.

Right after that, the Andromedon decided to abandon all pretense of ignorance and made straight for my squad. He wanted to come over and say "Look, dude, I'm part of the computer, I already know where your guys are. If this keeps up, we're going to fry just rendering all these zombies and reanimated zombies and Codices and stuff. If you don't move in the next turn, I'm going to find you and make you start killing some off."

Horrendously outnumbered, with Codices teleporting all over the place and an Andromedon charging directly towards us, heedless of anything else; thinking of what would happen if he launched one of those stupid Acid grenades at our tightly packed and increasingly fearful bunch, I made a tactical call. Better to start the ambush now by launching every single grenade at the most densely packed targets. Nuke'em Rico. Before those Spectres get close enough to shadowbind and run away.

The ambush was very loud. I knew it would draw more Lost, but Lost go where the noise is, right? Should be right on top of Advent. Throw in a Mimic for good measure so the folks who hurt the most will ignore us for a few shots, and pray.

I guess I didn't pray hard enough, or maybe the cruel gods of RNG were offended by me praying to my God. We got the general, sure, and one of the Codices next to him. Advent went after the mimic, sparing a couple shots. And then proceeded to Psionic Bomb the hell out of us. No need to take out zombies everywhere, make XCOM's guys reload every single turn, over and over again.

The only solution at that point was to use more grenades, thus bringing in more Lost. And tragically, swords. The girls fought heroically, there's just no other way to put it. With no guns, and more adversaries every couple of turns, they got cut off by the swarms. Flash was the first to go, isolated from the squad in a fighting retreat, outflanked three times by those thrice-damned teleporters. She clutched so hard, Bladestorming everything that dared come close. Down to one HP, cornered, I had no choice but to order her to make the ultimate sacrifice, and she dutifully did. She took out one of the Codices plaguing us. Two in total. I don't even know how many zombies and psy-zombies she killed. But she led three other Codices away from the squad, buying it time to regroup and conduct a fighting retreat.

Why we couldn't retreat at that point is beyond me. I blame it on Bradford. "We can't let dem revoer duh general's corpse?" Why, by Zues' beard, not? He'd already been killed three times. Once by explosives, once by normal zombies, and once again by explosives. What of value could possibly be left?

Lovely Zeliska was next to go. Our grenade barrage manged to shred all the armor from the Gatekeeper and put the Andromedon into auto mode. It trailed acid straight to her, where she honorably slew it with sword in melee. Seriously. She had already taken a few hits, behind high cover, I might add, from those crappy Codices. She hit the Andromedon with Bladestorm, it tried to punch her, missed, and she nailed it the next turn.

Yet the trail of acid cut her off from any retreat to the Grenadiers as they steadily fell back from all the cursed psionic bombing. It was all they could do to keep the tide of zombies off them, pitching the occasional grenade at the aliens. In Zeliska's final act, she blew every shot from her mag keeping Lost off herself and saving a Grenadier who blew a 93% from a Brute. The Gatekeeper closed, and she critted it with Bladestorm. Stabbed it right in the eye, I prefer to think. The explosion killed her.

Only four left, the worst in the unit. They fell back further, repeatedly taking hits from Lost because their aim was crap. Still is. I don't blame them entirely. Even with 80-90% shots, against that many opponents you're bound to miss.

As they fell back, the Advent forces didn't follow nearly as quickly, letting swarm after swarm spawning BEHIND them come after my people. That was MY plan against THEM! Screw you, XCOM!

And so the squad forced its way back forward, little by little, to nuke the remaining Advent. We ran out of grenades doing it. Cannon shots against the few remaining Codices were the order of the day. Mercifully, once we were down to six again they only approached one at a time. The remaining squad regrouped, eliminated all Lost in sight with only a few more bruises....


......And the mission didn't end. One pod of Lost was still just standing around in the far corner of the map. I thought noise attracted those jagoffs. How are we getting Lost from elsewhere, in a sewer where noise resonates? They just didn't notice? They were doing sewer maintenance? What? I knew this game cheated.

Yet advancing to them was difficult because every turn, another horde would appear and go straight to us. We weren't anywhere near where most of the fighting had taken place. Nothing for it but to advance in formation, using redundant fire to compensate for poor accuracy. And these guys still took hits. They'd completely blow quadruple-redundant reaction fire against Dashers set up between the arrival of waves. Four rapid-fire weapons missing entirely? Not in the real world, not with real soldiers, not even in the older and harder XCOM. Back then, rifles with three shot burst could miss easily, but not if you used four of them. Even in the most outlandish circumstances, one or two bullets would hit. Rapid-fire plasma cannons, though, not a chance. Everyone misses. Luckily the zombies only ate their appendices or whatever.

Finally, we approached the pod which had been idle for the whole epic battle. It took two turns, two more turns of hordes spawning, to get rid of them, and the hordes wouldn't stop. What, does a horde spawn for every explosion you caused in a battle? Seemed like it. Or maybe, at one point, the programmers just said "If you make this much noise, Lost hordes show up forever."

I took another two full turns to beat the horde's numbers so the mission would complete. Successful. Rating: Fair. Fair my butt. Nothing about that mission was fair. Not the behavior of the AI nor the exemplary performance of my troops. Total kills: 81 That's just from my six operatives, not including the Advent kills of zombies, so large was this battle. 13.5 kills per soldier is nothing to call "fair."


Don't get me wrong, this is one of those XCOM experiences I'll remember for decades. They're part of what makes the franchise so great. I'll remember Flash and Zeliska and their actions, maybe even after I have Alzheimers and don't remember my family. Doesn't change me hating the Lost one bit. Almost like I used to hate the old XCOM aliens for knowing where my troops were for a full six turns after losing sight of them. Almost like that, but dumber. Make the Lost work like zombies or don't make them work at all.

[lordhaw]

I love reading stories about epic gameplay moments! But yeah, the Lost not being fair and just coming after you is why I use the mod Fair Lost Targeting. Fixes that problem...they aren't best buds anymore. Lost are still an issue when they swarm but at least they swarm everyone.

[pickupsticks]

Great write up.

[tulle040657]

That will teach you to not bring grenades to a lost fight

[Abrakadabra]

Good story.

Thats the proper way to rant.

It wasnt the lost though man.

You werent prepared. Sewers can be tough, because of indestructible hard cover. And you stayed in concealment too long. You have to identifiy scenarios that can evolve into really risky trades sooner. If things really look bad, they often times truely are kinda bad. ANother thing is....you had a very limited roster.

You should have an almost equally ranked, skilled and equipped (pcs) B squad. An alternative squad, that is basically just as powerful. What you describe as B squad would be my C squad.

Another thing is...you put yourself in a scenario, where you fight an Andromedon, a Gatekeeper, 2 spectires, 8 codices and lost. You were fighting like 4 pods or prolly even 5 pods as you prolly didnt play with bigger pods?

As I said, you waited way x 100 too long.

Very careful and conservative/lengthy positioning can be costly. Pods are moving, specially in the intial phase of a mission and with mods even longer, throughout an entire mission. You should have brutally hammered the first pod or first 2 pods you established los on. A late game squad that is facing stuff like gatekeepers should easily, absolutely easily terminate even 3 late game pods. You somehow managed to fight all the pods on the map at the same time. But even that should be well within the capabilities of a real late game squad with all the toys.

Instead, you go in with a squad that has multiple sergeants, prolly no superior perception, no very high aim, no late game skills such as serial or saturation fire. And then, on top of that, you dont take on one or two pods at a time, plus maybe some lost....you face all the pods. Ive lost a number of soldiers and missions, cause I thought as you did: 'great....i got the sitrep that shows me all hostiles and their position'. You get overconfident and dont take it seriously.

Always take sewer maps seriously, specially in end game, specially if theres additional lost and even more so if you go in with an ultra weak C squad. That wasnt a B squad.

A standard 'B' squad in late game, in 'later' late game (facing gatekeepers) would look like this:

Reaper, 2 grenadiers at captain to colonel level with superior perception and scopes plus superior expanded magazines, end game ranger with 16 plus mobility, either big armor suit or mobility suit at major plus rank, major/colonel sniper with max aim, major/colonel specialist as a healer and overwatch monster and max aim. At that point you can even have 2 colonel reapers. One colonel reaper could have claymored 2 times and next turn it could have taken out the gate keeper by itself and possibly even dmg adjacent units with banish as well with just one single action.

Facing stuff like gatekeepers without army killing aoe skills will put you in positions, where you might pull additional stuff. Just like throughout all of xcom 2. You might face a lot more than just one pod. That is why the game gives you so many über powerful aoe skills. Serial, saturation fire, ranger reaper skill, boating aim, blasterbombs and all of that.

You werent prepared. You should have gone in with a much more powerful squad to ensure that you have the best chance.

If I had to use such a C squad, a squad you described, then the only way to minimize risk is to stoically and enthusiastically follow the most basic strat of engaging only one pod at a time. Meaning, you approach the first one or two pods and immediately hammer them hard. Take them off the battlefield asap. No delay. No careful navigating and waiting for lost to do tiny amounts of dmg vs tier 3 enemies. Lost are good to soak up a few hits and distract advent, but even with fair lost targeting you would have been in a very similar position the way you play.

You underestimated the map/tier 3 enemies/lost combo and on top of that you went in with a C or even D squad.

You need 2 full elite squads. A and B squad have to basically be equally powerful and C squad should also be stronger than your B squad. This endless waiting and preparing for an all sparks squad somehow completly messed up your roster. Wheres all the high ranking late game soldiers with superior pcs??

You should have way, waayyy more very high ranking soldiers.

When you start a campaign, put the mouse away, lean back, drink a fresh, hot, black coffee and do the following:

Think what kind of focus you have in your squad. Which soldier class will be the back bone of your squads?

I love grenadiers. One of the very best classes in the game if they get certain bonus skills. A max aim, icarus propelled serial grenadier is a brutal killing machine. I love them, I use them, they badass.

In a squad of 6, a standard squad of 6 I almost always have 2 serial grenadiers. In a squad of 7 I use 3 grenadiers. If I play some missions without a reaper, I even go up to 4 ! grenadiers in a single squad. As I immediateley look for the most elite powerful and imba bonus skills, I sometimes go up to 6 initial grenadiers and briefly after I get another 2 to 3 grenadiers. going up to like 8 grenadiers even before midgame. Because they are the back bone of all my squads. Such a high number ensures I can build several squads, even if some are tired or injured. even, if one or two of them die. Going up to 8 soldiers of your favorit or most used class means you will definitely have at least one or prolly even 2 very powerful skill combos.

So, which class do you like and use a lot?

A lot of ppl love rangers. If thats the case, personally, id go up to like 6 (minimum) or better 8 rangers if I used like 2 or more rangers in a squad.

Evybody loves rangers and they are quite powerful, but when it comes to laying down massive amounts of aoe dmg then grenadiers are just way, way, way x 1000 better. Max aim saturation fire of just one late game grenaider would have massively dmged, or killed (bluescreen) all of those enemies in the confinement of the sewers. Just one single late game grenadier with all the toys would have scared the living hell out of all those enemies.

Youre not really using the toys and skills the game provides, but go in with sergeants.

Wheres your roster??

A real roster, especially and most certainly in an unmodded l/i wotc run, would terminate even twice the number of the hardest missions in the same time. Even if there was only 3 days rest between each mission.

Wheres your roster?

Wheres the major and colonels with late game skills?

And if you got that much intel flying around....you should have already bought multiple superior perceptions. Dunno what exactly you spend your intel on, but you waste if for completly unnecessary stuff and failed to buy the truely powerful imba stuff. Superior perception is one of the most poewrful upgrades you can get. Combines with scopes and superior magazines it is a lethal combo. If a colonel grenadier has access to such things.....itll saturate the the entire sewer tunnel with deah, pain and misery.

[TamTroll]

oof. props to you man for getting out of there alive at all, and i'm presuming not save-scumming.

gotta be a mod out there somewhere that'd make things easier on you. i know "Sensible mission penalties" lets you skip those supply-run missions without consiquence. there's probably something out there that makes Lost fight Advent more often. might need to look into that myself.

[TamTroll]

this might be something to look into.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1123260291&searchtext=lost

[LukanGamer]

nice stories, didnt bothered to read but, if you saying you find them at all hard some how I suggest learning more about the game or them as they are a joke and easy.
If the reason is simply the fact they are kind of silly and boring I suggest adding Lost Mod(s) that give them more types and looks makes them a lot more interesting and a slight bit hard potentially.

[Deathraven13]

1. Mindshield to deal with the Chosen Warlock.

2. Lost grenade, you just throw it at advent and they will ignore you.

[C4Warr10r]

Originally posted by Abi-Dalzim:

Good story.

Thats the proper way to rant.

It wasnt the lost though man.

You werent prepared....

I know. I admitted as much to begin with. I spent a lot of my upgrades on SPARKs and ignored B-squad. It is crucially important, for this play, that we beat up the wizard with the robots. You read that part, right?

Still I appreciate the advice for optimizing squads. It's all sound, and I may try to use Reapers more. But maybe not. Reapers are incredibly cheesy. Nobody in the world is THAT stealthy.

Grenadiers used to be a favorite class of mine as well until WoTC, by the way. I once played a vanilla XCOM2 game with nothing but Grenadiers. I still like them, I just don't need them with an admittedly inefficient SPARK squad that does the same things.

[.O.]

if you want to rely on the lost to attack the aliens, use a lure. I did that once against the assassin, it was funny how she couldn't hide with all the lost spotting her and how she kept on wasting all her moves on lost. Best of all she had a melee vulnerability, so she ended up getting killed by lost XD

[Abrakadabra]

Originally posted by C4Warr10r:

Originally posted by Abi-Dalzim:

Good story.

Thats the proper way to rant.

It wasnt the lost though man.

You werent prepared....

I know. I admitted as much to begin with. I spent a lot of my upgrades on SPARKs and ignored B-squad. It is crucially important, for this play, that we beat up the wizard with the robots. You read that part, right?

Still I appreciate the advice for optimizing squads. It's all sound, and I may try to use Reapers more. But maybe not. Reapers are incredibly cheesy. Nobody in the world is THAT stealthy.

Grenadiers used to be a favorite class of mine as well until WoTC, by the way. I once played a vanilla XCOM2 game with nothing but Grenadiers. I still like them, I just don't need them with an admittedly inefficient SPARK squad that does the same things.

I read it.

And I didnt mean to make it sound as if you did everything wrong. Its a learning process. I made a ton of mistakes for a long time and still do basic mistakes. Nowadays, the biggest threat is to play when im starting to get a bit tired or exhausted. I lost runs where I hadnt taken any casaulties till late game and then I thought 'just one more mission/a few more turns' even though I was dead tired. And then I lost an entire squad, my A squad and all the toys and rage quit and was angry with myself cause I know I play abysmal, when not completly concentrated/enthusiastic anymore.

In my experience, it is rarely a good idea to put the mission objective over your squads survival. In 9 out of 10 cases, it is always better to evac immediately, when you feel youre losing control over the situation. If too many enemies (specially late game enemies) survive and theres also lost , then even multiple mimic beacons wont be enough. A mission can quickly deteriorate and reach a point of no return. If 2 high end soldiers with powerful gear get mind controlled or end up in enemy's stasis, then I almost always tried to stay and somehow save them.

Only to take more and more casaulties.

For some reason, the sitrep that gives you vision on all enemies' positions, has cost me entire runs on numerous occasions. The game offers a false sense of security. I found myself to relax too much in those missions, trusting that vision on enemies too much, only to make major mistakes.

You can reduce losses like that by not being shy to evac.

Lost and normal pods...they tend to start finding your concealed units at some point. The game punishes you if you stay close to enemies without engaging them. It is absolutelyl risky especially when lost are involved, because pods are already activated, even though you are still concealed. If such an activated pod reveals one of your soldiers it can get nasty. If theres a big number of pods on top of each other, then suddenly you face many enemies.

Its not as bad if you have late game skills and aim. Those skills can take care of vast numbers of enemies. You just learned valuable lessons. If you dont make those mistakes again then you learned more quickly than I did. I often times made the same big mistakes multiple times till they finally sunk in.

Is the sparks only squad just a personal goal cause you want a robo only squad just for the heck of it? Or do you believe the Warlock will be too powreful later on and Sparks are safer?

Even the modded Warlock (Better Chosen mod) aint no match for a late game squad. Not even if its accompanied by lets say a sectopod-pod and an andromedon pod. 2 grenadiers with max aim and saturation fire will dish out so much dmg to a substantial area that even the most powerful (unmodded) enemies cant just shrugg that kind of dmg off. On top of that, they have salvo and could have carpet bombed a big area (specially in the narrow sewers corridors) with plasma grenades or blaster bombs or even better, with shredstorm cannnons. Thats just 2 soldiers. Its not even unlikely, that just 2 of those well equipped grenadiers would have decimated 50 - 75 % of all the enemies and the lost in that area. Ppl always say grenadiers are okay but fall of late game.

In my experience, its the exact opposite. Theres not a single class that can dish out that kind of aoe dmg. 2 grenadiers with salvo and saturation fire and/or serial will terminate vast number of even the most powerful enemies.

They are superior to Sparks and they can have much better aim.

Nothing in unmodded l/i has any chance vs a squad with 2 grenadiers that are buffed and geared in such a way. I truely never understood why anybody woud label them mediocre. They are so strong that im inclined to give them place 1 when it comes to who is the deadliest force out there. Theres classes that are more powerful in certain scenarios, in specific instances, but when it comes to overall prowess, those grenadiers that get serial as bonus skills (some also get run and gun or other awesome secondary bonus skills which makes them even more lethal) are unmatched. They dont care if its multiple sectopods, 20 vipers. 10 andromedons. 2 overlapping shredstormcannons, then one grenadier lays down a max aim saturation fire, then the second grenadier with serial icarus jumps to the perfect spod and just kills everybody. I havent seen anything, literally anything in unmodded l/i runs, that can survive that. Nothing survives that. ITs just way too much dmg.

Which is why I love grenadiers.

Totally disagree that they are not as strong late game. With the right gear and skills, they are evil sith lords of destruction.

Their aoe saturation fire doesnt care much how many enemies try to rush you. It could be 10 or 50. You can literally take out 20 approaching sectopods if they are just a bit clumped up. If they are in those overlapping cones of shredstorm (blaster bombs works almost as well) and then saturation fire, they all die.

They just all die no matter how many.

No other class can lay down that kind of dmg and destruction.

[crayno]

Thanks for the story

"Then right before the assault on what I presume to be Isengard"

That made me LOL

I actually ran around with a reaper and my reaper noticed several advent troops being attacked by the lost. When I started attacking half of the advent troops were dead and the other half damaged. So it does seem to work, not sure if there are certain parameters that should be met.