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I will admit its been a while since I played vanilla. What your "supposed" to do is build up your roster by recruiting from the commanders quarters, buying from the BM and winning in missions. Then use the GTS to train them up. Aiming for 3-4 of each class will allow you to field a good team for every mission. This is also avisable for Wotc even though you get the infirmary to improve things. You also swap guys in and out from the very first mission. So that you get guys healing while your training up new ones. So that the eventual half dead evac mission doesnt mean GG for you.
Avoiding damage is all about learning the enemies and then prioritising targets.
You know who has rockets and grenades.
You do not stack your guys up and you kill the robot with the rockets first.
A specilist can remove most status effects if they have a med kit.
Later on they can do this at range if you pick the skill.
If its fire, then hunker down or just running through water also removes it.
Overwatch is a bad move. If you are relying on it to do your work for you, you have allready lost.
" You just have to kill everything before it can even attack you." - Correct.
After looking at your list of hard to kill enemies I am wondering how many attempts you have made.
Sectoid - do the research, gain +melee. They die to single ranger. flank shotgun or sword to the face.
Codex - Will never attack on its first turn. Always attempts to unload your guns. Has very little defence stats. Takes extra damage from emp-bluescreen. Those 1-2 point split codex that teleport across the map? - stocks.
The sectopod is a threat at all levels. You need shred. Something that can do double damage. Blue screen and EMP also help. If your desperate I "think" a specialist can hack it and stun it. The EMP can also stun it.
Andromedon - as above. Phase 1 shred and nuke. Phase 2 bluescreen.
The entire game is "game over baby" thats the entire point of the story. Humanity lost the planet to a superior alien force. You have 1 craft, 20 guys and 3 qualified personal. You are a resistance troop fielding oaps, burger flippers, escape convicts and students. It was never going to be a push over.
You have alien hunters enabled. This was brutal in vanilla. It was inteded as extra content for people who were bored of repeated runs. It was so brutal they toned it down for WoTc.
If you play well you can win on the lower difficulties very consistently, so I wouldn't call it "unbalanced" exactly.
(I am playing ennemy unknown now)
This is on Veteran difficulty (the second of four difficulties)
See, the problem with this strategising is that it assumes everything so far in the game has gone 100% perfectly and so you have all this gear and personnel ready.
Maybe I have an amazing Bladestorm Ranger that will utterly counter *Insert Enemy Here*. That doesn't matter if he twisted his ankle 3 days ago and he's not on the roster when he's needed. RNG cripples the whole tactic.
I obtained Bluescreen and Dragon rounds earlier in the game - but I then lost them when my guys got mauled by the Viper King 3 missions later.
That means when I hit the Sectopod suddenly I don't have the equipment needed to fight it effectively...snowball, snowball, snowball.
Also I defend the game being difficult (I like the theme of the odds being overwhelming) but I dislike how it's structured so that one microscopic incident can then ruin your run 8 missions later. The game may as well just end immediately the first time you lose expensive equipment or your A team.
But most of your issue does seem to stem from the fact that.
1. You seem to have over looked that we lost. Your a rag tag of troops desperatly trying to just survive.
2. Trying to run the A-Team.
The entire point is that you have 2 or 3 replacements ready at all times, that you wont always have the perfect counter ( though duplicate soldiers is easy to maintain) and are suppose to make it work. This ties into number 1.
You really need to be building a deeper roster. Which gets really easy with all the ways to recruite leveld soldoers as the game progresses.
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Its the same with the tools. The strategy level is all about you managing to make sure to have the tools you need to succeed for your team.
If you dont have a heavy that can shred armor on that mission due to injuries then make sure you are packing acid grenades.
I hope it doesn't read like "git gud", because that's definitely not what I'm going for. XCOM 2 can be immensely frustrating and is a difficult game to boot, so I do sympathise.
The "snowballing" aspect is probably one of the more troubling aspects of game design.
In vanilla XCOM 2 the maximum wounded time for a 1HP injury is actually 13 days on legend (and less on other difficulties), and it cannot trigger shaken. If you think you've seen this it's a bug or mod making things more difficult or you've mistaken a slightly wounded soldier for a seriously wounded soldier.
Wound randomisation was pretty high originally, it's been toned down a bit with WOTC, but the difference between minimum and maximum possible down time for a given HP loss is still a bit unpredictable.
There are a few strategies for minimising wounded durations. Using medkits on wounded soldiers so they can be the ones at risk of getting hit later in a mission can restrict the number of wounded per mission, better 1 guy gets hit twice than 2 guys once each because the first guy would have died to a second hit. You can scan for wound recovery at HQ before you even get an infirmary (templar HQ in WOTC) and this will stack with the infirmary later as well, meaning if you really get a lot of injuries you can prioritise getting soldiers back in action. With both that 13 day maximum comes down to about 4 days, which is less than the interval between missions.
It also pays to do optional/story missions immediately after a regular mission, as regular missions tend to be spaced out about a week to 10 days. It's a bad move to do one immediately before a regular mission and then not be able to field a squad.
Aliens will almost invariably shoot at a target they have a higher hit chance against, unless they have an AOE ability that will hit multiple targets or some other ability to prioritise over shooting. So even if you have to face fire you can protect your most essential soldiers by making sure they are the ones behind full cover or out of LOS.
On top of that you have the option of using an item like a mimic beacon (aliens will under almost all circumstances shoot it in preference to taking any other action, barring chosen, rulers and faceless) or planning your attacks carefully to ensure all enemies are dead or won't use an attacking ability (e.g. a single codex which can hit at least 2 targets with psionic bomb will always use that in preference to shooting - it does not damage).
On the strategy layer you want to get a GTS up as soon as possible (start building it day 1) and train up a few squaddie grenadiers and reserves of other classes. Squaddie grenadiers are pretty viable in any mission at any stage of the campaign. It hurts a lot less to have soldiers wounded if you have decent backup soldiers and XCOM 2 is not designed for only having a single, brittle squad of just 6 units and having no tolerance for wounds, deaths or mishaps.
Mindshields protect against all mental effects, including unconscious. Specialists have two abilities (revival protocol and restoration) that remove unconscious so there are still options there even if you do roll that low % KO. The specialist can even shoot after using a revival protocol (and it's a great ability for other things, since it restores both actions if you remove disorient or unconscious from a unit, meaning a disoriented unit can move, fire, be revived and then move and fire again, while the specialist can still fire).
For other status effects medikits remove poison, acid and burning as well as restoring health and making the carrying unit immune to poison. There's also the option of frost grenades on your own troop (ideally after it's acted) which remove status effects including mind control, but at the expense of losing the next turn.
Part of the knack is knowing which enemies can inflict status effects in the first place and how enemies work. Berserkers can only attack if they blue move first. If they yellow move, they don't attack (unlike a chryssalid or a stun lancer). However, they get more move every time you shoot them, so if you can't take them down that turn you can try retreating to a position they can't reach with a blue move (either up a ladder that you block or more than 10-11 tiles from them) and then don't shoot them so they can reach you, dealing instead with the other active aliens. If you shoot them once and increase their move range to 12 tiles they might also enrage, which if you position your units all out of range will turn them on their allies instead. If you need to back up a bit to be safe, it's an option to consider.
As well as mindshields and specialists you can also get around this with a psi op, solace will also protect your troops from mental effects (and in most cases remove them even after they are applied simply by moving the psi op within 4 tiles) and stasis will prevent the attack happening (and can also be combined with a second action, it doesn't end your turn, another excellent ability). Sparks (if you have them, although I don't recommend the class personally) are also mental immune and immune to poison/fire.
If all else fails a disoriented (flashbanged) stun lancer has its range radically reduced. Originally in vanilla both burning and disorient prevented stun lancers attacking in melee. I can't remember off the top of my head if it's still the case in vanilla. Worth investigating, I'm sure there's a thread with the answer somewhere.
Most of the enemies you name do not need to be alpha struck.
Codexes will always psi bomb you (unless there are two in play or you split one and let both live, so again there's an element of planning ahead involved) on their first turn if they can hit 2 or more units. Psi bomb does nothing on the first turn except unload your gun. If the unit is going to use its secondary weapon next turn (e.g. grenadier, gunslinger, psi ops) this is effectively a wasted turn. Units with an auto-reload are also essentially unaffected.
Sectoids will always use their two psi abilities if they are off cooldown (might be only almost always on lower difficulties, I forget - this is potentially more dangerous though and it's one of the rare things that's easier on legend) and they don't have a flanking shot from a non flanked position. If they raise a zombie you can just kill or flashbang the sectoid next turn and it wasted its turn. If it mind controls a soldier, same thing. The most dangerous result (if you have a flashbang or a way of killing the sectoid) is probably panic, since it often causes your soldier to charge into a bad position - by default aliens will ignore panicked soldiers, but beware of setting cars aflame while sectoids are around. On that note, avoid setting sectoids on fire or needlessly disorienting them as that will force them to fire, which is typically more dangerous than letting them waste time with their psi nonsense.
Shieldbearers will just use their shield ability the first turn (I think they'll even pass up flanking shots to do it, but I can't 100% guarantee that) which is again non-damaging. Bluescreen rounds will destroy the shield on any shielded unit meaning it does nothing, and should the shieldbearer die all shields it has applied die with it, again making this a very safe move. In all honesty a 3 HP shield that lasts a couple of turns (5HP for the advanced shieldbearer that shows up very late in the campaign) is a pretty marginal buff even if you just ignore it anyway.
Berserkers can do nothing if you are more than 10-11 tiles from them and don't shoot them to give them the move range they need to get to you. Mutons are also much more dangerous if you give them the option to blue move and melee (or you melee them - don't do this), so again position carefully.
Most of the rest are only dangerous if you let them AOE, just spread your troops if you are compelled to leave one of these aliens alive. If you bunch up 6 units on a rooftop then you're going to have a bad time, but that's just a mistake to learn from.
Aside from that you have the usual array of crowd control - a sectopod in stasis will do nothing, an andromedon that can see a mimic beacon will just shoot the mimic beacon available as alternatives to alpha striking.
I cannot stress enough how powerful stasis is or how overpowered mimic beacons are.
In terms of alpha striking you're probably going to want to make use of bluescreen ammo and units that can fire many times per turn (optimally a gunslinger or gunslinger hybrid) the ammo bonus is flat and on each shot, so for a gunslinger going with fan fire, lightning hands and a standard shot you're looking at 25 damage from the ammo alone against all of the most dangerous enemies (gatekeepers, sectopods, heavy mechs, andromedon second forms as well as turrets, codexes, spectres and mechs). A conventional pistol with bluescreen is more effective than a ranger with rapid fire and a weapon 2 whole tech tiers higher.
That's bad luck, although I sincerely hope you mean squaddies and not rookies. Unlike XCOM 2012 there's never, ever a reason to take a rookie past about the first 3 missions.
Hard to know what to advise without seeing a video of what happened to get 12 soldiers injured. It doesn't sound unavoidable. Bunching up a unit with a medikit and 1 other unit, while spreading the rest of your squad sounds like it would have been an option to deal with that viper/codex pod, which really isn't a particularly dangerous encounter.
That actually can't happen, unless you're using mods or your game files are corrupted. Missions are spaced out by about a week each under normal circumstances. You also have the option of finishing off a scan if you only have a few (less than 12) hours remaining, missions won't instantly despawn, it takes about a day.
There's a lot that can be said about optimising the strategy layer, a lot of it is just don't do obviously wrong stuff like building a workshop.
A couple of other things to remember are that you can save yourself scanning time in the early months letting your supply drop tick over into a second or third period instead of collecting it 2/3 times. If you only have 1 continent it will not despawn no matter how long you wait and the supplies will just accumulate. Also it's important to bear in mind that all expensive and powerful technologies are things that the player researches or builds in the proving grounds. Since you know these are coming (you even have a handy list telling you when on the right of the screen on the strategy layer) you also know that you have to stockpile the resources to build it, so planning ahead around that is a core strategy.
If you don't know what the enemies can do, you'll put your soldiers at risk by putting them in range of those abilities or not prioritizing enemies properly (eg, faced with basic Advent soldiers, not taking out the stun lancers first since they have the greatest chance of disabling your troops instead of just dealing damage like the soldiers or officers).
If you don't know how to counter the status effects, your soldiers will be at reduced effectiveness and/or go down much more easily since your soldiers won't be equipped with the necessary tools for the job (and all of that has been covered in some detail by others). This also depends on effective time management on the strategic layer of the game to ensure that your soldiers are equipped as powerfully as possible, that you do have the proper tools for the job in their pockets when you send them out.
The most important piece of all of this, the CORE aspect of the entire game, is soldier movement and usage of tactical space. If you don't use movement and positioning very well, you will be putting your soldiers at risk regardless of what the enemy types are, simply by moving them into weak, vulnerable positions.
A huge majority of incoming damage can be countered with effective use of movement, cover, and space on the battlefield. If your position is weak, you need to reposition to a stronger one. Use your soldiers' gear and abilities to capitalize on the strengths of your position and minimize the weaknesses, but DO NOT depend on gear or abilities in lieu of utilizing space on the battlefield properly.
You note in one particular instance that you had an all-star A team, a middling B team, and a whole bunch of cannon fodder as plan C. You can manage your soldiers better. Get your rookies trained up on the Avenger, mix in your Squaddies with your A team and B team (and your C team) so they can get some experience while surrounded by much more powerful teammates.
Please don't interpret any of the above as "I'm so good, get on my level" because it completely is not meant that way. I'm one of those noobs who only ever allows Specialists to be 100% medical focused, and I bring two of them along on every mission. I do not use tactical space expertly and my soldiers take too many hits far too often. This necessitates copious amounts of medical assistance on and off the battlefield. My Infirmary is always staffed, and my barracks is packed full of soldiers in various stages of training to ensure I have at least partially competent people to fill gaps when the wounds stack up.
I get that it feels like the game balance is off, but the game relies on a very specific skillset for which it offers no explicit training. It says "use cover and stuff" and then goes hands-off to force you to learn the rest of it for yourself. The only way to learn this skill on your own is to interpret clues embedded in the mistakes you (we) make. Much like chess, you may not see that you've made a mistake until several turns later when everything goes to hell all at once.
Anyway, as someone that considers himself as a little more than a n00b but far from an expert, The first thing to do is set up your guerilla tactics base and upgrade your squad capacity as much as possible. You want to take as many rookies to the field early on as possible and level them up.
Never get comfy with one style of group composition, make sure to circle through your personnel list and level up as many rookies as you can during the early levels. Also experiment with having classes with opposite skills, if you have two rangers, both should have skills that the other doesn't . this will force you to get familiar with tactics and skills that doesn't sound very useful on paper.
Eventually missions will get harder for taking out rookies on the field. So you can have one of your top vets chaperoning a squad of rookies. If you managed to maximize your squad size then you can afford to have two seasoned warriors sheoarding a group of rookies.
USE HACK/Haywire. I mostly tend to focus my specialist on healing but I would be lying if having a hacker at the right place and time saved my squad many times. Hacking a robot and sending it headlong back into its own team provides a very necessary distraction.
Employ your stealthiest team on black site missions that requires you to blow up a target. There are quite a few opportunities where you can plant a bomb and escape without anyone every finding out till its too late.
Don't be afraid to save scum, its really matter of your ego. Its what allows me to learn from my mistakes. Especially if the loss is too great. But if you consider loss as part of your experience then do make sure you focus on all the rookies in your list and level them up enough that they offer more than chances to survive an operation.
You also don't have to worry about losing countries so unless rng throws all the factories you need to destroy outa bounds the time limit matters none and is far to giving, maybe had it been auto lose or maybe the closer it to finishing the more likely you are to run into the stronger units but it not instead it just says ok here a bunch of extra time now go attack a single factory and your 100% ok and repeat every time it happens.
As someone else pointed out on another thread, XCOM shouldn't be about a squad of ranbos, but about multiple squads of semi-expendable troops. The problem is that the vanilla games are just not optimized very well for that unfortunately.
Long war and Long War 2 however very much are. They both have squad supporting GUI with quick squad-select, both basically encourage you to use multiple squads whilst also making one "ranbo" squad essentially impossible to use exclusively. Long War has the battle fatigue system which encourages you to field a lot of expandable troops, whilst Long War 2 has infiltration systems which encourage you to field several squads for a different reason (and there is no battle fatigue in LW2 to make up for recruit scarcity). Which is why a lot of people who hardcore this game consider those respective mods to be the 'true xcom experience'. Its a shame that the devs didn't take any of the mechanics for LW2 as good additions for WOTC.
Since you're playing XCOM 2 vanilla OP I would highly recommend getting LW2 once you're familiar with the game to your satisfaction. Just be aware that LW2 makes many changes, some of which you may need to look up.
It makes the game harder considerably but at the same time it also gives you more tools to manage that. The base game does that already and if you struggle with that then LW2 will rip your head off and ♥♥♥♥♥ down your throat. Duke Nuke style.
Like if you are really interested what exactly causes it, i can prepare a +-1000 word essay, just like almost everytime i try to describe the mod to someone.