SkullJack as an offensive weapon

[Captain Wolf]

I had to skulljack an officer. I found an officer with two yellow pips of armor, full heath, and he was protected by a shied bearer's force field. My ranger just walked up to him and killed him with the skulljack. This got me thinking...this did way more damage than a grenade would have. Do people ever use these instead? It seems like the most op weapon I have now?

[talemore]

Very late in the game there are few advent but yeah why not give all your soldiers a skulljack. It works like a sword for classes who don't have one.

[Zeonista]

You're not wrong to think it's very effective. The skulljack slash has 2 results:
Hit, autokill the Advent soldier, and get a chance to gain something..or take 2 damage.
Miss, automatically do 2 damage to the Advent soldier as a free attack, and he's at point-blank range for a follow-up shot.
So if you want to send multiple skulljack using soldiers out to gather kills & benefits and it works for you, hey, why not.

[Stardustfire]

take in mind its only one use per skulljack ability, also take in mind you MUST hack with it, so when the hack fails it can backfire badly. the last point makes the skulljack mostly viable for specialists. all othr classes lack a good start hacking number.

[Captain Wolf]

Originally posted by talemore:

Very late in the game there are few advent but yeah why not give all your soldiers a skulljack. It works like a sword for classes who don't have one.

I thought I could use it on anything with a skull? Is it only for advent soldiers, captains, shieldbearers, and shock guys? The humanoids?

[Zeonista]

Originally posted by CaptainWolf2002:

Originally posted by talemore:

Very late in the game there are few advent but yeah why not give all your soldiers a skulljack. It works like a sword for classes who don't have one.

I thought I could use it on anything with a skull? Is it only for advent soldiers, captains, shieldbearers, and shock guys? The humanoids?

The skulljack only works on Advent soldiers, but it works on all of them, at all levels of capability. There is even an Achievement for getting 1 of each of the non-WOTC types. :)

[Captain Wolf]

Originally posted by Zeonista:

Originally posted by CaptainWolf2002:

I thought I could use it on anything with a skull? Is it only for advent soldiers, captains, shieldbearers, and shock guys? The humanoids?

The skulljack only works on Advent soldiers, but it works on all of them, at all levels of capability. There is even an Achievement for getting 1 of each of the non-WOTC types. :)

Fun!

[Synavix]

I always keep a skulljack on my specialist and try to use it every mission. You end up with so many extra intel datapads that you can buy anything you want from the black market. It's REALLY good when you accidentally pull an extra group or two and have a shieldbearer that shields everything. Because the skulljack can insta-kill the bearer and remove shields from everyone without having to deal with all that armor.

[Eggy]

once per mission iirc

has a chance to miss

[Aranador]

My specialists will usually carry one - not only is that a solid chance to remove a high health advent unit easilly, but with the right upgrade, boosts the specialists hacking ability. I wouldnt waste the inventory slot of other soldier types with it though - so many other useful things they could be carrying.

[asdf]

It has the same problem all melee weapons have. You run the risk of activating more pods almost any time that you'd try to use it, and if you do activate another pod then your character that used the skulljack is highly likely to die (plus there's also the chance that your skulljack attempt just misses and then the enemy can flank you on the following turn). It can be used as a weapon safely in some rare circumstances, but they're rare enough that I'd never want to bother bringing it just for using it as a weapon.

[Abrakadabra]

Not worth it in my opinion. Not even with skull mining and 100 % chance to hack hostile robots. Not because hacking sucks but because its almost always better to take good ammo like bluescreen, viper, falcon, even riot or elyrium rounds. Almost any ammo is better.

Specialists can be turned into overwatch monsters. My alpha specialists always get guardian (naturally, cause its awesome) and bonus skills such as serial/in the zone/killzone. Specialist with superior perception and scope and magazines (always gets the disruptor rifle ultimately) with some of the above mentioned skills is a nightmare for incoming pods. Its a devastating unit. Ammo significantly buffs the already comsiderable dmg output of that unit. The ability to take robo units out of the fight for a few turns pales compared to the additional dmg you would dish out with ammo. Just pales. In many missions in later stages, when specialist gets to higher ranks and gets aim and the gts buff.....they just shoot so often. Often times they hammer incoming units multiple times via their enhanced overwatch.

That unit was made for ammo. It thirsts for the very best ammo you got. Think about it. Lets say multiple codex or (for the sake of argument) sectopods patrol into your position and cause of shadow chamber you came prepared with specific ammo, with bluescreen, you can easily dish out 20 extra dmg just with the specialist preliminary overwatch. Just this single pod and you dished out that much extra dmg.

Its too good to not take advantage off. And actually hacking a unit so it fights for you....you need super high hacking stat for that and some of the modded enemies that are actually scaled for late game (unlike unmodded and hilariously unscaled stuff like regular sectopods that basically ♥♥♥♥ their pants after one single, shredding bluescreen chainshot) have extra hacking defense.

Its not worth it to try and use the specialist as an offensive hacker. Its viable but its nothing compared to a full fledged max aim ammo overwatch monster. Im on holidays right now and only back home in a month so no xcom for now. But ill give you the difference in dmg output of a skulljack specialist (with skullmining) and an ammo specialist.

I estimate an ammo specialist will do 100 + more dmg in longer missions with many pods. I would take that over better hacking any day. My specialists always get ammo. Skullmining for inten aint necesssry either if you win most missions. Cause you will already have more than enough intel for the most juicy stuff in the black market and also for expansion.

Ammo wins.

By a huge margin. Ultimately, you will have the greatest benefits when youre able to take pods out as fsst and efficiently as possible. And a skulljack means you miss out on insane dmg numbers. That aint a problem on regular l/i. Almost anything works there. Even templars appear strong on regular l/i with its imba late game. But when you can actually and easily die in late game, even with the most powerful endgame squad....trust me, youll take ammo. Cause you will kill more stuff much faster. In accidental multi-pod scenarios this can determine whether you live or die.

Ammo is a better life saver than 100 skulljacks. Skulljack lessens your overall survival chance compared to ammo. I dont even take a single mimic beacon anymore in those stages. Same reason. You miss out on insane dmg numbers.

[Perplex]

I tend to have one with me on a specialist but not for skulljacking but for the +hack skill.

And to the guy above, you can have a skulljack and ammo with you on the same soldier without a problem.

[red255]

if you dont have a hack skill its going to make you take damage 70% of the time.

Most ADVENT you can take down without taking damage. I carry one, sure on my specialist for the chance at 20 INTEL.

A soldier is like 80-100 INTEL in the black market. So if my Specialist skull jacks an advent every mission and gets 20 INTEL about 50% of the time, in 10 missions I get a new soldier which justifies the wound time I incur on the soldier every other mission. (that and the fatigue system)

you arent a specialist you got a garbo tech score you'll be taking wounds most of the time you skull jack.

I think every time you fail a skull jack hack every hack you do afterwards in the mission causes damage. so its going to ruin further jacking.

[Abrakadabra]

Originally posted by Perplex:

I tend to have one with me on a specialist but not for skulljacking but for the +hack skill.

And to the guy above, you can have a skulljack and ammo with you on the same soldier without a problem.

I always take a medpack. And ammo. Wouldnt take a skulljack on a specialist over a medpack or ammo. Both more valuable.

Originally posted by red255:

if you dont have a hack skill its going to make you take damage 70% of the time.

Most ADVENT you can take down without taking damage. I carry one, sure on my specialist for the chance at 20 INTEL.

A soldier is like 80-100 INTEL in the black market. So if my Specialist skull jacks an advent every mission and gets 20 INTEL about 50% of the time, in 10 missions I get a new soldier which justifies the wound time I incur on the soldier every other mission. (that and the fatigue system)

you arent a specialist you got a garbo tech score you'll be taking wounds most of the time you skull jack.

I think every time you fail a skull jack hack every hack you do afterwards in the mission causes damage. so its going to ruin further jacking.

Take my current run for instance, I lost 5 soldiers but still got 10 grenadiers and 6 or 7 of the rest. Like 75 % of them are above captain, about 30 % Colonels. Always had enough soldiers for missions, always had enough intel for the best pcs. My entire alpha squad has superior perception or speed. Even got spare ones. I could outfit another squad with half superior perception and half advanced.

Always haf more than enough to expand as well. I got 6 grenadiers that rolled powerul bonus skill combos. And at leat one, in most cases 2 of each other class. Neither intel or additional soldiers necessary. Id trade either a medpack or a ton of extra dmg dealing ammo for something unnecessary. At leat thats how it was in my runs.

Not a good deal.

It stands. After thousands of hours and what feels like half as many runs medpack + ammo is the better option for my specialists. Taking a skulljack for either one has too many disadvantages.

Guess it depends what kind of mission it is. If theres no high end enemies in lets say a council rescue mission that I cant just leave via evac then Id consider it okay to take a skulljack instead. If shadow chamber says theres stuff like exalted custodians I wouldnt take a skulljack instead of a medpack or ammo. You need all the healing you can get and all the dmg you could dish out. Those things just wont die easily. So far ive always taken some nasty hits when egnaging them conventionally. You can cheese them in some missions and do dmg from a distance. But if you got time pressure you have to engage them quicker and take them out faster. Every point of dmg counts in those instances.

[crayno]

I always have one on my Specialist. Don't forget that the towers you can hack can give very nice bonuses.
But I do think Abi-Dalzim has a valid point, worth investigating indeed.
Thanks for your input Abi-Dalzim. You only use the skulljack for the officer/codex storyline skulljack?
Because before you have special ammo/high level specialist it might be worth it to take the skulljack?