Give Me Your Operation Leviathan Strategies

[NecessaryWeevil]

Base game, only mod is Less Silly LOS. Playing on Easy; not interested in any opinions on that.

I reached the final room with the Avatars with 5 combat effective soldiers (one was unconscious halfway back to the starting point, one was a Specialist with about 3 health so being careful to skulk at the back of the group where it was safer). Force consisted of one Colonel Sniper, one Captain Ranger (stealth spec), one Colonel Grenadier, One Colonel Specialist, another Grenadier and another Specialist (can't remember which one was unconscious. One of them was a Colonel and one a Captain). I had three heals from Specialists remaining.

We fought mostly in the middle of the room but not too far from the entrance. Although we killed a lot of hostiles and two of the Avatars, the last one bouncing around the map and mind controlling my soldiers from behind a wall of mooks was just too much.

So. Any suggestions for improvements? I've heard "bring two max-rank Psis" which makes me wince because I don't have any Psis, and another suggestion seems to be "fight from the entrance hall," which I can't see working because you'll eventually just drown in infinite waves of hostiles.

[Eggy]

On easy, your squad makep is pretty irrelevant. On higher difficultys at least 1 PSI makes a big difference and 2 specialists might be 1 too many,

2 grenadiers is ok, as long as they are setup to be gunners. Good aim and nice mods on the guns. If you got lucy with the AWC and have nice skills, also a bonus.

The aim in the last level is to kill the boss mobs. Focus fire on them rather than taking out random enemies. As soon as you kill the last 1 its game over so you dont need to worry about leftovers.

The bridge tactic works great, for 2 reasons.
It funnels the enemies that bother to come looking for you, and not all of them bother to do so.
It forces the avatars to teleport to you. Which they will do regardless of how many other enemies are sat milling around aimlessly in the middle of the big room.
So you can easly end up in a situation where your entire squad is able to get shots off on the avatar.

Ive completed vanilla a number of times by clearing the last room. This relies on having mobile characters so taking mutliple Rangers, of the non stealth variety. Then can run in, get crits with the shotgun, become immine to damage and also bladstorm the crap out of stuff. They get supported by rifle characters up on the podiums.

The scenrio you mentioned about being MCd from behind a wall of mooks is where PSI shines.
They have a bubble that negates the mind control and can do gaurnateed LOS damage that ignores armour. So they are great at negating alot of the avatar crap.

[red255]

pretty sure new pods only spawn in as the old pods get killed off.

if this is vanilla not WotC, you could use a PSI op to mind control some gatekeepers early on in the mission so you can bring an extra gatekeeper per psi soldier into the final room. WotC does a ♥♥♥♥ move teleport to break the link but doesn't refund your dominate charge because ♥♥♥♥ move.

I like to put my sniper up on one of the towers.

so are on the third avatar, map ends in victory when the third avatar dies. you don't need to kill all the other aliens.

so if you can drop bombs on him, like blaster bombs he'll take damage and probably die.

you can break mind control with stasis. you can break mind control with a psi soldier solace ability.

but this is easy so I'd just damage race the last avatar. get it in site and just do damage.

[AlexMBrennan]

the last one bouncing around the map and mind controlling my soldiers from behind a wall of mooks was just too much.

Obvious move is to bring guaranteed damage to counter this - blaster launcher, capacitor discharge, anything you have will force the avatar to teleport, usually to a less advantageous position. This means relying more on recharging abilities during the early part (avatar rift is on cooldown and you have unlimited time).

[NecessaryWeevil]

OK. Thanks for the suggestions! I do realize that the victory condition is killing the Avatars, but the third one was too elusive.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by NecessaryWeevil:

OK. Thanks for the suggestions! I do realize that the victory condition is killing the Avatars, but the third one was too elusive.

The 3rd and final one is the key to victory. Ignore the other mobs if you can and focus on that last avatar.
I've had all kinds of nightmare mobs spawn in, including a couple of sectopods, andromedans, gatekeepers etc. all of which would be overwhelming if it was a mission to neutralise all enemies. But that isn't the case here. The moment that last avatar dies, you win.
Make sure you have the whole arena covered so there's no place he can teleport to that will be safe from one of your units being able to injure him. Each successive injury will result in another escape teleportation. The trick is to hit him every time he lands until he's dead.

[Rockfire ✘]

I miss the cheesing strat you could use on that map, gave me quite a surprise when I encountered the room transition as I'd jumped straight into Legendary (non ironman, I wanted to experience the new content) when wotc came out. I think my party was 2 snipers, 1 ranger, 2 specialists and a reaper, everyone had bluescreen rounds.

First avatar was easy, sneak up with the reaper and banish it. Second one took a crit to the face from the Arashi and the last one.. I got screwed on rng and he just hid in the back. Needless to say some sacrifces were required to bait him out, in hindsight probably should of taken a few mimic beacons.

But heres some some strats I can think of to help.

Threat assesment works very well with guardian if you have the luck. (once managed to take out an entire pod out with it)
With the darklance and tier 3 team bond, you can shoot 4 times in a row. (or more if you have a few psi's with Inspire)
Exploit the fact that the commander has a guaranteed 5 turn mindcontrol
Bring psi troops if you have any, stasis and domination are godly abilities. personally I think their too op
With the Ranger, unstoppable + Bladestorm (katana never misses) + Implacable. Allows you to melee/shotgun kill and hug an other enemy for a guaranteed kill if they have low enough health, careful to place them correctly they can only avoid 1 direct hit.
Snipers with face off and bluescreen = amazeballs. (needs the face off fix mod for full potential)
Stasis Vests are great if you can get them.

Other than that, make sure you aim to kill any new pod showing up, you can easilly get overrun if your not careful.

And remember its the last mission, take some risks you dont need your soliders after the mission anyway.

[NecessaryWeevil]

You mention bluescreen rounds several times - are Avatars considered robotic?
Also, not familiar with banishment, reaper (unless you mean a ranger with that trait), Arashi, darklance, and team bond. Are those WotC features?

[KRON]

Originally posted by NecessaryWeevil:

You mention bluescreen rounds several times - are Avatars considered robotic?
Also, not familiar with banishment, reaper (unless you mean a ranger with that trait), Arashi, darklance, and team bond. Are those WotC features?

No, they're not robotic, and yes, those are WotC features.

[talemore]

Grenade shoot repeat is the leviathan of every mission

[Eggy]

Originally posted by NecessaryWeevil:

You mention bluescreen rounds several times - are Avatars considered robotic?
Also, not familiar with banishment, reaper (unless you mean a ranger with that trait), Arashi, darklance, and team bond. Are those WotC features?

I cant remember if the avatars take more damage from bluescreen, but codexes do.
In Vanilla bluescreen was more the obvious choice of ammo and tbh It wasnt uncommon to use it on every squadie. It makes things so much easier.

And yes the other stuff mentioned was all WOTC stuff. Once you have killed a chosen or 2, you get access to there weapons. These make the rest of the game much easier.

Rockfire clearly didnt read the first line of your OP.

[Rockfire ✘]

Originally posted by NecessaryWeevil:

You mention bluescreen rounds several times - are Avatars considered robotic?
Also, not familiar with banishment, reaper (unless you mean a ranger with that trait), Arashi, darklance, and team bond. Are those WotC features?

Codex, Sectopods, Gatekeepers, MECs and andromedons (have to kill the user first) all take 5 extra points of damage with bluescreen rounds and yes, darklance.. etc are wotc weapons. if you have the base game, just camp the building behind the main area.. easy game.

Originally posted by Eggy:

Rockfire clearly didnt read the first line of your OP.

Easy or not, you have to learn if you want to get better at the game.

[DarkExcalibur42]

A Reaper Ranger with that DLC axe can do amazing things. That plus a couple explosives-heavy Grenadiers in WAR suits and I just crush the mess of enemies, then let a sniper and a ranger pick on the Avatars.

As mentioned before? Bluescreen rounds are amazing. They destroy "dead" Andromedans quite well, make codexes suffer, and help with MECs.

A Psi-Op with a speed buff is fantastic for breaking enemy dominates, plus their Null Lance does wonders.

[talemore]

Originally posted by DarkExcalibur42:

A Reaper Ranger with that DLC axe can do amazing things. That plus a couple explosives-heavy Grenadiers in WAR suits and I just crush the mess of enemies, then let a sniper and a ranger pick on the Avatars.

As mentioned before? Bluescreen rounds are amazing. They destroy "dead" Andromedans quite well, make codexes suffer, and help with MECs.

A Psi-Op with a speed buff is fantastic for breaking enemy dominates, plus their Null Lance does wonders.

Codices can be killed with a single shot from a sharpshooter. It's like always situational depending on what alien you encounter. Battlescanners basically useless except for activating faceless civilians. You don't need a battlescanner to win as much you don't need bluescreen rounds at the final mission when you have specialists who can hack every robot and a sharpshooter who can instant-kill codices while playing on easy.

[Eggy]

Originally posted by Rockfire ✘:

Originally posted by NecessaryWeevil:

You mention bluescreen rounds several times - are Avatars considered robotic?
Also, not familiar with banishment, reaper (unless you mean a ranger with that trait), Arashi, darklance, and team bond. Are those WotC features?

Codex, Sectopods, Gatekeepers, MECs and andromedons (have to kill the user first) all take 5 extra points of damage with bluescreen rounds and yes, darklance.. etc are wotc weapons. if you have the base game, just camp the building behind the main area.. easy game.

Originally posted by Eggy:

Rockfire clearly didnt read the first line of your OP.

Easy or not, you have to learn if you want to get better at the game.

Dude ... "base game only" Lets change the difficulty. That will 100% for sure make the WOTC skills and classes magicaly apear in his game.

[Rockfire ✘]

Fair enough, point still stands tho, even without wotc. just camp the building and win the game.