Alien rulers: sudden appearance or do you know you will encounter a ruler when starting a mission?

[Leander.quest]

Alien rulers: sudden appearance or do you know you will encounter a ruler when starting a mission?

A friend of mine says you are notified before a mission but I encountered two rulers so far and nothing was shown. The shadow chamber showed some normal enemies and the chosen that rules this region was displayed too...but no alien ruler.

Who's right?

I am in a blacksite mission at the moment, found the archon ruler but he hasn't seen me yet. What to do? Should I flee? I don't have special items for him...no Psi soldier with stasis...I do have the frost bomb though but if he's flying I cannot hit him. I only have good soldiers with good aim but that's it.

I could use the templer's amplifiy, then go for the sniper and ranger with high crit...but the ruler reacts after every action so I might be already f. up.

[ShunBrokuSatsu]

so the only kind of hint you get about an alien ruler is if you play with WotC and have it integrate the Alien Hunters DLC to it. What it will do is place rulers in any facilities that are created for the avatar project and then the game will tell you that there is a ruler there (but won't tell you which one). If you do not kill the ruler at the facility then they will show up on a random mission after that (which you will not be able to know which one they will be on as they do not show up on the shadow chamber).

If you are playing Vanilla XCOM 2 then the only time you ever know if an alien ruler will be on a mission is if you play with the DLC active and do the mission. After that it is all random (well actually not so random. You know you will face the Viper ruler first, then Berserker, then Archon all in order. In WotC you could fight Berserker first or even Archon first).

[gimmethegepgun]

Prior to WotC, the rulers would come with a posse of their species (Vipers, Mutons, or Archons), and that posse would be shown in by the Shadow Chamber, which could give you a good idea as to whether or not a ruler was in the mission (especially later in the game when Vipers and Mutons stopped showing up).
In WotC they don't come with a posse any more, so after you release them you can't tell if they'll be in a mission.

[Leander.quest]

Thanks!

"and then the game will tell you that there is a ruler there (but won't tell you which one)."

How does the game tell me and where?

I expected a ruler in my current mission as the shadow chamber only shows weak and few enemies.

[Dragon32]

It will tell you which facilities are guarded by Rulers. If you fail to kill them that first time there're no other explicit messages for subsequent missions. A lower than usual enemy count is an indicator of them or a Chosen. AFAIK, both won't show up on a single mission.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by LeanderAT:

"and then the game will tell you that there is a ruler there (but won't tell you which one)."

How does the game tell me and where?

When an Alien Facility spawns, it tells you that there's a dangerous alien there, and when you select the mission, it will say so in the description of the mission in the bottom left.
That means that one of the 3 Rulers is there, and failing to kill them during the mission will release them to potentially show up in future missions.

[Leander.quest]

Thanks. The text tells you or the audio? Never seen it. :(

[Stardustfire]

Big yellow text under the white one that tells u that u look at a facility at this moment when u select a facility.

[Leander.quest]

Seen the text now, thanks! :)