What's the point of the Support's Covering Fire?

[Fire and Glory]

Overwatch triggered by an enemy attempting any action...

Why wouldn't I just shoot them on my turn instead? Considering overwatch is typically for shooting the enemy when they're not actually in cover.

EDIT:Yes I know what regular Overwatch is for, I am talking about Covering Fire.

[JaegerBane]

Originally posted by red255:

don't they step out of cover to shoot? I mean I'd have to see the accuracies cuz the animations imply the step out of cover.

As far as I was aware, that's just the animation.

[Gamefever]

Originally posted by Fire and Glory:

Originally posted by Gamefever:

...Bear in mind that Overwatch penalties dont apply during the player turn,
Ambush pull
Covering fire pull
Specialist Overwatch while making standard pull...

I don't quite understand what this means. Regardless, I know the merits of regular Overwatch, that's not the question. I also know it applies without penalties to ambushes.

Considering that as you described in Long War, Overwatching so that you can shoot enemies who're not in cover is useful, but if a Support was using Covering Fire, he's just as likely to shoot at someone in high cover who is shooting at someone else who is in high cover, which seems significantly worse.

I get that this seems complicated but its not,
Although I did have to stop and think about it for a bit...

Ok so here's some ideal uses for Overwatch in base game,

Overwatch shots only occur during enemy movement and at penalty of -30 AIM and No Crit...
However Overwatch shots do not have penalty if made during concealment break.

Covering Fire, I had to look it back up in the base game
Reaction shots made at +10 and cause crit and can occur on enemy shots....

Now then,
Ambush Pull,
When your going to break concealment
Placing units in Overwatch is ideal cause they wont suffer penalties...
So you place units in Overwatch and have a unit fire his shot...
Any units in Overwatch Stance should also fire without penalties...
There are better skills to take advantage with this such as "Kill Zone"

I was wrong to say "Covering Fire Pull"

Another Pull would be to set up a unit in Overwatch and then to simply move a unit into LOS of an unactivated Pod, this is also better when the Overwatched Unit makes use of Kill Zone ability.

Guardian can be a benefit for the Specailist due to getting a chance to fire again....

WOTC
War of the Chosen,
Makes it so you can actually pick out multiple abilities for each soldier so picking up Covering Fire, Ever Vigilant, and Guardain are all useful.

The thing is that the real power of the Specailist Class is actually in Hacking...
Control of the Mechanical Units or Picking up Power Buffs and Resources off the Map, are really powerful compared to killing ability of the Specailist....There's also the healing.

In both the Base Game and WOTC,
Overwatch Specailist abilities are mostly useful for when your faced with having to run for the exit to make it out in time. This is especailly true when your playing Long War 2 mod.

Covering Fire becomes useful then in situations where your whole team is having to bug out and make full Yellow Moves...during these situations not everyone is going to always have ideal cover or any cover...
So you may well need your specailist to actually be able to make that shot before the alien does. At high dificulties you dont even get to see the red flare indicating where the aliens will deploy even so you might be caught with your guys out in the open. Aliens do get to make an imediate shot at guys in the open before going to cover during a pull.

Other than that, Covering Fire is more useful in Long War and Long War 2...

In most cases your always better off doing everything you can to wipe out the entire pod than to enter Overwatch. So its pretty specific when you would want to use it.


Overall,
Covering Fire is basically a forget ability in the Base game!

You need Game Mods that radically change how the game behaves before Overwatch gets really useful and then by extension "Covering Fire" then also becomes useful.

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by Gamefever:

Covering Fire, I had to look it back up in the base game
Reaction shots made at +10 and cause crit and can occur on enemy shots....

That's the specialist class GTS ability description: "Cool Under Fire", not covering fire.

Covering fire just makes overwatch apply to actions and shots as well as moves. When it triggers on an action or shot the overwatch takes place before the action or shot that triggered it, which can be good.

Unfortunately both overwatch and cover penalties apply to such shots and units almost always move before they act, which means most of the time it does nothing, and often when it does something it means your soldier takes a really low percentage shot instead of a higher percentage shot against the next unit.

[Fire and Glory]

The part I'm having trouble with is what on earth you mean when you use the word 'Pull'.

[Fringehunter7719]

It's a gaming term, you see it a lot in MMORPG games. It means to activate enemies and bring them into combat, typically in a controlled fashion.

[endersblade]

I find it laughable that this is even a thread. You apparently don't know how to XCOM, bro.

[JaegerBane]

Originally posted by endersblade:

I find it laughable that this is even a thread. You apparently don't know how to XCOM, bro.

He's asking whether an apparently useless skill has any worth he isn't aware of. Seems to be a perfectly rational question to me.