WotC - Do you use the Heroes?

[zeeter]

I find myself using the heroes less and less as the game goes on. The Reaper is good because she seems to have much better stealth than anyone else. She's a great scout, but her gun is underpowered IMO. Even after a few upgrades. The claymore is great, though. However more and more I am leaving the other two behind. The Skirmisher was cool at first with his abilities, but his gun isn't great and often leaves me having to use another soldier to finish the enemy off. The Templar has a great primary attack, but it doesn't seem much better than a Ranger's, and as far as I can tell there's no reaper skill to provide extra attacks.

Even on the Chosen missions, where they have a weakness to one of the three heroes I find myself doing more damage with my soldiers.

Do you guys use the heroes much past the mid-game?

[Gin-chan]

Yeap. My reaper banished the last avatar in the final mission. Saved that banish just for that lol.

[gimmethegepgun]

I always ran with a Phantom ranger in vanilla because of just how amazingly useful it is to be able to see everything, and Reaper is just leagues better at that in every way. Even if they literally never fire a shot they're still well worth the soldier slot. Except you also have Claymore, Remote Start, and Banish to infrequently butcher the enemy, and with Silent Killer they can reliably finish off low health enemies without breaking Shadow.

The single biggest reason to use the Templar is for Swap, so you can pull a Chosen out of position and slaughter them with everyone else. They're still pretty good otherwise (especially if they get Bladestorm, and Fortress is really handy too)

Skirmisher is really lame though.

[zeeter]

Yeah, they all have nice perks, and I do use the Reaper quite often. The other two not so much, if at all. I find the soldiers to be much more valuable.

[Terin]

Templar with Bladestorm are incredible, since you can attack someone in a pod, hit everyone in the pod once, then use Momentum to flank someone else, cause them to run on their turn, and get another bladestorm proc. Reaper is also amazing, since you can use it to build up Focus to counteract the damage penalty for the first 2-3 kills. Fortress? Also very very good if you can get it. Getting all three? You've got an incredible powerhouse.

Otther than those skills which you have to randomly roll, they don't get very big powerspikes until Colonel, in which psi storm is wonderful for one-shotting Gatekeepers and entire pods

[Synavix]

Templars are great because their attacks are 100%, which is really strong on harder difficulties. With Bladestorm and Fortress (plus regular skilsl like parry and deflect) they are basically unstoppable. With Bladestorm they can almost solo packs of reinforcements before it's even your turn. They can also get 2 guarunteed hits on stronger enemies or Chosen by attacking, staying in place, then getting the Bladestorm proc when the enemy tries to run on the next turn. It takes a bit to get used to, though, since you have to be super careful not to accidentally aggro extra enemies.

Reaper is a good "boss-killer" if you give them banish, extended mag mod, and a repeater mod. Even better if you get a bonus perk for shredder or use armor piercing ammo. With that they can one-shot big enemies, alien rulers, or Chosen. Aside from that, if you can give them tactical rigging for ammo, a scope if you have a 3rd weapon mod slot, and the perk that lets them always stay in stealth for killing blows then you can just run around to flank positions for 100% accuracy shots that let them stay concealed as long as they get the kill. Taking perks for the +1 damage or extra crit really helps with that. They're also the best unit to take on missions like the Avenger Defense, since they can stealth to the objectives and then team up with a squadsight sniper to destroy the targets from far away (also works with alien rulers).

Skirmishers are probably the weakest to most people, but still my favorite. Give them aim PCS, a few covert ops with +aim rewards, extended mag mod. Tactical Rigging + damage ammo type. You should be able to get 90% chance to pull enemies out of full cover with your pull move. They work best as utilities. Team them up with a strong soldier with their bond ability and you can use them to do all sorts of tricks.

[necro55]

I found them all to be interesting novelties but but i used my normal
soldiers mostly. I was heavily modded so if i saw certain mod aliens listed id take Dragonuva mainly for banish, and there are some solid perks to them, but I personally preferred my normal guys most of the time.

[Commander Gorda]

Reaper is by far the best Class in the Game Thx to his scouting abilities and his claymore, remote detonate and banish are Amazing aswell. Not a fan Of templar since he needs to attack in melee range and thats Asking to active more pods. Skirmisher is ok, nothing i feel like i need on missions but his pretty good. Playing on legendary.

[zeeter]

I like the reaper for scouting and the claymores. My issue with her is that she does not overwatch while concealed. So when the rest of the team breaks concealment I'm down a gun. The plus side is that she stays in concealment. I can also keep her active when breaking concealment so that if needed she can take a shot, but sometimes we don't always intend to break concealment with our regular troops. Plus by the time the rest of the team finishes their overwatch shots the enemies have gone into cover, thus making a shot more difficult.

Her gun is underpowerd compared to the rest of the team. Even when upgraded it lacks in firepower.

She has a haughty tone to her voice.

Again, she's not bad. I would just prefer to use fully equipped regular troops with their more powerful weapons. It's rare that I need to use these special abilities, other than the claymore.

IMHO, the best classes in the game for damage are the Ranger and Sniper. Yet having a specialist is critical and grenadiers are great for knocking down cover.

So while having a Reaper is great during scouting, once the team, and later she, is discovered I miss the extra firepower that even a Specialist would give me.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by michael_s_davis:

So while having a Reaper is great during scouting, once the team, and later she, is discovered I miss the extra firepower that even a Specialist would give me.

The key is that due to the scouting you don't NEED that firepower because you can always assure yourself an advantage (essentially, every engagement is as one-sided in your favor as the one where you break concealment), and prevent dealing with more than 1 pod at a time.

Originally posted by michael_s_davis:

Plus by the time the rest of the team finishes their overwatch shots the enemies have gone into cover, thus making a shot more difficult.

You really REALLY shouldn't be using overwatch ambushes once you aren't using Rookies any more. If that's what you're describing.

[zeeter]

Yes, if all goes well this is true. If all doesn't go well I'm short on firepower.

Apparently we have different playing styles. There is absolutely nothing wrong with ambushing even up to the last mission, if possible.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by michael_s_davis:

Apparently we have different playing styles. There is absolutely nothing wrong with ambushing even up to the last mission, if possible.

Taking a bunch of shots where you can't control the order or targeting is basically the worst possible option in all circumstances once you actually have any other options to take (meaning not Rookies any more). They won't prioritize targets correctly, won't take ideal-aim shots, and will waste significant amounts of damage on overkill that could have gone to other targets. And those shots are often worse than other things you could do aside from that (like Chain Shot or Deadeye or what have you).

[Synavix]

I do take Phantom on my rangers less now since the Reaper fills that roll, and when you do overwatch ambush you definitely dont' want 2 or 3 soldiers stuck in stealth. But I agree that the point of better scouting is to not need the full firepower because you can set up better shots or starting locations.

Plus, a lot of the Reaper's damage comes from claymore, remote start, and banish. Even though claymores are limited (but you should still take the skill that gives 2 when you can) and remote start is sometimes situational, betwen the two you should almost always be able to use one or the other to great affect on standard maps. Use them as an egage or sabotage tool. The phantom can scout ahead, explode or detonate next to an entire pod (when they're still grouped up), and not break stealth or actually trigger them. By the time your squad catches up all the enemies are on fire or sitting at 20% HP and you just pick them off easily. I always keep my reaper spaced out or on a flank when I can. In the situations where you really need their extra firepower they should be flanking in stealth with some kind of armor piercing so you can just finish off those low HP targets so you don't break your stealth. With the right talents you don't even need to be "careful" with them. Sometimes I'll leave them standing in the middle of a field out of cover just to get flank shots and pick off targets.

I do still really like the ranger and sniper as my heavy damage dealers (even compared to the templar which is insane damage by itself with bladestorm and positioning), but I don't like to double up on them. So my "standard" group composition is 1 of each normal class, 1 special class (either hero unit or SPARK, since they're limited in number you can safely rotate them around), then 1 wildcard spot to either take a unit class thats really strong for a specific mission type or just a strong bond partner. Later in the game I start taking a PSI trooper in that last spot, but they take so much time on Legendary that it's hard to rely on them until the last few missions.

[Synavix]

I personally still use overwatch ambushes late game too, but they're usually more limited and only when the setup for it feels right. Set up a medic on overwatch, a sniper on killzone, then open with your grenadier on a shredding target. Or something like that. Then that still leaves you your ranger or hero unit to pick off whats alive. Even though overwatch shots are not as good as manual targeting, the idea is to use them to pick off targets before they make it to cover. I only use an ambush when I'm confident I can take out the whole group before they can attack. If I'm not I don't use one.

[gimmethegepgun]

Killzone doesn't suffer from the target prioritization problem because it will just shoot at everyone with that soldier, and in an ambush it doesn't suffer from the normal reaction fire aim penalty, so using it in an ambush is a good idea. But regular overwatch isn't (also Guardian is too unreliable, and Specialists have reliable finishing attacks with Combat Protocol so I'd say they aren't a good idea. Sentinel from EU was just so much better than that terrible ability. Also personally I put my Stocks on them for more finishing capability and let everyone else do the bulk of the damage, which means I want them firing last)

[zeeter]

I should clarify. I don't put every soldier on overwatch for ambush. Usually my sniper with killzone and maybe a specialist. I generally keep my rangers free so that they can chase after anyone left over. I don't necessarily like to use the combat protocol to mop up minor soldiers; I'd rather use a shot for that since CP is limited in usage.

A common ambush for me would be to get my rangers up close, set one sniper to kill zone, position my grenadier or put them on overwatch, depending on the situation, and the same with my specialist. Take a shot with my other sniper, hope for a couple of kills from kill zone, if I have the grenadier available then use him to take out cover, if necessary. Pop-shot with the specialist if he wasn't on overwatch. And try to take out the rest with slashes from the rangers.

I didn't mean to imply that I put everyone on overwatch and hope for the best.