How to handle Vipers

[Comrade Maethor]

Here I am, on a mission. That's a Viper and a trooper. I sent my Ranger to kill the trooper with the sword, she succeeded. The Viper moves into heavy cover that was facing my entire squad, so some major moving had to be done to get around the cover. The Viper then bounds my Ranger. Okay, honestly if I lose the Ranger, I don't care, she's not one of my custom characters anyway. I do attempt to save her though as best I can. I have myself (a character designed after me) to flank left, and the sniper to flank right. Because early snipers suck more than Monica Lewinsky, my sniper did absolutely nothing. In fact, every shot she took, both pistol and rifle missed until I got her one tile away from the viper, where the pistol only did 2dmg (and even had a 70% chacne of hitting). Before this, the Ranger died and the viper then bound one of my specialists. Who barely escaped after the sniper saved him, he escaped with one hp. The Viper after killing the Ranger and almost killing my specialist gets bound no suprise. But now, I, who was flanking around gets harassed by one of those shock troopers with the baton. This guy chases me across the map and kills me, why? Well I exhaust my points running away, and the only other gun I had who was the one hp specialist was too busy dealing with other troops. My sniper dies because I literally can't do anything. I get captured because this trooper was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane, and this is funny, my specialist gets sniped by an Advent Officer across map when the specialist was in partial cover. If that isn't bs I don't know what is.
Long story short, a Viper who spammed one attack throughout the whole mission and was in heavy cover the whole mission killed 3 squad members, and was responsible for the other 2. I have to restart the game now, now to my question. What is the best way of handling vipers early game?

[Gin-chan]

same as sectoids for me flash bangs takes care of any annoying ability they have. Grenades to destroy cover. Then focus fire on the priority target ie. the most dangerous unit atm.

[Fel]

Flash bang is nearly an universal answer to enemy skills, the effect prevents a lot from even being used at all, while the bang part cancels the majority of the "ongoing" ones (overwatch, mind control, raised corpses and so on).
Not to mention thet reduce the moving distance of that unit by quite a bit.

They don't do damage like normal grenades, nor do they destroy cover, but against skill users that you can't down in one turn, they might be one of the greatest tools at your disposal.

[Comrade Maethor]

Originally posted by Eleventh Doctor:

same as sectoids for me flash bangs takes care of any annoying ability they have. Grenades to destroy cover. Then focus fire on the priority target ie. the most dangerous unit atm.

I literally just started the game, I dont have flashbangs

[otacon237x]

I like to run the enhanced stocks on my snipers and I usually have 2 per mission, one with a 2 damage and 1 with a 3, so basically 5 guaranteed damage each turn as long as they even have the vaguest LOS on the target. Great for unbinding your guys from vipers, cancelling enemy overwatches, finishing off weakened codex that just cloned and have like 1-3 hp, etc. Sometimes the vipers even screw themselves because they bind one of my troops, I hit em with the sniper and unbind, suddenly the guy that was bound has flanking shots on the vipers plus one move. Ideally I would move him into cover, put threat assessment on him, then get a shot off on the vipers plus a second overwatch from the TA.

[otacon237x]

Originally posted by Comrade Maethor:

Originally posted by Eleventh Doctor:

same as sectoids for me flash bangs takes care of any annoying ability they have. Grenades to destroy cover. Then focus fire on the priority target ie. the most dangerous unit atm.

I literally just started the game, I dont have flashbangs

You shouldn't really be seeing vipers so early in the game that you can't get flashbangs, they cost like what, 25 supplies to build? They are lifesavers early on a the other person mentioned. A cool thing about them in case you don't know, they dont have the piddly grenade range, you can throw em way farther and they have a YUGE radius

[ReaperDK]

Later on, rangers with bladestorm and hellweave armor solves the problem.

[Comrade Maethor]

Originally posted by otacon237x:

Originally posted by Comrade Maethor:

I literally just started the game, I dont have flashbangs

You shouldn't really be seeing vipers so early in the game that you can't get flashbangs, they cost like what, 25 supplies to build? They are lifesavers early on a the other person mentioned. A cool thing about them in case you don't know, they dont have the piddly grenade range, you can throw em way farther and they have a YUGE radius

I did, 3 hours, like my 4th or 5th mission. My enitre squad GONE

[Comrade Maethor]

Originally posted by ReaperDK:

Later on, rangers with bladestorm and hellweave armor solves the problem.

Kinda hard to do that when the Ranger died

[Gin-chan]

You should already be able to build flash bangs as soon as the tutorial missions was over right? Its been so long i might be misremembering but at the very least by the 3rd mission you should already have some flash bangs on your soldiers if any at all. ( i've been playin LW2 for awhile so yeah dont remember much about vanilla game atm XD)>

[Jesterofgames7712]

Originally posted by Eleventh Doctor:

You should already be able to build flash bangs as soon as the tutorial missions was over right? Its been so long i might be misremembering but at the very least by the 3rd mission you should already have some flash bangs on your soldiers if any at all. ( i've been playin LW2 for awhile so yeah dont remember much about vanilla game atm XD)>

Flashbangs are buildable from the start of the game
In vinilla

[Fringehunter7719]

Flashbang requires no research. You can get it immediately after gatecrasher and long before vipers appear.

That said, any damage will cancel the viper's bind effect as well, so shooting them, hitting them with a combat protocol, stock, psi attack, flanking them from elevation, or positioning a grenade very carefully so that the viper is highlighted red and the bound soldier is not (finicky, but perfectly possible) all work.

It might be useful to know that sharpshooters get penalties on their rifle at close range, have their best hit chances at mid range (ideally from elevation) and then get penalties again in squadsight range, although you have to be really, really, really far before it gets as big as the penalty from being too close can get.

[Jesterofgames7712]

You know slightly off topic But
I never got the nerd to squad sight
Especially with timed extraction missions
It just felt unneeded

On topic Get lightning hands
For your sniper
It should help you deal with Everything since it's a free shot once every 4 turns

[otacon237x]

watchu mean, they come with squadsight? you're probably thinking of long watch. idk, i have two snipers with return fire and longwatch and every time i'm using one i wish they had the other lol. yeah it's def a bit hard to set up right, grappling hook helps. i really like long watch snipers on missions with no timers though like blacksite attacks and supply raids. when you set em up right it's OMG YUSSS

[Jesterofgames7712]

Originally posted by otacon237x:

watchu mean, they come with squadsight? you're probably thinking of long watch. idk, i have two snipers with return fire and longwatch and every time i'm using one i wish they had the other lol. yeah it's def a bit hard to set up right, grappling hook helps. i really like long watch snipers on missions with no timers though like blacksite attacks and supply raids. when you set em up right it's OMG YUSSS

No I mean the nerf to squad site as in the aim penalties you get from a distance

[Hannibal Barca]

always use ranger to stab vipers, if you dont care about ranger granade viper to destory cover and shoot it