When is Wrecking Ball useful?

[Malidictus]

For reference, I'm referring to the SPARK Cavalier skill "Wrecking Ball," the one which allows you to trample environment objects when Overdrive is active. When is that ever, under any circumstances, useful? Initially I thought it might just be cool to have as you charge for a Strike, but I've never seen the benefit of doing that over running towards enemies normally. At best the SPARK might need to path around a pillar, but most everything else it can just vault over.

Considering this is on the same Rank as Rainmaker, when would I ever choose Wrecking Ball over that? I saw in the Wiki that someone suggested I could use Wrecking Ball to trample the cover of multiple enemies, but... A rocket, a Shredder Cannon or most notably a Blaster Launcher will do that anyway. Yeah it only has one shot, but how often am I going to waste Overdrive on making mostly movement actions to trample cover when my Grenadier has an ability which is literally designed to blast cover.

I mean, even Intimidate - a skill I only saw trigger twice in an entire playthrough - still did more good for me than Wrecking Ball. Someone at Firaxis thought it was a cool skill, so clearly I'm missing something. How can I make this skill work for me?

[hghwolf]

It`s just not a good skill. You`re missing nothing. Sure, it`s "cool" to have a giant robot bust through a wall to punch a dude in the face, but tactically it`s of iffy use.

[marshmallow justice]

when you want to walk 3 tiles away from a car and still miraculously blow it up and kill yourself/squad

[!?!]

Maybe hold ctrl to waypoint through all the enemy cover and then shoot once or twice?
I dunno.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by chris:

Maybe hold ctrl to waypoint through all the enemy cover and then shoot once or twice?
I dunno.

Well, sure - but it just seems like such a waste compared to Rainmaker. If I had to choose between Wrecking Ball and Intimidate, then OK. They both suck, pick by preference. But the two skills are not on the same Tier... Surely someone at Firaxis thought there was a point to this skill, I just don't know what it is. Maybe if it boosted melee damage with Overdrive or something?

[lentinant]

Destroying obstacles actually has variety of tactical applications. And since overdrive is ability, not equipment (and therefore, it recharges), it can be used to save your explosives. Destroying wall may help to clear sigh for your other troops, or making short way to retreat.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

If I had to choose between Wrecking Ball and Intimidate, then OK. They both suck, pick by preference. But the two skills are not on the same Tier

What? Wrecking Ball is the same tier as Intimidate. Rainmaker is opposite Strike.

[Corvalion]

possibly haven't tried this yet is to use it to run through a wall to plant c4 on a factory mission

[JaegerBane]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by Malidictus:

If I had to choose between Wrecking Ball and Intimidate, then OK. They both suck, pick by preference. But the two skills are not on the same Tier

What? Wrecking Ball is the same tier as Intimidate. Rainmaker is opposite Strike.

This. Wrecking Ball may not be the best skill in the world but it shares it's level with Intimidate, which feels like an alternate version of Return Fire and equally blows chunks (it's more powerful but less accurate, effectively). FWIW I don't particularly like Rainmaker either, as it literally has one single use per mission per SPARK. Strike may not quite be EW's Kinetic Strike but it's still pretty powerful and much more accurate than the autocannon/similar.

I find Wrecking Ball synergises very well with Strike and Nova - with sufficient care you can expose a whole pod from cover, smash face against one target and damage another all in one turn.

I get the point that there are better ways of removing cover but they require you to expend explosives, and use an action. It's useful to have an option of creating a new door or LoS without needing to rely on that too.

[alangriffith]

I've never found wrecking ball good for destroying enemy cover, only for taking shortcuts through impasable terrain, either to flank or to get to aid a buddy in one turn.

This is only really helpful on retaliation missions, where you don't want to blow up the map for risk of hitting civilians, and also where you want the team to spread out or move fast to reduce civilian losses. Several times I've charged through a wall with my SPARK to get next to a civilian for rescue, while also having an action or two left for dealing with triggered aliens (or a faceless pointblank, if the civilian transforms). With the shortcut provided by wrecking ball combined with the overdrive speed boost and the SPARK ability to change elevation at no movement cost, I can have my SPARK redeploy to support almost anyone in my team in one turn, if only as a distraction (I go for the tank tree mostly, on normal difficulty the SPARK is tough enough to take some hits early game).

It's certainly still not the best power, but as others have said, intimidate isn't either (enemies don't shoot at my SPARK often). And the way it helps on retaliation missions makes it worthwhile earlygame, since they are some of the hardest missions (at least for me).

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

What? Wrecking Ball is the same tier as Intimidate. Rainmaker is opposite Strike.

Oh. So it is, I must have misread. Objection withdrawn, then - Intimidate is about as bad as Wrecking ball, so the choice isn't as one-sided as I thought. Frankly, I wouldn't mind seeing both of those skills reworked. The Enemy Within MECs had some pretty cool skills that I'm surprised not to see make a return.

That does actually make me feel better, to be honest. Doesn't make me feel cheated, at the very least :) I'll try to use Battering Ram to punch doorways and trample cover, as you advise. Thanks for the help, folks.

[Iceberg]

Well you don't exactly get a whole lot of uses of your heavy weapons, so I don't give a lot of weight to the idea that heavy weapons achieve the same effect. If anything, that's a positive to the skill. The negative being that you have to spend movement. It could pay off if you have to choose between a 60% shot and cover destruction. It can also pay off when you would otherwise need to path around a wall to get a shot and save your troops. Additionally it will create a hole that the rest of your squad can fire through without the need to reposition out of cover. It can really bend the rules and reshape the battlefield sometimes. That said, it's very situational, and not always useful. It serves a function though, in being unlimited cover destruction that you can use every turn and on muliple pieces of cover, and one that is otherwise only filled by 1-shot cover destruction items.

[John Savage]

It's useful when you want to sing "I came in like a wrecking ball!"

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Gorilla Warfare:

It serves a function though, in being unlimited cover destruction that you can use every turn and on muliple pieces of cover, and one that is otherwise only filled by 1-shot cover destruction items.

It only works while you're using Overdrive, which has a long cooldown.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

It only works while you're using Overdrive, which has a long cooldown.

Well, long-ish. But I'd rather it worked that way, personally. I've had issues with "trampling" characters accidentally destroying my own cover and exposing my own soldiers, so I like that it's on demand. Although to be honest, I kind of wish it were on its own skill with a lower or even no cooldown. Overdrive is too expensive to use on prancing around stomping cover, I think. The weird thing is there's almost always something out of cover that my MEC can shoot at.

Enemy Within had a fairly small percentage of non-cover-taking enemies with most still hiding in cover. XCOM 2 seems to always have a tough enemy needing multiple shots and armour shredding standing out in the open, which is what my MECs typically shoot at. Eespecially in the late game, it seems like every spawn has a Sectopod, a Gatekeeper or an ADVENT MEC in it, with more or less meaningless cannon fodder dudes that I can deal with on the next turn hiding in cover.

[Pappy Smith]

I always used wrecking ball for making a shortcut through walls to objectives (plant x4) for the rest of my troopers and out towards evac point. Straight pathing versus traveling to reach doors that lead farther from my end destinations. YMMV