Best Proving Ground Items

[Pellaeon]

Wondering what Proving Ground items you all find to be the most useful. Are the armors like Wraith and W.A.R. upgrades over Warden? And what about the experimental weapons? Some of these take a lot of supplies to do so are they worth it?

[Drenus]

Warsuit with a seeker launcher is not to be underestimated, but personally i only tend to go full armor/heavy weapons if the instant workshop continent bonus is in that particular game, if not, i mostly ignore armor for normal weapon upgrading instead

[lwn_1978]

Originally posted by Drenus:

Warsuit with a seeker launcher is not to be underestimated, but personally i only tend to go full armor/heavy weapons if the instant workshop continent bonus is in that particular game, if not, i mostly ignore armor for normal weapon upgrading instead

You mean blaster launcher. And yes, they are fantastic. Also, agree with you on the continent bonuses making them more worth it. Though, even without the continent bonuses, Id go for the high end ones (WAR, Wraith) but not the mid range ones. By the time the PG have built one, you have likely researched past it.

[JaegerBane]

The Wraith and W.A.R upgrades are Tier 3's equivalent to Spider and EXO armours, in that they're light and heavy variants of the the medium armour of the tier. They're both worth of it for classes with conducive roles - Grenadiers do great with heavy and Snipers do great with light. There's arguments for other classes to use them too. The major difference at Tier 3 is that Wraith and W.A.R come with unique abilities - Wraith mode for Wraith (Phase through walls) and Shieldwall for W.A.R (become high cover for a squadmate). Neither ability is that great though, Wraith's ability is situational and Shieldwall encourages the AI to throw grenades. But other than that, they're just better versions of Spider and EXO. Worth it in my opinion.

Experimental weapons are a mixed bag. I don't know whether you mean Experimental or Experimental Powered - the second is the upgraded line.

Experimental is Shredder Gun and Flamethrower. The Shredder is ok but you might as well wait for it's bigger brother - the Shredstorm - from the Experimental Powered line. The Flamethrower has a tiny AoE and doesn't panic like XCOM:EW's one did, so it's a bit useless. Honestly, you're best off just sticking with the default rocket launcher (which you get an infinite supply of).

From Powered, Blaster Launchers and Shredstorm Cannons are the absolute business - shredding armour and blasting cover with a single shot (Blaster is a seeking missile of doom, Shredstorm is the hand of god that wipes away armour and cover in a massive cone). The rest vary - Plasma Blaster is basically a one-shot version of Null Lance from the Psi tree (nice, but... if you have a Psi, you don't really need it) and Hellfire Projector is an upgrade to the flamethrower but still pants.

[Drenus]

disagree on the flamethrower, i would take that anyday if it was between that and the regular rocket

it has saved me a few times, when a round just went completly the wrong way, and a burning DOT prevented 1 or more enemies from using abilities, and instead had to just do a regular shot, or retreat/hunker down

that said, im aware it all very much depends on the given situation

[Coyote]

ap rounds.

[JaegerBane]

Originally posted by Drenus:

disagree on the flamethrower, i would take that anyday if it was between that and the regular rocket

it has saved me a few times, when a round just went completly the wrong way, and a burning DOT prevented 1 or more enemies from using abilities, and instead had to just do a regular shot, or retreat/hunker down

Problem is, you can get the burning DOT a number of other ways. And you're spending an Elerium Core to get it. I'm sure there's some uses for it but the point is that there's not many compared to the other stuff that needs an Elerium Core.

[!?!]

ap rounds, acid grenades, war/wraith suits, blaster launchers.

[Demon of Razgriz]

Actually, with the Ruler armors, I don't make any of the proving ground armor anymore. Viper suit is pretty much a better spider suit. Icarus armor is an improvement over spider/wraith suit and Berserker armor is a better WAR suit. I know there are a couple differences, but they are minor (to me) and not worth making the base suits anymore.

[JaegerBane]

Originally posted by -SG1-Shadowscall:

Actually, with the Ruler armors, I don't make any of the proving ground armor anymore. Viper suit is pretty much a better spider suit. Icarus armor is an improvement over spider/wraith suit and Berserker armor is a better WAR suit. I know there are a couple differences, but they are minor (to me) and not worth making the base suits anymore.

Mostly. The Ruler armours are all one-of-a-kind, though, so if you never make the proving ground armour then you can only ever have one grapple and one heavy weapon in your squad.

The Icarus Suit is a flat upgrade to Warden, in that it does everything Warden can do but with more mobility and a jetpack built-in. Luckily, it's also the armour the looks most like actual armour rather than a halloween outfit.

The RAGE suit is technically better than the WAR suit in stats and has a slightly more useful special ability, but it's still not that great - only a bit more health, no extra armour or heavy weapon shots and the Rage strike brings with it all the issues Slash does on the Ranger. Personally I never use it as it looks appalling but unless you fancy loading up on SPARKs, you need WARs to add further heavy weapons.

The Serpent Suit is the only one that is sort-of arguable. It's better statistically once upgraded and the Ice lash thing is ok... but it can miss, and it doesn't have Wraith mode (which can come in handy more than you'd think). It also rivals the RAGE suit as an indication of what can happen when the art director doesn't do his job, but that depends if you care about that..

[gimmethegepgun]

Experimental Grenade: 1/3 (acid) is useful in rare occasions. The other 2 are terrible.
Experimental Ammo: 4/5 are great on anyone (tracer, venom, dragon, AP), while talon is great on a ranger but basically garbage on anyone else. Tracer is more valuable early, AP more valuable later.
Experimental Vest: All 3 suck because they're vests. Plated sucks significantly more than Stasis. Hazmat is mildly helpful if you tend to throw experimental grenades everywhere (though since they suck I can't figure out why you would)
Experimental Heavy Weapon: Shredder is ok, but really nothing special. I wouldn't value it enough to spend cores on it when I already have the Rocket Launcher. Flamethrower is worthless.
Experimental Powered Heavy Weapon: 2/4 are great. Blaster Launcher and Shredstorm are both amazing. Plasma Blaster is Shredstorm except worse in basically every way (the only way it isn't worse is that it has 2 more armor penetration, which means against an enemy with 4+ armor it will do 1 more direct damage than Shredstorm, but it won't shred them). Hellstorm is Flamethrower except a little less worthless. Doesn't get over the "still worthless" threshold though.

Spider Suit: great for sharpshooters and rangers
EXO: great for grenadiers, or anyone who would've had a grenade in a Predator Armor slot anyway.
Wraith: beefier, faster Spider Suit with Wraith ability, which you might at some point actually use (but probably not). Does not have any armor, unlike Warden.
WAR: beefier EXO with the Shieldwall ability, which you will never use. Also unlocks Powered Heavy Weapons when you build the first one (or Rage Suit), but you do not need the WAR to actually use them, EXO can use them as well.

Plasma Grenade: the single best thing in the game. Get it IMMEDIATELY.
Advanced Explosives: upgrades experimental grenades and EMP grenades. Since they suck in most cases, not a priority. Get it once high armor enemies show up and you actually have an acid grenade.
Bluescreen Protocol: needed to build Bluescreen Rounds and EMP grenades. Useful.

[theworld]

Wraith is pretty much obsolete in Rulers DLC due to advent of Icarus Armor and Serpent Armor.

[theworld]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Experimental Grenade: 1/3 (acid) is useful in rare occasions. The other 2 are terrible.

They aren't terrible, you're just not using them right (exploiting the AI). I'll copypaste from my other comment:

"Stealth Grenade":

1)Find out where a pod is.
a)Use someone concealed (Ranger)
b)Scanning skill on Specialist
c)Battle Scanner
d)Sometimes a Gremlin hack attempt can reveal nearby enemies.
e)Sometimes there is weird LoS where you see them in the fog of war far away.
2)If using 1a, run back so nobody in your squad will have LoS on them when you attack. No soldier can have vision on the pod. If you do, the pod will activate, rendering this strategy meaningless.
3)Use grenade. Pod will not activate.
4)Clean up survivors next turn after they took initial damage and Fire/Poison/Acid damage when your turn starts.

Now this assumes you have turns to spare. Which you usually do on VIP missions even on Legend (Unless you don't have firepower to deal with active events like Show of Force, Extra Reinforcements, Extra Chryssalids, Extra Faceless)

On missions like train hack you usually don't enough time to wait around, BUT if they are on the other side of the train and will not hinder your progress toward the objective it can work really great.

A variation on this technique which uses a similar mechanic is on a train mission where a pod is near a fuel car of the train. If you can destroy a fuel car remotely without having soldier vision on the pod it will not activate.

"Gas the reinforcements":

This is pretty obvious. Drop Gas grenade on a reinforcement flare. Odds are they will not move next turn and you take easy flank shots to clean up.

[theworld]

Originally posted by JaegerBane:

The RAGE suit is technically better than the WAR suit in stats and has a slightly more useful special ability, but it's still not that great - only a bit more health, no extra armour or heavy weapon shots and the Rage strike brings with it all the issues Slash does on the Ranger.

It does not bring all the issues that Slash does.

You might activate more pods, but you still get all your actions after Rage Strike, unlike Slash, which ends soldier's turn.

The Serpent Suit is the only one that is sort-of arguable. It's better statistically once upgraded and the Ice lash thing is ok... but it can miss, and it doesn't have Wraith mode (which can come in handy more than you'd think).

The Serpent Freeze is not just "ok", it's amazing since IIRC it does not end turn and the charge is NOT spent unless it hits.

[JaegerBane]

Originally posted by TheWorld:

It does not bring all the issues that Slash does.

You might activate more pods, but you still get all your actions after Rage Strike, unlike Slash, which ends soldier's turn.

That's kind of the point. A soldier is never going to be able to use the actions he's saved to wipe out all the pods he's triggered so the net result is that you've activated one or more pods for the sake of some melee damage (though it does shred IIRC, which is nice) - odds are he'll have to use those actions to retreat anyway.

The Serpent Freeze is not just "ok", it's amazing since IIRC it does not end turn and the charge is NOT spent unless it hits.

The fact that it needs to hit means that it's not as reliable as other crowd controls like Frost Bomb and Stasis... worse, I kept finding that it there wasn't just a miss chance, it was a *big* miss chance (accuracy seemed to be capped at 70% to hit for me). If the target isn't dangerous enough for that risk to mean anything then you might as well have just attacked it. It's nonetheless decent, but 'amazing'? Nope. Mind Control is amazing. Icarus Jump is amazing. Serial is amazing. The chance to freeze an opponent for a bit as a free action once per battle? Not really in the same league.

It's good against Rulers though, I'll give it that. But that's largely down to the contrived situation with Rulers that disproportionately favour free actions then the ability itself.

It's worth pointing out that this is getting a little off-topic, so if you fancy debating this further then feel free to make a thread about it :)

[learnedhand]

I love RAGE armor. It's so stylish and lethal. Perfect for getting up close with a shotgun ranger. Equip her with the axe too and clean house. Run and gun, impacable, untouchable just add to the combo chain.

Of course, things don't always go according to plan. Here's some funny pics from a recent encounter with the archon ruler:

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198200383110/screenshots/

Did you know the Archon ruler grabs someone by the nostrils?