How strong are the Chosen in LWOTC?

[Hayaji]

My first run with LWOTC. I am playing on normal difficulty and it seems like the chosen got an insane buff. I mean, the Hunter is usually able to kidnap at least one soldier no matter what I do. The Hunter. I mean... what? I'm kinda afraid of the other two since they, unlike the Hunter, gave me some trouble in vanilla WOTC. How strong are the other two?

[gentstonenemo]

Their strength depends on the level of difficulty you are playing the game.

[Hayaji]

Yeah, I get that, I meant more like how much stronger they are from vanilla. Asking only because I get my *** kicked by the hunter :)

[99Random]

Quite a bit stronger with some nice new abilities thrown in. On the other hand, they no longer randomly show in missions so it is completely predictable when they will show up and this gives you the chance to send in a counter team.

The large number of soldier abilities with all the additions from LWOTC gives you some great tools. Since they get a reaction action like the rulers you focus on high damage like Deadeye or multi-attack actions like Chain Shot that knock them down quick.

[Hayaji]

Originally posted by 99Random:

Quite a bit stronger with some nice new abilities thrown in. On the other hand, they no longer randomly show in missions so it is completely predictable when they will show up and this gives you the chance to send in a counter team.

The large number of soldier abilities with all the additions from LWOTC gives you some great tools. Since they get a reaction action like the rulers you focus on high damage like Deadeye or multi-attack actions like Chain Shot that knock them down quick.

Haven't thought about it in the way that you get stronger too. The problem on my side might have been that the soldiers were only corporal/sergeant rank with ballistic weapons (sniper had a laser rifle). Try to take down a chosen with 32 HP, farsight, grapple, low profile, combat readiness and 10 other passives :D

[khumak]

They're quite a bit stronger in LWOTC. Some of their strength seems to be inspired by the rulers. All of them get extra actions during your turn after each individual one of your units does something, similar to the rulers. They also get unique new abilities like the warlock gets a free attack on any unit that gets within a certain range of him.

They don't randomly appear anymore so you don't have to deal with them on most missions. There are specific mission types like retaliation missions where they appear 100% of the time. Generally the missions they appear on have dire consequences if you skip the misssion. Like losing contact with a region that you currently control.

They also tend to get passive abilities that do things like dramatically reduce the damage you do with each individual attack you make on them. So your first attack does full damage. Your next attack only does half. Your next only does 25%, etc. Pretty soon your maximum damage against them is 1.

The hunter in particular is a lot stronger since he no longer just wastes 95% of his turns with that mark ability that only requires moving the targetted unit to counter.

[99Random]

Originally posted by khumak:

They're quite a bit stronger in LWOTC. Some of their strength seems to be inspired by the rulers. All of them get extra actions during your turn after each individual one of your units does something, similar to the rulers. They also get unique new abilities like the warlock gets a free attack on any unit that gets within a certain range of him.

They don't randomly appear anymore so you don't have to deal with them on most missions. There are specific mission types like retaliation missions where they appear 100% of the time. Generally the missions they appear on have dire consequences if you skip the misssion. Like losing contact with a region that you currently control.

They also tend to get passive abilities that do things like dramatically reduce the damage you do with each individual attack you make on them. So your first attack does full damage. Your next attack only does half. Your next only does 25%, etc. Pretty soon your maximum damage against them is 1.

Forgot about the extra abilities. Some of the new ones like the Warlock close combat ability will get disabled if you poison or burn them. Bring those venom rounds you were wondering what to do with!

[khumak]

Suppression is also good for disabling some of their abilities, although unless you have a unit other than a gunner doing the suppressing you're probably more likely to want to nail it with cyclic fire.

[99Random]

Originally posted by Hayaji:

Originally posted by 99Random:

Quite a bit stronger with some nice new abilities thrown in. On the other hand, they no longer randomly show in missions so it is completely predictable when they will show up and this gives you the chance to send in a counter team.

The large number of soldier abilities with all the additions from LWOTC gives you some great tools. Since they get a reaction action like the rulers you focus on high damage like Deadeye or multi-attack actions like Chain Shot that knock them down quick.

Haven't thought about it in the way that you get stronger too. The problem on my side might have been that the soldiers were only corporal/sergeant rank with ballistic weapons (sniper had a laser rifle). Try to take down a chosen with 32 HP, farsight, grapple, low profile, combat readiness and 10 other passives :D

Unless you are way behind in levels and technology the chosen will not have 32 HP when you are fielding such weak forces. Also see above about disabling some of their abilities.

I have killed early-mid game LWOTC Chosen with a simple 1-2 punch of Chain Shot+ Rangers's "Both Barrels". Wow that ability hits like a truck!

[TheSuit]

it matters -

There are some modifiers that make them totally nuts like being able to move multiple times per turn. Against the Alien Hunters - that really wasn't an issue their abilities were pretty limited.

But with the Choosen it gets absolutetly insane.

[Hayaji]

Seems like my concern was unjustified. My eight man squad armed with magnetic weapons was able to take down the Hunter in one turn and three still had actions. There were no aliens around and he spawned basically right on top of me so that might helped a bit, but now he's not much of a threat

[Hayaji]

Originally posted by 99Random:

Originally posted by Hayaji:

Haven't thought about it in the way that you get stronger too. The problem on my side might have been that the soldiers were only corporal/sergeant rank with ballistic weapons (sniper had a laser rifle). Try to take down a chosen with 32 HP, farsight, grapple, low profile, combat readiness and 10 other passives :D

Unless you are way behind in levels and technology the chosen will not have 32 HP when you are fielding such weak forces. Also see above about disabling some of their abilities.

I have killed early-mid game LWOTC Chosen with a simple 1-2 punch of Chain Shot+ Rangers's "Both Barrels". Wow that ability hits like a truck!

Yeah, this was in july/august and I had other two squads infiltrating something. They both got the best weapons I had so there wasn't much left for this rather inexperienced squad. Luckily there were some resistance members who sadly had to serve as cannon fodder

[99Random]

Originally posted by Hayaji:

Originally posted by 99Random:

Unless you are way behind in levels and technology the chosen will not have 32 HP when you are fielding such weak forces. Also see above about disabling some of their abilities.

I have killed early-mid game LWOTC Chosen with a simple 1-2 punch of Chain Shot+ Rangers's "Both Barrels". Wow that ability hits like a truck!

Yeah, this was in july/august and I had other two squads infiltrating something. They both got the best weapons I had so there wasn't much left for this rather inexperienced squad. Luckily there were some resistance members who sadly had to serve as cannon fodder :sadstar2022:

Ah, that makes sense. In my current game by May I have 4 squads. 2 primary and two secondary and only send out the second primary has only 1-2 days on thier infiltration time.

Even then there have been times where I cancel an infiltration to handle something, but sounds like you got through without needing to do that. Once you understand the Chosen mechanics they are so much less scary!

[Hayaji]

Originally posted by 99Random:

Once you understand the Chosen mechanics they are so much less scary!

Yeah, wasn't expecting this big a step up in difficulty from vanilla and thought something was wrong with me if the hunter gave me trouble :D

[Hayaji]

@99Random
Could you perhaps give me a good timeline on when to do things in LwotC? It's currently late september and I only just skulljacked an officer, haven't killed any chosen (doing hunt part two on the hunter). Have full mag weapons and can research elerium which would unlock coil guns. Liberated one region. How long does a LWotC campaign last? Should I hurry up a bit?

[99Random]

Originally posted by Hayaji:

@99Random
Could you perhaps give me a good timeline on when to do things in LwotC? It's currently late september and I only just skulljacked an officer, haven't killed any chosen (doing hunt part two on the hunter). Have full mag weapons and can research elerium which would unlock coil guns. Liberated one region. How long does a LWotC campaign last? Should I hurry up a bit?

Funny enough I am experimenting in my current play with not doing liberation until way late. This made things pretty easy since the timer was (apparently) not ticking. Joke was on me. The first two months I hire every single recruit to form 4 teams. Numbers matter in the early stages in order to level up all those soldiers using ballistic weapons since later you have to buy better weapons for each new recruit. Painful.

Liberated the first region in October and what do you know, the Avatar clock was 2 past the maximum! I had to do 2 story line and 1 facility in 30 days get it comfortably below the time level.

The funny thing with LWOTC is that the Chosen stronghold missions are dead easy in all but legendary because the number of enemies in the final area is lower and your firepower is so much higher in LWOTC. So kill the local Chosen ASAP, take your time with liberating a region mission (but be well prepared for the result when you do).

At that point you usually have a Sharpshooter with at least Coil weapon+dead eye and the chosen are one-shot elerium pinatas.

Note that this is a take your time run I am doing and could have easily finished months earlier but the game is too darn fun.