how does the reaper ability works?

[Comguitoz]

tittle

[gimmethegepgun]

When you activate it, until the next turn, the ranger will recover 1 of its 2 action points whenever it kills an enemy with the blade. The first attack is guaranteed to hit (though mutons can still counter it), and subsequent blade attacks will have their damage reduced by 1 for each enemy that has been killed in the chain.
Note that the extra action point does NOT need to be used on a blade attack.

As for how effective it is, it's an extremely subpar ripoff of Serial, and is against Rapid Fire, which is amazing.

[Comguitoz]

so basically its better to choose rapid fire?

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by The Sensei:

so basically its better to choose rapid fire?

Basically. If you want to mop up damaged enemies use Serial or Faceoff.

[yuri simp]

gepgun's already given his opinion on Reaper and how it works, so I think I might as well throw a few of my thoughts in there.

Namely, the fact that swordsmen are mobile and snipers are not. Reaper is a clean-up ability, yes, but its main draw is improving the Ranger's mobility to ridiculous levels. Especially combined with a speed PCS, a Ranger is quite capable of dashing across a good portion of the stage, whether that means to reach a target or objective much quicker than normal. Of course, that extra mobility is very powerful.

I have personally have had great success with the Ranger and Reaper and all of the blade abilities. It's a great perk. Rapid Fire is simplier to use and is the "general use" ability I find, and Reaper is the more "specialized" ability with explosive damage potential.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by dok:

and Reaper is the more "specialized" ability with explosive damage potential.

And with an extreme case of triggering more enemy pods :)

[yuri simp]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

And with an extreme case of triggering more enemy pods :)

That's your problem, not mine. I've never had a problem with that.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by dok:

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

And with an extreme case of triggering more enemy pods :)

That's your problem, not mine. I've never had a problem with that.

Every time you move into the unknown, you run the risk of triggering enemies. This is necessary to complete the mission, but you need to do it on your own terms.
That's why sword is bad.

Also the terrible damage.

[yuri simp]

...I don't need you to explain the game for me, thank you very much. I'm a pretty darn good player, to my knowledge, when it comes to SP.

I've mentioned this before, but most of the sword's main draws come in play when you talk about "mobility". Unless you have Run & Gun, you can't dash and attack with the shotgun (and taking R&G has its own problems due to Conceal standing at the opposite end, which is a sublime perk). Unlike the shotgun (and the sniper rifle, since you mentioned Serial), the sword is a secondary and therefore has no need for ammo.

Anyway, if you're cleaning up, what's the harm in activating another pod? Just restart and kick momentum back up. It saves time, which goes back into the whole "mobility" thing. Also, by default, Snipers are an inert class, and Serial only compounds this. You'll want everyone constantly moving on a lot of missions, even the ones without time limits. Aggression beats all. That's why I honestly can't abide the advocate the exclusive use of Serial. It encourages not only limited "safe" play, it limits playstyle.

Mind you, sword upgrades are also cheaper than gun upgrades. Small consideration, but I definitely felt the crunch on my first speedrun attempt.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by dok:

Anyway, if you're cleaning up, what's the harm in activating another pod?

A bunch of fresh, uninjured aliens showing up when multiple squad members are unable to respond is pretty harmful.

Originally posted by dok:

That's why I honestly can't abide the advocate the exclusive use of Serial. It encourages not only limited "safe" play, it limits playstyle.

I'm not advocating exclusive use of Serial. I'm advocating using classes for what they're good at (single target damage in ranger's case), instead of what other classes are better at.

[Comguitoz]

i kinda agree with gepgun, and that restarting trick probably doesnt work in ironman, which is what im training to do after this playthrough.

[Exarch_Alpha]

Originally posted by dok:

...I don't need you to explain the game for me, thank you very much. I'm a pretty darn good player, to my knowledge, when it comes to SP.

.

Tell that when you are among the 1% that did the hardest achievements. Just my 2 cents

[Yian Yan]

Originally posted by Exarch_Alpha:

Originally posted by dok:

...I don't need you to explain the game for me, thank you very much. I'm a pretty darn good player, to my knowledge, when it comes to SP.

.

Tell that when you are among the 1% that did the hardest achievements. Just my 2 cents

Pretty sure the guy you quoted has all but 3 achievements. One involving wasting time using every heavy weapon in the game. Guess, since he doesn't have them ALL, his opinion is worthless. Shame.

[yuri simp]

Originally posted by Exarch_Alpha:

Tell that when you are among the 1% that did the hardest achievements. Just my 2 cents

I did some of them, does that help?

Also, when stuff like this exists:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=627578614

I find it hard to claim that this "1%" is necessarily guaranteed to be skilled people. Just my 2 cents, and we're getting off-topic bad.

[Drain]

Reaper is junk. Rapid Fire can toost an enemy from full health. The problem is that the sword falls off late game vs a modded up shotgun. Laser mod + talon rounds + flanking = 100% crit on shots. Or you can just slot the scope to negate the Rapid Fire penalty.

[Haggis]

dok makes an argument for reaper and why it is fun and can be useful; but gepgun is 'right' in that it is subpar, and becomes a pretty bad pick when you realise just how powerful Rapid-Fire is.

At the end of the day this is a game, and not just any game; but one that relies upon RNG. When skill alone is not enough to always 'win', you generally want to be 'min-maxing' to make the odds of your success as high as possible.

The Ranger has the highest single-target damage in the game. The skill 'Rapid-Fire' amplifies this considerably to (if I remember correctly) 36 damage. With the right ammo this can ignore armour (though you probably want the +crit ammo). The point is the Ranger can become your 'go-to-guy' for dealing with big nasties like Sectopods, Berserkers, Gatekeepers and Andromedons. Rapid-Fire is just so strong with shotgun crits, and the weapon-mods allow for you to make ammo largely irrelevant (one of dok's arguments was that the sword doesn't need ammo, while Rapid-fire would use 2 rounds).

Reaper can be great for mopping up low hp enemies, and in some very niche scenarios could win you a mission by allowing your Ranger to run across half the map and achieve the objective before the timer runs out. However, with a 'min-maxed' squad you would almost certainly never have to worry about that, and in such a squad 'Rapid-Fire' would be far more useful. That's not to mention just how dangerous it is running blindlu into enemy territory; nor the fact that we humans often want to try to get the most out of what we have available to us, and with the ability Reaper than can often mean charging into unknown territory to hit that enemy just because 'we can, and there might not be any pods there'. It can promote bad decision making.

As gepgunner said, the other classes can mop up numerous, low hp enemies as well if not better than the Ranger; and often without having to sacrifice another very powerful skill for the ability to do so. It is a game though, so choose what you like. Reaper isn't useless by any means, it just isn't worth it in the eyes of 'min-maxers'.