Armor Shredding Advice?

[mcsproot]

As it says.

It seems most of the tougher aliens have a significant amount of armor shredding capability with their basic gun, so your armor only lasts one hit.

Though several aliens have massive amounts of armor. Andromedon, Shieldbearer, Sectopod and those damn Gatekeepers.

So far the only options I've seen to deal with armor are the Shredder skill, and explosives. Psionics bypasses armor which is also an option.

Surely you're not just supposed to leave armor there, and take plinky pot shots, as most enemies with lots of armor also have loads of health.

So I'm usually left with my Grenadiers taking full frag/plasma grenades in both the standard slot and grenade slot, and most of my other soldiers take a grenade as well. I feel this limits me tactically as you can only take one variety of grenade, and since I feel the need to take a lot of plasma grenades to deal with armor, I can't take smokes or flashbangs.

So...yeah. How else can I deal with armor?

[WarLust]

Blue Screen ammo for the mechs. AP rounds for organic. I typically run Blue Screen on my grenadiers and AP on my sniper.

[gimmethegepgun]

AP rounds will ignore 5 armor, which in most cases will make you completely ignore it.
Also, some of the more heavily armored enemies are robotic, which means they're susceptible to EMP grenades/bombs and Combat Protocol, which both ignore armor, and Bluescreen Rounds, which give 5 more damage, and so are at least as good as AP against those enemies.

Acid Bombs give better shredding than Plasmas, so you could pack one or two and use them to melt the armor of something nasty.

Also remember that turrets on roofs can be instakilled with falling damage by just blowing up the floor.

Storm Gun crits do so much damage that the armor barely even matters. A ranger with a Storm Gun, Rapid Fire, Talon Rounds, and Hunter's Instinct will do 17-19 damage on crit against flanked enemies (and with a laser sight will have 100% crit too), which will let them single-handedly mulch an Andromedon on Legend.

Oh, and Dominate Gatekeepers and Andromedons. Put that armor to work :)

[mcsproot]

I keep forgetting about Experimental Ammo.......duuuh! :( I take it Acid Bombs are from Experimental Grenade?

I tend to rely on Grenades and Heavy Weapons in my games. I guess I like also using explosives to catch multiple enemies and to destroy cover.

[Fringehunter7719]

Well, your choices are basically, (i) do enough damage that you don't need to shred it. Skills like sharpshooter's deadeye, grenadier's rupture or bluescreen ammo will allow you to do that (note that most heavily armored enemies count as mechanical). (ii) Bypass it with psionics, skills like specialist's combat protocol or A.P. ammo. Otherwise you have to stick to your original plan and (iii) shred it.

Grenadiers can shred with their cannon, which combos well with salvo and skills like chain shot and saturation fire. Acid grenades/bombs are the best for armor destruction and do hefty damage as well, with volatile mix even upping the damage on the acid burn effect in addition to the base damage. Even grenades with effects that won't affect an enemy can be used for the initial damage+shred - e.g. gas grenades/bombs can do up to 2 shred and good damage in a very large area even to mechanical enemies that are immune to poison.

EXO/War suits come with heavy weapons that allow additional shredding attacks with good range on any unit, to supplement your grenadiers and open up more options. Shredder/Shredstorm cannon are both great at their appropriate tier, with rocket/blaster launcher a good fallback.

Aside from that you always have the option of using utility grenades on non grenadier soldiers to free up the space you need on your grenadiers as well.

Edit: I see many of these points have been made in the interim. Oh well, ninjad again.

[BoydofZINJ]

Nades shred armor... grenadiers, with the right perks, shred armor. AP rounds will by pass armor but people without AP rounds have to suffer the armor.

I almost always have 2 grenadiers in my squad until I got a high level PSI operative - and then half the time I took 2 grenadiers - the other half I took 2 sharpshooters

[mcsproot]

The biggest bit of advice I've gotten so far is: remember that Experimental Ammo project exists! :P silly me

[m.dm]

find the biggest gun and shoot it!

[JaegerBane]

Originally posted by (M3) mcsproot:

The biggest bit of advice I've gotten so far is: remember that Experimental Ammo project exists! :P silly me

Well, that and nab enough cores. My poor Proving Grounds have been practically mothballed as I can *never* find any damn cores.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by JaegerBane:

Originally posted by (M3) mcsproot:

The biggest bit of advice I've gotten so far is: remember that Experimental Ammo project exists! :P silly me

Well, that and nab enough cores. My poor Proving Grounds have been practically mothballed as I can *never* find any damn cores.

Not a tip for you, necessarily, but one thing to note is that one of the valuable things you can get from Supply Raid missions is cores. Do try not to break too many of those boxes.

[MonkeyEmperor]

Off the top of my head...

Shredder skill for Grenadiers. The other one that destroys cover is worthelss imo.

Grenades.

Rupture skill.

Bluescreen or an incendiary/acid type ammo. Bluescreen makes mincemeat of mechs, incendiary or acid seem to bypass armor in my experience and apply a direct DOT effect for several rounds.

Shoot something explosive if it is near any enemies. I once shot the cargo on one of the train raid missions and caused a massive AOE explosion that halved the health of five enemies who were stupid enough to stand near it. Definitely worth Bradford nagging me.

EXO and Warsuits FTW . Do the Heavy/Powered weapons proving ground projects. The shredder/shredstorm cannon weapon for these is worth its weight in gold if used at the right time.

EMP grenades/bombs and bluescreen rounds reduce mechs hack defence if you fancy a remote controlled toy.

Psi operatives. Once you have Dominate go for something badass like an Andromedon or a Muton and make use of their acid puke/grenade attack. If an Andromedon is low on HP get it BEHIND the other enemies. If nessecary kill it yourself then laugh your ass off as it trails puddles of acid all over it's own troops as it tries to get near to you. If a Muton dies before you have used its grenade then use Fuse to blow it up at their feet.

Also with Psi operatives. Attacks like Null Lance, Insanity and Void bypass armor totally iirc.

[Aircool]

Bluescreen doesn't shred as far as I can remember, but your Grenadier's cannons do. You should be stripping armour, so your Grenadier is prime candidate. Grenades do a good job and Acid Grenades are very good at shredding armour.

Also note that your Hacker Specialist can cause quite a bit of damage as well.

Basically though, your bread and butter anti-armour is grenades and shred. If you can get shred from the AWC on one of your soldiers, it's worth tooling them up with ammo that causes extra damage. I tend to favour Dragon Rounds over any other.. they only do 1 extra point of damage, but the chance to set a target on fire (and therefore prevent them using special skills) makes them worth it. I usually equip 3-4 soldiers with Dragon Rounds, as whilst Bluescreen cause a lot of damage, you can't always get the right soldier on the right target.