Grenadier: Blast padding vs shredder

[Sonic Boomer]

I'm pretty advanced in my current playthrough, and I'm starting to question the usefulness of blast padding. Shredder seems more useful late game as most enemies have armor, so I'm asking people who completed the game, should I retrain my Grenadier to go shredder instead?

[Jarmo]

Yes

[Saint Landwalker]

Absolutely. Blast Padding is (in my opinion) either the most or second-most (after Return Fire) useless ability in the game.

[Sir Crashalot]

Shredder is simply too good compared to 1 armour point, especially later on when it gets even better. Blast padding on the other had never gets better.

[Morty Jhones]

yes shreader removes 1-3 points of armour on a sucseeul hit. add to this exsplosives also removes 1-2 points of armour .

so yes retrain him to shreader and give him a exo or war suit for the extra LR HE.

[PhilkIced]

Also, to add to everything above, Shredder seems to scale, taking out 1-2 points of armor early game and 3-4 late game, while Blast Padding will always be just 1 armor. there is an experimental armor that adds 1 extra armor too and more hp on top of it, you could bring 2 grenades and that armor if you wish as heavies got 3 slots.

[Saint Landwalker]

Originally posted by Astranon:

Is it just me or do the aliens tend to use grenades as a last resort anyway? It seems like there is a much higher chance in any situation that they will fire on a soldier instead of using an explosive.

I've seen them use them on any tight cluster of troops (although you have to be pretty close together).

I've also seen an Advanced Trooper throw a grenade at a single target on a roof, thereby destroying the roof and causing extra falling damage. That trooper was a jerk.

(Edit: But both of those situations are rare / should never be situations you put yourself in in the first place. -66% Explosive Damage sounds nice, except that you should almost never be getting targeted by explosive damage to begin with.)

[Ender]

It is viable to go blast padding early and swap to shredder once more armored units start to show. I'd never keep blast padding all game though.

[Mistfox]

Hmm... so if you added the blast padding to heavy armour, how high can you go?

[happy]

retrain

[Saint Landwalker]

Originally posted by Astranon:

@landwalker04, Wow, I have never seen a trooper throw a grenade at a single target at all. That must have been one of the more creative-minded aliens.

Yeah, that's the only time I've ever seen that happen. I was on a rooftop, way closer than I should have been, having botched my concealment/ambush situation pretty hard. The trooper was two floors below, on the ground. Evidently he did not care for that. =\

(Edit: Even early game, Shredder is useful. It's practically essential if you need to take out any early turrets, and it doesn't take that long for Mutons and MECs to start showing up. Certainly by the second Retaliation mission. You can still start with Blast Padding and then retrain, but Shredder has early game value, too.)

[PhilkIced]

Originally posted by Mistfox:

Hmm... so if you added the blast padding to heavy armour, how high can you go?

Blast Padding = 1 armor
W.A.R. = 2 armor
Plated Vest = 1 armor

So the max is a total of 4 armor.

[Malidictus]

I feel quite a few of the skills in the game are somewhere between "useless" and "bad." Blast Padding is a prime example. Far as I'm concerned, that should sacle with tech level, so +1 for Kevlar, +2 for Plated, +3 for Warden. That would actually give soldiers pretty solid armour when stacked with +1 from a vest and +2 from the EXO/WAR Suit. Yeah, it's just for that one soldier, but I'm of the opinion that most of a soldiers' performance relative to other soldiers should come from skills. That makes them more unique.

Return Fire can also use a boost, either for infinite retaliation or my personal favourite +damage with pistols. Ideally, I'd like to see max-level, max-tech Gunslingers have pistols approaching the power of rifles. Again - great power, but skill-locked and only available to dedicated Gunslingers more so than dedicated snipers.

[Rumpl4]

to be honest, I like to kit my troops out in WAR suits and give them stasis vests, means I don't need a medic on my team, so i can take an extra heavy or PSI ops

[Rumpl4]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

I feel quite a few of the skills in the game are somewhere between "useless" and "bad." Blast Padding is a prime example. Far as I'm concerned, that should sacle with tech level, so +1 for Kevlar, +2 for Plated, +3 for Warden. That would actually give soldiers pretty solid armour when stacked with +1 from a vest and +2 from the EXO/WAR Suit. Yeah, it's just for that one soldier, but I'm of the opinion that most of a soldiers' performance relative to other soldiers should come from skills. That makes them more unique.

Return Fire can also use a boost, either for infinite retaliation or my personal favourite +damage with pistols. Ideally, I'd like to see max-level, max-tech Gunslingers have pistols approaching the power of rifles. Again - great power, but skill-locked and only available to dedicated Gunslingers more so than dedicated snipers.

on the subject of pistols, when I do fan-fare, I've had the damage over 34 against a mec, thats a disgusting amount of damage and surpasses anything else in the game ever

[Saint Landwalker]

Originally posted by Rumpl4:

on the subject of pistols, when I do fan-fare, I've had the damage over 34 against a mec, thats a disgusting amount of damage and surpasses anything else in the game ever

A Lightning Hands, Quick Draw, Fan Fire gunslinger with special ammunition is a thing of awesomeness.