Must have weapon upgrades/armor and a very useful tactic.

[The Civillian]

SO after some partail play through's (End up restarting as I screw up my base and only just found out about workshop gremlins) I thought I would share some of my must have weapon upgrades and what classes to stick them on and why. I'm afraid I don't recall the names so I will describe what the upgrade does and you can go from there.


1 - THE NEVER MISS UPGRADE (The one that ALWAYS does 1-2 damage GUARANTEED.

This upgrade is GOD LIKE perticually when you start encountering the snakes and anything with armor.

Always have one on your heavy (Grenadier) That has shredder. This makes it so as long as you have LoS to the target you will ALWAYS shred its armor with the cannon. (If you have the Advanced warfare facility and one of your soldiers learns the shredder ability give them one of those weapon upgrades.

ALWAYS give one to your Longwatch sniper, I can't count how many times this alone has saved one of my soldiers thats been dragged away by a snake, Sniper has a 13% chance to hit, No prob's its a guaranteed hit witch means the snake lets go and seeing as it's usually my ranger that gets grabbed, Its either shotgun or choppy choppy time.


FREE RELOADS

First, second upto thrid reload don't cost an action, Again if you have Advanced warfare facility and someone learns chain shot, Give them this weapon upgrade. Nothing like taking out 5-7 aliens with a single unit that got into the right place at the right time.

EXTENDED MAGS

This is GREAT for snipers that have kill zone, Or the tech guys that have the overwatch perk (50% chance on overwatch hit to get another)


SPIDER SUIT'S

These are crazy good, In fact I would not be surprised if they get nurfed. Using the hook your FIRST move costs NOTHING. THis means you can get to the top of a building and still have both actions left. Nothing quite like grappling your ranger with extended mags and chain shot up a building and be flanking 4-5 enemies with 100% hit chance on them all and a very high crit chance. Plus its great for running away fast.

DON'T FEAR THE BESERKERS

Shott them once, Then make sure your soldiers are NOT the closest to it. Theres a VERY good chance the berserkers will turn around and smash one of the bad guys for you :D

ALWAYS TAKE TWO TECH GUYS

(Once you have the squad size perks)

And hack EVERYTHING that is safe to do so. One of the rewards that keep's popping up is +20 to hacking skill. Stack it on one tech guy, (The other is a medic) Eventaully you with mk3 grems and skulljack upgrade you will be able to hack ANYTHING 100% and that is better than a mimmic beacon.

In addition, If theres no +20% to hack bonus, You can set a trap even if your already exposed and not fighting anything. If one of the fails is "Alerts nearby patroll to your location" Position your squad to cover the one doing the hacking and have them all overwatch, Then hack the relay with your worst hacker to trigger a fail. Enemy comes rushing to find the hacker and gets blown away by everyone else :D. (Very useful on timed missions where you don't want to rush into a building and trigger 2-3 pod's at the same time.

Also USE the pulse, It doesnt just show you were the bad guys are, It also uncovers the FACELESS forcing them to reveal themselves at a nice safe distance. Perticually good of retaliation missions, get roughly in the middle with your Techy and let it rip. Then you know the civ's near you are safe or not.

MIMMIC BEACONS

These are GOD mode for one turn. And they benifit from cover. So throw it somewhere where the aliens have to move to shoot it, And put everyone else on overwatch. The aliens can't resist the beacon and rush blindly for it.

FLASH BANGS

These are your bread and butter early on. Always have one on your ranger (Unless you have mimmic beacon) Flash bangs do reduce the targets aim but thats NOT what you want it for.
They stop a whole host of enemy abilities:

- Stun lancers melee attacks
- Sectoids mind attacks (Fear/mind controll/animate dead ect)
- Advent officers mark target and grenade throw
- snakes tongue pull and acid spit

Basically flash bangs turn the aliens into worse rookies than your own that can either only shoot/run or overwatch (And they usually overwatch)

BRING THE HOUSE DOWN

Bad guys in/on the building BLOW IT UP. They take fall damage. Combine this with someone that has chainshot or a sniper with Faceoff for deadly results. (My sniper has killed 8 aliens in a single turn with this and a mag pistol :D)

BOMBS BOMBS BOMBS

Or rather ANYTHING that goes boom (I wanna be able to target cars with guns lol) If you can not get around the target to flank, And your biggest gun has a lousy shot, Toss a grenade to blow the targets cover away.

CAN'T KILL EM ALL

Can't kill em all in one turn, If all thats left is one don't worry too much, Unless its a robot theres a very high chance it will run away to find friends, Snakes do this alot.


WANT EXTRA KILLS/EXP and LOOT.

On blacksite missions once you have the vial (for first one) or planted the bombs, Reinforcments come every other turn, So if the map allows it, Set up an ambush at the drop zone, The next drop is usually very close by and just mow them down as they land. More kills YAY.

Final tip

Keep an eye out for the blowy up things, These come in many shapes and sizes, Usually next to a building. If the enemy hides behind or near one (They have a big boom area) Blow it up rather than shoot the alien, You will deal damage and remove its cover. (Just dont be too close when you do this.

Just some fun things I figured I would share :D.

[Halfinger]

Um, about your last point, blowey things. Sorry Grenadier, kinda oops, well, sorry. I'll send flowers. As you said, big boom area....

[yuri simp]

A few things:
> You can only rank up once per mission (jury's still out on whether EXP carries, though) and loot only drops once, I think.
> Stocks synergize incredibly well with Repeaters. Otherwise, don't bother.
> I prefer Extended Mags over Auto-Reloaders on everybody except the Sharpshooter. Since reload only costs one action, it's usually alright to reload in the middle of combat.
> You can have a Specialist be an effective mix between medic/hacker with: Medical Protocol - Haywire Protocol - Field Medic - Threat Assessment - either Ever Vigilant/Guardian since both are pretty bad - either Restoration/Capacitor Discharge, I prefer the latter. Saves space on your team to have a multi-purpose Specialist.

[The Civillian]

Originally posted by Halfinger:

Um, about your last point, blowey things. Sorry Grenadier, kinda oops, well, sorry. I'll send flowers. As you said, big boom area....

I mean the fuel tanks and things usually next to buildings :P

Originally posted by dok:

A few things:
> You can only rank up once per mission (jury's still out on whether EXP carries, though) and loot only drops once, I think.
> Stocks synergize incredibly well with Repeaters. Otherwise, don't bother.
> I prefer Extended Mags over Auto-Reloaders on everybody except the Sharpshooter. Since reload only costs one action, it's usually alright to reload in the middle of combat.
> You can have a Specialist be an effective mix between medic/hacker with: Medical Protocol - Haywire Protocol - Field Medic - Threat Assessment - either Ever Vigilant/Guardian since both are pretty bad - either Restoration/Capacitor Discharge, I prefer the latter. Saves space on your team to have a multi-purpose Specialist.

1 - didint know that
2 - If is stocks im taking about that make it so you always hit, then having a sure fire hit out weighs most other options.
3 - You can't move reload and shoot in the same turn.
4 - who else are you going to take, There's only 4 classes, 5 Once you get a phycic.

[yuri simp]

Originally posted by The Civillian:

1 - didint know that
2 - If is stocks im taking about that make it so you always hit, then having a sure fire hit out weighs most other options.
3 - You can't move reload and shoot in the same turn.
4 - who else are you going to take, There's only 4 classes, 5 Once you get a phycic.

1: The more you know...

2: But you do like 1-3 damage with stocks. They scale up horribly in the late-game, when basically every enemy's rocking double digit HP and heavy armor. Unless you're going for a Stock + Repeater cheese strategy, Stocks are nothing more than an early-game crutch. Grenades generally replace Stocks when it comes to doing guaranteed damage as the game goes on.

3: Generally speaking, if you need to move, reload, and shoot, you've got positioning problems. You should only need to reload and shoot, since the enemies should already be in sight.

4: Better classes, like an additional Grenadier, an additional Psi Operative, an additional Ranger, or an additional Sharpshooter? Like, any class that can actually fight? You get six slots at the end. You only need one Specialist, in whichever discipline, I think.

[Zephkiel]

Both of you are arguing about playstyle.

Lot of people dont like sniper. or Ranger. or specialists. The only things in common with most people is that grenadiers are goods.

[yuri simp]

Originally posted by Zephkiel:

Both of you are arguing about playstyle.

Aside from the Specialist part, I honestly don't think so.

[Ender]

I like free reload and aim on snipers. Stocks usually go on my specialist as that is usually my last guy to act. Putting them on a gunslinger sharpshooter is fine too. Grenadier tend to get my extra clip size since they get multiple skills that take extra clip usage.

i think you are heavily overrating stocks though. Most shots I take are 80% or better to hit so doing a couple damage on misses is only situationally useful.

I also think 1 specialist is enough. 2 grenadiers, 1 specialist, 1 ranger, 1 sharpshooter and 1 guy to get xp works great. For final missions the last slot goes psi.

More than any other class I rely on my main specialist since leveling hacking is such a pain. Main spec is the only soldier that feels game breaking to lose.

[The Civillian]

Originally posted by kpaxriding:

i think you are heavily overrating stocks though. Most shots I take are 80% or better to hit so doing a couple damage on misses is only situationally useful.

Ok the stocks

On a heavy (Grenadier) EVEN if the shot is lousy it is GOING to hit, witch means its GOING to shred armor. (Holo targeting happens anyways) So with a VERY lousy shot you get minor damage, Holo targeting AND shredded armor Plus any effect of any ammo you have equiped.

One of ya guys gets dragged by a snake, Even a rookie with a stock can FREE up your soldier thats been dragged allowing them to either kill the snake or get the hell out of dodge.

I'm far from saying equip every soldier with a stock, But having one on ya heavy and sniper should be a must as it gives you that peice of mind that your ALWAYS going to hit. Now the other thing is having the stock on a squadsight sniper that has poison ammo. When he/she is on over watch if there shot doesn't kill them the poison will give them a REALLY bad day.

I kinda feel sorry for those who's games go perfectly where every mission is flawless and the aliens never get a shot at you. Must be boring. Might I suggest playing on a harder setting :P.


Now with the TWO specalists .

One Being a total robo freak and looking after it means you end up with a guy that can LITTERALLY take over any mech the enemy throws at you with 90%+ chances.

And the Full blown medic (Assuming he aint front line) Can keep your team rolling and patch you up if and when the crap hits the fan.

Hmm 2 grenades vs 4 med kits, a revive + what ever else you want to take (mimic becon, grenade ect ect.

[Ender]

I generally remove armor with grenades. I do take shredder just because te other pick is awful. If I absolutely have to remove armor with the big gun I tend to use the special shot that always hits which I find more reliable than salvo.

I play on legendary so not air how I can play on a harder setting. One specialist is enough. Don't need a combat and a medical protocol and one specialist can get all of the most important skills outside of that.

It is personal preference obviously but if I were training a new player I would always tell them 2 grenadiers at all times, they are easily the most important class.

[jouertue]

for me it's special ammo and stocks on guardian specialists, shredding grenadiers and gunslingers. repeaters and stocks is another cheesy combo for those classes, mimic on the scout if he pulls bad pods, heavy weapons on grenadiers to put at best use salvo, the rest goes for preferences.
tactic wise, i like to use upper terrains and los retreats for ambushes, not always possible cause of the timers but really fun. finally fully overwatch destroy reinforcements.