How to build a ranger ?

[Okami]

I heard blade are kinda good on paper, but get you in unsafe position most of the time (physicaly + counter chance from some alien 60% I heard o0) ==> and this is something you don't want in XCom...


So how to build Rangers ?
- Are blade actualy viable ?
- Should I go for a shotgun build ? (Commando from XCom EW)
- How good are Stealth Ranger ?

I'm stuck at first skill choice and I can't decide :(

[Dire Wombat]

Origineel geplaatst door Nuclear Flashlight:

Rapid Fire deals massive damage to a SINGLE target. While with some good coördination with your team a Reaper can kill MULTIPLE enemies in 1 turn and thus eliminate more threaths. I used both to great effectiveness early, mid and late game.

The problem with Reaper is that it doesn't kill things, because swords don't do enough damage to kill things in the late game (and there's no such thing as early- or mid-game Reaper on Legend, unless you're using a relevant mod). It can be used to mop up after a grenadier blasts an area, but:

A - that's not a terribly important job, since the vast majority of the time there aren't so many enemies that you can't just do that with normal shooting, and
B - there are other good ways to do that job (Serial and/or Faceoff sharpshooters, Salvo grenadiers), but no one else can do the job of a crit-specced ranger with Rapid Fire (hitting tough enemies for 15-30 damage).

Origineel geplaatst door Nuclear Flashlight:

Early game: You don't always get the chance to put a shotgun to someomes face. So this double move can be worth it.

Agreed, swords are useful in the early game; not as a ranger's main combat role, but it is a really useful Plan B to have available. If they kept up better at the higher tech tiers, blade rangers might make some sense.

Origineel geplaatst door Nuclear Flashlight:

Mid game: An Arc blade is capable of stunning, while a shotgun can deal an x amount of damage leaving the target alive.

A shard gun CAN leave the target alive, but it's a whole lot less likely than with an arc blade. The chance to stun doesn't make up for the reduced chance to kill. I'm not saying there are no situations where you wouldn't be glad to have an arc blade and some sword skills, but they're much too rare for it to be worth investing the skill slots, research time, and supplies in swords instead of something else.

[Nuclear Flashlight]

Origineel geplaatst door Dire Wombat:

Origineel geplaatst door Nuclear Flashlight:

Rapid Fire deals massive damage to a SINGLE target. While with some good coördination with your team a Reaper can kill MULTIPLE enemies in 1 turn and thus eliminate more threaths. I used both to great effectiveness early, mid and late game.

The problem with Reaper is that it doesn't kill things, because swords don't do enough damage to kill things in the late game (and there's no such thing as early- or mid-game Reaper on Legend, unless you're using a relevant mod). It can be used to mop up after a grenadier blasts an area, but:

A - that's not a terribly important job, since the vast majority of the time there aren't so many enemies that you can't just do that with normal shooting, and
B - there are other good ways to do that job (Serial and/or Faceoff sharpshooters, Salvo grenadiers), but no one else can do the job of a crit-specced ranger with Rapid Fire (hitting tough enemies for 15-30 damage).

Origineel geplaatst door Nuclear Flashlight:

Early game: You don't always get the chance to put a shotgun to someomes face. So this double move can be worth it.

Agreed, swords are useful in the early game; not as a ranger's main combat role, but it is a really useful Plan B to have available. If they kept up better at the higher tech tiers, blade rangers might make some sense.

Origineel geplaatst door Nuclear Flashlight:

Mid game: An Arc blade is capable of stunning, while a shotgun can deal an x amount of damage leaving the target alive.

A shard gun CAN leave the target alive, but it's a whole lot less likely than with an arc blade. The chance to stun doesn't make up for the reduced chance to kill. I'm not saying there are no situations where you wouldn't be glad to have an arc blade and some sword skills, but they're much too rare for it to be worth investing the skill slots, research time, and supplies in swords instead of something else.

Agreed to some degree. Mostly the Arc Blade stun is my 1st move, if it fails then no problem I got a whole squad to back the Ranger up. If it succeeds then life got a while lot easier. It is rarely a plan B. And when it comes to Reaper, it is still viable in my eyes. You can get enemies to a lower amount of hp letting the Reaper "clean" up. Especially if you work with the LoS. It is very situational and if you can't finish of the last enemy with your sword then just shoot.

I once grenaded 3 enemies, then my reaper took care of 2 and used chain shot on the last one (work with LoS for those 100% hits). That was my last move and it saved my hide. I still agree with everyone saying that the sword is inferior to the shotgun, but it brings such a nice amount of utility to the game, and it's one of the weapons that is capable of getting you out of some really tight spots. Another example is the Berserker I stunned. I just saved a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of bullets that I had to waste on the brute in order to take it down, so I could focus on the remaining enemies.

Still the game is really situational, you might not even have a Reaper at your disposal, or a salvo Grenadier or Serial Sharpshooter.

Got to get back to work. Will come back later.

[gimmethegepgun]

Origineel geplaatst door Nuclear Flashlight:

And when it comes to Reaper, it is still viable in my eyes. You can get enemies to a lower amount of hp letting the Reaper "clean" up. Especially if you work with the LoS. It is very situational and if you can't finish of the last enemy with your sword then just shoot.

The problem is that you're wasting the ranger's potential by taking Reaper when you could've taken a Serial sharpshooter that would do the same thing more effectively, along with all the other things sharpshooters can do.
Heck, most of the time that Reaper works a Faceoff would've killed most of them too, thanks to sword's terrible damage and Reaper's plummeting damage.
And what you could've taken was the strongest single target damage in the game, which combined with Hunter's Instinct and Talon Rounds essentially just outright kills the target.

[Nuclear Flashlight]

Origineel geplaatst door gimmethegepgun:

The problem is that you're wasting the ranger's potential by taking Reaper when you could've taken a Serial sharpshooter that would do the same thing more effectively, along with all the other things sharpshooters can do.
Heck, most of the time that Reaper works a Faceoff would've killed most of them too, thanks to sword's terrible damage and Reaper's plummeting damage.
And what you could've taken was the strongest single target damage in the game, which combined with Hunter's Instinct and Talon Rounds essentially just outright kills the target.

How is it wasting potential? I get your point, I get it a thousand times. You don't have to repeat it (not only you) over and over again. I know what faceoff does, I know what Serial does. Still its 4-5(+1 with ammo) vs 5 to 7 (+2 with perk) and a better chance to hit. Unless your litterally in the middle of all the enemies and getting a + 20 weapon range bonus.

Still Reaper without a train is still viable. It gives you the opening to kill 2 enemies instead of 1, and thus reducing the amount of enemies that can fire back.

And there is seriously something wrong with the damage on swords, it's showing lower then what ot actually does. I'm hitting for 10 with the Arc Blade (no crit). It shouldn't reall suppose to do this unless hunter's instinct is accounted, yet it sais ranged attacks. Or does a dash improve the damage?

Edit: Let me ask you something else. Fan Fire vs Serial? Isn't that almost the same as Reaper vs Rapid Fire?

[Dire Wombat]

Origineel geplaatst door Nuclear Flashlight:

Origineel geplaatst door gimmethegepgun:

The problem is that you're wasting the ranger's potential by taking Reaper when you could've taken a Serial sharpshooter that would do the same thing more effectively, along with all the other things sharpshooters can do.
Heck, most of the time that Reaper works a Faceoff would've killed most of them too, thanks to sword's terrible damage and Reaper's plummeting damage.
And what you could've taken was the strongest single target damage in the game, which combined with Hunter's Instinct and Talon Rounds essentially just outright kills the target.

How is it wasting potential? I get your point, I get it a thousand times. You don't have to repeat it (not only you) over and over again. I know what faceoff does, I know what Serial does. Still its 4-5(+1 with ammo) vs 5 to 7 (+2 with perk) and a better chance to hit. Unless your litterally in the middle of all the enemies and getting a + 20 weapon range bonus.

These numbers are beam pistol vs fusion blade, right? I think the closeness of those numbers really underscores how underpowered swords are; it's so much easier to get multiple pistol shots than multiple sword attacks (both in terms of what rank you get the promotions and in terms of battefield positioning).

Origineel geplaatst door Nuclear Flashlight:

Edit: Let me ask you something else. Fan Fire vs Serial? Isn't that almost the same as Reaper vs Rapid Fire?

They're conceptually similar, in the sense that you're choosing better single-target accuracy/damage vs the ability to clean up multiple targets. However, Serial is much more powerful than Reaper (Serial offers a higher-damage weapon, much lighter positioning restrictions with squadsight range vs melee range, and only incurs crit penalties, not damage penalties), and Rapid Fire with a shotgun/rifle and no cooldown is much more powerful than Fan Fire with a pistol and a long cooldown (even with the RF accuracy penalty). I don't think it's surprising that Serial sharpshooter + Rapid Fire ranger is generally much more highly regarded than Fan Fire sharpshooter + Reaper ranger.

Your observation about swords apparently doing more damage than the descriptions say is interesting. I've never seen it so I can't really include it in my evaluation, but if there is some poorly/un-documented situational damage boost to swords that could help their usefulness, if it's easy enough to enable.

[MonkeyEmperor]

I love swords :)

They are really useful is used properly. Many a time I have used the sword attack to finish off one enemy which then puts me near another enemy thus flanking it and then using one of my other units to kill it with a ranged weapon with a much higher % chance thanks to the flank bonus.

You could have different types of rangers on your squad. There is no logical reason to favour one over the other. Build a shotgunner and a blade ranger and see which one you get on with best. Try run and gun vs conceal and see how that synergises with the rest of your team.

Also swords are super useful as you can soften up an enemy/ finish an enemy, you get to move somewhere potentially better than where youy were and if you have no ammo at least you can do SOME damage. It's not like you can throw an empty sniper rifle at an enemy is it... actually that would be awesome :0

I have been using this guide on specialised builds and have a mix of Shotgunners and Blademasters in my team and love them both for different reasons.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=641028751

[Dire Wombat]

Origineel geplaatst door MonkeyEmperor:

Many a time I have used the sword attack to finish off one enemy which then puts me near another enemy thus flanking it and then using one of my other units to kill it with a ranged weapon with a much higher % chance thanks to the flank bonus.

Flanking bonuses only apply to the unit that is actually doing the flanking. If, say, a sniper sees an enemy through low cover, their hit and crit chances are unaffected by whether you have a ranger flanking that enemy.

[Taritu]

If you want to use a lot of sword rangers, use a better swords mod. It's reasonable, because the extra risk for using a sword (especially after run and gun) balances it out.

Bladestorm is also pretty powerful. I've had a bladestorm ranger kill multiple mobs in one turn.

[MonkeyEmperor]

Origineel geplaatst door Dire Wombat:

Origineel geplaatst door MonkeyEmperor:

Many a time I have used the sword attack to finish off one enemy which then puts me near another enemy thus flanking it and then using one of my other units to kill it with a ranged weapon with a much higher % chance thanks to the flank bonus.

Flanking bonuses only apply to the unit that is actually doing the flanking. If, say, a sniper sees an enemy through low cover, their hit and crit chances are unaffected by whether you have a ranger flanking that enemy.

Theres always one aint there...

[Dire Wombat]

Origineel geplaatst door MonkeyEmperor:

Origineel geplaatst door Dire Wombat:

Flanking bonuses only apply to the unit that is actually doing the flanking. If, say, a sniper sees an enemy through low cover, their hit and crit chances are unaffected by whether you have a ranger flanking that enemy.

Theres always one aint there...

Sorry, no offense, just wanted you to know.

[gimmethegepgun]

Origineel geplaatst door Nuclear Flashlight:

How is it wasting potential?

It's wasting potential because instead of taking arguably the best skill in the game, you take a mediocre version of a skill another class gets (which is basically the skill that makes RF be "arguably" the best rather than "the best").

[yuri simp]

Serial has a high opportunity cost in the form of both its opposite skill, Fan Fire, and the fact that you're taking a Sniper-build Sharpshooter over a Gunslinger-build Sharpshooter, which is generally suboptimal to begin with, I feel.

Also, love how people are already trying to categorically shove abilities as either "the meta" or "unviable". There are very few abilities like that, mind you. Even Chain Shot, which I loathe for being a knock off of Rapid Fire, still has a place on some loadouts.

Potential is in the hands of the player. I assure you that I can get better results with a Blademaster Ranger than most people will ever get with a shotgun based Ranger. Does that mean I think the shotgun Ranger is worse. Hardly, but Blademasters fit my playstyle better, so I use them. So, honestly, feel free to make it up as you go. Find the skill choice that feels right for you, because in the end, that is what is right for you.

[Exarch_Alpha]

Chain Shot with Holo-Targetting and Shredder is one of the best late game builds. Will make sectopods and Gatekeepers a joke.

[yuri simp]

Origineel geplaatst door Exarch_Alpha:

Chain Shot with Holo-Targetting and Shredder is one of the best late game builds. Will make sectopods and Gatekeepers a joke.

I feel that Heavy Ordnance and Volatile Mix make for a more powerful synergy, at least on my end. I love explosives, and seeing upgraded grenades reach all three enemies in a scattered pod is delicious. I have not had problems with dealing with Sectopods (Gunslingers with Bluescreen eat them up completely) and Gatekeepers, personally. I have also found that the high Defense on a Gatekeeper makes Chain Shot difficult to pull on them even with a bunch of aim bonuses.

[BoydofZINJ]

For the Legendary Ironman, I got the advance PCS dodge and wraith armor and your ranger is a living tank god! Then I use the double shotgun ability and that RANGER now kills anything!

Combine it with aid from a Specialist and you are laughing at enemies and anything but explosions!