Advice for dealing with multiple mecs?

[Heroic Ryan]

I cannot ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stand this enemy. They're so obnoxious. I had 3 in one fight. One blew up my ranger's cover, and the other two proceeded to gun him down from full health to dead.

[Lack of Stuff]

Bluescreen rounds. There are other options like combat protocol and EMP nades but BS rounds trivialize them. Just know that if you don't kill them immediately they will micro missile you.

[mxll]

Blue Screen Rounds and a sharpshooter with lightning hands and quick draw. That should already easily take down 1-2 mecs and your other soldiers can finish the rest

[fewerjungle]

- Grenadiers with shredder and bluescreen rounds. Aim PCSs, scopes and chain shot can easily deal with mechs mkII. Saturation fire, even with average aim, will wreck groups of mechs, since the there's no defense or cover to contend with. These are usually the most effective methods.

- Sharpshooters with bluescreen rounds and pistol skills. Especially good when used with the chosen hunter's pistol. If you have deadeye it can often provide enough punch for a one hit K.O. and not suffer too much from the aim penalty.

- Specialists with enough hack, usually via skulmine hack bonus, and upgraded gremlin to shut them down or take control. Combat protocol or capacitor discharge are also good.

- Ranger with enough shotgun crit (laser sight, talon rounds, shadow strike) can also "bypass" their armor and one shot them, but will rely a bit on luck on some occasions since mechs can't be flanked and there's usually better targets for them, but in a pinch...

[Rez Elwin]

Their lack of cover should make them an easy target. and no more than 2 shots from a mag weapons should be more than enough to down a Mec.

If you need extra damage though, Bluescreen protocol in the proving ground will let you create EMP grenades and Bluescreen rounds, which do extra damage to mechanized units. A specialist is also very effective, Haywire protocol can either shut down ot take control of a mec temporally.

[Red Ducky]

I like using a specialist to stun them with a hack. It's pretty good at delaying any possible threat and late game, with a good hack stat, you can take control of mecs if you choose the riskier hack option. Blue screen grenades also work very well (massive damage and chance to stun) and are extremely effective on groups of mechanical enemies, especially when launched from a skilled grenadier. That grenadier can also be useful for shredding mec armor and holo-targeting them to improve the chances of further attacks landing.

Rangers with an arc blade can also land a stun that will shutdown a mec for some time. It's apparently a 25% chance to stun but depending on your difficulty settings, it may proc more often than that.

Mox's free whiplash attack does a lot of damage to mecs and also benefits from height bonuses so grapple to a good position where you can hit the whiplash and take two attacks.

Sparks are also effective against mecs due to their default attacks shredding armor. A solitary mec with overdrive and good aim should be able to do a lot of damage to enemy mecs.

If I ever get in a situation where I can't immediately neutralize enemy mecs, I don't hesitate to use a mimic beacon in order to draw their fire in order to avert their missiles.

[pressdad]

Mecs are easy to kill. Long range sniping, blow 'em up, hack 'em, use mages to stasis them so you can deal with one at a time. Or any combination of the above.

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by Heroic Ryan:

I cannot ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stand this enemy. They're so obnoxious. I had 3 in one fight. One blew up my ranger's cover, and the other two proceeded to gun him down from full health to dead.

Yes, if you are hiding behind destructable cover (and most cover is destructable), that can happen. Fun when you do it to Advent. Not so fun when they do it to you.

[mosspit]

@OP
Like what others mention, Bluescreen rounds. They add +5 dmg to robotics and it is possible to one-shot the white Basic MECs with magnetic weapons. For the red Heavy MECs, AP rounds might be an alternative if you don't have good access to armour shred. They bypass up to 5 armour.

I generally avoid Hacks. Because MECs can't take cover so your team can usually have good aim against them anyways. Hacks might fail which not only waste actions, but can potentially buff up the MECs if failed.

Grenadiers and Sharpshooter are my go-to for anti-robotics. Grenadiers have shred in their normal skill progression. Just put a decent scope on their weapons. Sharpshooters can easily access multi-attacks per turn through Lightning Hands and Quickdraw, Not to mention Darkclaw with Bluescreen basically trivalize MECs.

Lastly, if you can't kill all the activated MECs, then use Mimic Beacons or Frost Bombs. Mimic Beacons will cause MECs to use weapon attacks instead. Provided you place the Mimic Beacons within LoS of the MECs.

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by mosspit:

I generally avoid Hacks. Because MECs can't take cover so your team can usually have good aim against them anyways. Hacks might fail which not only waste actions, but can potentially buff up the MECs if failed.

By late game shut-down hacks hardly ever fail. Although occasionally I have had the enemy shut down and then restart again *immediately*, just making the hack completely useless.

Still, it's often questionable whether or not it's just better to shoot a mec versus using your turn to shut it down. Depends on the situation.

[mosspit]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

Originally posted by mosspit:

I generally avoid Hacks. Because MECs can't take cover so your team can usually have good aim against them anyways. Hacks might fail which not only waste actions, but can potentially buff up the MECs if failed.

By late game shut-down hacks hardly ever fail. Although occasionally I have had the enemy shut down and then restart again *immediately*, just making the hack completely useless.

Still, it's often questionable whether or not it's just better to shoot a mec versus using your turn to shut it down. Depends on the situation.

XCOM2 difficulty is front loaded so late game MECs will rarely be an issue with Warden Armour and Plasma Weaponry.

As I said, Hacks are a double negative if failed. Not only wasting an action but buff your enemy, I do not advise risking it. If your Hack percent is 100% if you equip/build for it, by all means. I personally found it way easier to get 100% weapon hit rate against MECs.

[fewerjungle]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

By late game shut-down hacks hardly ever fail. Although occasionally I have had the enemy shut down and then restart again *immediately*, just making the hack completely useless.

Still, it's often questionable whether or not it's just better to shoot a mec versus using your turn to shut it down. Depends on the situation.

It's kinda give and take.
On one hand you kinda get a mimic beacon that can destroy cover.
On the other, if you do it on the first pod you got to keep looking over your shoulder for that hack to end.
Can't remember values cause I haven't checked them in a while, but hacking red mechs might not be super easy, unless you have multiple buffs on your specialist. Not as easy as bluescreen 1 hit KO at any rate.
I prefer to kill them immediately, since usually by the time I have a strong hack, I have strong everything and it's just easier to steamroll things.
Still, it always depends on the situation.

[Mike Garrison]

It's when the red mechs first show up that they are most dangerous. With their armor, it can take a whole squad shooting at them to kill one.

In late game sometimes your more powerful players can just one-shot them.

I usually prioritize red mechs over almost anything else. Their damn missile attack is a problem.

[fewerjungle]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

It's when the red mechs first show up that they are most dangerous. With their armor, it can take a whole squad shooting at them to kill one.

If you don't address the armor, yeah. If I remember correctly, I believe a shredder grenadier with bluescreen and a tier 2 cannon can 1-action kill it with chain shot if he rolls high on both shots, even for legendary HP values. If shredding and bluescreen are involved, 1 to 2 actions are usually what it takes.
I never upgrade tier 2 secondary weapons (grenade launcher excluded), so hack at that point is a no go for me.
But, depending on the team players field, they can pose some problems.

[|H|H| Fr3ddi3]

Originally posted by mosspit:

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

By late game shut-down hacks hardly ever fail. Although occasionally I have had the enemy shut down and then restart again *immediately*, just making the hack completely useless.

Still, it's often questionable whether or not it's just better to shoot a mec versus using your turn to shut it down. Depends on the situation.

XCOM2 difficulty is front loaded so late game MECs will rarely be an issue with Warden Armour and Plasma Weaponry.

As I said, Hacks are a double negative if failed. Not only wasting an action but buff your enemy, I do not advise risking it. If your Hack percent is 100% if you equip/build for it, by all means. I personally found it way easier to get 100% weapon hit rate against MECs.

Arguably i'd say it's a triple negative, specifically if you have WOTC.

Revival Protocol is IMHO a superior perk and will see more use, maybe not over the course of an entire campaign but in the first couple of months of the game when these things matter most I think haywire is a liability. I will eventually get Haywire, but by the time haywire is 100% safe to use you have already broken the back of the difficulty.

The disclaimer is, Ironman Legendary difficulty, on lower difficulties perhaps it's not as bad an option.

[Mike Garrison]

I always prioritize my training center points on giving my specialists both sides of their skill tree. Make them medics and be able to use their gremlins offensively.