Xeno-slaying on Impossible

[Dionysus]

So, this is a nut I've been trying to crack for a little while, now. I'm about 60 hours into ST:F, all of which were spent playing impossible - I kind of like fiddling with things, taking notes and restarting. It scratches a good roguelike itch for me! Most of my captains have been fighter-explorers - lately, I've been trying out fighter-pirates.

One consistent issue I'm running into is Xenos, however. If my combat team has hit level 10, ish, I'm usually okay in a fight against them. The keyword here is, of course, usually - a dreadful word in a ironman permadeath game. Sometimes I just get poor RNG and one of my frontliners get blown up in the first or second round. I feel like there's room for better builds, here - so I'd like to ask if anyone have their own way of picking this apart!

Everyone wears heavy armour for this setup. I buy the A3 locker and try to get to a weapon supplier contact as soon as possible - starting with one if I'm going the more pirate-oriented route. A3 is because the initiative cost of the higher levels of armour seems to outstrip the actual increase in armour - and since an extra/earlier action can easily do double digits worth of HP healing or mitigation on any of the crew's characters it strikes me as superior.

My usual build is a MO Captain going into Combat Medic and Doctor with a starting bonus to doctor, or doctor + tactics if I'm going for a cheaper ship. I'll usually restart until my starting doctor officer is at about ~130 HP and with decent initiative - usually something like 14-22+2, ish. They'll go into CM and Zealot, levelling Zealot for the good self-buffs. This is the healing backbone of my squad.

I've been quite settled on this, so far - it's the rest of my team that I'm still heavily experimenting with. I've been considering and trying out putting both my quite tanky doctors in slot 1 and 2, which should be quite safe due to their large HP pools, tanky abilities and high initiative. For slot 3 and 4 I've been weighing between two quite bog-standard full-auto durdle soldiers who buff with backline leader and aimed focus out of Pistoleer. I'm not entierly sure what the third job should be - I think having one as a commander would be excellent for the Rallying Aura at level 1. The other one might go Xeno Hunter for Irid-laced resolve, which seems great - and I've also been kind of eyeing their level 8 Plasma Burner skill, which seems like a superior version of Full Auto.

I'm also interested in doing a double shuffling Exo-scout setup for a more reactive, debuff/control-heavy setup. I've also considered making my starting doctor into a Swordsman instead of a Zealot, due to their excellent defense buffs. This would also let them throw some grenades from Combat Medic with okay effect, since grenade throws uses your melee skill.

Am I just trying to engage Xenos too early? Are they to be avoided until your team is absolutely maxed on armour, weapons and specialist gear? No fighting them until you have every perk on your wish-list, putting it off until level 15-20? Is there some big flaw in my general planning/approach? One big thing with Xenos seem to be their frequent debuffing, which hurts extremely bad in my generally quite buff-heavy setup. The other really mean thing is that you don't really get enough time to buff up - I'll generally take 1/2 to 2/3 of the first round buffing up, which sometimes isn't possible due to them landing a double hit for 65% of someone's total life.

Thank you for reading! I'll be watching the thread.

[LucklessCebu]

I haven't necessarily had time to test all of these - so caveat, some may work better than others, or not at all - but I do enjoy coming up with strategies, so here's a few fun ideas for you, at least.

General thoughts:

Irid-laced resolve: kicks butt. Get it. In addition to buffing your entire team at no initiative cost, the buffs are exactly what you need against Xenos - +15% armor is priceless, +25% debuff resist is very useful, +15% parry is great for any melee folks, and +2 initiative for everybody is great as well. Ideally you want this to trigger in the first round, so the optimal solution is to only give your other characters on-init talents that are triggered by stealth.

Debuff resistance: very useful. Stack these kinds of buffs to get as much as possible. Ones I find useful include: swordsman's Stength of Steel, soldier's Backline Leader, zealot's Unstoppable Force, xeno hunter's Unfailing Stand, combat medic's Lifeline.

Heavy armor vs. dodge: Most folks are going to need to rely on heavy armor - as heavy as possible - but if you bring swordsmen with blade skill they can dodge most things a Xeno will throw at you. Most Xeno attacks count as melee attacks - in general the front 3 Xenos are melee, and the rear is ranged - so stacking parry buffs can make you nigh-invulnerable in some cases. I've seen a swordsman at a fairly low level who was the only character left alive defeat 3 Xenos solo. If you have some method of taking out the ranged Xeno first (juggling order, backline Xeno Hunter or sniper attacks, etc.) it will help a lot.

Armor: sticking with level 3 is an interesting strategy, possibly worthwhile, but do keep in mind that the lower deflection you're sticking with can potentially ruin your day. The instances where you get RNG'd are piercing hits that get through your armor's deflection, so anything you can do to mitigate that is good.

Stacking plasma debuffs: In theory (haven't tested this functionality yet) - even if you've brought enemy plasma resistance down below zero, half of the negative number gets added as extra plasma damage on a hit. So stacking various plasma attacks (basically anything from xeno hunter and exo-scout lines) should theoretically get pretty obscene.

Specific builds:

Combat Medic: I do tend to find one necessary, though I find a bog-standard combat medic too squishy for my tastes. Stacking armor buffs helps, so an officer with a splash in Zealot for Unstoppable Force is good (sounds like you're doing this already). I like to stick purely to combat medic levels other than 1-2 in other classes to keep healing potential as high as possible. Doctor splash is good for slightly improved healing, but also consider splashing another class for 1 level for some better tactical flexibility - I like going Military Officer for 1 level for Tactical Edge, so Zealot 1/ Military Officer 1/ Combat Medic XX. Seems our builds here are very similar, in any case...

Front Line: One thing that might take some of the pressure off your healer/s is a more dodge-focused front line. Since most Xeno attacks are melee, parry buffs + blade skill is very, very good. Straight-up swordsmen can actually work pretty well with the right talents, but if you're going with officer builds, try a variation on the Swordsman/Assassin/Spy build from the wiki. I would keep Spy at level 1 (you just want Disappearing Act, and need to keep your blade skill as high as possible) - earliest talents would be Disappearing Act, Strength of Steel, Flash Fury, Slashing Retreat, Hitman Rush (Hitman Rush synergies spectacularly well with Irid-Laced Resolve, as an on-init talent only triggered by stealth). Stack the parry buffs and you'll be very difficult to hit, with Strength of Steel healing to fall back on and formation-juggling kukri criticals to dish out with aplomb (side note: the 6 initiative cost of Strength of Steel is pretty crazy - a swordman actually has the potential to out-heal a combat medic on a per-initiative basis at higher levels when self-healing). Two of these characters in the front two slots can soak up a lot of attacks without requiring healing.

Back Line: Xeno Hunter and Exo-Scout are really built for fighting Xenos. Irid-laced resolve is too good to pass up. Without getting too far into details, any build that takes advantage of some of these skills can be pretty vicious against Xenos.

Really quirky, out there builds: Haven't played around with this too much, but if you want something really off the wall... one quirk of the system is that despite attacks being described as eg a "rifle attack," there is, as far as I can tell, no built-in prevention of using any particular weapon with any attack (with the rare exception of AoE attacks like Full Auto). So one ludicrous build to try would be a pistoleer type (whatever pistol class suits you) with either some extra pistol skill (as an officer) or a large pistol bonus (captain) to make up for our lower pistol skill in general. Splash classes that aren't really meant to be used with a pistol. Example: Take Exo-Scout to 8 and the rest in pistol-focused classes. Now you can buff yourself with +2 initiative, +25% accuracy, +50% armor piercing, +25% dodge, +50% resist debuffs - and attack twice - for 12 initiative. Burrowing Shots now gives you an attack that debuffs with -4 initiative, 36 bleeding, etc. for 9 initiative, and for 6 initiative you can use Know Thy Enemy to heinously cripple Xeno defenses (from any slot, against any slot). Have fun trying to come up with some wild builds with this quirk (another idea I like is using Spy's Shadowed Fire with a sniper rifle).

The Poor (Wo)Man's Xeno Hunting Squad:

Two Swordsmen, two Xeno Hunters. The Swordsmen go light armor and stack parry buffs to become very difficult to hit. Give one Xeno Hunter with high initiative Grenade Launch, Unfailing Stand, and Puncture Points. The other (we don't care about initiative score here) gets Irid-Laced Resolve, Unfailing Stand, and Plasma Burner. Our swordsmen survive via dodging, and our Xeno Hunters via heavy armor (the two buffs give them +25% deflection and +35% armor). Everyone has a self-heal for both health and morale. Everyone gets to +75% debuff resistance. Our grenadier Xeno Hunter uses a 10 initiative light machine gun and softens up the front row via grenades and/or Puncture Points, stacking up plasma debuffs. Our other Xeno Hunter is armed with an XUG Crimson heavy machine gun (not sure offhand if you can use a sniper rifle with Plasma Burner, wouldn't think so) for maximum carnage. Use any extra initiative for "Unfailing Stand," and attack the debuffed Xenos once per round with Plasma Burner for massive damage (we're perfectly fine with being in initiative penalty territory).
Downside: Not as effective as officer combat builds.
Upside: You won't care as much when you lose one of your crew to the random number gods.

Anyway, I'll end there. Sorry for the essay, but I imagine from the length of your post you enjoy this kind of stuff too. :P

[happybjorn]

The A5 locker is superior (there seems to be a ton of advice out there about A3 being best, but this is out of date and was debatable back when it was a thing). For heavy armor you are losing 2 init to gain 2 dodge, 8 armor and 14 deflection.

Heavy armor is generally safer until you can get super high stealth dodge.

Debuffs that lower enemy damage, like BH Unfaltering Ire or the Exo grenade, are very helpful for soaking damage.

Don't neglect damage avoidance for the first 2 spots.

High Attributes and bonus defensive skills are extremely helpful for dealing with difficult distributions, but if you don't choose your jobs carefully you can get wrecked during the level 15-25 range from scaling (this seems to be where it is worst, but will always be a danger until you get to max level).

[Trese Brothers]

On another thread, @grimSentinel just posted his xeno killing combat squad -- might be of interest. 3rd posted down --

https://steamcommunity.com/app/335620/discussions/0/1848072002769163335/

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Personally even though a healer or buffer captain can be extremely powerfully I dislike that setup.

My setups I go for 1 primary healer, bunch of self healers and debuffers and buffers. You want to control combat. They can all hit for high damage when need be but combat must be controlled. Also lowest init weapons possible all around.

Init is victory and victory is life.

I much prefer a spot #4 doctor/combat/spy. When in stealth he can use pistol on any enemy spot. And has a defense buff. So even if a xeno pulls him to 3 he can survive.

Spots 2 and 3 I like to be roughly exactly the same thing. Reason they will use talents that switch spots constantly.

Either xeno Hunter, bounty Hunter, eco scout or bounty Hunter, eco scout soldier. Or one of each. I haven't tried it yet with 1 of each but I like concept.

They both fight with snubbers. And I don't go for full auto builds. Both builds can debuff, buff, and self heal. Reason I like 2 roughly same builds is whoever is first fires off debuff and the way init works you will never be sure who is first.

And the whole switching order thing with talents.

Full auto takes too much init and it's not going to kill 2x xenos. Even if 2 characters went full auto in a round maybe then they kill 2x xenos. But both would be in penalty next round. And it wouldn't kill 2x xenos 100% of the time still.

While buffed with a story line snubber can 1 shot xenos and still have another fire action or 2 other actions that turn.

Again it's play style. I like having many actions for each crew every turn. One style not better then the other style it's just wise to not mix styles so much in one run I feel.

Captain spot #1 always needs 30 quickness and 30 wisdom. No excuses. 30 fortitude in mostly all other cases some can get away with out it.

Then you'll have 15 points for skill. It's 7 evasion and 7 primary weapon and 1 point for secondary weapon. Secondary weapon? Yes you will either be a pistol user who needs 1 point in blades to off hand and get free parry or a blades user who needs 1 point of of pistols to off hand the stronger off hand quick blades from contacts. Some builds the extra 1 point can just go to evasion as your jobs will get you 1 point of both weapons. :

Biggest question with captain is pistols or blades. Pistols will prob do more damage and debuff a lot more. Blades will control enemy line up order more and be more beefy on defense.

One example build is pistoleer/swordsman/military officer

We are pistols there. Only swordsman to triple up evasion and get self heal. Self heal will be weaker but good enough with 2 other self healers and 1 super healer on crew.

You could swap military officer for zealot and go blades build instead. Better starting traits. Better combat buffs talents.

Then the newly popular assassin, swordsman, zealot. Assassin has great starting straits. But you have to manage stealth and it takes init up. It does get you lots of blades.

In that case I would start captain as assassin but level swordsman up to 8 or 11 first then zealot to 11 for talents . Then finish up leveling assassin mostly for skill boost on leveling.

I'm favoring init, many actions, heavy armor, natural evasion, armor buffs and enemy debuffs in this build. It all works together so certain pieces of it don't work when mixed into other builds.

Your captain might get 5-8 actions per round. Even your healer can get off 2-3 strong heals. He almost never fires and if he does it costs 6. Your snubbers are 11 init. Usually a stand alone buff or debuff and 1 or 2 fires a round.

I'm not favoring stealth, stealth evasion, criticals, full auto, or high costing init actions.

Yes you can build a super stealth evasion high critical blade captain in light or spy armor but he can still get 1 shotted sooner or later.

Yes you can build full auto beasts too.

I just don't recommend that way even if it is a successful path for many players. Hard to 100% duplicate 100% of the time from 100% of the game players.

Hope that helps.

[Dionysus]

Now I wish there was a build-planner for this game, haha!

Very interesting - thank you for your responses! The first thing to note is armour - I think you're right, and I'll be trying out going the super-heavy route instead. Secondly: swordsman and parry. My basic rationale for combat crews in general is now that regular human combats are quite easy, barring a few hellish enemy setups (Especially things like 2 enemy snipers, which can RNG you to death in the first or second round and are quite difficult to reach in the back row.) which makes it logical to focus on beating Xenos with your squad - a squad that can defeat Xenos reliably should, after all, be able to beat humans with the same kind of ease.

So, that means dropping Zealot - the armour buff from level 1 is great, but a large part of the later levels from it are the on initiative skills, which blocks your Xeno Hunter buff. I definitely think Swordsman is the thing to replace it with. Question is - who do I make into that Swordsman? My first instinct was to make the starting doctor officer into them, adding Swordsman to Doctor/CM instead of Zealot. My second thought was to simply make the captain into a Swordsman/Assassin/Doctor for flexibility - but I seem to be underestimating the value of good damage in general, which might mean that Spy is actually superior and that it's quite OK for slot 1 to be a simple self-healer. Slot 2 seems like it'll always be a doctor/tank hybrid - maybe that Doctor/CM/Swordsman combo.

The Xeno Hunter setup in general is very interesting. I love the idea of banking on Plasma damage - but it's somewhat hard for me to fit a quality healer into that setup. If you want a Swordsman on 1 the healer will have to be in 2 since both Xeno-hunters will need to occupy 3 and 4. This will probably mean that you're putting a Zealot CM Doctor in 2 - and since they'll be slightly lower on defences yet still frontline this'll most likely have to be the Captain. This does make you pass up on the excellent Military Officer background, but Zealot is servicable. This leaves you open to have a double Xeno Plasma-Burner setup in the back row, with one of them launching a grenade for the reduced resistance and one of them eventually getting Backrow Leader from Soldier for the excellent buff.

I'm also thinking about putting a Soldier hybrid in slot 2 - this would most likely be something like a Bounty Hunter using Unfaltering Ire for the excellent soak together with Frontline Brave from Soldier. This does pass up the Plasma debuff, however, since having your slot 4 Xeno-Hunter using both the grenade and Backline Leader is extremely initiative expensive. (Not to mention that they'd be the only one really taking advantage of the debuff!) The upside is, of course, Frontline Brave - and perhaps, a more proficient tank than the CM/Doctor/Zealot captain would be. Of course, this is greedy by me when the CM/D/Z could just pick up something like Swordsman or Military Officer instead of Doctor. Another interesting thing is the Exo-Scout and its slot 1-2 grenade - it might somehow be woven into this with something like a Soldier/Exo/Bounty build. I'm not sure how accurate it is on a rifle build, however. This is a very late and slow-to-develop build that needs levels in several classes to reach full potential, unfortunately.

The 'rifles attacks but with pistols' sounds incredibly fun and borderline broken - but it also feels like a borderline exploit to me, so I won't be trying it out until I'm already satisfied with a build that can actually down Xenos as not to rob myself of the challenge.

I think the first setup I'm going to try out is the Swordsman/Spy/Assasin slot 1, Combat Medic/Zealot/Military Officer slot 2 and a double Xeno-Hunter with sprinkles slot 3 and 4. My main concern is that I'll be light on healing, but we'll see. Slot 2 will definitely be the Captain for more tank and a great healing skill. If the lack of healing grows too great I might try out a CM/Doctor/Zealot build, instead.

In the end I'm not quite experienced enough to know which builds will work out - but you've certainly giving me food for thoughts and good grounds to experiment upon! I'm going to look very hard at Swordsman builds and Xeno-hunter builds in the next few days. Thank you!

RE: the guide on Xeno-hunting: the builds are interesting, even if the focus is obviously getting a relatively simple achivement while the goal of this exercise is to manage what might be the toughest combat goal in ST overall - killing Xeno ships by way of boarding on Impossible. I like their slot 2 build, and I'll be checking it out.

Unrelated, but - great work on the lore book! I read through it yesterday and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Trese Brothers]

There is one made by a community member, but it is out of date by a bit now. We're working on getting a plan together to get it back up to date and improve its data sources:
https://startraders.gamepedia.com/Third_Party_Tools

Thank you on the lore book :D

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Boarding xeno ships isn't hard. You only have 1-2 tough fights. Rest are 1 round wins.

Hardest is salvaging then exploring. You hit max level xenos while salvaging when your captain is barely level 15.

Having some kind of hybrid healer is spots 1 or 2 is a death sentence. Maybe a healing doctor captain could survive. Maybe.

Your spot 1 setup is low on evasion. And low on self buffs. Your relying on stealth it will work great until it doesn't and then your dead.

Your spot 2 is weird. Cm/mo/zealot will die. Zero evasion. Even if you dual wield to get some parry. You have 0 evasion. You will get hit 100% of the time doesn't matter if you got 30 fortitude and buffs on. Death is in your future.

[GrimSentinel]

If you're going for the achievement you have to rush things. Going for a serious Xeno Hunter build on Impossible, I would definitely put a lot more time into the setup. The talents are still applicable, though. While a fully leveled character will have more options, I still use the same core talents I listed in the other thread most of the time.

I did do a more optimized build (at least, to the best of my ability) on Hard after getting the achievement. Here's what I ended up with:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1696505507
First slot is a fairly tanky Swordsman build. Damage output isn't too high, but he can take a hit. Several nice buffs, and one of the best self-heals. Assassin is more for the extra points in blades than for the talents, and I didn't really mess around with stealth at all.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1696505790
Second slot is the main damage dealer (and I didn't even get the quest Snubber in this run.) He can buff both his defense and offense. Particularly, if you get all his buffs going and then use Roaring Barrels, you can stack a considerable amount of armor piercing. Unfaltering Ire is great for when the Xeno start stacking buffs. The downside is that he's a bit squishier than the slot 1, and Resolute Hound is probably the worst self heal.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1696505917
Third slot is the second best damage dealer (by not too large of a margin). A little bit less focus here on buffing, and more focus on debuffing. Unfailing Stand is the other good self heal.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1696506090
Fourth slot is the healer. Mostly he just spams Cleansing Purge and Lifeline. I actually used Jimmy's recommended Combat Medic/Doctor/Spy this time. Personally, I found the Spy thing to be kind of boring, though. The main bonus was the +2 init from the buff. In order to attack he actually has to buff himself first, and I rarely had enough init to spare to do both. He only go to attack when I was already winning anyways. Having a primary healer is super important, though I think I might experiment with Military Officer next time instead of Spy.

Haven't yet completed a Xeno Hunter build on Impossible, but I've gotten comfortable enough with doing it on Hard that I want to try it eventually. I'll get around to it one of these days.

In combat my strategy was to try to strike a balance between buffing and damaging. Buffs are very helpful, but the Xeno do have an equivalent to Unfaltering Ire, so if you spend to much time buffing you risk having all those buff being removed and your time wasted. While once you manage to kill one of the Xeno, their total damage output becomes a lot more manageable. Also you want all your crew to be able to self heal and remove debuffs, for when the Xeno manage to burst damage and you healer gets overwhelmed. And they should either have movement talents, and/or talents that work outside of their primary spot, for when your formation gets scrambled.

Personally, I prefer to prioritize armor and deflection over evasion. Better to be able to consistently survive a couple of hits than to almost never get hit but not survive when you do. Also I prefer to keep my captain towards the back, seems a bit safer to me.

One thing I haven't heard people talk about much, any recommendations on what specialist gear to equip? I think my favorite is Whisper Tactset (+2 Quickness, +20% Deflection, +10% Parry, +10% Dodge.)

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Yeah I almost never need my primary healer to fire in important battles. But he sped up dozens of easy battles where he didn't have to heal.

If you take spy off he can't fire in spot 4 with a pistol at all. And if you move up to 3 better go pistoleer cause he will need evasion. But early game heals will be weak.

Cm/doc/spy is about hiding him in 4. Can get hit but rarely. He just sits back and heals.

You can opt to replace starting doc with contact recruit. Go combat/spy/military officer for tactical edge buff. Extremely good to apply to spots 3 and 2.

Or go bounty Hunter if healer hoes 1st he uses debuff giving more init to spots 2 and 3 not needing to use it.

You will lose about 5-7 points of healing. Level 22 cm vs level 11 doc /lvl 11 cm starting officer. Not many stand alone action buffs/debuffs can be used in spot 4.

[JimmysTheBestCop]

I think their is no universal gear great for every player ever combat officers.

I like Melios Scale +2 fortitude, plus 10% armor and +2 init. Hp and init always good. Usually buff armor anyway so more buffs the better.

Crater amlo excellent for most spot 3. 15% damage and 20% armor piercing. When most likely you'll be further buffing those in combat.

The one you mentioned is a great #1 spot gear.

Overall I would say try and get gear that helps each spot individual and also get gear that fits in with buffs you are using. That way you can keep stacking those % buffs.

If you never buff dodge might not want dodge gear. If you never buff armor might not want armor buff gear.

Basically think of gear as an always talent that you synergize with other talents.

[219A730]

If your combat medic is only going to heal, it's better to have him/her in spot 4 anyway unless you're using backline leader talent, a sniper, and etc.

I actually went with a pistoleer/combat medic/military officer this time around, partly because the recruited pistoleer's stats were too good to pass up. It was viable on impossible but except to get hit and wear heavy armor. The military officer's buffs past tactical edge required you to be in spot 3 or lower, and while they're situationally good, there aren't exactly cheap on initiative either. It was a different play style from doctor/combat medic/spy.

[JimmysTheBestCop]

If you never want to shoot with healer you can actually go cm/doc/soldier

Soldier only lvl 5 for the aforementioned backline leader buff. That plus vaccination watch are pretty good to drop 1 a turn and save rest of init for heals.

Def want someone else with group morale heal cause cm removes buffs. Never use their group morale heal.

Or cm/doc/xeno Hunter. Gets you the morale heal for 3 people. And the grenade attack. Careful with it as it's 16 init. Might only get 1 heal off after that before hitting penalty and you don't want healer into penalty.

Or cm/doc/mo for aforementioned tactical edge. It only costs 6 init. And is extremely powerful. The character will never fire but you shouldn't need him too when he either healing or buffing.

It is easy in my setup to get spots 3 and 2 tactical edge. But it'll be harder to get spot 1 it. You would have to use it on #2 moving him to 1. Then reverse it. Since my captain is my 1 he out inits everyone. So there a chance once he gets pushed back he uses a lunging attack talent to get to 1 himself.

Against xeno everyone is getting +2 init. +3 init for 3 people from zealot. Captains bonus init trait, and then +4 init from tactical edge. And anytime you use lifeline on someone. Your talking maybe around +12 init for your captain and +9 for spots 2/3.

And 20% damage and 10% armor with tact edge. That's where you start stacking gear. More init? More damage? More armor? Your call.

Plus all those buffs on target hits with your spot 2 and 3. You can see how team becomes lethal

[LucklessCebu]

Originally posted by Dionysus, God of Wine:

The 'rifles attacks but with pistols' sounds incredibly fun and borderline broken - but it also feels like a borderline exploit to me, so I won't be trying it out until I'm already satisfied with a build that can actually down Xenos as not to rob myself of the challenge.

Yeah, I will not be surprised if this is taken out of the game at some point. It does allow for some serious creativity in builds, though, which is pretty fun. Not as if it doesn't have downsides, of course - taking levels in a class that doesn't use your main attack skill ultimately means lower chances of hitting your opponents - but definitely useful with the right build.

A few general thoughts on discussion points:

I don't necessarily see the combat medic in the 2 slot as any more or less squishy than any other class sitting there in heavy armor (assuming it's an officer build, anyway). If we're not concentrating fully on the dodge/evasion route, we're going to have a tough time evading blows anyway - especially since Xeno attacks are mostly melee, and without serious blade skill those are difficult to avoid. So in the worst case scenario, we have to be prepared for any heavy armor character in that slot to be hit with multiple blows in a row. With the combat medic we just give up on the fantasy that we'll be dodging blows altogether and stack as many armor buffs as possible to help survivability (traits, equipment, vaccination watch, backline leader, unstoppable force and so on). Attacks that remove buffs, unfortunately, will be the bane of this character's existence.

One of the main advantages of the swordsman-focused builds in front is taking pressure off healers - if you're dodging a lot of blows, that's less time you have to spend healing and more time to buff or take potshots with the combat medic (and you should be able to get away with one medic). 6 init kukri attacks are also good for survivability in that you're unlikely to have Xenos attack you several times in a row as you wait for your turn to come up - so if you do get hit, you'll be using strength of steel to heal back up in a hurry.

In general folks are not wrong about heavy armor > dodge. In tactical games like this it's always beneficial to have reliable results, so you don't get killed by the outliers. BUT... the vagaries of the dice-based system make things interesting. If you can get ~20 strong dice more than your opponent is rolling (very rough number, in reality it changes significantly based on the total number of dice rolled), you can evade >99% of attacks. And since parry buffs apply to your entire melee defense score, and our standard 3 buffs that will be up at all times give us +65% parry, one can see how this would be quite powerful. 3 out of 4 Xeno combatants are melee characters, and we can generally get focused swordsman-type builds to the point where none of them can actually hit us (there's always balanced blade and sharp counter if we need even more parry...).

One last note is that even heavy armor isn't magical - if your deflection score is such that the enemy has *any* chance of scoring a penetrating hit, and you get a bad roll - it's still possible to take a full damage shot that carves right through your armor. In other words, there's always some risk regardless of how you set up your defenses, and the best we can ever do is stack the odds massively in our favor.