Can't get away after the Ares weapon snatch

[ImpracticalDogg]

** Spoilers below **

I've tried this three times; once on normal and twice on easy. I let the other runners in to the room from outside. The alarms trigger, I grab the quest weapon and run out.
The Ares guards kill my team every time. There are too many of them.
I got past them once and then the ones on the way to the station took me out.
Advice please?

[frdnwsm]

Close the shutters from the main control room; this isolates many of the guards.

[frdnwsm]

Also, Misdirection should be one of the last missions you run. You want Duncan to have his Magnetic Arm upgrade, and you yourself need magnetic arm and jolt alert.

[frdnwsm]

Take Duncan, Racter and Gobbet (for buff spells); Is0bel isn't that useful in this scenario.

[dwarfpcfan]

It's not really a hard mission even if you tackle it earlier, even on hard difficulty. As long as you understand the key to combat: take your enemy's action away, AP damage, stun, paralyze, blind, etc are the key to steam rolling every fight in all of Harebrained's shadowrun games.

The only think a bit notable about this mission is the enemies have slightly higher damage resistance/armor

[ImpracticalDogg]

Thanks for the comments. Twice the other team didn't take any action against the Ares guards which didn't help. And the other time I was the only one of my team left when the gas counter ran out.
But I take the point that using stun and AP damage would help, as they certainly used it against me to good effect! That comment on the armour - it was a big part of the problem because even when I had them stunned, I couldn't take them down.
I was using Racter, Duncan and Is0bel. I'll try another mission and come back with Gobbet I think.

[ImpracticalDogg]

@dwarfpcfan - How would you tackle the Ares fight earlier on? I know my tactics aren't great, but I had everyone loaded with grenades and couldn't take the guards down even when they were stunned (as above).
I'm running a Qi adept who seems to be pretty much up there with the rest of the team

[frdnwsm]

Racter can use his drone to shut off gas valves.

Jarl and his crew are pretty ineffective in combat but they do serve to draw fire from the guards. Heal them if they take wounds. You can't control their actions in combat, but some of them do have medikits which you can have them use in between combat rounds.

Forget grenades; I pack everyone full of medikits and AP adders like Jazz. Giving Duncan a bunch of extra fire turns is better than any grenade.

Stay under cover and set overwatch ambushes; let the guards come to you.

[frdnwsm]

And yes, Gobbet is much more useful here than Is0bel, as a team buffer with Haste and Aim spells. I do hope she has the Wild Aim spell.

[dwarfpcfan]

Originally posted by ImpracticalDogg:

@dwarfpcfan - How would you tackle the Ares fight earlier on? I know my tactics aren't great, but I had everyone loaded with grenades and couldn't take the guards down even when they were stunned (as above).
I'm running a Qi adept who seems to be pretty much up there with the rest of the team

Duncan's bean bag can inflict AP damage and is a pretty good stunner. Racter's drone can equip stun grenades as well. Gobbet has her gas barrier with the upgrade that does AP Damage good for CC

As for a Qi adept, during the mission where you pick up Gaichu, you can buy the shock glove wich adds AP damage to your unarmed attack. If you did the museum run, you should also have the emperor's sword which can toss a lightning bolt for AP damage as well, and it does AP damage on a crit. There's also the lightning katana you can buy from the monk Distant Storms fortold that can do AP damage on each hit.

[ImpracticalDogg]

I seem to be coming in at a much lower level than I should based on your recommendations - Gobbet is two levels below being able to take the Wild Aim spell, and (I think) Duncan cannot yet get that bean bag ability.
Not sure if I missed some missions earlier, but the Ares one is specifically noted as urgent so I went there before taking on others that came in around the same time. I'm now on the ship mission (taking a biological sample) and trying to level up there.
@dwarfpcfan - I didn't know that Racter's drone can also equip grenades - sounds useful. I had bought a grenade launcher for Duncan though. I missed some of those items you mention, so I'll have to do another playthrough :)

[frdnwsm]

Misdirection is Racter's special mission. He needs to come along if you want to keep him happy. There is, in fact, no urgency whatsoever about the mission.

The ship mission is actually pretty hard, and has a rather convoluted course. Good luck with that one. Watch out; do NOT use grenades on that mission against hostile grenadiers; some of them have magnetic arms and will toss them back at you. Duncan is better off with Sniper rifle, his assault rifle and a shotgun for close in work.

[frdnwsm]

Sorry, I was thinking of Namazu mission in the Extended version; you mean Whistleblower. Not sure if any enemy has Magnetic Arms on that one. It's still a convoluted mission with a twist at the end. I won't say more for fear of spoilers, but it provides a unique tactical combat situation.

[Heau]

Originally posted by frdnwsm:

And yes, Gobbet is much more useful here than Is0bel, as a team buffer with Haste and Aim spells. I do hope she has the Wild Aim spell.

Isobel can shut all gas lines off in a single turn if you did some pre-cleaning of the matrix. I typically bring racter isobel and gobbet if my primary character is a strong damage dealer.

But I noticed your last post about confusing missions so that may explain the Racter vs Isobel.

I usually move ahead of the other crew to the top right couch corner positions and buff my team with Gobbet where possible and maybe catch an overwatch. Depending on timing of enemy arrivals, I used to have Iso dump 2 grenade launchers at the pack before running to the control room up north to hack the gaz lines (I only remember running the place on 3AP base, I forget if its available early enough for a 2AP run).

If my main damage dealer isn't very strong (e.g. it's duncan because my character is a decker replacing iso), I might use jazz + cram or cram x 2 force-fed to the damage dealer by another character who's AP are less powerful like Racter or Gobbet, for the first arrival after the alarm. Every subsequent reinforcement wave, including at the elevator escape, can be largely handled with holding good positions + overwatch for a few turns until they arrive and engage.



Just in case, since you seem to be a newer player, overwatch is that dot with an arc button to the right of your weapon abilities on the interface. I think it's mentionned very briefly in tutorial but I recall I only picked up on it on like my 4th game (i.e. either didn't notice or didn't think it was strong enough on my blind playthrough of all 3 games).

[frdnwsm]

I don't like Is0bel for this mission because of the Matrix here. If the alarm goes off, the IC here seems far nastier than usual. Also, aside from turning off the gas, there is little for her to do. All other terminals do not require decking skill, and can be used by anyone.

I want a better damage dealer for the run through the tunnels. Koschei is fair but not great.