How to defend against mind control

[Ohio9]

As much as I love this game, I have to say the missions where you go up against Etherials or Sectoids with a leader present are damn near unplayable. They just mind-control my troops like crazy. I know the best thing to do is to disarm your most mind-vulnerable soldiers so they are harmless when mind-controlled, but the problem is the aliens don't just focus on them. They eventually start hitting others with mind control too. And on missions with a large number of Ethereals, it's common for my nearly my entire team to get hit by mind control in one turn, causing them to panic and go berserk even when they don't get controlled.

I haven't really found any effective counter against this at all. It's just infuriating. Mind control is one thing that clearly should not have been in the game.

[Ragnaman]

Your highest ranking soldier should have good psi defence and he should just chill back in the skyranger. IIRC presence of high ranking soldier boosts morale for others in the squad, so keep that high ranking soldier alive and safe, effect is global in the tactical map.
If bad things happen to your squad leader (or other high ranking mates), rookies/squaddies start to cry and go ham.
Bonus: he can just escape the mission with the precious vessel if everyone dies.

You need at least 30 soldier reserve for 1 soldier to achieve highest possible rank of Commander (only 1 commander can exist).

[Ohio9]

Yeah I know all that, but it really doesn't solve the problem of more then half my team being hit by mind control in one turn. Even with troops that have decent Psi defense, that's going to have some adverse effects eventually.

Also, high rank doesn't always mean high psi defense. I've had Colonels and Captains get mind controlled just like everyone else.

[Ragnaman]

Oh yeah, I forgot the Psi stats were hidden unless tech was unlocked ?
What I was meaning to say is that you should obtain a Commander who has high Psi Defence stats (as in, once you can screen for Psi stats, get to sacking low psi def troops).

Sack everyone with low Psi def and low bravery. At least thats what I usually do.
If a mission is not beatable, I just fly away and hope I can fight back other day.

I am not 100% sure, but I think that participating in battles and losing them 50/50 is better than ignoring them completely...maybe its just flat out placebo that I feel.

[Ohio9]

Yeah this is my first playthrough, so it took me a while to get a Psi lab technology. I still haven't finished building my first one yet (I've got about 15 game days till my first one is done), and I'm far enough into the game where Etherials are showing up on a constant basis.

[Ragnaman]

Hmm, I would then just try to down as many UFOs as possible and "eject" from battles that have ethereals.

Also Tanks and hovertanks cant be mind controlled. They are great as a meatshield. Hovertanks are far behind tech tree tho, but I know I used even 2 tanks in early game to help out. On superhuman psi attacks start on day 1 from the little grays (cant remember if they could mind control or just induce panic), without a tank it was impossible.

One more trick is to disarm your own troops that get mind controlled often and use them as psi bait. They cant do anything without weapons other than wander around.


I would guess that you simply lost the lottery of Psionic Strength stat for your soldiers. If Psionic Strength is below 60, its likely your soldiers can succumb to mind control.
This stat can never be increased (which is a shame).

[Ohio9]

Originally posted by Ragnaman:

On superhuman psi attacks start on day 1 from the little grays (cant remember if they could mind control or just induce panic), without a tank it was impossible.

Sectoids. Mind control from them is a bit easier to deal with since only commanders and leaders have the ability. So with them you are only taking about 2-3 mind control attacks per turn. That makes it a lot easier to absorb them by just disarming your weakest psi defense troops.

Still it can be tough though. I had one mission to take a terror ship in which I killed every alien except the leader, but in doing so I took some casaulties. I was just about to storm the top floor when the Sectoid mind controlled a guy when my troops were packed together in a small room. The guy went berserk and killed 3 of my men with his wild shooting, and those three happened to be all my senior commanders. I still had 5 guys left, but they were all rookies, and of course they were now wetting themselves and fleeing in terror even on turns in which they didn't get mind controlled. So despite a 5 to 1 advantage, I had to leave the mission. My 5 guys remaining were totally non-functuional. It took all my effort just to get them back to the Skyranger and leave.

[Ragnaman]

Hah, sounds like a great day of X-Com there. Stories to tell.
Casualties are a normal thing, I learned to accept them and game became much less stressful. If a guy survives a lot and suddenly has good stats I put him in my valuable bucket.

In short, dont fret about your A-Team lineup until you know Psi stats, as you would need to throw away weak ones anyway.

Rush B with your rookies, lob grenades, all good fun (grenades dont give XP tho).

And...I lost many playthroughs completely before I finally managed to do -spoiler stuff-
Losing X-COM is a valuable experience as well, with a chilling ending, but its nostalgia speaking.

[Ohio9]

Yeah this is why I avoid save scumming and just take whatever mission results I get. Still it really is tempting to resort to that, especially on missions when you have to fight aliens with blaster launchers. The blaster launcher is another thing I think shouldn't be in the game. It has enough explosive power to wipe out a city block, and when fighting indoors there is absolutely no defense against it since you are limited in the ability to spread your team out.

Nothing is more infuriating then doing a perfect run through an enemy base or battleship only to see it fall apart when a single blaster shell wipes out nearly your whole team. Pretty much the best you can hope for is that the alieans with them have a derp moment and blow themselves up by mistake, which to be fair does happen quite often.

Also I disagree that you should always fire your low PSI defense guys. They are still useful on missions when you don't fight sectoids or Etherials. Also, you can bring them along disarmed as a "target dummy" to draw mind control attacks away from the rest of your team.

[Hermitifier]

One of tactics I used against Ethereals, was to never allow the aliens to see my soldiers during their turn. This meant advancing with extreme caution, killing any Ethereal that was spotted immediately (with full salvo from entire squad), and hiding or retreating before the end of turn.

It worked surprisingly well.

[Ohio9]

Originally posted by Quantifier666:

This meant advancing with extreme caution, killing any Ethereal that was spotted immediately (with full salvo from entire squad), and hiding or retreating before the end of turn.

It worked surprisingly well.

But that's what I always do anyway no matter who I'm fighting against. It doesn't always work against Ethereals though. It seems like they always end up spotting me even when my team appears to be hidden.

[ojpete]

There is no defense against mind attacks, the people getting attacked have very low defense, write down their nanes and the next time you face psionics, unequip them asap and use them as lightning rods.

Eventually you will uncover psionics and begin training your troops. Put as many as you can through training, setup bases just for phionic training. Anyone below 65 should be fired immediately, they are threats to your own team. Anyone 65-80 are your scouts, and anyone higher than 80 are the core of your psionic elite - feel free to move those ranges up as you recruit more soldiers and uncover higher leveled troops,

Psionic strength is their offensive and defensive values and are unchanging. Psionic skill, that's the trait you'll be leveling up. Psi-panic is much easier to pull off than mind control, and when you first train your psi-corps, you'll want to use this first. Every attack will increase the soldiers skill level bit by bit. If I recall correctly, every mission each of your soldiers can increase their skill by a max of +9, so abuse the aliens as much as you can to increase their skills as quickly as possible. Even after you mind control an alien or panic one, if it's the last alien, just spam all your psi attacks on it to help your soldiers

[Tetsuri]

slightly disagreed. If they are as low as 65, then they aren't worth considering for combat. As bait, maybe. Shortage of proper troops shouldn't be an issue if you build multiple psi labs. I use my old squad in exactly the same way anyway and filter in new troops that have 92+ psi strength for training and then proceed to change the rest of the squad as new soldiers come in

[ojpete]

Yes, that's why I said to "feel free to move those ranges up as you recruit more soldiers and uncover higher leveled troops". 65 is a basline, not the standard, As you move on, you will get stronger toops and can raise the base line, but when you first discover psionics, you generally don't have as much freedom of movement.

[Tetsuri]

and I said I just use my old squad since they will work just fine, meaning there's just no reason to keep or train up low strength troops

[Ohio9]

Well I made this post a long time ago. Since then I've beaten this game, as well as Terror from the deep.

I still feel mind control should not be in the game. It's too cheap the way anyone can use it from anywhere without range or line of sight issues. It's also infuriating when you finally get an MC Lab and discover some of your battle hardened soldiers who have against all odds survived every mission from the start of the game have crappy Psi ratings and have limited late game use.

I gotta say it was a real breath of fresh air to play XCOM apocalypse and see that they gave mind control a badly needed nerf.