[Spoilers?] Rant: Last mission of the Gray Phoenix arc

[Alex]

On encounter 3 in this Godforsaken starport, I'm tasked with killing 2 Praetorians, one of the smol Mutons, 2-3 sneks, a berserker, 1-2 Paladins and a Dominator.
I brought Shelter, Godmother, Terminal and Verge. After the 2 encounters beforehand, I lost Shelter, and had an android stand in.
How many times does the game expect me to restart? Because no matter what I do, the AI is so good it decided to put the Praetorian Crew Chief right onto the console to launch the UFO. My only chance in hell is to get as close as possible to him, ignoring the fact that there is 0 good cover between me and him, forget the fact that there is a Berserker and several other enemies between me and him and just hope that RNG is on my side and do enough damage while he's below 5(!!!!!!!) armor, while my guns do a max of like 6 damage.

I have to end this Praetorian's life in like 2 rounds with 4 people, and everytime someone even grazes him he gets an extra free armor. The numbers you get on this guy needs to be on point. After that, if your troops didn't get mind controlled, stunned or end up bleeding out, you have to take care of the rest of the boys. Riiiiiiight.

[Sheltim]

I haven't done this battle, so I can't speak to it in specific. In general though, I've found Armor Piercing rounds a must-have because so many units have Armor.

[Old Sloth]

There is a lot of that. For example, a mission where VIP who needs to be protected is in the barricaded room, and of course, naturally, even though i disable or kill closest to room enemies, another one runs up and destroys barricade with ONE shot, and the next one from the other side of the map kills VIP. In some cases, with critical shot.

And mind you, i even play on easy, i'm not ashamed to admit that in this case.)

[Harukage]

Just use Verge to cast combat madness on Praetorian?

[Alex]

Casting combat madness isn't at all guaranteed to make the Praetorian move when he has people he can shoot at from where he's standig at the console, which he always does.

[Thalian]

oh cool, i have only level 1 guns and didn't even win encounter 1/3....:black : , so i will have to skip the mission . Thanks for the info that is mission is so hart.

[kdmiller]

I did it today with all level 1 guns. The trick is bringing the right people to this one and being a bit reckless. I brought Verge (for mind control), Terminal (for healing but didn't find her very useful), Zepher (who is fantastic once you have the ability that is like bladestrom - I forget what it is called, but if you position her(?) at the terminal she will take a hit at anyone who apporaches), and Godmother (who also wasn't hugely useful other than for damage).

You need to focus on the guys who are flagged for the terminal (the tutorial never tells you what all the icons above their heads mean, but you need to crowd control the guys with the running icons over their heads). It may be best not to kill them because then the task of launching goes to someone else.

[FraGmenToR]

Im playing on hard mode (ironman) and i didnt find it too difficult. I did lose a soldier though and had to have a mech replacement. My squad was:

Cherub
Terminal
Bluebird (the pistol dude)
And Godmother

Cherub is really good paired with godmother. You can just pop a shield on her, run her into the middle of a crowd and mow them down with her spreadfire ability, and even though she is flanked and in heaps of trouble, unless 4 mobs target her one after the other its unlikely she will get downed because of the shield and any heals you can get off with Terminal.

[Alex]

That makes sense. I might need a shuffle of the party.

[Mercurio]

yeah its pretty much instant game over if the RNG that select who is going for the terminal picks the praetorain captain has not only has he the most HP seen so far about 20 pips he is also immune to mental effects (the psi attacks hit but red text state his immunity appears) plus the armor gain on hit - remember you lose if any marked foes are in by the terminal for 1 turn - guess who's starting point in within 1 movement action. even if all my squad was to crit i would still not be able to kill him in one turn due to the stacking armor gains =/

[Harukage]

Torque is capable of pulling Praetorian out without much trouble if you have her.

[Uncle Al]

Originally posted by Harukage:

Torque is capable of pulling Praetorian out without much trouble if you have her.

She's not, he's too heavy. The only person who can move him is, ironically for the OP's run, Shelter.

I lost first time for exactly the same reason - the crew chief is insanely hard to kill in one round. Second try two other enemies took on launch duty and it was a tough but reasonable fight. If you don't have Shelter or AP rounds or the like I think it can be close to impossible if the crew chief gets flagged as the control room runner on round one.

One other nasty feature is the fail state gets checked right at the start of the turn of the unit in the control room, before anything else gets checked. I know this because I had the bloody crew chief on 2hp and poisoned, but he still launched before taking poison damage. I have a nasty feeling stasis won't stop the launch, and someone's already commented stun doesn't.

[Harukage]

Ergh... i had pulled and bound praetorians just fine.

[Uncle Al]

Originally posted by Harukage:

Ergh... i had pulled and binded praetorians just fine.

Unless it was a bug or something I'm not aware of then I was assuming it's that. I had Torque for the fight but he just wouldn't come up as a valid tongue pull target, hence me ending up poisoning him instead.

[PYRACOR]

I ran a shotgun user, terminal, verge, and the viper. Easy peasy on Expert.

[madracc00n]

Consumable items are broken,so just get good grenade or items that give u more actions etc and save them for tough parts of the mission.Also some agents are totally op against some enemy types(fun to figure that out) after u do game becomes joke easy.Also team work+terminal action ability lets u have 3 turns in a row on top of that there is grenade that gives u + 2 action.