XCOM 2 Templar Resistance Orders Ranked
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 พ.ค. 2024
- My attempt at ranking all the Templar Resistance Orders in XCOM 2 into a tier list.
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One of my favorite parts about these videos is seeing people give anecdotes about how the lower tier abilities got them out of a jam. It really shows how every ability is useful in at least some way, but there are just some that are far more flexible than others.
It's still no long war but I'll take all the drifter content I can get.
the fact that i've never really thought about templar resistance orders beyond having one/two slotted in as they let me probably says my feelings on most of them. it's usually the reaper and skirmisher orders that find their way into my all purpose slots.
Trial By Fire + Shen's Last Gift mission is great; 30 points for a (relatively) simple mission (if the will loss doesn't hit you too hard).
How good would the bonuses for Vengeance have to be to be worth taking a sacrificial rookie on every mission?
20% extra aim and one shot protection for the rest of the mission and a one turn berserk on the whole team. Still would only be an early game steroid in case you got too many free recruits. Since if you want the buff to be worth 40 supply you would need to make it broken.
The problem with Vengeance is that it's a reactive buff rather than a proactive one and it reacts to what is basically the worst thing that can happen on a mission and something you try to prevent at all costs.
It's designed to give you a trump card in case things are going south so you can finish the mission. But of course, the downside is the loss of a unit. Usually if you lose a unit, you'll either save scum or, if you're playing Honestman (only save scum if the game bugs out/does some stupid pathing nonsense) or Ironman, you're likely just better off pulling out of the mission and preserving your strength, unless you're almost finished the mission anyway.
Even with a sac Rookie, it's not worth subbing in a Rookie for a buff when you can just field another Colonel. In a game where loses are more frequent but less punishing, it might have a place.
In other words, it doesn't need a buff, it just needs replacing. Vengeance will never be a difference maker, regardless of how much buffs you get. It either becomes a beat stick (sack a Rookie) or a mild safety net that doesn't really help an experienced player.
I feel like vengeance would get a ton of use in a rookies only run considering how expendable they would be, and rookies would damn well need those buffs to not get mulched
I think that "applies to things that aren't random" actually makes Suit Up *worse* than the other two. Unlike with the other two, you don't need to complete ~5 projects to get the equipment you need, you're just 5 days away from getting the armor you want.
While that is true, the problem with the random items is that you're often wasting cores. You don't have that problem with suits which is why I normally build them the most out of all the proving ground items.
Just my own opinion, I would definitely put Deeper Learning and Trial By Fire in the top tier. Like I mentioned in the Skirmisher video, I'd consider Trial By Fire as either the 1st or 2nd-best order in the game (that and Inside Knowledge are my top 2). It's true that Trial gets less useful the later you get it, but it's worth a couple of hundred extra AP if you get it early. And I just love Greater Learning for being able to rank up my soldiers ahead of Advent's power curve.
I think the overall trend is that the Templars are the best of the three factions to start with. A lot of their best cards are better the earlier you get them, the healing scan is really good early, and the Templar soldier is unquestionably the most powerful of the three early on - being the only one that can guarantee a one-shot of a Trooper is really useful, plus the bonus against Sectoids.
You indeed pronounced Tithe correctly. Love your content.
I always find myself asking for specific orders from the Reapers and Skirmishers (looking at you, Infiltrate and Sabotage) but never any Templars orders. They're definitely the middle child of the 3.
I fully agree
For me its definitely the Skirmishers who come out on top. I'm personally not a fan of the mental/bleedout bonus perks from Templars, I'll keep my soldiers alive and happy myself, thank you very much.
Final score: reapers 3, templars 2, skirmishers 8 (!!) perks that I would be happy with. Besides swapping a situational one in for a month or so. I never realized that the quality of the orders was so lopsided before watching this tierlist.
Besides the skirmisher hacking bonus which you underrate as the perk explains its function poorly, I more or less agree with most choices you made.
Imagine hiring rookies and burning through them just to make vengeance work. And then they fucking refuse to die and go into bleed out instead!
Yeah, Templars probably have the worst orders. I don't remember having so many meme ones clumped together in other factions. Also about Tithe, I believe that it's strictly better than the other similar ones because it works with the largest numerical pool of recourses: supplies. And if you're going into raid, this order will pay for itself really quickly. For the art of war, I believe it should work with the community pool to be useful
I'd rate Hidden Reserves higher. It allows you to build facilities that you couldnt without wasting a build slot on an additional generator.
And it taking up an order slot that you can't reuse is less of a problem, because so many of the other Templar orders are trash.
advent:YOUR BODY SUBMITS YOU HEART SUCUMBS SO WHY DOES YOUR MIND STILL RESIST
high will soldier:bleeding out
I had only just thought to myself... surely there must be a new video uploaded, I haven't checked in a good while... Then this comes up! 😃😃
I am honestly so surprised you ranked Greater Resolve so low. I'd had ranked it at A tier at least just due to the sheer flexibility it grants you when wanting to focus a single squad for level-ups or you requiring a specific class available for a certain mission (say, specialist for hacking, sharpshooter for a gorilla op which are usually relatively open, grenadier incase of armor, reapers for scouting etc).
You would not believe how many times I'd have to field a squad without a certain class and have that same squad suffer casualties because of X, Y and Z.
Because its like bringing tired soldiers into combat
Also for Bonds of War is literally useless because there are cover ops missions who let you bond 2 soldiers regardless of the compatibility.
Pursue of Knowledge is a situational one. But that if you rush laboratory for get all of the research really quickly.
Finally, my dude! Always eager for your XCOM content! Cheers!
I value the input and viewpoints you’ve given us over the series, definitely has provided me perspective on which abilities are must haves and which ones I can pass.
However, I gotta respectfully disagree with you on some of these:
Bonds of War: I’ll save my full rant on why bonds are ridiculously powerful for another time, for now I’ll just say that I’d bump Bonds of War up to Decent. The one situation where it comes in clutch is if you get it as one of your first orders and if you started with the Templars/you contacted them before April. Having some level one bonds (especially one with your starting faction soldier) in the early game greatly increases your action economy and can mean the difference between Flawless and Good, especially on missions with the Chosen. After that it’s meh, good for covert bots but there’s better options.
Pursuit of Knowledge: again, I’d bump it up to Decent. Then again, I tend to build labs as my 6th or 7th facility so getting it around that time means a 30-35% increase in research, which is usually around the time I’m most crunched for good research I want ASAP.
Art of War: it’s Good, at least. Everything you said about it was true, but it also massively helps faction soldiers since they have to purchase all class abilities rather than free upon promo like others. It effectively boosts the CI of all XCOM soldiers by one level and all faction soldiers by two levels. Very good order especially early on.
Machine Learning: I’d say it’s Mimic Beacon, although that may be generous. I lean on breakthroughs like Interchangeable Upgrades and Adaptive Sims *hard*, especially the latter. Both compounded effectively give most soldiers (sans Rangers and Templars) +30-35 aim. I’m also a fan of most weapon damage breakthroughs, for obvious reasons.
Trial by Fire: for the same reasons you listed in the video, it’s one tier above Art of War. Awesome at least.
Noble Cause: Mimic Beacon, hands down. Can’t count how many times I’ve had a mission and soldiers are a single day away from being recovered.
Vengeance: now hear me out on this, despite this whole piece being very opinionated as is. This order has exactly one use I can think of, although I’m not sure if it works. If it procs on bleedouts, it’s actually situationally ok, if not then yeah, Golden Suns over it. But if the former, I’ve actually used it when up against the Hunter as my first Chosen. I don’t know why, but I always have trouble with him. 9 times out of 10 he’ll either grapple from across the map, trigger at an awkward time, and one-shot a soldier into bleed out, or he’ll trigger normally, grapple halfway across the map into a high ground flank, and one-shot a soldier into bleed out. Vengeance *might* give you a fighting chance if it gives you aim+crit or free Run ‘n’ Guns. Otherwise yeah, I agree, it’s horrendous.
The ones where you said that it only helped the troops who dont need help both with the soldier bonds and ability point. I think those are actually a lot better just not for how you play. They make getting supersoldiers who are powerhouses by themselves a lot better and easier. While you always seem to spread the love. I like to play in a way with taking a soldier with high combat intelligence and bonding them with someone who they are really compatible with and make teams of two like that. Then using covert operations to pump the combat intelligence of the second soldier to max. These leaves me with combat duos who ive built to synergize with each other that can slot into any position in a team with other duos. Especially fun when you get two grenadiers and have then both specifically suited towards blowing stuff up and i can just pull them out on a mission where i dont have to worth about "accidental civilian casualties"
I'd merge Vengeance and Greater Resolve together as one card and give it a few tweaks:
Basically, if the wounded unit survives an encounter without taking damage, it regains lost Will from being deployed and gets a Will bonus on its next mission (basically acting as a morale bonus from defying death).
However, if the unit dies, the squad gains an Aim and Damage buff on the unit that killed the wounded unit, while also purging mental impairments (other than unconsciousness) and preventing resolve checks related to Squadmate deaths. Successfully killing the target restores every squad member's Will to the amount they had at the start of the mission (this would act as temporary Will, the amount lost at the end of the mission is unaffected). Successfully completing the mission halves Will loss from the mission.
If a soldier is bonded to the dead squadmate and delivers the final blow to the target, it gains an Aim buff and is immune to psychology for the rest of the mission.
yep, that panic exploit happened by accident once to me. a sectoid panicked my revealed reaper via mind control, causing my reaper to lose her shit and one shit the sectoid, because she had stacked the crit chance through her skill. It was a lategame already so I had it under control regardless, but it is great that losing control due to panic is absolutely trivial thanks to that order, I agree
I disagree with a lot of these, not just because I only play Legend and this list is made for commander. Different playstyles and perspectives for sure plays in here haha. I do find it interesting to hear guys like you elaborate on your reasons while making such lists. Enjoyed the vid.
Yes finaly we got all tre of the resistence orders guides sorry drifter i did not get the notification gg thank you
I think play style makes a difference here, but I'm almost never low on leveled up soldiers or ability points. So, I'd put those orders at a lower rating, especially trial by fire. In the best case for trial by fire, you have a couple of bonuses trigger and a chosen: +7 AP total, but you are usually getting just +1 or +2 -- not worth taking up a slot. I also love feedback, possibly enough to put it top tier (although part of that might be because it is never not funny to me to see a codex one-shot itself).
Hey, Drifter! Just wanted to let you know, and hopefully this gives you some encouragement, that your videos are an instant watch for me. When you upload, I immediately watch. Thank you for all the stellar content.
It does, mate. Appreciate the kind words.
Hell yeah, a drifter video
I love the tier list videos. Always fun to go over game abilities.
Fun Fact: Julian gives +15 AP on death.
Fun Fact: Trial By Fire applies :)
Very Nice
By Feedback it's weird. I remember myself that a Sectoid get successfully mind control over one of my soldiers, but then died because of feedback (and was wounded a bit before). Only by me was like that, or memories are false. Played on ps4 version
This was a good series! Nice to know what someone who's played through to completion multiple times thinks! Do you think you'll ever do more of these for other aspects of the game like Soldier Abilities, Avenger rooms, Soldier gear, and the like?
So let's see. What do I add to my Wild Cards... Infiltrate, Inside Knowledge, Sabotage, Tactical Analysis, Mental Fortitude. Ohp. That's 1 too many.
Anyone know of any mods that add more Resistance Order slots? I can't find any.
I have thought about doing my tier lists, yeah. Not sure about getting more resistance orders, sorry.
You pronounced tithe correctly. :)
Hello Driffter, I just checked in on your twitch channel because I was hoping you had streamed. Is there something wrong with it? For days now it seems to show just 6 videos nearly all of them from 2 years ago. None of your new content is there. Of course it might be some bug involving my twitch account not yours but it seemed strange.
It's just because I haven't streamed in a while. Twitch only keeps past broadcasts up for 2 weeks.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast I knew it didn't keep vids forever had no idea it was only 2 weeks. Hope your back soon even the misses noticed my lack of XCOM2 watching and asked where you were.
does vengeance work with mind controled and zombies?? like I mind controled a gate keeper and use the atack that make psizombies and then the psizombies die,or target other advent unit and die, or in a run with the necromancer mod? if it work is good because you could play more agresive
That could be pretty sweet.
Where do I assign these?? I literally have no place anywhere to assign these.
Will happen after each Council report. You need WOTC expansion installed though.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast
Apparently, it's disabled in Long War of the Chosen.
The only change i'd make is to move Feedback up a level. One shoting Codex and chiping away at Sectoids and Priests always feels valuable.
Well i think vengeance also procs when units spawned by volunteer army or double agent die, so this makes sacrificing these units an option to buff your squad, that being said, i still wouldn't use it :/
Drifter man, why would you basically never use labs they're fantastic
They are definitely better than a workshop. He also talked up the resistance order that improves the frequency of breakthroughs when labs do the same thing.
By the time you've got the extra resources to build one (because you've already built all the other, better things), it's too late in the game for you to really get your money's worth out of it.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast that's why you build it early, if not first. If you never noticed it gives you something like 50% increased research with it upgraded and with two scientists in it
@@evilbob840 Workshop is still really good to make up for shortcomings with engineers. You stick your Workshop in the center, 1 up from the bottom to cover the most amount of spaces and hope that your Exposed power coils are in one of the 4 directions that the workshop gremlins can access.
@@MeAMoose Yeah, I used to use them all the time. Every game ended with tons of engineers and a building I wanted to make but had no room (or power) for. Try a game without building one some time, there's really no loss.
My Mandatory Comment m8
Much love.
Melee only run when?
I have to start with Suit up because I heavily disagree with this.
Proving Grounds often don't have projects but to make 5 suits needed for your non-hero units is 25 days or about 1 month. You lose out on an positive effect for 1 month to "save" 1 month of time. +1 and -1 combined are a flat 0. This realistically just means the 1st/2nd mission of the month is easier but those after are roughly the same. Compare this to Ammo/Grenades which typically require 25 days to make 1 for a single soldier. 125 days for non-hero units. 250 combined. I'd put this in D tier entirely because I'd rather be using anything else.
Art of War is stronger then you think, Xcom earning AP that any soldier can use is typically very few points. You address this later with the pool some but it means they dip less into the pool effectively doing the same thing. Now split this with 3 teams of 5 normal soldiers and you get a massive boost to your AP pool conserving Xcom's AP. Hero units also get a massive boost due to them leveling through AP. Your Reaper, Skirmisher, and Templar get a massive power spike. A or B tier imo.
Feedback and Mental Fortitude are interesting, as you said offensive perks tend to be more useful. The interesting thing about both of these is they are useful exclusively when you're losing and badly. Feedback applies on effects that enemies waste their turn with. Mental Fortitude is when you're being slaughtered. I'd place these both in C tier.
Nobel Cause is S tier hands down, besides the obvious combo with Greater Resolve so you can almost always send out soldiers it combos well with almost any earning base Order. It mostly removes the most annoying thing in WotC and makes getting negative traits incredibly hard. Fixing the obnoxious will system which just forces people to play in a safe way and not take risks is good.
Stay With Me is S-tier if you bring a Support unit, without them it is an D tier as you need to meet a lot of criteria to evac that person before they bleed out which can mean losing 2 units instead of 1 for that rest of that mission meaning more bleed outs and more evac and more death. Sometimes it is better to just die.
I hate starting with the Templars. Despite everything they give being potentially really good... none of it is as good as the other two factions and an early game melee only character only makes this worse especially since you need to level them for the Chosen. Supplies, Intel, and practical boosts that help early game are more important then things which tend to help more mid-late game. All the Templars tend to offer is making the strong even stronger. In Xcom you already become stronger then the enemy though.
Unless you get lucky and start with Tithe then they become the best, imo.
Good video, nice to see other people's thoughts on these and have a few of my own opinions on others changed.
There's a problem with your suit up argument
It's not entirely a one for one trade because the trade off is different benefits in different area's. Especially if you have a limited selection of orders at the time. So it really depends on which effect your trading it for. Is one month of time worth having vengeance on?
Not to mention those 25 days can be used researching other items that you wouldn't be researching because of the suits. It really only becomes neutral once you have 25 days, consecutive or not, of not producing items.
There isn't, the problem is actually yours.
"Not to mention those 25 days can be used researching other items that you wouldn't be researching because of the suits." ...you don't do research in Proving Grounds. Unless I'm forgetting something very important you can Research and Prove at the same time.
You only ever need 1 thing from it and that is the skulljack. Proving Grounds interfere with nothing.
"It really only becomes neutral once you have 25 days, consecutive or not, of not producing items." Unfortunately that isn't how reality works. Pretend you have a Grenedier which means they have 3 explosives. The first mission of a month comes but by now you've produced 1 suit. So now you have 4 explosives. For this order to have ANY effect you must use a 5th explosive. Throw on a Spark over a regular soldier and this only amplifies the weakness as now you're looking at 6-7+. The same applies to the other suits and their effect. At 2-3 suits it is the same as having no order practically.
"It's not entirely a one for one trade because the trade off is different benefits in different area's." Most of the Templar's orders promote survival. More Exp means more health, Aim and a skill. More AP means taking more side skills for survival. More resources means you can get better gear. Is fast forwarding 10 days realistically going to be worth giving up any of this? If anything your point proves that Suit Up is even worse and isn't 1 to 1. It is half.
I was very intentionally giving the numbers in the best case for favor of Suit Up till now to show how bad it is optimally. Hard numbers are much worse.
Elerium Cores are rare, can you really afford to get 3+ T2 Suits and 3+ T3 suits? If you want the WAR suit you want to get the Experimental Powered Weapons. With a Spark, Faction Character, and Psi-Op for a 6 man team this is 15 days.
You don't unlock the Suits at the start of a month. Meaning if you unlock them on the 7th day you either waste an order for 7 days or don't. You need this order, you need to unlock the proving ground project you want immediately around the end/start of a month.
@@Buglin_Burger7878 "you research and prove at the same time"
hahaha I misspoke now can you actually discuss what I meant?
"You only ever need one thing from it and that's the skulljack"
Grenades, ammo, chosen weapons, ruler armor, the odd spark.
"Unfortunately that's not how reality works"
Okay
Where's the counter argument?
I'm talking about proving ground time efficiency. Your talking about battlefield utility. Where's the connection?
Even if the suits were 100% useless, if you were too theoretically build 5 of them, that's still time you spent, and effectively time that would of been saved. So while your point could arguably stand on it's own, it doesn't disprove my point here.
Ok, so I see where the two of you are coming from, lemme tell you my position. In my experience, it’s situationally very good.
By the time Spider and EXO suits are coming into play, I usually have at least 2 or 3 cores I don’t plan on using for a bit, more if I got the Vulture order. Using Suit Up allows me to grab some Spider Suits (extra mobility and situational +20 aim) or EXO Suits (long range, bigger AoE plasma grenades) or both immediately after researching Plated Armor. Either are very good by June (usually when I get Predator Armor) And what’s better is that neither project cost supplies, so if I’m strapped for cash I can make do with some suits until the next drop. It also doesn’t require staffing an engineer there to get projects out quickly, freeing up time for that engineer to staff the Ring to effectively give me a free op, or clear a room for extra cash up front and a facility slot. It’s also around that time I’m trying to get Plasma Grenade, Bluescreen Protocol, and Advanced Medikits. And any idle time in the PG is used for getting ammos for the damage buffs. Which usually means putting off suits.
By the time Wraith and WAR suits are around, I’ll admit Suit Up falls off a bit. If you have an excess of cores and instant heavy weapons, you can pump out 5-6 WAR suits with powered weapons and provide a big bump to AoE damage. I prefer getting a bunch of Wraith Suits quickly because the +2 mobility and grapple are too good to pass up if I have the time, which I do with Suit Up.
TL;DR, if you time adding Suit Up to your orders right, it’s very good, although I’d still take instant ammo over it any day.
Sincerely, a weird dude who doesn’t use explosives that often and ergo has more cores than he knows what to do with half the time.
If it takes you 125 days of manufacturing to give your soldiers grenades, I'd suggest you're doing something very, very wrong lol.
Hey can you play Phoenix point again? If you want to I'll leave some tips down below
Tips start here, note these are tips for higher difficulties
Tip 1, choose a faction to screw over, at the beginning of the game choose one of the 3 factions that you don't want to deal with, I'd recommend synidreon because the only tech they have that's worth anything is the Mist repellent which is good for slowing down the game a bit and buying time if you envelop a few havens, the 2nd faction would be new Jericho mostly because their the most likely to start attacking other havens and they have the lowest pop meaning killing them won't effect your game to bad, as for why you should screw them over is simple, raising your relationship level with the other 2 by sabatoging them
Tip 2, spam overwatch, unless a mission is time sensitive use overwatch literally anytime you can't attack that turn, unless your retreating don't end your turn without overwatching at least one person
Tip 3, keep your units within 7-8 tiles of each other at all times, mind control and melee units will be the bane of your existence, use high cover and keep you units close so that you can overwatch shorter cones for a better chance to hit while still keeping your units covered
Tip 4, don't use vehicle's, vehicle's suck ass in the base game, sure they hit hard but they have very little ammo and take up to much supplies and space on your teams
Tip 5 make sure that each base has at least 2 infirmary's and 2 living quarters so that any base you go to you can rest your units an heal them pretty quick
Tip 6, final tip, make sure that you build another aircraft as soon as possible, you need more than 1 craft asap to respond to stuff quickly, on a side note rush exploration and do as many supply missions as fast as you can, preferably before the Mist covers the mission itself which ramps up the difficulty
Thanks, mate. I definitely made a lot of mistakes in my first run.
This tier list would be completely different on legendary. Also I completely disagree on the battle madness. In one playthrough I usually get around 10 instances of battle madness. Sectoids become too high priority to be allowed to do anything on legendary.
Trial by fire is deserve to be mimic beacon tier list. Also feedback order is just nerf version neural feedback gene mods xcom ew.