On that sewer ambush mission, I usually kill the pods on the map then separate two person groups to where I think they'll spawn roughly and make sure I don't trigger it until they have a full turn. Then I try to put two people on top of each flare in over watch. If you do it right you can easily farm kills as you turn the ambush against them, good way to grab some early game promotions.
The sewer missions might be “run and hide” on legend difficulty, but depending on how well equipped and experienced you are, I love farming xp on these missions.
You, sir, are good at this. I don't just mean at XCOM 2, I mean you are good at conveying information, speech, and staying focused on what matters. First time on your channel, thumbs up!
Its worth noting that for the #10 tip u will only have the Chosen show up if u disable the Lost and Abandoned mission when setting up a new game. If u have this mission enabled u will never se the Chosen on the first retaliation mission.
Just stumbled across your video, I am just getting into Xcom. I normally play Divinity, Pathfinder, Pillars. I had a shooter itch but dont really play FPS. so ya Ill be trying xcom so if you make more videos I would definitely be interested.
Plated armor research over magnetic weapons? Whaaaaaat? Maybe on the lower difficulties, but on legend (even commander) that armor will barely do anything and when it does, your soldier will still have to spend multiple weeks out of action to recover from the crippling blow. It is much better to have the necessary firepower to wipe out the ayy lmaos in that first turn so that they can't even shoot at you at all. Can plated armor first work though? Sure. But higher lethality will be the better survivability for your squad.
I disagree with running away from the reinforcements in the sewer mission. Put your guys on overwatch on top of the building, usually that kills at least half of them, you can mop them up easily in the following turn
I feel that this game is more like a tug of war between the xcoms making connections between continents and the avatar project advancing, while the advents tripping our legs.
If you ever get a gorilla mission to counter those faceless enemies I would take it. They are a pain in those rescue civilian mission. Im playing vanilla version but a covert ranger or similar is priceless for many missions. Lastly I have been saved many times with a specialist with a robot hacking feature. Biggest pain was my carelessness when attacking. Had overwatch on all players minus one, shot a grenade. Thought it was done when pod activated, nope, I had some special ability that gave him an extra action. So I used it but now I have the whole pod taking an extra turn and shooting at the players. Make sure if your doing this strategy that your turn will actually end. Its not necessarily a squad wipe but making that mistake and letting a whole pod get a free shot at your troops makes for a tough mission. Havent played Ironman yet. Not ready lol.
- First retaliation is only worth to try if the chosen has something like explosive vunerable, if not is better try to get a rank up in 4 rookies killing the first and second pod (Try to get 2 or 3 level ups) and then extract soldiers when they are in danger to get hit. - Sewer Operative mission is better to kill all the reinforcements. Reinforcements only come out when you have entered the operation area and if you are playing on higher difficulties it is good to take advantage of these to gain experience. The most important thing is to try to have high grown, 2 grenadiers and 2 rangers with you and if possible a templar with parry, but it is not essential. - I like taking advantage of the first mission of the lost in the first month to farm experience in a soldier (my reaper) and get Squad Increase as soon as the second month begins. - The best class and the most important at the beginning of the game are Grenadiers to remove covers. In XCOM 2 it is better to play offensive than defensive, if you play to lose you will end up losing. It is true that specialists have a lot of value from the middle of the game, but you will never see me training my specialists in healing when combat protocol is much more important to deal with the first MEC's (without special bullets). And the rangers are the second important unit because they can flank and have precision bonuses at short distances +4 damage +crit which is super valuable too and is important to start with the reapers to have the best scout in the game at the beginning. - Allways weapons first, then armor. Play offensive is playing for winning, killing everything when you see it, and you never have soldiers in the infirmary or worst, dead. - Soldiers are the most important resource in the game. A wounded or dead soldier is not worth a risky move or gaining a resource. Never put a soldier in a dangerous situation to gain a resource. It is better to lose it than risk the unit, especially if it is high ranking. - Sparks are a waste of resource no matter how much I like them. Everything you invest in them is only in them, in a unit. On the other hand, if you buy the rifle upgrade, all your units, including rookies, will benefit from them. Same with armor. And if they die you've screwed up, you'll have to do more. And they cost a lot... I have the impression that I have contradicted you in almost everything but it is my experience at least playing in Ironman Legend.
its not as foolproof as snipers in the last game, but having 2 reapers(you can get a second if you delay looking for templars by a lot)with expanded mags,repeaters, attach claymore, banish and anihilate and any other armor piercing and aim upgrades, with two sparks with blaster launchers/shredstorm cannons can clear blacksites even on higher dificulties alone
Yep, although I got lucky last run and all the avatar sabotages were ambushed, those Andromedans are scary as hell, made me bring out my psi character just to stasis him
honestly tho, the winning strategy in WOTC is still the sniper. once you get the chosen sniper rifle in combination with the death from above skill, it's pretty much game over for the aliens. the chosen pistol with the gunslinger abilities from the sniper is also insanely broken.
It pisses me off stealth isn't viable at all in this game. I'd love to do rescue missions of VIPs going completely unnoticed but my current playthrough experimenting with the stealth mechanics got completely fucked over because like you said, the pods gradually drift towards you even in stealth. I had one squad wipe after another and now I have to restart. Kinda wish I could do the tacticool, special forces get in get out stuff but everything turns into a falluja like gunfight. It's also cringe that stealth isn't preserved if you one shot an enemy with melee. Edit: One of the previously mentioned squad wipes happened in the sewer. I bought WOTC and wanted to play the game vanilla with the new content (usually played with long war so the campaign was much different than normal) and got to this mission and listened to central to hold ground. Squad got fucking annihilated because they dropped 2 sectoids immediately and mind controlled my units. Got the VIP out though, because as a last resort I did what you suggested we do in the first place. 2 dead, 3 captured and the only returning person was a dude the skyranger didn't leave with.
Tried a commander run and ever shit killed a guy. Finally reset on a game where I agro'd 4 priests, a mech, a section and the chosen showed up. Haha veteran is much more manageable
Man I suck at this game. Just started playing, doing the first extract scientist mission and even on rookie I get destroyed. Enemies just keep dropping in none stop and I always run out of turns way before I can get to the evac.
You really have to be somewhat aggressive on those missions and keep moving forward. Some missions, you can take your time and move slowly, but on others, you have to push forward to your objective before the timer runs out. Sometimes the objective is to complete the mission. Whether or not you actually kill all enemies doesn't matter.
Even if the chosen has resistance to explosions, you can still shred their armory with explosives, they just wont take any additional damage.
On that sewer ambush mission, I usually kill the pods on the map then separate two person groups to where I think they'll spawn roughly and make sure I don't trigger it until they have a full turn. Then I try to put two people on top of each flare in over watch.
If you do it right you can easily farm kills as you turn the ambush against them, good way to grab some early game promotions.
The sewer missions might be “run and hide” on legend difficulty, but depending on how well equipped and experienced you are, I love farming xp on these missions.
You, sir, are good at this. I don't just mean at XCOM 2, I mean you are good at conveying information, speech, and staying focused on what matters. First time on your channel, thumbs up!
Excellent. I learned so much in these two videos. Thank you
Its worth noting that for the #10 tip u will only have the Chosen show up if u disable the Lost and Abandoned mission when setting up a new game. If u have this mission enabled u will never se the Chosen on the first retaliation mission.
Just stumbled across your video, I am just getting into Xcom. I normally play Divinity, Pathfinder, Pillars. I had a shooter itch but dont really play FPS. so ya Ill be trying xcom so if you make more videos I would definitely be interested.
Get your hands on Halo Wars yet?
Plated armor research over magnetic weapons? Whaaaaaat? Maybe on the lower difficulties, but on legend (even commander) that armor will barely do anything and when it does, your soldier will still have to spend multiple weeks out of action to recover from the crippling blow. It is much better to have the necessary firepower to wipe out the ayy lmaos in that first turn so that they can't even shoot at you at all.
Can plated armor first work though? Sure. But higher lethality will be the better survivability for your squad.
That looks more like the normal version of the retaliation mission. The one I played in WotC had me getting help from the local resistance.
In WotC both scenarios can occur during retaliation missions🙂
Yeah in WOTC they have safe haven missions where you get help and then regular retaliation missions
6:11 he is right i listened to central and all but 1 of my squad(i had 5 soldiers on the mission) had over ten days wounded
I know its older now but awsome video theres definitely some unpopular opinions like go for armour not weapons but i get what ur saying cheers bud
make more xcom 2 vids love this game need them to make a 3 already good to see all these years later new content being pumped out for xcom 2
Best guide ever. Thanks, Subscribed.
I disagree with running away from the reinforcements in the sewer mission. Put your guys on overwatch on top of the building, usually that kills at least half of them, you can mop them up easily in the following turn
Good stuff, wish there was more xcom2 content
I feel that this game is more like a tug of war between the xcoms making connections between continents and the avatar project advancing, while the advents tripping our legs.
If you ever get a gorilla mission to counter those faceless enemies I would take it. They are a pain in those rescue civilian mission. Im playing vanilla version but a covert ranger or similar is priceless for many missions. Lastly I have been saved many times with a specialist with a robot hacking feature. Biggest pain was my carelessness when attacking. Had overwatch on all players minus one, shot a grenade. Thought it was done when pod activated, nope, I had some special ability that gave him an extra action. So I used it but now I have the whole pod taking an extra turn and shooting at the players. Make sure if your doing this strategy that your turn will actually end. Its not necessarily a squad wipe but making that mistake and letting a whole pod get a free shot at your troops makes for a tough mission. Havent played Ironman yet. Not ready lol.
- First retaliation is only worth to try if the chosen has something like explosive vunerable, if not is better try to get a rank up in 4 rookies killing the first and second pod (Try to get 2 or 3 level ups) and then extract soldiers when they are in danger to get hit.
- Sewer Operative mission is better to kill all the reinforcements. Reinforcements only come out when you have entered the operation area and if you are playing on higher difficulties it is good to take advantage of these to gain experience. The most important thing is to try to have high grown, 2 grenadiers and 2 rangers with you and if possible a templar with parry, but it is not essential.
- I like taking advantage of the first mission of the lost in the first month to farm experience in a soldier (my reaper) and get Squad Increase as soon as the second month begins.
- The best class and the most important at the beginning of the game are Grenadiers to remove covers. In XCOM 2 it is better to play offensive than defensive, if you play to lose you will end up losing. It is true that specialists have a lot of value from the middle of the game, but you will never see me training my specialists in healing when combat protocol is much more important to deal with the first MEC's (without special bullets). And the rangers are the second important unit because they can flank and have precision bonuses at short distances +4 damage +crit which is super valuable too and is important to start with the reapers to have the best scout in the game at the beginning.
- Allways weapons first, then armor. Play offensive is playing for winning, killing everything when you see it, and you never have soldiers in the infirmary or worst, dead.
- Soldiers are the most important resource in the game. A wounded or dead soldier is not worth a risky move or gaining a resource. Never put a soldier in a dangerous situation to gain a resource. It is better to lose it than risk the unit, especially if it is high ranking.
- Sparks are a waste of resource no matter how much I like them. Everything you invest in them is only in them, in a unit. On the other hand, if you buy the rifle upgrade, all your units, including rookies, will benefit from them. Same with armor. And if they die you've screwed up, you'll have to do more. And they cost a lot...
I have the impression that I have contradicted you in almost everything but it is my experience at least playing in Ironman Legend.
9:30 disagree with that.
If you can kill things faster = they don't hit you. If you move wise instead of yolo mode then its fine to have armour first.
its not as foolproof as snipers in the last game, but having 2 reapers(you can get a second if you delay looking for templars by a lot)with expanded mags,repeaters, attach claymore, banish and anihilate and any other armor piercing and aim upgrades, with two sparks with blaster launchers/shredstorm cannons can clear blacksites even on higher dificulties alone
Awesome job! Thanks for all the useful tips.
You definitely can stall the avatar project forever
Yep, although I got lucky last run and all the avatar sabotages were ambushed, those Andromedans are scary as hell, made me bring out my psi character just to stasis him
honestly tho, the winning strategy in WOTC is still the sniper. once you get the chosen sniper rifle in combination with the death from above skill, it's pretty much game over for the aliens. the chosen pistol with the gunslinger abilities from the sniper is also insanely broken.
I like this game but I desperately wish it was not so reliant on turn timers
Good tips
In your opinion, is it possible to play the whole game without using the other factions? I just don't really like the skirmishers or templars....
You don't have to, i only use skirmishers, because they are cool and fun, but no you dont to, but the covert ops you do, do you can find the chosen.
what is the name of the mod you're using for the weapons skins?
Offensive choices always, dead enemies can’t shoot back
Yep. I disagree with his pick for #7. Mid game sure, you should bring a medic, but early on, you NEED grenadiers to reliably deal with enemies.
I do both because I sure as heck can miss back to back 95% shots.
Bruh I had this happen to me yesterday and I nearly flipped my fucking desk lmao
Will you ever return to SWG?
What is with the guns why are they so weird I’ve never seen those
dlc tier list please
It pisses me off stealth isn't viable at all in this game. I'd love to do rescue missions of VIPs going completely unnoticed but my current playthrough experimenting with the stealth mechanics got completely fucked over because like you said, the pods gradually drift towards you even in stealth. I had one squad wipe after another and now I have to restart. Kinda wish I could do the tacticool, special forces get in get out stuff but everything turns into a falluja like gunfight. It's also cringe that stealth isn't preserved if you one shot an enemy with melee.
Edit: One of the previously mentioned squad wipes happened in the sewer. I bought WOTC and wanted to play the game vanilla with the new content (usually played with long war so the campaign was much different than normal) and got to this mission and listened to central to hold ground. Squad got fucking annihilated because they dropped 2 sectoids immediately and mind controlled my units. Got the VIP out though, because as a last resort I did what you suggested we do in the first place. 2 dead, 3 captured and the only returning person was a dude the skyranger didn't leave with.
Most people become save monkeys. Then you know what next. Mostly
Tried a commander run and ever shit killed a guy. Finally reset on a game where I agro'd 4 priests, a mech, a section and the chosen showed up.
Haha veteran is much more manageable
Man I suck at this game. Just started playing, doing the first extract scientist mission and even on rookie I get destroyed. Enemies just keep dropping in none stop and I always run out of turns way before I can get to the evac.
You really have to be somewhat aggressive on those missions and keep moving forward. Some missions, you can take your time and move slowly, but on others, you have to push forward to your objective before the timer runs out. Sometimes the objective is to complete the mission. Whether or not you actually kill all enemies doesn't matter.
On those types of missions focus on getting to the objectives and if told to extract, extract
Hard saves. Reload and keep practicing