koma I’ve been at this one guerrilla mission for 3 days now. I’m so frustrated and even have had to change the difficulty to rookie. I really want to like the game but it’s hard when I have only 8 turns in most missions to complete it
To sum up the tips (which start at 7:30): 1) kill enemies that use attacks over enemies that use abilities 2) use mimic beacons, flashbangs, frostbomb to lower ur chances of being attacked 3) first avenger upgrades: guerilla training tool and AWC, 4) research/upgrade weapons before researching/upgrading armor, 5) don't pick abilities that require hunkering down or are passive
One of my favourite things to do with a flashbang, is to save it if I can, until I find a Codex or two on the map... launch the flashbang at it and it scrambles its ability to clone and teleport so they are much easier to manage in the earlier stages of the game.
Thanks for posting this, as I hadn't heard about that particular use before. Flashbangs are kind of like a swiss army knife, useful for a wide variety of purposes!
The best strategy for xcom 2 that I found was letting the UFO shoot down the avenger. then using overwatch to pile up the kills of aliens. The avenger defense mission will continue until you blow up the becon so if you just sit on the ramp and kill each set of alien reinforcements you can really rack up the XP. It takes a couple of hours.....but by doing this in game, all my xcom soldiers had over 100 kills and were all fully ranked long before the final mission.
Well, you have to get to that mission in the first place but it is certainly true that if you have the patience to sit there long enough then you can level up everyone who participates.
I didn't know the reinforcements never stopped coming, and I only had 5 soldiers left in my armory. I killed at least 50 aliens until my last soldier was killed. It felt like Custer's last stand
Thank you, you litteraly save me and my time... I start this game 1 week ago and aliens completely destroyed me and my team in veteran, I changed the difficulty but not the things 😂, then I went looking for some tutorials and I must say that your tutorials are the best, because you speak slowly and clearly, so even those who are not English can understand without too much trouble. Thank you again
So addicting!! ive started like 5 new games since i got this about a month ago, and no i dont mean i completed it 5 times, i mean i messed up and got all soldiers killed 5 times over with no supplies left nor any high level soldiers to get far... its such a HARD game but its very very addictive, regardless of how many times i get frustrated with it, i always come back later that day, 10/10 i love this game, i love this channel also... very helpful, thanks Mr Hanks.
i've found the key is to progress very slowly through the required events... dont skulljack early, let avatar get to breaking point and then do the first base... never do anything until you absolutely have to in the story progression and you can build up a wicked squad 6 man with a few lieutenants before you even see your first codex...skip over mag weapons for everyone other than the rifle.... build your contacts into as many avatar base areas as you can and only attack them when you are a day or two away from losing
Just rush to get the plasma Lance without doing story missions and then get a sharpshooter with killzone and a superior scope and extended mag and then boom, instant invincibility
To anyone playing in 2021 this guys videos still apply for almost every aspect of the game, the only thing I want to add is get out of the habit of trying to "bring 1 of each class type" on a mission, I cant tell you how many times I just threw a team together and had no use for my sniper, sometimes its finding giving 2 people med kits is better than bringing a specialist.
I believe the avoid getting shot as much as possible is the only viable strategy for the game, i never managed to get anything else to work consistently 👍 an important consequence of that, is that we need to try everything possible to only trigger one pod at a time... otherwise we will be shot upon. Triggering pods and then retreating that doesn't work either, at least never managed to make that work. Awesome videos 👍👍
@@Fer-De-Lance I believe that he is referring to the small groups the enemies are found in on a mission. Only trigger (i.e. spot) one group (or pod) of enemies at a time. Even if concealment is broken, the other enemy groups that you don't see won't engage.
Best way to do well? When you enter a mission SAVE. If it does not go well - LOAD the SAVE and do it again. You can do this until you do it right and don't suffer. Cheating? I guess so - But - It works :)
I actually agree and would add that it can be a good learning tool. Even if you do well, you can try the same mission with a different approach to see how that would have gone.
I tried that strategy - still didn't work. My first play through was terrible. Avatar project got completed and I just quit the game. I played it on Normal thinking that it would be easy enough, but after one failed mission after another, multiple severely injured troops, under-powered soldiers, and continuous frustrating missions, I just gave up. So much for enjoyment and relaxation. I guess I'll drop it down to the easiest level and see if that goes any better.
This is by far the best xcom2 vid I have seen. I got about 40 missions in and realised that all my grenadiers were either underpowered or dead, I was left with 5 captains all sharp shooters and specialists and two ranger majors I started again yesterday so will look at this again with your tips in mind
I know it's an old video, but I feel there are serious things missing from this guide (I agree with the things stated 100% btw). Ppl probably moved on to WOTC, but stuff I say here mostly applys there as well. 1. The most important thing people need to know in order to beat XCOM 2 on any difficulty, is this: rangers are the best class, shard guns are the best weapon! XCOM 1 vets will be confused by this because in that game shotguns are very situational. But in this game, the aim penally from range is severely reduced, and they are perfectly viable for mid-range engagements. They are at least as good as heavy weapons in ANY situation. The trick to making them reliable at mid-range is aim PCS on rangers and scopes on shotguns. Coming from XCOM 1, my first instinct was that stacking mobility and crit is the way to go, but that's the completely wrong approach. Shotgun (+bladestorm) will murder anything at close range, you don't need to improve that aspect of the weapon/class. So, the goal in your first 2-3 months is to be able to field 2-3 blademasters and one phantom ranger on every mission, and equip all of them with as many aim bonuses the loot drops and the gray market allows. GTS should be making new rangers at all times for the first 3 months, and you should be getting a level-up on them asap. 1a. Again, do not think of rangers as close range only soldiers. Sure, stab away if you know the coast is clear, blade storm with the stun sword will solve a lot of your problems. But especially in the early game, just use rangers the way you would your specialists or rookies. Blow up walls, take shots on exposed guys, overwatch camp as much as the timer allows. Spider armor does wonder for their mobility before you get hit-n-run on everyone, and getting onto a roof will fix all of your aim issues. 2. Just like the shard gun is the best weapon, but not the most powerful in the late game, ranger is not the most powerful class in the game. That class is the psi-op, by far. Your late game team should consist of 4 psi-ops, with a ranger and a sniper for support. Honestly, if you managed to fully train 2 psi-ops, you have won the game. Just don't get them wounded on easy missions that you could have finished with rangers. You want to start working on training your psi-ops as soon as you have stabilised your early game. This means you want at least shard guns, resistance comms and lancer autopsy (swords) before researching psionics. A good rule of the thumb is that you want to be building a psi-lab when your first 3rd level room is excavated. If it's a power coil, put it there because it requires a lot of energy. Make sure you have enough elerium (and power if needed) to upgrade it asap. You don't need all of the abilities on them, you only need void rift with schism, lance, stasis, inspire and domination. You should have 1-2 guys with solace, and fortress is good but not mandatory (it's good early for baiting mecs and mutons, later in the game the enemies won't be taking turns at all). 2a. As I said, you will want 4 psi-ops in the late game. The way you train them is to get each of them to inspire. Having 3-4 soldiers with inspire will allow you to clear facilities quickly and without wounds. You do this by going in as close as concealment allows, then placing the evac. Wait 4 turns for evac cooldown to end, place the psi-ops in the square, make them bukkake their purple goo on your highest mobility guy and run him in to plant the x4. Now pull out your psi-op, make another evac closer to the guy planting the charge, plant the charge and get out. ez. 2b. When a Shadow chamber tells you there will be Sectopods and/or Andromedons on a late game mission, bring at least one psi-op. Stasis is the best way to deal with the Sectopod (haywire would be good if it was reliable, not to mention it's attached to worthless soldier), since you don't want to spend your turn killing him while his friends are still around. Mind control the Andromedon, his acid bomb will be a huge help vs other aliens on the map since it shreds armor like nothing else. 2c. In the end game, when you have 4 guys with psi lances and/or void rifts, the game is trivial. Use those to clear the screen, use a sharpshooter with face-off/fanfire + blue screen to kill the robots that could have survived, ranger with rapid fire and talon ammo unloads on big bads like berserkers and Gatekeepers. As always mind control all of the andromedons, Gatekeepers are decent as well once you get the Alien psi-amp. 3. Snipers are your main support class. You want to one on each mission from the start and feed him kills to max him out asap. They should be built as mostly as gunslingers, though long watch is much better than return fire because you can use it to pull pods from half across the map using the phantom ranger as scout. [The next part I'm not 100% sure about, it used to work like this when I played the game, but could have been changed by patches.] The best sniper rifle perk is not even a sharpshooter perk, it's implacable. Combined with death from above, it allows you to shoot your rifle again if you score a kill on the first rifle shot, like a mini-serial. This means you can't take quickdraw, but it's worth it. 3a. The other classes are situational and not worth the xp to level up. You will get some specialists and grenadiers trough missions and the black market. The grenadier is useful in the early game before you get your team of rangers leveled, but in the mid game they are not worth bringing on missions anymore. Rangers can blow up cover just as well and the utility perks gunners get (shredder, holo, rupture) can be acquired on rangers via AWC. The only good thing about a grenadier is that he can have 2 frost grades with a decent aoe. Specialists are almost complete garbage. Ranged hacking can save you that one turn in order to not lose the mission, and sometimes 4 guaranteed damage on a viper in full cover is required, but even losing a mission or a soldier due to not having that option when you need it is preferable to wasting tons of exp on a specialist. The only really useful perk they have is scan protocol because it solves the burrowed chrysallid bullshit on late game terror missions and the alien gate, but you will get an already levelled up spec from somewhere by then. Healing is useless, there are no long war style prolonged firefights in XCOM 2, you either end the turn with all aliens dead or controlled, or you screwed up. Sparks absolute, distilled garbage. They can't hit anything. What else do you need to know? 4. Abuse the AI. You will often see let's plays on youtube in which the player seemingly plays recklessly on ironman/impossible, and he seems just lucky that the aliens did stupid shit. In reality, these guys just know how to end their turn so the aliens use their mostly useless abilities instead of taking shots. The sectoid will always use psi if it can't flank you, so just ignore him and make sure you don't expose a flank. Mutons will grenade if they see two soldiers together, even if they are both in the open (not 100% about that, but fairly certain). They will also melee anything they can, even if it pulls them out of cover, just like lancers. Look at those two idiots around 14:00 in the video, meme beacon (or untouchable ranger) in melee range is the best way to deal with mutons as it pulls them out of cover for easy kills on the next turn. Archons will use blazing pinions, the worst alien ability in the game if they see 3 soldiers grouped up (the size of the aoe is about as much as a flashbang). They will melee (which hurts), but they can't dash and melee like lancers and your rangers, so just keep distance. Advent MECs will also prefer their aoe attack in the same way as archons, except theirs will actually hit (tho for much less damage than their regular shot). One codex will always use their aoe, the others will shoot. Berserkers will always melee the closest thing, so just abuse untouchable...
Have you tried one of the mods that lets you use Master Chief's armor for your soldiers? That might do the trick! FWIW, I'm working on a video covering base building in XCOM 2 and am going to try and do more videos with tips for XCOM 2 in the next few weeks. Hopefully, they will help people who are struggling a bit to get over the hump and emerge victorious. Now get back out there and... finish this fight!
TapCatVids Mostly I just need time to commit to the game. I'm working full-time on a Presidential campaign in Iowa right now, so I have essentially zero free-time.
I wondered if you had a chance to really dig into it yet. The good news is that the election will be over relatively soon and you can get back to saving the planet from alien invaders.
TapCatVids Well, see, if my guy doesn't win, I'll probably be using XCOM 2 as a planning tool for a real insurgency, as the parallels of the situation will be striking.
My best piece of advice is to only activate one pod on your turn (unless you are time constrained). It's the difference between having 3 aliens to kill or 6, everything else is secondary in my opinion. To do that you need to move up carefully and have a feel for how pods tend to be spread across the map. Always use your ranger to scout and when you do engage DO NOT MOVE UP TO FLANK if you think another pod is on the map. The map won't always work out this way, they are set up to be between you and the objective and patrol also, so can end up stacked on top of each other. But when you see an isolated group of 3, take your chance and don't wait until they stack up.
Here's a list of the enemies that you need to kill from first to last: 1. Chrysalid & Sectopod 2. Berserker & gatekeeper 3. MEC & Stun Lancer 4. Andromedon 5. Archon & Muton 6. Viper 7. Codex 8. Sheildbearer 9. Officers 10. Normal ADVENT troopers 11. Faceless 12. Sectoids The rooms you need to build in order: 1. GTS 2. Proving Ground 3. Power Relay 4. Resistance comms 5. AWC
Thanks man, i played it when it came out becuase I love the first one(which I finished), love frickin hard games and love turn based strategy, but this game kicked my ass! After X failed attempts and nearly 30 hours I quit... Funny enough I did the same thing with Dark Souls. After almost 30 hours I still couldn't figure out how things really work, although I had already killed 12 Bosses, I still quit. But then DS 2 came out, and I just watched someone like you, explaining how weapons, upgrades etc. work in Dark Souls and then I played thorugh it, loved it and smashed DS 3 when it came out, too :) Now, thanks to your video, I'll give this game another try because I've been thinking about playing it a lot since I quit. Now I feel like I got a basic strategy with which I can work and hopefully kick some alien ass :D Nice video, appreciated!
Sequencing attacks is also really important as many players will know. The most basic play, is to use explosives to destroy cover and armour, and then give your other soldiers a better shot at a debuffed enemy. Broadly, this will mean the Grenadier should fire their grenade launcher first. Equally, think about how the enemy can buff each other, or debuff you. Shield Bearers for example, can be a real pain and I always make them a priority even though they rarely do anything to directly hurt you, they can make other enemies harder to kill. The Codex's Rift attack can force your soldiers to waste a turn on moving and reloading. Players can use the Ranger's Reaper, or the Sniper's Serial to kill ridiculous numbers of enemies if you plan in advance, and use your other soldiers to set up kills for you. And on a side note, if you have the Frost Grenade from that DLC, you can freeze the Gatekeepers when they are open (they close again once you land a single hit) giving you multiple attacks on them.
Well .. I got this game 2 days ago .. he first day I had some problems I had to deal with .. and the next day (today/night .. it's morning now) .. I have created 25 or so characters in my character pool ... then I played the tutorial + first mission ... quit the game .. and made another 30 or so characters LOL ... I think I will make another 20 or 30 when I wake up and then finally play the game for real xD .. I made characters from my real life, myself, friends, historical&mythological figures, people I hate, people I love, tons of pop culture characters/characters from tv, books, movies and even a n even some real life soldiers who passed away fighting terrorists. But every time I'm done I think of someone new or a way to improve an already exiting character etc.
I found something close when I played before looking up guides. Grenades. I got so addicted to the guaranteed hits of 2-3 damage that I'd waste all of them at the start of a mission and then need them later. I was onto something at least. Thanks for the help!
I am a Enemy Unknown and Within veteran as in I can beat the game on Ironman on the second hardest difficulty. It's a challenge but it's fun and you get the ups and downs but I always manage to win. Xcom 2 however kicks my ass on Veteran difficulty so thanks for this video because I am just getting whooped every mission loosing 1-2 soldiers either to wounds or dead.
Despite the obvious similarities, XCOM 2 presents a different type of challenge from Enemy Unknown and it requires a different mindset on the battlefield. These aliens have very specific tendencies and knowing how to take advantage of, and even manipulate, them is what will help you break through and start thriving. I hope the videos help, good luck out there, commander!
:) I am almost dropping down there myself mate so hard. It makes it worse when you got the timer missions. Good luck with it. Very true TapCat Xcom 2 is just a different monster. I played the previous ones quite aggressively which I thought would help here but like you have mentioned in the videos the main goal per mission is to avoid being hit. This is Dark Souls levels of hard and I love it. keep the vids coming :)
I prefer playing on Rookie to unwind in the evening as you can make more mistakes or, to put it another way, have more tactical freedom. The higher levels' one-shot-kills make the gameplay more formulaic and, for me, rob it of the enjoyment. (Clearly my effort vs reward ratio does not meet Bradford's requirements!)
That's totally legit in my book, Andrew! While I've chosen to go the Legend Ironman route for the rush that comes from beating the odds, that can make the game very stressful and draining. Not everyone wants to do that and there's no reason to. If playing on rookie is how you or anyone else will get their best value out of the money you paid for XCOM 2, I'm all for it.
So glad I found this channel. With x-com 2 being free on psn now I’ve been trying it out and have been seemingly wanting to figure out how to quit having most of my soldiers die or get wounded every mission.
I felt much the same way when I started playing, it took a while to figure some things out and make progress. I'm glad to hear that you're finding my videos helpful and good luck to you in your campaign!
I thought I was just getting old... but it seems that this game is actually hard as EFF... much harder than all its predecessors. VERY helpful videos man... how I've never run across you until now totally escapes me.
I can't emphasize Mimic beacons enough. Build and take every mimic beacon you can, as they are the single best item in the game. They take aggro priority for all single target damage, so as long as your party isn't too close together, you can throw a mimic beacon far away behind cover and land free shots for a turn. If you can get six for your whole squad, that is effectively SIX TURNS you can rampage on the enemy and deal free damage. Make sure you throw mimic beacons where they can't be easily destroyed by the enemy, and you will make your Xcom 2 experience significantly easier. Also, Predator armor and Warden armor make all of your squadmates more survivable at a low research and supply cost, so rush Predator armor as soon as possible.
Thanks cat, I was here seven years ago and you helped me ACTUALLY ENJOY the game. Situations change, obviously but just looking at this game like “chess” made me sit back and look, I love strategy games like this and you nailed it then..now I’m playing again and dominating thanks to your words/advice!! You da man 🤙 much love brother!!!
@@TapCat just wanted to follow up, after actually trying and following your tips..I beat the game for the first time! Didn’t lose a single troop and absolutely destroyed the aliens! Thanks again man, I’m restarting today on the next difficulty, now I’m sure I’ll get my butt handed to me on several missions 🤪
@@blakedixon2838 That is awesome, congratulations on doing so well! Good luck with your next campaign, something tells me that you'll win that one too.
Hey TapCat, can I just take this opportunity to say Thankyou so much. It's thanks to your videos and guides that I'm able to play and beat this game and have such a fun experience doing it. I got the game on launch, but failed over and over again. I recently picked up the game again and was determined to beat it because I have loved this series for a very long time and it's because of your videos that I was able to finally beat the game and have a really enjoyable experience as well. I mean I only beat the game on normal which to some is Meh but to some even normal is decent considering how hard this game can be. I mean executing a Gatekeeper at full health with a Repeater Specialist. It doesn't get much better than that. So Thankyou bro 😁
I am starting to play XCOM and turn-based games for my first time. Your videos are being very helpful to develop my strategies and to discover another turn-based games
I just got xcom 2 for nintendo switch, and I keep going back to your videos again and again since I'm new to the xcom franchise and I want to learn from the best. It is a grueling game but thank goodness for the save/load file. Keep up the good work!
the way you build your explanation for your play philosophy is rock-solid, and is the type of explanation that's going to be valuable to me in my second try playing. now that I have my goals in check it should be a lot more fun to play. thanks, great vid.
Game just went to £20 with all DLC on Steam, So im watching while i download :) I played all the original old Xcom games waay back and im really looking forward to adding this to my games library. Thanks for the info. Subscribed
Meh, game already feels clunky and dependent on overly repeated cinematics...but i genuinely enjoy this kind of game and it seems to stay pretty true to the original. Game were unforgiving as fuck in those days.. lol and i dont mind the trial and error... Care to recommend any mods? i already got camera sorted. Is there something for a mini map? i have no idea why there isn't one..? Isometic games are a great base plan...but no overhead? within the first few missons i have defo completely returned from a cinematic with a different compass... QQEEWW ETC ETC...nvm . its and old game...ish..
Things you can do: 1)A ranger squad with exo armor that has the cone one shot weapon and the ability to restealth, so you can sneak and aoe entire group patrols. Also frost grenades help when you run out of your expermental one shot weapons. 2) Invest in "hospital" rooms and you the medical rest bonus to reduce infarmy time. 3) Also for the bosses that react each time a squadmate performs an action, just know that they try to prioritise the acting squadmate with their actions and position accordingly.
I'm not gonna lie to this day I still have not been able to beat this game on any difficulty, usually cause I give up too soon but, this guide and the top 5 tips one has a lot of things that took me from the early game to the late game. The tip about prioritizing targets that may seem less dangerous but are actually more likely to fire at you, and the one about minimizing hospital times single handedly completely changed the way I approach the game. I'm starting a new run now AGAIN and I'm determined to beat this shit, but thanks for these videos. P.S. in one of your playthroughs when you do shens last stand mission, and you get to the end and have to fight that giant walker thing after your whole team is basically already dead or about to die, made me laugh so hard, not just cause it was funny but because that EXACT same thing happened to me before I even watched it. The whole video I was like "oh no no no he doesnt know >:)"
Long War teaches you quite similar lessons: don't get shot. If the enemy force is superior, it is always more preferable to withdraw into better cover and overwatch them to death. LW gave a few classes more shots on OW than on its turn: you get to shoot at exposed enemies with no aim penalties. This, however, requires you to establish a clear fall back zone and not get caught in accidental multi-pods activation. Another lesson of LW is: stealth. XCOM: EU, EW and its LW variants are not as stealth focused as XCOM 2, however, you can play stealthy. There are more than 1 class with the ability to shoot outside visual range, and there are Hit and Run perk. You have Concealment scouts, and battlescanners. There will be times you can not stealth your ways around. At those times, grenade, shotgun. Then smoke your own squad. A nice addition of LW is a "tank" sort of class. Classes that with the right perks and equipments, can take damage consistently and not die. Suppression draws fire to the suppressor. There are equipments that lowers the soldier's defence, making him a fire magnet.
Wow, after my first playthrough I lost terribly and now after watching your videos I'm doing so much better! I really love XCOM but it felt like the barrier of entry was way too high until now so I just wanted to say thanks :)
And I'd like to thank you for taking the time to leave this comment! I'm glad to hear that my videos have been helpful and hope you win your current campaign!
Hey tapcat, i just found out how the hospital times arent random ( and it wasnt precise too) it depends on how good your hp, lesser the operative hp count, if damaged, the longer the hospital times, lets say the op total hp is 3 bars, and op is damaged around 1 bar, there is a 60% he will be wounded, and 20% will be lightly wounded, and 10% will be the later, and the higher the damage, the percentage are changed, but i can guaranteed if a high armor and hp operative would have a chance of lower times spend on hospital, and if there is a already damaged operative it may help to decrease the hospital chance by healing them to a quite full hp before the end of a operation. I may be wrong there but somehow it works by my experiment
I’d argue that exo, spider, and wraith suits are equally as important as weapons. Exo just gives you a stronger grenade with a smaller blast radius for any soldier, while spider and wraith suits can massively help snipers and rangers get more hits in
Flash grenades also prevent enemies from using certain abilities, such as the vipers tongue lash and poison spit. And that enemies such as the codex will always prioritise shooting the mimic beacon even over using their psionic abilities
I noticed in my latest Commander playthrough that the aliens were employing a "Flashbang Bankruptcy" tactic against me. Basically, they would always seem to get the guy who was carrying a flashbang, and I wouldn't notice that and thus, abandon the flashbang. 35§ for a replacement isn't a lot by itself, but it starts adding up right quick.
Jo Te When you don’t mind your entire campaign to be possibly be ruined by things like cheesy lines of sight, input errors, terrible rng or random bugs then yes it can be pretty fun
No don't save before every mission & save at every start of a mission that way you can undo your mistakes & take less damage I do that & only come out wit one soldier hit wit a few damage taken as well as quicker healin so like 7 days or so of scannin & they are back to the field like they never left
Thank you so much for making this video. This game was punishing me and I was about to walk away thinking it wasn’t for me. Now I am CRUSHING IT (relatively) and Flawless missions are my new normal. I’m so happy I found this video!
This is a really well done video. I'd stopped playing the game because I wasn't getting into the flow. I may or may not go back but this video at least makes me think if I do go back Ill at least enjoy myself.
I'm mostly a long war player, and after hundreds of hours I realized 4 things: 1. You will get shot regardless of how careful you are. 2. The higher the difficulty, the more you are going to get hit by the same porcentage. 3. 0% shots can hit. 4. 100% shots can miss. Knowing that, I experimented with another strategy that I ended up loving, tho it was mostly useful in xcom eu, and that is: you want them to hit you always, but only to 1 troop: the tank. In xcom eu was glorious because damage reduction was allowed to nullify all damage if you had the same DR that the damage they have dealt to you.
This is just what I needed man. I'm a unknown veteran, I've beaten third difficulty ironman in Unknown and Within and XCOM 2 kicks my ass on Commander Ironman. I have a hard time dealing with Vipers and soldier management.
I hope it helps, and just so you're aware I have a whole playlist of XCOM 2 guides, including one on how to tack your nemesis... the dreaded vipers! ;)
Haha! I watched that one! It makes sense that they are top priority, no wonder I have so much trouble with them! I'm watching the Viper King right now because I've never fought him. He should be fun, eh?
The sectoids in my game think they're Rambo. They will literally run into my squad, even when there's corpses around, and shoot a guy for 4-6, usually killing them.
Thanks for this- I was really struggling with this game, running into the exact problem you described, a slow grind where I'm just underpowered because of too many injuries. I was starting to piece together some of these through trial and error (like how important frost bomb and haywire protocol are), but having this holistic strategy will really help!
Yea, I’m experiencing this right now. I prioritize research and armor first. My soldiers be in the hospital forever. So I’ll be restarting now. Because I’m in a rush trying to get my weapons up as I’m later in the game and the enemy be eating all my ammo.
Hey Tapcat I'm kinda late to the XCOM 2 party because I needed a whole new PC just to play the damn game. Just wanted to say thank you for all your help and hard work.
@@TapCat you are, your review was a desperate plea for people not to F up. I had start again because I had fallen in love with a team, that team hadn't been swapped. Bad for me.
I always loved taking 5 free actions on sharpshooters (even if half of those free actions influence the fact that I won't get things that will hit harder or inconvinience the enemy... It's also a real shame that damage in XCOM 2 is not proportional to the lowest hp value they had in their mission... then again there was a man IRL who survived having a combat knife lodged in their skull down to the handle, but despite it doing no significant permanent braindamage it still probably took a long time to heal the leftover injury,
Played through my first losing campaign the total opposite of how you explain. Will be implementing your ideas. Especially the mimic beacons which I didn’t use once because it seemed useless to me at the time.
I can honestly say that when I started looking at the game this way, it completely turned around my results because I was getting also stomped when I first started playing. Good luck with your next campaign!
After being 75% done with chimera squad I decided to pick this up. This is the quickest a game has ever slapped me in the face for not knowing how to play it. I cant stop playing because I love everything about the game, except it's combat.
Im watching your videos and Im finding very accurate. As I played Enemy Unknown, I think this one is kinda easier, at least for me, in the other game the grind for everything is unreal and plus... you loose countrys quite often, maybe I didn't play it with more awareness of itself. Anyways, Im finding my very own strategy in Xcom 2 on Xbox one, and its obviously getting your squad of 6 as soon is posible, I got at least 1 spark unity since is very helpful to destroy enemies shields and protection plus acid grenades, the mimic beacon is great, but in further missions its almost useless since enemies deal +10 damage per hit haha. My squad is little, but I never let them get hounded, since all the things you've already talk about. But Im always trying to go easy steps and most of all with watch paces, because its way easy to kill 2-4 enemies at one turn than getting the full squad of 6-10 in one turn, thats pretty much you are done haha. I almost made contact with all the regions and got the best weapons and armor, grinding supplies and engineers most of my time, data too. Im having so much fun, but I think its a little slow the way of playing on the console rather than in the pc. Thumbs up for you and your channel, you're doing a great job! I hope I complete the game in my first attempt! I hope I sounded right since im using no translator at all hahaha. Greetings!
Glad to hear it, and good luck with the game! My advice is to start on rookie and worry ore about learning how things work rather than if you initially struggle in combat.
Everything in XCOM2 is about crowd control. Facing the enemy in small groups, stunning and shutting down enemies, bogging ADVENT down with a horde of the Lost, popping those mimic decoys, etc. and most importantly, focusing your fire so you get a solid kill rather than leave a lot of wounded but still fully operational stragglers around.
one tactic I use to prevent the enemy from shooting at me and exposing them forcing them to cover is having a grenadier designed to blast away buildings and cover it is simple yet effective
Thank you sir. I enjoy your vids on these topics. The game is awesome no doubt and having a guide like this makes it much more enjoyable (i.e. not wasting time getting frustrated at the game!)
Another way to consider your helpful tip on taking better weapons before better armour is to ask yourself what you spend most of your time doing. More time making hits or taking hits? You should be MAKING hits many multiple times more than you should be taking them, ergo the armour is useful on far fewer occasions, even if it saves your life on the comparatively rare times that it's needed.
Great vid. I played this for an hour before saying "fuck this game". Ive been playing a ton of XCom EW and loved it, so thought id try XCOM 2. This vid helped a lot on my second try of the game. Ive done 4 missions with only 1 wound so far, (lucky pot shot across the map through my full cover) and im now loving it. Ignoring sectoids on their first turn is a huge help that is the opposite of what other vids say. Good job!
Thx, going to play it on easiest mode with iron man off for my first playthrough. After that a few months or a year down the line I replay it on regular or classic (did the same with enemy unknown).
U got it explained very nice, xcom is very different then other rts games where u can afford to lose units. Xcom 2 is way more punishing and I like it.
![[Live] : ONE 169 วันนี้!! "อนาโตลี vs อูมาร์"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IK3YZVWuFJg/mqdefault.jpg)
Tip 1) Flashbang breaks Mind Control.
Tip 2) Flashbang Codex before you do damage to it to prevent splitting.
thanks for that second one - basicly... take a lot of flashbangs with you^^
I didnt know they break mind control. I know what to build now
Do i flashbang the mind controller or the mind controlled?
@@redouaneelhamidi4848
The alien guy who controlls your member.
didn't know this and that will help getting the codex a LOT faster. thanks!
I'm really bad, but I just can't stop playing.
Just the will to keep playing and a determination to get better will help you quite a bit. Good luck!
i think everyone is really bad when they first start playing xcom it is known for being punishing
koma I’ve been at this one guerrilla mission for 3 days now. I’m so frustrated and even have had to change the difficulty to rookie. I really want to like the game but it’s hard when I have only 8 turns in most missions to complete it
Never beat it but i still fricken loved it all 5 times
Well, giving it another go a year later
God I need this. All this game does is hurt me but I can't walk away.
So true...
me too
The Internet Killed Music (x)
That's xcom baby.
Like an abusive SO
I can't believe Tom Hanks is teaching me how to play Xcom 2
Everyone needs a hobby!
I thought it might be John Malcovich...lol
I’ll never un-hear this now. & I’ll never stop watching his videos now, as well. I see this as a non-issue
fuck, now i am seeing tom hanks in my head recording the audio
@@ACHILLES-bu7sz haha!
To sum up the tips (which start at 7:30): 1) kill enemies that use attacks over enemies that use abilities 2) use mimic beacons, flashbangs, frostbomb to lower ur chances of being attacked 3) first avenger upgrades: guerilla training tool and AWC, 4) research/upgrade weapons before researching/upgrading armor, 5) don't pick abilities that require hunkering down or are passive
Thx buddy
Right? Vid has good advice, but it took forever to get to the point.
2:45
1) Throw axe at enemy through the window
2) Break window
3) Shoot at enemy through the window
I've noticed that sometimes happening in my games and it always makes me laugh lol
camly opens window only to close it immediatly after throwing axe
proceeds to break window to shoot through
One of my favourite things to do with a flashbang, is to save it if I can, until I find a Codex or two on the map... launch the flashbang at it and it scrambles its ability to clone and teleport so they are much easier to manage in the earlier stages of the game.
Thanks for posting this, as I hadn't heard about that particular use before. Flashbangs are kind of like a swiss army knife, useful for a wide variety of purposes!
Try it out next time, works a treat!
sweet
Wow, that actually works?! I gotta try that now...
The best strategy for xcom 2 that I found was letting the UFO shoot down the avenger. then using overwatch to pile up the kills of aliens. The avenger defense mission will continue until you blow up the becon so if you just sit on the ramp and kill each set of alien reinforcements you can really rack up the XP. It takes a couple of hours.....but by doing this in game, all my xcom soldiers had over 100 kills and were all fully ranked long before the final mission.
Well, you have to get to that mission in the first place but it is certainly true that if you have the patience to sit there long enough then you can level up everyone who participates.
I didn't know the reinforcements never stopped coming, and I only had 5 soldiers left in my armory. I killed at least 50 aliens until my last soldier was killed. It felt like Custer's last stand
@@TapCat everyone who participates lol hahaha
You mean killing aliens 😅
@@Chris-dr8xw Lad Xcom soldiers holding the line because the Commander ordered them to
@@arthurwilliams5357 what
Thank you, you litteraly save me and my time... I start this game 1 week ago and aliens completely destroyed me and my team in veteran, I changed the difficulty but not the things 😂, then I went looking for some tutorials and I must say that your tutorials are the best, because you speak slowly and clearly, so even those who are not English can understand without too much trouble.
Thank you again
You're welcome, thanks for watching and good luck in your next campaign!
So addicting!! ive started like 5 new games since i got this about a month ago, and no i dont mean i completed it 5 times, i mean i messed up and got all soldiers killed 5 times over with no supplies left nor any high level soldiers to get far... its such a HARD game but its very very addictive, regardless of how many times i get frustrated with it, i always come back later that day, 10/10 i love this game, i love this channel also... very helpful, thanks Mr Hanks.
Ive been playing xcom since 96! Highly refined addictive gameplay with xcom2! Soo (enjoyably) replayable!
i've found the key is to progress very slowly through the required events... dont skulljack early, let avatar get to breaking point and then do the first base... never do anything until you absolutely have to in the story progression and you can build up a wicked squad 6 man with a few lieutenants before you even see your first codex...skip over mag weapons for everyone other than the rifle.... build your contacts into as many avatar base areas as you can and only attack them when you are a day or two away from losing
lordoflek thanks bro
That's funny, I just discovered that is exactly the case in FTL too.
Wait why skip mag weapons
Yes, I have noticed some difference trying to go slower too. But then I get too confident and then I get wiped out.
Just rush to get the plasma Lance without doing story missions and then get a sharpshooter with killzone and a superior scope and extended mag and then boom, instant invincibility
To anyone playing in 2021 this guys videos still apply for almost every aspect of the game, the only thing I want to add is get out of the habit of trying to "bring 1 of each class type" on a mission, I cant tell you how many times I just threw a team together and had no use for my sniper, sometimes its finding giving 2 people med kits is better than bringing a specialist.
I like your videos man. Wished I found you sooner. I play on console so I appreciate you not using game changing mods.
I'm glad you did find us, welcome to the channel!
TripThree74 hey do you ever see anyone on multiplayer
I believe the avoid getting shot as much as possible is the only viable strategy for the game, i never managed to get anything else to work consistently 👍 an important consequence of that, is that we need to try everything possible to only trigger one pod at a time... otherwise we will be shot upon. Triggering pods and then retreating that doesn't work either, at least never managed to make that work. Awesome videos 👍👍
I usually just use grenadiers as tanks since u get armor at ramk 1. Then all my ither units never get touched
Please define "only trigger one pod at a time?"
@@Fer-De-Lance I believe that he is referring to the small groups the enemies are found in on a mission. Only trigger (i.e. spot) one group (or pod) of enemies at a time. Even if concealment is broken, the other enemy groups that you don't see won't engage.
Best way to do well? When you enter a mission SAVE.
If it does not go well - LOAD the SAVE and do it again.
You can do this until you do it right and don't suffer.
Cheating? I guess so - But - It works :)
I actually agree and would add that it can be a good learning tool. Even if you do well, you can try the same mission with a different approach to see how that would have gone.
TapCat I just got it 2 days ago. Big learing curve. Not the kind of game I normally play. Your tips are very helpful. Thanks for the effort. :)
Bonediga yep exactly what i'm doing
Save scumming but okay
I tried that strategy - still didn't work. My first play through was terrible. Avatar project got completed and I just quit the game. I played it on Normal thinking that it would be easy enough, but after one failed mission after another, multiple severely injured troops, under-powered soldiers, and continuous frustrating missions, I just gave up. So much for enjoyment and relaxation. I guess I'll drop it down to the easiest level and see if that goes any better.
Thanks for sharing. You're totally correct about killing those easier NPC before going after the tougher ones. Changed my strategy and it works.
This is by far the best xcom2 vid I have seen. I got about 40 missions in and realised that all my grenadiers were either underpowered or dead, I was left with 5 captains all sharp shooters and specialists and two ranger majors I started again yesterday so will look at this again with your tips in mind
Play the Campaign on Beginner first and play around with the Avenger and Tactics without out right losing, helped me out
That’s what I do with most games
Unless it’s a sequel I already beat the previous
I know it's an old video, but I feel there are serious things missing from this guide (I agree with the things stated 100% btw). Ppl probably moved on to WOTC, but stuff I say here mostly applys there as well.
1. The most important thing people need to know in order to beat XCOM 2 on any difficulty, is this: rangers are the best class, shard guns are the best weapon! XCOM 1 vets will be confused by this because in that game shotguns are very situational. But in this game, the aim penally from range is severely reduced, and they are perfectly viable for mid-range engagements. They are at least as good as heavy weapons in ANY situation. The trick to making them reliable at mid-range is aim PCS on rangers and scopes on shotguns. Coming from XCOM 1, my first instinct was that stacking mobility and crit is the way to go, but that's the completely wrong approach. Shotgun (+bladestorm) will murder anything at close range, you don't need to improve that aspect of the weapon/class. So, the goal in your first 2-3 months is to be able to field 2-3 blademasters and one phantom ranger on every mission, and equip all of them with as many aim bonuses the loot drops and the gray market allows. GTS should be making new rangers at all times for the first 3 months, and you should be getting a level-up on them asap.
1a. Again, do not think of rangers as close range only soldiers. Sure, stab away if you know the coast is clear, blade storm with the stun sword will solve a lot of your problems. But especially in the early game, just use rangers the way you would your specialists or rookies. Blow up walls, take shots on exposed guys, overwatch camp as much as the timer allows. Spider armor does wonder for their mobility before you get hit-n-run on everyone, and getting onto a roof will fix all of your aim issues.
2. Just like the shard gun is the best weapon, but not the most powerful in the late game, ranger is not the most powerful class in the game. That class is the psi-op, by far. Your late game team should consist of 4 psi-ops, with a ranger and a sniper for support. Honestly, if you managed to fully train 2 psi-ops, you have won the game. Just don't get them wounded on easy missions that you could have finished with rangers. You want to start working on training your psi-ops as soon as you have stabilised your early game. This means you want at least shard guns, resistance comms and lancer autopsy (swords) before researching psionics. A good rule of the thumb is that you want to be building a psi-lab when your first 3rd level room is excavated. If it's a power coil, put it there because it requires a lot of energy. Make sure you have enough elerium (and power if needed) to upgrade it asap. You don't need all of the abilities on them, you only need void rift with schism, lance, stasis, inspire and domination. You should have 1-2 guys with solace, and fortress is good but not mandatory (it's good early for baiting mecs and mutons, later in the game the enemies won't be taking turns at all).
2a. As I said, you will want 4 psi-ops in the late game. The way you train them is to get each of them to inspire. Having 3-4 soldiers with inspire will allow you to clear facilities quickly and without wounds. You do this by going in as close as concealment allows, then placing the evac. Wait 4 turns for evac cooldown to end, place the psi-ops in the square, make them bukkake their purple goo on your highest mobility guy and run him in to plant the x4. Now pull out your psi-op, make another evac closer to the guy planting the charge, plant the charge and get out. ez.
2b. When a Shadow chamber tells you there will be Sectopods and/or Andromedons on a late game mission, bring at least one psi-op. Stasis is the best way to deal with the Sectopod (haywire would be good if it was reliable, not to mention it's attached to worthless soldier), since you don't want to spend your turn killing him while his friends are still around. Mind control the Andromedon, his acid bomb will be a huge help vs other aliens on the map since it shreds armor like nothing else.
2c. In the end game, when you have 4 guys with psi lances and/or void rifts, the game is trivial. Use those to clear the screen, use a sharpshooter with face-off/fanfire + blue screen to kill the robots that could have survived, ranger with rapid fire and talon ammo unloads on big bads like berserkers and Gatekeepers. As always mind control all of the andromedons, Gatekeepers are decent as well once you get the Alien psi-amp.
3. Snipers are your main support class. You want to one on each mission from the start and feed him kills to max him out asap. They should be built as mostly as gunslingers, though long watch is much better than return fire because you can use it to pull pods from half across the map using the phantom ranger as scout. [The next part I'm not 100% sure about, it used to work like this when I played the game, but could have been changed by patches.] The best sniper rifle perk is not even a sharpshooter perk, it's implacable. Combined with death from above, it allows you to shoot your rifle again if you score a kill on the first rifle shot, like a mini-serial. This means you can't take quickdraw, but it's worth it.
3a. The other classes are situational and not worth the xp to level up. You will get some specialists and grenadiers trough missions and the black market. The grenadier is useful in the early game before you get your team of rangers leveled, but in the mid game they are not worth bringing on missions anymore. Rangers can blow up cover just as well and the utility perks gunners get (shredder, holo, rupture) can be acquired on rangers via AWC. The only good thing about a grenadier is that he can have 2 frost grades with a decent aoe. Specialists are almost complete garbage. Ranged hacking can save you that one turn in order to not lose the mission, and sometimes 4 guaranteed damage on a viper in full cover is required, but even losing a mission or a soldier due to not having that option when you need it is preferable to wasting tons of exp on a specialist. The only really useful perk they have is scan protocol because it solves the burrowed chrysallid bullshit on late game terror missions and the alien gate, but you will get an already levelled up spec from somewhere by then. Healing is useless, there are no long war style prolonged firefights in XCOM 2, you either end the turn with all aliens dead or controlled, or you screwed up. Sparks absolute, distilled garbage. They can't hit anything. What else do you need to know?
4. Abuse the AI. You will often see let's plays on youtube in which the player seemingly plays recklessly on ironman/impossible, and he seems just lucky that the aliens did stupid shit. In reality, these guys just know how to end their turn so the aliens use their mostly useless abilities instead of taking shots. The sectoid will always use psi if it can't flank you, so just ignore him and make sure you don't expose a flank. Mutons will grenade if they see two soldiers together, even if they are both in the open (not 100% about that, but fairly certain). They will also melee anything they can, even if it pulls them out of cover, just like lancers. Look at those two idiots around 14:00 in the video, meme beacon (or untouchable ranger) in melee range is the best way to deal with mutons as it pulls them out of cover for easy kills on the next turn. Archons will use blazing pinions, the worst alien ability in the game if they see 3 soldiers grouped up (the size of the aoe is about as much as a flashbang). They will melee (which hurts), but they can't dash and melee like lancers and your rangers, so just keep distance. Advent MECs will also prefer their aoe attack in the same way as archons, except theirs will actually hit (tho for much less damage than their regular shot). One codex will always use their aoe, the others will shoot. Berserkers will always melee the closest thing, so just abuse untouchable...
Thank’s you so much bro
Wow thats the most impressive guide ive seen so far. I'll still keep spark though, i dunno why, i just like how he talks.
Gonna try most of this put on my next playtrough thanks
You're absolutely right about Rangers. Run and Gun and melee attack is OP.
Well, this explains why I've yet to win a game of XCOM 2, haha.
Have you tried one of the mods that lets you use Master Chief's armor for your soldiers? That might do the trick!
FWIW, I'm working on a video covering base building in XCOM 2 and am going to try and do more videos with tips for XCOM 2 in the next few weeks. Hopefully, they will help people who are struggling a bit to get over the hump and emerge victorious. Now get back out there and... finish this fight!
TapCatVids
Mostly I just need time to commit to the game. I'm working full-time on a Presidential campaign in Iowa right now, so I have essentially zero free-time.
I wondered if you had a chance to really dig into it yet. The good news is that the election will be over relatively soon and you can get back to saving the planet from alien invaders.
TapCatVids
Well, see, if my guy doesn't win, I'll probably be using XCOM 2 as a planning tool for a real insurgency, as the parallels of the situation will be striking.
Halo4Lyf Well, have you gotten to play yet? The god-emperor Trump has been elected now lol. All hail Kek.
My best piece of advice is to only activate one pod on your turn (unless you are time constrained). It's the difference between having 3 aliens to kill or 6, everything else is secondary in my opinion.
To do that you need to move up carefully and have a feel for how pods tend to be spread across the map. Always use your ranger to scout and when you do engage DO NOT MOVE UP TO FLANK if you think another pod is on the map. The map won't always work out this way, they are set up to be between you and the objective and patrol also, so can end up stacked on top of each other. But when you see an isolated group of 3, take your chance and don't wait until they stack up.
Here's a list of the enemies that you need to kill from first to last:
1. Chrysalid & Sectopod
2. Berserker & gatekeeper
3. MEC & Stun Lancer
4. Andromedon
5. Archon & Muton
6. Viper
7. Codex
8. Sheildbearer
9. Officers
10. Normal ADVENT troopers
11. Faceless
12. Sectoids
The rooms you need to build in order:
1. GTS
2. Proving Ground
3. Power Relay
4. Resistance comms
5. AWC
Where's Thin Men? jkjk
I Have No Name codex is that low?
Jedijazz4 Wait what? No name codex?
Oh wait it's his name
I'm fucking stupid
That moment when playing the video on 1.25 sounds like it's on normal speed
You're so true
Omg
Had to check my settings, I thought it was on 0.75x
1.75 still sounds normal. Amazing
He no longer sounds so fucking bored.
Thanks man, i played it when it came out becuase I love the first one(which I finished), love frickin hard games and love turn based strategy, but this game kicked my ass!
After X failed attempts and nearly 30 hours I quit... Funny enough I did the same thing with Dark Souls. After almost 30 hours I still couldn't figure out how things really work, although I had already killed 12 Bosses, I still quit. But then DS 2 came out, and I just watched someone like you, explaining how weapons, upgrades etc. work in Dark Souls and then I played thorugh it, loved it and smashed DS 3 when it came out, too :)
Now, thanks to your video, I'll give this game another try because I've been thinking about playing it a lot since I quit. Now I feel like I got a basic strategy with which I can work and hopefully kick some alien ass :D
Nice video, appreciated!
Sequencing attacks is also really important as many players will know. The most basic play, is to use explosives to destroy cover and armour, and then give your other soldiers a better shot at a debuffed enemy. Broadly, this will mean the Grenadier should fire their grenade launcher first.
Equally, think about how the enemy can buff each other, or debuff you. Shield Bearers for example, can be a real pain and I always make them a priority even though they rarely do anything to directly hurt you, they can make other enemies harder to kill. The Codex's Rift attack can force your soldiers to waste a turn on moving and reloading.
Players can use the Ranger's Reaper, or the Sniper's Serial to kill ridiculous numbers of enemies if you plan in advance, and use your other soldiers to set up kills for you.
And on a side note, if you have the Frost Grenade from that DLC, you can freeze the Gatekeepers when they are open (they close again once you land a single hit) giving you multiple attacks on them.
Well .. I got this game 2 days ago .. he first day I had some problems I had to deal with .. and the next day (today/night .. it's morning now) ..
I have created 25 or so characters in my character pool ... then I played the tutorial + first mission ... quit the game .. and made another 30 or so characters LOL ...
I think I will make another 20 or 30 when I wake up and then finally play the game for real xD ..
I made characters from my real life, myself, friends, historical&mythological figures, people I hate, people I love, tons of pop culture characters/characters from tv, books, movies and even a n even some real life soldiers who passed away fighting terrorists. But every time I'm done I think of someone new or a way to improve an already exiting character etc.
Me too
I found something close when I played before looking up guides. Grenades. I got so addicted to the guaranteed hits of 2-3 damage that I'd waste all of them at the start of a mission and then need them later. I was onto something at least. Thanks for the help!
I am a Enemy Unknown and Within veteran as in I can beat the game on Ironman on the second hardest difficulty. It's a challenge but it's fun and you get the ups and downs but I always manage to win. Xcom 2 however kicks my ass on Veteran difficulty so thanks for this video because I am just getting whooped every mission loosing 1-2 soldiers either to wounds or dead.
Despite the obvious similarities, XCOM 2 presents a different type of challenge from Enemy Unknown and it requires a different mindset on the battlefield. These aliens have very specific tendencies and knowing how to take advantage of, and even manipulate, them is what will help you break through and start thriving. I hope the videos help, good luck out there, commander!
GamingNoobs101 fuck you buddy I'm struggling on rookie. Lmao
:) I am almost dropping down there myself mate so hard. It makes it worse when you got the timer missions. Good luck with it.
Very true TapCat Xcom 2 is just a different monster. I played the previous ones quite aggressively which I thought would help here but like you have mentioned in the videos the main goal per mission is to avoid being hit. This is Dark Souls levels of hard and I love it.
keep the vids coming :)
I prefer playing on Rookie to unwind in the evening as you can make more mistakes or, to put it another way, have more tactical freedom. The higher levels' one-shot-kills make the gameplay more formulaic and, for me, rob it of the enjoyment. (Clearly my effort vs reward ratio does not meet Bradford's requirements!)
That's totally legit in my book, Andrew! While I've chosen to go the Legend Ironman route for the rush that comes from beating the odds, that can make the game very stressful and draining. Not everyone wants to do that and there's no reason to. If playing on rookie is how you or anyone else will get their best value out of the money you paid for XCOM 2, I'm all for it.
So glad I found this channel. With x-com 2 being free on psn now I’ve been trying it out and have been seemingly wanting to figure out how to quit having most of my soldiers die or get wounded every mission.
I felt much the same way when I started playing, it took a while to figure some things out and make progress. I'm glad to hear that you're finding my videos helpful and good luck to you in your campaign!
I thought I was just getting old... but it seems that this game is actually hard as EFF... much harder than all its predecessors.
VERY helpful videos man... how I've never run across you until now totally escapes me.
Glad to hear you found them helpful, best of luck in your campaign!
I can't emphasize Mimic beacons enough. Build and take every mimic beacon you can, as they are the single best item in the game. They take aggro priority for all single target damage, so as long as your party isn't too close together, you can throw a mimic beacon far away behind cover and land free shots for a turn. If you can get six for your whole squad, that is effectively SIX TURNS you can rampage on the enemy and deal free damage.
Make sure you throw mimic beacons where they can't be easily destroyed by the enemy, and you will make your Xcom 2 experience significantly easier.
Also, Predator armor and Warden armor make all of your squadmates more survivable at a low research and supply cost, so rush Predator armor as soon as possible.
This video literally took me from almost giving up XCOM to flawless in almost every mission. Thank you very much
I was getting a beating in Rookie, now Veteran is not even fun anymore. Next step is Commander + Iron Man
Thank you it's great to hear that, and good luck in your Commander Ironman campaign!
Thanks cat, I was here seven years ago and you helped me ACTUALLY ENJOY the game. Situations change, obviously but just looking at this game like “chess” made me sit back and look, I love strategy games like this and you nailed it then..now I’m playing again and dominating thanks to your words/advice!! You da man 🤙 much love brother!!!
Thank you very much for the kind words, glad I could help!
@@TapCat just wanted to follow up, after actually trying and following your tips..I beat the game for the first time! Didn’t lose a single troop and absolutely destroyed the aliens! Thanks again man, I’m restarting today on the next difficulty, now I’m sure I’ll get my butt handed to me on several missions 🤪
@@blakedixon2838 That is awesome, congratulations on doing so well! Good luck with your next campaign, something tells me that you'll win that one too.
Glad to see people still play this game. Love it when the mission relies on someone hitting a 90% shot and they miss.
Getting in to Xcom 2 pretty late. But, loving the game and thanks for your very informative video guides!
Welcome to the channel and thanks for the positive feedback!
ThePersistentNoob not as late as me, i just got it today
i got it yesterday
Oh boy I mustve come in way too late, just got it today lol
I just got into xcom and everything you say has happened to me.Im on my 5 new game and it’s tough.Thank you !
Hey TapCat, can I just take this opportunity to say Thankyou so much. It's thanks to your videos and guides that I'm able to play and beat this game and have such a fun experience doing it. I got the game on launch, but failed over and over again. I recently picked up the game again and was determined to beat it because I have loved this series for a very long time and it's because of your videos that I was able to finally beat the game and have a really enjoyable experience as well. I mean I only beat the game on normal which to some is Meh but to some even normal is decent considering how hard this game can be.
I mean executing a Gatekeeper at full health with a Repeater Specialist. It doesn't get much better than that. So Thankyou bro 😁
Eight years later, this really helped me. Thank you
Glad it helped!
I am starting to play XCOM and turn-based games for my first time. Your videos are being very helpful to develop my strategies and to discover another turn-based games
I'm convinced this is the most difficult game to ever be created. I'VE BEEN STUCK ON THE FIRST LEVEL FOR 4 HOURS, AND I'M PLAYING ON ROOKIE!
I just got xcom 2 for nintendo switch, and I keep going back to your videos again and again since I'm new to the xcom franchise and I want to learn from the best. It is a grueling game but thank goodness for the save/load file. Keep up the good work!
I'm with you! Its brutal, are you playing handheld or docked?
@@OrbitalShell I always play handheld. And it looks and feels really well. This is my first game of the xcom franchise and I love it!
Ordered the game today, got no idea what I'm stepping into assuming it's changed from enemy Unknown this guide's been helpful
I've restarted this game like over 30 times by now
I feel like that 🤞
Aren't you busy defending The Great Tomb of Nazarick?
the way you build your explanation for your play philosophy is rock-solid, and is the type of explanation that's going to be valuable to me in my second try playing. now that I have my goals in check it should be a lot more fun to play. thanks, great vid.
Game just went to £20 with all DLC on Steam, So im watching while i download :) I played all the original old Xcom games waay back and im really looking forward to adding this to my games library. Thanks for the info. Subscribed
Meh, game already feels clunky and dependent on overly repeated cinematics...but i genuinely enjoy this kind of game and it seems to stay pretty true to the original. Game were unforgiving as fuck in those days.. lol and i dont mind the trial and error... Care to recommend any mods? i already got camera sorted. Is there something for a mini map? i have no idea why there isn't one..? Isometic games are a great base plan...but no overhead? within the first few missons i have defo completely returned from a cinematic with a different compass... QQEEWW ETC ETC...nvm . its and old game...ish..
Things you can do: 1)A ranger squad with exo armor that has the cone one shot weapon and the ability to restealth, so you can sneak and aoe entire group patrols. Also frost grenades help when you run out of your expermental one shot weapons. 2) Invest in "hospital" rooms and you the medical rest bonus to reduce infarmy time. 3) Also for the bosses that react each time a squadmate performs an action, just know that they try to prioritise the acting squadmate with their actions and position accordingly.
I just bought XCOM-2 WOTC for the Xbox One after playing XCOM-2 regular. Your videos are extremely helpful. I was attacking the wrong enemies first.
Glad to hear that the videos have been helpful, good luck!
im subbing just because of the way you sound and word things. Very simple and easy to understand THANK YOU!!!
Just started playing this a few days ago. Even on easy mode, I’m having trouble. This is the video I needed.
I've started taking at least five mimic beacons with me into battle and it helps tremendously. The enemy hardly fires any shots at the team.
I love mimic beacons, but it's usually difficult to get enough faceless corpses to make that many until late in the game.
I'm not gonna lie to this day I still have not been able to beat this game on any difficulty, usually cause I give up too soon but, this guide and the top 5 tips one has a lot of things that took me from the early game to the late game. The tip about prioritizing targets that may seem less dangerous but are actually more likely to fire at you, and the one about minimizing hospital times single handedly completely changed the way I approach the game. I'm starting a new run now AGAIN and I'm determined to beat this shit, but thanks for these videos.
P.S. in one of your playthroughs when you do shens last stand mission, and you get to the end and have to fight that giant walker thing after your whole team is basically already dead or about to die, made me laugh so hard, not just cause it was funny but because that EXACT same thing happened to me before I even watched it. The whole video I was like "oh no no no he doesnt know >:)"
Long War teaches you quite similar lessons: don't get shot. If the enemy force is superior, it is always more preferable to withdraw into better cover and overwatch them to death. LW gave a few classes more shots on OW than on its turn: you get to shoot at exposed enemies with no aim penalties. This, however, requires you to establish a clear fall back zone and not get caught in accidental multi-pods activation.
Another lesson of LW is: stealth. XCOM: EU, EW and its LW variants are not as stealth focused as XCOM 2, however, you can play stealthy. There are more than 1 class with the ability to shoot outside visual range, and there are Hit and Run perk. You have Concealment scouts, and battlescanners.
There will be times you can not stealth your ways around. At those times, grenade, shotgun. Then smoke your own squad. A nice addition of LW is a "tank" sort of class. Classes that with the right perks and equipments, can take damage consistently and not die. Suppression draws fire to the suppressor. There are equipments that lowers the soldier's defence, making him a fire magnet.
Wow, after my first playthrough I lost terribly and now after watching your videos I'm doing so much better! I really love XCOM but it felt like the barrier of entry was way too high until now so I just wanted to say thanks :)
And I'd like to thank you for taking the time to leave this comment! I'm glad to hear that my videos have been helpful and hope you win your current campaign!
These tips hold true all the way to the OG versions of the game.
You selling Clear Eyes my guy? All jokes aside thanks for the tips! Gonna attempt to beat this game once again
Hey tapcat, i just found out how the hospital times arent random ( and it wasnt precise too) it depends on how good your hp, lesser the operative hp count, if damaged, the longer the hospital times, lets say the op total hp is 3 bars, and op is damaged around 1 bar, there is a 60% he will be wounded, and 20% will be lightly wounded, and 10% will be the later, and the higher the damage, the percentage are changed, but i can guaranteed if a high armor and hp operative would have a chance of lower times spend on hospital, and if there is a already damaged operative it may help to decrease the hospital chance by healing them to a quite full hp before the end of a operation.
I may be wrong there but somehow it works by my experiment
I’d argue that exo, spider, and wraith suits are equally as important as weapons. Exo just gives you a stronger grenade with a smaller blast radius for any soldier, while spider and wraith suits can massively help snipers and rangers get more hits in
Agreed. Kill if possible, if not, try to manage and control.
Flash grenades also prevent enemies from using certain abilities, such as the vipers tongue lash and poison spit.
And that enemies such as the codex will always prioritise shooting the mimic beacon even over using their psionic abilities
Bright light... CANNOT SPIT!!
Officer : What the KCUF are you saying?!
XD
I noticed in my latest Commander playthrough that the aliens were employing a "Flashbang Bankruptcy" tactic against me. Basically, they would always seem to get the guy who was carrying a flashbang, and I wouldn't notice that and thus, abandon the flashbang. 35§ for a replacement isn't a lot by itself, but it starts adding up right quick.
Best strategy for Xcom 2, save literally every 60 seconds
Jo Te When you don’t mind your entire campaign to be possibly be ruined by things like cheesy lines of sight, input errors, terrible rng or random bugs then yes it can be pretty fun
No don't save before every mission & save at every start of a mission that way you can undo your mistakes & take less damage I do that & only come out wit one soldier hit wit a few damage taken as well as quicker healin so like 7 days or so of scannin & they are back to the field like they never left
Thank you so much for making this video. This game was punishing me and I was about to walk away thinking it wasn’t for me. Now I am CRUSHING IT (relatively) and Flawless missions are my new normal. I’m so happy I found this video!
That is awesome! Great work turning things around, I'm very glad to hear that watching my video helped.
This is a really well done video. I'd stopped playing the game because I wasn't getting into the flow. I may or may not go back but this video at least makes me think if I do go back Ill at least enjoy myself.
good stuff, it has been years sense I have played loving Xcom2 and your video makes some good points I have been learning and adapting.
I'm mostly a long war player, and after hundreds of hours I realized 4 things: 1. You will get shot regardless of how careful you are. 2. The higher the difficulty, the more you are going to get hit by the same porcentage. 3. 0% shots can hit. 4. 100% shots can miss.
Knowing that, I experimented with another strategy that I ended up loving, tho it was mostly useful in xcom eu, and that is: you want them to hit you always, but only to 1 troop: the tank. In xcom eu was glorious because damage reduction was allowed to nullify all damage if you had the same DR that the damage they have dealt to you.
TapCat great videos, am watching them all.
Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying them!
This is just what I needed man. I'm a unknown veteran, I've beaten third difficulty ironman in Unknown and Within and XCOM 2 kicks my ass on Commander Ironman. I have a hard time dealing with Vipers and soldier management.
I hope it helps, and just so you're aware I have a whole playlist of XCOM 2 guides, including one on how to tack your nemesis... the dreaded vipers! ;)
Haha! I watched that one! It makes sense that they are top priority, no wonder I have so much trouble with them! I'm watching the Viper King right now because I've never fought him. He should be fun, eh?
I followed your sectoid example and my sniper got killed from about 2 screens by the sectoid
The sectoids in my game think they're Rambo. They will literally run into my squad, even when there's corpses around, and shoot a guy for 4-6, usually killing them.
Thanks for this- I was really struggling with this game, running into the exact problem you described, a slow grind where I'm just underpowered because of too many injuries. I was starting to piece together some of these through trial and error (like how important frost bomb and haywire protocol are), but having this holistic strategy will really help!
Good video. Took the whole time to basically make a single point tho.
I just discovered how awesome this game is. Good advice, thx bro 🙏
I legit thought this was rambling up until the six minute mark. After that though, the dynamics you point are pretty solid.
This was very helpful. Thanks!
You're welcome!
not new to TBS.. but i was an xcom virgin..
dam, i was really impressed with this game.. real fun to play
I really like the way you approached this, thanks for the tips .👍🏼
Yea, I’m experiencing this right now. I prioritize research and armor first. My soldiers be in the hospital forever. So I’ll be restarting now. Because I’m in a rush trying to get my weapons up as I’m later in the game and the enemy be eating all my ammo.
Good luck, I hope you're able to get upgraded weapons in time!
Hey Tapcat I'm kinda late to the XCOM 2 party because I needed a whole new PC just to play the damn game. Just wanted to say thank you for all your help and hard work.
You're more than welcome, hope you enjoy playing!
Playing it on the switch, thanks for the guide. I love it, such a huge step up from part 1 on my vita.
Glad to help, good luck with your campaign!
@@TapCat you are, your review was a desperate plea for people not to F up. I had start again because I had fallen in love with a team, that team hadn't been swapped. Bad for me.
I’ve done missions before without being shot at once, it’s beautiful
Awesome content. Thank you! I am looking forward to giving this approach a try....
Best of luck!
I always loved taking 5 free actions on sharpshooters (even if half of those free actions influence the fact that I won't get things that will hit harder or inconvinience the enemy... It's also a real shame that damage in XCOM 2 is not proportional to the lowest hp value they had in their mission... then again there was a man IRL who survived having a combat knife lodged in their skull down to the handle, but despite it doing no significant permanent braindamage it still probably took a long time to heal the leftover injury,
Played through my first losing campaign the total opposite of how you explain. Will be implementing your ideas. Especially the mimic beacons which I didn’t use once because it seemed useless to me at the time.
I can honestly say that when I started looking at the game this way, it completely turned around my results because I was getting also stomped when I first started playing. Good luck with your next campaign!
Here's a reccomended mod, less gravely wounded. It makes stuff easier, sure, but it makes wounds more consistent.
After being 75% done with chimera squad I decided to pick this up. This is the quickest a game has ever slapped me in the face for not knowing how to play it. I cant stop playing because I love everything about the game, except it's combat.
I'm not ashamed to say that the combat also kicked my butt time and again when I started playing.
This helps a a lot! I had no idea about the random wound assignment and other tips.
Glad I could help!
Im watching your videos and Im finding very accurate. As I played Enemy Unknown, I think this one is kinda easier, at least for me, in the other game the grind for everything is unreal and plus... you loose countrys quite often, maybe I didn't play it with more awareness of itself.
Anyways, Im finding my very own strategy in Xcom 2 on Xbox one, and its obviously getting your squad of 6 as soon is posible, I got at least 1 spark unity since is very helpful to destroy enemies shields and protection plus acid grenades, the mimic beacon is great, but in further missions its almost useless since enemies deal +10 damage per hit haha.
My squad is little, but I never let them get hounded, since all the things you've already talk about. But Im always trying to go easy steps and most of all with watch paces, because its way easy to kill 2-4 enemies at one turn than getting the full squad of 6-10 in one turn, thats pretty much you are done haha.
I almost made contact with all the regions and got the best weapons and armor, grinding supplies and engineers most of my time, data too. Im having so much fun, but I think its a little slow the way of playing on the console rather than in the pc.
Thumbs up for you and your channel, you're doing a great job!
I hope I complete the game in my first attempt! I hope I sounded right since im using no translator at all hahaha. Greetings!
Good luck, I hope you win! Thank you for watching and for making the effort to comment even though English may not be your first language.
Loved this vid bro. Keep it up. I'm still playing this game strong.
Really enjoy your videos and help. Recently bought this on sale, just beginning
Glad to hear it, and good luck with the game! My advice is to start on rookie and worry ore about learning how things work rather than if you initially struggle in combat.
@@TapCat thanks, will do!
Everything in XCOM2 is about crowd control. Facing the enemy in small groups, stunning and shutting down enemies, bogging ADVENT down with a horde of the Lost, popping those mimic decoys, etc. and most importantly, focusing your fire so you get a solid kill rather than leave a lot of wounded but still fully operational stragglers around.
Good points here, especially on ability choosing
one tactic I use to prevent the enemy from shooting at me and exposing them forcing them to cover is having a grenadier designed to blast away buildings and cover it is simple yet effective
Thank you sir. I enjoy your vids on these topics. The game is awesome no doubt and having a guide like this makes it much more enjoyable (i.e. not wasting time getting frustrated at the game!)
Just discovered this game now, a lil late i know but ur vids are super useful. Thank you good sir.
You're more than welcome and good luck in your campaign!
Another way to consider your helpful tip on taking better weapons before better armour is to ask yourself what you spend most of your time doing. More time making hits or taking hits? You should be MAKING hits many multiple times more than you should be taking them, ergo the armour is useful on far fewer occasions, even if it saves your life on the comparatively rare times that it's needed.
I like your way of thinking.
You are clearly a wise and perceptive individual!
Great vid. I played this for an hour before saying "fuck this game". Ive been playing a ton of XCom EW and loved it, so thought id try XCOM 2. This vid helped a lot on my second try of the game. Ive done 4 missions with only 1 wound so far, (lucky pot shot across the map through my full cover) and im now loving it. Ignoring sectoids on their first turn is a huge help that is the opposite of what other vids say. Good job!
You're more than welcome, glad to hear that it helped!
More damage.
"Dead enemies CAN'T do damage" is a solid line of thought that doesn't need to be hunkered down against.
Thx, going to play it on easiest mode with iron man off for my first playthrough. After that a few months or a year down the line I replay it on regular or classic (did the same with enemy unknown).
Sounds like a good plan to me!
„Don't be there. If you are there, don’t be seen. If you are seen, don’t be targeted. If you are targeted, don’t be hit. If you are hit, don't die.“
U got it explained very nice, xcom is very different then other rts games where u can afford to lose units. Xcom 2 is way more punishing and I like it.
Not an rts though.