Wow! This is all really helpful.
Thought of two more questions: which soldier classes and skill choices for Officers and Haven Advisors ?
BTW, from trihero's comments about Gunner skills, I'm thinking the swapping around of some skills with LW2 v1.1 has made some of the trade-offs very different. I use this page, which seems to jive with what I see in-game.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 1100053040
One set of skills I usually avoid are those that are based upon the number of enemy in sight. Seems to be too conditional and the other choices are usually more flexible.
Anyhoo, here's my proposed builds. 3 of the classes have alternate builds (Assault Shocker, Shinobi Blade, Specialist Medic) for special missions. Still some uncertainty on all builds.
EDIT: A few builds updated after later discussion here.
Assaults
Lightning Reflexes - Trench Gun - Killer Instinct - Extra Conditioning - Close Encounters - Close Combat Specialist - Street Sweeper
EDIT dropped Close and Personal & Chain Lightning for Trench Gun & Street Sweeper
Assault Shocker
Electroshock - Arc Pulsar - Stun Gunner - Formidable - Rapid Fire - Close Combat Specialist - Chain Lightning
EDIT dropped Extra Conditioning for Formidable
One or two Assault Shockers for maximum Arc Thrower against tough targets, as well as swapping in Rapid Fire instead of Close Encounters. Might do that with my 1st Assault, who's a high-aim slowpoke.
Sines' comments made me seriously reconsider Lightning Reflexes. I'd given up on Slug Shot partly due to the 3-turn cooldown and high-aim AP rounds being better, instead going for the certain disorient Electroshock can give. But now I'm thinking Lightning Reflexes could still be a good choice despite other ways to deal with Overwatch. Still not sure, which is bad considering it's the first skill choice for Assaults.
As for the rest...ugh. Even the 2nd choice is already between 3 good ones. But watching videos of Technical's flame attacks, I've noticed cone lineup is tricky, so that's a stroke against Trench Gun and Street Sweeper. Still painful to pass up 3rd Fortify, 4th Formidable, and 6th Untouchable, because they would make the Assault more likely to survive running in close. And no 5th Rapid Fire because within 4 tiles, Close Encounters is better. Still wondering about 7th Chain Lightning without Electroshock.
Grenadiers
Needle Grenades - Heavy Ordinance - Bluescreen Bombs - Sting Grenades - Biggest Booms - Volatile Mix - Full Kit
Grenadier Sapper
Sapper - Heavy Ordinance - Boosted Cores - HEAT Warheads - Biggest Booms - Volatile Mix - Combat Engineer
Grenadier Ghost
Rapid Deployment - Protector - Bluescreen Bombs - Sting Grenades - Dense Smoke - Ghost Grenade - Full Kit
EDIT changed around build and have 2 variants.
Ended up with a mixture general purpose build and what trihero suggested: 2 pure left-side and right-side builds.
Main mixed Needle build for more loot and good Flashbang ambushes. Siapper is a left-side cover and armour destruction build. Ghost is a right-side support build with Dense Smoke and Ghost Grenade when they are needed. Soldiers with the main Needle build and the Sapper build should have AWC skills that boost crit damage to make best use of Biggest Booms.
Gunner
Grazing Fire - Shredder - Iron Curtain - Chain Shot - Cool Under Pressure - Saturation Fire - Rupture
Appears Gunner skills are now seriously swapped from what trihero is familiar with. The decisions are still tough at all ranks and may also be linked.
Center Mass is still a 1st choice along with Combatives and Grazing Fire. I don't think Combative is going to cut it even with +10 Dodge. But if 1st Grazing Fire works with 2nd Shredder, that's a skill combo that would be good the whole game. But Shredder is now combined with Hail of Bullets and Lockdown. And the difficult choices don't let up. It was painful passing up so many good skills.
Rangers
Walk Fire - Locked On - Cool Under Pressure - Grazing Fire - Ever Vigilant - Rapid Reaction - Rupture
EDIT: Followed trihero's revised advice. Walk Fire and Rupture to help against hard targets. The rest to support strong triple-shot overwatch via Rapdi Reaction as much as possible.
Sharpshooters
Rapid Targeting - HiDef Holo - Deadshot - Independent Tracking - Vital Point Targeting - Multitargeting - Double Tap
I went with mostly the holotargeting skills. With 4th Independent Tracking and 6th Multitargeting the Sharpshooter could keep all enemies he sees permanently holotargeted. And though 7th Serial is powerful, I think 1st Rapid Targeting with Double Tap is more flexible.
EDIT: Switching back to 6th Multitargeting with my general holotargeting build.
EDIT: Adding a more left-side build to emphasis sniping as suggested by trihero and others. This works on pushing up crit chance and getting kills.
Sharpshooter Sniper
Death From Above - Damn Good Ground - Deadshot - Low Profile - Aggression - Kubikiri - Serial
Shinobi
Ghostwalker - Shadowstep - Covert - Evasive - Conceal - Tradecraft - Rapid Fire
Shinobi Blade
Cutthroat - Shadowstep - Blademaster - Bladestorm - Coup de Grâce - Tactical Sense - Reaper
EDIT dropped Covert for Blademaster
Mostly max stealth oriented. Decided 2nd Shadowstep was just too good to go for Lone Wolf. Also picked 6th Tradecraft over Tactical Sense to make the stealth Shinobi, needed by almost all squads, as light in infiltration impact as possible.
Again, one or two variant builds to slice and dice as needed.
Specialists
Cool Under Pressure - Revival Protocol - Suppression - Failsafe - Sentinel - Killzone - Full Override
Specialist Medic
Medical Protocol - Revival Protocol - Field Medic - Field Surgeon - Savior - Scanning Protocol - Restoration
Main build is a combat hacker, mostly overwatch and suppression as advised by trihero.
Overwatch is powerful when used right, especially as you usually catch the enemy in the open. I have some criticism of some YouTubers not setting up enough other troops with overwatch before they spring an ambush attack; they end up with the survivors now in cover. On my Gatecrasher mission, overwatch hits and kills are the only thing that saved my squad when the ambush activated two pods instead of just one.
I still take 2nd Revival Protocol and 4th Failsafe. Clearing a negative mental status and avoiding all hacking negative effects are just too good to pass up. Thought does a failure still reveal the squad? And trihero is again right about going for 7th Full Override.
For the one or two medics, especially for those full press 8+ squad missions, a build from a single column. Ever since XCOM 2 and playing on Legendary, I've seen the utility of healing builds drop off. It's better to not get hit and neutralize and kill the enemy rather than heal. Especially in a long multimission campaign. However, I wonder if Field Surgeon alone would make it worth it at times.
Technicals
Suppression - Fortify - Shredder - Tandem Warheads - Incinerator - Salvo - Rapid Fire
Technical Rocketeer
Fire in the Hole - Biggest Booms - Concussion Rocket - Tandem Warheads - Javelin Rockets - Salvo - Bunker Buster
EDIT: To get the most out of rockets, a full left-side build for a few soldiers. As with Grenadier Sapper, the Rocketeer should have AWC skills that boost crit damage to make best use of Biggest Booms.
If you set up the ambush, that first BURNINATE (as Trogdor and @xwynns would put it
) can nearly take care of a full pod just by itself. But trihero's got a good point about skilling the Technical for its primary, despite some of the attraction of the other skills.
4th Tandem Warheads to get the most out of the rocket and grenades, considering the other two choices are likely less useful. I like 5th Incinerator better because it makes the 2 flamethrower shots wider and a bit deeper, partly solving the cone-aiming difficulty. Otherwise it's all about the primary. I think this makes the Technicals a good squad soldier as well as very good for Haven Advisor.
SPARK
Shredder - Rainmaker - Cool Under Pressure - Guardian - Holo Targeting - Hunter Protocol - Sacrifice
EDIT dropped Nova for Sacrifice
Got to agree with trihero about the SPARK: scout and overwatch. Tempted to take 5th Wrecking Ball just for the LOL's.
Could almost be worth it. 6th Bombard might be worth it too.
Officer
Oscar Mike - Get Some - Jammer - Lead by Example - Fire Discipline - Air Controller - Scavenger
EDIT dropped Focus Fire for Oscar Mike
Picked mostly the more offensive oriented skills. Oscar Mike is to give the squad a rare and possibly much needed movement boost.
Psi
The Psychics are going to be a work-in-progress. Open to suggestion if there's any choice involved.