Thoughts on the 1.3 changes

[LordYanaek]

That is simple math.

Simple but not that simple as you are ignoring crit and hit chance. Rangers have slightly higher crit damage with BeO (assuming they can see a lot of enemies) but lower crit chance (a good crit sniper can easily get to 100% and probably that won't change in 1.3). Hit chance is also a big factor on your average damage unless you are save scumming to get every shot to connect (i'm not suggesting you actually do it, just stating facts). If you have 65% chance to hit that enemy in high cover, your 7-12 damage becomes 5-8 average damage on many shots. Once again snipers can often get to 100% against targets in high cover.
Rangers might have higher raw damage against exposed targets but snipers' accuracy can't be overlooked and if that tree makes it in 1.3, the addition of lone wolf is another +10 aim for most snipers if you take it.

I don't think everything is fine with Snipers but i think it's not as bad as you seem to consider. Their efficiency depends a lot on how you play and this something that probably won't change. Some classes or builds will always be inferior for some players, but the same builds will be great for other players because different tactical approaches are possible. That's actually not a bad thing.
Also, Sharpshooter's tree is not final so far and we'll have to actually test them to know whether they are good, bad, or somewhere between and whether they need more tweaks to be on par with other classes.

I also don't want to be pedantic about Sniper or Sharpshooter terms but i was pointing out that the Sharpshooter class is larger than just pure sniper, the holobot shouldn't be considered a sniper in the "sniper on a roof" sense but more like a scout who happens to have a long range rifle in case he needs to provide some support while staying safe.

Sorry, it didn't seem like that to me at all.

I have first hand knowledge about how easy it is to make a post that looks aggressive when it's not what you wanted Sometimes even something you meant as an innocent joke will look like a real insult to someone reading it.

I would point out, if you make something that only appeals to a narrow audience, which turns a game based on replayability into a scripted game where in order to play you have to dive through code to see how things work, or take away more and more choices, future endeavors are not likely going to be successful.

Turning XCom2 into a scripted game is certainly not what they are trying to do based on what they did with LW1 (they actually added a lot of replayability to the much more scripted XCom EW). I'm convinced they just need more time and balance passes to "get it right"
Appealing to a narrow audience is a totally different story. When you are working in the gaming industry, you can try to make a game that pleases the widest possible audience like big companies and end up with games that others will consider "dumbed down", uninteresting or simply will all look similar. The other option that many "indie" developers prefer is to design a game that will fit a smaller niche, but at least will have success within that niche as it won't compete with "AA" titles. It's not necessarily a bad think for Pavonis to have a precise and unforgiving view of their game even if it turns away some players.
For the "dive through code" part. Well, they only have so much hours per day to work on LW2. The hours they spend on documentation are hours they don't spend on fixing bugs and improving balance. Sooner or later UFOpedia will have an almost complete documentation and we won't have to dive into the code.

I was just pointing out what was happening with the decisions being made from an outsiders perspective, from somebody who doesn't spend hours combing through ini files learning how mechanics work to play. If the response to that is "if you don't like it, go home" that's cool. I am not going to fight about it. But I am also not going to be particularly inclined to revisit anything eventually for sale either and companies don't stay open by alienating people with "my way or get lost", just ask United Airlines.

And i was just pointing out what was happening when you make a post that doesn't really explain what your concerns are and looks like a direct attack on the developers of a game in a forum full of fans of that game
My turn for being sorry about a rude sentence. I won't pretend i didn't meant to say that, it was really my first reaction when i saw your post. I thought that if you disliked the game and the developers so much you should just move along. Then i realized you probably had real concerns and that's why i made a longer and (hopefully) more constructive answer but without removing that part.
On a bad day i would probably have stopped at the first sentence and that wouldn't have helped the discussion at all

Finally, don't take this wrong, but please try to use the preview function when posting with multiple quotes. Your post is a mess of badly placed quotes that make it hard to read or even know who posted what.
I also learned to always use the preview function the hard way

[Autoclave]

While many of us might not agree with 1.3 changes, including me, I do admit one thing about xcom. Many of the abilities will only shine at harder difficulties. Imagine you had 100% hit chance at enemies in high cover, you would never see the point in abilities like run'n'gun, demolition, walk fire and so on. So, In a way, to enjoy the RNG tactical layer, we do need these changes and nerfs including.

But I would like the class perks to be more unique. Seeing formidable, center mass, cool under pressure, tactical sense and many other in multiple classes saddens me. I don't remember firaxis doing with EU/EW and X2. Yeah they had this ridiculous grenadier class that was 2 in 1 but it felt completely different to other classes.

The PCS has some interesting perks, why make them PCS exclusive? Combat rush would be so interesting as a class perk for rangers/gunners but I just cannot afford to put it in PCS slot when AIM and Mobility is so damn important. Combat awareness is another interesting one.

[Veneficus]

I also learned to always use the preview function the hard way

I will do my best, but the problem is more of my lack of familiarity with how to actually use the quotes.

[josna238]

I have still the feeling that some paths are still a non choice. Like the overwatching path on specialists if we play with red fog, because we are forced to bring a medic and a second specialist usually isn't a good idea (having in mind that a ranger overwatcher is much better overwatcher). And the other is the "non-heavy" path for technicals, because for supressing, shreder, shoting, etc. is much better a gunner and we don't need to sacrifice the rocket/flames perks.

[Veneficus]

[quote="LordYanaek"]Simple but not that simple as you are ignoring crit and hit chance. Rangers have slightly higher crit damage with BeO (assuming they can see a lot of enemies) but lower crit chance (a good crit sniper can easily get to 100% and probably that won't change in 1.3). Hit chance is also a big factor on your average damage unless you are save scumming to get every shot to connect (i'm not suggesting you actually do it, just stating facts). If you have 65% chance to hit that enemy in high cover, your 7-12 damage becomes 5-8 average damage on many shots. Once again snipers can often get to 100% against targets in high cover.
Rangers might have higher raw damage against exposed targets but snipers' accuracy can't be overlooked and if that tree makes it in 1.3, the addition of lone wolf is another +10 aim for most snipers if you take it.[quote]

I can agree with many of the things you said here, but it doesn't bear out my experience. In the 3 lost lw2 campaigns I have played to the end (all strategy layer losses), it seems the rangers hit easily as often as the sharpshooter and as expected, more shots landing = higher amount of crits overall.

While the sharpshooter can land 100% shots, even in early game (I play with hidden potential and not created equal) it is the damage output which is lacking, not the ht chance.

My solution to the low-aim sharpshooter has been to AWC them into pistol based sharpshooters, and prior to LW2, I was a big fan of the rogue class mod. But from my experience, and perhaps play style, the holo-targeting sharpshooter is just a mismatch. It takes away the "shooter" part.

If I were to offer a simple solution to this, it would be to permit the sharpshooter to equip a weapon other than the sniper rifle. I think that would make the build not only better as something to take up squad space with, but would fit more of a "scout/sniper" (as the US Marines call them) role. In addition to selectable perks, a reduced detection radius with a SMG, would make it a much stronger build. Especially if you are making low aim sharpshooters out of them.


[quote="LordYanaek"]I don't think everything is fine with Snipers but i think it's not as bad as you seem to consider. Their efficiency depends a lot on how you play and this something that probably won't change. Some classes or builds will always be inferior for some players, but the same builds will be great for other players because different tactical approaches are possible. That's actually not a bad thing.
Also, Sharpshooter's tree is not final so far and we'll have to actually test them to know whether they are good, bad, or somewhere between and whether they need more tweaks to be on par with other classes.[quote]

In my mind, what makes snipers broken is their mid to late game damage output. Doing serial sweeps on already wounded enemies seems to change their role a bit, but I really think, and maybe somebody with better computer skills than mine (they get worse as I get older and my sole interactions with computers is limited to typing and playing games) might make a mod if the Pavonis team doesn't do it, is a total lack of a "one shot one kill" ability mid to late game.

Yes, it may seem powerful, and certainly it should be, because there is a lot of sacrifice to have a squad member with such an ability. Its not a gunner with area of effect fire that destroys cover and hits multiple enemies, it is not a defensive over-watch shooter. It doesn't tank, doesn't bring extra grenades, and would never be close enough to use them anyway. It brings 1 shot per turn of devastating offense. Supposedly, double tap would serve that role, but the lack of synergy because of skills such as kubikiri, really drag it down.

That's pretty much why I think it keeps becoming more broken. Because the class seems to be evolving away from a "sharpshooter" per se, and now seems to be taking away its main alternate role as a high accuracy clean-up on wounded enemies.

If I were to offer solutions, I would consider:

Trade center mass for the +2 damage perk.
Put a once per mission cool down on it (don't have an exact number, as I would have to test it) on kubikiri, remove the flanked or already damaged part, and change it to: crit = kill. This is further balanced by not permitting aggression to be used beyond visual range.

I also would not be too upset to see disabling shot make a comeback.

Some sort of "bleeding" damage over/time perk I think would be cool to see, but not critical would also not go amiss.

[quote="LordYanaek"]I also don't want to be pedantic about Sniper or Sharpshooter terms but i was pointing out that the Sharpshooter class is larger than just pure sniper, the holobot shouldn't be considered a sniper in the "sniper on a roof" sense but more like a scout who happens to have a long range rifle in case he needs to provide some support while staying safe.[quote]

I know what you mean. But like I said, a long range rifle really doesn't do justice to the scout motif. Especially for concealment ranges. (A scout who can be seen for miles, and detected much further than some guy with a rocket launcher and flamethrower? Really?)

For my play style, not having an actual "Sniper" is a major handicap. In fact, it is really the only thing I find wrong with the tactical combat in LW2. Most of my big gripes are about the strategy layer, but I don't want to have to deal with added frustration in the tactical layer too.

(I did use the preview option I can't seem to get the quotes right...)

[Veneficus]

I have still the feeling that some paths are still a non choice. Like the overwatching path on specialists if we play with red fog, because we are forced to bring a medic and a second specialist usually isn't a good idea (having in mind that a ranger overwatcher is much better overwatcher). And the other is the "non-heavy" path for technicals, because for supressing, shreder, shoting, etc. is much better a gunner and we don't need to sacrifice the rocket/flames perks.

I started playing with red fog after watching Xwynn, it allowed me to abandon the idea of a battlefield medic entirely. Of course I was using the optimal combat protocol/revival build, like everyone else in the world and making the specialist my officer. If I am using a specialist to shoot now, it is either desperation or hoping to finish off a low health enemy on a random roll instead of having to use a walk-fire ranger.

In my current campaign I have a hybrid technical who got combat medic through AWC, and once the rocket is fired and the flame thrower spent, makes a much better medic than sub-machine gunner.

The grenadier in my opinion is completely OP, and even more so with an airdrop specialist, which is a must have skill.

[JoINrbs]

The thing that generally makes sharpshooters unique as a class is that they have squadsight. Depending on how valuable squadsight is to a player it makes sense for there to be some cost for them having it. The better one gets at generating untimed missions, manipulating line of sight, and identifying priority enemies, the better a sharpshooter is going to feel, and as such the more cost for squadsight will seem appropriate.

I don't think there's much more to the conversation than that, really. We're trying to balance four difficulties so that they all feel sensible but are at the same time flexible enough that as many people as possible who play the game can settle on one of them and feel comfortable with it. With Sharpshooters the general feedback currently seems to want them to be weaker on higher difficulties and stronger on lower difficulties, which is quite hard to manage while preserving them being an interesting class to play. Reeling in their most highly abused abilities is an easy start, at least, since players on lower difficulties aren't abusing something like Serial as much as players on high difficulty can, and so aren't going to be affected by nerfs to it as much.

[LordYanaek]

I have still the feeling that some paths are still a non choice. Like the overwatching path on specialists if we play with red fog, because we are forced to bring a medic and a second specialist usually isn't a good idea (having in mind that a ranger overwatcher is much better overwatcher). And the other is the "non-heavy" path for technicals, because for supressing, shreder, shoting, etc. is much better a gunner and we don't need to sacrifice the rocket/flames perks.

I'm using more and more overwatch specialists. They allow me to benefit from the presence of a specialist (distance hack, haywire, aid protocol) and still bring some firepower. With the new overwatch (no more than 1 shot/enemy) i will probably like them even more. An enemy that got shot at during pod activation will only take a defensive action if they have yellow reactions and this can be a big deal and something that i think is often overlooked about overwatch shots.

While the sharpshooter can land 100% shots, even in early game (I play with hidden potential and not created equal) it is the damage output which is lacking, not the ht chance.

Hidden potential can really change class balance as your rangers might actually get more aim than your sharpshooters by MSgt. I play with NCE but hidden potential will always be a no-go for me.

If I were to offer a simple solution to this, it would be to permit the sharpshooter to equip a weapon other than the sniper rifle. I think that would make the build not only better as something to take up squad space with, but would fit more of a "scout/sniper" (as the US Marines call them) role. In addition to selectable perks, a reduced detection radius with a SMG, would make it a much stronger build. Especially if you are making low aim sharpshooters out of them.

Agreed on this part but i think they wanted to keep some scouting bonuses for shinobis to avoid having holobot sharpshooters the only valid scout in the game.

In my mind, what makes snipers broken is their mid to late game damage output. Doing serial sweeps on already wounded enemies seems to change their role a bit, but I really think, and maybe somebody with better computer skills than mine (they get worse as I get older and my sole interactions with computers is limited to typing and playing games) might make a mod if the Pavonis team doesn't do it, is a total lack of a "one shot one kill" ability mid to late game.

A 1.2 crit sniper was perfectly capable of doing 1 shot - 1 kill most of the time. When (if) kubikiri will be fixed, it will also serve this job for very tough enemies after they are scratched by a grenade or other AoE. Don't loose hope.

(I did use the preview option I can't seem to get the quotes right...)

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[ndessell]

mountain of text

oy oy, you gummed up that qoute. dont put that other guys jerkery on me.

[DonCrabio]

I played with SMG holobot Sharpshooters, damn, it feel so right. They still worse in pure scouting, since they don't have Ghostwalker and Covert skills.

And, since in 1.3 we do not have much stealth missions I don't see any use for pure scouts anymore. So I will have to choose between holobot SS scout for combat heavy missions and sword Shinobi for guerilla ops.

[Veneficus]

mountain of text

oy oy, you gummed up that qoute. dont put that other guys jerkery on me.

sorry

[Sax2514]

Which has nothing to do with Serial and is why my AMF Sniper was part of the Waterworld assault team
As i already said i would have preferred a fix to the broken interaction with autoloaders but being able to kill up to 24 enemies in a single round was slightly silly.
It will still be a good perk for cleaning trash mobs, no issue there. It will just no longer clear a map in a single activation.

So, do you think also that was a silly decision by Firaxis developers, who implemented it in the first place and never nerfed?

I think it was designed that way by firaxis to give a final tier god-like skill to make players feel overpowered in the "victory lap" of the end game.

As an entirely separate issue, with the increase in enemy health, armor, etc. The sniper no longer is the superior single target assassin. It simply cannot produce the damage per turn a ranger can on a single target, thereby negating the entire purpose of a sniper.

I also think that if you are going to give classes like the assault the ability to do obscene amounts of damage with skills like street sweeper, then the sniper should have a parity skill, otherwise, it becomes a second rate class.

I respectfully disagree. Yes, Serial is indeed overpowered, I don't negate that, but on the other hand we need perks like this because, I guarantee you, everytime something really bad will happen, especially now, in LW2, with the increased number of enemies, yellow alert and sound mechanic. How many times did we activate unintentionally another pod or maybe 2? I see Serial as a sort of "last-resort" action against a very bad situation, and in this scenario, if you have bunker buster for example, you can use a synergy from 2 classes and trasform a squadwipe in a memorable victory. The same thing can be said for Reaper, which is (mind you) also been nerfed in 1.3. That's why I'm against the nerfs to flashbangs and advanced grenade launchers too: they offer a way to buy some time against bad scenarios and they were the ONLY reliable thing we had for crowd control, because surely you can't control an extra pod of 6-8 enemies, all far away each other, with an incendiary granade with 1 tile radius, but it seems to me that, for many players in this forum, the more nerfs are thrown at them, the more pleasure they get.

P.S. : I don't want to end my campaign I poured many hours and effort into, because a muton elite who resisted a flashbang, threw a plasma grenade wich removed cover of my soldiers causing a squadwipe of my alpha team.

[Dlareh]

The thing that generally makes sharpshooters unique as a class is that they have squadsight. Depending on how valuable squadsight is to a player it makes sense for there to be some cost for them having it. The better one gets at generating untimed missions, manipulating line of sight, and identifying priority enemies, the better a sharpshooter is going to feel, and as such the more cost for squadsight will seem appropriate.

I don't think there's much more to the conversation than that, really. We're trying to balance four difficulties so that they all feel sensible but are at the same time flexible enough that as many people as possible who play the game can settle on one of them and feel comfortable with it. With Sharpshooters the general feedback currently seems to want them to be weaker on higher difficulties and stronger on lower difficulties, which is quite hard to manage while preserving them being an interesting class to play. Reeling in their most highly abused abilities is an easy start, at least, since players on lower difficulties aren't abusing something like Serial as much as players on high difficulty can, and so aren't going to be affected by nerfs to it as much.

The nerf to Serial was an obvious choice; people objecting to it have some wrongheaded ideas about balance

The move to make Snap Shot not be terrible is intriguing of course. I see little reason to prefer it over the opportunity cost of not having, say, an extra Gunner or Assault around -- but at least it should be a fun diversion in 1.3

What veritably sucks are the other work-in-progress changes, though. No longer stacking center mass with vital point targeting. The 3 nearly 100% useless perks at SSgt level. The odiously awful Longwatch as a Gunnery-level perk, instead of something actually reasonably snipey like Kill Zone or Lethal.

Most seasoned but not necessarily expert players are going to look at this tree and see little besides a holo targeting officer who occasionally potshots. Meh.

[Alketi]

I respectfully disagree. Yes, Serial is indeed overpowered, I don't negate that, but on the other hand we need perks like this because, I guarantee you, everytime something really bad will happen, especially now, in LW2, with the increased number of enemies, yellow alert and sound mechanic. How many times did we activate unintentionally another pod or maybe 2? I see Serial as a sort of "last-resort" action against a very bad situation, and in this scenario, if you have bunker buster for example, you can use a synergy from 2 classes and trasform a squadwipe in a memorable victory. The same thing can be said for Reaper, which is (mind you) also been nerfed in 1.3. That's why I'm against the nerfs to flashbangs and advanced grenade launchers too: they offer a way to buy some time against bad scenarios and they were the ONLY reliable thing we had for crowd control, because surely you can't control an extra pod of 6-8 enemies, all far away each other, with an incendiary granade with 1 tile radius, but it seems to me that, for many players in this forum, the more nerfs are thrown at them, the more pleasure they get.

P.S. : I don't want to end my campaign I poured many hours and effort into, because a muton elite who resisted a flashbang, threw a plasma grenade wich removed cover of my soldiers causing a squadwipe of my alpha team.

Well said Sax. As I mentioned, I imagine an unintended consequence of the flashbang changes will be to make Area Suppression, and hence Gunners, even more important, when it seemed that Gunners were already viewed as "too necessary".

Also, I agree that this is mostly going to impact the multiple pod activation, which will now gain another RNG component. We'll have to see how it all plays out.

And, yeah, the "Let's nerf X" threads are both humorous and a fertile ground for psychoanalysis. One person finally let slip that he saw his roommate doing whatever he was pleading to be nerfed. Interesting times indeed.

[JoINrbs]

Most seasoned but not necessarily expert players are going to look at this tree and see little besides a holo targeting officer who occasionally potshots. Meh.

I look at it and see a soldier with squadsight. Beyond-visual-range attacks have been an extremely strong resource in all XCOMs, and this soldier is a primary source of them in this one.

I'm a little surprised that that isn't peoples' general feeling. I almost wonder if there's some branding issue with calling it a "Sharpshooter" instead of a "Sniper". Or maybe it's difficult enough to set up lines-of-sight in this game (especially given that there are many timed missions) that people just don't think about that aspect of the soldier much. I've seen a lot of people who are analyzing what this soldier does begin by ignoring the unique thing it does and comparing it to something else which doesn't have any bvr threat.

[dstar3k]

I look at it and see a soldier with squadsight. Beyond-visual-range attacks have been an extremely strong resource in all XCOMs, and this soldier is a primary source of them in this one.

I'm a little surprised that that isn't peoples' general feeling. I almost wonder if there's some branding issue with calling it a "Sharpshooter" instead of a "Sniper". Or maybe it's difficult enough to set up lines-of-sight in this game (especially given that there are many timed missions) that people just don't think about that aspect of the soldier much. I've seen a lot of people who are analyzing what this soldier does begin by ignoring the unique thing it does and comparing it to something else which doesn't have any bvr threat.

I think it's the latter, honestly. I realized recently that I'm rarely taking my sharpshooters on even untimed missions unless they have Faceoff, because I only manage to find a nest that lets them shoot things at more than a few tiles BVR every third or fourth mission I take them on, if that.

I wonder if giving them Run'n'Gun would change that?

Actually, I just realized, I've _got_ a Sharpshooter who got RnG from the AWC... and when I've taken them on a mission, it hasn't felt like they were wasted space. In fact, it made them fun rather than frustrating.

[JoINrbs]

Spider Suit essentially gives them Run+Gun, you could try that out.

[ndessell]

Most seasoned but not necessarily expert players are going to look at this tree and see little besides a holo targeting officer who occasionally potshots. Meh.

I look at it and see a soldier with squadsight. Beyond-visual-range attacks have been an extremely strong resource in all XCOMs, and this soldier is a primary source of them in this one.

I'm a little surprised that that isn't peoples' general feeling. I almost wonder if there's some branding issue with calling it a "Sharpshooter" instead of a "Sniper". Or maybe it's difficult enough to set up lines-of-sight in this game (especially given that there are many timed missions) that people just don't think about that aspect of the soldier much. I've seen a lot of people who are analyzing what this soldier does begin by ignoring the unique thing it does and comparing it to something else which doesn't have any bvr threat.

no, they see it, squad sight in lw2 boils down to you sharpshooter being further from the front line than other soldiers. they can't shoot further than anyone else except is the rare occasion your scout shinobi sees a 1-2 man pod that would be harmless for long enough to kill at range

[Dlareh]

no, they see it, squad sight in lw2 boils down to you sharpshooter being further from the front line than other soldiers. they can't shoot further than anyone else except is the rare occasion your scout shinobi sees a 1-2 man pod that would be harmless for long enough to kill at range

Yeah, and I've been thinking that with the change to conceal and Shinobis actually having some decent non-stealth things to do, bvr would be even less relevant in 1.3

However, perhaps we're forgetting to take into account the new smaller and more numerous pod changes. Those new pods might make bvr activations a lot more compelling and tactically strong than they used to be.

[JoINrbs]

no, they see it, squad sight in lw2 boils down to you sharpshooter being further from the front line than other soldiers. they can't shoot further than anyone else except is the rare occasion your scout shinobi sees a 1-2 man pod that would be harmless for long enough to kill at range

There will be at least one other soldier in your squad who can shoot at an enemy a Sharpshooter can target when the Sharpshooter shoots, that doesn't mean that there is no value in the Sharpshooter being able to target that enemy. For example:

If you have one cover tile which you can safely attack a back-rank enemy from having a couple of Sharpshooters triples your force projection onto that enemy.

If you are fighting enemies who are approaching you, shooting them with Sharpshooters who are bvr while hunkering with soldiers in vision will reduce, and can sometimes completely eliminate, the enemy's force projection onto you.

If your squad is spread out to protect flanks and fight a battle against several pods at once, Sharpshooters can deal damage to whichever flank is in need of that damage, while other soldiers can only fight on the flank to which they are deployed.

If you do not want to remain in vision of enemies for a turn you can spot them with a soldier, shoot them with Sharpshooters, and then move your spotting soldier backwards.

A Sharpshooter can project offensive damage perks onto tiles which are not safe for soldiers with offensive perks to stand on. While an Assault uses Fortify or a Grenadier uses Smoke to stay alive a Sharpshooter takes advantage of those defensive soldiers in order to use a fully-offensive perk tree to deal damage.

In general, being reductive with regard to what something does in this game is going to leave you failing to take full advantage of the things it can do which you are ignoring. Given that the unique thing Sharpshooters do is shoot from beyond-visual-range, if you are going to analyze that reductively and dismiss its effects it should be no surprise that you end up thinking the soldier is weaker than other soldiers. The soldier is only meant to be as strong as other soldiers if you use what it does to make it effective; imagine expecting an Assault to be strong if you didn't ever consider Run'N'Gun to be powerful because you reductively dismissed it as being too dangerous to use.

[Dlareh]

A Sharpshooter can project offensive damage perks onto tiles which are not safe for soldiers with offensive perks to stand on. While an Assault uses Fortify or a Grenadier uses Smoke to stay alive a Sharpshooter takes advantage of those defensive soldiers in order to use a fully-offensive perk tree to deal damage.

I would find this persuasive if they had nice offensive perks to choose from...

[darkerevent]

I would find this persuasive if they had nice offensive perks to choose from...

Given that they have a gun with potentially infinite range and higher than assault rifle damage, have the easiest time getting good value out of a Stock upgrade, and get the largest aim growth in the game, they don't really need "nicer" offensive perks than they already have access to in 1.2. (I just don't want them to get shafted in 1.3 because of weird three-dead-perks rows showing up, but I'm guessing that won't be the case by the time release day arrives.)

I leaned heavily on Death from Above Sharpshooters in my first completed campaign and can definitely say they work for the purpose they were designed for. Granted I was only on Veteran at the time, but I also didn't know the game inside and out like I'd want to if I was going to play on something higher. They performed best on untimed combat missions, but that's mainly when I deploy them anyway -- I have an altogether different set of squad comps for timed GOps brawls. It's not too hard to engineer lots of troop column and supply raid missions to do later in the campaign, and since the sharpshooters tend never to get wounded, they can potentially be plugged into lots of such missions in rapid succession, which really worked out nicely in the end for me.

Like JoINrbs said, their synergy with a distant scout or frontline tanker is quite high.

[8wayz]

The main point of controversy is that the Sharpshooter lacks in crowd-control or multi-attack perks/items/weapons.

After the prepared nerf to Serial and with the omission of Kill Zone, the Sharpshooter remains a liability in open battle.

Sure, one kill per turn is great, but on most missions you are better off replacing the Sharpshooter with a Ranger or Gunner, as they can deal with multiple adversaries per turn.

The only saving grace are the pistol perks, but those are available to any class.

What I do not get is the continued push to basically rend null and void chain-kill perks.

I am still sour because of the nerfs to In The Zone (Long War 1). Before the nerf, a Snap Shot+ In the Zone soldier could take care of quite a few Floaters per turn, for example. After the nerf, In the Zone was unusable.

And we are talking about a nerf from 2 years ago. It seems the hard lesson wasn't learned - if you indeed want to keep the swarming numbers of enemies as an additional difficulty modifier, there should be a chain-kill perk of sorts on some classes.

Serial has key limitations:
- Notable downtime/cooldown.
- The need to kill the enemy. With the Dodge/Graze system, this is a lot more difficult than it seems in most situations.
- Limited ammo in the weapon. The Autoloader will work for only the first activation of Serial.

If you now add to that the falloff in damage after each kill, the perk will become totally unusable compared to the other perks at its tier.

I would like to see the following things concerning the Sharpshooter :
- Do not change the damage after each kill for Serial. If need be add a Crit Chance penalty after each shot. As far as I understand it, if the Crit Chance is Negative, it will raise the chance for misses/grazes. That should make long chain-kills a lot more difficult.
- Make Long Watch a 1-action ability. In my opinion you should be able to combine it with Death From Above. This will give you three possible actions after a kill - reload, steady weapon or go on Long Overwatch. Currently none of the possible sub-types of Sharpshooter have any utility of overwatch, even with pistols.
- Make Double-tap a multi-target skill, like in Long War 1. Currently it is a lot weaker version of Rapid Fire. The only advantage is the Squadsight range. Being able to shoot at 2 targets every other turn is quite the advantage.


If the Sniper subtype can at higher tiers shoot at more than 1 target per turn as well as have the utility of Long Watch with 1 action, it will become a lot more viable. If for whatever reason you are dead set to add malus damage to Serial and Reaper (the chain-kill perks), their cooldown needs to be reduced.

[stefan3iii]

Serial is still going to be really strong, you'll still regularly get 5 kills with it, and I think as it is now I would take Serial on every SS.

If double tap was 2 different targets, I would probably take that over Serial, or at least it would be an interesting decision. I think that would be a nice buff to make that tier more interesting.

AMF needs a buff too, I think it could increase crit damage in addition to boosting base damage, if you want it to compete with double tap and serial.

[8wayz]

Serial is worth the pick if your soldier has a High Crit Chance or is flanking most of the enemies.

In original Xcom 2 I had Serial on a Assault soldier and it worked very, very well thanks to the high crit chance with the shotgun and other perks.

Hence why I consider adding a Crit. Chance malus a more elegant way of limiting the number of chain-kills. You only need 1 Graze to stop your shooting practice.

In my humble opinion Alpha Mike Foxtrot needs to be completely replaced. Passive perks did not work well in Long War 1 and are not too hot in Long War 2 either.

Kill Zone would be a good substitute, but I would like to see a special perk for the Holo Scout type, for example one that reduces enemy armor.