Painful Skill Tree Changes

[stefan3iii]

I really don't know. One side covers support, the other damage - so right now there's just a weird mishmash of shooty abilities but they're a mess.

Are you fundamentally opposed to a grenadier who isn't great with grenades but is actually useful with a gun after all the consumables have run out? The centre tree could certainly do with some work, but is the concept of "shooter with a grenade launcher" something undesired?

No, not at all - I just don't know what you add.

You can take the lazy way out and try to give them overwatch spec stuff, or go generic suppression + foritify + blah blah

I think there are some niches in the game that could be used:
1) HEAT shooter: Ie perks that specialize the soldier to shoot mecs, or even armored targets in general.
2) AOE shooter: Class specializing in shooting only once per turn, but hitting multiple enemies with that shot.
3) Debuff shooter: Class with powerful disabling effects on shots.

Probably a lot of work though in most cases, as you'd have to create entirely new perks.

[JulianSkies]

Are you fundamentally opposed to a grenadier who isn't great with grenades but is actually useful with a gun after all the consumables have run out? The centre tree could certainly do with some work, but is the concept of "shooter with a grenade launcher" something undesired?

No, not at all - I just don't know what you add.

You can take the lazy way out and try to give them overwatch spec stuff, or go generic suppression + foritify + blah blah

I think there are some niches in the game that could be used:
1) HEAT shooter: Ie perks that specialize the soldier to shoot mecs, or even armored targets in general.
2) AOE shooter: Class specializing in shooting only once per turn, but hitting multiple enemies with that shot.
3) Debuff shooter: Class with powerful disabling effects on shots.

Probably a lot of work though in most cases, as you'd have to create entirely new perks.

For what's worth, with Shredder and Chain Shot they make pretty good eventual shooters with anti armor capacity.

[whitelion1284]

I just ran into another one that I feel I really need to complain about. Danger Zone and Cool Under Pressure are competing skills. The lockdown-AoE suppressor is a grand build but without CUP it feels very weak on a soldier that already feels a little lackluster.

[aedn]

I just ran into another one that I feel I really need to complain about. Danger Zone and Cool Under Pressure are competing skills. The lockdown-AoE suppressor is a grand build but without CUP it feels very weak on a soldier that already feels a little lackluster.

Would break the gunner class. You would get +25 aim, and +25% damage when suppressing, and the ability to critical hit. Just find a bunch of superior PCS and 70+ Aim rookies for gunners, go full idiot with explosives for cover destruction, and flank and just suppress your way through the game.

[nmkaplan]

I just ran into another one that I feel I really need to complain about. Danger Zone and Cool Under Pressure are competing skills. The lockdown-AoE suppressor is a grand build but without CUP it feels very weak on a soldier that already feels a little lackluster.

Yeah there was another discussion in another thread in which Xwynns chimed in and explained that if you can get both DZ and CUP, then there's very little reason to do anything else.

You can either have the small suppression area and the ability to crit, or you can have the larger area without the ability to crit, which seems like a reasonable choice.

[whitelion1284]

Nod nod. I forgot about the +15 aim from Lockdown. I see your points. A large AoE with the ability to crit would be OP. Okay, consider me convinced.

Thanks for the attention, fellas.

[Zork]

I don't get the point, for me Ranger allows get both Danger Zone and Cool Under Pressure, playing Long War 2 without any other mod (yet).

[NephilimNexus]

For me, the most painful change was when gremlin heal got bumped up two ranks. Now it's takes even longer to get good medics into play.

[Psieye]

I don't get the point, for me Ranger allows get both Danger Zone and Cool Under Pressure, playing Long War 2 without any other mod (yet).

Are you mixing up Danger Zone with Kill Zone?

[SamXjones]

I would really like to see the center tree for grenadiers get something too

Any proposal for what exactly the center tree should aim to be?

I really don't know. One side covers support, the other damage - so right now there's just a weird mishmash of shooty abilities but they're a mess.

I leave it up to people who are better designers than I am on that

The middle path could be good for 'special grenades' such as fire/acid/gas/EMP/frost grenades, PI 'just' need to design and code new perks up. So make grenadiers have 3 perks trees: 'Combat Enginner' for explosive damage and cover distruction, 'War criminal' for all the war crime grenade aka all the fire/gas/acid bombs, and finally, the beloved support grenadier.

if I have to design the skill tree specific for the middle path it would be very likely to be something like this:

Lcpl
Deep Effect:
special grenades effect from this solider last longer, and deal 1 extra damage per dot (if it is capable of dealing damage overtime)

Cpl
Harzmat handling:
solider is immue to fire/acid/posion/frost according to the grenade they carry (so if fire grenade/bomb is carried, the grenadier is immune to fire damage, so far and so forth)

Sgt
Chemical Expert: solider is so specialize in special grenades, including additional effect to those special grenades and bombs-
fire- enemy suffer burning effect from this grenadiers have -10 defense and/or -50 dodge
acid- enemy suffer acid effect from this grenadiers have +25% for being able to be critically hit, and crit damage is increased by 1 against that target
poison- enemy suffer poison effect from this grenadier cannot do critical damage, successful hit have high chance to reroll into a grazed shot
frost- decrease chance for activating ruler turn
EMP- biological enemy can be disoriented (and very low chance for being stunned), mechenical enemy have chance to get hacked for 1 turn according to their hack defense

SSgt
Desolation: increase the environmental effect of special grenade by 2/3 turns (according to tech level of grenade launcher)
(with Desolation, even EMP grenade now leave an area of EMPed field, damaging entering units accordingly to their type)

Tsgt
Volatile Mix

Bombardier and fullkit remain in GSgt and MSgt rank

With these changes, perks from Boomer tree may need some change, too. But we can talk about it later