Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

LordYanaek
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Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:34 pm

Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by LordYanaek »

OK, as i said in another thread, discussing Kubikiri is probably best done in it's own thread.

It's a bit sad to say this after all the troubles the developers went through to finally make it work but i think Kubikiri is wayyy to strong now that it's finally working. It trivializes late game miniboss (Gatekeeper, Sectopods) encounters and makes some perks supposed to deal with those late game armored enemies totally useless.

Despite what you might think when first seeing it, Kubikiri is actually pretty easy to use. A good crit sniper will try to stack crit anyway and is a pretty efficient build by itself. It doesn't need to be a nest DfA sniper, i had 2 snapshoters operating with 5-6 guys GOps squads and both were built for high crit on flanked target in the early game. Later they both learned Kubikiri and their squads never had to fear Gatekeepers or Sectopods. I know it uses both actions and doesn't combine very well with Snapshot but it just meant the sharpshooter had to stay in one place for one turn when using it, not a big deal.
Crit stacking is easy if you're serious about it :
  • Sniper Rifle : 10% (20 for Plasma)
  • Superior Laser Sight : 15%
  • Talon Rounds : 10% (they might not have the same raw damage output as other rounds but the important mod is the crit%, not the damage, they add damage by allowing crits)
  • Aggression : 15-30% (enemies never come alone, you just have to kill the big one first, which was probably your plan in the first place)
That's 50% base crit (60 for Plasma, up to 65 with enough enemies) and the base for a flanking crit sniper (who then gets to 100% for flank itself). Now you need to add some preparation for the big guys :
  • Superior Stock : 25% (obviously it won't work if you're surprised by them, good scouting is important but that far in the game you probably have enough options to scout to prepare for them)
  • Get Some officer order : 20%
  • Mind Merge 10-12% (20-25 with Soul Merge)
Any 2 of those will get you close to 100% and at 100% with enough enemies visible or Plasma (we are talking end-game encounters) against unflankable enemies.

Wounded requirement isn't really an issue. Anyone with Quick Draw or some AoE attack can damage them without using up their turn.

Sure it's still a lot of requirements, but given Kubikiri's power and the fact that many of those requirements will also benefit you the rest of the time (only the stock on a snapshoter is questionable without Kubikiri) it's not really a big deal. The issue however isn't the investment/power ratio, it's really the fact that Kubikiri obliterates the usefulness of several items/perks. The Acid Grenade/Bomb is usually considered one of the useless grenades. It does however combine high shredding + rupture effect. I built one in my latest campaign as i wanted to actually see if it was really that bad and very rarely used it. Every enemy who would have justified using it was usually dead before i had to throw it, killed by a Kubikiri sniper. In squads without a Kubikiri sniper however, it proved to be a useful tool but those were few and rarely deployed in the end game where those enemies are frequent. The same could be said of Shredder rounds/perk, all of those are great tools against Sectopods, Gatekeepers and Superheavy MECS but why bother with those if you can just kill the big targets so easily. Of those 3 heavily armored enemies, only the MECs usually caused me some troubles as you can get more than 1 / guerilla mission. Multiple Sectopods/Gatekeepers might appear in long missions such as HQs, Ambushes and Golden Path but for those missions you can usually expect to use Kubikiri more than once despite it's cooldown.

I'm not someone who likes the "Nerf Hammer" much. I've complained about nerfs more than i have complained about their lack but i think Kubikiri requires some rethinking/redesign. Simply nerfing it by making 100% crit (and thus guaranteed kills) harder to achieve probably won't work. For me it would just make it useless because the drawback (half damage) is too severe for risking it when you face a target strong enough to justify using Kubikiri in the first place. I think it's terribly tricky to balance with such a drastic, almost binary, effect (you either kill the target or you more or less did nothing). It would probably be more balanced and easier to balance if it dealt 2* damage on crits (as it does against Rulers) on every enemy. It would still be strong, but not as strong. It would make Sectopods and Gatekeepers less laughable and give shredding it's rightful place (which shouldn't be to make EXO the obvious choice when ADVENT have it). It might even receive some boost to make it more useful such as increased Crit chance based on % of health lost or something more creative or lose the half damage on non crit part.

I'm not really sure as those changes would basically turn it into an improved Precision Shot but i don't really like it in it's current state. It feels like a requirement in the late game. It pushes the game even further into the vanilla "kill everything on activation" style, even the miniboss that should in theory require a lot of efforts to bring down rather than just 1 + 2 half guys (which is less than 2 guys due to the way tactical combat works in XCOM). Finally it reduces tactical diversity by being so vastly superior to other options for dealing with those miniboss.
JulianSkies
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by JulianSkies »

To be honest there's a lot of perks to reduce giant enemies to piles of nothing, you say it takes one and two half guys to take it down with a Kubikiri sharpshooter, if two of those guys are gunners then it takes the exact same amount of effort, as you said one acid grenade+one gunner is honestly around the same as one person+kubikiri sharpshooter.
Or if you got a Psi Op the big enemy is out the entire engagement and you just focus fire it down next turn.

Plus what are those 'big threats' you mention? I'm looking at here: Gatekeeper, Sectopod, Muton Elite, Superheavy MEC.
Of those the only ones that tend to show up in singulars are Gatekeeper and Sectopod (until you run into the double sectopod pod, who invented those?! Holy shit), Muton Elites and Superheavies actually tend to show up with those!

There's actually quite a few enemies worth being focused that are also damage sponges. Of them, in fact, I think the Superheavy MEC is even worse of a damage sponge than the Sectopod but nothing beats the Gatekeeper.
stefan3iii
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by stefan3iii »

Speaking as someone who doesn't use Kubikiri much, I don't think it needs to be nerfed. The other big targets have other equally strong or even better counters. If you're using Psi you could also just use stasis, don't even need Kubi. Assault's stun gun will also work.

For robots I'd rather bring Full Override + red screen, not only does it "kill" the m3 or sectopod, it also wins the rest of the mission by providing a ridiculous bullet sponge. You can stack red screen, it's not too difficult to do something like Light em Up + Rapid Fire + Command to Rapid Fire again to get 5 red screen stacks into a sectopod, followed by a 100% hack. Pistol perks are another possibility.

Snipers that take aggression give up Deadeye, which is one of the strongest perks on the entire tree, and is always relevant.

Gatekeepers show up in two situations in the end game:
1) Long timerless missions (HQ assault, golden path, etc). In this case you usually have 8 soldiers and can reasonably deal with a gatekeeper by just burning it down in a turn or two.

2) GOPs. In my 2 1.4 campaign I only saw them twice on GOPs. In one case it dropped as an RNF as I was evaccing. In the other case I just aborted the mission as soon as I heard the sound cues for the gatekeeper on the mission, I knew I didn't have a squad equipped to handle one. They're just so rare it doesn't seem worth bringing sharpshooters to GOPs just to deal with the possibility.
aedn
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by aedn »

its a solid perk, that is really only useful to instakill a very small minority of units, namely gatekeepers, and sectopods. Superheavy mec's are not something i honestly worry about, because a rapid fir/traverse fire bluescreen ammo gunner can pretty much instakill them, and with command can eliminate sectopods pretty easy as well.

I still take multitarget more often then not, on my HT sharpshooters, and HI on sharpshooters who are taking serial, so i don't really even feel that kubikuri is an autopick by any means at that level.

As far as acid grenades, the reason its worthless, is not really what it does, its an amazing grenade when you look at its abilities. The issue, is it requires a super rare corpse that is in demand, has pathetic damage and a weaker status effect compared to the OP incendiary grenade, and comes at a point in the game when you have so many tools available you do not really need it.

if you think that its to abusive, then just giving it a limited number of charges per mission would solve the issue, making the player make a decision as to its use or not.
JulianSkies
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by JulianSkies »

Hrm... Mostly the issue with Acid Grenades is that it competes with T3 swords (Archon Corpse) and Fire Grenades (grenade slot).
I do think most damage-focused grenadiers would do well to carry one more grenade of a different type aside from fire grenades, and Acid is a very good choice so you can tag a target for destruction as required so they can do something other than CC.
And Acid Grenades are no longer requiring Archon corpses are they? But one of the big motivations not to use them is that as well.
stefan3iii
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by stefan3iii »

I don't see how an acid grenade is good... ever. For example, just compare it to a plasma grenade:
Acid: 1-3 Damage, 3 shred, 1 rupture. Probably does another 1 damage tick on the alien turn.
Plasma: 4-8 Damage, 2 shred, destroys cover, and has THREE TIMES the radius.

99% of the time a Plasma grenade is going to be more useful. And of course, Plasma isn't even in the same tier as Sting and Incendiary which are much stronger.
Noober
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by Noober »

From my experience 100% to crit is avaliable only on plasma sniper rifle or on regular one with some good AWC (like shadowstrike or deadshot).
I don't think sacrificing Elite Scope for Laser Sight is a good idea and thus never use it.
The reason is that Kubikiri is mostly a one shot/mission ability on GOP and +15 aim for all other sniper shots is far superior vs late game M3 with tons of def (10-15 natural def + tac sense + full cover = 70+ (!) def).
The best sniper at MSGT might have only 103 base aim at max. With SCOPE, Stock, Deph Perc PCS on high ground it can reach no more then 158 aim which is not that high vs M3 in high cover and -15 of those is just too severe. And you don't always have a high ground - in my last 1.4 compaign in 2 out of 4 HQ I spawn in corner and had to hold that spot until all ayys but comand pod was dealt with. That means no steady chain and so the scope on a sniper is the onlu option.

So that means no ever Laser sight.

That give us +10 (base) +15 (agression) +10 (talon) + 25 (stock) = 60. Get some (20) rise it to 80 and Plasma - to 90.
So to reach 100% crit you should be at plasma + either be lucky with AWC (dead shot/shadowstrike + tactical suppresor mod) or bring PSI to mind merge.
So Kubikiri by itself won't warrant you an insta-kill but requires a team work, luck with AWC AND sacrificing a VERY good dead eye perk.
Nerf to that ability will make it useless as before.
Last edited by Noober on Thu Aug 17, 2017 6:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
Steelflame
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by Steelflame »

Aggression caps out at 30% though, not 15%. The times you most want Kubikori is when you have a large pod that has a high threat Secto/Gatekeeper in play.

Also, if you make a spotter Sniper (officer, at that, letting you have both the officer and spotter as a single person) you can easily set up an extra 10-20% crit chance from the Holotargeter.


Kubikori is specificly the "I want to fuck that 95 HP Sectopod's day up" as a skill. It does said job very well.
Noober
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by Noober »

Steelflame wrote:Aggression caps out at 30% though, not 15%. The times you most want Kubikori is when you have a large pod that has a high threat Secto/Gatekeeper in play.

Also, if you make a spotter Sniper (officer, at that, letting you have both the officer and spotter as a single person) you can easily set up an extra 10-20% crit chance from the Holotargeter.


Kubikori is specificly the "I want to fuck that 95 HP Sectopod's day up" as a skill. It does said job very well.
1. From my experience the boss pod on GOP almost always comes with 2-3 ayys that means only 20% from agression. And that's the main treat from those bosses for me as you have much more soldiers and thus - options in a prolonged missions.

2. Holotarget means 2 sniper on 1 GOP which is not an optimal as you alwaus have a better class to bring on limited squad mission other then another sniper.
Psieye
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by Psieye »

Noober wrote: 1. From my experience the boss pod on GOP almost always comes with 2-3 ayys that means only 20% from agression. And that's the main treat from those bosses for me as you have much more soldiers and thus - options in a prolonged missions.

2. Holotarget means 2 sniper on 1 GOP which is not an optimal as you alwaus have a better class to bring on limited squad mission other then another sniper.
Both of those are playstyle conditions. Why must lategame GOps be done with a limited squad that's sticking to the same old "pull 1 pod at a time" strategy?
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Noober
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by Noober »

Psieye wrote:
Noober wrote: 1. From my experience the boss pod on GOP almost always comes with 2-3 ayys that means only 20% from agression. And that's the main treat from those bosses for me as you have much more soldiers and thus - options in a prolonged missions.

2. Holotarget means 2 sniper on 1 GOP which is not an optimal as you alwaus have a better class to bring on limited squad mission other then another sniper.
Both of those are playstyle conditions. Why must lategame GOps be done with a limited squad that's sticking to the same old "pull 1 pod at a time" strategy?
Two snipers in 1GOP means you should have at least 8 of them consider you aim to have atr least 4 full squad to deploy simultaniously.
Level up 4 additional snipers just for holo instead of 4 other classes?

And I don't have more then 6 days on most GOP's to bring it to v.light activity late game on legend. That means 6 mans squads to do it kind of safely. And you need 1 officer/dmg shinoby, 1 control grenadier, 1 spec for MEC control/skull jack intel farming, 2 ow/dmg/shred (ranger/assault/gunner) and the last place is for PSI or crit-sniper if you expect to see bosses which is not that uncommon late game.
Steelflame
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by Steelflame »

Why do you consider Snipers crucial for GOps in the late game? Hell, you can practically stop doing GOP missions late game and just prioritize GP or Liberation/Facility missions. Snipers are great, don't get me wrong, but they are in no way crucial for late game GOP missions.

Also, if you so much as see Quick Study on a sniper, you can easily make them into a Holotargeting Pistol user, as they by far make the strongest pistol user if you buff up their holotarget skills thanks to the fact that between Center Mass and Vital Point Targeting, you have +4 to the base damage of your pistol. You just throw a suppressor on the Sniper Rifle and proceed to not shoot it once that mission, and still do the most damage on your squad because the pistol is absolutely busted when you give it +4 base damage.
Noober
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by Noober »

Steelflame wrote:Why do you consider Snipers crucial for GOps in the late game? Hell, you can practically stop doing GOP missions late game and just prioritize GP or Liberation/Facility missions. Snipers are great, don't get me wrong, but they are in no way crucial for late game GOP missions.

Also, if you so much as see Quick Study on a sniper, you can easily make them into a Holotargeting Pistol user, as they by far make the strongest pistol user if you buff up their holotarget skills thanks to the fact that between Center Mass and Vital Point Targeting, you have +4 to the base damage of your pistol. You just throw a suppressor on the Sniper Rifle and proceed to not shoot it once that mission, and still do the most damage on your squad because the pistol is absolutely busted when you give it +4 base damage.
Late game GOPs are mostly for intel farming. Never know where those GP/Network will spawn.
In my case it's almost always in non contacted regions.
So I force to use all the ways to farm intel.
Psieye
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by Psieye »

Noober wrote: aim to have atr least 4 full squad to deploy simultaniously.

GOP's to bring it to v.light activity late game on legend.
This is what I mean by playstyle constraints. The reason you want 4 squads simultaneously is to do lots of missions. What if you could do just as many missions with 2 squads instead of 4? You have placed the constraint on yourself that you need to bring activity down as far as V.Light for a late game GOps. It's certainly a proven strategy, but I don't believe it's the only viable strategy.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Noober
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by Noober »

I don't understand how could I do so many mission with 2 squiads as with 4?
Psieye
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by Psieye »

The thread in my sig is documenting that. There's room to argue it may not work at Legend. There's room to argue the AWC init tweaks and graze band changes affect balance too much. But the basic point remains: it's feasible to do V.Heavy GOps and come out with minimal wounds after you come out of the earlygame.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Noober
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by Noober »

Psieye wrote:The thread in my sig is documenting that. There's room to argue it may not work at Legend. There's room to argue the AWC init tweaks and graze band changes affect balance too much. But the basic point remains: it's feasible to do V.Heavy GOps and come out with minimal wounds after you come out of the earlygame.
Hmm, I never ever consider doing more then Light timed mission on legend and for Light (which is Lib3 usually) I bring 8 mans to be safe.
As far as I understand the point V.H. timed mission means underinfiltration = more yellow alert shots (up to 100% chance), quicker and more numeruos RNF and instant blowing of the concealment...
It's so scarry...
Hinestly I don't know how to do something like VIP or Jail under that condition and more importantly - do it flawlessly.
Psieye
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by Psieye »

Yellow alert shots are no more scary than red alert (i.e. "already activated") shots. That is to say: the AI never takes them if the hit chance is 0% (unless it's a Naja). Succeeding at underinfiltrated missions boils down to making the AI give up even thinking about shooting someone it can see. That and killing things reasonably quickly, or more slowly if you only need 1 out of 8 soldiers to actually move to the objective and back to the evac.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Steelflame
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by Steelflame »

Yea, stripping the enemy of targets they can effectively shoot creates a pretty solid case for you. A shinobi with super high dodge and high armor that is hunkered, or a Technical or Assault with Fortify and hunkering can pretty much tank a ton of enemies, because the enemies will be to scared to move aggressively (They act the same with 3 aliens as they do with 30. They don't really utilize the ability they have to try and swarm you for an easy kill even if they outnumber you 10 to 1).

Also, Specialist with Field Surgeon help drop the pressure to get a Flawless, because it gives you a bit of lee-way on taking a single point of damage, which should be enough through your ablative armor to not get a wound timer even if they do hit you.
Psieye
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by Psieye »

This VIP from jail mission (in a Str 5 region) was 'lucky' by failing a lamppost hack for a Map Alert so there was nobody guarding the jail that my shinobi 'stealthed' to while 7 soldiers made a lot of noise. Extra luck because the evac was close to the starting location.

This VIP from van had the evac spawn on the other side of the map. The only wound was on a sniper because I got greedy - the tanks didn't take wounds. This one was just "kill everything and the 1st RNF in 10 turns, then dash without looking back".

On "evac with flare" missions, you just throw the flare as soon as concealment breaks - doesn't matter where. It's only 2 extra turns if you re-throw the flare. Sometimes I don't need to re-throw that flare - it's better if most of the squad doesn't have to move far to get out. Only 1 guy needs to do the hack or see the relay for the snipers and then everyone is gone.

This E.Heavy destroy alien relay was from my Veteran campaign. Timers can be extended with an officer - 1 Intervene is cheaper than boosting infiltration. The highlight was the end where a Volatile Mix + Full Kit grenadier with Adv. Grenade Launcher brought a Shaped Charge so the snipers could see the relay (inside a building) from where they were.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
LordYanaek
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by LordYanaek »

Well, there is certainly a lot that depends on our playstyle, which is why this thread is a question rather than an affirmation :)

However, in my experience (limited to 2 full campaigns on Commander), all of the alternatives require much more investment than Kubikiri, actually they require the sort of investment i would expect to face those BBAs (Big Bad Aliens).
  • Full Override on Sectopods is really difficult. My best hacker with T3 Gremlin, upgraded Skulljack, superior hack PCS and double enemy protocol never had more than ~55% chance of success, and that was after Bluescreen to reduce it's hack defense - she never succeeded either. I tried RedScreen and abandoned it after a couple missions where i had no use for them at all. Equipping a squad with all the required perks/equipment to be able to hack a Sectopod that might appear or not seem counter-productive for me.
  • Stasis is a very nice and versatile perk (especially with shield) but depending on the map and mission, delaying the conclusion of a fight by one turn can have a big tactical cost.
  • Bluescreen/Shredding + Traverse + Rapid Fire will deal some serious damage but usually not enough to kill a sectopod with just one soldier. Against Gatekeepers it's even worse since their defense means several of those shots will miss, possible those that should have shredded it. When i had to bring one down without kubikiri it was usually a full squad effort with focus fire, "wasting" free shots to increase the aim bonus before unleashing the shredder shots and multiple soldiers firing at it to finally bring it down.
With a Kubikiri sniper OTOH, it's just whatever guaranteed damage i can place (bonus point for using an AOE attack that will also damage other targets) and blam, it's dead.

Maybe those Gatekeepers were more frequent in my campaign because it was really long (ended in April second year due to half unlucky/half bad strategy in the early game - no scientists for almost 2 months - causing a very slow start) but i can tell you they become quite frequent in the late game so unless you plan to abandon a lot of missions, you better be ready for them.
JulianSkies
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by JulianSkies »

LordYanaek wrote:Maybe those Gatekeepers were more frequent in my campaign because it was really long (ended in April second year due to half unlucky/half bad strategy in the early game - no scientists for almost 2 months - causing a very slow start) but i can tell you they become quite frequent in the late game so unless you plan to abandon a lot of missions, you better be ready for them.
As a fellow playing on Commander, I've observed that you are really only going to meet a large amount of Gatekeepers way past when you should have finished the game, you need to be a all the way to FL20 before they start showing in every other supply convoy/troop column. I've been delaying my game very far as I could have made me way into Waterworld by now but i'm trying to get all the techs for fun, I had 4 Gatekeeper corpses. They aren't as frequent as you believe they are, they're just really, really scary when they show up in a GOp
Noober
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by Noober »

LordYanaek wrote: [*]Full Override on Sectopods is really difficult. My best hacker with T3 Gremlin, upgraded Skulljack, superior hack PCS and double enemy protocol never had more than ~55% chance of success, and that was after Bluescreen to reduce it's hack defense - she never succeeded either.
Sectopod has 180 base Hack defence and max 195 after firewall TDE.
My hacker with 2 enemy protocol has 130 hack (90 MSGT + 20 Sup PCS + 20 from 2x enemy prot).
Gremlin 3 adds 40 and skulljack adds 25 to a grand total of 195.
Full Override give +10 to hack chance and BS grenade reduces Secto hack resistance by 25 I believe.
That alone should give you like 80% chance not taking into account RS rounds.
I don't understand how you could have less 55% chance after BS and RS rounds.
Zork
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by Zork »

Yes Bluescreen Bombs and each Red Ammo reduces Hack by 25. For Assault Arc Pulser it's probably only 20. I suspect there's a problem sometimes with Bluescreen Bombs, to avoid it it should be used first otherwise it seems there's problem of Hack stacking.

It's more than enough to be able to have a Hack 100 for the time of the mission which is almost always the easiest Hack (easier than standard Hack and than Hack providing bonus to rebels). It depends of how you setup the squad, the Sectopod could end with rather low HP. An option is hack a drone to repair the Sectopod.

Now have the Kubikiri option isn't bad, it's a mod tradeoff between scope and Laser Sight, I think current design is fair enough.
NOT a tactical/strategy expert player, playing LW2 at Easy. Rather old so I appreciate not be bothered by excessive familiarity, I'm not your friend and will never be. Refuse to learn English well so don't attempt learn it to me, thank you. :-)
LordYanaek
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Re: Kubikiri. Good or way too good?

Post by LordYanaek »

Noober wrote: I don't understand how you could have less 55% chance after BS and RS rounds.
Well, as i said i didn't use Redscreen as i abandoned them after a couple missions with nothing really useful to hack. I was using Bluescreen rounds which also (from the tooltip that appears when you shoot something) lower hack resistance. Now maybe the tooltip is wrong :?
Anyway, in small GOps i'm not carrying either Redscreen nor Bluescreen (apart from destroy the relay as Bluescreen works on those) i want ammo that's globally useful.

I also didn't use any support grenadiers this campaign (i think i overused them in the previous one) so i didn't have bluescreen bombs. Hacking a stunned sectopod wasn't that great anyway since it couldn't shoot and was just a giant bullet sponge due to a bug (but maybe it was fixed for 1.3 or 1.4, i didn't test).

Good catch on the stungun also lowering hack defense. A stun assault officer in a GOp squad could make hacking BBAs easier. I didn't have stungun assaults in GOps squads this run but i'll keep it in mind.
JulianSkies wrote: As a fellow playing on Commander, I've observed that you are really only going to meet a large amount of Gatekeepers way past when you should have finished the game, you need to be a all the way to FL20 before they start showing in every other supply convoy/troop column. I've been delaying my game very far as I could have made me way into Waterworld by now but i'm trying to get all the techs for fun, I had 4 Gatekeeper corpses. They aren't as frequent as you believe they are, they're just really, really scary when they show up in a GOp
"Way past when you should have finished the game" is subjective. I didn't delay it on purpose, i realized it would be a "long war" somewhere in June-July and decided to put my efforts into stalling AVATAR progress. I didn't rush Blacksite/Forge as i didn't know what sort of hidden timer for badass RNFs there might be (i mostly stealthed them in my 1.2 campaign) so i started the Golden Path quite late and didn't totally stop my research for it (Plasma was still a dream). Finally i had to hunt for a codex to hack in order to recover the AVATAR body so i think i finished it approximately when i could finish it (i probably could have finished it 2-3 weeks earlier if i didn't want to test some stuff in production at PG but that's it).
You're probably right that it wasn't a typical campaign and that might have altered my view of the skill.

OTOH, i can say i really won a Long War :mrgreen:
Last edited by LordYanaek on Fri Aug 18, 2017 8:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
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