HP Dodge & Defense

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SonnyWiFiHr
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HP Dodge & Defense

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

HP Dodge & Defense
Does even matter to have these stat positive regarding of RNG?.
I have to start Legendary with glass soldiers.

I think I have lots of PSI . I will call it Legendary Magic Wand campaign.

And one real question.
Why is Black Market always on the North Pole ? ( please DO NOT answer - because of Santa C.)
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8wayz
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Re: HP Dodge & Defense

Post by 8wayz »

Concerning the stats :

HP is nice to have, but you will not get that many additional points of it, so in the end it might save you one or two times from certain death.
Dodge on the other hand directly influences the Graze band. It can convert Hits to Grazes, and Grazes to Misses. If you combine it on a soldier that you plan to use as bait for the aliens (Hunker Down + Aid Protocol + any dodge and defense bonuses), it can be very powerful.

Aliens will generally take into consideration the Defense of the target and then calculate their Hit Chance. They do not take into consideration the Dodge Chance, so you can take advantage of this situation.

Defense is also nice to have, but too much of it can discourage aliens of shooting at the soldier (which might be just what you want).

The position of the Black market in Long War 2 should be close to your starting position. So if you start in Russia, you should see it somewhere in Siberia or China.
Last edited by 8wayz on Fri Sep 15, 2017 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
LordYanaek
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Re: HP Dodge & Defense

Post by LordYanaek »

I call those Survival stats and any soldier you plan to use as a tank should have at least some.
  • HP is always useful. Even later the difference between a 3 or 6 (starting) HP soldier is significant and can mean surviving a shot or not, or at least reduce infirmary downtime. That being said HP is quite costly in "creation points" (NCE doesn't just give you random guys, it uses something similar to many RPGs point buy system but randomizes it) so soldiers with lots of HP will usually have low Aim and/or mobility and won't be good to much besides serving as a tank. Glass cannon soldiers are very powerful but you have to be careful with them.
  • Dodge, as 8wayz told you plays with the Graze band but will also work if you turn it off. It's exactly the same as Archons annoying dodge, a chance to receive 1/2 damage. It's not terribly useful if you have just a few points but becomes very strong if you can have a lot (Shinobis gain dodge as they level up). Note that negative dodge actually turns into more crit chance and can be pretty bad.
  • Defense is useful on anyone you don't want to be shot. It helps soldiers with low HP more than anyone else, especially if you stack defense bonuses from perks/PCS. Again, 8wayz is correct that if you have a lot, Aliens will search for someone else to shoot.
They can be used to create soldiers with specific roles if they get the right class (or you chose the right class with GTS training).
  • A soldier with High Dodge and low Defense (especially if he also have lots of HP) who becomes a Shinobi can be a great tank. Try to get low cover so you're easier to hit than the more vulnerable squadmates and Aliens will usually shoot you. You should have a good chance to take only 1/2 damage and the hit points to survive. Equip some +armor or -crit vest for extra protection.
  • A soldier with high defense can only act as a tank if noone else is visible, otherwise aliens will ignore him. This usually means you have several sharpshooters in the squad to kill from squadsight. A high def gunner with Combat Awareness PCS who area suppresses an enemy pod is almost impossible to hit and can lock them in place so they don't come in vision range of your more vulnerable soldiers.
  • High defense also directly helps soldiers you expect to be exposed such as Assault or offensive Shinobis. It also helps Assaults if they have to run several OW shots.
  • If a soldier has low of everything, he's extremely vulnerable and is better left in a safe position where aliens can't see him. He probable have high aim making him an excellent sniper.
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SonnyWiFiHr
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Re: HP Dodge & Defense

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

After console command.
I have only one 16 PSI , only one 18 PSI. Rest is uber 20 PSI. Somehow I have ended with 21 grenadiers. My only advantage is willpower.
Just lost 6 soldiers. High PSI/Will and they are dead. They can't survive to get life saving perk at least not on Legendary.
Point is - now i have lost the game because of bad roll. Slow moving 55 Aim soldiers with 40 will and 30 PSI are dead. I had no choice to avoid that because I can't wait for GTS. Skipping first three missions is not option
Granted soldiers in my opinion should be more balanced toward something useful and rest should obey rule of not created equally.
Like soldiers from black market.

After 30+ new game only one campaign has give me "good" soldiers. I really need average soldiers in the begging of Legendary. Average HP will not save negative Dodge/defense soldier. Crit role is to high and i have no means of countering that. Aim is to low to take risk
First missions with grenade/flashbang spawning and somehow 6 of them are dead.
I know how to build/play soldiers, I always try to sneak but if my only option is grenade then next pod will attack me. Then I have panic (40 will and they panic). Loosing 2 soldiers per mission is big hit . Smokes do not help it feels like they are marked for death.
Normal campaign is easier but legendary need more equal starting soldiers

I started in India and had black market on North Pole.
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LordYanaek
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Re: HP Dodge & Defense

Post by LordYanaek »

High will is about the only bad result NCE can give you since will is the official dump stat in non WotC XCOM2 :(
SonnyWiFiHr wrote: Normal campaign is easier but legendary need more equal starting soldiers
Well, that's different from what you actually asked. You can disable NCE from the options menu (after starting the game). Do this as soon as Gatecrasher starts and you'll play with totally balanced (and equal) soldiers like a vanilla game. You can enable it later if you want and your soldiers will get the NCE adjustment again (including those you started with) but you might not have the correct skill combinations to fully use the potential of your NCE soldiers.
I started in India and had black market on North Pole.
Strange.
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SonnyWiFiHr
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Re: HP Dodge & Defense

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

No. I found answer myself. Unfortune for me and my soldiers.
When I have chance to level up soldiers all posts above are right.
Thanks for explanation.
It was more like question - can you pull out of bad soldier "syndrom" in early game on Legendary?
Right now HP is good to have but -10 dodge -10 defense soldier is dead man walking even with max 7 HP (9 hp with vest).
Small alloy cache can help (for new vest) but crit will finish them off usually.

Edit: you start with NCE soldiers. I like NCE but don't like NCE creating 18 of 21 PSI ops
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8wayz
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Re: HP Dodge & Defense

Post by 8wayz »

You can simply mod the .ini file where the NCE parameters are defined. That way you can set the minimum values for each stat more to your liking.

The current balance in NCE makes so you get weaker soldiers that die easily.

Do you know where the NCE parameters are in the .ini files?
stefan3iii
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Re: HP Dodge & Defense

Post by stefan3iii »

I find them all pretty irrelevant, especially compared to aim and mobility. HP is a nice to have so that you can tank a hit, I usually give PCS conditioning to grenadiers for example, because they're the only class that doesn't need aim or mobility.
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SonnyWiFiHr
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Re: HP Dodge & Defense

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

It is not problem to have "bad" soldiers. But to have "bad" barracks is actually issue. It is hard to recover. With GTS they could have chance but I must use them. Force is rising rapidly on Legend. Mobility and aim are screwed if you roll will/PSi then you have negative dodge/defense to compesate. One hit kill is in my case for six soldiers out of nowhere (actually because of my bombs).
There is little stealth in first three missions. You can have only one Obi-One Shinobi. PCS are not researched or in inventory.

I know how to edit NCE but then if I reduce PsiOffense/Will i will get super soldiers. It is just hard to lose bunch of useable soldiers because they rolled - Advent target practice stats
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LordYanaek
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Re: HP Dodge & Defense

Post by LordYanaek »

SonnyWiFiHr wrote:It is not problem to have "bad" soldiers. But to have "bad" barracks is actually issue.
I have to agree on this. I restarted a campaign after i noticed my entire roster had low aim and mobility. Fortunately it only takes Gatecrasher to know this so it's not a big deal but still annoying.
I know how to edit NCE but then if I reduce PsiOffense/Will i will get super soldiers. It is just hard to lose bunch of useable soldiers because they rolled - Advent target practice stats
It's probably possible to keep balanced soldiers but changes to NCE usually reduce the diversity of soldiers and tend to give you more or less "vanilla" rookies. If for instance you don't want Aim or HP to drop too much you'll never get very high mobility soldiers because NCE won't be able to free enough points to "buy" very high mobility.
Allowing even more variability OTOH introduces a high risk of getting "broken" soldiers with totally non viable stats. It's difficult to adjust it.

I think it would probably work best if soldiers were assigned a random "template" and those templates could be used to direct NCE so you would get a variety of stats, but nothing useless.
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SonnyWiFiHr
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Re: HP Dodge & Defense

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

I looked at NCE stat swap before.
.NUM_STAT_SWAPS=4
+STAT_SWAPS=(StatUp=eStat_Offense, StatUp_Amount=1, StatDown=eStat_Defense, StatDown_Amount=2, Weight=1.5f

+STAT_SWAPS=(StatUp=eStat_Offense, StatUp_Amount=1, StatDown=eStat_Hacking, StatDown_Amount=3, Weight=0.5f, DoesNotApplyToFirstMissionSoldiers=false)

Changing weights for psi Offense could do the trick but it will be for all soldiers.
But PsiOffense and Will is usually 0.5f . I really had bad luck.
Only defense swap with psi offense is 1.0f - so changing that to 0.5f (if I read it correctly ) will produce on average more defense. Less PSI only soldiers. Ofcourse if game choose to make this swap

Edit Wrong it is stat up for defense stat down for psi i have to rise that number
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SonnyWiFiHr
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Re: HP Dodge & Defense

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

+STAT_SWAPS=(StatUp=eStat_Dodge, StatUp_Amount=1, StatDown=eStat_PsiOffense, StatDown_Amount=1, Weight=0.5f)

I will change All Low weights for stats downn for psi offense to 1.0floating and report back

Uh forgot to read the green text
Note that all swaps can be "reversed"
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Steelflame
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Re: HP Dodge & Defense

Post by Steelflame »

Defensive stats are fairly important, especially with how they interact with the AI.

Health is great for dealing with unavoidable damage, such as explosives. High armor, health, and Blast Padding is great bait for enemy explosives.

High dodge with low defense is good for a soldier meant to be on the front lines and take hits for your other, frailer, soldiers. A good example would be a Shinobi who also rolled good HP, and given your best ablative armor items.

High Defense reduces the odds the enemy will target an indivudial guy in a firefight, and protect from the shots that are fired at them.

Starting with base 10 Defense+11 Defense PCI will set you up with 21 defense, which turns low cover into more than high cover, and high cover will probably just result in the enemy AI not even thinking of shooting you, especially if you hunker.
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SonnyWiFiHr
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Re: HP Dodge & Defense

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

Toolbox need some tweaking.
I can't quantify results because i need to extract data from 120 new game.
So from my head.
dodge stat on average tends to 0 it should tend to 5
defense jumps all over the board with lots of extremes and in most cases it likes to swap dodge.
Psi offense / will swap not noticable.

Increased dodge / psiOffense swap do not produce more dodge rookies / good psi operative it seems to produce dodge average=0 ( even with 1.0f)
We need in my opinion one 1.5f for dodge and 1.5f for defense from will/psi swap.

I Know that person who wrote the toolbox have more data than I. But right now if you start game around six times you will roll high mobility average offense rookies. If you roll just one 18 mobility rest are following. Right now I started with more than half 16 mobility average offense rookies. Not a single 13 mobility. Only one 14. For that you have to start new game around 20 times.

So bad luck is actually intergrated. If you roll low mobility you will be lucky to have 17 mobility few rookies or even one. Everything else will be wasted on will / psi screwing aim/dodge/defense.

I know that jonnylump (sorry if I misspelled ) is better in statistic and permutations then I m. Judging by the way he explain stuff
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