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Hello everyone!

From what I've heard muton's combative should be disable while he is disoriented/stuned/burned/frozen/etc.
But there were several situations when it counterattaced my shinobis while beign burning.
It always results in a heavy wound and thus my top-officer shinoby is unavailable for other missions for several weeks which is hurts and I consider this to be a bug.
Could you please clarify what conditions truly disable mutins counterattack.

Many thanks!

If I remember right, burning doesn't disable the ability to melee attack, so it probably doesn't prevent the counter attack either.
The other debuffs I think should prevent it.

I've never had a muton who is disoriented or stunned counterattack. Those are the only two debuffs I know of to make it safe to melee attack.

Panic however doesn't seem to stop units from taking overwatch shots or counterattack.

Zenteck wrote:If I remember right, burning doesn't disable the ability to melee attack, so it probably doesn't prevent the counter attack either.
The other debuffs I think should prevent it.

In both long war and vanilla XCOM 2 burning does indeed 100% disable melee attacks on most enemies that can melee (the only ones this doesn't seem to apply to are archons, berserkers and faceless).

The counter-attack does not count as mêlée "attack" but a mêlée special ability, in the same vein as Bladestorm.
You will need something that counters special abilities, like the Disorientated status (via Flashbang grenade for example).

That said, in Long War 2 the Counter attack itself should not have a 100% proc chance, so if you do not see it sometimes, it is due to RNG.

It's 50% normaly and so I never try to slice an uncontrolled muton but I still don't understand how this piece of meat could counterattack (or do anything) while burning?!
I can accept chryssalid/faceless/bers's melee while burning - they are melee only after all but mutton...

Noober wrote:It's 50% normaly and so I never try to slice an uncontrolled muton but I still don't understand how this piece of meat could counterattack (or do anything) while burning?!
I can accept chryssalid/faceless/bers's melee while burning - they are melee only after all but mutton...

I had to learn the hard way that burning faceless couldn't care less as Long as they get to slicy dicy my precious operatives

Wait now this thread is confusing me even more.

Noober -> Prior to this thread I considered it safe to melee burning Mutons, and have done so when the appropriate opportunity arises. I mean I wouldn't say I do it frequently but I do it on occasion and cannot recall it ever being blocked by the Muton. Note that the parry attack only occurs around 50% of the time in any case, so I could just be super lucky!

8Wayz -> I agree with you that the Muton's strike is not a 'melee' attack but a special attack. Hence, it is blocked by fire status because fire disables all abilities except for standard melee. [One way to tell is that it shows as a special attack if you mind control a muton].

Phaseless -> This matches your experience, by the way, because the faceless strike is a normal melee attack even though it has area of effect + cover destruction. So putting them on fire doesn't mean any reduction in offensive power for them (side note: they also regenerate HP before burning damage over time applies, so don't rely on that one HP faceless who is burning dying at the start of the next turn).

JM01 -> agree, so the distinction is whether the enemy's melee attack is a 'melee' attack
'normal' melee attack, not blocked by fire (they don't even get an aim penalty!) -> berserkers, faceless, chryssalid
'special' melee attack, blocked by fire (like all special abilities and ranged attacks) -> mutons, stun lancers

[Speak up someone if I have that list wrong]

Back to Muton parry -> so the current explanation in this thread is that the Muton combative parry counts as a normal melee attack, even though their standard strike attack does not? This would be curious...

I say this because, if like 8wayz/TrainInVain you think it's not safe to melee a burning Muton, you wouldn't ever do it, so how would you be aware that it was safe to do?

Not discounting your recent experience, Noober, but this does leave open that it might be a bug. Or a conflict at least - Noober, are you running any major mods or anything like that which might as a side effect alter melee mechanics (etc)?

@ mudhut79

Burning does not disable all special abilities.

From the wiki:

Burning

Burn applies a two turn damage over time and lockout of most abilities. Burning enemies will take 1-3 damage twice. They can not perform ranged attacks or use most special abilities, but can still do melee attacks.

I can attest that passive abilities, like Counter attack and Bladestorm, are very much active even when burning. From my personal experience Burning mostly disables active abilities.

The safest way to go toe to toe with a muton is to Disorient or Stun him first. You can also just roll the dice and hope that you will not proc the counter attack.

Hmmm - well if the rule was 'fire disables all active special abilities, but does not disable passive special abilities' then that would at least be easier to remember.

Can anyone identify any exceptions to that proposed rule?

[Also means I must have been very lucky with RNG striking burning Mutons thus far!!]