Psi as Tank in 8-man squads

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Psieye
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Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Psi as Tank in 8-man squads

Post by Psieye »

I finally got to deploy a Psi unit without trying to rush them out. I was concerned whether they'd have a place in an 8-man S&G: afterall I had SSgt+ guys all with well-defined roles and Mag/Predator gear. Turns out there's a couple features that Psi enthusiasts didn't highlight when trying to sell the benefits of getting Psi. I still don't believe in building the Psi Lab until after you've established an economy with AWC, GTS, PG and Lab all built (oh and enough Mags to outfit 3~4 squads).

- Insanity does not end turn and is available once per turn
- Soulfire ignores ablative HP as well as armour

This means a Psi is as good as a Ranger at tanking: attack then hunker. If there's only one spec in the squad, the Psi tank syncs up with them to use Soulfire when Aid Prot is available. I got my Psi out around when Shieldbearers started showing up. That meant key M2 dudes who got shielded could be removed without worrying about the Shieldbearer - especially if they took damage from OW before the shields went up. Insanity also has a chance to mind control - higher when used on some M1 guy. Mind control is an exceedingly good way to tank. Insanity also has a chance to make the target hunker in panic but that's fine as you choose who and when to target (unlike AI Sectoids who sometimes help you tank).

It's important to get Coilgun fast but once you have a 4-slot Lab extra scientists have little impact individually. Tygan + 4-slot Lab = 10 scientists. It's much more affordable to put a scientist on AWC/Psi when they're effectively the 11th scientist instead of the 5th.


Question: has the Solace bug been fixed for good? The changelog just says 'attempt', do we get NuSolace correctly now?

Question: aside from already-blown-up cars/vans, what other cover is indestructible?
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
gimrah
Long War 2 Crew
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Re: Psi as Tank in 8-man squads

Post by gimrah »

We believe Solace is fixed now. But important to understand how it works. It won't cure unconsciousness. It won't give actions back on curing panic (but you can then command). It will however end mind control.

Insanity is not a very reliable way to tank. You probably don't have stellar to hit chances. Unless you roll MC you are only mezzing one enemy. If you do roll MC you have a high chance to activate more stuff. As I understand it, the effect of insanity is linked to relative will, i.e. the higher the hit chance also the higher likelihood you'll MC rather than panic, and panic rather than disorient.

As it happens I started a new campaign with full psi rush. So I had guys in the tank by 1 May. I very much doubt it's optimal strategy but I thought it might be a laugh. I have one psi who had 33 psi offence as a rookie. As an initiate with basic gear and no PCS she has 83% to hit insanity on basic advent, and rolls MC more often than not when she hits. At that stage in the game soulfire also has a good chance to oneshot most advent.

I ran a squad of 6 low ranked soldiers including that psi against a very light S&G. Killed the first 2 guys. Then got double activation in an awkward way, so facing 5 active enemies. Insanity a lancer, roll MC, which activates the other pod: 3 sectoids. There followed a huge multi-turn fight. Advent killed the MC-ed guy. So I MC-ed another guy, which they also killed. Thus the advent were dealt with. The sectoids took longer with lots of zombies and panicking of my guys. It was fun but I think I was lucky no-one got hurt.

You do have to be really careful though when you rely on an MC-ed enemy to tank. MC can be broken by a sectoid mindspin, a drone hit (either kind), or an advent engineer's flashbang. In that fight I was so worried about my psi getting disoriented I deliberately bunched 2 other guys for the engineer to flashbang.

However there are other powers that don't end the turn. Notably stasis. So that buys you a turn against the scariest / hardest to kill enemy while you deal with the rest.

Psi damage powers are also good against entrenched enemies because they ignore cover etc. Null lance and void rift will damage mechanicals too. In theory, void rift + schism is nifty as void rift triggers insanity rolls too. In practice it's not that great: the void rift damage is low, insanity procs unreliably (may only be a chance to roll), and if you do MC you don't want your target hurt and ruptured.
faket15
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Re: Psi as Tank in 8-man squads

Post by faket15 »

gimrah wrote: Insanity is not a very reliable way to tank. You probably don't have stellar to hit chances. Unless you roll MC you are only mezzing one enemy. If you do roll MC you have a high chance to activate more stuff. As I understand it, the effect of insanity is linked to relative will, i.e. the higher the hit chance also the higher likelihood you'll MC rather than panic, and panic rather than disorient.
To anyone interested in the actual numbers the chance to mind control if Insanity hits is equal to 100*(Psi/Will)/(2 * Psi/Will + 2 * Will/Psi + 1). A PsiOp with 80 Psi against a 50 Will target will have 80% chance to proc Insanity and then 29% MC, 48% Panic and 23% Disorient.
gimrah
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Re: Psi as Tank in 8-man squads

Post by gimrah »

faket15 wrote:
gimrah wrote: Insanity is not a very reliable way to tank. You probably don't have stellar to hit chances. Unless you roll MC you are only mezzing one enemy. If you do roll MC you have a high chance to activate more stuff. As I understand it, the effect of insanity is linked to relative will, i.e. the higher the hit chance also the higher likelihood you'll MC rather than panic, and panic rather than disorient.
To anyone interested in the actual numbers the chance to mind control if Insanity hits is equal to 100*(Psi/Will)/(2 * Psi/Will + 2 * Will/Psi + 1). A PsiOp with 80 Psi against a 50 Will target will have 80% chance to proc Insanity and then 29% MC, 48% Panic and 23% Disorient.
Thanks. Are you sure that's accurate though? Just playing with some numbers on that formula, that makes it seem like the effect is not that sensitive to psi. Whereas anecdotally I seem to get a lot of MCs when my chance to hit is good. I haven't kept a log though.
Psieye
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Re: Psi as Tank in 8-man squads

Post by Psieye »

gimrah wrote: Insanity is not a very reliable way to tank. You probably don't have stellar to hit chances. Unless you roll MC you are only mezzing one enemy. If you do roll MC you have a high chance to activate more stuff. As I understand it, the effect of insanity is linked to relative will, i.e. the higher the hit chance also the higher likelihood you'll MC rather than panic, and panic rather than disorient.
Under conventional tactics, agreed. When the situation is "Killed: 7, Active: 16" on a Moderate-Heavy mission, this problem goes away as everything is activated anyway. The key point of the Psi tank is that they're doing something and still hunkering. Other classes usually have to give up doing anything to hunker-tank without moving. Whether Insanity hits or not then becomes a secondary detail and what I care is that I'm getting action economy while hunker-tanking.

My latest mission was pretty much the situation above. M2 dudes OW camping around and taking 2% shots while my MSGT assault was getting about 2 kills every turn (CCS is scary, as is CE) starting from the flank. If the AI was smart, the mass of enemies would have ignored the Psi tank, pulled back as a group and rushed the assault. There was also a GSGT shinobi Whirlwind chipping while ending each turn in high cover + smoke. On the decisive turn, that shinobi went Reaper -> Fleche into new cover -> EXO punch.
gimrah wrote:You do have to be really careful though when you rely on an MC-ed enemy to tank. MC can be broken by a sectoid mindspin, a drone hit (either kind), or an advent engineer's flashbang. In that fight I was so worried about my psi getting disoriented I deliberately bunched 2 other guys for the engineer to flashbang.
This is why I don't believe in fast Psi. I want mindshield on everyone who will be seen on 8-man squads. I've built 11 so far (July). It was a race to amass Sectoid corpses before they become somewhat rare in June+ Troop Columns.
gimrah wrote: However there are other powers that don't end the turn. Notably stasis. So that buys you a turn against the scariest / hardest to kill enemy while you deal with the rest.
Good to know the Psi tank can be more versatile while still hunkering.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
faket15
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Re: Psi as Tank in 8-man squads

Post by faket15 »

gimrah wrote:
faket15 wrote:
gimrah wrote: Insanity is not a very reliable way to tank. You probably don't have stellar to hit chances. Unless you roll MC you are only mezzing one enemy. If you do roll MC you have a high chance to activate more stuff. As I understand it, the effect of insanity is linked to relative will, i.e. the higher the hit chance also the higher likelihood you'll MC rather than panic, and panic rather than disorient.
To anyone interested in the actual numbers the chance to mind control if Insanity hits is equal to 100*(Psi/Will)/(2 * Psi/Will + 2 * Will/Psi + 1). A PsiOp with 80 Psi against a 50 Will target will have 80% chance to proc Insanity and then 29% MC, 48% Panic and 23% Disorient.
Thanks. Are you sure that's accurate though? Just playing with some numbers on that formula, that makes it seem like the effect is not that sensitive to psi. Whereas anecdotally I seem to get a lot of MCs when my chance to hit is good. I haven't kept a log though.
Yes, I'm sure this is accurate. You can check how stat contests work in X2AbilityToHitCalc_StatCheck
nmkaplan
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Re: Psi as Tank in 8-man squads

Post by nmkaplan »

gimrah wrote:[NuSolace] won't give actions back on curing panic (but you can then command).
I'm pretty sure this is wrong. I've used solace to cure panicking soliders a couple times and it has returned the AP. In fact, I think I once even used it to cure disorientation after the soldier had taken her actions, and it even refunded 2 AP in that scenario.

Also, there's this from the 1.5 changelog: "- NuSolace restores action points to the target, like revivial protocol."

I have 5-6 PSI guys, and I like Solace. I've never gotten the bug that appeared in 1.4, so I'm convinced it's fixed.
gimrah
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Re: Psi as Tank in 8-man squads

Post by gimrah »

@faket15: Ok thanks. I'm probably just seeing patterns in randomness.

@nmkaplan: Solace certainly gives you your actions back from a stun. If it does on a disorient after using them then that's a bug! Certainly at one point in 1.5 it did not give you actions back from panic, which was was explained to me as being because a panicked soldier already took its actions on the enemy turn.

@Psieye: Fair enough - psi ops would be great in the huge battles you describe. I suppose also psis are good pistol users because of quick study, so he could be shooting and ducking too. I've never been convinced mind shields are worth it. You can generally flashbang or slice the sectoid. Failing that you can tie up a guy in your own team fairly easily with arc thrower, stasis etc. Maybe worth it on assault and shinobi if they are really far forward.
Psieye
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Re: Psi as Tank in 8-man squads

Post by Psieye »

gimrah wrote:I've never been convinced mind shields are worth it. You can generally flashbang or slice the sectoid. Failing that you can tie up a guy in your own team fairly easily with arc thrower, stasis etc. Maybe worth it on assault and shinobi if they are really far forward.
You're right in that mind shields aren't worth it in fast 5-man GOps and sensible HQ missions where you pull one pod at a time. Basically you can't have both mind shields AND flashbangs in the squad: there's just not enough inventory space. When you're tanking in huge battles, mind shields go up in value. There might be 5 Sectoids alive, needing 3 flashbangs to cover the area. I might not even kill those Sectoids for 6 turns because I've overwhelmed their 75 Aim (with high cover + smoke + aid prot) and I have spare DPS to kill zombies (or the tank has Combatitives).

Mind shields also make Engineers useless, Drones a joke, Lancers much less of a threat (though they use Aim when charging) and allow even Will 0 shaken soldiers to be the tank. None of this matters when enemies die fast, but when they're left alive for many turns (and the tank is unshootable), mind shield lets me re-prioritise targets.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
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2nd
3rd
gimrah
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Re: Psi as Tank in 8-man squads

Post by gimrah »

So does mind shield protect against all sources of disorient and stun? If so they are better than I realised.

Do they also protect against stun lancer effects?
Psieye
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Re: Psi as Tank in 8-man squads

Post by Psieye »

It's a regular thing for Engineers to waste their turns using a flashbang on my tanks with mind shield. I believe they also protect against stun lancer effects - not had many actually hit my tanks to form anecdotes (they don't like charging with 0% hit chance).

One really weird thing: they even protect against Unconscious when you stabilise a bleeding out unit. I assume it's a vanilla bug as the animation still thinks the soldier should be on the floor but I can move and shoot with them (and the AI shoots them back).
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
gimrah
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Re: Psi as Tank in 8-man squads

Post by gimrah »

Huh. Good to know. I like the idea of the mind shield forcing the soldier to fight on despite its wrecked body. Like a kind of human reverse andromedon.

I guess mind shield is something you can do with sectoid corpses if you don't go psi. If you do go psi you want a T2 psi amp for every operative really and potentially psi whips for any psi ops with domination.
Psieye
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Re: Psi as Tank in 8-man squads

Post by Psieye »

Because bug, red fog doesn't get applied to the 1 HP mind shield stabilised soldier. It's funky but I definitely don't want it when there are 5 OW and the freshly stabilised guy is not in cover.

And yes, sectoid corpses are precious. I might go as far as saying the reason I could go Psi (and mind shield spam) in this campaign was because I got a lot of Sectoid corpses. Looking through my records...
- May 5, V.Light Troop Column: 1
- May 11, V.Light Troop Column: 4
- May 18, Swarming HQ: 5
- June 3, Swarming Troop Column: 5
- June 20, Swarming HQ: 3

Not counting the Gatecrasher corpse that gets used on the Autopsy. If I didn't push hard for corpses in May/June and gotten lucky, I may not have had enough for Neurowhips.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Snipethis
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Re: Psi as Tank in 8-man squads

Post by Snipethis »

So another benefit is Bastion. The range was actually bigger than I expected. I used a Psi as a shield / tempter for MECs, rocketeers and grenadiers by grouping some guys up and taking precisely 0 damage. That also enabled the guys with me to not carry hazmat and carry stasis vests instead.

Bastion / Fortress is also a major asset for tanks.
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