Psi rush 1.5 edition

Redshirt4life
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Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by Redshirt4life »

I decided to rush psi in my commander game since I had a really strong start that I felt could take the hit. I wanted to hear opinions and such is all. Not many people even bother with psi in LW2 and it was hard to find any information on it.

Research order was...
Resistance comms, basic research, hybrid, biotech, laser weapons, advanced lasers, sectoid autopsy, psi, armor

Build order was...
gts, awc, power relay, psi chamber, lab, proving ground

problems

Equipment
Things were hairy mid-May without any armor. Heavy armor was delayed by a month as well, since scientists were working the psi lab. I made my first heavy armor in mid June and I still don't have mobile suits nor incediaries.

Research
I had to buy 3 scientists for a total of 5. Fortunately I had a lot of engineers to dig for gold. Research was crippled as a result of researching psi techs, putting scientists into the psi lab, and delaying construction of a lab.

Wounded
I built the AWC before the psi lab, but I couldn't staff it. With a lack of armor, wound times were high in May. I was eventually down an entire squad, slowing my total operations. This hurt my intel gains and forced me to spend intel on infiltration where I otherwise wouldn't have. Through lib missions I received +2 contacts but I only contacted 4 regions at mid June.

Money
I had to buy more scientists then usual along with the lab itself and this put me back pretty far financially. I still have enough equipment to field three squads, so its not terrible. I was able to gather a fairly good sum of money through supply jobs to pull me through.

Benefits

Having PSI operatives deployed in May meant that they weren't a burden. They are useful at squaddie. Their base damage is significant vs. targets in full cover, and insanity has 90%+ success chance vs. tier 1 advent and vipers. The psi operative was particularly effective in haven defense where he has a chance to mind control every turn. The ablative from mind merge is very strong at this stage as well.

I have officers with Trial by fire, so the operatives are quickly ranking up as well. I went full on and kept two scientists in the psi lab to reduce training. I am going for the cheapest abilities to get them back in the field sooner. At mid June my best Psi is a corporal equivilent with solace and stasis.

I think at this point I have made it through the hard part and I think having mid-ranked psi operatives will make the summer easier. They are coming online at a critical time where I will be fighting harder missions and larger pods. The psi operatives are replacing the grenadiers almost entirely. But time will tell just how effective they are in comparison. Hopefully mag weapons research won't be delayed too badly.
Dwarfling
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by Dwarfling »

If you want an opinion: Psi Rush is just less efficient than just doing the regular Weapon tech focus and getting the Psi on the side if your resources allow it. Getting them early doesn't make the early-mid game any easier than having advanced weapons on your barracks does.

I speak from experience only on Legendary, where the force level tech race is less forgiving and you want to be getting out of ballistic ASAP.
gimrah
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by gimrah »

First, IMO that's not a psi rush. It is viable on Commander to do psi before lasers and with the psi lab as first building. By doing that I found my initiates had an immediate positive impact as soulfire will often oneshot an M1 (less so on Legend). By starting at that stage I would just about have my top 2 psi ops reaching master by waterworld.

Second, I would agree with those saying it's not advantageous on Legend. However on Commander, force level and research times give you that much more space so it can work. But I don't think it's optimal either.

The issue with psi is you need to get them early enough to be powerful relative to other soldiers. If you don't achieve that then it's wasted investment. But in order to achieve that you have to invest early, when the opportunity cost is much higher.

The other issue is they spend a lot of time in the tank not fighting. There's the psi lab time but you will also want to have them learn officer or pistol skills (quick study is one of their best features IMO).

There is a judgement call on when to go for stasis. It is powerful but the cooldown it fairly long. It becomes really useful when more powerful enemies appear that would otherwise take multiple soldiers to deal with. IMO beserkers and M2 MECs are the first enemies worth using stasis on. Although beserkers are easily handled by an assault's arc thrower if you have one available.

Otherwise I find null lance is excellent. So is domination of course. The rest are just nice to have.

You may be tempted by the theoretical potential of schism and void rift. IME it is very underwhelming. Void rift has weak damage, middling radius and only has a chance to proc insanity, which then only has a chance to succeed. So against a rainbow pod you might hit 5 or 6 and insanity 2 if you're lucky. Meanwhile schism is nice early as it can be used as ghetto soulfire when that's on cooldown, but later insanity will regularly MC enemies, which can be be very helpful, and you don't want MC-ed enemies to be easier to kill.
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by Psieye »

The test for whether Psi was worth it is around August in Commander. When M3 dudes start showing up and you don't have Coilgun deployed, Psi will be asked "were you worth it when we could have had good guns?" The answer to that will depend on what you've been doing with early Psi.
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Dwarfling
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by Dwarfling »

Yeah. I'm feeling like PSI should have been further revised if we got a LW2 1.6. Too bad :(
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by gimrah »

It is a bit difficulty related. On Legend it's harder to make the side techs work in general.

A good thing I forgot: I have found in the past on Commander there can be a reason to do psi in the mid game: if your roster isn't as large as you'd like but squaddies are hard to field or equip. A basic psi is more able to pull its weight. Or could be as well as training troops through the GTS.

A bad thing I forgot: the T2 psi amp is behind elerium. There is a period of all M2s where the damage from soulfire becomes very underwhelming, but the big enemies that make stasis worthwhile have not yet started showing up.
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by Psieye »

Back in my Commander 8-man "EXP rushes", I was fitting in a "squaddie Psi" into A-teams running around with 7 other GSGT+ veterans kitted with cutting edge equipment for July. Psi can hold their weight with very little EXP. They can't carry the entire squad on their own, but if the rest of the squad is good then Psi won't be dead weight.
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Redshirt4life
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by Redshirt4life »

Cool, thanks for the input everyone. Some useful info and opinions here.

I'm not doing this because its by any means a best strategy. I just feel compelled to use everything at my disposal for diverse gameplay. However, I am trying to find the best strategy for this sort of playstyle, where PSI may be a waste of resources but if I do choose to use it how can I make the best of it.

IMO psi seems fine minus the training times. The loss of two scientists just to achieve 'normal' training times is far too costly. It'd make more sense if they were super soldiers, but I don't think they are. But, ultimately this isn't legendary so I should be able to do some things which aren't optimal and be successful.

I wouldn't go psi before lasers because lasers are huge gamechanger. +33% damage on assault rifles, +50% damage on smgs, and an aim bonus. Lasers means nearly everything early game can be one-shot. I would never delay a GTS either because getting an officer to trial by fire early is another huge game-changer. Trial by fire largely negates the lost time on the field anyway. These must come first because psi is an investment and I need a strong base to support that investment. If I hurt my early game toying with ballistics, and as a consequence I miss out on supplies and scientists, then I won't have the resources to pull it off.

My top psi has domination as an option, but I'm just going for cheap skills first to train him up faster. I figure it will keep him in the field more, raise his psi attack faster, and ultimately reduce training times on the higher skills down the road.
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SonnyWiFiHr
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

If you do not play Legendary :

Having 8 man GOPs is powerful tool to have everything.
Extra exp alone makes strong squads.

So read Psieye's comments/threads how to get them and how to farm with them.
He actually broke the Commander difficulty with 8 man GOPs.

Tip use two Specialist in squad for that - every turn aid protocol on tank and rest of squad on out off sight position .

If you still need psi early (can't find reason) you can skip laser with 8 man GOPs (they are far better with laser).
Point is - you skip everything to get psi early including AWC/GTS/tech to spam PSI in quantity.
I like more balanced approach on commander - I rush SPARK.
With SPARK in 8 man GOPs you can do everything with almost no wounds for long time (0-50% max infiltration time).
If you add metal over flesh mod you can even go with all SPARKS and aim for full 0% infiltration time (if timers allow).

If you want any rush - key is simple learn how to farm scientist and expand rapidly to build big barracks early (every haven counts).
Doing 12 missions at time in 4 region is best way (remember you can do 0% infiltration mission) then switch to another 4 regions until things cool down (Vigilance drop below 6).
Not a single intel should be spend on boosting because it is 8 man GOPs.
8 man GOPs is rush on steroids ( I had around 12 scientist in April making any special kind of rushing obsolete)
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by Dwarfling »

The advantage of going with SPARKs is that the tech path is the same, you don't need a specialized building, SPARKs level normally and whatever research the SPARKs need to shine, the rest of the barracks can use. You're siphoning resources from equipment, but the base SPARK dominates T1 and holds vs T2. Mag tech SPARK dominates T2. Problem is they aren't very good vs T3 even with top tech. And WAR isn't something I get to quickly.

I just started a new campaign. I got 4 scientist (+b.research) and it's like... early May? I'm gonna get Psi after I'm done with Adv. Laser. Guess it isn't a rush, but ain't like I was planning for it before reading this thread. I'll report my experience later.
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by gimrah »

How many Sparks did you build and when do you access the tech? I find they are quite expensive and the fact it's gated behind robotics means the tech is not available until you lib (drone wrecks too rare outside HQs).

And then I find them so so. They be good if they had better aim and/or access to weapon mods.
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by Dwarfling »

I once went with 5 but I abandoned the campaign after I botched an invasion. Before that almost every mission I fielded one felt trivial because if something went wrong the SPARKs can take a couple hits and downtime was minimal. I use Shen's Legacy mission so I guess I have it easier? It's an unfair tradeoff with a random PoI, but eh. Normally I end up with 2 SPARKs.

Aim doesn't matter all that much when you're 2 tiles away or on a flank. I use SPARKs like I use shotgun assaults.
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SonnyWiFiHr
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

SPARKS spam - only if you play 8 man GOPs.

Every mission 8 man full squad -infiltration 50 -70 % at beginning (+ 3 enemy is difference)
Early early mission to be safe - carpet bombing.
After few perks - Vests and full 8 man GOPs. (Avoid 0% go for 20%+)

Every point of intel to new region. Three regions is enough to farm scientist (No1 priority)
Expand more because you are rising vigilance like crazy and you need big barracks ASAP.
If you expand like crazy - in April you will get rookies from havens. Large amount and you can even pick best. Doing jailbreaks help

You will learn even in the beginning that you can send one squad on two missions if your timing is right.
Who cares about extr. light mission on commander when you can tackle moderate with full squad.
Extra everything and you can afford sparks then you can just jump into mission.

Tried that on Legendary (8 man GOPs) but detection is crap for early squads. Somehow I need Scientist and Avenger to detect mission with normal timer. Extra region will generate rookies on any difficulty. More you can generate the easier is transition from T1 to T2.
No 1 priority for Legendary - intel (even more if you are sitting in one region) , jailbreaks , Scientist. Collecting intel in one region is minimal. Your rebels on intel job can generate more if you have more regions.
Boosting missions never pays off. Sometimes you must boost but it is waste compared to contacting new region. Every new region generate more and than you can afford everything/sparks.
How many regions you can have quickly is good question. Delaying contact for 7 days will cost you one rebel. One rebel generate everything you need.
More rebels is answer for any difficulty. Every week should be counted like -1 rebel/rookies/intel/supply.
You can loose whole haven in month
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Redshirt4life
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by Redshirt4life »

I'm not using that strategy. I'm not under-infiltrating, nor running 8-man squads. I imagine PSI wouldn't work so hot with that since only 2 psi operatives can be trained at a time. Giving up lasers for a splash of psi in a large roster doesn't sound great. Most would be stuck underranked waiting to jump in the tube.
Dwarfling
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by Dwarfling »

Lol, correction, 5 scientists (+B.Res) by April 21. I don't even feel like continuing, that campaign is already won.
gimrah
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by gimrah »

I'll swap you Dwarfling!

For my 2nd attempt at Legend I'm in late May and the only scientist I have is the one I bought. (Yes, should have bought more but thought I'd be bound to get some soon.)

Plus I had counterintelligence sweep through April. So everything is behind.
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by Dwarfling »

Here's the save: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1215g_ ... j4EyjFHQwA

I held on buying a scientist until I rescued the 1st one (after engineer rescue). But since I had 2nd region up, it generated another scientist rescue mission there. Rescued both, got a scientist PoI. Then rescued another scientist in April and that's where the save is at.

Should be smooth sailing if you want to do Psi after Laser. Unless you're out of resources. Roster ain't nothing that special unless you don't like playing with Sappers and Snapshotters.

PS: also got Power PoI.
PS2: I got some people with reaaaaaally low defense.
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by Psieye »

Redshirt4life wrote:I'm not using that strategy. I'm not under-infiltrating, nor running 8-man squads. I imagine PSI wouldn't work so hot with that since only 2 psi operatives can be trained at a time. Giving up lasers for a splash of psi in a large roster doesn't sound great. Most would be stuck underranked waiting to jump in the tube.
An unstated, key assumption: "I must rank up all my Psi". Psi are designed to be useful even at "squaddie" (Initiate). It's a quick tube session to get Stasis. What else do they need to compete with other classes for deployment? Besides the feeling of wasted EXP, is there something bad about underranked Psi with cutting edge equipment? A few Psi ranks help with Faceless detection for soldier advisors, but it drops off after a while (same with Officer ranks).
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SonnyWiFiHr
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

Yeah early second region should net you scientist-s .
I m starting to research boxes for intel.
3 region + lib chain it is like I m playing commander.
If I can keep my losses low I will have bunch of them in April. Than I can break this game once for all.
With luck I will net 3 scientist from Lib 2 . After first eng they can drop like rain OR you can get crappy soldiers instead.
Contacting 3rd region is most profitable solution for me. Small barracks can operate better in low strength regions. I can keep Vigilance low and control Strength that way. Two regions can pick too much strength and this reduce choices early. I will not send weak teams on str 5 reinforcements because reinforcements are biggest killers of my barracks.
So far my "Don't think just bomb" campaign is not so hard if I can avoid shooting brawl. My squads are getting bigger not smaller like in "Lets play Legendary in one region and boost" campaign. I think that I will Liberate 4th or 5th region (depending on their strength )
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Redshirt4life
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by Redshirt4life »

Its partially because I haven't really got to play with psi yeah, but I have some other reasons to rank them up too. I rank up my psi for the psi offense which is making a big impact on the frequency of mind control. It takes about the same time to go solace, fortress, and stasis then it does to just take stasis first, but the prior has 8 more psi offense, 1 more hp, 4 more aim, and reduced training times on the top tier skills (I'm following advice here and going for domination on the first two). I take them on defense with trial by fire officers to rank them up quickly. I'm trying to keep their downtime to a minimum.

I don't think I can survive delaying lasers at all, but this seems to be working out well so far. I did lib 5 now and the Psi Operative was MCing everything. Mutons, berserkers, sidewinders etc etc. It was ridiculous. The psi on that mission will have domination in 5 and I'm pretty excited for that. Freaking Advent took the +hack defense dark event early and I hope this will help remedy that.

As per the advice here I took a supply raid at 40% infiltration and pulled it off thanks to combatives, smoke, and aid protocol. It was pretty hairy, but I think I can handle more of these in the future. The payoff was sure nice.

I am considering skipping mag for coils. Elerium has the upgraded psi weapon anyway. I'd have to pick up mag later for the secondaries, but I don't think I need the secondaries immediately. What do you think?
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by Psieye »

Redshirt4life wrote: As per the advice here I took a supply raid at 40% infiltration and pulled it off thanks to combatives, smoke, and aid protocol. It was pretty hairy, but I think I can handle more of these in the future. The payoff was sure nice.
Do note underinfiltrated supply raids are going to have a boss pod. Coming up with a solution to the unnaturally advanced units (compared to your force level) is important. Sounds like you had that solution. Troop Columns I'm much more happy to underinfiltrate. Easier to find too.
Redshirt4life wrote:I am considering skipping mag for coils. Elerium has the upgraded psi weapon anyway. I'd have to pick up mag later for the secondaries, but I don't think I need the secondaries immediately. What do you think?
I think you mean you want to skip Adv. Mag Weapons - basic Mag is a pre-requisite iirc. Your barracks can be adapted for this. Personally I hate the idea because I like Snipers oneshotting things.
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gimrah
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by gimrah »

Glad it's going well. Of course, mind control on an HQ is incredibly dangerous as it could activate 20 more enemies.

I'm never sure what people mean by mag skip. You need the research to access coil (at least the basic, not sure about advanced). So it's not like laser skip where you don't need the research until you want to unlock plasma.

I would be inclined to do the research but be selective about which soldiers warrant mag weapons. For me rangers do most of the killing, so definitely them. If you rely on assaults a lot, then buy some shotguns. Maybe a sniper rifle if you get a tough untimed mission. But not on anyone who won't be shooting every turn: no SMG upgrades for techs/grenadiers for example.

Just don't get caught still on a mix of mag and lasers when M3s become the norm.
Redshirt4life
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by Redshirt4life »

I wouldn't say I had a plan in that supply raid. I just made it work when things went south. I actually thought I was screwed. My shinobi got stuck and activated the boss pod along with a second rather scary pod and the only solution was to have him stand in the open next to two berserkers and a muton. I moved the sparks next to him. They both have formidable, he used incoming, specialist threw aid protocol, and ranger threw smoke. The mutons and berserkers were countered by combatives. The 4 tier 2 Mecs all launched grenades, actually killing the berserkers, and the rest all fired to minimum effect thanks to defense and dodge stacking. From there my sniper and gunner deleted mecs one at a time while the rest used consumables. The shieldbearer used his ability when he activated and hid in the back so I had to do it all through his shields too. Ultimately the tanknobi and sparks were the only wounded.

In the HQ assault I did activate several pods with mindcontrol. I found that pods often won't activate as long as I don't move the MCed unit but for the most part I just went with it by holding up in a strong position and forcing them to move into me. I was MCing consistently enough where I always had some fodder to tank with.

By mag skip I mean skipping adv. mag. For better or worse I am planning Elerium -> Mag -> Coils -> Adv. Coils and I'm gonna hope that better equipment will allow my Psi to carry some of my other soldiers until adv. coils. If it works it'll help me catch up on tech.
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by gimrah »

That's strange. I thought combatives only procs once per turn.

Skipping advanced mag (assuming the tech tree is correct on that) depends on what classes you lean most on. For example I find assaults kind of useless if they can't reliably oneshot enemies. On Legend I find that is not the case if your tech is behind. It's a bit more forgiving on Commander IIRC.

And if you're doing an HQ during that time, you may regret not having mag sniper rifles to oneshot M2s and proc DfA.
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Re: Psi rush 1.5 edition

Post by Xenos' Phobia »

gimrah wrote:That's strange. I thought combatives only procs once per turn.
I've heard it explained that a graze or a miss will be countered with combatives, but the +90 to dodge that combatives grants only applies to the first attack. Since in this case the shinobi was smoked and aid protocol'd, he was probably able to dodge the second and third attacks, though they weren't quite as guaranteed like the first. On the flip side people have theorized this means if an enemy critically hits and upgrades a graze to a hit, combatives can fail even on the first attack.
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