v1.4 Officer Skills and Tricky Tradeoffs

[Jacke]

http://ufopaedia.org/index.php/Officers_(LW2)

I'm getting to Officers in my v1.4 Legendary campaign. Some of the skill tradeoffs I understand, but I'd like to know more about all of them.

Mostly it's about when some of the less likely choices are necessary and do they make a difference in v1.4. How useful are these skills, when are they sufficiently useful to be worth passing on the alternative, and how many officers in your barracks have the alternative?

EDIT: After the first batch of replies.

The second bolded choice is more preferred.

Oscar Mike over Focus Fire
Focus Fire is really good. When is boosting the Squad mobility by 5 for 1 turn in a mission now worth passing it up? Especially as it doesn't affect civilians any more.

EDIT: Some worth to Oscar Mike, but I think Focus Fire is still a better perk. Oscar Mike might help in some situations, but I think Focus Fire is going to be helpful a lot more often.

Incoming! over Get Some!
Xwynns made a comment on one of his recent videes that he finally actually made Incoming! work for him after hundreds of battles. Haven't watched it yet but I'm really interested. Have you made Incoming! work and how often?

EDIT: Get Some! really gains to help stack crit chance bonuses. Incoming! requires predicting what the enemy will do. Better to prevent the enemy from doing it.

Trial By Fire over Jammer
I can see at most 1 training officer with Trial By Fire, likely a Sharpshooter with Lead By Example.

Lead By Example over Collector
EDIT: Completely reversed on this one. Dwarfling made a strong point about officers not having a lot of difference in their stats compared to their squads (outside of an experienced officer leading a training squad). And another source of Intel, even if only small (at most 10 Intel), from every mission will help.

Defilade over Fire Discipline
EDIT: This one is a real toss up. Both are weak. And Fire Discipline only helps reaction shots. I give it to Fire Discipline but just barely.

Air Controller over Infiltrator
All missions would benefit from faster infiltration. Can you even request a new evac if the mission has a fixed one? How often is Air Controller now useful?

EDIT: Infiltrator every time. All missions need infiltration and having that be shorter is a force multiplier. Evac timers have been handled so far in the campaign and have a number of ways of being dealt with.

Scavenger over Combined Arms
Getting better rewards over hitting harder. But at this point in the campaign, is +1 damage enough to make a difference? How many full rank officers does anyone get in campaign?

EDIT: Perhaps one Scavenger officer? But really Combined Arms helps at a time when things get tougher.

[Dwarfling]

Oscar Mike over Focus Fire: I rarely ever find myself in a situation where I say "boy I wish everyone could blue move two more tiles".

Incoming! over Get Some: Incoming! is ok every once in a while when you can't deal with an explosive user. Thing is, ever since I started stacking crit for Kubikiri I want most of my officers with Get Some. Kubikiri is so good.

Trial By Fire over Jammer: One or two Trial by Fire officers is enough.

Collector over Lead By Example: almost none of my officers have better aim than the rest of my team's shooters.

Fire Discipline over Defilade: I think +5def is too small of a bonus while 10% is a team Cool Under Pressure.

Air Controller over Infiltrator: I don't do stealth missions anymore so I go all Infiltrator.

Scavenger over Combined Arms: Think about your multi-shooters. Crit Rangers get to do +3dmg, Assaults +2, Gunners... Add up how many of those are in a team and that's the extra dmg you're putting on target as long as the officer is in range.

[Psieye]

Oscar Mike over Focus Fire: I rarely ever find myself in a situation where I say "boy I wish everyone could blue move two more tiles".

It's useful for hauling the nest sniper's ass across the map when combined with Rescue Protocol/Command. Assuming you have a high speed shinobi officer. Conversely, Focus Fire demands most of your soldiers can be seen by the target - something I actively avoid a lot of the time.

[RookieAutopsy]

I would like to see someone mod in the ability to keep training Officer Skills, where the cost in time continues with every skill trained but you could eventually train them all like with Psi Ops.

The closest I've seen for that is the mod that trains both officer skills, coupled with doubling the time of training via ini edits.

As for the abilities themselves:

OM/FF: I've used both in about equal measure. You quite often want those 2 extra tiles when it suddenly gives you a few mission changing flanks. OM needs a CD rather than single use as that is where I find its a worse choice.

Incoming/GS: This is one tier I am never happy with, mainly due to my own incompetence (forgetting to use GS). Incoming is basically Combatives against Archers/Longbows, as Xwynns has shown a number of times.

TBF/Jammer: I always have a single troop training officer now, everyone else gets Jammer.

Collector/LBE: Collector 100% as my officers are officers because they don't have stats to be a useful soldier.

FD/Defilade: Defilade needs a bit of a boost.

AC/Infiltrator: Infiltrator 100%

CA/Scavenger: By the time I have a Field Commander out there, +1 damage is not a lot, but then neither are a few more resources. I usually have a few liberated regions raking in supplies.

[Dwarfling]

It's useful for hauling the nest sniper's ass across the map when combined with Rescue Protocol/Command. Assuming you have a high speed shinobi officer. Conversely, Focus Fire demands most of your soldiers can be seen by the target - something I actively avoid a lot of the time.

You don't really need to make every Focus Fire super efficient. As long as you get that temporal -1 armor and you got your Ranger in range it's fine.

[merkmerk]

I had oscar mike literally make the difference between getting an assault out in time on a smash in grab vs getting shot at last night

The only thing I don't like about it is how finicky it is with the command range requirement and spending an action - those two things often mean that you're not even getting the full bonus because you had to move guys closer in range to get the benefit.

Still, it's sometimes the difference between being able to flank and kill something nasty, or get in good cover for a grenade/suppression/flamethrower etc.

It's just easy to forget that it's an option in a firefight

Some of the other choices are definitely worse - oscar mike is solid and would just be better with more range or something

[stefan3iii]

I find focus fire to be really bad, like how often am I shooting the same target repeatedly and missing? The only relevant enemy I can think of for this is the gatekeeper. Oscar mike isn't amazing, but I use it often enough to flank, get better position, or to hit the switch in network towers.

Incoming vs Get Some - still undecided. Free weak action, vs expensive less weak action. You can CC Mecs basically by encouraging them to use rockets on you, but your cover still gets blown up so have to be careful.

Trial by Fire is of course critical early game, I like to have 2 or 3 officers with it.

Always collector, this isn't even a choice.

Fire Discipline vs Defilade: Two weak perks, doesn't matter. I usually take Defilade, to get hit by yellow alert less often.

Always infiltrator, another non-choice.

Always combined arms. +1 damage is almost an entire weapon tier of bonus.

[Jacke]

Thanks everyone for the advice!

I''m not so sure about Shinobi Officers. Could make them work, but the needs of being in Command Range and for perks with LOS to the squad are going to conflict with stealth scouting and long Fleche runs, especially at lower ranks.

I find focus fire to be really bad, like how often am I shooting the same target repeatedly and missing? The only relevant enemy I can think of for this is the gatekeeper. Oscar mike isn't amazing, but I use it often enough to flank, get better position, or to hit the switch in network towers.

I think Focus Fire is to help on that hard target but especially when you have other targets at the same time. It takes less shots to put it down allowing more attacks to shift to other targets.

Now only if it gave a Crit chance and damage bonus too.

[HerrDoktorMencus]

Lead by Example combos very,very well with Trial by Fire.

Make your TBF officer out of a high aim sharpshooter or ranger and you'll see what I mean.

[Dwarfling]

Yeah, but why would you ever want to have your high aim shooter, doing something else other than shooting? The officer's most important job is giving up his last action so that someone else gets an action. It's important that said action is better than the one you just gave up. Giving up a Ranger's rapid fire or a Sharpshooter's steady is not good action economy.

Or think about this: why would you have your soldiers with bad aim shooting instead of doing other actions? Certainly on the early game you don't have a lot of wiggle-room on what classes you get, but after you get the GTS you're certainly picking classes according to that stat line of the soldier. If you got a soldier with bad aim you're certainly not gonna give him a class that fires anything else other than an SMG or a Shotgun. So why plan an Officer that babysits soldiers that shouldn't be shooting anyway?

[Thrombozyt]

I can see a high aim shooter working as a TBF officer with LBE. On 'training missions' you will need a baby sitter anyhow and combining the officer with the baby sitter makes sense. Most prominent problem is that I don't want to invest a month of training into a high value combat soldier.

That said, after deliberation I disagree with the list from the first post on several points.

1) OM vs FF
I see the benefit of focus fire very early and that's when I take it. Concentrated fire on a single tough opponent - that's OK especially as your non-shooters can actually contribute by firing first and jacking up the aim bonus.
However, in general OM beats FF because OM can enable new options (operatives getting in range, getting line of sight) while FF only makes existing options slightly better. Therefore OM is much more of a game changer if you utilize it. Being in range for that incendiary grenade or to take the killing shot makes more of a difference than 1 armor penetration and a small aim bonus.

2) Incoming vs GetSome
Incoming is a free action. GetSome is not. Incoming give me the option of mostly ignoring 1-3 MECs (provided I don't allow them easy flanks). That means in a situation with X MECs and Y other opponents, I only need to kill Y enemies while with GetSome I would need to kill X+Y enemies. The damage increase through GetSome isn't significant enough.
Incoming also is a great insurance in case there are Mutons/Sergent/M2+ advent uncontrolled and who might lob a grenade. It costs you nothing to throw up except the cooldown and is a great versatile tool.

3) TBF vs Jammer
Jammer is a nice to have tool for specific missions (especially haven evac) but more often only for the very last turn of the mission due to the fact that only the current RNF is delayed.
TBF is just a very nice tool to slap onto most officers as it allows every mission to carry a corporal for profit. I started out with 1 TBF officer and in my current campaign I'm at 4 simply because it's always great to have one when the 9 day ExLight mission pops.

Yes, Jammer saves lives when you have it at the moment you need it. But that's mostly when things have gone to hell anyhow and most of the time the one turn of delay won't make a difference.

4) Defilade vs FD
Given the fact, that the vast majority of incoming shots against you should be in cover and ideally from a controlled opponent, Defilade results in a more than 10% reduction of hits taken.

I see the value of Fire Discipline if I'm running with dedicated OW specs in un-timed missions.

5) Scavenger vs Combined Arms
Combined Arms shines on combat missions while Scavenger shines as a bonus source for alloys and elirium.


My Combat Officer:
Primarily for full combat missions such as Troop Columns, HQ assaults, Supply Raids, Haven Defense, Golden Path
Class: Sharpshooter (full holo spec)
Focus Fire (because it stacks with holo target) or OM, Incoming, Jammer (for Haven Evac), Collector, Fire Discipline (Sniper + OW wall is perfect for untimed missions), Infiltrator and Combined Arms
Runs with the A-team in missions to mow down any and all opposition. Thus when the A-team goes on a regular GOP, it doesn't matter that the officer isn't the very best fit.

My GOP Officer:
Primarily for timed 'regular' missions with squad evac.
Class: PsiOP, Specialist
OM, Incoming, TBF, Collector, Defilade, Infiltrator, Scavenger
Runs the training ops that at the later stages consist of a Specialist (anti-MEC and skull mine), a PsiOp (anti-bio) and 0-3 shooty baby sitters depending on the infiltration time, the force level and the quality of the trainees. Ideally, Specialist and PsiOp turn a 6v9 into a 8v7 through Domination and Full Overide and the shooty babysitters take care of the rest.

[WanWhiteWolf]

Yeah, but why would you ever want to have your high aim shooter, doing something else other than shooting? The officer's most important job is giving up his last action so that someone else gets an action. It's important that said action is better than the one you just gave up. Giving up a Ranger's rapid fire or a Sharpshooter's steady is not good action economy.

Or think about this: why would you have your soldiers with bad aim shooting instead of doing other actions? Certainly on the early game you don't have a lot of wiggle-room on what classes you get, but after you get the GTS you're certainly picking classes according to that stat line of the soldier. If you got a soldier with bad aim you're certainly not gonna give him a class that fires anything else other than an SMG or a Shotgun. So why plan an Officer that babysits soldiers that shouldn't be shooting anyway?

I don't think anyone makes snapshot / DFA sharpshooters officers outside of trial by fire scenarios.

But in that scenario, they are among the best.

You assume that officer has to spam commands to be effective. While that might be a valid point for non-trail by fire missions, it does not apply to training missions for most of the time. Why would your Major soldier trade his AP with a Squadie? It makes sense that the Major AP has way more value than anyone else in that team.

Also, by having a sniper as officer with lead by example, you are basically giving everyone a free elite scope. That alone is more valuable that the ability to trade APs.

As a side effect, your Kubikiri sniper can take any big guy that comes in a training mission - which would be otherwise a pain to deal with low-rank soldiers.

[stefan3iii]

You assume that officer has to spam commands to be effective. While that might be a valid point for non-trail by fire missions, it does not apply to training missions for most of the time. Why would your Major soldier trade his AP with a Squadie? It makes sense that the Major AP has way more value than anyone else in that team.

There are classes/builds whose action value varies greatly from turn to turn. The most extreme example is Shinobi, who very often wants to remain in stealth for the first half of a mission, so their actions frequently have 0 value even at MSGT. Later in the mission of course they can go super beast mode with a Reaper chain. Other good example is Specialist, who often has "dead" turns where they don't have anything all that great to do. It's also no coincidence that these are the two most popular picks for Officers.

[WanWhiteWolf]

You assume that officer has to spam commands to be effective. While that might be a valid point for non-trail by fire missions, it does not apply to training missions for most of the time. Why would your Major soldier trade his AP with a Squadie? It makes sense that the Major AP has way more value than anyone else in that team.

There are classes/builds whose action value varies greatly from turn to turn. The most extreme example is Shinobi, who very often wants to remain in stealth for the first half of a mission, so their actions frequently have 0 value even at MSGT. Later in the mission of course they can go super beast mode with a Reaper chain. Other good example is Specialist, who often has "dead" turns where they don't have anything all that great to do. It's also no coincidence that these are the two most popular picks for Officers.

True, and that's why if you have a Major among Squadies, it is better to have it as a class who is powerful every turn. I mean.... even a squadie can be a decent shinobi for scout purposes, but a squadie sniper won't kill an enemy every turn - which a high rank sniper can do pretty reliably.

[LordYanaek]

With my Quick Learning officers from a variety of classes, i also decided to test a variety of officer skills this run with fixed squads that i tend to specialize (at least somewhat) for some types of missions. I think most choices are viable depending on what you expect the officer (and his squad) to do (Commander difficulty so some of this might not apply to Legend)

Oscar Mike vs Focus Fire

• Focus Fire is the "safe" choice if you go for an all purpose squad that does a bit of everything (and of course it's the superior choice if the squad is a combat heavy one).
• Oscar Mike, however, have a place and can make a big difference (much bigger than Focus Fire in my opinion) if the squad does a lot of "get an objective and GTFO" missions (such as Jailbreaks and VIP liberation) and/or has a lot of soldiers who rely on mobility and flanking enemies to do their jobs. It would be much better as a free action so your officer can GTFO with the rest of the squad but even as it is now, i've been happy to have it available in a number of missions.

Incoming! vs Get Some! i think depends heavily on the officer class and squad.

• Incoming! is a free action that allows your officer to do a lot of things after using it. It's also purely cooldown based and can be used multiple times per battle. My Stunner Assault officer leading my main combat squad has Incoming! and i've been more than happy to have it as it allowed me to basically ignore a number of enemies when things get slightly out of control (which tend to happen a lot in XCOM2), basically it's a free action cooldown CC ability against anything that likes to use explosives. MEC heavy pods are so much easier to take with it. The squad have soldiers that either have very high base crit (crit-DFA snipers) or don't care much (supressing gunner, spark) so +20 crit isn't that useful in that squad.
• Get Some! OTOH will come in very handy for squads that do limited fighting (only 2 uses) but need to have high burst damage to quickly dispatch enemies on timed missions. I facepalm myself each time i forget to use it before using Trench gun or Street Sweeper with RnG (sometimes i use RnG only for increased damage) as the officers leading the 2 squads with a "burst damage assault" have Get Some.

Trial By Fire vs Jammer I think they don't compete with each other at all.

• Trial By Fire is useful only if your squad can afford to take low ranking soldiers. I don't have a real "training squad" but have this skill on both officers leading combat squads (for non timed missions). If the infiltration timer allows me to bring one more guy than i need, i'll try to bring a low level one who will hide with the snipers while they do their job and observe how combat goes. You can really use more than 1 officer with TbF and i don't like the idea of having plenty of low level soldiers in the same squad.
• Jammer is useless for squads doing non RNFs missions but can be very valuable on "soft timer" missions like those "white" City Center missions. On those missions you probably don't have the luxury to bring useless soldiers anyway so TbF is useless.

Lead By Example vs Collector

• Lead By Example is useful if the officer has high aim. Some consider that an officer's job is to use command and loose their action so that another soldier can get a second one. Playing with fixed squads i tend to consider that an officer's most important job is to reduce infiltration time (starting with "Esprit de Corps") and it doesn't bother me if said officer never uses command during a mission (it's still an option i can use of course). Such an officer can provide more passive bonuses with LbE. Even +5 aim is useful thought it's hard to quantify how useful it is.
• Collector works best if you expect the squad to kill a lot of enemies and is still useful if the officer doesn't have high aim

Defilade vs Fire Discipline

• Defilade is the only viable choice if the squad doesn't rely on a lot of OW fire. It's not much but like +5 aim, +5 defense is always useful thought it's hard to quantify how useful it is.
• Fire Discipline can be very strong on squads that rely a lot on OW. Low base aim soldiers stacking all the + aim on OW shots can have better chance to hit on OW shots than on regular shots and you definitely want your RR ranger to hit with the first shot. I have it on both officers leading the "Snipers behind OW line" squads that handle most untimed "kill them all" missions.

Air Controller vs Infiltrator
The only obvious one for me : Infiltrator all the time as i consider that an officer's most important job is to reduce infiltration time.

Scavenger vs Combined Arms

• Scavenger can be useful for the squad that will do Smash and Grab missions if you can afford a Field Commander on that squad.
• Combined Arms : I want at least one for Waterworld and since i don't have that many FCs even very late i don't have more than one. It's probably the safer choice for Legend IM.

[Psieye]

It's not much but like +5 aim, +5 defense is always useful thought it's hard to quantify how useful it is.

They get more useful the more extreme the stacking: +5 def means a lot if it's the difference between 0% and 5% hit chance - the AI behaves differently and if +5 def is what's needed to push you into the 0 territory, it's huge. +5 def means less if it's the difference between 45% and 50% hit chance.