LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

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Noober
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by Noober »

artifixer wrote: Sapper: Sapper - Heavy Ordinance - Bluescreen Bombs - HEAT Warheads - Sting Grenades - Volatile Mix - Full Kit.
Sapper without Combat Engineer ?!
I think for cover destruction it's best to respec for RD instead of Sapper and CE instead of FK as CE is twice as powerfull as Sapper in terms of inv. dmg. from what I've heard.
But it's just a theory.
artifixer
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Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2017 2:48 pm

Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by artifixer »

Noober wrote: Sapper without Combat Engineer ?!
I think for cover destruction it's best to respec for RD instead of Sapper and CE instead of FK as CE is twice as powerfull as Sapper in terms of inv. dmg. from what I've heard.
But it's just a theory.
Thing is, Sapper is available from LCpl, so you can destroy covers from the very start. And from what I see, it's enough to blast most types of cover near exploison center. Yes, Combat Engineer does it better overall and much better on the edges of explosion area, but you will have to get soldier to MSgt before use it.

Also second build I mentioned in original post follows your advice already. ;)
Jacke
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by Jacke »

Interesting, taking Sapper without Combat Engineer.

One thing that can be forgotten is environment destruction is all or nothing. If the blast didn't take out the cover or blow a hole in the floor, it's not weakened in any way and will just be as hard to destroy on later attempts.
Padishar
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by Padishar »

I like to use all the Grenadier paths, and thus I have three builds. The aim values are for rookies.

Low aim <65, decent mobility+SMG: Boomer
LCPL - Sapper - Cover destruction is this guy's main job, too bad it maxes out only at MSGT.
CPL - Heavy Ordinance - They just want to blow things up.
SGT - Boosted Cores - It could easily be Formidable, but with the next perk I think the extra damage is more meaningful. Sometimes 1 damage more is all that is needed.
SSGT - Tandem Warheads - Besides destroying cover, it is great to deal serious damage too. Plasma Grenades shred armor anyway.
TSGT - Biggest Booms - Maximize damage, and the other perks are not for this build.
GSGT - Volatile Mix - Tandem Warheads makes this obvious choice.
MSGT - Combat Engineer - Obv.

Gear includes ablatives, 1 flashbang/freeze grenade, two frags/plasmas (Heavy Ordinance), and some other damaging type of grenade. PCS is defense or health.

Low/mid aim 65+-3, mobility not important, SMG/rifle depending on aim and mobility: Support
LCPL - Rapid Deployment - Self-explanatory for this build.
CPL - Protector - Ditto.
SGT - Bluescreen Bombs - This is easier to choose over Formidable than Boosted Cores for boomer build above.
SSGT - HEAT Warheads - I use flash/freeze rather than smoke, so Dense Smoke is not a option. Extra shred for his or her few explosive grenades in case of big single foes is more useful than Tandem Warheads. I'd rather flashbang groups.
TSGT - Sting Grenades - Even better crowd control, yes please.
GSGT - Volatile Mix - Still the most useful option.
MSGT - Full Kit - Sometimes you have to spam flashbangs in big battles, I don't want to run out of them.

Gear is ablatives, an explosive grenade or two (one is enough with Full Kit) and flashbangs. Frost bomb if it's available. PCS defense or health.

Good aim 70+, mobility not important, rifle: Shooter
LCPL - Needle Grenades - I want all the Elerium Cores, and it's nice to have a 100% succesful loot-preserving finishing move available for a wounded enemy in cover.
CPL - Center Mass - Shooter shoots.
SGT - Formidable - This spec doesn't rely on grenades, so it's easy to just take the extra HPs.
SSGT - Tandem Warheads - With Needle Grenades I like to finish a group with a grenade and keep the loot, if they were weakened by a rocket for example.
TSGT - Chain Shot - These have good aim, and the cooldown isn't that long. Shooter likes.
GSGT - Volatile Mix - Again the most useful option.
MSGT - Ghost Grenade - Not relying on explosives that much makes me want to choose this.

Gear is usually 2 explosive grenades and one non-damaging, and ablatives. PCS is again either health or defense.
RapidFire
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by RapidFire »

I used to use Sapper at LCpl, but I started picking Needler most of the time on damage Grenadiers (not being satisfied with Sapper most of the time). A small point some may be missing is that you can use the grenadier as a cleanup crew member, particularly when coupled with Tandem. Just nudge the landing point to catch that 1 hp ADVENT or whatever, and you have a kill for "free" without having to spend someone's action to take out a 1 hp enemy. I think it provides some flexibility way beyond the early part of the game where the grenades can one-shot kill a few enemies.
Dwarfling
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by Dwarfling »

What, weren't you going to finish them off with the Grenadier anyways? You might miss the loot opportunity. Might. But so what if you destroy the loot? Could have been crap anyways. For that chance you're giving up on an ability that gives value to all the shooters in your team. Your rangers and gunners ain't hitting anything that they can't flank until later in the campaign.

Letting an enemy that you couldn't take out on that turn (because it was behind destructible full cover) take an action can cost you the mission and even lives. A disoriented Muton behind a wall will shoot 20's at your guys behind full cover. That can still insta-gib someone with 5hp+2ab. How many times have you completely missed an 80% shot? Happens to me every mission. It will happen. Unless you blow up that wall and have your Ranger shoot the doufon twice. Ever counted on destroying a car with a frag only to watch it wiff and have the enemies move out of it before it blows? Not anymore with Sapper.

Oh but that trooper you killed with a frag at the beginning of the campaign might have had a Hair Trigger I could have sold for $5 :roll:
gimrah
Long War 2 Crew
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by gimrah »

Needle might have a bit of a role at lower difficulties when grenades instagib M1 advent a lot of the time.

Later on incendiaries quite often gib M2s on commander but not enough to be worth choosing a LCPL perk for.

Otherwise I don't think needle is bad per se, it's just that the other two are class defining. Without sapper, explosive grenades are completely useless after the second month. And rapid deployment is an incredibly powerful action economy perk to get at LCPL and it stays relevant the whole game.

Question though: has anyone found gas grenades to be worth it or tried to build around them? I want to but can't think when I'd prefer gas to fire or sting grenades.
Dwarfling
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by Dwarfling »

I have a hard time making room for Gas. If my Grenadier went left side of the tree then his equipment is usually Incendiaryx2, Fragx3, or Incendiaryx2, Fragx2, Flashbang. I'd have to reaaaally consider subbing the flashbang for the Gas grenade because the flashbang serves as the emergency button and Gas doesn't shutdown abilities and Psi. And the frags are too important for sapper or shred.

If my Grenadier went right side of the tree, then Stings are too good not to carry as many as you can, making an exception for an incendiary or a smoke. Maybe before you get to Stings? But then I'd just carry another Incendiary.

I think you'd just need to field two Grenadiers to have enough item room to consider the Gas. Or take the Gas Grenade on a non-Grenadier.
gimrah
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by gimrah »

Yeah I came to similar conclusions.

Would work with left side build if you took needle - but I don't like needle.

I'm struggling with left side / explosives in general. Left side grenadier favours left side rangers. But then you want specialists to be mainly OW. Which means they don't have airdrop, which sucks for left side grenadiers. Also to make the most of explosives they need combat engineer, so no full kit, which means they don't have staying power for even medium missions without airdrop specialists. I suppose you could go full kit anyway since very late game you probably want a mix of explosive, fire, EMP and/or acid.
gimrah
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by gimrah »

If you really wanted to get funky you could do something like RD->HO->BC->DS->BB->VM->FK.

With a view to focusing on smoke and non-explosive damage grenades once available.
Dwarfling
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by Dwarfling »

Weirdly enough I've never taken Combat Engineering. It just seemed overkill when I had access to Sapper, Demolition, regular Rockets, Bunker Buster and Bombard (and Rainmaker'd Plasma Blaster). I'm gonna give it a whirl next time for sure, but it doesn't seem productive towards the way the fights develop in the late game, with the one dangerous enemy you gotta take out and the trashy mobs you control with something else.

Fielding 4 Incendiary Bombs and 4 Plasma Grenades always seemed (to me) to be a better deal. Meant I could take those guys to Golden Path missions, even tho at that point of the campaign I picked the Support Grenadier with Stings before thinking about including the Sapper. But I guess I'm still doing some short missions for Intel so I guess it'll work for those.
Psieye
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by Psieye »

I've yet to experiment with gas grenades. I do have some hope for them with AI fuckery but my current campaign has the PG busy with essentials first.

As for Needle, my go-to thinking for that would be EXO suits preserving corpses in Heavy+ missions and Rendezvous. Not all that valuable compared to say, catching 5 targets in Area Suppression and then blowing all their cover away with a rocket, forcing them to run the suppression. Heck, just 2 targets and then Sapper or Demolition is good enough.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
burns
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by burns »

Has anyone considered or better yet tested Grenadiers as officers?

RD gives a little room with the action economy and I feel you don't need grenades on every encounter/pod.
The biggest downside I see is that in case of real emergency you'd have to choose between command and an incendiary.
Otherwise, this seems to be a good way to use really low aim soldiers who don't need much but solid mobility and HP or defense to become an efficient officer. The limited consumables should also work well with officer abilities as it gives the grenadier options apart from crappy shots with SMGs.
On their best turns these soldiers could move, RD flash/smoke, hit Incoming! and command or focus fire.

I went with shinobi or specialist officers for almost all of my campaigns so far. On the last one I tried technicals as officers but their action economy doesn't work well until QF which comes very late, especially compared to the grenadier's RD.
Specialists and shinobis more and more become damage dealers for me with overwatch shots and my new found love for HI/HnR shinobis.
Specialists could still become officers and OWers but that would require Thread Assessment and even then would be tricky to make best use of. Shinobis could use the free action from HnR but that appears to be counter productive/useless.

So, any experiences with grenadier officers, anyone?
Dwarfling
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by Dwarfling »

You ain't turning the high aim OW Specialists into Officers, you're turning the low aim hacker-spec Specialist into Officers.

If you have low aim grenadiers (with high HP and/or defense) you give them Sapper and fill them with frags/plasma/incendiaries and no ablative. Preferably you send them on the short missions where it's less likely they'll run out of grenades before the last pod and you pair them with a shooter that can take advantage of cover destruction.

I can see a point in turning the high aim grenadiers into Support Grenadiers Officers. Because even if you give them a good rifle, it isn't guaranteed you're gonna have a good shot the turn you activate RD, and maybe you have a better action with someone else rather than use an incendiary or another flashbang.

I don't see your point about Shinobis tho. You can burn out the Commands before the last pod while keeping concealment, or even when something went wrong and you have to break concealment before the mission is over, it isn't guaranteed that the fleche is a safe action or even a more useful action than commanding someone else.
burns
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by burns »

Sure, high aim specialists become OWs and to burn the officers abilities from a shinobi before breaking concealment is obvious, too.
And there will always be specialist and shinobi officers on my roster.
The question is, has anyone experience with grenadier officers?
There are only a few classes to make sense as officers and shinobis and specialists are the obvious choices. Gunners, rangers, and assaults and in my opinion PSIs don't make good officers. Technicals were a disappointment when I tried them out. That leaves grenadiers to be tested.

A grenadier with RD ist one of the few soldiers to gain an additional (though limited to support grenades) action point so it looks like a way to make good use of the 1 action point/turn ending officers abilities.
A shinobi contributes commands better than a specialist as the specialist can't command and hack on the same turn which might be needed the most when things escalate. A shinobi changes a command for another soldiers additional attack and to keep concealed which seems a better trade off than the specialist at least until Threat Assessment. A shinobi Tech Sergeant and higher becomes such a good damage dealer that you most likely will be better off using the soldier on the offense.
A grenadier might overcome his/her great weakness of limited consumables by gaining additional useful actions as officers. Otherwise you would follow a RD with another grenade only to spend even more consumables, move or go for a bad shot/OW.
At least, that's my current train of thought which I yet have to test. It might take me a few nights of playing to see if it works as intended though so I wondered if anyone already tried.
Psieye
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by Psieye »

burns wrote: So, any experiences with grenadier officers, anyone?
Search for the nickname "Wizard" in my previous 1.5 campaign (on eternal hiatus). I should update my sig to point to my current one...

"Wizard" got selected as officer because she happened to have Quick Study and I like rushing out a Trial by Fire officer no matter what class they are. She also had Smoker. Do note I have an unorthodox playstyle - if just 1 guy out of an 8-man squad is staring down 10 active enemies, I consider that 'situation under control'. Command and incendiaries get evaluated differently in 8-man staredowns (which I'm happy to do even with timed missions) than in 5-man Alpha Strike GOps. Ultimately, I value Intervention, Fire Discipline and Lead by Example (on a sniper) more than Command. I 'only' need Command (and incendiaries) when I've fucked up (which admittedly happens often), the OW buff aura is useful a lot more often. But in a 5-man Alpha Strike style, Command might become a necessity to meet the damage output requirement.

So grenadier officers can work, but your playstyle needs to adapt to them. A Sapper with 2 Airdrop specs is unlikely to run out of frags. A support grenadier who brings nothing but smokes is going to have spare actions for Officer skills even without Rapid Deployment. An AWC perk can change the equation for what a grenadier should be doing.

One thing to factor: Tactical Deployment ($250 at GTS) and Infiltrator (at GSgt equivalent) makes a 6-man infiltrate at the same speed as a 5-man. This is how a support grenadier officer can go on missions that would otherwise need a lean 5-man of damage dealers. Granted you'd need to get an officer that much EXP. 8-man GOps can reach there in June.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
gimrah
Long War 2 Crew
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by gimrah »

You can use grenadiers as officers.

I don't so much like like using flashbanger or damage grenadiers as officers because they generally want to be spamming consumables on key turns and are more likely to be burning something than commanding.

However if I get a high aim grenadier I do like:

RD - CM - Form - DS - chainshot - VM - FK/GG

He'll mainly carry smokes. He has CS for burst damage but that's on a cooldown so will have spare actions for officer perks and command.

Sounds a bit lacklustre on paper but I actually really like this build leading large squad missions, where smoke is particularly valuable and he can always be making himself useful.
RookieAutopsy
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by RookieAutopsy »

I use Grenadier officers a lot. RD and later Salvo keeps them very useful when you need every action point. Works well with a shooty smoker build.
Redshirt4life
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by Redshirt4life »

I make grenadiers my primary officers. They don't need to be commanded, can utilize the best of their kit as a free action, are normally safe, and are normally in command range. Command can save shinobis who botch a stab and it can allow technicals to double move with flame, all while CCing several enemies from a safe position.

For candidates I prefer 15 speed so they can reach cover in a blue move easily. More importantly, they need high defense. I give them defense PCS on top of their high natural defense. Stacking defense like this ensures that they are never a target. I'm not wasting grenade slots on armor. Any AWC perk that increases defense is a must. Low cover is amazing, but smoker and flasher are god-like.

Grenadiers are terrible for cover destruction any soldier can wear heavy armor and do a better job of it without wasting perks, so the entire left side of the tree is pretty much a wash. I used to do hybrids, using grenades for shredding, but now I believe its best to go full left side.

LCPL: Rapid Deployment
The name of the game is action economy. Throwing a grenade as a free action is far and away the best option. The cooldown is short enough to depend on this ability every fight. The other picks at this rank are garbage.

CPL: Protector / heavy ordinance
Early on heavy ordinance is really good, but protector wins later on. But both are good since incediaries are good all game long. Center mass is terrible. I can't see the benefit of trying to make a grenadier shooty and they can't spare room for pistols.

SGT: Bluescreen bombs
Disorientate bots, make them easier to hack, and eventually shut them down completely with sting. Can one damage compare to this utility? Not even close. Formidable is good for when a mec can't be locked down, but that wouldn't be a problem if we took bluescreen bombs in the first place. Stack defense and they won't get shot.

SSGT- Dense Smoke
At this point we are probably using incediaries, so the only worthwhile perk is Dense Smoke. The other two have no benefit what-so-ever. So, we spare a single slot for a smoke grenade, and its basically free full cover. Flashbang the enemy and throw smoke on the first turn. Thats -75 aim total. Plus smoke persists through the next turn.

TSGT: Sting Grenades
Shuts mecs down, stuns everything else. This ability can trivialize fights. All you have to do is kill what wasn't stunned. And this can be done as a free action too? Insane. Biggest booms is basically another +1 damage, which isn't impressive. Chain shot is straight stupid given the grenadiers poor aim progression and lack of slots for gun items.

GSGT: Volatile mix
We can already throw grenades as a free action every three turns. Thats all we need. +1 aoe is a rather massive increase in coverage. Why use two grenades when aoe allows one to do what would have required two? Bombadier is bad, the aoe gives +1 range on its own, so its a large sacrifice for one tile more range.

MSGT: Full Kit
More grenades. Thats always useful. The other two are niche. Having two incediaries, two smokes, and 4 flashbangs, thats always useful.

When we are done we have the ultimate in battlefield control. The strongest class in the game IMO.
gimrah
Long War 2 Crew
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by gimrah »

Thoughts on that.

LCPL: Agreed. Has to be RD.

CPL: If you're going to use any damage grenades then heavy ordnance is better than protector. An extra incendiary grenade early is very valuable as they are expensive and very useful. Later incendiary bombs ditto. I also really like EMP bombs in late game: potential to shutdown gatekeepers and sectopods, plus really good against MEC balls. I kind of agree centre mass is not really competitive, although I keep trying to make it work. This time I'll try training pistol perks on a couple that got quick study in the AWC and see how that goes.

SGT: Bluescreen is fine. I think you underrate formidable: quite a few things have grenades and the +2 ablative is really nice too. Boosted cores is actually super nice with incendiaries as it's also +1 to DoT damage, so it's actually +3 damage to an incendiary.

SSGT: After a while I tend to carry flashbangs OR smokes, plus incendiaries/EMP. So I buff one of flashbangs or smoke. Tandem is not great but keeps damage up when you can hit multiple targets with it. I do find there's value in having incendiaries actually kill.

TSGT: Sting is great. I'll take it if I didn't take dense smoke. Biggest booms is pretty powerful: +3 damage 50% of the time turns hits into kills on m2s and relaly helps wear down m3s. This plus boosted cores means +3-6 damage on incendiaries. And later it's a nice boost when you fire an EMP bomb at a bunch of MECs. Chain is the weakest but I keep trying to make it work anyway...

GSGT: Agreed. Has to be VM.

MSGT: Agreed. FK is best. Although I'm determined to make ghost grenade useful somehow. Probably for my officer pistoly grenadier that commands big missions, so my shinobi can get involved earlier and go back to scouting later. Not pretending it's optimal, but might be fun.
Noober
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by Noober »

CPL: Protector / heavy ordinance

Always HO because of 2 fire at the cost of one (both - for cost saving early and slot economy - at TSGT when sting become available).

And yes - it's probably the most powerful team class in the game.

The best example is the 8-MEC pod which is common after midgame including 2 MEC3.
1. BS-Sting flash (TSGT) = 3 of 8 is stunned (I've got up to 5 stunned), 5 - out of missles.
2. Specialis controls two of the remained 5 (Hayware - Command - FO).
Two turn ending action and there are only 3 disoriented MECs with no AoE which most likely will shot the controlled MECs so - problem solved.
Without TSGT grenadier with this spec this kind of pod would be a real threat and most likely - wounds.
gimrah
Long War 2 Crew
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by gimrah »

I always forget that sting can stun mechanicals. Which it can even without bluescreen. Feels so wrong.
Dwarfling
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by Dwarfling »

Geez I dunno you guys, but I swear by my Sapper Grenadiers. They're basically my key combo piece to make my Rangers (even the OW ones), Gunners and even Sharpshooters be effective on timed missions. It does help that thru trial and error I've basically learned how every piece of terrain behaves against Sapper though.

I only turn my high aim Grenadiers into the RD/Sting spec. I don't use Commander's Choice, so it isn't uncommon for me to end up with max 2 Stingers and a plethora of tanky low aim Sappers.
Redshirt4life
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by Redshirt4life »

Sapper would be better if the shredder gun didn't exist and if the grenadier could throw destructive grenades as a free action. Shredder guns are amazing cover destruction available to everyone, and support grenadiers just plain have more actions in a given turn. As it is I could build a support grenadier, have him single move forward, shut down an entire pod with a free action sting/freeze grenade, and still wipe out most enemy cover with a shredder gun.

Formidable is really good and I thought bluescreen was necessary for stings to stun bots. Still, I prefer the proactive approach. Bluescreen blocks microrockets. If only formidable was in the next rank down.

I don't know about the smokes yet. I really miss my smoke from LW1. The aoe of these new smokes is much more annoying/less effective. I think I can make it work, but its probably not the best. Neither heat nor tandem effect incediaries anyway, right?
gimrah
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Re: LW 1.5 Grenadier builds

Post by gimrah »

Heat only affects frags / plasma.

Tandem affects all damaging grenades. Just not that much. Ordinarily minimum damage falls off with radius, but not maximum. Don't know how the formula works exactly, but clearly expected damage is affected. That does mean on those occasions when you hit more than one target with an incendiary, it does do something. Also when the target is in full cover (so quite often) and you therefore can't get the incendiary plumb on the target.

I find shredder is not that reliable at cover destruction. Also exo is expensive. It's still really good but it's not a great substitute for sapper if you want a squad with reliable and repeatable cover destruction.
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