Pavonis Interactive Forums

I would agree about timed missions not being the same from a squad composition perspective. But it only take me so far: Extractions don't require you to travel that far because you don't have to reach an objective and then go to an evac somewhere else. So even on the big maps you can just press stea...

I think it comes down to how comfortable you are being slightly behind on tech at various stages. You should be able to do a basic research and still get to lasers by the time MECs show up. You couldn't do two. My last two campaigns I've tried non-standard build orders with mag rush and psi rush res...

Good luck. Sock it to 'em. I've only ever seen the discovery missions with stupid low timers. Even with a full haven on full intel. And I've only ever managed those missions by cheesing it with a suicide squaddie assault. And even then I usually have to savescum those for concealment loss. So this c...

Yes TBF works with Sparks. 3 missions, 3 rank-ups. Definitely wouldn't have been that fast otherwise.

Eh. Sounds like carrying too much dead wood for too long. I don't like DfA sharps on timed missions so they have to earn their stripes on untimed missions, which tend to be pressured for spots at the best of times. And a DfA sniper who struggles to hit a target in full cover and doesn't even have pr...

17 movement with good defensive stats but 56 aim? Sharpshooter I actually had the bizarre thought to build a sharpshooter tank once. Nobody cares about Aim when sniping a relay. Definitely not something you'd ever get with Commander's Choice. That soldier would have its uses. Could also be a nice h...

That's about the measure of it. I try and hold back taking nice stat rookies on missions because the game ALWAYS screws me. 17 movement with good defensive stats but 56 aim? Sharpshooter. 13 movement? Assault. But often you don't have much choice and have to suck it up. Class assignment is particula...

. Regarding Conceal: it can be substituted with Ghost Grenade. That means not taking Full Kit or Combat Engineer but as my smoke grenadiers hit MSgt first, I have no problem giving up those perks. . I was thinking about this. One of my officers and possibly eventual force commander is a smoky shoot...

Negative defense Shinobis with average mobility and above average aim is what I use. And I take LW, Combatives, Hard Target and Low Profile so that they're more survivable, along with HI, H&R and RF. For pure scout Shinobis I use the low aim, negative defense/dodge Shinobis. You can also make t...

TL;DR - Tell me how you've had success with a shooty shinobi build. What ideal soldier stats, what perks and what weapon/gear? I suspect most of us have made bladenobis and found them to be decent and then great when you get to reaper. I suspect most of us have made other builds, which end up being ...

Kamikaze Samurai wrote:I just got a Chryssalid in July on a UFO mission.

Isn't that normal? I'm in July on current campaign and I just got a beserker double lid pod on a retaliation in July.

there are a lot of enemies and reaper is great. Reaper -> Hit & Run free SMG shot -> EXO punch or Face Off. I hate myself for not discovering this in my 1.4 campaign. There is still a place for super-tank shinobi (who then take HI + Hit & Run to troll while tanking) but a great many shinobi...

Spark is brilliant on invasions. Bombard destroys all terrain it touches and can be thrown anywhere in squadsight. So it's an alternative to a sharpshooter, which otherwise aren't that suited to that kind of fighting. Bombard is better actually, because if the relay is on the ground in a building, i...

I had one with relay on the ground, inside a building with no windows, and with other structures in the way. That was intense.

I believe there is a super invasion concept, which is a separate activity.

If the second mission had a lot more enemies on it, it's possible you encountered that.

Personally I think you an have too many soldiers. Yes, they can carry hand me down kit up to a point but things like armour don't get upgraded until end game so there is a cost to maintaining a big barracks. I think it is more efficient to have enough to run 4 regular missions at once or 2 and an HQ...

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 re...

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?

@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 ...

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...

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 chance...

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 -...

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.

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, ...

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...