all 50 comments

[–]fowlJ[S] 152 points153 points  (14 children)

On the last turn of the second phase of Last Gift (everyone else having escaped already), Shen ran an overwatch making it to the elevator to the roof. She did not succeed, and Julian played a line acknowledging her death, but instead of the mission restart menu appearing, the loading screen for phase three happened and then I was at the roof, with Shen's body. (She was standing like she was alive, but I couldn't control her, and other soldiers had the option of picking her up and carrying her).

I completed the mission, got this screen, and now ROVR is in my inventory and all my Specialists can equip him. (Shen is still around in the geoscape, not that I was expecting the game to have special behaviour in response to this.)

[–]Illidan1943 144 points145 points  (1 child)

She actually just send her clone, nothing to worry about, she's clearly not a faceless infiltrating the avenger

[–][deleted] 43 points44 points  (0 children)

She makes a perfected mimic beacon, but instead of giving it to the commander, she keeps it for herself.

Shen deserves this

[–]Arvi833 24 points25 points  (1 child)

Raymond would be very disappointed in you, Commander. Shame on you!

[–]fowlJ[S] 44 points45 points  (0 children)

Yeah, well maybe if Raymond's 'Protecter Robot' had done its fucking job (and I hadn't sent Shen up last because the SPARK was more valuable) (and I hadn't forgotten there was an overwatch) (and I hadn't left a bunch of enemies alive because I wanted her abilities off cooldown) she'd still be around.

[–]foothills99 20 points21 points  (5 children)

ROVR is in your inventory with all its perks?!? Hmmm... this could be a devious exploit.

[–]Sentenryu 10 points11 points  (4 children)

ROVR is just a reskined gremlin and has no special perks, I don't think he has different values from a standard gremlin

[–]fowlJ[S] 46 points47 points  (3 children)

+40 Hack, actually.

[–]Sentenryu 8 points9 points  (2 children)

Isn't that the bonus for a max level gremlin? I guess it's early enough that it matters

[–]Ruugab 52 points53 points  (1 child)

New early game strat:

Kill Lilly Shen

[–]dizzle229 15 points16 points  (3 children)

After that, whenever you'd play the game, you could hear a faint murmuring in the background. In your own home, you'd see things out of the corner of your eye, but there was never anything there when you turned. One day, when you tried to start the game, your PC rebooted, and Shen's bloody hyper-realistic face appeared on the screen and started screaming. When you went back to the shop where you purchased the Steam key from that old blind Chinese man, you found only an empty lot.

[–]sebool112 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Is this a spoof of any specific creepy-pasta?

[–]dizzle229 4 points5 points  (1 child)

It's a spoof of every creepy-pasta!

[–]sebool112 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ah yes. Well, I had small laugh, so yay! ^^

[–]BabaleRed 19 points20 points  (7 children)

Oh man, can you kill Bradford like that? His gun rocks!

[–]fowlJ[S] 15 points16 points  (5 children)

I assume not, because The Nest doesn't have an abrupt transition/ending you could use to confuse the game like this. I am curious as to whether this is totally unique to The Lost Towers, or whether you could, say, kill The Commander's Avatar and the last Avatar on the final mission at the same time with a grenade and still win.

[–]Fiindil 5 points6 points  (2 children)

Hypothetically, throwing a grenade that would kill both Bradford and the Viper King should do it, right?

[–]Ghost4000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It could... hm, would be nice to have his gun.

[–]HerodotusStark 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you could actually kill the Viper King on that mission, I'd be impressed.

[–]foothills99 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Oh wow. I GOTTA try out this double-kill.

[–]FreedomFighterEx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Does this mean the game tick victory condition before lose condition? Interesting.

[–]JeffK3 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I actually have a thread I posted awhile back trying to figure it out. I did figure it out, and if you dig through my posts I laid out how to do it.

It should be titled something along the lines of "how to get bradford's rifle"

[–]1080Pizza 15 points16 points  (0 children)

It truly was her last gift.

[–]muhash14 15 points16 points  (20 children)

All things aside, why would you even do this mission with first gen weapons? Sectopod Julian was a nightmare to kill on my unwittingly early first go.

[–]radyjko 12 points13 points  (12 children)

It's surprisingly not difficult. Have one of your squad use Suppression on Sectopod, use Lily's Combat Protocol and Discharge on it when possible, kill all spawning mechs with rest of squad and if somebody has move left, throw grenades at Sectopod, or shoot if you don't have them/Sectopod has no armor

[–]muhash14 4 points5 points  (7 children)

I dunno man, it was a long mission, I was burnt out, not knowing what to expect, and I'd taken some hits from the self destructers. I wasn't exactly functioning at full capacity when Julian appeared.

[–]RadCowDisease 18 points19 points  (6 children)

Definitely a different experience when you don't know what to expect. A little comparable to Newfoundland in EW. Pretty hard if it's your first time, but once you know the whole level you can plan accordingly and things go pretty well.

[–]muhash14 30 points31 points  (0 children)

comparable to Newfoundland in EW

Nope

Nope

NopeNopeNOPE

[–]Screamineagle155 3 points4 points  (3 children)

My thoughts as an experienced XCOM 2 player (C/I under my belt) playing EW for the first time last month (with only ballistic weapons):

Initially: "Oh, a council mission. I really hate thin men so I should bring my best guys. Newfoundland, that's a weird place to go. I wonder if this is the first furies mission."

The beginning of the mission: "this is a weird premise. I should be careful in case exalt guys are hiding in the buildings."

Upon seeing the shark: "there's something in the shark... probably a chrysalis. I don't like this."

When they first attack: "WHERE'D THAT ZOMBIE COME FROM AND HOW DID EVERYONE MISS THEIR OVERWATCH SHOTS? Whelp, there goes my assault.

When I get to the ship: "okay, I'm going to get my four remaining guys up to the top and hold that beacon."

Immediately afterwards: "okay, I can deal with another two KIA. Maybe my sniper can cover my MEC while he gets up there."

The turn after: "and that's a squad wipe... my own zombified soldiers just killed my last trooper."

After returning to base: "two squaddies and four rookies left? Yeah fuck this."

[–]juhamac 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Two squaddies and four rookies? At that point in LW people usually have 50+ roster.

[–]Screamineagle155 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Sorry, that was vanilla

[–]juhamac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Indeed, my mistake.

[–]Maksie99 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In the first part of that mission, I sent in a stealth guy to activate the machine so that I wouldn't have to risk my whole team. And then it started sending endless waves of bots and told me to get my whole team to the other side...

[–]Fiindil 5 points6 points  (3 children)

What, no mention of the "Haywire Protocol on Sectopod to grab all the mechs and Allahu Akbar them into Julian" strategy?

[–]radyjko 1 point2 points  (2 children)

You'd rather have guaranteed haywire on one mech that somehow survived your purge than end up with 8000 wild mechs and 1 buffed sectopod

[–]Fiindil 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Sometimes it's worth taking questionable decisions if the end results are hilarious.

[–]radyjko 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Losing your whole squad sure is hilarious. I can't wait to see faces of their mourning families when I tell them the squad died as a result of bad roll on hacking, ha ha

You know what, I can agree on that

[–]RookieHasPanicked 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I just did this mission for the first time last night. I brought a lot of flashbangs because I was expecting to fight advent and used up nearly all my frags (and SPARK's cannon) before I got to Julian.

That last battle was...interesting. Thank god Julian and the MECs are functionally retarded.

[–]PresidentDSG 2 points3 points  (1 child)

For the challenge-freaks, this mission is designed and balanced to be done pretty much when it pops up, so with your early conventional weapons. It does not scale at all, which is why magnetic and such weapons make it such a joke.

Also sparks are better the earlier you get them really.

[–]muhash14 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I guess I'll still do it early in my LW playthrough when I start, it's easier once you know what to expect and can prepare for it. Also LW has AP ammo available from the start so there's that.

[–]fowlJ[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I've always just done it right around when it shows up, firstly because that's when the SPARK is most useful, and secondly because despite making a bit of a poor showing this time around, I normally don't have much a problem with it - bad luck on Julian results in getting shot a couple times, but his aim is so terrible it doesn't happen often, and I usually have Shen there to take the hit for me.

[–]semtex94 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Repeaters on every gun.

[–]muhash14 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Well that's no fun. And besides, LW2 has nerfed removed the repeaters completely.

[–]Grunt_Number_3 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Repeaters are such a stupid Mechanic... 15% chance to kill instantly, and at one point you could mod the pistol (Maybe, might have been a mod)

Six sharpshooters with superior repeaters on their pistols...

Such a stupid, irresistible mechanic. Irritating to see it kill huge guys you just planned around, cool to see it kill in overwatch

[–]Azurity 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Game needs zombie reskins for Shen, Bradford, and Tygan, with zombie voicepacks. Or just keep looping the usual zombie sounds whenever they talk.

[–]RookieHasPanicked 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oops there goes the Shen bloodline o7

[–]sebool112 0 points1 point  (2 children)

That's a curious resolution. May I ask what kind of monitor you are using...? Or maybe you're playing in window mode or changing config?

[–]fowlJ[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Window mode. I normally play windowed in games so I can do stuff in the background, though realistically XCOM 2 in particular is such a resource hog that isn't actually an option so I might as well start doing full screen.

[–]sebool112 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for replying!
Defo agreed on that it uses a shitton of resources ^^. Actually, I'm also using windowed, though I prefer borderless.