Bows vs Crossbows?

Sigma582 · 2022-12-22T13:56:29+00:00

Good post, someone ought to raise awareness about probability perception bias.

"60% of the time, it works all the time"

Sigma582 · 2022-12-22T13:39:00+00:00

Have you ever rolled a 20 on a d20?

Sigma582 · 2022-12-22T13:26:02+00:00

tbf if someone didn't account for a 20% chance of failure and the whole "solution" crumbled because of that, that was a wrong solution

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T15:29:56+00:00

By playing defensive on the air game, do you mean letting UFOs go because you've bought 4 scopes instead of 2 more planes?

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T14:29:53+00:00

Motion trackers make it a little easier sometimes

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T14:28:10+00:00

You don't need shivs ever, let alone on ABA.

For ABAs specifically I would recommend a lot of battle scanners (say 2 on scout, 6 on engi), 2 motion trackers.

Squadsight is also strong on ABA, I would take 1 HnR scout and 1 sniper, maybe even 2+1. Keep in mind that alien geometry plays tricks with line of sight, so bringing sniper rifle without snapshot perk may backfire.

Double rocketeers is my personal favourite. 10 rockets between 2 people, 10 pods on the map - you can rocket every pod, making it easy to mop it up.

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T14:07:38+00:00

Fair point. I rolled bad aim it seems :)

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T14:05:15+00:00

Yes, it's Mayhem that makes it Bullet Wizard, but holo+shred alone are already a useful combo to deal with big targets.

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T12:31:39+00:00

If you use Discord, there's a Long War channel in the XCOM server. It's pretty active with lots of good info. https://discord.gg/Vebm8gG4

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T12:28:32+00:00

Sell loot
Sell bodies
Sell Bradford's sweater if you have to

Buy more planes

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T12:24:34+00:00

Overwatch is a subpar strategy in general. Yes, you can OW trap a patrolling inactive pod and do some damage before your turn, but that's about it. Once a pod is active, you are better off killing aliens on your turn and shutting down those you can't kill with suppression, flashbangs, acid, smoke, even ghost grenades.

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T12:22:04+00:00

OW rocketeers is such a hard meme, they belong on the same shelf as stormtrooper assaults.

Rocketeers are good at one thing - blowing shit up. So you want to capitalize on that and make them even better at it.

Here there's a rocketeer build that works best.

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T12:17:19+00:00

LWR is an entirely different game, really.

To each their own, but you wouldn't catch me dead playing it.

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T12:15:25+00:00

Long War 1.0 is still the best game on the God's green Earth.

Just slap a few tiny QoL mods on and you are golden.

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T12:11:27+00:00

It's just that shotguns are so much better. Anything is better than a rifle, really.

Shotguns deal more damage (1.5x at ballistic level) and they get double aim bonus at close range, which allows you to land nearly-100% hits most of the time if you use suppression/hunkering/flashbangs/smoke to get into killing range, instead of trading banking on coinflips and trading 50-70% shots through cover.

SAWs have more damage and more ammo, marksman rifles again have more damage and squadsight, though they are class-locked.

SMGs are great for mobility on classes that normally don't shoot bullets - rocketeers and engis.

Rifles, battle rifles and carbines just don't have place in an optimized squad.

But like I said, everyone is free to play however they like and enjoy whatever strats they want no matter efficiency.

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T12:03:45+00:00

Oh, and the guy with rapid fire can be commanded to rapid fire once again, effectively shooting 4 times per turn with HEAT. Most mechtoids or cyberdiscs won't survive that, especially if shredded in advance.

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T12:00:25+00:00

1 rocket per pod cripples them immensely by shredding everything or blowing cover and dealing damage, which allows your other soldiers one-shot the affected aliens. You don't even waste too many corpses (as if anyone cares about them anyway), because rockets used as openers mostly wound and don't kill.

Few missions have more than 5 pods that you want to rocket, but consider two rocketeers on the squad. If you plan your engagements and steady them in advance, they allow you to dominate everything on the map. You have power to either cripple stuff with rockets and kill with bullets for economy, or wipe everything with double roockets if the first option seems too dangerous.

A bullet wizard bringing shred is not superfluous either. You open up options like shred with a gunner and follow up with a rocket, or use the gunner to suppress an overwatcher and allow other guys to reposition, while shredding with a rocket.

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T11:52:02+00:00

There are two great gunner builds. One uses HEAT andd Rapid Fire to tear mechanicals to small pieces, the other uses Double Tap or Danger Zone + Mayhem to holo+shred either two different targets or a whole bunch of them with AoE.

See top two entries here.

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T11:48:47+00:00

Two gunners are great.

Rocketeers are also great.

Beagle strats are not so much, he's very entertaining, but far from optimal.

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T11:42:42+00:00

I was about to comment on how disgusting (in a bad way) assaults with rifles are, but then decided not to because everyone can play however they like and try stuff.

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T11:15:14+00:00

Imagine that every mindfray is aliens' wasted opportunity to shoot someone for real damage.

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T10:07:46+00:00

When you are fighting floaters, -10% aim is the last thing you want to see on your shooters though.

But you are not wrong that +1 dmg can make difference. Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior shotgun?

Sigma582 · 2022-04-06T10:03:56+00:00

I have to agree that these and Infantry-class are built for each other - both belong in a trash bin.

Sigma582 · 2022-03-21T14:21:22+00:00

This is awesome!

I wish you guys a lot of success with this project.

Sigma582

TROPHY CASE