XCOM 2 Alien Analysis: ADVENT Shieldbearer

Basic
HP: 6/6/8/9
Armor: 1/2/2/3
Defense: 0/10/10/10
Dodge: 0
Aim: 65/70/70/70
Mobility: 12 (8/16)
Damage: 5-6 (+2)
Shred: 0
Crit Chance: 0/0/10%/10%
Will: 50/75/75/75
Tech: 125

Energy Shield
Generates an energy shield on all allies within 10 tiles, itself included. This energy shield is worth 3 hit points, and any attack that is completely absorbed by the shield will deal no Shred to Armor underneath. The shield HP does not benefit from the Armor of the unit underneath, however. The shield goes away after 3 turns, or when the originating Shieldbearer is killed.

Note that the Shieldbearer doesn't actually have a cooldown on its shield. They normally won't re-shield until the shield times out on its own, but unless their AI hard-prevents them from doing so earlier it should be possible for them to re-apply the shield anytime. Curiously, if you Dominate them the shield has only a single charge; try to save it for when you expect to risk a lot of damage, as it'll still time out.

Weird edge case point: if a unit is already benefiting from Energy Shield, and a second one is put up, the first shield gets priority. That is, if you have a Shieldbearer put up an Energy Shield on a Trooper, and then a second Shieldbearer also puts up a shield on it, killing the second Shieldbearer won't clear the shield from the Trooper, but killing the first one will. This should almost never crop up -Shieldbearers are normally forbidden from having multiple in one pod, and they deploy uncommonly in general so even if you have a habit of pulling multiple pods it will rarely have the chance to occur- but if you end up with it relevant it's good to know.

Too bad there's no way to track which shield is currently being maintained by which Shieldbearer, though. You have to just pay attention and remember it on your own.

Also weird is that Energy Shield will absorb damage even from damage-over-time effects, even though you'd intuitively expect those to go right through. This usually isn't very important, but it can contribute to a rough situation being even nastier, if you were expecting to be able to ignore an enemy because it would die to Acid or the like in a turn and whoops not anymore.

Also weird is that psi damage abilities, even the ones that bypass Armor, are fully absorbed by the shield. Don't be thinking you can have a Psi Operative use Soulfire to finish off a weak-but-shielded enemy. Though the non-damaging abilities like Domination or Stasis don't care about shields...

As I noted with Bluescreen Rounds and EMP Grenades/Bombs, those both wipe away Energy Shields on hit units. This is particularly useful to keep in mind when a Shieldbearer is among digital enemies like Mecs, but in general can make it a bit more tolerable to ignore the Shieldbearer for a turn in an emergency, or make it easier to take down the Shieldbearer to clear away the rest of the shielding. Fortuitously, Grenadiers are already one of your better choices for Bluescreen Rounds, or more precisely anybody with Shredder is, since there's heavy overlap between 'susceptible to Bluescreen Rounds' and 'has good-to-great Armor', so it's no real burden to have a Bluescreen Rounds Shredder ready to go in your squad: you may well have set such up to prep for Mecs, Turrets, whatever. At that point you just need to actually know/remember that such a soldier can speed up a Shieldbearer's death significantly.

Notably, setting Shieldbearers on fire doesn't take away their access to Energy Shield, not even in the base game where virtually everything gets disabled by fire. In general, explosives are hurt a surprising amount by Energy Shield: 3 shield HP is just enough to ensure your basic explosives are unlikely to get Shred in when mass-clearing the shields, since Frag Grenades, Acid Grenades, and Gas Grenades all do exactly 3 damage 80% of the time. Incendiary Grenades of course depends on your version: in the base game, they're actually the only explosive that reliably Shreds through Energy Shield, while in War of the Chosen they're the only basic explosive that never Shreds through an Energy Shield.

Also note that while Bluescreen Rounds and EMP Grenades bypass/wipe out Energy Shield, the Energy Shield is not otherwise set up as a robotic or digital effect: Combat Protocol and Capacitor Discharge are no more effective against Energy Shield than against an organic enemy, Whiplash doesn't get extra effectiveness, etc. It's just those two particular Items that give you an edge against Energy Shield.

Also, a surprising detail is that a Shieldbearer using Energy Shield won't trigger Covering Fire-type reaction fire effects. In the base game this is basically irrelevant, as Shieldbearers will almost always move and so trigger reaction fire before putting up the shield, but in War of the Chosen it can crop up more readily through Tactical Analysis taking away their ability to move and shield in a turn: Shieldbearers so heavily prioritize shielding that if they're flanked and have one action point, where most enemies would run for better Cover the Shieldbearer will almost always put up their shield. This can be an unpleasant surprise if you were expecting a Bladestorm to finish them.

The Shieldbearer is one of the most dramatic examples of a unit that threatens you by making bad situations harder to disentangle, while being a relatively minor threat in its own right. It will virtually always open its first turn by generating its shield, even if it has no allies in reach/at all (Even if it's flanked and only has 1 action point!), which can be a huge problem if you can't really spare the firepower to take out the Shieldbearer before focusing on the serious threats, but isn't really a problem when you have overwhelming force, or when the Shieldbearer is completely alone. Among other points, the shield's ability to potentially block Shred can be massively problematic or completely irrelevant, depending on if they caught Armored targets and on how your Shred capabilities compare to the shield strength. (If you're relying on grenades for Shred, you're probably in trouble, especially in War of the Chosen. If you're relying on Shredder-backed gunfire, you're probably fine on this end of things)

Whereas if they're just shielding theirself... a Shieldbearer is honestly less of a threat than a regular ADVENT Trooper. Troopers at least are carrying grenades by the time Shielbearers enter rotation. Shieldbearers are stuck hoping their gun hits, and due to their tendency to try to move away from your troops before shielding they're rarely positioned well for pursuing a flank.

It should be noted that Shieldbearers are one of the best targets to consider Skullmining. The combination of decent HP, decent Armor, innate Defense, the shield, and their ability to use Cover means it can be surprisingly difficult to kill them efficiently. Skullmining them bypasses all of that in favor of a straight 70% chance to instantly kill them. If Energy Shield is the lynchpin making a bad situation untenable, gambling on a 70% chance for an instant kill is a useful option to remember. It's not like you get different rewards for targeting different types of ADVENT troops, and indeed all units you can Skullmine have the same Tech score, so none of them are safer/more prone to providing rewards. If you regularly struggle with Shieldbearers, consider prioritizing Skullmining and of course carrying a Skulljack into missions containing them.

Overall, Shieldbearers are an even more blatant example of the 'complicator enemy' design principle than the Codex, in part because they're exclusively dedicated to the role: Codices start out as a boss enemy, then downgrade to an elite complicator enemy, then downgrade further into being disturbingly common line troops where one member inevitably takes on the role of complicator. Shieldbearers, don't have an equivalent progression: they shield. It complicates fights, but is not immediately dangerous. That's their entire thing.

On a related note, the ADVENT Shieldbearer is unusual in that it's essentially a second-tier ADVENT unit, showing up when other ADVENT units are upgrading to their Advanced/Heavy forms, but it only has its basic form and an Elite form. The only other ADVENT unit to do this is the Mec, but unlike the Mec the Shieldbearer shows no signs of having started life as two different units. It's striking given the game's usual method of making midgame enemies more threatening later is downgrading them from pod leaders to followers. The devs could've done something similar with the Shieldbearer, but chose to make it a two-tier unit instead. I'm curious as to why the Shieldbearer in particular got this unique treatment.

Well, unique until War of the Chosen, but that's for later and doesn't substantially change what I'm getting at here.

Speaking of said elite form...


Elite
HP: 7/8/11/12 (7/8/9/10 in base game)
Armor: 2/3/3/4
Defense: 0/10/10/10
Dodge: 0
Aim: 65/75/75/75
Mobility: 12 (8/16)
Damage: 6-7 (+2)
Shred: 0
Crit Chance: 0/0/10%/10%
Will: 50/75/75/75
Tech: 125

Energy Shield

Generates an energy shield on all allies within 10 tiles, itself included. This energy shield is worth 5 hit points, and any attack that is completely absorbed by the shield will deal no Shred to Armor underneath. The shield HP does not benefit from the Armor of the unit underneath, however. The shield goes away after 3 turns, or when the originating Shieldbearer is killed.

A little bit tougher, a little bit more lethal, and with a tougher shield.

The shield is now tough enough that even Advanced Explosives can't get Shred through. I mean, Incendiary Bombs can hit hard enough to make it happen, but given their +1 is only a 20% chance you can't remotely count on it actually happening. You better have Shredder-backed guns or some relevant Heavy Weapons if you want to try to mass-Shred without wiping the shields first.

Nonetheless, the Elite is... actually so similar to basic Shieldbearers you could be forgiven for thinking you just misremembered how much shielding Shieldbearers put up, rather than realizing you're fighting a higher-tier version. Their greater degree of durability does matter, but... like, if you've already gotten Advanced Explosives and an Acid-Grenade-now-Acid-Bomb, the higher Armor can easily end up irrelevant.

Overall, you fight them the way you fight basic Shieldbearers.

Like Elite Troopers and Elite Officers before them, War of the Chosen slightly bumps up the HP of Elite Shieldbearers on higher difficulties. I have slightly mixed feelings about this, as in the base game Elite Shieldbearers were one of the stronger bits of utility for AP Rounds -even on Legendary, beam-tier weapons had decent odds of one-shotting them if backed by AP Rounds- whereas in War of the Chosen their raw HP is high enough above Regular that's not really good enough by itself most of the time. On the other hand, in the base game Elite Shieldbearers were genuinely trivialized a bit too easily by just having someone with AP Rounds, and were even more egregious about being barely distinguishable from their prior tier, so... mixed feelings, but overall I lean positive on this change, particularly given eg Purifiers provide an earlier, stronger argument for AP Round usage. And if you're playing on Legendary, 4 Armor is a lot, enough to make AP Rounds still legitimately a useful choice.

I personally tend to feel they're more an argument for carrying at least a couple Plasma Grenades so you can Shred a good chunk of their Armor simultaneous to smashing their Cover, but AP Rounds can still be appreciated when eg catching them with Overwatch one way or another.


Autopsy-wise, the Shieldbearer Autopsy is something you'd really expect to be important, but isn't in practice unless you really, really want one or more Hazmat Vests and either have Elerium Cores to spare or are willing to take your chances in pursuit of such. (... or savescum) Experimental Armor, as I've been over before, is a dud result 2/3rds of the time, and while Hazmat Vests are really good, they're not so good I'd say they're unambiguously worth rolling those dice.

So it's a bit unfortunate Experimental Armor is the only thing the Shieldbearer Autopsy unlocks.

I'm a little surprised the Shieldbearer Autopsy didn't get made into the prerequisite for Powered Armor instead of the Muton Autopsy. Not complaining, but Shieldbearers do lean harder into the powered armor concept and Mutons were already a useful, important Autopsy, so it would've made game design sense and narrative sense for X-COM to figure out powered armor for humans by studying power armor-equipped basically-human soldiers.

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Hurray! It's an ADVENT unit that doesn't look blatantly evil! And one from the base game, even!

They're also not easy to mistake for other units. (Unlike the Trooper/Stun Lancer issue) Priests are a mild exception if you're just seeing the white armor and not thinking any further, but while that particular element is mildly unfortunate Priests and Shieldbearers are more prone to being readily told apart in practice; for one thing, the high Armor on a Shieldbearer vs Priests never having any armor is a big help. There's also enough similarity in how you fight them that getting mixed up on which one you're currently dealing with usually isn't disastrous in the way that mistaking a Stun Lancer for a Trooper can easily be.

I like the Shieldbearer aesthetic, in short. It's got a workmanlike competency to it I can readily respect, with pretty much everything being reasonably intuitive on a visual level. It doesn't stand out in the way eg the Codex visuals do, but that's fine. I especially like the power cables that run from somewhere in the back to the arms: in conjunction with the shield animation involving a punch into the ground, it's easy to intuit that Shieldbearers are carrying a power supply in the back of their armor, with the cables feeding said power to whatever mechanism in the forearm actually outputs the shield. The game never explains this stuff, but it doesn't need to: it makes sense immediately, just looking at it.

Unfortunately, conceptually or narratively Shieldbearers are just kind of there. Bradford frames them as being a 'heavy armor system', and it's true enough that Shieldbearers have the highest Armor stat of any ADVENT human-type soldier, but what do they do, in-universe? What's their role in the ADVENT regime, what jobs are they specialized in? The game never suggests anything, and I suspect the devs never had a concept in that regard, purely focused on the Shieldbearer as a gameplay piece. Which is a bit surprising, because the idea of a 'peacekeeper' who is able to put up a shield on allies at range actually seems eminently sensible, exactly the kind of thing that would help sell the average ADVENT citizen that the peacekeepers... keep the peace. Who needs a tense negotiation with someone who's taken a hostage when you can throw down a magic shield that will soak a pistol shot just fine, ensuring the hostage lives even if the hostage-taker pulls the trigger?

Chimera Squad liked them enough to bring them back twice over, but even it doesn't seem to have a concept of how Shieldbearers fit into the setting. So... I really do suspect the devs had a gameplay concept in mind -the shield deployment- and either never gave any thought to how it fit into the setting, or tried to give it thought but just... couldn't see the obvious? I guess?

I like Shieldbearers well enough, I just wonder why their narrative elements are so... not present. It's less intrusive than with Priests, at least...

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Next time, we cover the Muton Berserker, one of the more surprising aliens to return from the prior game.

See you then.