XCOM 2 Enemy Analysis: Chosen Strengths

Each Chosen rolls two Strengths at the start of a run, and as your run goes on each Chosen can gain up to three additional Strengths from Training, for a final total of 5 Strengths. This is directly correlated to Chosen tiers: as we'll see when we get to the Assassin, the Chosen come in four tiers, unlike all other enemies. So a tier 1 Chosen has 2 Strengths, a tier 2 has 3 Strengths, a tier 3 has 4 Strengths, and of course a tier 4 Chosen has 5 Strengths.

Like Weaknesses, Strengths don't allow duplicates when being passed out. If Brutal shows up on the Assassin, that run can't have it show up on the Warlock or Hunter, even if you take her out for good before they're done Training.

Interestingly, Chosen initial Strengths are defined at the start of a run, but new Strengths gained from Training are actually only defined at the very moment the game informs you of whatever Strength was gained -if you reload a save from shortly before the month rolls over, such as because the game crashed on you, it's extremely likely it will be a different Strength, whereas if you reload a save from before you encounter a Chosen for the first time their first two Strengths will not vary.

It should be noted that the Shell-Shocked Weakness will prevent that Chosen from ever acquiring the Blast Shield Strength. You might expect more Strength/Weakness incompatibilities, but that's actually it, as no other Strength has the potential to completely negate a Weakness.

It should also be noted that some Strengths are forbidden from the initial Chosen generation pool, requiring Training to have any possibility of showing up in the campaign, I'll be pointing those out as we get to them, though I should note I don't know the exact rules on when a given one enters rotation.

Lastly, one set of Strengths is special: summoning Strengths. These are all part of the pool of 'forbidden from initial generation' Strengths, but they also compete with each other -a Chosen that rolls General cannot roll Beastmaster in that run, for example. As I noted in the Tactical Intro post, these Strengths replace the Chosen's standard summoning action -though note that the Warlock additionally has two personal summoning abilities that are unrelated to this system. More on that when we get to him, though.

For now: Strength specifics!

Immune to Melee
Melee attacks always do no damage against this Chosen.

Note that this includes throwing the Hunter's Axe, even though that's a ranged attack.

Melee attacks can still trigger their other effects, so eg a Fusion Blade strike can set the Chosen on fire, a Templar's Rend can potentially knock the Chosen back a tile, etc, but this is... not very useful, since Chosen are naturally immune to eg the Stun of second-tier Swords and Ripjacks, as well as the Disorientation and Stun on Rend. If you're playing with mods that add Shred to melee attacks or throw in a Poison-inflicting Sword or something it can be a bit more meaningful, but in regular play the fact that it's not technically total immunity is of limited importance. It's something to keep in mind if you ever end up in an edge-case scenario, where eg a Chosen with Immune to Melee is down to 1 HP and you've got a Fusion Blade Ranger who can only attack them via melee attack; in that case it might make sense to fish for a Burn. But the vast majority of the time it not being total immunity is essentially a technicality.

Immune to Melee is one of the less reliably relevant Strengths. Only three classes -Ranger, Templar, and Skirmisher- even have melee attacks you can use on the Chosen (You could consider the Skulljack a universal melee attack, but it can't target Chosen), so if they drop in when you hadn't brought any Templar, Skirmishers, or Rangers anyway, then it isn't doing anything. (Well, and SPARKs if you have Shen's Last Gift, but they can't spam Strike, and you might not have picked it in the first place) Okay, if you brought a Psi Operative you could potentially Dominate a melee enemy or Dominate a Sectoid and have it summon a Psi Zombie, so technically four (5 if counting SPARKs) classes make it potentially relevant... but if there's no melee enemies or Sectoids on the map -quite normal, given most melee enemies are primarily limited to Retaliation missions and Sectoids become very rare past the early game- then that doesn't count unless the Chosen can summon melee enemies themselves. (Okay, and Specialists can Haywire Protocol an Andromedon Shell to have it come up, but this is really narrow)

Even when you have brought a Ranger, you weren't necessarily going to go for the Slash anyway. Shotgun damage is typically better prior to Katana access, Daze mechanics make it ill-advised to have any soldier substantially apart from the rest of the squad while Chosen are in the area, and Chosen are tough enough you may well be leaving your Ranger open to a flanking retaliation when the Chosen's turn rolls around.

And while Skirmishers have melee attacks, their initial one can't be used on Chosen (Justice), their later ones have notable cooldowns (Wrath and Reckoning), and they'd often rather spend their action points other ways, such as Grappling to a flanking position and shooting twice.

That said, when Immune to Melee is relevant, it can be shockingly painful.

First and most obvious is that it severely hurts Templar. They prefer to Rend every turn if at all possible, and Immune to Melee means that Rend is limited to setting up a Parry to hopefully distract the Chosen. (Or fishing for an Overcharge trigger: this can happen even if the target takes no damage) If it's the Warlock that has Immune to Melee, even this bit of utility is essentially worthless, as if he targets the Templar at all it will likely be with Mind Scorch or Mind Control, both of which bypass Parry. This is particularly painful if the Chosen in question has a Weakness to Templar, making it much harder to reliably and effectively leverage that Weakness. Consider prioritizing Aftershock and Overcharge sooner than normal if you end up with that unfortunate combination, so your Templar gets more out of Volt and isn't so dependent on killing reinforcements to sustain it. Or prioritize Autopoistol skills if they're rolling them. Or both, of course. Otherwise you risk them being essentially an empty slot when fighting that Chosen.

Second and less obvious is that it's actually often pretty painful when the Assassin has Immune to Melee. Most of the time, she'll open an encounter by slicing someone up and then zipping off to somewhere none of your soldiers has line of sight on, and quite often it's difficult to even manage a flank due to how extraordinarily far she can run after a Katana strike. Melee attacks are normally one of the better ways to get damage in on her when this happens -especially if she has Shadowstep so you can't catch her with Overwatch- since they work at Dash distances... and Immune to Melee takes that option away from you completely.

Third, Brittle is most readily and consistently taken advantage of by melee attacks. A Chosen that rolls Brittle as their Weakness but Immune to Melee as a Strength is much more difficult to properly leverage their Weakness than usual. Yes, this can happen; you might intuitively expect them to be incompatible, but nope.

Fourth and less obvious is that Immune to Melee subtly lessens the relevancy of the Bewildered Weakness, as Bewildered doesn't count neutered melee attacks for whether it's time for bonus damage to kick in. As melee attacks are one of the better ways to push damage through reliably, this can matter a lot!

It's also worth commenting that playstyle is a big factor here. If you're a huge fan of Rangers, using them a lot, promoting Rookies into them via the GTS a lot, etc, then Immune to Melee is going to be a lot more reliably relevant than if you're a player who tends to shun Rangers in favor of other classes. Similarly, a Templar start -whether deliberately picked or just letting the RNG roll it- is a noticeable bias toward it mattering, since you'll get a second Templar at some point and presumably thus field Templar more often, not to mention be fielding one from very early; if your initial Chosen has Immune to Melee with a Templar start, that's rough.

Also, while I noted earlier that the Assassin's behavior makes it more likely to be relevantly a problem if she has it, there's also an inverse to this, in that if she has it you can't possibly have the Katana. The Warlock or the Hunter gaining Immune to Melee right as you're finishing off the Assassin may make it very intrusively relevant, especially if neither has Shadowstep, since otherwise you'd be able to Slash with a guaranteed follow-up via Bladestorm for high damage thanks to the Katana.

And of course DLC is relevant, both because SPARKs have access to a melee attack and because the Hunter's Axe both encourages Ranger usage more and because Throw Axe is a free ranged attack that Immune to Melee blocks.

Certain other Strengths are prone to bolstering its relevance, as well. Blast Shield reduces the value of lobbing explosives toward the Chosen, where you may elect to go for melee as a way to bypass their Cover you don't feel is worth blowing apart, especially if your team is melee-stacked -and whoops there goes that option.

Similarly, melee is normally one of the better failsafe tools for letting you keep damaging a Planewalker, and Immune To Melee taking that away can create fairly tricky situations, especially if it happens early enough in a run you lack a lot of range-enhancing/long-range tools like the Advanced Grenade Launcher.

All three together can be very tricky to deal with...

But much of the time, Immune To Melee is easy to forget a Chosen even has if you aren't doing a melee-focused gimmick run or trying out mods that add dedicated melee classes or something in those veins.

Blast Shield
Explosives do no damage to this Chosen.

As noted earlier, a Chosen who rolled Shell-Shocked as their Weakness will never roll Blast Shield, which is a unique incompatibility.

Also note that Blast Shield does not prevent other effects of explosives, unlike Fortress on your own troops. They'll still Shred Armor, inflict Burn or Poison or Acid where applicable, etc, and in the case of the Assassin they'll break her Concealment. As such, explosives can still be useful against a Blast Shield Chosen, especially on higher difficulties where they accumulate Armor faster; on Legendary in particular they'll all outright start with Armor, and first show up before you're liable to have access to the Shredder skill. If you're unfortunate enough to have your very first Chosen encounter involve Blast Shield, it's still worth considering tossing a Frag Grenade to pull that Armor off.

Also note that on Commander the Warlock will start with a point of Armor as well, so while it's vastly less likely to crop up than on Legendary, it's still possible to be dealing with Blast Shield+Armor before you have Shredder on anyone. And on Legendary he starts with two Armor, demanding two Frag Grenades to fully Shred!

Also note that the Shredder Gun, Flamethrower, Shredstorm Cannon, Hellfire Projector, and Plasma Blaster are not considered to be explosives for this purpose. Only the Rocket Launcher and Blaster Launcher, out of Heavy Weapons, will fail to do damage. As such, you may wish to leave the Rocket Launchers/Blaster Launchers at home when assaulting a Chosen's Stronghold where that Chosen has Blast Shield.

Blast Shield is one of the most reliably relevant Strengths, as explosives are so useful in so many ways: unavoidable damage, unavoidable Shred, removal of Cover for Frag/Plasma Grenades and Rocket/Blaster Launcher of the options, reliable extra damage and side effects for the ones that can't smash Cover... and the main flaw of aggressive explosive use -the risk of smashing loot- is completely irrelevant to the Chosen per se, as they never drop loot when downed anyway. It's pretty easy to get really used to leaning heavy on explosives for Chosen fights and struggle to adapt when a Chosen has Blast Shield, and overall the relevance of it tends to go up as you progress, due to the increasing need to apply Shred, greater access to explosives in the form of Heavy Weapons and Experimental Grenades, and assorted more local factors like upgrading Grenade Launchers.

It's also one of the Strengths whose relevance can be raised significantly by other Strengths. Revenge punishing missed shots pressures you to use sure things instead of taking shots that can miss and then Blast Shield takes away one of the most universal sure things. Low Profile also pressures you to lean more on effects that don't use accuracy checks, and once again Blast Shield takes away one of the big ones. Same with Kinetic Plating. Planewalker has Grenade Launchers and Blaster Launchers as some of the better failsafe tools against it, and then Blast Shield makes them not work -they won't even trigger a new teleport.

Less consistently, Mechlord can boost its relevance, since Heavy ADVENT Mecs will usually just Overwatch next to the Chosen, a situation ripe for lobbing explosives at the cluster if the Chosen didn't move afterward... and Blast Shield takes away some of the appeal of that scenario.

Also note that the SPARK's Bombard ability actually constitutes an explosive. It's still great for vaporizing Cover, but you can't use it to finish off a Blast Shield Chosen. More intuitive is that Reaper Claymores count as explosives.

One of my favorite Strengths, honestly.

Revenge
If a shot against this Chosen misses, the Chosen will fire back with their gun. The Hunter uses his Darkclaw instead of his Darklance if he has this Strength.

Bizarrely, a Revenge shot can trigger reaction fire-type attacks from your own squad. You could, for example, have a Skirmisher attempt to Slash a Chosen, miss and thus trigger Revenge, and have the Revenge trigger Retribution. I actually finished off the Warlock once thanks to this!

Conversely, Revenge will not trigger in response to missed Overwatch shots. Assuming the Chosen doesn't also roll Shadowstep, you may wish to consider putting people into Overwatch instead of taking low-odds shots, particularly early in the game when you don't have a lot of alternatives.

Surprisingly, even though Revenge can trigger reaction fire from your own squad, it is properly counted as reaction fire for accuracy purposes, and thus is more likely to miss than if the Chosen had taken the shot as a regular firing action, and also cannot crit.

Revenge is a Strength where timing of the encounter matters a lot. Having a Chosen add Revenge in their last step of Training is generally basically irrelevant: by that point you should be able to very reliably avoid being forced to fall back on inaccurate shots, such that Revenge never has a chance to trigger. Conversely, if your very first Chosen has Revenge, you may be forced to let them Extract Knowledge; your squad will have poor aim, more or less no access to Aim-bypassing attacks, and if it's eg the Warlock having moved into a High Cover tree it may be impossible to get a clean shot. In that kind of situation, the expected result of trying to persist in a fight is quite likely to be a squad wipe.

It's also pretty important which Chosen has it, and what their other Strengths are. The Assassin getting Revenge can be very problematic; she's prone to zipping off to High Cover after a strike, with her attempts to break line of sight making it disproportionately likely that she's taken cover against an indestructible chunk of terrain, and even if you can smash it you can't necessarily break it and follow up due to sheer distance. That can force you into choosing between taking low odds shots that risk Revenge or waiting a turn and hoping she stops somewhere less problematic. Or going for Overwatch... but if she has Shadowstep that's no help.

Note that Stocks do not prevent Revenge from triggering. (Qualifier: if the Chosen is killed by Stock damage, Revenge doesn't get to trigger) Multi-shot actions will also trigger Revenge per miss if the Chosen survives; a Banish landing 1 shot out of 6 will result in Revenge triggering five times! So be especially cautious about using multi-shot actions against Revenge Chosen: it's very easy to have a soldier go down abruptly if you're careless and a bit unlucky.

Also note that Revenge can't trigger against Squadsight misses. Not even the Hunter can Revenge-fire against a Sharpshooter missing a shot. This isn't a huge thing, but is something to keep in mind, especially once you have the Darklance or if you have Sharpshooters with Run And Gun -it can be worth considering backing up out of sight before taking the shot if it's a risky shot.

Shadowstep
Overwatch and reaction fire do not trigger against this Chosen.

This is surprisingly variable in its relevance.

First of all, which Chosen gets it is a big factor. The Warlock getting it matters, but much less so than with the other Chosen; he's often perfectly happy to linger at the opposite end of the map, spamming Spectral Zombie until you come to him. If you know what you're doing and aren't under serious time pressure you can often bait him into walking into a wall of Overwatch fire anyway, but for a less experienced player, and in missions with harsh time pressure, you're basically never going to hit him with Overwatch anyway. Furthermore, he's the only Chosen that's perfectly happy to hold still if he's in a good position, and so once he's in your sight trying to eg catch him with Guardian spam is a horribly unreliable strategy even without Shadowstep.

By contrast, the Assassin getting it is a huge pain, pretty much no matter what. This might seem counterintuitive, in that she can already move about with no risk of Overwatch fire catching her by using Vanish, up to and including that striking from Concealment with her sword doesn't give you an opportunity to shoot her until she's Bending Reeding her way out, but she'll go zipping out to somewhere your squad can't see afterward, and depending on how mobile your squad is and how the map is set up, it may be completely impossible to reach her, forcing you to try to catch her with Overwatch fire. (She'll often just go for a sword strike without bothering with Vanish if she starts her turn out of your squad's sight) If she has Shadowstep?... you're in serious trouble and may be forced to let her Extract Knowledge or Kidnap someone just so she doesn't kill the entire squad.

The Hunter, meanwhile, is the middle of the road. Sometimes he'll stay way back and force you to come to him, so you never get a chance to catch him with Overwatch fire (Making Shadowstep a bit irrelevant), but sometimes he'll advance fairly aggressively, and due to his Grapple he's really prone to changing position in the middle of a fight, potentially triggering reaction fire from a soldier who was out of position and so you put them in Overwatch or who has Bladestorm/Retribution and he landed next to them. Thus, him getting Shadowstep is a notable gain for him, but not nearly so painful for you to deal with as if the Assassin gets it.

Second, though, is Strength combos. Shadowstep pairs well with Revenge because Revenge doesn't trigger on Overwatch fire, and Shadowstep denies you that workaround. Same with Low Profile, and more mildly Planewalker. Conversely, it's anti-synergistic with Kinetic Plating, which is normally a great Strength for punishing Overwatch attempts.

Third is, of course, the question of what kind of team you're fielding/prefer to field. If you've got the Katana or a Bladestorm Templar and either way like to drop your Bladestormer on Chosen for more damage... Shadowstep takes that option away against that Chosen. If you're fond of gambling that Threat Assessment Guardian Specialists will 'win big' with lots of Overwatch fire, Shadowstep makes that worthless against that Chosen. Etc. Whereas if you're prone to bringing multiple Grenadiers for purposes of smashing Cover, and prioritizing Scopes and Perception PCSes for everyone, it's just mildly irritating to lose out on the initial 'catch Chosen with Overwatch as they wander into your reach' opportunity, even if the Chosen also has a Strength that synergizes with Shadowstep.

Fourth and most subtle is the question of which summoning Strength the Chosen gets a hold of, and what they specifically elect to summon for the Strengths that applies to. A Beastmaster summoning a couple of Berserkers would redirect all your Overwatch fire to other targets anyway, if you tried to set up a wall of Overwatch. A General summoning some Troopers is much more likely to have a wall of Overwatch wipe out the summons with shots left for the Chosen theirself.

And of course map and local enemy composition factor in as well...

Surprisingly nuanced and powerful of a Strength for something that's so lackluster and narrow in player hands.

Watchful
This Chosen has a 50% chance to automatically enter Overwatch at the end of every turn. The Hunter goes into Pistol Overwatch instead if he has this Strength.

It should be noted that in practice this is the only way to see Chosen enter Overwatch, as unlike other enemies they're not actually willing to enter Overwatch on their own that I've ever seen. It's also one of the main ways you're liable to see the Warlock and Assassin actually fire their ranged weapons...

This can be insanely aggravating on the Assassin, especially if she also has Shadowstep, as she likes to go dashing off into corners you can't see, forcing you to turn the corner and risk being shot in the face by Watchful. Ideally you have Grenadiers or terrain-wrecking Heavy Weapons to give you a way to clear a path to her with no chance of being shot, or else you're going to be in a lot of pain. The main good news is that Vanishing Wind overrules it: she can't go into Overwatch while invisible. The other good news is that if Watchful triggers, the game will show her entering Overwatch even if your squad can't actually see her; if no such announcement triggers, you're free to walk people around the corner.

The Warlock getting Watchful is moderately notable since it's one of the few ways you're liable to see him actually firing the Disruptor Rifle. He's also got the best long-range accuracy in Overwatch, due to not suffering accuracy penalties at a distance.

The Hunter getting it is probably the least threatening possibility, simply because the Darkclaw has worse damage than the Arashi and Disruptor Rifle, and the Hunter doesn't go running off to hide the way the Assassin does. With the Darkclaw suffering range penalties at longer distance, he's also actually more prone to missing than you might expect given his high base Aim. Though this does come with the qualifier that his Overwatch shots can still inflict Bleeding; SPARKs don't care, but your other soldiers shouldn't just ignore his Overwatch.

One surprising synergy is that Blast Shield blocking explosive damage will actually prevent explosives from clearing Overwatch! Less consistently relevant is that this applies to Immune to Melee as well; a Shadowstep Ranger or Templar can't be used to clear Chosen Overwatch if they have Immune to Melee! This can be particularly aggravating with the Assassin, if you were hoping to have a Shadowstep soldier melee her to make it safe for other soldiers to turn the corner, or to have a Grenadier blast her Overwatch off so, again, people could turn the corner in safety.

Fortunately, Lightning Reflexes is a consistent answer with no Strength synergies undermining its effectiveness. If Watchful shows up on a Chosen, maybe consider picking up Lightning Reflexes more aggressively.

Overall, though, Watchful is generally a low-impact Strength. It doesn't even trigger consistently, it can only contribute one shot per turn at most, those shots are unlikely to hit and can't crit... and only the Hunter has a side effect inherently built into his ranged attacks. And said side effect doesn't trigger consistently. Notably, Watchful doesn't actually apply until the Chosen is 'activated', and so it doesn't even mean you're risking blindly walking into Overwatch.

I really feel this should've triggered consistently. Passive Overwatch isn't even that threatening, but it at least would've been better than it often not mattering because it just fails to trigger in the brief period before you drive off the Chosen.

Regeneration
This Chosen regenerates 3 HP at the start of every turn.

Notice that this is a flat value, not a percentage of their maximum HP.

Late in the game, Regeneration is essentially a joke. You've got six soldiers who each fire at least once for at least twice what it regenerates. If the stars align, sure, yeah, you can end up with the Chosen surviving for an extra turn thanks to Regeneration, but more often you won't even need to fire an extra shot to take them out.

If, however, this is found at the beginning of the game on your very first Chosen, it can be miserable. You'll have four, maybe five soldiers, they're all inaccurate, they have limited special abilities and so limited ability to eg smash Cover or get flanks or otherwise set up more accurate shots, and you're stuck with Conventional-tier weaponry. You may literally hit them once for three damage and have it immediately undone, or hit them twice and manage 7 damage, but then another pod stumbles into the fight and you burn your entire turn on dealing with the pod and so now the Chosen is only missing 1 HP. On Legendary, the Chosen will also have a point of Armor, and you may not manage to Shred it before trying to attack them, further reducing your damage. Or worse it can be the Warlock, who has two points of Armor right away on Legendary and only Reaper Claymores provide an early source of more than 1 Shred.

It's a pretty brief period that it's strongly relevant in, though, even on Legendary. This really needed to be a percentage-based effect, or a flat number that went up with their training tier, or something. Even the Warlock and Assassin having a propensity for stalling things rarely gives it an opportunity to really matter past the extreme early game.

Alas.

Low Profile
This Chosen gains +20 Defense for the rest of the turn after being targeted once, regardless of whether the attack succeeded or not.

Note that damaging the Chosen with effects like explosives doesn't trigger Low Profile. It has to be a directed attack, though not necessarily one performing an Aim check. It also isn't triggered by Overwatch fire, full stop. As such, if a Low Profile Chosen is in good Cover, you should generally endeavor to smash the Cover with area of effect attacks before performing directed fire. You should also save sure-hit directed effects for after Low Profile has triggered; don't Soulfire followed by a Rapid Fire, nor use Hail of Bullets first unless you desperately need Armor Shredded and your Shredder is worryingly likely to miss otherwise. And of course you should consider putting soldiers into Overwatch if they can't get a tolerable chance to hit, as Low Profile's bonus Defense goes away at the start of the enemy turn.

Also, I should explicitly point out that in spite of sharing a name with the prior game Sniper ability that gave a Defense boost in Cover in specific, the Low Profile Strength is just a flat Defense boost: even if you vaporize all adjacent Cover so they're not in Cover from any direction, Low Profile still gives them bonus Defense once triggered. I'm not sure why they recycled this name -maybe it did work like Enemy Unknown's Low Profile early in development?

In any event, on its own Low Profile is generally only a big deal if it happens to show up as one of the initial Strengths of your very first Chosen. Even the Assassin -the Chosen with the highest Defense- only reaches 20 natural Defense, and only with maximum Training on Legendary in particular. 40 Defense after the first shot is a fair amount, but by the time this is possible you'll already be used to fighting Gatekeepers with their 40 Defense when closed; just add 'smash the Cover quickly' to your strategy. (Okay, and remove 'use Bluescreen Rounds') Among other points, Low Profile only provides 5 more Defense than Holo Targeting provides Aim, so just having the first directed attack be a Holo Targeting soldier almost completely negates Low Profile.

When combined with certain other Strengths, Low Profile can become very concerning. Planewalker in particular is an unpleasant partner, making it very difficult to consistently get clear shots; 20 Defense on top of innate Defense and Cover is really hard to get good accuracy against, especially with the Chosen teleporting away so it's a struggle to get range-based accuracy bonuses. Similarly, as noted earlier it actually complements Blast Shield, making it so several of your assured-hit tools that avoid triggering Low Profile are worthless as damage dealers. And of course in conjunction with Revenge and/or Kinetic Plating, it can create situations where you're reluctant to risk the shot -even an 80% chance to hit can be unappealing if a miss risks getting the attacker killed, or further delaying your ability to take out the Chosen, or both.

Its relation to Immune to Melee is a bit strange, as Low Profile already discourages melee strikes if they're not a Templar's Rend, backed by the Katana, or backed by serious Aim boosting, due to how disproportionately dangerous it is to miss a melee attack as compared to ranged attack. On the other hand, Rend and the Katana are both assured hits, so Immune to Melee can be what prevents your melee soldiers from shrugging at Low Profile and just not making the first attack in a given turn, similar to Blast Shield being synergistic.

Surprisingly, it's also mildly synergistic with Shadowstep, as Low Profile's bonus vanishes at the start of the enemy turn and isn't triggered by Overwatch fire. Low Profile normally makes it worth considering having a soldier go into Overwatch instead of taking a shot in your turn, as a low-to-middling-odds shot will actually suffer a bigger penalty from Low Profile than from Overwatch's accuracy penalty. (eg if your hit chance is 50% before Low Profile is taken into account, Overwatching will result in -15 accuracy, as opposed to Low Profile being -20) Especially for Specialists later on, since they'll be getting 7 accuracy from Cool Under Pressure, and of course can grab Guardian so you have the potential for chained shots. And then Shadowstep takes away that option for minimizing Low Profile's harm.

Mind, this tends to not apply down on the lower difficulties, as well as early in a run on higher difficulties, but in the mid or late game of a Legendary run? It can matter quite a bit.

Kinetic Plating
If a shot taken at this Chosen misses, it generates 3 HP of shielding on the Chosen, which functions almost exactly as per a Shieldbearer-generated shield, but never timing out. This effect caps out at 12 HP of shielding at a time.

Like Regeneration, this is a flat value and so its relevancy is substantially affected by how early in a run it shows up. If it shows up in literally your first fight, it can be brutal, turning a missed shot into undoing most of a successful hit -or an entire successful hit, for low rolls on Bullpups, Vektor Rifles, and Assault Rifles. If it only pops onto a Chosen once you're largely done transitioning to beam-tier weaponry, you probably don't particularly care, even aside the potential to bypass it with Bluescreen Rounds.

The timing relevancy is exacerbated by the fact that your ability to bolster your squad's Aim rises substantially over the course of the game, whereas Chosen get only relatively small gains in Defense; the Assassin gains at most 15 Defense from advancing, and the Hunter and Warlock at most 10. That's canceled out by just Holo Targeting, or a Superior Scope. It's basically guaranteed that a late-game squad will have better final accuracy against a given Chosen than if both of them were fighting at an earlier point in the game.

Unlike Revenge, this does trigger on Overwatch shots. This makes it a little risky to try to catch the Chosen with an Overwatch wall, particularly early on where 3 HP is a sizable fraction of the damage of your individual shots.

One weird quality of Kinetic Plating is that while in most respects it functions like Shieldbearer shields, one exception is that Bluescreen Rounds will ignore Kinetic Plating but not purge the bonus HP. It's definitely worth keeping in mind if you have someone equipped with Bluescreen Rounds when you get jumped by a Chosen with Kinetic Plating, but it's not going to instantly negate the problems from a bunch of missed shots unless the Chosen was nearly dead anyway. Note that by extension EMP Grenades are worthless against Chosen, even if they have Kinetic Plating.

While Kinetic Plating tends to increasingly be a dud Strength as your run progresses, this comes with the qualifier that a few other Strengths synergize with it decently well. Low Profile makes it difficult to get multiple fully accurate shots in a turn, particularly if the Chosen spends any time in indestructible Cover. Planewalker makes it extremely difficult to keep getting clear shots in a turn. Blast Shield and Immune to Melee both take away some of your most general sure-hit options. A Chosen with some combination of these five Strengths can end up basically forcing you to take inaccurate shots and accept Kinetic Plating triggering.

A different kind of synergy is Revenge. Especially if the Chosen also has Low Profile, this can produce situations where you're really reluctant to fire more than once a turn at the Chosen, because any follow-up shots are likely gambles that are harshly punished if they miss. While this won't come up in too many runs, it's one reason why in War of the Chosen I feel sure-hit tools are very important, particularly having a variety of them instead of just relying on grenades in particular or the like.

An anti-synergy is that Shadowstep removes the single most likely circumstance for missing shots.

Note that Stocks actually do their damage before Kinetic Plating triggers. You can finish a very weak Chosen completely reliably this way, or more generally force some damage through if for some reason you want that bit of damage more than you care about not triggering Kinetic Plating. (Maybe you're trying to trigger Planewalker, or clear their Overwatch)

I'm a bit curious if there was an actual concrete narrative idea behind Kinetic Plating. It's a bit difficult to come up with a sensible model whereby missed shots in particular generate force field stuff in general, and Kinetic Plating's name in particular sounds like a technological concept, like the Chosen is layering their armor with devices to achieve this feat, which makes it still harder to render a sensible model... but the game also just doesn't really explain Strengths in general, narratively, and is in a blatantly rushed state all-around. It's possible there's an interesting and more-or-less functional model the devs had in mind that just didn't get mentioned in-game.

So I'm left wondering.

Planewalker
The Chosen will reactively teleport away when taking damage. Damage over time effects are exempted, and if multiple damage sources occur simultaneously it will only trigger once.

Planewalker is very glitchy, particularly when using multi-shot attacks like Chain Fire, with the Chosen frequently teleporting to a new location in response but having their model run back to their original location or otherwise ending up displayed at the wrong location, potentially even off the map. You can usually use area-of-effect attacks to identify their actual location, thankfully, as the preview effect will highlight the Chosen's model in orange when its over their actual location, rather than when it's overlapping with their model. The Target Preview function will also correctly predict whether a given location is flanking them, and with a Reaper you can look for an inexplicable square of detection tiles; the center of those tiles will be the Chosen's actual location. Whatever your method, you can then flank and fire on them appropriately.

Interestingly, the animations for firing on them will nonetheless aim at their model's location.

Fortunately, Planewalker triggering anew will usually undo the glitchiness if it isn't triggered by a new multi-shot attack. The Chosen taking their turn will also get their model to properly line up with their mechanical location if they move, which they usually will, particularly the Assassin. So it's not too bad of a glitch overall.

Anyway, Planewalker is also unusual in that it's not a Strength Chosen are allowed to start the game with. I think it's the only one this is true of other than the summoning Strengths, though don't quote me on that. I think it can only show up as a fourth or fifth Strength, as well, but it's possible I've just had a long streak of luck; don't take my word for it that the third Strength can't be Planewalker.

As I've been noting, Planewalker synergizes with a fair few Strengths, spiking the effectiveness of several of them quite dramatically. As Planewalker is, all by itself, a pretty problematic Strength if you're not prepared for it, a Chosen picking up Planewalker can be a fairly shocking spike in their danger level!

Among other points, it pretty well cements the Blaster Launcher as king of the Powered Heavy Weapons, since a Chosen is very unlikely to teleport beyond a Blaster Launcher's reach, and you don't need to worry about line of fire or anything. This can easily mean the difference between a Chosen living another turn and wreaking more havoc or them dying, given for one thing Blaster Launchers hit quite hard even relative to Chosen at max Training on higher difficulties.

By a similar token, the SPARK's Bombard ability can let them strike a Chosen even after it's teleported out of shooting range. I already tend to default to Bombard personally, but Planewalker very much reinforces it. Unless the Chosen also has Blast Shield, of course...

The Assassin, unusually enough, is a Chosen where Planewalker can end up being a mercy. If she ducks behind a far-off corner you can't reach with more than one person, or can only attack by using non-standard attacks like the SPARK Bombard ability or a Blaster Launcher or something, if she has Planewalker you can launch one of those attacks in hopes she'll teleport to some place the rest of your squad can readily access. As such, her having Planewalker can result in you one-rounding her where that would've been impossible if she'd not had it! This can technically happen with the Warlock and Hunter as well, but if your squad is moving together the way you're encouraged to do, it's extremely unlikely to crop up, whereas with the Assassin it can happen quite readily due to her unique behavior.

Narratively, Planewalker's name is a bit interesting to me in that it suggests XCOM 2 is having teleportation be, essentially, slipping from one universe to another and back. In conjunction with stuff like Spectres and the new Ethereal backstory and all the other stuff suggesting that there's a psionic dimension in particular and it's a hell dimension, this looks an awful lot like XCOM 2 is running with Doom-style teleportation, where teleportation is a great technology other than that oh-so-minor detail that each teleportation trip risks demonic monstrosities eating your face. Ethereals making heavy use of such a dangerous technology would also be very consistent with War of the Chosen successfully illustrating what callous jerks they are -oh, 6% of everyone who goes through a teleport vanishes into the hell dimension, never to be heard from again? Meh, they were literally born to die for us. Oh, 1.7% of everyone who goes through a teleport gets possessed by a malevolent psionic predator and will go on a murderous rampage afterward? It's fiiiine.

I honestly do hope this is the intended angle and the series sticks to it and builds on it. Usually when teleportation is actually seriously implemented into a setting, it's a risk-free perfect movement technology whose only flaws are being expensive and/or power-intensive, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but really interesting alternative models tend to only be broken out for relatively narrow purposes, such as classic Doom itself using it pretty straightforwardly as the reason why demons burst forth and attack a futuristic Earth that has space colonization and whatnot, and not any sooner. It'd be nice to see a setting run with such a model further, baking it more deeply into how the setting functions and all.

All Seeing
Concealed units, including Reapers in Shadow, will have their Concealment immediately broken if this Chosen ever has a clean line of sight to them.

By 'clean' line of sight, I mean that All Seeing still operates on normal Concealment mechanics where being in Cover will prevent Concealment from being lost. Conversely, it will break Concealment mid-movement, much like if you moved through a unit's detection radius: just avoiding being flanked isn't adequate protection from it.

In practice, All Seeing is surprisingly limited in its implications. It makes it slightly more likely that the Chosen will reveal your Reaper, and that's about it. It can be pretty unpleasant to have it roll on the Hunter thanks to his Grapple letting him suddenly flip which side of a piece of Cover he's on even if the Cover is fairly far from him, as he'll then be in a position to immediately shoot your Reaper. It's irritating but not overly harmful if the Assassin has it, as she'll most often reveal the Reaper as part of a Katana strike and thus won't be able to capitalize -and since Chosen go last in a turn in general, unless Lost are in the mission as well nobody else will be able to attack your Reaper either. Furthermore, even with All Seeing she can't break Shadow if she's currently Concealed herself, so it's entirely possible for her to pass right by your Reaper and not reveal them. The Warlock getting All Seeing is, by itself, generally a joke, since he prefers to stand at a distance from your troops anyway; it's only liable to be a problem if he also rolls Planewalker.

Part of the problem is that Chosen never spawn until after squad Concealment is broken. As such, most of your squad, possibly your entire squad, will be out of Concealment, and for non-Reapers most of the time if an All Seeing Chosen would've detected them so would a non-All Seeing Chosen, making the skill pretty moot outside of Reapers in specific. My understanding is that this is something of a patch issue, as patch notes indicate the Chosen originally spawned in on the first enemy turn, period, rather than waiting for squad Concealment to be broken. So on release, this would've made a bit more sense of a Strength.

In the current state, though, most of the time you can essentially treat it as a dud roll, which is unfortunate. I'm overall okay with this situation, as Chosen popping in before your squad is detected would've aggravated me for both narrative and gameplay reasons, but it's still unfortunate that All-Seeing didn't get overhauled or replaced.

The one major exception to the dud roll quality is that the Hunter has a unique trait that usually doesn't matter; all Chosen know where non-Concealed members of your squad are at all times, of course, but the Hunter actually has infinite line of sight. This normally almost never comes up... but if he rolls All Seeing, this means your Reaper can be spontaneously revealed while the Hunter is on the other side of the map.

Fortunately, Chosen won't spawn in until you've broken squad Concealment, so even in that scenario the impact is much less than it could be, but if the Hunter gets All Seeing you shouldn't treat your Reaper as reliably safe behind Shadow unless you're taking them into a mission the Hunter can't possibly spawn into, such as a plot mission overseen by a different Chosen, or an Avatar Project Facility guarded by an Alien Ruler, because so long as the All-Seeing Hunter is on the map and you don't know his location any movement on your Reaper's part risks breaking Shadow.

Brutal
The Chosen lowers the Will of all soldiers who can see them anytime the Chosen performs an attack. -3 Will per Brutal trigger.

This is the Fatigue mechanic being hijacked, to be clear. It doesn't permanently lower max Will or anything crazy like that.

Also note that Brutal counts any offensive action, including the Daze-inflicting special attacks that can't do damage, such as the Warlock's Mind Scorch.

I'm not sure this actually works, to be honest. Brutal's icon and name will pop up anytime a Brutal Chosen performs an aggressive action, but I've not seen Will drain occur, even with a mod to display Will drain. If it does... um... okay? Chosen you let get turns tend to be hard on your soldiers' Will, period, I don't really get the point of a Strength to make this a little more true on average.

If it doesn't work, uh, whoops.

I sort of like the idea of this Strength, but... yeah.

Soulstealer
When units that are hostile to the Chosen take damage, if they have a clean line of sight on the Chosen that Chosen recovers missing HP equal to the amount of damage that was done.

Note that the actual source of damage is irrelevant; yes, Soulstealers are healed by attacking your troops themselves, but they also heal if damage over time effects trigger on your troops, or regular enemies attack them, or you catch your troops with a grenade, or whatever. It just matters that the Chosen can see the suffering happening. Even fall damage counts!

Soulstealer makes it even more important to clear out secondary threats before focusing on the Chosen, so an unlucky round of attacks from enemies doesn't immediately undo a bunch of damage to the Chosen. It also discourages trying to opportunistically do a little damage to the Chosen before you're ready to focus on them, as it's entirely possible your efforts will be wasted: this is especially important with charge-limited abilities and Items like grenades, albeit offset some by points like that Shred cannot be undone.

Unlike Regeneration, Soulstealer scales up into the late game. Not perfectly, but the healing is directly correlated to damage inflicted, so enemy damage rising directly boosts the healing provided by Soulstealer, and your squad gets larger and gains more HP as you progress, so a similar level of danger (eg the squad losing half their health) will in fact result in noticeably more healing.

Part of how it's imperfect, of course, is that it does specifically require the Chosen has line of sight. As the Chosen are all fond of hanging at the edges of your squad's vision or, in the Assassin's case, running off to beyond your squad's vision, it's pretty easy for them to fail to witness damage your squad took and so fail to heal.

Soulstealer is least relevant on the Warlock, as he rarely even tries to do damage once he's spotted your squad; he honestly usually gets more out of Regeneration, which for the other Chosen is normally pretty close to flatly inferior to Soulstealer. The Assassin in particular is strongly consistent about inflicting damage she can see, so even though she often fails to witness regular enemies doing damage, she at least pretty consistently heals from her own attacks. The Hunter is in the middle, overall, as he's perfectly happy to hang back and use Tracking Shot or pop into sight and use one of his tools that does no damage, but on the other hand he's honestly the Chosen most prone to actually witnessing regular enemies attacking your squad. (Especially when high ground is around, so his obsession with his Grapple gets to overrule his preference for keeping his distance)

(I honestly don't know if the Hunter's infinite sight range lets Soulstealer trigger at infinite range, as it's difficult to have it clearly occur in organic play and it didn't occur to me as a question until literally the day I put up this post. I may update this space later if I manage to test it)

Soulstealer is mildly synergistic with Watchful and Revenge, since those provide the Chosen more opportunities to dish out damage, and they will Soulsteal off successful hits from either since both Strengths require the target be in range and so on.

Narratively, Soulstealer is one of those low-key examples of XCOM 2 and particularly War of the Chosen leaning into psionic powers being magic that preys upon souls and whatnot, You can dismiss it as purely a gameplay mechanic, as Strengths are never acknowledged by the narrative -not even in the form of characters tutorialing you- and there's plenty of games that are willing to do things like eg Diablo-style randomized loot that includes HP-leeching in the pool, up to and including in scifi settings it doesn't fit the narrative conceits of, but games have a few standardized terms in relation to such mechanics -leeching, vampiric effects, HP drain, etc- and 'soulstealing' is not one of those standardized terms.

It's not like War of the Chosen is afraid to use technology to justify Strengths; Kinetic Plating's name heavily implies it's literally the Chosen deciding to equip some gear that somehow generates protective shielding off shots that don't hit. (That is, I've seen games with systems where the devs clearly felt the need to make every capability in a list be named as an intrinsic ability and not something that could theoretically be passed off to another individual, even if the mechanic in question was ignored by the narrative; War of the Chosen is not holding itself to such a rule)

Collectively, these kinds of points make me inclined to take Soulstealer's name as actually meaningful, an indication the Chosen in question has mastered the art of feeding upon the suffering of others in a metaphysical sort of way. Which, notably, is consistent with my broader thoughts on XCOM 2/War of the Chosen seeming to shift to psionic powers coming from a hell dimension populated by predators that prey upon souls.

It's especially interesting how Soulstealer connects to the Ethereals, given the Chosen are the favored of the Ethereals and eg the Angelus Ethereal talks like the Chosen have somehow been made more Ethereal-like. It's not hard to look at these indications, look at Soulstealer, look at the callousness of the Ethereals, and start wondering if they actively seek to generate suffering because that's how they literally feed themselves.

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The next few Strengths are something of a set; summoning Strengths.

First of all, it's a set because these Strengths are mutually exclusive with each other: a Chosen can't be both a Prelate and a Mechlord. As there's only three Chosen to five such Strengths, this means a given run will fail to see at least two of these Strengths.

Second, as I alluded to in the Tactical Intro post, these Strengths replace the standard ADVENT Trooper-summoning ability all Chosen naturally have, which is unique; no other Strength actively displaces a capability on the Chosen.

Third, Chosen never start with a summoning Strength. Which incidentally means that the initial 6 Strengths the Chosen start with are out of a possible set of 12 Strengths, even though there's 17 Strengths in total. (Well, 11, given Planewalker can't be a starting Strength either) They must get some Training under their belt to earn a summoning Strength.

As for specifics...

General
This Chosen summons ADVENT Troopers with their normal unit-summoning action. The number and tier depends on the Chosen's training level.

General is a weird Strength, because as I noted in the tactical intro post, the Chosen start out able to summon Troopers by default, to the point that I used General's icon for that capability.

As such, there's not a lot to say about it in particular. It doesn't actually change anything, and is effectively just the Chosen failing to generate a Strength. It's weird and I'm curious what went on behind the scenes to lead to this outcome. Did the standard summoning capability only get added to Chosen later?

Mechlord
This Chosen's normal unit-summoning action now generates ADVENT Mecs instead. The exact kind of units, as well as how many are generated, depends on the Chosen's training level.

This can summon ADVENT Mecs and/or Heavy Mecs.

It can mix-and-match, and will actually do so consistently at the third tier of Chosen training, summoning one regular Mec and one Heavy Mec. At the fourth and final tier of training the Chosen will upgrade to just summoning two Heavy Mecs.

It's too bad there's so few true robots that can, you know, move. Sectopods are the only other option (Well, and Andromedon Shells, but that would be extremely silly), and as far as I'm aware they can't be summoned, which would be entirely reasonable given they're clearly meant to be a 'boss' enemy. (Also, the summoning effect would probably look wrong on them anyway due to their tremendous size, not to mention probably have janky physics results)

In any event, Mechlord is generally the most consistently problematic summoning Strength unless you're incredibly fond of passing out Bluescreen Rounds in particular. Mecs are very tough, can reliably smash Cover, annihilate floors, and directly do damage without any possibility of missing, and the Heavy Mecs will still do their special pod activation behavior of entering Overwatch if they can see any of your units, which can actually end up pretty problematic. On the plus side, that latter point often lets you catch them and the Chosen with area-of-effect attacks (Because the Heavy Mecs stay right next to the Chosen, instead of charging your squad), which can help offset their raw HP advantage and take out their Overwatch in one go if you've got good, relevant area-of-effect in position. 

If you get a Chosen reaching the point of summoning two Heavy Mecs at a time, you might want to bring an EMP Grenade to missions they can show up in/will show up in, so you can hopefully Stun both Heavy Mecs right away. It won't do anything to the Chosen, unfortunately, but there is no perfect tool that works great against both Chosen and Heavy Mecs, so... still worth considering.

Beastmaster
This Chosen's normal unit-summoning action now generates assorted 'bestial' units instead. The kind of units possible, as well as how many are generated, depends on the Chosen's training level.

This can summon Faceless, Chryssalids, and Muton Berserkers.

Like Mechlord, this can mix-and-match, such as summoning a Berserker at the same time as a Chryssalid. Unlike Mechlord, this produces pretty noticeable variability, as while all its options are melee Aliens they otherwise present different threat profiles, and the exact list summoned per-use is random to boot.

A particularly early Beastmaster will only ever summon Faceless. Then Chryssalids enter the pool, followed by Berserkers, in spite of Berserkers entering the normal mission pool much sooner than Chryssalids. Chosen can in fact be summoning Chryssalids noticeably earlier than you can encounter them in a normal mission. If it happens to be a mission where you loot bodies, this can potentially let you get Hellweave noticeably earlier than the game really intends for you to acquire it. So that's neat.

It also means you either need to bring Medikits anytime the Beastmaster might show up or be prepared to drop everything and murder the Chryssalids so they don't get a chance to inflict Chryssalid Poison. The latter is perfectly valid, to be clear, but if eg you're playing with Beta Strike on, or aren't yet confident in your ability to consistently nuke down a couple of Chryssalids on demand, you might want to make room for Medikits in response to a Chosen acquiring Beastmaster. (Assuming you aren't doing so already, of course)

Beastmaster is the other summoning Strength where area-of-effect tools tend to shine, as while the Beastmaster summons will tend to advance too far to readily catch alongside the Chosen that summoned them, they're not scattering for Cover and will usually end up closely clumped. 

Also, while Mechlord is generally more noteworthy when it comes to dropping a bunch of durability on the battlefield, Beastmaster isn't far behind it, and there's no super-powerful counter option to Beastmaster's options the way there is for Mechlord. Notably, Venom Rounds and Gas Grenades are overall optimal against Chosen out of Ammo and grenades, while Chryssalids are immune to Poison and Faceless will purge it before it does damage. (Usually) As such, much like Mechlord, Beastmaster puts you in an awkward position of choosing between gearing up to be most effective against the Chosen or most effective against their summons, contributing to the overall durability concern, though a bit less dramatically than with Mechlord.

Shogun
This Chosen's normal unit-summoning action now generates ADVENT Stun Lancers instead. The tier and number generated depends on the Chosen's training level.

This is basically directly superior to General, since Stun Lancers are almost always more of a problem than Troopers.

Fortunately, while early double Stun Lancer pods are a disproportionate threat, by the time Chosen are summoning them they're generally plenty manageable. Still high-priority threats given the risk of them inflicting Stun or Unconsciousness, of course, but if your squad can't kill a couple of Stun Lancers in one turn you probably have bigger problems.

Pretty straightforward, making it functional, but difficult to say much about.

Prelate
This Chosen's normal unit-summoning action now generates ADVENT Priests instead. The tier and number generated depends on the Chosen's training level.

This is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, Prelate is the only summoning Strength where you can often afford to ignore the resulting units for a turn or two, as they're liable to focus on Stasis, Mind Control, and Holy Warrior, all of which are generally not too problematic one way or another. On the other hand, Priests coming with Sustain means you can't necessarily remove them on demand, and all the Chosen have ways to mess with your action economy en mass -putting off attacking a Priest on the idea you'll deal with it on a later turn can go pretty badly wrong depending on Chosen actions. So habitually ignoring summoned Priests for a turn is a dangerous plan -worth considering in a pinch, but bad to cultivate as a habit.

Keep in mind that Holy Warrior won't kill a Chosen if applied to them and then the originating Priest killed. Indeed, Chosen won't suffer any penalty at all from that, and since they go after all other Alien Activity enemies if a Priest decides to use Holy Warrior on the Chosen they will get a turn to leverage the bonuses in. (Whether they actually put the bonuses to good use is another matter entirely) ADVENT Priests don't particularly prioritize using Holy Warrior on the Chosen, mind, but there's a synergy there when they do go for it.

On paper this is a pretty straight upgrade, like Shogun is, but in practice Priests are so reluctant to actually fire their rifle it's a lot murkier. I usually find it a bit of a relief, personally.

On a different note, Poison is overall the best damage over time effect to inflict on Priests and Chosen, followed by Acid, followed by setting them on fire; this makes prepping for Priests have real overlap with prepping for their summoner, contributing to this Strength being overall less threatening than you might intuitively expect.

It's also worth pointing out that Chosen don't 'see' Stasis when plotting out their targeted area-of-effect attacks, and so Priests will occasionally prevent a mass Daze from catching its full complement of targets. It may even make the Daze-inducement completely wasted of an action, if eg there's two Priests, they Stasis two soldiers close to each other, and then the Chosen decides to lob their area-of-effect such that those two are the only units that would be caught. Whoops!

Appropriately enough given characterization stuff, the Warlock is arguably the best Chosen to have Prelate, even though mass Mind Shields/SPARKs is protective against both him and Priests. He's the only Chosen that can't partially or completely waste his turn as a consequence of Stasis (His area-of-effect tools have the wrong mechanics for this to happen), stacking Mind Controllers hurts the utility of relying on Frost Bomb as your answer to Mind Control (You probably can't catch the Warlock and Mind Controlling Priests with one use, even with an Advanced Grenade Launcher), Priests having Stasis actually fouls up relying overly-much on Mind Shields/SPARKs, and the Warlock is a 'hard' target that relies on Armor while Priests are 'soft' targets that rely on Dodge, Defense, and esoteric defenses. (By which I mean Sustain) Thus, tools that are great against one are surprisingly often somewhat poor against the other -AP Rounds won't help you with Priests, for example.

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Strengths are overall swingier than Weaknesses, but while the tuning of eg Regeneration certainly could've been better, I'm overall much more okay with how uneven Strength impact can be. For one thing, that's basically unavoidable just due to Strength stacking resulting in synergies and anti-synergies if the devs don't put a ton of work into identifying all such cases and preventing them from happening.

If you don't feel like mathing it out yourself: there's 17 Strengths, of which five are summoning Strengths. As the Chosen can collectively acquire up to 15 Strengths and can each only have one summoning Strength, this means that if you let every Chosen reach their maximum level of Training the only Strengths that won't be in play will be a couple of summoning Strengths.

I'd personally have cut General and possibly Shogun, but honestly, this layout is fine enough. I sort of wish there were more Strengths for more variety, but I don't feel it's an actual design problem that there aren't more, and even with it being more okay for Strengths to be uneven in impact than Weaknesses, it's still true that it would take a lot of work to come up with even more Strengths that are good and interesting. Especially since variable impact being okay doesn't mean it's okay to have literally redundant Strengths -that is, a Strength that protected against everything Immune to Melee blocks plus yet more would be bad/problematic design. (eg if a Chosen gets both, the lesser Strength isn't actually doing anything) So that's a somewhat subtle limiter on the range of possibilities.

There's a few Strengths -like All-Seeing- that really needed to work differently, or have better tuning, or be replaced entirely, but honestly, I'm impressed the Strength system functions as well as it does, and would be impressed even if War of the Chosen weren't blatantly rushed. I've seen games with similarly ambitious systems that can't do better after iterating across multiple entries over the course of a literal decade.

I do hope XCOM 3 revisits the idea with more polish, though.

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Next time, we move on to our first specific Chosen: the Assassin.

See you then.