tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post1503225897400892819..comments2024-03-28T10:31:45.644-07:00Comments on Vigaroe: XCOM 2 Item Analysis: Experimental AmmoVigaroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02405424233776571308noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-32961312121455584622022-11-12T16:37:00.032-08:002022-11-12T16:37:00.032-08:00The Experimental Projects all use a 'deck'...The Experimental Projects all use a 'deck' system, where each result is a 'card' drawn from the deck. This is why the base game has a bug where Experimental Projects can stop giving you anything -because the deck runs out and the game doesn't refill it and so when it goes to draw a result it finds nothing and thus gives nothing.<br /><br />I've never properly dug into the details so I don't know what the game's rules for filling up a deck initially are (How many cards get put in initially, what limitations on duplicate cards there might be, etc), but this basic framework is why you see repeat results less often than in most video game RNG setups. I do also know the game doesn't decide the draw order ahead of time -it's absolutely possible to get AP Ammo, crash, sigh and reload to before you got the AP Ammo, and this time get Tracer Rounds.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-17420101824497089372022-11-12T10:08:17.141-08:002022-11-12T10:08:17.141-08:00Have you noticed a strong tendency for the game to...Have you noticed a strong tendency for the game to give you a "new" experimental ammo result if possible? It's not 100%, but over many runs I've definitely noticed that "doubling up" on an existing ammo type is *much* less likely than a true random draw each time would suggest. Have you seen anything in the files about this? thesemicolonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17557640153715119433noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-29765013048318804122021-02-26T19:41:36.034-08:002021-02-26T19:41:36.034-08:00Dragon Rounds rendering melee irrelevant was bad b...<br />Dragon Rounds rendering melee irrelevant was bad because you could usually get fire sources before either serious melee threat showed up, and then it made them... irrelevant, with one hit, where you could literally ignore them for multiple turns. It was almost as bad as one-hit-killing them would've been. The Berserker in particular was supposed to be a problem by eating a lot of firepower; being able to shoot them once and then ignore them was a ludicrous design-breaker. Even for Chryssalids, it made their innate Dodge/Armor pretty irrelevant; one getting lucky and surviving thanks to a couple of Grazes didn't matter if you started out by setting the entire pod on fire.<br /><br />As for disabling other abilities, I do think fire loses a noticeable chunk of appeal in War of the Chosen, but it's still appealing against Mutons (No Plasma Grenade, no worrying about being knocked Unconscious or Executed in melee -I'm pretty sure it even disables Counterattack, from experience), prevents ADVENT Troopers and Officers from remembering their own grenades (Which are almost always more problematic than them taking a regular shot), more debateably Vipers (Tongue Pull is USUALLY less threatening than a regular shot, but Poison Spit can be a big pain in the mid-early game if you're not spreading Medikits around, and Tongue Pull can still result in pretty bad situations if it activates other pods or gets the soldier killed by Lost), and Stun Lancers. (It still takes away their melee attack, which is vastly more problematic than them trying to shoot) Mutons in particular get to show up in groups while being quite tough, enough so that just wiping them out can prove very difficult depending on terrain et al; I prefer to have fire access even fairly late in a run just for Mutons.<br /><br />As for Codices, bring Flashbangs: Disorientation takes away ALL their special abilities, including Clone. Psi Operatives can use Insanity to fish for a Mind Control or Disorientation, as well. Stun disables Clone even though it will never take a turn from them. And of course Alien Hunters lets you freeze them with the Frost Bomb and Serpent Suit. There's options, just not as many as most enemies.<br /><br />I actually don't think Ammo feels lackluster. I feel the design was very lopsided in the base game, where Tracer Rounds were garbage and AP Rounds only stopped completely sucking once Andromedons hit the field while Dragon Rounds and Bluescreen Rounds were the clear kings, but Ammo itself is very much the most powerful Item category. Outside the times I've messed around with mono-class runs, I've always heavily prioritized Ammo coming online because it's such a huge improvement to soldier effectiveness.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-56747220455440373692021-02-26T19:41:27.496-08:002021-02-26T19:41:27.496-08:00I still don't feel setting up Reapers for crit...I still don't feel setting up Reapers for crits is worth it. Bumping up their minimum damage by 1 point with Dragon or Venom Rounds lets them secure kills with 0 risk of Shadow being hurt; even if Shadow doesn't break, the increased detection radius makes it MUCH more dangerous to have the Reaper trying to do their entire thing of scouting. I also disagree on the Legendary difficulty point, and would argue the exact opposite logic: that it's more feasible to fish for crit-kills against fresh enemies on LOWER difficulties, while too many enemies on Legendary are too tough to be worth trying to crit-kill from full. You're better off finishing off weakened targets, especially since Blood Trail is an important part of your damage, at which point building for crits is just undermining the Reaper's ability to reliably finish weakened targets to no benefit.<br /><br />Tracer Rounds on lower-level soldiers is a decent point. I've done that a few times myself, even.<br /><br />I still don't see it as helping with Pistols enough to be worth it -you want the damage boost far more, since it's proportionately twice as good (Roughly) as for most primary weapons, whereas the Tracer Rounds Aim boost is... only helpful if you're firing at long ranges at targets in Cover, where your Pistol has no business being pointed outside desperation. And you'd very possibly be better off just firing the Sniper Rifle. Even for Lost Pistol clean-up I don't see the appeal -just get to high ground and clean sweep, or get in close and clean-sweep. The Pistol is the only weapon that can hit 100% hit chance at Squaddie level without needing high ground+closing in; it doesn't need more accuracy boosting against stuff like Lost, whereas Dragon Rounds can be the difference between maiming one Lost out of a group of 8 vs killing literally the entire game with one soldier. (Lost clean-up with other weapons, yes, I've run Tracer Rounds occasionally)<br /><br />The thing about AP Rounds is that Purifiers, live Andromedons, and Avatars are all non-robots with heavy Armor, and AP Rounds is still equal to Bluescreen Rounds against a non-Shredded Gatekeeper or Sectopod. (Unless you want the Hack Defense-lowering effect, I guess...) They're absolutely terrible until Andromedons show up in the base game, and are still one of the poorer options in War of the Chosen prior to that point, but in the late game the fact that they help against all the toughest threats is legit useful, where Bluescreen Rounds have noticeable gaps in coverage. (But are, of course, a lot better if you run into any of the unarmored/lightly armored enemies susceptible to them) It often ends up saving a shot to have that first shot on an Andromedon get +4 damage, that kind of thing.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-47313982826656952442021-02-26T19:41:05.015-08:002021-02-26T19:41:05.015-08:00Ranger crit-wise, a Stormgun is 20. A Superior Las...Ranger crit-wise, a Stormgun is 20. A Superior Laser Sight provides 25 if you're point-blank. (Laser Sight have a semi-hidden bonus for distance, maxing at +10 no matter tier) Flanking is +40; that's already 75 crit chance, and Talon Rounds bring you to 95%. If you have Inside Knowledge, a point-blank shot is 100% crit chance. (It's also worth pointing out that Shadowstrike is worth +25 crit chance, though obviously you can't repeat that infinitely in a mission, but just getting it twice is significant in a lot of missions if you're willing to buy Conceal. Though obviously you can't get a point-blank Concealed shot, typically, reducing the Laser Sight boost)<br /><br />(Also, I sometimes forget that XCOM 2 lowered the flank boost to +40 crit)<br /><br />I do actually tend to default to Talon Rounds on Rangers myself. It's basically always them or AP Rounds once I have the full set, honestly. But I tend to feel like it's not putting in much work; in the base game Rangers don't really need crits to murder most flankable targets, and the two exceptions -Andromedons and Avatars- are heavily Armored and not susceptible to Bluescreen Rounds, making AP Rounds a more reliable boost against them if I don't expect to Shred them first. In my mono-Ranger run, I had 3-4 Rangers equipped with AP Rounds, 1 equipped with Dragon Rounds, 1 equipped with Venom Rounds, and intermittently I had one of the AP Rounds Rangers run Bluescreen instead and only ever felt like it was paying off against Heavy Mecs in specific. In War of the Chosen, Ranger flanks aren't so ludicrously powerful, but Ranger shooting is in generally far less appealing than slicing things up, especially once you have the Katana; within YOUR turn the Arashi critting will do better damage than a Blademaster Katana strike (15-17 on the Arashi, assuming a flanking crit backed by Talon Rounds, vs 10-11 from a Blademaster Katana strike), but a Blademaster Bladestorm Ranger can, against most targets, be assured the victim will trigger Bladestorm, resulting in it doing 20-22 damage. (Ignoring that the Katana can crit on the initial hit, and also ignoring that its 5 Pierce means it will often do a bit more damage in real terms) 20-22 damage is enough to reliably kill basically every regular enemy: only Legendary Andromedons MIGHT survive, out of things that aren't boss enemies of some kind. If you're not going to Rapid Fire, a Ranger wielding the Assassin's kit should basically always Slash unless the concern is the target exploding on them.<br /><br />Even before the Assassin's kit arrives, though, I default heavily to Slashing; avoiding spending ammo is extremely useful, Dashing toward the objective while killing the enemy is extremely useful, not having to worry about Cover is extremely useful, and before Run And Gun arrives it's often more reliable than trying to shoot. (It's also worth noting here that I have Alien Hunters; the Hunter's Axe tilts Rangers more toward melee via its +1 damage, so if you don't have it that might be part of why you care more about the Ranger's shooting game)<br /><br />So basically, I run Talon Rounds on Rangers, but more because all Ammo is kind of bad on them, and Talon Rounds giving a boost against potentially any enemy where everything else is situationally worthless makes it feel like the least bad choice. And honestly, I should probably be less obsessive about running Ammo on my Rangers in the first place.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-86246546876013492292021-02-26T13:57:59.397-08:002021-02-26T13:57:59.397-08:00Thank you very much for your feedback. I had to ch...Thank you very much for your feedback. I had to check which mods I was running as 100% accuracy was not cancelling out grazing and reading the description I'm afraid you were right about graze overruling crits (how could I doubt). It's probably that I wanted to have it differently - I'm not a fan of RNG and seeing a pot shot with 30% accuracy not only to hit but criting and a 95% accuracy shot grazing simply feels wrong.<br />And there is also no disagreement that as soon as you expect several robotic/digital enemies blue screen rounds are the way to go. <br />I also hear what you are saying on tracer rounds - however pistols have no scope and without perception pcs their effective range is rather limited. So against Lost I feel they are an okay choice - especially with "between the eyes" resistance order. Low level soldiers tagging along to gain experience might also be worth considering - they usually don't have a PCS installed and only get 2nd best equipment - so they will most likely end mopping up wounded enemies (to gain the kill experience) and need to reliable hit for this.<br />AP rounds sound good on your shredder - only most of the time it doesn't matter. Against digital enemies they are not better than bluescreen and it is rare that a high armor organic enemy can be one-shot by a grenadier (at least on legend) with or without AP - and a second attack after shred should usually kill in any case. So yes I slap them on the Grenadier to some variance - just to be annoyed that I would have gained more mileage out of blue screen ammo.<br />Venom rounds are not so bad - reduced accuracy and high cover makes you kind of save of pod shots (yeah only until 70% accuracy - that's why I don't feel lower difficulties baby you with the aim behavior fighting several hundred enemies in a campaign even 1% hit chance is stacking the odds against you). <br />For katana rangers I still feel that talon rounds is the obvious choice - yes it is only 20% higher probability but 75 to 95 crit chance (that is already boosted superior laser sight - how do you get 100%?) gives you a higher damage output than slashing - which quite surprisingly is often the difference between requiring 1 or 2 shots (the long cool down of rapid fire usually keeping me saving it for bad situation - another thing I don't understand - with fog of war you don't know what's ahead, timed mission make most specials a one charge attack and on none timed missions ending several turns on overwatch waiting for the cool down sucks the fun out of the game). Reapers get to 85% crit chance and have one charge to reenter shadow - so on short missions the risk feels okay (especially as on legend there are not a lot of enemies the reaper is able to kill without crit). And on longer missions soul harvest brings you up to 100% crit.<br />Dragon rounds being the counter to chrysalid and berserkers felt great - not sure why WotC changed this. Codices I brought up as an rare example where disabling their special ability (espeicially cloning) would be helpful - but no, there is no counter against it. For most of the special abilities which are actually disable by burning, I rather have them wasting their action on the special ability than taking a shot - especially as even high cover and long distance (why have the aliens no aim drop - bad aim should reduce there ability proportional to the square of the distance - but so are the rules) will get you hit rather sooner than later.<br />So long story short - I agree that ammo feels lack luster. Blue screen rounds are a good use of the equipment slot - in the other cases a grenade feels more useful for the slot - especially when using light or heavy armor. It other equipment would be better I wouldn't bother about ammo at all - so it is good for a few edge case but feel like a waste of elerium cores.Stephanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00676870116287925602noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-73430387562053623872021-02-19T17:42:59.828-08:002021-02-19T17:42:59.828-08:00Um, no. Graze overrules crits, not the other way a...Um, no. Graze overrules crits, not the other way around. Perfect accuracy overrules Dodge, as does attacking from Concealment, and that's it. Talon Rounds are actively BAD against Dodge threats unless you can expect to reach perfect accuracy anyway. Which Rangers can with short-range Shotgun blasts, but even there the only thing Talon Rounds have going for them is being a damage boost that doesn't care about enemy type/immunities; other damage boosts are always bigger in practice where applicable. Rangers still get decent use out of Talon Rounds, yes, but Reapers I heavily disagree with -it's simply impossible to reach 100% crit on a Reaper without Soul Harvest backing it, and most missions are too short for that to be meaningfully useful, and you don't want to take might-kill-with-crit shots with a Reaper, you want to only take shots that are guaranteed to kill. Banish is forbidden from critting, too, so if you're picking based on Banish Talon Rounds are outright the worst ammo type!<br /><br />I should probably update the Dragon Rounds description, to be honest. At this point I've come to default to Venom Rounds over Dragon Rounds in War of the Chosen -there's a few enemies like Mutons where I still prefer setting them on fire, but a LOT fewer, and at my current skill level few enemies get to act anyway, with the Chosen being the main exception... who have no abilities disabled by fire but can actually be penalized by Poison. Dragon Rounds is still king in the base game, but yeah, in War of the Chosen it's subtly underwhelming, with actually its biggest place being anti-Lost work, where it gives you longer Headshot chains and hard-disables any Lost that survive a hit. (eg Brutes)<br /><br />I'm confused why you bring up Codex abilities, regardless, because they're not that concerning and Codices are immune to fire AND Poison, so it's not like Venom Rounds are any better against Codices.<br /><br />Tracer Rounds are bad, though. Worth sometimes putting on Grenadiers because their accuracy is so bad, it's easy to end up with no Scope on them due to their high need for other Weapon Attachments, and Shredder shots being potentially catastrophic to miss with, but even there it's less about Tracer Rounds being good and more about no other Ammo type being clearly great. AP Rounds is usually the better choice, to be honest. And really, I often don't bother to run Ammo on Grenadiers; slap them into a Heavy Armor and focus on grenades, and they do their main duties without caring about accuracy at all.<br /><br />I've never run Tracer Rounds on a Sharpshooter and have difficulty imagining why one would, outside perhaps extreme desperation in a run where literally zero Perception PCSes spawned. I'd rather run Bluescreen Rounds if concerned about Gatekeepers, Archoms are easy to force into charging your lines, and accuracy is rarely an issue outside those two if you're talking a properly-leveled Sharpshooter with a Perception PCS of some kind.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-49208899092085705872021-02-19T10:50:23.173-08:002021-02-19T10:50:23.173-08:00I really like your comments by far the most thorou...I really like your comments by far the most thorough analysis of Xcom I found on the net. With regard to ammo I however disagree for WotC. Dragon rounds I consider one of the worst - there are only very few special actions I consider worth than shooting - melee, shields and codex abilities- none of them get disabled by fire<br />Venom round are excellent against chosen and good against most none robotic enemies<br />Tracer rounds are excellent against lost and Good for pistol focused sharpshooter and grenadiers<br />However talon rounds are great for rangers and reapers as a critical hit cancels graze - so a ranger will reliable one shot spectres and with bladestorm can take out archons in one goStephanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00676870116287925602noreply@blogger.com