Chimera Squad Equipment Analysis: Underarmors

Underarmors are essentially the defensive version of Weapon Attachments: you can't equip them initially, there's an Assembly Project that both unlocks the equip slot and also lets you buy a few not-very-good options to get you started, and said Assembly Project is necessary to be able to upgrade your body armor so you're going to do it in any run that isn't a fairly serious challenge run.

They're also called 'armor mods' by the game itself, but that's... unnecessarily confusing, and it doesn't even conceptually fit to the presentation. These are not customizations of your armor: they're all presented as essentially a vest worn under the armor, and indeed are pretty obviously an evolution of the Vest Item class from XCOM 2, given its own slot to make the category more fundamentally usable.

I'm pleasantly surprised Chimera Squad did in fact go to that solution. Here's hoping this carries forward into XCOM 3, too.

Anyway, on to specifics.

Extra Padding

+1 HP.

Acquisition: Complete Modular Armor Assembly Project.

Cost: 60

I have difficulty imagining actually purchasing Extra Padding in a run. You'll sometimes get it kind of incidentally as a mission reward, and if that happens you might as well slot it in until you find/build enough better stuff it no longer has a place, but that's really it.

The crux of the issue is that in Chimera Squad extra HP isn't actually that valuable. In XCOM 2, if soldiers run out of HP they very possibly immediately die and are lost forever, and even if they don't actually run out of HP entirely after the mission is over they'll be unavailable for further missions for a period of time, reliably. Furthermore, in XCOM 2 the wounded time period is influenced heavily by the proportion of HP lost; increasing a soldier's HP by 1 point expects to noticeably reduce how long they're out of action when you're looking at low-level soldiers with initial gear, where you get value out of it even if the soldier never drops low enough for the added HP to have saved their life per se.

Whereas in Chimera Squad, an agent hitting 0 HP automatically enters Bleeding Out mode and the default expectation is that you'll fix that (Because letting them fully bleed out is a game over, not 'you lose the agent permanently but your campaign continues'), and while there are strategic consequences those consequences are 'one mild-to-moderate stat penalty that can be fixed quickly enough they'll normally only miss one mission'. Meanwhile, an agent losing HP prior to the Bleeding Out point has nearly no consequences; if an agent never drops below 50% HP in a mission, there are definitely no consequences to having suffered HP damage, and even if they drop below 50% there's only a chance they'll pick up a Scar. A rather low chance, at that; literally the only time you actually expect Extra Padding adding 1 HP to have produced a better result than if the agent wasn't wearing it is if they end up at exactly 1 HP, where you can say for sure that they'd have entered Bleeding Out mode if they'd not had the Extra Padding equipped.

As most attacks have random variance and 1 HP is automatically within the shadow of that, you can't even say 'Extra Padding will cause them to survive such and such and so and so enemy attacks where they wouldn't without it'.

So the overall result is that +1 HP usually does quite literally nothing, and even in cases where it maybe provided a real benefit the odds are it functionally still didn't do anything. (That is, if an agent fails to drop below 50% HP by virtue of Extra Padding's extra HP meaning the damage is 1 point short, there's only a 10% chance you avoided the agent gaining a Scar) That's pretty difficult to care about!

That said, I'd say Extra Padding is probably still better off than the Nanoscale Vest in XCOM 2 was; XCOM 2's HP mechanics made +1 HP more fundamentally useful, but Chimera Squad having a dedicated Underarmor slot means there's less of a tradeoff in considering equipping one. In conjunction with the possibility of just looting Extra Padding in a mission, you get the result of 'you might actually equip this in real play', where the Nanoscale Vest was extremely difficult to imagine buying and equipping.

This kind of thing is part of why I hope dedicated slots for specific Item types see notable use in XCOM 3; it allows the design space to more usefully fit in even relatively weak effects, because if your options are 'leave a slot empty' or 'equip something you're not sure is meaningfully useful', then yes you're going to equip the thing. XCOM 2 had a non-trivial rate of Items where just cutting them from the game would arguably be an improvement, because eg equipping a Nanoscale Vest over a Frag Grenade is probably outright a downgrade and by extension the option existing at all is probably just a newbie trap; it'd be nice to escape that issue, or at least reduce it.

Infiltrator Weave

Allows agent to use Vent Breach Points.

Acquisition: Complete Modular Armor Assembly Project.

Cost: 35

Restriction: Unavailable to Torque. (Because it's useless to her)

Infiltrator Weave is unique for being the only piece of equipment that specifically interacts with Breach mechanics while not being a Breach Item per se.

Unfortunately, while I want to like Infiltrator Weave, I don't think it's really worth its cost. Vents are one of the rarest Breach entrance types, and as I noted in Torque's post they tend to leave users in pretty dangerous positions, so even when you have the opportunity it's not clearly worth taking it. Axiom is the only agent for whom Infiltrator Weave tends to work out okay to use; he's your tankiest agent, and one of your agents most focused on close-combat, so he's best-positioned to survive the experience and one of the agents who most appreciates appearing amidst the enemy.

Of course, that leads to the other issue with Infiltrator Weave: the very fact that it's an Underarmor is a flaw with it. Axiom would generally rather have a Plated Vest to improve his survivability in every mission instead of an Infiltrator Weave to erratically provide access to a dubious Breach slot. If this was a Breach Item, it would be one of the worse ones, but these flaws would be shared with its competition, and it would be easier to say that you're fine gambling on Vents showing up over gambling on security doors showing up.

That said, if you loot Infiltrator Weave early, it's entirely possible you'll equip it on someone anyway for quite a while. Until you complete an Investigation and one of its accompanying Assembly Projects, there's only three Underarmors you can purchase through the Supply screen, and Extra Padding and Mach Weave aren't exactly impressive picks either... and honestly, the Investigation-derived Underarmors only include one pretty great pick, so it's entirely possible to never get to being able to buy Actually Good Underarmors, simply by having that be your last Investigation. There's an endgame, yeah, but it's brief enough in day-count that you won't be able to complete newly-unlocked Assembly Projects.

This is a bit of a recurring theme with Chimera Squad, that there's gear that's not particularly great but that you can't trivially, reliably replace with more useful gear so you may end up using it anyway for a bit. I'd rather some of these underwhelming options were more worthwhile, honestly, but this is at least more functional a dynamic than having large swathes of gear that are literally worthless because you'll always use Some Better Thing that is as accessible or even worse is actually more accessible.

I'm unsure how intentional this dynamic is, but it's abstractly interesting that it happened at all; games usually construct themselves so this kind of dynamic simply isn't possible.

Mach Weave

+30 Dodge.

Acquisition: Complete Modular Armor Assembly Project.

Cost: 60

Mach Weave was actually originally +50 Dodge, and got patched down in Chimera Squad's one and only patch. I assume it was to make Hard Target on Torque more appealing -before the patch, combining Mach Weave with her innate Dodge (20) and her Unlock Potential Training Dodge (20) resulted in a ludicrous 90 Dodge, making Hard Target's passive +30 Dodge heavily wasted, when the Dodge boost was theoretically the primary point of taking Hard Target. Mach Weave dropping to +30 Dodge means that now stacking all these effects, Hard Target included, places Torque at exactly 100 Dodge, ensuring she will always be Grazed by any attack that Dodge works against, with no wasted Dodge.

It's maybe a little unfortunate that the patch did this overall, though, in that +50 Dodge was unreliable but a high enough rate to be potentially appealing for trying to extend the durability of a non-Torque agent, whereas +30 Dodge is low enough you don't have to be particularly unlucky to eg have an agent never have a Graze happen before they hit 0 HP and start Bleeding Out. I personally didn't like gambling on Mach Weave's protection in the initial release state, but I could see other people swearing by it, whereas in the current state I'd say it's primarily worth considering on Torque and maybe Verge once he has his Unlock Potential Training finished. (As at that point he has 20 Dodge and Mach Weave will bring him to a respectable 50 Dodge)

That said, with the patch having hit it really is very good on Torque. As I've noted before, a Graze triggering prevents crits from triggering and the damage halving effect is calculated before Armor reduction; with Mach Weave, Hard Target, and Mastercrafted Armor, Torque will expect to take shockingly little damage from even endgame enemies, with the Grazes being guaranteed almost anytime Grazing is possible so this is very reliable. This is sufficiently effective you can in fact have Torque outright abandon Cover to draw enemy fire and be surprisingly safe, especially if combined with other tools -for example, having Terminal cover Torque with Safeguard ensures that you don't have to worry about enemies hitting 100% accuracy to ignore Torque's Dodge. (Enemies in Chimera Squad can get high enough base Aim that a high ground shot on a target in the open can't miss... but not high enough to additionally overcome Safeguard's Defense boost)

Notably, Chimera Squad is much less fond of enemies getting accuracy-ignoring damage effects than XCOM 2. For example, where multiple fairly common enemies in XCOM 2 can, if they remember they're carrying a grenade around, chuck it to instantly and unavoidably do a decent chunk of damage, in Chimera Squad no enemy has an instant-impact grenade; only a handful of rare enemies even conceptually throw grenades in XCOM 2 at all, and in all such cases the grenade is a timed explosive that detonates after a delay, where you can potentially get agents out of the blast radius before it goes off. Some of the new accuracy-ignoring damage effects in Chimera Squad follow similar rules, like Psionic Suplex on the Progeny Acolytes; they don't deliver the damage until the target gets its turn, and they're coded to strongly prefer to target your agents who are currently later in the Timeline, so normally if they target Torque you'll have an opportunity to prevent the damage from going through.

That said, there still a handful of ways for enemies to instantly deliver damage with no regard for Dodge, such as Mecs retaining Micromissiles, so Torque can go down unexpectedly if you're acting as if she'll always take half or less damage from everything. It's more an option to keep in mind once you have a run or two under your belt than something to go for right away.

Or you could read this site beforehand, I guess, but I'll honestly be surprised if anyone actually reads all the relevant posts before touching the game themselves.

Plated Vest

+1 Armor

Acquisition: Purchase from the Scavenger Market or earn as a mission reward.

Cost: 80 Intel.

The Plated Vest is not strictly superior to Extra Padding, but it's pretty close. It's only if you specifically have a lot of healing (Obvious scenario: Terminal is part of your core team) and end up being hit with Shred early in a mission, or if an agent gets hit exclusively by Armor-ignoring attacks, that Extra Padding ends up ahead of a Plated Vest. Otherwise, the Plated Vest is always better. Shred is fairly rare on enemies, especially Shred on demand. Most of the enemies that can Shred do so on a delay, such as tossing a grenade that explodes after a bit, or Sacred Coil Androids arming themselves to explode but needing another turn before they can actually perform the suicide attack, with only a bare handful of enemies having Shred on their weapon and even fewer having special abilities that immediately Shred.

That said, the Sacred Coil Investigation has the highest concentration of such swift Shred threats, so there's an argument for swapping out your Plated Vest(s) for Padded Vest(s) during that Investigation. Andromedons in particular are very tough and can Shred two different ways, making it easy to decide to put them off in favor of other targets and end up Shredded, so in the late stages of the Investigation it's pretty easy to end up with the squad Shredded en mass, any Plated Vests they were wearing rendered useless.

Even with that, the Plated Vest is a solid general-purpose Underarmor choice, probably the general-purpose choice. Axiom in particular gets a lot of value out of one since he already gains Armor from Training and Armor is a stat where additional points tend to be more dramatic the more you already have. Adding 1 Armor when you have none will shave off 25% of the damage from an attack whose base damage is 4. Adding 1 Armor when you already have 2 points will shave off 50% of the damage you were previously taking if the base damage is 4. Etc. So I'm willing to burn Intel on buying Axiom a Plated Vest from the Scavenger Market, unless I really feel I need the Intel urgently spent elsewhere. Other agents it depends on other things a lot more, like what my Field Teams look like, how sad my current Underarmor selection is, and what skills I've taken on those agents.

It's worth pointing out that while the Plated Vest is not a guaranteed-access Item per se, it tends to show up in the Scavenger Market multiple times throughout a run; it's honestly perfectly reasonable to skip buying it if it shows up early and you don't feel you can spare the Intel, even if you quite firmly want a Plated Vest or two before the campaign is over, contrasting with eg Epic Weapons, where one showing up in the Scavenger Market may never appear again.

Mindshield

The agent is immune to all mental effects, including Panic and Mind Control.

Acquisition: Complete Progeny Equipment Assembly Project.

Cost: 80

While a player coming from XCOM 2 is liable to have high hopes for the Mindshield, as I noted with Shelter's Solace ability Chimera Squad isn't big on mental effects. There's only one Mind Control threat in the entire game, and it's not a Shrike unit so it's basically exclusive to one Investigation, and it's not a particularly common enemy in its own Investigation. Panic never occurs 'naturally' in Chimera Squad, and forced Panic is caused by exactly one enemy. Disorientation barely exists. War of the Chosen's Fatigue system has not returned, and so there is no 'equip Mindshield on Tired soldier' dynamic.

On the plus side, the things Mindshield protects against, while concentrated in a single Investigation, are not concentrated in the Progeny Investigation; they're concentrated in the Gray Phoenix Investigation, so if you do the Progeny Investigation before the Gray Phoenix Investigation the possibility of passing out Mindshields for the duration of the Gray Phoenix Investigation is something that is actually possible to do and have it be relevant. It's actually pretty weird the Progeny doesn't do any of the things a Mindshield protects against, but this is mechanically good; I honestly would've expected the Mindshield to be worthless by virtue of being locked behind the only Investigation it would help in. That's an all-too-common error in games, where you unlock specialist Anti-X Tool by virtue of being basically done dealing with X.

Even so, the Mindshield is just... not great. It's entirely possible to complete a run without having any of the things it protects against come up at all, where even if you cheated and gave everyone Mindshields at the start of the game and kept them equipped for the entire run these Mindshields could well do absolutely nothing. In conjunction with Bubble Weave being a dubious investment (Which is the only other thing the relevant Assembly Project unlocks), I personally just skip unlocking these unless the Assembly literally runs out of things to do, and even if I unlock them I don't bother to buy a Mindshield. Even if I loot a Mindshield for free, it tends to be one of the first things I try to replace.

It's a pretty stark contrast to how absurdly good Mindshields were in XCOM 2.

Hellweave

If the agent is targeted by a melee attack, their tormentor takes 2-4 damage.

Acquisition: Complete Gray Phoenix Equipment Assembly Project.

Cost: 70

Contrasting with the Mindshield, Hellweave does suffer from the issue of 'I unlock this by clearing the Investigation it would be most useful in'. Gray Phoenix has by far the highest proportion of melee-capable units, but unless you loot it from a mission you're not going to get to use Hellweave in the Gray Phoenix Investigation!

Nonetheless, it's not like it's actually irrelevant in the other Investigations. Sacred Coil has its Chryssalids and Ronin and the Progeny have their Brutes. Berserkers are also actually able to show up in any Investigation (Via Outbreak missions) even though they're a Gray Phoenix unit, and Shrike provides still more melee attackers via Bombers and Necromancers.

Mind, Hellweave is still pretty bad, but it's bad because its damage is lackluster, you have very limited ability to manipulate melee attackers into striking whoever you gave the Hellweave to, and any piece of gear requiring an agent be attacked to be any use is already less than ideal.

It's also got worse potential than it seems like it should have, as there's a few enemies that have melee attacks that as far as I'm aware will never use them in AI hands, like Shrike Bruisers.

Still, most Underarmors are pretty bad, and if you're really struggling with Ronin in particular Hellweave can pretty harshly punish their ability to chain together a bunch of turns. Ultimately the biggest hit to Hellweave is that it's unlocked alongside...

Regen Weave

The agent heals 2 HP at the start of their turn, every turn.

Acquisition: Complete Gray Phoenix Equipment Assembly Project.

Cost: 80

Restriction: Unavailable to Androids.

... this, the overall best Underarmor in the game.

Unlike the Stasis Vest in XCOM 2, this has no cap on per-mission healing. It still doesn't provide immunity to Poison, either, though overall I don't mind as much as with XCOM 2. For one thing, equipment context is quite different; Regen Vests don't share a slot with Medikits, making competition in role far less direct. For another, the healing being unlimited means it's got a meaningful edge over Medikits, unlike the Stasis Vest, so even if they did directly compete it would still have a place.

Agent-wise, Axiom is by far the best potential user, specifically if you've gone with Shrug It Off. Yes, he can get Regeneration, but the healing stacks, and 4 HP per turn, forever, when individual attacks will often end up only doing 1, can let Axiom soak punishment for the squad very effectively throughout longer missions.

Torque is also a good user, between her high Dodge effectively extending regenerated HP and her innate immunity to Poison reducing the value of equipping a Medikit. Her natural ability to use Vents also means, if you like to take advantage of such, that she's more prone to being separated from the squad than some and so other agents carrying Medikits can't necessarily cover any healing she might need.

Those two stand out, but Regen Weave is a great pick for any agent; most of your purchasable Underarmors are improvements to survivability, and Regen Weave tends to come out ahead of its peers at this job. There's a fair argument for rushing to purchase four copies as soon as you can, slapping them on your field agents, and never swapping in anything else; even if you have Terminal in the squad, widespread passive healing makes it a lot harder for things to go wrong such that Terminal can't keep ahead of the damage.

It's mildly unfortunate Androids can't equip Stasis Vests, given how great Stasis Vests are, in that it's one more way Androids are a big step down from your proper agents. Especially since an Android going down is actually more costly for the player than an agent going down; perversely, you'd rather one of your flesh-and-blood agents hit 0 HP than an Android. The agent will just need three days of Training to remove their Scar. The Android hitting 0 HP is 250 Credits down the drain. It's not too big a deal in practice since it's largely pretty easy to avoid needing to break out Androids in the first place, but still...

Bubble Weave

The first time the agent is reduced to 0 HP, they instead stop at 1 HP and are put into Stasis until the start of their next turn.
Acquisition: Complete Gray Phoenix Equipment Assembly Project.

Cost: 

Sustain in Item form, or the return of the Sustaining Sphere.

Unlike the Sustaining Sphere, Bubble Weave is fully reusable, which is a pretty big spike in its appeal right there.

On the other hand, the consequences of an agent going down are far, far lower than in XCOM 2, and it's always possible for an agent who dropped this low to get a Scar anyway, which is the only strategically-relevant part of going down. Nor is any agent particularly more stand-out-valuable in Chimera Squad; certainly, I've commented before on there being a pretty clear 'power curve' where some agents are stronger than others overall, but the point is there's nothing equivalent to Resistance classes in War of the Chosen. In War of the Chosen, the Sustaining Sphere could make sense to put on a preferred Resistance agent, or a high-level soldier who had a combination of bonus skills you really liked, or otherwise somebody you didn't want to replace/probably couldn't replace.

Chimera Squad also just doesn't do the kinds of lethality spikes and other unexpected situations that XCOM 2 had. In XCOM 2, you had to worry about situations like having your last soldier move and whoops activate a pod, where if said pod included a Sectopod the Sectopod alone could easily take out any one soldier, with no opportunity to respond due to the timing of how you activated its pod. In Chimera Squad, you more or less always get a chance to respond (I'm unsure what would happen if your first-slot agent went down to Aggressive enemies during the Breach Phase, admittedly), and there simply isn't a regular enemy that can take a properly-equipped agent from full health to 0 HP in one turn. Even two enemies getting turns between agent turns generally can't manage this feat!

Hazmat Sealing

Agent is immune to Fire, Poison, and Acid.

Acquisition: Randomly acquire as a mission reward.

Cost: N/A

This is at its best in the Sacred Coil Investigation, where all three hazards will be relatively regular threats: Acid from Andromedons, Fire from Purifiers, and though no Sacred Coil unit uses Poison Shrike's Cobras can show up to spit Poison at your forces.

During the Gray Phoenix Investigation, it's okay, but essentially useless to Torque and your Androids, and not adding anything if you have the agent equipped with a Medikit: Gray Phoenix Adders and Shrike Cobras can inflict Poison, but no Gray Phoenix or Shrike unit uses Fire or Acid. Unless you're regularly using Incendiary or Acid Grenades and then trying to charge an agent through the clouds, those particular hazards will only crop up intermittently through environmental objects.

During the Progeny Investigation, it's even more limited, as the Progeny don't have innate access to any of these effects. It's only Shrike Cobras that are why Poison will still be intermittently something to protect against.

Notably, while enemy forces are mixed during the endgame, Purifiers and Andromedons are not included in this mix. So during the endgame Hazmat Sealing is pretty limited, only really protecting against Poison.

Yeah, this is a big drop from the Hazmat Vest being amazing in XCOM 2.

This all makes it a bit unfortunate its Assembly Project got cut -the config files make clear that at some point Caustic Rounds, Acid Grenades, and Hazmat Sealing would've all been unlocked by the same Assembly Project, but said Assembly Project is disabled so now they're just random mission rewards. So if you start a run Investigating Sacred Coil, the odds are poor that you'll luck into Hazmat Sealing early enough for it to have a chance to matter.

Oops.

Adrenal Weave

Each turn, the first reaction fire taken against the agent automatically misses.

Acquisition: Randomly as a mission reward.

Cost: N/A

Lightning Reflexes in Item form.

In practice, Adrenal Weave is surprisingly narrow in application, but relatively predictable. Though the vast majority of enemies have regular Overwatch, I've never seen an enemy choose to enter standard Overwatch of its own initiative: Adrenal Weave is thus not a tool you use to counter standard Overwatch. However, a number of enemies have the ability to enter a variant of Overwatch, and will do so predictably, and Adrenal Weave can be nice for letting you charge them anyway, making it generally most appreciated if you're fielding a melee-focused agent. (Though Godmother is also a decent candidate)

Shrike Hitmen in particular can show up in any Investigation, have a decent radius on their Overwatch, and automatically enter it every time their turn ends if they're not disabled, so Adrenal Weave is surprisingly evergreen. It's least reliably relevant against Gray Phoenix -no Gray Phoenix unit has an Overwatch gimmick- but it's only clearly worth leaving it behind if you're confident Shrike forces won't show up. (Such as because you're performing the Take Down Gray Phoenix mission)

If you've built Patchwork to fry enemies for getting close, she's also a decent candidate for Adrenal Weave, particularly in the Sacred Coil Investigation where she will regularly be getting bonus damage against robots.

Adrenal Weave isn't great, but it does at least benefit from doing something pretty unique. You're never going to say 'why would I equip Adrenal Weave when X is basically the same thing but more general?' or the like.

Interestingly, the config files make it clear this was supposed to be unlocked by an Assembly Project that would've also unlocked the Adhesion Grenade, but this Assembly Project got cut so now they're just random mission rewards.

Flux Weave

Agent is immune to Disorientation and Stun.

Acquisition: Randomly acquire as a mission reward.

Cost: N/A

Flux Weave is... not literally useless, but frustratingly close. Unless a specific Dark Event gets involved (The Progeny-specific 'Blind Fighting' Dark Event, which passes out Flashbangs to their forces), no enemy has the ability to specifically, deliberately inflict Disorientation, and the only enemy that can deliberately inflict Stun is Gray Phoenix's Dominator. Dominators are also the only enemy with access to Mind Control, which is relevant because the player has a number of tools for reliably inflicting Disorientation and Stun and so Mind Control is the main way it's liable to crop up. Which means Dominators are the primary way you'll see either status effect inflicted.

And Dominators are exclusive to Gray Phoenix and are one of their elite units you won't see early in the Investigation, won't consistently see even later on, and will only encounter in small numbers when you do encounter them.

Strictly speaking, Berserkers, Brutes, Praetorians, and Bombers all have access to melee attacks that can inflict Disorientation or Stun as side effects. However, Berserkers are the only one of these that is actually reliable about using their melee attack (By virtue of having no other options), and even when such a melee strike is made it has to hit, successfully roll for a side effect, and not specifically roll Unconsciousness for Flux Weave to have done anything. Oh, and the agent has to have not been reduced to 0 HP, of course.

Late in your Gray Phoenix Investigation it might be worth equipping on a key agent, maybe, assuming you don't have a Mindshield, but overall... the only reason to bother equipping Flux Weave is if you have empty slots to fill.

Hilariously, the game will actually let you equip Flux Weave to Androids, even though it's even more useless on them: as robots, they're naturally immune to Disorientation, and the only source of reliable Stun enemies have access to also doesn't work on robots. Whoops!

Weirdly enough, the config files make it clear that at some point there was an Assembly Project that unlocked this alongside Shock Grenades and Bluescreen Rounds. Which is... confusing, and makes me wonder what the internal concept of Flux Weave is supposed to be -that is, were the devs thinking in terms of some kind of high-tech electronic effect that would vaguely fit conceptually with the anti-digital-enemy Shock Grenades and Bluescreen Rounds, or was it thrown in with them for some other reason?

Whatever was intended there, in the actual game Flux Weave is a junk-y random mission reward, and that's it. Alas.

---------------------------------------

Next time, we move on to a more fully new Item type: Breach Items.

See you then.