tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post8229514702835563803..comments2024-03-28T10:31:45.644-07:00Comments on Vigaroe: War of the Chosen Class Analysis: GrenadierVigaroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02405424233776571308noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-23107824552713929662023-11-09T09:04:31.590-08:002023-11-09T09:04:31.590-08:00I had no idea, but I find it instantly plausible g...I had no idea, but I find it instantly plausible given this is exactly how Rocket accuracy works in the prior game, up to and including that the game makes no effort to communicate this is a mechanic and it's a mechanic that's easy to never stumble into given the miserable base Aim on the respective classes. It's also light in its relevance given a Colonel Grenadier only has 75 Aim, and +21 Aim is the best you can possibly get out of a Perception PCS (Meaning in the base game it's impossible to get Demolition to 100% accuracy, and difficult to make happen in War of the Chosen), but I should certainly mention it in actual posts; 96% is still much safer a gamble, and in War of the Chosen a determined player could absolutely get a favored Grenadier to be completely reliable with Demolition.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-36123039355099789282023-11-09T02:19:08.736-08:002023-11-09T02:19:08.736-08:00As regards Demolition: I don't know if you are...As regards Demolition: I don't know if you are aware of this, but the chance to destroy cover is not fixed at 80%, but can be increased up to 100%. The grenadier's aim stat is crucial here, with (as far as I know) the caveat that a perception PCS is included in the calculation, whereas a scope is not.<br /><br />Admittedly, by the time you have a grenadier with 100 aim (excluding a scope), you'll probably not worry about cover that often anymore, but at least in some situations it might prove helpful.mbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05460444527983909389noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-67098677564378464942021-07-26T10:09:39.947-07:002021-07-26T10:09:39.947-07:00Oh yes, absolutely. Aside Banish being forbidden f...Oh yes, absolutely. Aside Banish being forbidden from targeting objects, I tend to save multi-shot abilities for the sarcophagus in particular, aiming for smashing the sarcophagus in one turn -much more helpful than killing the Chosen a little faster, as overall the reinforcements that spawn in while they're reviving are a lot more dangerous than the Chosen are. Among other points, it's one of the main things I break out Bondmate team-up attacks for without question.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-26328310968728655212021-07-26T06:50:41.491-07:002021-07-26T06:50:41.491-07:00You're right. After I typed the bit about Chai...You're right. After I typed the bit about Chain Shot and Sarcophagi, I missed. I replayed that mission several times and replicated the issue in a few tries.<br /><br />Clarifying what I meant, then: barring bugs, using multi shot abilities on the Sarcophagi can reduce the number of times the Chosen get to resurrect in the stronghold scenes. You might need that multishot ability for the Chosen, but you might not - and if a Chosen is very mobile, a Grenadier is the least likely to be able to run into range of them. As one of the Reaper lines for Deadeye goes, "It's worth the risk." Or it can be worth the risk. Player's decision.Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17851789276439393822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-23518747897813888522021-07-12T18:11:40.834-07:002021-07-12T18:11:40.834-07:00I've noticed that in War of the Chosen I tend ...I've noticed that in War of the Chosen I tend to use Grenadiers least of all classes, which I'm pretty sure is a playstyle thing, so my WoTC is probably less informed and accurate than for other classes. (By contrast, in the base game I default, if not including a SPARK, to having two Specialists -one offensive, one medical- and two Grenadiers. And I tend to kick out the offensive Specialist instead of a Grenadier when including a SPARK) When I did a mono-Grenadier run I found myself buying Chain Shot decently often. (Though not on soldiers that rolled Rapid Fire, never mind that it costs more)<br /><br />Sarcophagus-wise, actually XCOM 2 has a bug or oversight where special actions with Aim penalties CAN miss. (I first noticed this in Chimera Squad, which is very fond of 'destroy object' objectives, but XCOM 2 absolutely has this bug) So Chain Shot can miss a sarcophagus! (I keep meaning to mention this bug somewhere and keep forgetting/being unsure which post is best. Maybe when I get to missions?) That said,, the game is clearly setting accuracy to exactly 100, then applying the penalty; an 85% chance to hit is still often better than what Chain Shotting a regular enemy would expect to have for accuracy, coming from a Grenadier.<br /><br />Fan Fire has animation problems (It'll sometimes only inform you of one result, even though it processed all three), and sarcophagi are a bit glitchy in general -I've had even regular shots from plain weapons sometimes miss/do no damage for no actual reason. Rarely, thankfully, but it's an issue. So yeah, Fan Fire failing to do full damage in that situation? I wouldn't be at all surprised.<br /><br />Yeah, Planewalker, Kinetic Plating, Low Profile, and Revenge are why I rate Hail of Bullets as a must-have in War of the Chosen. In the base game I'm pretty prone to taking Salvo and never looking back, aside maybe retraining in preparation for the final mission... usually not even then, though.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-78194835847292814702021-07-12T11:46:38.344-07:002021-07-12T11:46:38.344-07:00I tend to agree on the relative merits of chain sh...I tend to agree on the relative merits of chain shot. I will say, late in the game, everyone's aim has climbed enough that I don't mind chancing a <100% chain shot against a MEC or a Sectopod. Sometimes, someone else has holo targeted the Sectopod before the grenadier in question is trying a chain shot. For the MECs, a chain shot late in the game with bluescreen tends to be a kill even from full health, I'm pretty sure. I like having the option, even if it's not a major priority for every grenadier.<br /><br />Also, for the Chosen sarcophaguses, both Chain Shots will obviously hit. I haven't been religiously tracking things on my current playthrough at Legendary, but I am pretty sure that I had to face the Hunter twice when I didn't give anyone chain shot, and I only had to face the Warlock once when I had two grenadiers with chain shot. For the Hunter, I was planning on my pistol sharpshooter using fan fire on the sarcophagus, but I think that it bugged out and only applied one shot's worth of damage.<br /><br />Whatever the use case, chain shot definitely isn't a must buy, it just expands your options. This might apply more at Legendary; I think that I didn't have much trouble taking the sarcophagus out on the first round at Commander.<br /><br />I had previously not paid much attention to Hail of Bullets because I focused on Salvo and I know I put Aim PCSes on a lot of grenadiers in my Commander run. I am going to next playthrough, because of the case you made about the Chosen getting strengths that demand you hit them. I had some trouble with the Hunter when he rolled Planewalker and Kinetic Plating this run. I had to fish around for more sure hits, I tended to manage that with grenades from the grenadiers, but as with my theme above, more options are better.Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17851789276439393822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-25130977518875964092020-12-07T09:53:56.721-08:002020-12-07T09:53:56.721-08:00By the time Sectopods are around, you can very rel...By the time Sectopods are around, you can very reliably have Acid Bombs online, bar extremely poor luck with Elerium Core generation and Experimental Grenade results. Salvo also means you don't need to choose between lobbing a grenade vs firing your gun, whereas Chain Shot (The shooty version of spamming Shred) requires fairly extensive Aim support to be reliable even against 0-Defense targets in the open -a Colonel Grenadier only has 75 Aim, Chain Shot reduces that to 60, a Superior Scope then bounces it back up to 80, and then a boosted Superior Perception PCS brings that up to 96-101, depending on exact PCS roll. (Not that you ca count on getting PCS boosting in War of the Chosen; more realistic is 92-96 Aim) So even though a Chain Shot Beam Cannon is more Shred in principle against a Sectopod, it's far less reliable than lobbing a grenade followed by a regular shot -or you can combine Salvo with Chain Shot, not even needing to spend Ability Points, if you really want Chain Shot anyway. Either way, the grenade usage is close to free in the local sense.<br /><br />You also generally get access to Plasma Grenades/Advanced Explosives far sooner than Beam Cannons, since they just require the Muton Autopsy to get started while Beam Cannons require the Mec Autopsy followed by Elerium followed by Plasma Rifles followed by actually performing the Beam Cannon research. So a lot of the time you're actually comparing 4 Shred from an Acid Bomb against 2 Shred from a Mag Cannon. I sometimes beat the game before I get around to researching Beam Cannons -and there's no Chosen Cannon to mean I'm fielding a tier 3 Cannon anyway. (By contrast, I rarely research Plasma Lances, but my Sharpshooters just take the Darklance to stay competitive in the late game) And against the very hard targets, the most important thing is to efficiently Shred them to start, before piling damage on once their Armor is gone or nearly gone; grenades having poor damage against them is irrelevant because the point is to remove their Armor, with any actual damage done to start being a nice bonus, nothing more. Also notable is that Gatekeepers are the single most Armored target in the game... and have high innate Defense, where you're really just better off using auto-hit effects to Shred them instead of gambling on something like a Chain Shot.<br /><br />Grenades are also only technically a limited resource. In the vast majority of missions, you encounter no more than four pods. A single Grenadier with Heavy Ordnance can lob a grenade per pod and only be short one, and only late in the game when 4 pods actually becomes normal.. Equip them with a heavy armor, and they can use their Heavy Weapon for the fourth pod -assuming you even feel the need to break out a grenade per pod, which is often unnecessary. Only in the final mission, both forms of Avenger defense, and Chosen Strongholds are grenades something you husband -and Sectopods and Gatekeepers can't show up in Chosen Strongholds or the regular Avenger defense, so in those cases you don't need to hoard grenades for use on them. Salvo letting you slip in grenade uses is thus very close to a free action in practice, which in turn biases the Grenadier as a whole toward assuming grenade usage -conversely, the Grenadier's series of skills that eat extra ammo are basically competing with each other, in that it's harder to ensure you're always ready to Rupture if you have a habit of using Hail of Bullets to ensure hits, and so on.<br /><br />You do have a point that the Demolitions Expert set was probably intended as something of an anti-soft-target chain of skills, which hadn't previously occurred to me. But I think the final design undermines that theoretical potential quite thoroughly in myriad ways, such as how Rangers don't need support to kill soft targets in Cover, or how Frag/Plasma Grenades are far better at helping deal with soft, Cover-using targets than eg using Hail of Bullets to force a hit through Cover.<br /><br />Glad to be appreciated, in any event.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-34356467528913587652020-12-06T16:01:30.040-08:002020-12-06T16:01:30.040-08:00First of all, i'm not a native speaker and hav...First of all, i'm not a native speaker and have not actual practice, so i'm sorry if i'm hard to understand, though i really want to write comment because i disagree on last part about devs have no clear vision on class design of grenadier (well i actually agree on that but the other way).<br /><br />The reason might be how our playstyles different, how we see grenadiers must be played. So you claim grenadier's role is "to soften up 'hard targets'", and while i agree on "soften up" part, the "hard target" seems to be wrong. I would describe grenadier's role something like "to set up perfect conditions for team to deal with enemy", where Demolitions expert specializes on setuping perfect conditions against group of soft targets and Heavy gunner against hard target.<br /><br />Some arguments:<br />Grenades have very low efficiency against heavy armored targets with acid grenade/bomb being exception (i will talk about experimental grenades later). Grenades are limited resource and have relatively low shredding ( 2 against 3 from regular shots that use unlimited resourses), so grenadier has to spend all his grenades to shred Sectopod's armor. It's available tactic if you don't have better options, grenade is a poor man's tool to deal with heavy armored units. What grenades good at is to eliminate covers and hit multiple targets reducing their HP to the point where other squad members can finish them off with one shot. There are many enemies in the game who's hp + armor is too high to kill with one shot, but low enough to consider 2 shots be a wasted damage. Such situations are pretty common and every ability of Demolitions expert past sergeant while not neccessary be very strong, but in terms of design clearly fits purpose of dealing with such groups of soft targets. Though "Blast Padding" is really confusing, while "Shredder" give player a clear vision of what Heavy gunner is about, "Blast Padding" might make player think Demolitions expert is some kind of a tank.<br /><br />What about experimental grenades, i see them as a tool to alternate grenade's purpose once player is able to consistently deal with a pod's of soft target without heavily relying on blowing covers, so Demolitions expert won't become completely obsolete and had options partially fullfill other roles. Experimental grenades aren't straightforward improvement to plasma grenades and weren't meant to be auto-replacement to plasma grenades once player acquire them, they are more of back door for Demolitions expert so Demolitions expert's role shouldn't be hardly defined by them.<br /><br />Not much to say about Heavy gunner, you said it all already. Thought i see them as one of the cleaniest design-wise classes from start to the end. Some of their ability working well against soft targets, but such scenarios when player would prioritize to hit soft-target with crenadier's abilities over hard targets seems to me extremely rare or at least very specific.<br /><br />However, thank you for your articles, really glad i've found your blog.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00621953809245508979noreply@blogger.com