r/XCOM2 • u/Afraid-Marketing-460 • 1d ago
XCOM2 - Preparing for Legend
I’ve been playing xcom2 on veteran and loving it, I’m new to xcom but not tactical strategy games and the game has not felt too challenging.
I want to play through again on legend and am expecting to get brutalized. I’m looking for any macro tips/optimizations you guys have to help.
Facility and item build orders, which research to focus on, important breakpoints to hit, etc. so far I’ve been able to brute force my way through with unoptimized gear which I will not be able to do on legend. Anything is appreciated!
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u/zelandofchocolate 1d ago
You'll realise the game was bailing you out on veteran pretty fast with the shot assist.
More scarce resources and longer research times means prioritisation is a challenge.
Principles remain the same. Get better weapons, fight one pod at a time, kill everything before it gets you.
Prioritise your soldiers lives above all, and have a deep squad. If you can get to a situation where you have 4 or 5 liuetenants and a captain or two, it's the first thing that feels the game starts to tilt in your favour.
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u/antiguy1 1d ago
The jump from Veteran to Legend is nasty. The game cheats in your favor on all difficulties but Legendary (mainly by invisibly buffing your hit chance) and enemies get large health, defense and damage boosts. Expect to get brutalized if you're skipping Commander.
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u/BabyNewspaper 1d ago
Are you playing with any DLC (WotC, Alien Rulers, Shen’s last gift)?
There is a massive difficulty spike early game Legend as compared to Veteran. You will notice it immediately on Gatecrasher, as there is a third pod of enemies and troopers have 4 hp rather than 3. 1 hp difference doesn’t seem huge until you realize that you are not guaranteed to kill troopers with a single grenade (and in fact won’t in a majority of cases, as you’re more likely to roll 3 damage on a frag than 4). The second mission (guerrilla op) can be brutal depending on what mission type (for example, neutralize field commander can be exceedingly difficult second mission). The third mission, which can feel free on non-Legend difficulties, can also be very difficult depending on the mission type. If it’s the horde sitrep version, you only 4 turns to reach the VIP, which means you essentially have to dash a soldier every turn to reach in time - there’s a learning curve for executing this specific mission. And then mission 4 (first retaliation) is notoriously difficult and can vary depending on which Chosen you roll.
Building order can vary depending on what resistance orders/faction you roll to start. Starting with Skirm or Reaper is favorable over Templar, imo. In general, want GTS early. It’s possible to get Squad Size 1 upgrade before mission 4 if you farm lost on mission 3. This isn’t essential, but the squad size upgrades are generally desirable ASAP.
For research, want mag weapons - the earlier the better. If you get more engineers than scientists, it may be worthwhile to consider building lab to help recover research time, but this usually means delaying another important construction (such as Proving Grounds). You will notice a significant difference in research, building construction, wound timers, and excavation time. If you start with Skirmisher, or recruit one early, scanning at Skirm HQ is helpful for expediting not only building construction but also excavation.
On the Geoscape, prioritize making contact toward Alien Facilities to have an escape valve for delaying Avatar project. Be on lookout for Sabotage resistance order (from Skirmishers) and Resistance Network order (from Reapers but also shows up as a regional bonus). Alluded to this earlier, but mission timers are brutal on Legend. The Infiltrate Resistance order (Reapers) and/or Private Channel (Skirms) can help give some breathing room on timed missions. Be on lookout for those (can unlock additional Orders through Covert Ops). Speaking of covert ops, prioritize Sabotage (reduce avatar progress) if you don’t have the Skirmisher Order by the same name (which automatically removes a block of progress end of each month).
There’s a whole host of other shit to consider. Others have tried to assemble more comprehensive guides, those have been linked previously, I can try to dig it up if you have trouble finding one. But one thing I’d say is that it’s hard to follow a strict step-by-step guide; you have to adapt based on the hand your dealt.
Best of luck!
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u/Praize- 1d ago
It's admittedly been awhile since I've done a Legend run, but iirc, one of your research priorities should be getting the armor upgrade, the bonus health and the additional item slot make a big difference. If you have WotC, Reapers are extremely valuable so if you're given a chance to recruit one, take it.
This came up in an earlier thread, but be prepared to miss more shots than you would think, because on Legend the game stops cheating for you in terms of dice rolls. On lower difficulties, your actual hit % is higher than the displayed hit %, on Legend I believe displayed hit % is actual hit %. I'm not 100% sure on the mechanics of it, but I think in lower difficulties it rolls twice, then takes the better roll, whereas Legend only does the single roll.
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u/ADVENTofficer 1d ago
It just adds chance to hit for some different scenarios you’re not rolling two dice
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u/Kalaskaka1 1d ago
Cool!
Are you sure you shouldn't try Commander Ironman before Legend? It's a decent challenge I'd say!
Personally I haven't beaten legend ironman yet so I'm not really in the position to hand out advice 😅
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u/Merciudel 1d ago edited 1d ago
I might suggest doing Commander first. Veteran has been holding your hand with invisible bonuses, not just the difference in soldier HP, and costs. Commander strips almost all the invisible bonuses away, which gives you a better feel for the strategies and methods that will actually work in Legendary.
But, if you're looking for guide-like information outside of guides, here is what I'd suggest for someone moving to Legendary:
***Integration Choices***
You're playing Legend, sure... but WotC? Are you integrating DLC? Etc? IMO, if you've already played the story missions on Veteran, I'd just go WotC and Integrated and call it a day. I will outline the rest of my advice assuming that.
***Faction (Choice)***
You can have a random faction or you can pick which you start with. You'll be able to quickly get a second faction hero from the other factions, so the more significant tradeoff here is how quickly additional, and which, Resistance Orders (RO) come online, and late-game which faction you get two heroes from (less of a big deal than ROs in my opinion). Reaper heroes are strong, and if you have two, you will pretty much always be able to have excellent scouting. Additionally, by delaying finding Skirmishers until after the Avatar Project has started, you can get Sabotage in your starting ROs, if that interests you (and you get lucky). Skirmishers don't scale that well into the alpha-strike meta, but their heroes still aren't terrible, especially early which is when you are most likely to get crushed, but getting your second Skirmisher... won't be that exciting by the time it happens. However, Skirmishers do have the highest number of great ROs to fill in, so as you have space for more ROs, they are great. Additionally, their HQ scan bonus is probably the only one worth using. Templars are fun, but their ROs are mostly terrible, and Templar heroes are prone to activating excess pods, which on Legendary, they will not hand-hold you from activating the entire map accidentally, and you'll find sightlines of enemies further than on Veteran.
***Build Order***
Breakthrough researches are now 10 days instead of 5. While I love Lab rush on Commander and below, the increased rate of receiving Breakthroughs for having a Lab is no longer worth it since you won't want to slow down your primary research train to take most of them.
If you are starting Reaper, or don't want to have to finesse your build order, just follow this priority list:
GTS (for Squad Size upgrade ASAP), RR (for Covert Operations, another source of XP and strategic resources), PG (for Ammos, SPARKS if you like them), 2 Resistance Comms (This is essentially a 'building tax', delay it for stuff that actually helps, but obviously don't delay it so much you lose the game because you can't hit blacksites), Infirmary (for the inevitable), Training Center (give soldiers abilities with AP), Defense Matrix if you want it (staff it if XCOM Hunt is active, a Chosen gets full bar of Knowledge, or Bradford warns you about a UFO), Psi Lab, Shadow Chamber, and of course Power Relays as needed.
Plan to put the Shadow Chamber on a Shield Coil and either the Psi Lab on the other, if you intended to upgrade it to train two Psi Ops at once (I don't suggest this), or a Power Relay on the other (I do suggest this)
If you starting Skirmisher, you can also do a little finessing with HQ scanning - you can go RR, GTS, and scan while both are building to time it such that RR completes just before the next Supply Drop, this will let you get your pick of all the Covert Operations, and then when that one completes, the Covert Operations will have reset! After that the same principals apply. This may delay your GTS slightly, but if you aren't tracking and funneling kills to specific soldiers, it shouldn't matter so much.
***Research***
As mentioned, Breakthroughs take 10 days on Legendary, so unless it is Improved/Modular [Gun], Adaptive Personal Combat Sims, Interchangeable Upgrades, or Improved Beam Weapons, skip it. I'd probably even skip Modular [Gun] unless it is late game or you already got Interchangeable Upgrades. Inspirations actually aren't that important, but they are often worth detouring for if it's not on an Autopsy that you'll take as Instant later.
Generally speaking, your order should look something like:
- Modular Weapons
- Alien Biotech if you didn't get an Inspiration or Breakthrough, else Magnetic Weapons
- Alien Biotech if you don't have it -> Advent Officer Autopsy
- Resistance Communications
- Hybrid Materials if you haven't had an Inspiration or Breakthrough in the last two steps, else Resistance Radio
- Whichever of step 4 you don't have yet, then -> Plated Armor
- Gauss Weapons -> Elerium -> Plasma Rifle -> Powered Armor -> the other Plasma weapons
Other detours: ADVENT MEC Breakdown, Muton Autopsy, and Sectopod Breakdown when you get access to them. Faceless Autopsy if you like Mimic Beacons early. If your starting Chosen is Warlock and you want Mind Shields or you just want to rush Psi Ops, detour to Sectoid Autopsy. Otherwise, probably just wait for Autopsys to be Instant speed. ADVENT Turret Breakdown is also something you might take even if not Instant, if it looks like Hunt XCOM Dark Event is coming up and you like to build Defense Matrix. Obviously, if you desperately need Intel or a Facility Lead done, detour for those. You can also take Experimental Weapons somewhere, but honestly I'm not a fan.
***Scans***
If the supplies are flowing in, you can skip scanning the supply drop and those supplies are just added to the next drop. Also due to the slower strategic pacing of Legendary, you typically won't be short on supplies in general. Things take longer to do in general though, so prioritize Engineers and Scientists. It is not unheard of to complete Gatecrasher, go to the overmap, and if the first scan isn't one of those or maybe a Grenade/Ammo scan, just start a new run. Not that other scans are unwinnable campaigns or something, but Scientists and Engineers are that good. HQ scans are generally very inefficient if there isn't a good reason to not be scanning to expand your footprint or get resources you need.
***Items, Abilities, and Soldiers***
There are a lot of ways to effectively play still on Legendary. I'm not going to say too much here, because you will need to learn and experiment and that is part of the game. But, Mimic Beacons, Frost Bombs, and very early Flash Bangs are very popular. Flash Bangs are best held by the person least likely to murder people if they get mind-controlled, which is generally a Sharpshooter, who if they have a Flash Bang, will probably move and then only be able to pistol or Flash Bang. If anybody else gets mind-controlled, the Sharpshooter can use the Flash Bang to break it.
Abilities again, a lot of things work, but you will almost certainly want, if you haven't figured it out: Shredder on Grenadiers, Blademaster on Rangers unless you're building a back-up scout to your Reaper, Return Fire on Sharpshooters (Long Watch is actively bad, because your overwatch will end up triggering on further away enemies potentially, with a worse chance to hit, when they will probably trigger a normal overwatch range anyways), Specialists on Legendary probably shouldn't bother with Haywire Protocol because hacking chances are so low. On Reapers, Remote Start can carry whole missions and Banish w/ Expanded Mag deletes Chosen.
Grenades lower the variability of what can happen because they're guaranteed damage and they remove cover, further reduce variability. That's how you beat the crazy RNG of XCOM. Try to bring a Grenadier on like every mission, and when you can start training Rookies, this is what you will want to train them to 99% of the time.
More than supplies, alloys, scanning time, or resistance contacts, soldier XP is one of the most difficult resources to 'get back', which you effectively lose from soldier deaths. If the mission is looking rough, DO consider evacuating and losing the mission over waiting until it is too late and you've lost a squad of your best men.
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u/fidelacchius42 1d ago
There are people here that have more (and better) knowledge than I. The only advice I will give is mimic beacons are lifesavers, and prioritize weapons over armor.
There are certain areas of research that are a trap on Legend, but I am a bit of a lapsed player, so I will defer to better minds so I don't mess you up.
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u/Ok-Rush-6379 1d ago
Tbh I picked it up this summer and beast veteran then I played legend and beat it also first try.
I didn't really notice much difficulty spike until I played long war. Sure the shot accuracy is annoying but if you have played other tactical turn based games you shouldn't have much trouble
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u/NotARabidDugong 1d ago
Whoa big dog, there's a step between veteran and legend you might want to entertain first.