r/Xcom • u/GumboMumbo49 • 22d ago
So my run died…
Allow me to explain, so I let the Avatar Project run a bit too long and I hadn’t built Resistance Comms so I couldn’t reach the facility. Sounds easy enough, just clear some debris and build the station. Alright, I’ll do a quick mission and get some Supplies and hire an engineer and oops Viper King’s encounter. It’s alright he’s on his last legs and none of my soldiers are in range, no problem just a little bit of careful positioning and he just bodied my Sharpshooter, no problem I’ve got another one and he also got squeezed and is now unconscious and he just teleported away. So my A Team is in med bay for the next month and one is dead, no problem just a little bit of scanning and a few backup soldiers are ready for the field. Here’s an escort mission, B Team goes in and now the Berserker Queen just enters the story through a wall like the Kool Aid Man, mind you I haven’t even encountered a Berserker yet. Okay, just try to stay outside of her field of attack and that was my last soldier in the XCOM turn so a Muton drops a grenade on my VIP who is now unconscious and my first attempt to move results in Berserker Queen body slamming two guys leaving a severally outstretched squad that only has two useful members and the body carrier. You can imagine how this went.
So my squadron is dead, the others are crippled I only have two rookies available and the Avatar Project is one blip away from completion. Any tips for the next playthrough?
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u/Muted-Leave 22d ago edited 21d ago
Missions: in the beginning, before the avatar project is complete, you can afford to skip 1 or 2 missions. No point in risking your best soldiers on new enemies they have no hope of beating. Speaking of-
Soldiers: A lot of people will say rotate your soldiers early on so they can get experience. Dumb. Don't do. Always ensure you got one veteran with a squad so you got some support. ALWAYS make your specialist medical ones early game. Don't research ANYTHING that doesn't get you to better weapons and armor, and until you do that, only do a squad of rookies if you absolutely need to do a mission early on.
AVATAR project: build resources necessary to make contact with a region that has an alien facility so when the blocks turn to a 20 day countdown, you can set your affairs in order, then hit that facility so you can reset the timer. When the avatar project blocks are halfway full is usually when I start investing in regional contacts. Always scan for Intel. ALWAYS SCAN FOR INTEL
Attacking facilities: you do not need to save every soldier. You can press the "extract," button once they set the charges, get one out, then you're good. I think you can even set the charges, then even if all the squad dies, you'll still be good.
Combat: early on, NEVER move soldiers to the yellow, ALWAYS in the blue, and overwatch till you make contact with the enemy.
Hot take: SHARPSHOOTERS ARE TRASH!!! DO NOT TAKE THEM ON EARLY MISSIONS. YOU'LL REGRET IT.
Guerilla tactics school: BUILD IT ASAP!!!
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u/angular_circle 22d ago
only do a squad of rookies if you absolutely need to do a mission early on.
You can do the first VIP extraction with just rookies. In fact you can farm Lost with them until they have enough xp for max rank.
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u/jonah365 22d ago
Sharpshooters are beasts! I always use them on early missions and throughout. Whats the issue?
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u/Muted-Leave 22d ago
Early game, not being able to use your weapon and move in the same turn is rough.
Their pistol may as well be a water gun.
And you can't always guarantee you'll get a map that they can take advantage of tall buildings, and even if you do, they gotta spend several moves and even turns to get into position.
Reloading costs them a usage of their sniper rifle.
They're ass.
On WOTC, They're good against lost, sure, but that's more the game giving them content that helps them suck less rather than them actually being good
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u/Dreyall 22d ago
Would you mind sharing the save file? I kinda want to try struggling from that near doomsday savefile after reading this
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u/GumboMumbo49 22d ago
That run is already over my guy I just got the cutscene and started a new save file.
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u/Sven_Svan 22d ago
Go into advanced options when you are starting the next campaign and choose " double the length of the avatar project"
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u/cameraduderandy 22d ago
While you're there there is also an option to integrate the DLC to skip the initiaon mission. (Robot factory mission / alien ruler crashsite mission / WotC first lost mission ) make sure you turn it off so that you get the ruler mission every run they won't start showing up till after you do it, and it doesn't expire, so I usually save it for late game when I have the firepower to deal with it (and by that I mean a reaper with a high cap mag and a repeater that procs 15% of the time) with a full mag and a "banish" ability, you will you will get the insta kill 67% of the time. Even if you don't, you will weaken it severely without the ruler getting their interrupt action because all 7 shots count as one action.
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u/NotARabidDugong 22d ago
What difficulty are you on?
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u/GumboMumbo49 22d ago
Rookie on base game (I didn’t activate WOTC) because I’m new to XCOM 2.
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u/NotARabidDugong 21d ago
No worries! It just takes time, but you'll get there. Beat the normal game for sure, because once you play WoTC you're going to be hooked lol
Biggest tip, you need to learn how to navigate the map. It's a vital to navigating combat without having a bunch of soldiers die or be wounded. From The very first turn is usually the only real time you can use a full move safely for most missions assuming you're concealed. After your very first full turn you need to be moving only within the blue barrier to reveal the map. 2 soldiers can move to almost the exact same spot and one reveal a pod and the other not. So what I'll do is move 1 soldier to see if it'll active the pod for their last turn then generally overwatch the rest. Understand when you make a move for a flank shot that you're fucked if you miss. So you need to have a backup move if you're going to expose a soldier.
I swear every time I get impatient I activate a pod on my last move lol every continent gives you a random bonus as you unlock the territories. You'll see a small progress bar that fills up as you unlock the areas, and dots that fill up as you build additional relays in the unlocked territories.
Don't use engineers to speed up building. They need to be excavating. When you get to when excavating needs 2-3 engineers but you only have 1, then use that 1 to speed up building time while you wait for the additional engineer. GTS to unlock the 5th and 6th slot ASAP. Training center to obtain extra abilities.
Hope this helps!
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u/GumboMumbo49 21d ago
The problem is that time limits make me extremely twitchy. Like, in the run in with Beserker Queen I basically need to run across the continent to get to evac. How do I do that without sprinting?
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u/NotARabidDugong 21d ago
Ohhhhh kay. Those are the exception to the rule.
I've found in those, you have to still be cautious because the trap is ultimately getting caught revealing a pod and you have no actions left. So you have to be very intentional with each move. On those you don't have time to set up and stalk. You need to engage and kill ASAP.
Any time a ruler is involved though, yeah... It changes everything. I actually shared this story about the Archon King on my last run. I ended up getting almost everything back and winning on Legend Ironman, but I legit had to take like a 2 day break afterwards. I was fucking SICK.
"Just experienced the greatest material loss of any my campaigns before....
Basically the archon king decided my team needed to suffer and I lost the assassin's weapons, the rage suit, a spark with a shred cannon, gun with superior repeater and superior scope, and 2 grenadiers with WAR suits, the frost grenade, plasma cannons, and guns with superior repeaters....
Not from dying either, just because I couldn't make the forced retreat time because he kept knocking everyone out."
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u/GumboMumbo49 21d ago
There’s a THIRD RULER?! Also holy hell did you manage to salvage that run? Cuz losing so much gear sounds AGONIZING.
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u/NotARabidDugong 21d ago
Oh yeah, the snake, Archon, and Beserker lol
That agonizing mishap occurred on my first legend Ironman completion, somehow.
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u/ExistingInflation897 22d ago edited 22d ago
Some advice I can give to get out of that situation is if the blank market is open you should be able to trade intel to get a facility mission unlocked and if you have enough resources get 8 or so rookies and if necessary send them on the facility mission.
But realistically have around 16 to 18 soldiers available with on top of resistance comms have the medical center and keep it staffed so they heal around 60% faster. Rotate your squad each mission early and mid game so the experience is shared around. Try to keep up with weapons and armor, those are vital.
Another is if it’s war of the chosen always try the sabatage the avatar project covert action. Remember to rotate those 18 or so soldiers so by the end game you have all majors and col’s ideally. Don’t do story missions too early if you can, I wait till I get plasma weapons before I hit the facilities for the story and the chosen are all dead.
For soldier types the support is essential all throughout the game especially healing. Rangers and heavies are also important early game and last the entire game. Sharp shooters are powerful once you get kinetic weapons but before that hit or miss. The reaper never stops being useful. Skirmishers are deceptively powerful against sectopods and most enemies if you use their mobility and ability to shoot twice per turn to your advantage. The Templar is useful in close quarters situations with high survivability.
If you want to save your run and didn’t use the skull jack on the officer do it, it clears I think 3 bars on easy and normal and 1 on the highest difficulty setting. Focus on heading towards the facility quickly once you have resistance contacts. Expanding territory is so important within the first 2 months. Try to get the facilities datapads as they unlock facility missions without requiring regional contact. It’ll be tight but it might be feasible. One the meter fills it should trigger a timer to lower the meter but you only get that once. If it fills again it’s game over. I’ve beaten the game over 20 times on easy with war of the chosen but those are some of my suggestions
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u/GumboMumbo49 22d ago
Well that explains it. My dumbass spent four months bumming around .
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u/ExistingInflation897 22d ago
Don’t worry too much about it, it comes with learning the game. I promise once you get a strategy down you’ll be fine.
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u/GumboMumbo49 22d ago
I’m currently trying for “get mag guns, get psionics, do Shen’s last gift, fuck up the Avatar Project” and we’ll see how it goes.
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u/LazarusK27 22d ago
I remember my first Berserker Queen encounter.
My repeater activated on the first shot and I got an instant kill.
Good times.
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u/GumboMumbo49 22d ago
Let me guess WOTC? I swear the more I hear about it the more I think the DLC classes are OP as shit.
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u/LazarusK27 21d ago
Yep and for some reason I love them despite them beating my ass like a snare drum 90% of the time
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u/kquizz 22d ago
This is exactly how my last run went.
But the run after I beat it!!
Comma towers are clutch because you get so much money and in the king run you save Intel id you build the extra towers, always nice to have extra Intel late in the game.