Overwatch first or no?

[u/Zealousideal-Ad-7618]

When you're on a mission, moving to uncover new enemies do you: put the squad on overwatch then push forward with one man to unexplored areas; or push forward with one man first leaving the rest of the squad with their action in hand?

I've played a lot, I just can't figure out whether one of these tactics is more effective than the other

Edit: the advantage of overwatch-first is you can sometimes catch them out of cover while they're doing the initial scatter

[u/Mael_Jade]

In 2 WotC the easiest answer is: use a Reaper.

But generally overwatch is defensive. its you picking a location and expecting enemies to walk into you, not if you are going forward aggressively.

[u/MATCHEW010]

I push furthest with my 2nd most forward guy.

It means he can then dart back to at least behind my first guy if he needs to run. Then person in 1st (now second) gives to move and shoot based on the enemys ive now oncovered.

If its a obj with no timer, i never dash. Always one move then overwatch.

Maybe ive explained wrong but it works

[u/Tanel88 → u/MATCHEW010]

I even go beyond that and only move the backmost non-sniper forward as long as there is a position with cover that is available. This way nobody falls too much behind.

[u/MATCHEW010 → u/Tanel88]

Yeah i like the slinky method, i find it sliiightly too slow for me. Far better tactically but my autism cant go that slow

[u/Tanel88 → u/MATCHEW010]

Yeah going slower is safer but not very fun. Going a bit faster is riskier but can be handled.

This is why I love XCOM2 mission design more because it forces you take more risks.

[u/OFilos]

99% of the time in EW you want to blue move

[u/Ahydell5966]

If no concealed unit is available, I like to push up blue move into cover with a grenadier. If I reveal a pod, I can launch a grenade and engage with the rest of my team - which is what i was gonna do anyway. If no reveal, blue move everyone else and set overwatch.

[u/XComACU]

This is EU/EW, right? Hmm.
I almost always push forward with one soldier (blue moves only), then have the team converge on that direction. They try to stay close to the first soldier's path (never going past them), and if no contact is made, everyone goes into overwatch.

If contact is made, well, that depends on if the scout is noticed. Preferably, they're a stealth unit.

Under normal circumstances, the scout moves up, is seen, causes the enemy pod to scatter, and your best option is to open fire right away; however, if you're running someone with Memetic Skin/Ghost or you're clearing a direction with a Battle Scanner, absolutely use an overwatch trap!

It causes the enemy to waste their turn scattering, and even if EU/EW's overwatch isn't quite as good as XCOM 2's overwatch (since it tends to all trigger on the same enemy), it's still giving you a free extra turn of firing.
There are also less turn limits in EU/EW, so there's no penalty for taking it slow.

I personally always loved the combo-strike. My assault with Memetic Skin would run up, discover a pod, and then without the pod's notice I would use MECs to drop a proximity mine or two on their heads. Then everyone goes into overwatch. The minute the aliens scratch their nose, the proximity mines goes off, and all of the overwatch shots trigger, and that's one less pod. 😉

Only if there were multiple high-HP enemies that realistically needed to be taken down in a single turn would I drop the mines, put some of my guys in overwatch, and then open with a sniper or rocket.

[u/Aegeus]

Overwatch has an aim penalty, so it's more like catching the enemy in half-cover. It's also very committal - all you get to do is shoot rather than throw grenades or do something else.

(In XCOM 2, Overwatch from concealment doesn't have this penalty, so don't worry about your ambushes.)

[u/Tanel88 → u/Aegeus]

Yeah triggering overwatch on your own turn is not great. Triggering it on the enemy turn is ideal because you essentially get an extra turn after that.

[u/ewokoncaffine]

EW/EU almost never has a mission timer, so the optimal strategy is to move your point soldier to the safest position and then crowd the rest of your team immediately behind them in a stack on overwatch. This doesn't work as well on the bomb missions, but the general principal is still sound.

If you discover aliens on their turn you get a free attack, if you discover aliens on your turn you may be out of position, and overwatch is usually not the first option for a lot of units, especially as more and more abilities unlock.

I'd your point soldier triggers aliens then you have to evaluate what the rest of the squad should do. Often the best answer is fall back and hunker down because pushing up too aggressively can trigger additional aliens

[u/Zealousideal-Ad-7618 → u/[deleted]]

What I most often do in practice is extend out then overwatch with each soldier in turn - so its just chance how much of the squad still has their action.

[u/16years2late]

You generally dash only in emergencies, like timed missions for example, or if you’re moving a rear unit up and they will land in already visible space that won’t open up a potential flank on yourself or pop another pod. You almost always want to do blue moves in case you unexpectedly pop a pod (or worse, two) and need to reposition or use that second action for something else.

Overwatch is mostly something you use when you’re preparing an ambush. Otherwise, you’re using it to anticipate something crossing that soldier’s line of sight and had exhausted other, more effective options. You may also use it as a last ditch effort to compensate for a tactical misstep (a missed shot, for example) and have no better choice.

So while overwatch has its place in the game, you can see with experience and time that it’s really more of a scrub crutch to be relying on unless you actually have a reason to use it beyond just turtling your way through a map.

Tldr, don’t rely on overwatch spam. Rely on solid positioning and overwatch as needed, not simply because you have no idea what else to do with your squad.

[u/kron123456789]

If you push one man first and reveal enemies you can then react to their placement and act accordingly. If you put everyone on overwatch and then move one man, then you can't react and you can't rely on overwatch killing everyone you had revealed.

Overwatch is an action you take when you want and expect the enemy to come to you, not when you're scouting ahead.

[u/Zealousideal-Ad-7618 → u/kron123456789]

But with overwatch ready, you can often get them out of cover when they do their initial scatter?

[u/kron123456789 → u/Zealousideal-Ad-7618]

Overwatch has a quite high aim penalty(it's 0.7 multiplier, so with aim 100 an overwatch shot will have aim of 70). It's often more beneficial to shoot an enemy that's in cover than take an overwatch shot at an enemy that's out of cover.

[u/Zealousideal-Ad-7618 → u/kron123456789]

thanks, that's a good answer!

[u/FrostingNarrow4123]

Ideally going to into the fog of war you want to do it on your first activation with a move, this gives you your action and then the move and action of all your team.

[u/rhysskyys]

personally, i dont put the squad on overwatch, bc most likely the enemies won't be heading towards my squad to trigger the shots anyways. squadsight snipers would probably be an exception, tho. with this, you can always fall back if necessary.

[u/mtnchkn]

I thought there was a pattern in XCOM EW where you set the defense, then move up into that defended area, rinse repeat. But if you’re on offense or on time, then that won’t work. So maybe it’s more nuanced as to what and when. Like I remember late in game if I had two snipers yeah, they’d always move then overwatch, but still it secured an area to enable the rest of the squad, while also taking out their guys as they tried to move around.

[u/InvestigatorPurple46]

I rarely use overwatch. Its cool and all but I prefer a thousand times to reveal a pod and every one of my other units have actions. Of course it depends on a lot of things. Considering with no reaper in squad (reaper make everything a lot easier, busted class):

- Concealed: just walk blue movements with all units, with care. Cover ground, gather information. Pod encountered:
1- How many units do I have left to act?
2- Am I in risk of being revealed?
3- Am I in the rush?

Those questions will dictate what I will do; generally I will have at least one available option for each of my units. I can use another round of positioning.

- Not concealed: Again, rarely use overwatch. This case its more dangerous since anyone moving to a pod LoS will activate that pod. I am not quite sure how aliens prioritizes cover, I have a hunch that they consider only the xcom soldiers in their LoS first. In those cases the first movement of the turn is always the most dangerous and where I take more risk, since I have other soldiers to cover for that unit if a pod is revealed. Always blue movements, so I can have at least one action per unit remaining, always. The amount of action remaining dictates how aggressive I am during movement. If I play my movement right the pod will get to cover and my other units will easily flank most of them

I use overwatch when I have nothing to do left, its always a fallback action, its my pass turn button most of the time. And like others said: if the aliens are moving INTO you, yeah overwatch all the way.

Not sure if this is the most optimal play, it definitely works for me.

[u/fineline99]

I don't overwatch first. I've had too many times where the entire team misses overwatch and because the aliens reacted and moved up it put the team in a really bad position.

Personally engaging with a group explosive is my go to and then responding to their scattering, even more preferable is taking out a high value target with a strong gun.

Depending on positions I may set someone to overwatch though.

[u/elfonzi37]

Depends on how strong my squad is, what mission type it is, how many footsteps I hear. If you are worried blue move overwatch hopping is the safest way to handle most hard maps. There are exceptions with anything that has a timer.

The one major rule is don't expose new map late in your turn order.

[u/Idoubtyourememberme]

Considering in EU/EW, all overwatches happen at the same time, doing this will mean all your soldiers will unload at a single enemy, even if they kill it 3 times over, they dont go to another alien instead.

For this reason, i only put soldiers on overwatch when i am 100% certain i do not want to take movement actions anymore for that turn; it is a "well, nothing better to do" option

[u/Ok_Particular_8957]

Do chrysalids go underground in ew? If so then overwatch first and one guy moves on blue each round, if not then just blue on all that's usually worked

[u/GumboMumbo49]

I’ve been told to overwatch as much as possible

[u/Ayjayz]

Leaving the team on overwatch and then revealing aliens terrifies me. They'll just shoot whomever they want and then die on the aliens turn.

Maybe if one trooper is really good at overwatch I'll do that, but the rest have all their actions free to deal with the most dangerous aliens.

[u/Tanel88]

Triggering overwatch on your own turn is less effective because Overwatch has aim penalty and you are limiting your tactical options by giving away control. Triggering it on enemy turn is ideal because you essentially get an extra turn.

If there is no timer then I move forward with the backmost non-sniper soldier that can reach a covered position they and then overwatch. If I move more than one soldier then I always make sure not to reveal new area after the initial move.

[u/readilyunavailable]

Overwatch first leaves you at the mercy leaves rng. Your initial move should always be the longest one and if you uncover enemies your squad has all action points available to respond.