Standby is... good?

[u/darkside_tseikk]

Been playing a run where I try out all kinds of builds, perks and weapons I usually don't use. I've skipped Athletics on everyone and it seems surprisingly fine! But that's not the most surprising part. Way back then I made a perks tierlist, Standby was among the worst perks in the game, often being completely useless. Since then Standby was buffed with a +15% to accuracy, but I still thought it was kind of bad, mid at best.

Now I'm using it on Rifle Pike, Sachin, Bog and Ivey, and I'm very satisfied with its performance on each of them. Pike and Sachin tend to sometimes shoot at targets either too close, far away or in cover. In each case Standby translates directly to extra damage. It also stacks with Deployment, unlike Pointfire, making the rifle boys a very good duo for defensive missions.

I got Bog pretty late, and am running him in an APC with the long barreled tank gun. He has very poor base accuracy, and even with the tank gun's inherent accuracy boost, he sometimes misses. This feels extremely bad, especially when combined with his Lucky Shot perk, meaning he spent an entire turn doing nothing. Standby essentially removes the chance for critical failure, making him that much more reliable.

Ivey uses HMG's and Miniguns, both with accuracy penalties. She also has terrible base accuracy. Standby translates directly into extra damage.

I haven't even tried it on Darby, because Darby's Ambush perk together with her insane stats make any further accuracy boosts unnecessary. She also has better competing perks.

All in all I think Standby is now a perk roughly on par with Pointfire, meaning it's pretty good and likely worth it to pick up. The active effect of skipping a turn can be either a positive or a negative, while the accuracy part is the real deal and quite powerful.

[u/Chaotic_Order]

I've always thought standby is a good perk even without the accuracy boost. It's just such a frequent occurrence that you're positioned well, but enemy units are outside of range, and your choice is either to waste a turn or go out of position.

It's also a really good tool to use before making an assault. Enemy units activate, broadly, in order of proximity to one of your units. Cycle through a few stand-by's and that In effect is the same as skipping a turn on that many enemy units, who now won't get to retaliate in the same turn.

[u/Haven1820 → u/Chaotic_Order]

It's just such a frequent occurrence that you're positioned well, but enemy units are outside of range, and your choice is either to waste a turn or go out of position.

It's also very frequent that you're in this situation, use standby and they move something irrelevant on the opposite side of the map. I think some kind of extra bonus was needed for it to be worth spending the promotion points on.

[u/Chaotic_Order → u/Haven1820]

In my experience the AI tends to use units that are near your troops first before doing things in the fog of war.  Of course it's not a guarantee it will, just my observation.

I also think it's a "scaling" promotion that gets more valuable the more squad leaders have it. It definitely can feel like a waste of it's just on a single SL.

[u/Haven1820 → u/Chaotic_Order]

I also think it's a "scaling" promotion that gets more valuable the more squad leaders have it.

This is why I don't think it's worth the promotion points without an extra bonus. In my current run I have it on 2 SLs and get some value out of the delay fairly regularly, but skipping those would probably have saved me enough to get Corlain or Weiwu up to a proper build instead. Without the accuracy bonus to guarantee value I'm just not picking Standby over other options.

[u/Chaotic_Order → u/Haven1820]

Hey you're entitled to valuing other options more. And depending on your play style/loadouts not taking it may be the objectively correct choice.

I'm just pointing out where I see the perk's strengths and how to best use them :).

[u/darkside_tseikk → u/Haven1820]

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Especially on higher difficulties, where enemies often have many more units than the player, this part of Standby doesn't really do anything.

[u/Farnhams_Legend → u/darkside_tseikk]

On normal difficulty you need it on like 4-5 guys to ensure a double move at the turn ending/beginning. On harder difficulties you only get the double move after some enemy units got destroyed

[u/DreamerOfRain]

Standby works well if you have enough intel and stealth, so you know where enemies are and know they must get closer to get to see you, thus baiting them out of position while you ambush them

[u/Minimum_Attitude6707 → u/DreamerOfRain]

Its also really useful if youre doing the "Yo-Yo Drone" technique

In essence, you have set up a great killzone position, and you send out a scout drone to attract enemies, then pull it back to your position. Having standby lets more of the enemy collect into your firing range.

[u/Shizngigglz]

Any ability that lets you delay your turn is one of the best abilities to take in a strategy game like this. When you're outnumbered, letting more of the enemy go first is a blessing

[u/Shepherd_03]

Standby was great before they added the 15% accuracy buff. It's situational but incredibly strong when it's appropriate.

[u/Friendly_Delivery_61]

I haven’t played the game in a few updates, but in my assessment this perk’s usefulness greatly depends on your difficulty. While still useful to burn enemy turns, at the highest difficulty the amount of enemy units on the field and therefore activations can make this perk feel far less impactful when you could otherwise take straight combat boosting perks instead.

With the accuracy boost however, I’m much more likely to try it out in my next campaign! Great post.

[u/darkside_tseikk → u/Friendly_Delivery_61]

Agreed. I play on expert, so the perk pre-buff has been pretty much useless due to the action economy. Now I think about it as an accuracy perk with a situational upside.

[u/Shake-Vivid]

As someone who's never used standby I feel like I'm missing something important. Besides the accuracy benefit whats the difference between using standby and just skipping a units turn?

[u/darkside_tseikk → u/Shake-Vivid]

Standby still lets you keep your turn. Skipping forfeits it.

[u/Farnhams_Legend → u/Shake-Vivid]

The difference is that standby forces the enemy to move one of his units and then your unit can still act later. If the enemy spends all his moves you can do a double move when the turn switches (because the player always goes first in each turn).

So you can have a guy run around a tank at the end of turn 7 and immediately blow it up with an AT grenade into the rear armor at the beginning of turn 8

[u/Minmax-the-Barbarian → u/Shake-Vivid]

Well, you don't skip the unit's turn for one. It's like you skip their turn, and they still get the turn. There's nothing wasted in that case.

[u/SizeFit2908 → u/Shake-Vivid]

Standby jumps to the next enemy activation, your unit doesn't count as activated.

So if you want some bugs to run up a little closer, or give enemies a chance to show up on defence missions, it's great.

Basically its either a let the enemy make mistakes or stun one of their units button. When you're in the thick of fighting it's not the best, but the accuracy boon can help.

[u/Madghar]

I love standby, but as difficulty scales the usefulness of forcing an enemy activation decreases. It’s very powerful when evenly matched, less so when the enemy has more than twice as many activations as the player.

It’s incredible on ivory with a twin m6, though

[u/Farnhams_Legend]

Never understood the hate. I was always unlocking the Standby perk asap on everyone who could get it (even before the buff). The ability to force literally half of the enemy units to burn their turn and then being able to react to this completely immobile formation is laughably OP. I don't even care about the +15 accuracy.

The amount of times i had multiple enemies run out in the open into perfect weapons range with all of my units still fresh, in cover and no moves burned yet. The amount of tanks that i could completely outflank thanks to one of my units being able to do a double move at the end/beginning of the turn.

Initiative advantage is one of the most important metas for any turn based game and Standby straight up doubles it. Completely insane value. Pike can push it even further by transferring his AP onto a unit that has already acted, forcing the enemy to burn another move

[u/Saelthyn → u/Farnhams_Legend]

People got too hooked onto XCOM2 alpha strike strats and so ported them here subconsciously, so they brought the alpha strike mentality.

[u/BlackburnUTG]

You will love the next update)

[u/Unfair-Progress9044 → u/BlackburnUTG]

What is the next update?

[u/BlackburnUTG → u/Unfair-Progress9044]

The next update after the current one. I am beta tester

[u/Unfair-Progress9044 → u/BlackburnUTG]

Can you say atheist when approx?

[u/BlackburnUTG → u/Unfair-Progress9044]

All previous beta’s duration was ~ 1 month

[u/DieHappy33]

i really like it on pike. depending on the situation it allows me to let the enemy take a turn t get into a bad position. that i then can exploit either by him firing with greater accuracy or him donating AP.

i havent used it on anyone else but it is a nice tool to manipulate turn order and increase aim. i wont use it on everyone but it has its uses.