"if you take shots from anyone who isn't a basic trooper, it's a misplay" ain't that the truth. I had a perfect campaign, zero soldier deaths going when I first met Shieldbearers. One of them sniped a veteran grenadier straight in the face and killed him on the first turn he was revealed. I've never even seen a Shieldbearer fire its weapon on the first turn it was revealed before! Full cover! Every other enemy on the map dead! That's XCOM baby
"Advent kill 1 per turn" I played a mission once with Chryssalids. They killed 4 in a turn and were teleporting across the map to attack my soldiers and all my soldiers were missing. It was a horribly glitched and completely unwinnable fight. Thankfully I wasn't in Ironman so could reload. But even on normal (not glitched) fights, I've played missions where I would lose 4-5 in a single round. Every enemy pod had a go. It was completely impossible to win against. So RNG isn't just about shooting accuracy, it's also about your chance of the game deciding to be a prick.
I went through the campaing multiple times and never lost a mission (unless the first went wrong bc I insisted on playing with 4 rookies and not one of the special classes), so there must be something wrong on your end, do you evacuate? I found it better to give up on an unwinnable scenario and better get out alive
You are dealing with a completely different mission type then. Retaliations come in two forms in WotC. The one you're describing is the haven assault, where you have resistance fighters on your side. You have much more leeway on this mission too with the civilian count and can afford to be much more aggressive since the AI will focus on civilians more on this mission.
WOTC from my experience is a lot easier than the base game, especially if you don't tick the additional content, because I had to fight 2 ADVENT MECs on my 2nd mission. Vipers and Viper King on my 3nd mission. Mutons and Berserker Queen already on 5th mission. Like wtf? At least in WOTC you get a hero unit to carry early game. Chosen aren't even that strong so the only thing that could possibly make WOTC harder is that troops get tired but that's a minor inconvenience. I rather fight the chosen on my 3rd mission than the Viper King. Ruler's reaction easily most OP enemy ability in the game hands down.
I don't know if anyone already mentioned this but in Legendary the most important thing to understand is that sometimes it's best to avoid a mission, abort the mission and/or do the bare minimum of completion then get out. After all, even if the game is RNG, it's predetermined RNG meaning that unless your unit's aim is 100%, it's likely when your unit is standing on a tile to take a shot, that tile predetermines the unit will miss their shots even if it's a 99% shot. What that usually translates to is that there are in fact missions where you are predetermined to lose. The AI, occasionally even makes that obvious either by adding enemies your team is not ready for or just adding a civilian just out of sight so you break concealment on turn 1, though that trap can be avoided at least.
5:58 That's the Long War of the Chosen full cover bonus, in vanilla War of the Chosen it's 20 defense for half cover and 40 for full cover (as opposed to 30/45).
@@Ronar222 Thanks for making these videos, I only just started xcom2 this week after playing xcom1 4+ years back. I am still terrible but after your videos I am now making it through 15+ missions on a playthrough without losing a squad member. Will up the difficulty a bit once I have completed the game (I keep restarting after I lose a few members!).
That type is a bitch, but the main thing is to bring a hyper offense team consisting of grenadiers, ranger, and heroes. You honestly should be doing this for all your missions, but this mission type in particular is much more difficult because every turn you're losing an action from one soldier just to destroy a transponder.
@@Ronar222 cheers man. Really struggled on my first one with a Templar, grenadier, sniper and specialist. Next time I'll drop the sniper and specialist for faster aggro classes
34:29 The problem with this strat (although a minor one) is that unlike LWotC, in vanilla WotC you actually get the vast majority of exp on soldiers from their kills; successful missions themselves grant pitiful amounts of experience points. Anyway, 2 nitpicky comments from me is already more than enough, so just wanted to say that this is a *really* awesome guide and a fantastic addition to your already pretty detailed walkthrough of WotC on L/I. Despite already having beaten the mode with the help of your series (although on honestman, to not end up like your run did, lol), you mentioned quite a few interesting facts and strategies that I'll try to incorporate into my play! Knowing how to kite multiple faceless, proper spacing against alien rulers, alien turn order going from last activated and from leader first as well as the fact that (apparently) only pod leaders will attack xcom soldiers on retalations is all really cool and useful info. Really good editing job as well, but if I were to nitpick just one more time (it's the last one, I swear!), some of the cuts that are on the same mission (especially gatecrasher) feel like they lack a little continuity, leaving us wondering "how the hell did Ronar activate the entire map on gatecrasher?!"
@@FunFunFun120 I don't have the exact numbers, you'd have to dig around .inis to find out, but I found multiple people stating this is true and nobody stating that missions give a lot of experience outside of LW. And I agree based on my experience, for me the soldiers with the most kills did rank up the most. Perhaps your specialist went on covert actions? Those also grant some exp. Edit: Also, to some extent it matters what the kill is. What I specifically mean is that The Lost give 1/4 of the experience of a normal kill, meaning that if your snipers took out, say, 4 Lost (as they tend to do because pistols can take out a ton of Lost for no ammo cost), and your specialist took out 2 weak Advent troops, your sniper will get 1 kill exp and your specialist will get 2.
@Michael It doesn't matter for the purpose of showcasing strategies, you are correct, but in my opinion it's just a little too abrupt in terms of the viewing experience. Your mileage may vary.
Something has changed in the sectoid not taking a shot if it cannot flank, at least in WOTC. Recently I had a sectoid one-shot kill a soldier with a crit, in a retaliation mission, and the soldier was in cover, not flanked.
There are some exceptions to that rule, but they were pretty rare. I believe the only time it can happen on turn 1 is if other sectoids have performed enough psi actions. I believe there's some internal cap on the number of mind control attempts/summons that can be made in a turn.
I've played other games on stream before, ranging from other strat games to dark souls. Most people are still interested in variations of xcom. Next week I'm continuing xcom lw rebalance which has been fun.
Hey I know this is pretty off topic, but what keyboard are you using? It sounds way nicer than what I am used to hearing. Also thank you for the tips video! I've been watching your videos lately to try and win legendary and it's been helping a lot!
I noticed that some of these tips dont apply in pure vanilla XCOM 2 (without WOTC). For example the options at 13:30 and some game mechanics you showed in your playthrough. Any advice on these differences (since you don't have special units and some other stuff)?
They had target preview in XCOM 2 no DLC also. Make sure the option is turned on in the options menu. If that doesn't work then icons should hover above the hotbar that shows what can see you where the mouse is hovering. Worst case scenario, count 17 tiles since that's the range. On an angle you'll have to whip out a protracter and use the pythagorean theorem.. (jk just make sure to turn on the option for target preview).
@@Ronar222 Sadly all my options are "Show action cam" "Enable autosave" "Show enemy health" "Enable zip mode" (under gameplay), that's it :( Still thanks for the response
@@clenterra654 I just checked and XCOM 2 doesn't have the option to toggle it like in your video, but my game without any mods or dlc installed does show the pip next to hp as well as target indicators without needing to turn on options (I uninstalled everything to test just for you!). I am 100% sure that is a vanilla mechanic since game launch and have no idea why you don't have it. There's a mod that helps display this info in a more effective way called: "gotcha" on the workshop. It basically displays info that you already have in vanilla and its the same one I use in my other videos. If you can't get the vanilla target preview to work, that mod does it better.
I know this video is a bit old, but I was completing legendary ironman and I finally got out of early game, but got unlucky rolls with chosen and died at the mission with the cannon. Basically how do you deal with Chosen and things which are technically only once per run like the final mission?
If you can reach the final mission, it shouldn't be too bad once you have max ranked troops. Psi troopers can make games a lot easier with their guaranteed damage, and they're easy to train too. I personally like to have 3 heroes + Ranger + Sharpshooter + Grenadier. Give the grenadier all the shooting perks and aim pcs + scope and they can reliably shred all the sectopods and gatekeepers you find. One thing I did in vanilla was put bluescreen rounds on the entire team. Sharpshooters with fanfire bluescreen can wreck sectopods once your gunner strips all of its armor with a chainshot.
I just lost my ironman legend run 3 months in due to council VIP rescue mission. 3 pods ('officer+mech' and 2x 'viper + 2 stun lancers' hugged the truck the VIP was in for like 4 turns and I had to skip a turn to trigger only 2 which led me to running out of time and it was a squad wipe. It was super unlucky pod spawn and super unlucky distance, the extraction point was literally 2 entire yellow moves from the VIP and the VIP itself was like 3 yellow turns from the starting spawn. I guess I should have just backed out of the other group's ranges and try to trigger the first group and then it would have gone completely different, but at least now I know. Trying to get value from the group concealment can be deadly on these time limited missions.
In the early game you eat the loss and skip, never take those missions along with supply raids. These missions are meat grinders meaning only do those missions if your team is better equipped or you want to push rookies out and see who lives to be promoted. The only time it should be considered is if the mission is to kill or capture the VIP because your team can try to make a B line toward the exit, pot shot the VIP, then get out, don't try capturing until better equipped.
@@MarkFin9423 Thanks for the tip, yeah I for some reason always want all the rewards early on as they are so handy as everything is lacking and so often those VIP missions have exactly what I'd want and the mission is kind of too much risk/resource investment to do otherwise even with rookies unless they're discounted by continent bonus or the reward is worth losing some 160 supplies for which it usually isn't especially as I name all new members individually to grow attached to them, similar to a Nuzlocke Pokemon run.
When i start a game its 4 rookies and only the trooper and captain pods, is there something ticked somewhere that adds the sectoid pod and gives you a skirmisher?
Dude I'm doing normal Ironman and getting my ass kicked the first month hopefully I can pull through alot of times I'll think their safe and the floor gets shot out from under em and other stuff I didn't know about lol
Is there a reason why the Lost just didnt attack your guy? They were literally like 2 tiles away from your soldier and just walked up to them and did nothing
yes they do have aim penalty by range. But that doesnt mean u can freely go anywhere and take less cover againts them. The more aim penalty fr enemies,the better.
i wish the game gave us MORE INFO ... like i died mostly because of lack of info, like that 25% chance to roll 4 dmg with grenade and such... MORE INFO PLZ or that some actions reveal repaer or dont... or that enemies can go this far or attack even when yellow moving... and such or that enemies dont have distance aim bonuses ( or disadventages ) l-l-l-l- like WTF why doesnt it tell oyu ? Aslo, tfw ALL THE PEOPLE get spawned at the other side of the map and your side is full of faceless... and aliens are on the other side of the map killing people in retaliation... and then Chosen appears... and they keep killing people.... *ANGY*
Basically been doing what's in this video anyway, so none of this was helpful. I am just super unlucky... Nice to know about target previews, but still probably get rekt...
Nothing is modded in this lol, everything is a setting you can enable in game. I even specifically removed all my cosmetics which is why someone is missing an arm during the stream.
Dude because of your tips I went from having trouble with commander, to stomping out legendary. Thanks!
"if you take shots from anyone who isn't a basic trooper, it's a misplay"
ain't that the truth. I had a perfect campaign, zero soldier deaths going when I first met Shieldbearers. One of them sniped a veteran grenadier straight in the face and killed him on the first turn he was revealed. I've never even seen a Shieldbearer fire its weapon on the first turn it was revealed before! Full cover! Every other enemy on the map dead! That's XCOM baby
the transition between each point is perfect
I aim to please
"Advent kill 1 per turn"
I played a mission once with Chryssalids. They killed 4 in a turn and were teleporting across the map to attack my soldiers and all my soldiers were missing. It was a horribly glitched and completely unwinnable fight. Thankfully I wasn't in Ironman so could reload.
But even on normal (not glitched) fights, I've played missions where I would lose 4-5 in a single round. Every enemy pod had a go. It was completely impossible to win against.
So RNG isn't just about shooting accuracy, it's also about your chance of the game deciding to be a prick.
I went through the campaing multiple times and never lost a mission (unless the first went wrong bc I insisted on playing with 4 rookies and not one of the special classes), so there must be something wrong on your end, do you evacuate? I found it better to give up on an unwinnable scenario and better get out alive
I recommend not letting chryssalids live
You are dealing with a completely different mission type then. Retaliations come in two forms in WotC. The one you're describing is the haven assault, where you have resistance fighters on your side. You have much more leeway on this mission too with the civilian count and can afford to be much more aggressive since the AI will focus on civilians more on this mission.
A wise man once said, “That’s XCOM, baby!” 😂
I was thinking of quitting the game until I found your vids. Thanks you!
Must say your play through meant I finally completed on Legend.
Nice description.
WOTC from my experience is a lot easier than the base game, especially if you don't tick the additional content, because I had to fight 2 ADVENT MECs on my 2nd mission. Vipers and Viper King on my 3nd mission. Mutons and Berserker Queen already on 5th mission. Like wtf? At least in WOTC you get a hero unit to carry early game. Chosen aren't even that strong so the only thing that could possibly make WOTC harder is that troops get tired but that's a minor inconvenience. I rather fight the chosen on my 3rd mission than the Viper King. Ruler's reaction easily most OP enemy ability in the game hands down.
Yea they suck
It's really surprising you dont have more subs considering the level of detail in your explanations.
I don't know if anyone already mentioned this but in Legendary the most important thing to understand is that sometimes it's best to avoid a mission, abort the mission and/or do the bare minimum of completion then get out. After all, even if the game is RNG, it's predetermined RNG meaning that unless your unit's aim is 100%, it's likely when your unit is standing on a tile to take a shot, that tile predetermines the unit will miss their shots even if it's a 99% shot.
What that usually translates to is that there are in fact missions where you are predetermined to lose. The AI, occasionally even makes that obvious either by adding enemies your team is not ready for or just adding a civilian just out of sight so you break concealment on turn 1, though that trap can be avoided at least.
5:58
That's the Long War of the Chosen full cover bonus, in vanilla War of the Chosen it's 20 defense for half cover and 40 for full cover (as opposed to 30/45).
Yeah that's my mistake its 20/40
@@Ronar222 Thanks for making these videos, I only just started xcom2 this week after playing xcom1 4+ years back. I am still terrible but after your videos I am now making it through 15+ missions on a playthrough without losing a squad member. Will up the difficulty a bit once I have completed the game (I keep restarting after I lose a few members!).
How do you deal with the psionic device mission type? (The one where you get 4 turns, plus destroying nodes adds a turn)
That type is a bitch, but the main thing is to bring a hyper offense team consisting of grenadiers, ranger, and heroes. You honestly should be doing this for all your missions, but this mission type in particular is much more difficult because every turn you're losing an action from one soldier just to destroy a transponder.
@@Ronar222 cheers man. Really struggled on my first one with a Templar, grenadier, sniper and specialist. Next time I'll drop the sniper and specialist for faster aggro classes
34:29
The problem with this strat (although a minor one) is that unlike LWotC, in vanilla WotC you actually get the vast majority of exp on soldiers from their kills; successful missions themselves grant pitiful amounts of experience points.
Anyway, 2 nitpicky comments from me is already more than enough, so just wanted to say that this is a *really* awesome guide and a fantastic addition to your already pretty detailed walkthrough of WotC on L/I. Despite already having beaten the mode with the help of your series (although on honestman, to not end up like your run did, lol), you mentioned quite a few interesting facts and strategies that I'll try to incorporate into my play! Knowing how to kite multiple faceless, proper spacing against alien rulers, alien turn order going from last activated and from leader first as well as the fact that (apparently) only pod leaders will attack xcom soldiers on retalations is all really cool and useful info. Really good editing job as well, but if I were to nitpick just one more time (it's the last one, I swear!), some of the cuts that are on the same mission (especially gatecrasher) feel like they lack a little continuity, leaving us wondering "how the hell did Ronar activate the entire map on gatecrasher?!"
I'll be sure to whip my editor 10 times for his failure of an editing.
You sure that's true? My specialists level up pretty much exactly the same as my snipers and rangers despite getting under 1/2 the kills.
@Michael The answer is that I'm not familiar with WOTC gatecrasher maps so I didn't account for line of play very well and everything walked into me.
@@FunFunFun120 I don't have the exact numbers, you'd have to dig around .inis to find out, but I found multiple people stating this is true and nobody stating that missions give a lot of experience outside of LW. And I agree based on my experience, for me the soldiers with the most kills did rank up the most. Perhaps your specialist went on covert actions? Those also grant some exp.
Edit: Also, to some extent it matters what the kill is. What I specifically mean is that The Lost give 1/4 of the experience of a normal kill, meaning that if your snipers took out, say, 4 Lost (as they tend to do because pistols can take out a ton of Lost for no ammo cost), and your specialist took out 2 weak Advent troops, your sniper will get 1 kill exp and your specialist will get 2.
@Michael It doesn't matter for the purpose of showcasing strategies, you are correct, but in my opinion it's just a little too abrupt in terms of the viewing experience. Your mileage may vary.
Something has changed in the sectoid not taking a shot if it cannot flank, at least in WOTC. Recently I had a sectoid one-shot kill a soldier with a crit, in a retaliation mission, and the soldier was in cover, not flanked.
There are some exceptions to that rule, but they were pretty rare. I believe the only time it can happen on turn 1 is if other sectoids have performed enough psi actions. I believe there's some internal cap on the number of mind control attempts/summons that can be made in a turn.
This video is much appreciated after I set my veteran campaign down to recruit.
Great video. I feel like I know the game well but I also really enjoy the discussion here
The mental intensity of ironman mode was described to me as chess with guns.
Its like casual chess with your friends in middle school, except when you make a mistake they say, "no take backsies."
Ronar is there any other games that would you love to play in the future? I would love to see you play other games.
I've played other games on stream before, ranging from other strat games to dark souls. Most people are still interested in variations of xcom. Next week I'm continuing xcom lw rebalance which has been fun.
Hey I know this is pretty off topic, but what keyboard are you using? It sounds way nicer than what I am used to hearing.
Also thank you for the tips video! I've been watching your videos lately to try and win legendary and it's been helping a lot!
Boy, that was one passive aggresive entry to the video xD
I noticed that some of these tips dont apply in pure vanilla XCOM 2 (without WOTC). For example the options at 13:30 and some game mechanics you showed in your playthrough. Any advice on these differences (since you don't have special units and some other stuff)?
They had target preview in XCOM 2 no DLC also. Make sure the option is turned on in the options menu. If that doesn't work then icons should hover above the hotbar that shows what can see you where the mouse is hovering. Worst case scenario, count 17 tiles since that's the range. On an angle you'll have to whip out a protracter and use the pythagorean theorem.. (jk just make sure to turn on the option for target preview).
@@Ronar222 Sadly all my options are "Show action cam" "Enable autosave" "Show enemy health" "Enable zip mode" (under gameplay), that's it :(
Still thanks for the response
@@clenterra654 Are you on pc?
@@Ronar222 yes, same as him:
ruclips.net/video/StpWZ0yMKPY/видео.html
@@clenterra654 I just checked and XCOM 2 doesn't have the option to toggle it like in your video, but my game without any mods or dlc installed does show the pip next to hp as well as target indicators without needing to turn on options (I uninstalled everything to test just for you!). I am 100% sure that is a vanilla mechanic since game launch and have no idea why you don't have it. There's a mod that helps display this info in a more effective way called: "gotcha" on the workshop. It basically displays info that you already have in vanilla and its the same one I use in my other videos. If you can't get the vanilla target preview to work, that mod does it better.
Vanilla in my book always sounds like "without DLC" and not "without mods" but maybe that's just me
it's just you :)
@@OneStrongBow ok :)
yeah absolutly just you lol, vanilla literally means "play the game without MODifying it" so a DLC is vanilla, a mod is not lol
Very helpful. I learned a lot from this. Thank you
I know this video is a bit old, but I was completing legendary ironman and I finally got out of early game, but got unlucky rolls with chosen and died at the mission with the cannon.
Basically how do you deal with Chosen and things which are technically only once per run like the final mission?
If you can reach the final mission, it shouldn't be too bad once you have max ranked troops. Psi troopers can make games a lot easier with their guaranteed damage, and they're easy to train too. I personally like to have 3 heroes + Ranger + Sharpshooter + Grenadier. Give the grenadier all the shooting perks and aim pcs + scope and they can reliably shred all the sectopods and gatekeepers you find. One thing I did in vanilla was put bluescreen rounds on the entire team. Sharpshooters with fanfire bluescreen can wreck sectopods once your gunner strips all of its armor with a chainshot.
I just lost my ironman legend run 3 months in due to council VIP rescue mission. 3 pods ('officer+mech' and 2x 'viper + 2 stun lancers' hugged the truck the VIP was in for like 4 turns and I had to skip a turn to trigger only 2 which led me to running out of time and it was a squad wipe. It was super unlucky pod spawn and super unlucky distance, the extraction point was literally 2 entire yellow moves from the VIP and the VIP itself was like 3 yellow turns from the starting spawn. I guess I should have just backed out of the other group's ranges and try to trigger the first group and then it would have gone completely different, but at least now I know. Trying to get value from the group concealment can be deadly on these time limited missions.
In the early game you eat the loss and skip, never take those missions along with supply raids. These missions are meat grinders meaning only do those missions if your team is better equipped or you want to push rookies out and see who lives to be promoted. The only time it should be considered is if the mission is to kill or capture the VIP because your team can try to make a B line toward the exit, pot shot the VIP, then get out, don't try capturing until better equipped.
@@MarkFin9423 Thanks for the tip, yeah I for some reason always want all the rewards early on as they are so handy as everything is lacking and so often those VIP missions have exactly what I'd want and the mission is kind of too much risk/resource investment to do otherwise even with rookies unless they're discounted by continent bonus or the reward is worth losing some 160 supplies for which it usually isn't especially as I name all new members individually to grow attached to them, similar to a Nuzlocke Pokemon run.
Ronar going joker mode in this video
finally! realistic ironman guide.
When i start a game its 4 rookies and only the trooper and captain pods, is there something ticked somewhere that adds the sectoid pod and gives you a skirmisher?
Legend difficulty adds the sectoid, WOTC adds the hero if you don't check the tutorial at the start.
@@Ronar222 couldve sworn i didnt check tutorial, huh
Dude I'm doing normal Ironman and getting my ass kicked the first month hopefully I can pull through alot of times I'll think their safe and the floor gets shot out from under em and other stuff I didn't know about lol
Do you know the aoe range of the Warlock’s psi zombie when spectral rupture is activated? Can a psi zombie dash and still explode on the same turn?
Is there a reason why the Lost just didnt attack your guy? They were literally like 2 tiles away from your soldier and just walked up to them and did nothing
based
PS just be yourself
wish i knew that that about crits.
Woulda really changed up my tactics.
bro you open my mind lmao
Whats that outro them tho? Its fire
The wtf am i doing is annoying af, man. Besides that, thanks for the video
24:35 and 24:55 ... huh?
What's the question?
@@Ronar222 Only that I couldn't hear what you were saying over the noise of the gunfire :)
seems like what other ppl say really bothers you
Now if aliens don't get aim bonuses, do they get the negatives like being to far?
yes they do have aim penalty by range. But that doesnt mean u can freely go anywhere and take less cover againts them. The more aim penalty fr enemies,the better.
It's really not that hard. You've got so many tactical options in Xcom2 that it's pretty straightforward compared to Enemy Within.
i wish the game gave us MORE INFO ... like i died mostly because of lack of info, like that 25% chance to roll 4 dmg with grenade and such... MORE INFO PLZ
or that some actions reveal repaer or dont... or that enemies can go this far or attack even when yellow moving... and such
or that enemies dont have distance aim bonuses ( or disadventages )
l-l-l-l- like WTF why doesnt it tell oyu ?
Aslo, tfw ALL THE PEOPLE get spawned at the other side of the map and your side is full of faceless... and aliens are on the other side of the map killing people in retaliation... and then Chosen appears... and they keep killing people.... *ANGY*
Basically been doing what's in this video anyway, so none of this was helpful. I am just super unlucky...
Nice to know about target previews, but still probably get rekt...
to much talk
Some of the salt in these comments is hilarious 😂😂 lucky lucky lucky.
Git Gud.
Very condescending tbh.
Not doubting your skill but it would prove a lot more if you didn't have mods installed to make the combat easier....
Nothing is modded in this lol, everything is a setting you can enable in game. I even specifically removed all my cosmetics which is why someone is missing an arm during the stream.