I am not sure how it works now but last time i checked bladestorm had 70% accuracy modifier so it could miss some times. And assassin's blade is not technically "never misses" it has +100 accuracy so it is really hard to miss with it. Although i believe some rare combinations of circumstances can lead to that. But regular bladestorm accuracy modifier is not enough to bring that +100% modified attack below guarantied hit.
@@theartofgames1307 The description does say that, which is mostly accurate. It adds enough accuracy that it only has a chance to miss when used against a target that would be impossible to hit with any other melee weapon.
The only case i see is a poisoned squaddie targeting a gatekepper 69 (Base aim) + 100 (Katana buff) = 169, 169-30 (Poisoned) - 40 (Gatekepper defense) = 99% chance to hit
Even with 100% chance you'll still have a chance to miss the game alters the values based on how well your doing vs how well the enemy is doing and things like getting hit or missing shots (it's very complicated and I don't remember the exact values but) getting hit will (if I remember correctly) lower your chance of well getting hit again by a certain percentage basically the game never really has 100% hit chance for you or the enemies as its constantly being lowered and raised yes the RNG has RNG
Running into a pod to slash them all with Blademaster as they scatter is one of my favorite things in the game. The only thing cooler is when enemies drop reinforcements, to put a Bladestorm soldier right on top of the red dot. It's so fun to imagine Advent soldiers looking down from their dropship, seeing a grinning Ranger with a blade drawn out, and realizing they have no choice but to go down right next to that madman.
@@LAZERAK47V2 Until you get a Templar with Bladestorm and Fortress. Then it's "come on Purifier, explode all you want - I could use the extra damage on your buddies".
I'm in the middle of a Sharpshooter Only campaign right now at the moment. The only problem with that is it feels like you need so much xp to level up and get to that point. Once you get to that point though? A platoon of gunslingers using lightning hands and face off is amazing.
when i did a sharpshooter only playthrough, I found it BRUTAL in the first few missions, but a complete cake walk once my guys were ranked up a bit. Easier at that point than any other I've done.
There is a reason to give assault rifles to rangers in normal gameplay: When your assault rifles are upgraded but shot guns are not in case you don't have enough resources to upgrade both
Agreed, the guranteed higher damage at a safer range from the magnetic rifles are more worth it then hoping for a crit with the same or lower damage then the base shotguns. This changes when you finally get the upgraded shotgun obviously.
A word of advice be carefull when selecting a Ranger for your mission if u have magnetic assult rifles but not Shard guns for the Rangers. Maybe this only happens when u use the reset equipped weapons button at the button of the screen. But i found out the hard way that becouse magnetic assult rifles did higher base dmg then regular shotguns my Ranger was auto equipped with a magnetic assult rifle instead of hes regular shotgun.
I’ve always found it interesting that rangers get an ability called Reaper, and then they later introduced a faction called the Reapers that has nothing to do with melee at all.
I can respect it. The topic of Death, the Grim Reaper in our culture, is such a broad subject, and every cultures interpretation of it is very varied from sad to welcoming. I see the ability is where you invoke the personification of Death’s dreaded passion for slicing, having death all around you. The group of reapers are just a team where they love the idea of moving in the shadows, just like Death, and blowing out the light of their healthy enemies when they least expects it. It’s nasty to think that the personification of Death is hanging around in the background, and you don’t know it til he wants you to know.
Perhaps there is an in universe debate among them. Also, reapers have the banish ability that deals tremendous amounts of damage among others, something that is part of ranger culture.
52:18 That is correct: each soldier can only use Bladestorm once per turn on each individual enemy. So your two Rangers there couldn't Bladestorm the Viper King on the way to his portal because they'd already Bladestormed him earlier in that turn. Also, yes, Spectres (or any other enemy with Lightning Reflexes) can and will cause Bladestorm attacks from the Katana to miss. Aside from enemies with Shadowstep, which won't trigger Bladestorm at all, that's the only case where the Katana won't hit.
It was never a question of if it could be done, but how hard the aliens were going to be stomped. And I do appreciate showing off that failed run. Failure is the best teacher, they say.
1:02:30 I believe reaction attacks, including Bladestorm, have noticeably reduced accuracy. That's the only way I can justify my Rangers missing them so often.
@@vixshire3672 When seeing these classes in a vacuum you really start seeing the strengths and weaknesses they have. Under normal circumstances you don't bring just X class because it's understood that bringing variety multiplies your effectiveness.
@@kirbyis4ever that’s true but when there in a vacuum like this they’re S&W are magnified substantially letting you better select what you need to cover what example bringing a billion and one assaults is fun until you need range I just noticed you were on my side… I thought you were saying that the variety invalidates any information that these focus campaigns give
I believe I had on instance of a Ranger rolling the "Aim" perk, whom I've give Deep Cover to, but only for AP in addition to Untouchable. It's just such a good perk. Rangers are my favourite class and I rarely play a mission without two. Specters and their immunity against Bladestorm are therefore the bane of my existence Arashi is a game changer. I play with a mod that adds the ballistic shields from Long War of the Chosen, which have a mobility penalty, and Arashi's reduced long range shot accuracy penalty on a shield-carrying ranger makes them ultra-deadly. And yet, somehow, Katana is on yet another level. It is _insanely_ powerful. When you replied to my comment on your previous video that none of the chosen had "Brittle" I knew exactly what was going to happen instead. And I can't fault you for starting over, I would probably have Alt+F4'd upon seeing the melee-immune 'Lock too. It's nice to have this insight into how these challenge runs can be doomed... I really need to start watching your twitch channel. That shotgun blast in the first supply raid that missed and destroyed a crate instead hurt me on a spiritual level. But I guess the faceless corpses were the real valuable stuff. After this series is done, would you be interested in trying single class challenge runs with modded classes? Such as Lucubration's "Infantry" class, Iridar's "Stormrider" or maybe the LWotC classes?
One thing i always loved about running from enemies in this game, is getting a free shot on enemies when you are in the evac area! As long as you stand in the evac area, you can shoot at an enemy and still evac on the same turn. I use this often to grind some kills if i have time left on the timer, just letting reinforcements drop into me, and then shoot at them until i can't kill all of them, or the timer is at 1...
I’ve used Deep Cover when I get it as an xcom ability on Sharpshooter. Combine that with the ability that gives you +15 aim after hunkering and your first shot after moving is very good
Yeah the early game was painful and honestly, the fact that a chosen even COULD spawn in with immunity to a type of damage AND health regeneration should have been patched out...but I guess things only get patched out if they make things to easy for the player. Anyway, letting out your inner "Samurai Jack" looks awesome and I'm proud to see ADVENT on the business end of a one sided ass kicking for once in the late game. I'm looking forward to the Grenadiers only playthrough, the amount of explosions and fires are probably going to lead to a LOT of game crashes. The only problem I can see with this class will be...Grenadiers have bad aim at every range early on.
The melee immunity isn't a huge deal, the problem was the challenge run. Most times, you aren't running all Rangers, so being immune to melee isn't a big deal. The Health Regen can be brutal though, especially on the Assassin. Melee attacks are highly discouraged by most high end players because of how risky they are. Getting up close for a shotgun shot is usually far more reliable, as you are much more accurate (prior to obtaining Blademaster) and you aren't potentially left out of cover and exposed to other pods. People even recommend (if the mission allows it) to drop an evac zone on your Ranger's future position, just in case things go south (and they often do). That way, you can extract them from the mission without potentially losing them to a whole bunch of flanked shots and the activated pod will have to relocate towards your back line.
@@Musik2Huhn True but I think the power boost that having psy operatives early will make up for that. Plus as long as you are careful and play it smart they are really hard to kill.
@@Musik2Huhn You can actually get an entire roster of Psi Operatives without building the Psi Lab with the "WOTC Use My Class" mod, so getting a full squad wouldn't be too hard. Though they would still need the Psi Lab to actually learn their skills.
When it finally comes time for marksmen only, we all know what Sniper name will be obligatory *White Death* (totally going to live up to the name despite this being XCOM)
I always love using the axe with rangers. It has the same stats as the normal swords, but it also has a stunchance and gives you a free attack once every mission, which has saved my skin many times
A really good challenge! Honestly, the rangers are one of my favorite classes, and your run just made me love them even more! Have you tried beating XCOM2 with only secondary weapons (pistols, swords, gremlins, claymores, ripjacks, autopistols, etc)
I absolutely *love* max-ranked rangers. With Run and Gun, Implacible, Untouchable, and Rapid Fire, I just go up with two of them, one-shot kill with their storm guns, then position them so the rest just fizzle out their turns attacking them.
This pretty much sums up my experience with rangers. I find them rather lacking in the early game (and probably the class i'm least upset about being on sick leave), but come mid-game, around the time you get hunter's instinct, they really start just kicking anything and everything to the curb.
I think it’s worth noting that the first retaliation mission has little consequence for failure. Because it can be so difficult I evac from it all the time when the chosen start to wreck me and all that comes of it is a small monthly supply reduction.
Another endlessly entertaining video Drifter. I love the story telling you can weave with these characters, it really adds that extra layer into these videos. Looking forward to seeing the squad reimagined as grenadiers next time!
What happened with the sarcophagus and Rapid Fire is something that can happen on every object you theoretically are guaranteed to hit; Relays, the spike on Avenger Defense etc. Skills like Chain Shot, Rapid Fire, Deadeye and so on carry an aim penalty. That penalty applies to those objects. So what happened in this video is that Rapid Fire gave you two 85% shots against the sarcophagus; 100% to hit minus the 15% penalty of Rapid Fire.
I would assume that Stun Lancers are included in the "Beast" category because their autopsy states that ADVENT included Berserker genes in them to heighten their aggression.
Ngl I’d consider it a stretch but it does make sense with the lore I suppose, it also makes sense as to how stun lancers never seem to be hit by berserkers while they are raging
My reasoning is that "beast" is just a synonym of "melee" for the game, so it just includes everything whose primary mode of attack is to slap/claw/poke you.
I evac from the first retaliation mission all the time when something like the assassin comes in and instakills my rookie. The only consequence is a small monthly supply reduction lol. You might want to consider it when future play throughs also look dire at the first retaliation mission.
Finding your videos got me back into XCOM. I played it a few years ago but rage quit because I had no idea about the gorilla tactics facility upgrading squad size! Now I'm utterly addicted and just took out the assassin's fortress!
Great stuff! As flak/bulletproof vests are armour when facing enemies with range/projectile weapons it's worth bearing in mind that mindshields are armour when facing enemies with psi-abilities.
A really fun mod I would suggest is Ayy Lmao. It replaces a lot of game text, with different, "funnier" options. They can be pretty vulgar, so it's not really for everyone, but maybe it's your cup of tea? Screenshots in Steam convey what to expect pretty well. My favorite ones are Faceless as "Fellow Humans", Advent Troopers as "Advent Mall Ninjas", "Wow you survived" for victory screen, and, of course, Chosen as "Edgelords". That one is golden.
I found your channel about a week ago and want to say Thank you for the amazing content. Gonna wait for the next run to unleash hell on advent with grenades and rockets
havent watched the whole thing yet, but i do have to say that ranger does have a very strong advantage over templars, and that's the ability to have three weapon choices instead of 1 and a half. you have amazing flexibility over whether or not to engage within sword-slashing distance, or keeping at range with an assault rifle or shotgun at mid range.
I'm not sure if I should thank you or curse you, your videos got me back into playing XCOM and let's just say that if I was in charge XCOM 2 is definitely canon. Great video, looking forward to more.
I think the "intel for people" on the black market could be seen as a hiring service, not trafficking. We give them Intel, they let us hire one of their own. Or, alternatively, they tell us where someone who wants to work with us is.
I was concerned at the early difficulty but by the end the advent were just getting massacred. Awesome stuff and I can't wait for Grenadiers. No cover left standing I hope.
Entertaining as always Drifter, hope you keep up the good work. That moment with the sarcophagus and rapid fire. Yeah that can happen with Rapid Fire, Chain Shot or Deadeye. Basically the game sets your "to hit" chance at 100% when you're attacking an object, regardless of your positioning or other bonuses like scopes. However, when you use an ability that reduces your accuracy, it will apply that reduction to 100% straight up. In short, you cannot benefit from aim bonuses vs objects, but aim penalties due to abilities do still apply.
Deep Cover can work pretty well if you can't close the distance with an enemy (like the problems you were having at the start). But Untouchable is just vastly superior, since you always want to be killing enemies regardless and it makes one of melee combat's biggest weaknesses (being exposed) far less punishing. You can also use it to manipulate the AI, since they'll likely try for the flank shot on your out of cover soldier (and Untouchable forces the attack to miss). It's especially good if you can use it to force buried Crysalids out of the ground, since they'll sprint at your Ranger and make an attack (potentially taking a Bladestorm), which will also miss (due to Untouchable). Make sure to set it up with a kill though. Deep Cover is better used as a sidegrade (pick it up if you have some spare ability points), but it's actually quite viable on Sharpshooters as a bonus ability, since they can pair it with Aim. As long as they don't make an attack that turn (something they can't do with their Sniper Rifles if they move), they can benefit from the Deep Cover, which procs Aim on the next turn. As an added bonus, you can trigger Deep Cover after entering Overwatch, which will add the Aim buff to the Overwatch shot, meaning you can have a Sniper with nigh perfect accuracy out-ranging the Hunter himself. Basically, the choice between the two for a Ranger is the same problem Blast Padding and Shredder have: One is defensive (Deep Cover) and the other is offensive (Untouchable) and the best defense in Xcom is to make sure you never get shot at to begin with.
Grenadier only? I'm ready to see you almost NEVER hit with the machinegun but turn most missions into the 1812 Overture. Rangers are definitely one of my favourites, and my second pick for Class only runs, although, most of my main game squads once i had the squad upgrades got an extra Sharpshooter and Ranger where available. I'd never gone only Rangers for the whole campaign, but seeing it certainly didn't disappoint. Excellent job Drifter, see you in the next one.
Those concealed ranger Doing ratbag type of scouting Ratbag: I'll stay back and scout the area I'm a really good scout Talion: scouts usually go on ahead Ratbag: and die that's why I'm such a good scout
ranger is really difficuult early on, but once you have concealment on 3 or 4 it becomes so overpowered. i did a ranger run after watching this video and now i am doing a wotc run. both times concealment has been key to my playstyle. Once you have untouchable you are literally untouchable with a bunch of rangers.
Aka the 'CLOSE RANGE??' challenge. Rangers are my second favourite class. Bladestorm, though, is my favourite ability in the entire game. Though, bladestorm does suffer the -20% to hit of normal overwatch attacks. (which is why getting on a templar is so lit) but the Arashi gives the same effect.
the Warlocks gun is pretty much the only time I give an assault an assault rifle. I usually have my specialists doing other things and you can easily kill stuff like Codexes and Gatekeepers, especially if you combine it with special ammo like blue screen rounds or armor piercing rounds.
"There's no reason to give a ranger an assault rifle" I prefer the higher chance to hit over the increased damage, at least until they get to a higher rank where I can push rangers up further without worry (I.E captain+) where I switch to the shard gun and later the storm gun. In the early game, the ranger is more of a specialist in combat (I.R move and shoot) with the ability to deal with sectoids and finishing enemies in full cover and no available nades.
Every time i watch one of your videos i really want to play xcom2. You make this game look so fun :D. To bad i don't have time for it. Thanks for the great uploads. I can't believe that you play a challenge run without extending the mission timers tho. They feel so short. Oh and i really liked the fact that you showed the failed attempt in the beginning. I didn't expect this but it was a really nice surprise. And it shows that you are just as mortal as we are :D. One nitpick tho: i would explain things like tactical analysis at least once per video. There is always the chance that this video is the first XCOM 2 video someone sees.
I have thought about explaining the abilities, but I think explaining all of them every video would just take too long, so I normally do it once and then that's it. Not perfect, I know.
Your videos came up in my recommend, which made me have the itch for playing Xcom2 again. I never bothered with Mimic beacons before but I'm finding them stupidly beneficial that it's like I am playing the game for the first time. I will say though the Bonds giving teammates additional moves is definitely something you could abuse more in your runs, if you're going to do an all Sniper run I recommend investing in the bonds because it'll pay off with you being able to move the snipers and then overwatch or give line of sight snipers an extra shot from ones not in line of sight or too far away.
@The Drifter's Broadcast Also haven't checked out your twitch channel for full playthroughs, but just throwing this out incase because apparently it's not well known. If you hold down the Ctrl key you can make your own path for the soldiers by selecting waypoints with the right mouse button. It lessens the amount of movement overall but it's been a godsend for stopping me from triggering patrols or breaking glass and causing a reveal.
Rapid fire not hitting sarcophagus is not a glitch (or it is kind of, but not glitchy glitch). Targeting sarcophagus works on 100% hit cap. That means normal attacks always have a 100% chance to hit the sarcophagus. But if you take any ability like rapid fire, chain shot, deadeye etc which decreases the chance to hit because of aim penalties, irrespective of chance to hit shown to you, game will always calculate it from base 100% and then subtract the penalty amount. So a 100% dead eye shot can also miss sarcophagus, because actually it is 100% minus the dead eye penalty. Rapid fire also puts 15% penalty so it may miss. Similar for chain shot.etc.
The only time I have used Deep Cover was when I was lucky enough to get it as a bonus ability for a sharpshooter. Works really good with another ability.
Deep Cover is pretty useful for a gun wielding mimic beacon with Aid Protocol, giving a soldier 70% defense and 20 dodge which along with dodge stacking can make for a great distraction which combined with tactical analysis can make enemies have to choose between either being out of position or not shooting. Threat Assessment also gives the Deep Cover Ranger an extra shot when an enemy does anything and he can still proc bladestorm to do a hefty about of damage. All of this still isn't better than Untouchable however and is something to grab on the side as an "in case of emergency" play where you need to cover some out of position soldiers from a surprise pod or from RNG going bad.
This inspired me to do my own ranger only run, but in standard Xcom2 and the alien hunters DLC. I just got a ranger who completed 2 missions completly by herself Without an injury while being a sqauddie on the first and a corporal on the 2nd mission. The game nicknamed her "Judgment day".
Update report for just me, I think: I have both the last missions of Xcom 2 prepared, about to do the Avenger defense mission, and planning to kill all the rulers after the defense mission. However proving ground experimental ammo is glitched out and I have not been given my experimental ammo aftee they were completes 3 times. Now I am also doing a no experimental ammo run. Edit: I one shot the viper king with an execution and nearly killed the beserker Queen on my first encounter with her. Edit 2: beserker queen died on the second encounter. Edit 3: Archon king suffered the same fate as beserker queen.
You inspired me to try and finally complete this game on commander difficulty. I've done it several times on veteran, but I always get crushed and demoralized on commander. The hardest missions really are the first few ones, since (as you've already mentioned) the soldiers' aim is absolute dogshit before they rank up and get better gear. Right then, I guess I was correct last time that this was going to be an easy run *conveniently forgets all the failed ones*. I predict the lost missions on the next run should be a bit annoying :p but also that you'll get complacent and run out of grenades since they really don't do as much damage as one might like. Loot will be harder to come by, too. All those poor blown up elerium cores. Should be a fun watch, tho!
"If I showed every mission, these videos would be 8 hours long," he says as if it's a bad thing. Idk about anyone else, but I'd still watch it. It'd just have to be in 4 or 5 sittings instead of 2 or 3. Also, your vids have inspired me to try my hand at my own challenge run for this game. Cheers!
I look forward to the all psy-unit run. Almost feel like it's a Soviet Run because of their give another action ability "Comrade, my turn is over" "The turn is never over comrade for it is OUR turn" (and then you add team-bonds and basically you can have one guy do everything).
Regarding the question at 49:35 about Deep Cover. By it self, Deep Cover is fairly useless, but if a soldier also gets the Aim (Hunker Down gives +20 aim next shot made) perk from the Sharpshooter tree then I will. If you also get Ever Vigilent from Specialist on top of that, then you end up with a soldier that gets a stupid amount of aim on overwatch while doing a double move. This is scary on nearly any class, but for Rangers, it means you can run them into a position where they can force an enemy to move, and there is a high chance the Ranger will kill that enemy on Advent's turn.
Haven't watched the video yet, but considering that rangers are the only class that I ever train at the GTS and typically run 4 or 5 of them for every mission, I'm going to say that's a big yes.
Goodness, Grenadiers only will be crazy. I can't help but wonder what Marksmen only will be like. They'll do well in most missions, but the timed missions will make things dicey, at least early on before you get the really good pistol skills.
Grenadiers are CURSED. My grenadiers in ALL playthroughs RELIABLY miss 90%+ shoots multiple times in a single mission. And it's the reason i hate them, but in normal game they are the only ones who can "reliably" shred enemy armor. But i throw them away as shooting units if 2-3 of my non grenadier soldiers have shred. I just launch grenades and holotarget enemy units with them as they are garbage in my eyes.
I think that the game classifies the sectopod taser field and priests stasis as abilities, not attacks, so you wont get a reaction attack on them. Not 100% on this but it could make sense. I really like these challenge runs and they’ve made me wish that there was a way to only use the robots in chimera squad as that would be quite the challenge and one I’d really love to see. Keep on keeping on.
I mostly use Deep Cover with modded classes/the xcom tree that give it to snipers or medics, since it makes much more sense on them. But I can see why it's part of the stealth tree for Ranger; You're more likely to be sprinting with your phantom rangers to scout, so if they get flanked and revealed they have the benefit of the extra defense and dodge in case they get shot at. Also I think it activates if you soldier is hit by stasis from a priest and when they panic, which usually puts them in pretty bad cover. It's just ultimately outclassed by Untouchable since Rangers are such high burst damage, so even your phantom is more likely to one shot enemies than they are do not attack.
If you are looking for ideas once you finish all the base game things, using the RPG Overhaul and some of the compatible mods, there is an option to randomize the classes, which could create some interesting combinations.
I've used a rifle on a ranger. It was because I only had 1 leveled up ranger and didn't want to spend the research and resources to upgrade the shotgun. So for most of that campaign my ranger used a rifle. Near the end I finally had the time/resources and got that ranger a shotgun.
I got my wisdom teeth removed yesterday and still hurts pretty bad. I love xcom and all ur playthroughs to the point I think I've seen all ur one class runs. Rangers are my favorite class and I want to thank you for the distraction with your amazing content
@@TheDriftersBroadcast I'm doing a lot better then when I started at least. Pain is minimal especially with the ibuprofen. Thank you for your concern:). Currently watching the primary weapons only video again while I play my own game of xcom.
Hi drifter one more time a good video, love this challengers and i m wainting to see another one!! This i think was one of the easiest to andle, even when u started like 5 times of so, but was much easier than the others i think!! I think the real challenge will be only with snipers and only with psi operatives that the fact that u don’t have psi amp at the beggining!! Look forward to those challanges. Keep up my friend!
I have found some success with giving rangers ARs in the mid-game and using them one very large maps as long range flank-classes when dealing with cover loving high damage enemies such as mutons or higher level advent troops (I use the better advent mod a lot) it's also worth using a mag-rifle over a standard shot-gun if you can't afford the shard-gun IMO as early-mid game crit modifiers are pretty low anyway.
I really like deep cover on rangers to help with scouting. Scanning beacons miss, sometimes I just accidentally scout too far ahead on that first turn. Hunker down works great with a support who can use Aid to give them very high dodge chance. I stack my rangers with dodge so when I make a mistake a ranger can soak up some of that. I also prefer assault rifles on them since I find shotguns unreliable and somewhat redundant when you have a sword. Automatic misses are great, but when you've already stacked dodge it can be redundant. Also aid grants overwatch, which makes it really good action economy. I don't use rangers as much as other players, so I prefer to keep them safer and I don't go fishing for big kill strings because I have unbearably bad luck - when I get a bad string it's crazy. Mox's inspiration can cover misplays a bit, or mimic beacons, but I tend to send rangers on risky objectives because it's fun. I like trying to get across the map to save civilians, which means more risk for them even though civilians are not worth the risk, I like to play a different way. Mostly it's the synergy with specialists that I like about it, it makes for an interesting first turn. I tend to mix and match teams a lot too - a well designed squad with a reaper and scan beacons will never have this problem, but if the reaper gets caught it's reload time. If a ranger gets caught, time to get creative. One other benefit, if your ranger gets burning you can just run and it's gone. I can be impatient though too, and I don't like risking sword combinations. For me having 3-4 ways to shore up an accidental "spot" really helps. Not just one guy with a mimic beacon or a scan beacon, but a synergy of them so when you accidentally draw half the map you have SOME recourse. But I tend to play wildly with a kind of roleplaying aspect. I also didn't particularly spend to upgrade my rangers, going for grenadiers and sharpshooters because I feel rangers / reapers are gods of doing objectives. This where it's really useful. Run in, stop, use teamwork to finish the objective and get some distance. Hunker down, aid. It's kinda thrilling and I found this tactic very useful mid game when I was having major issues. It also baits a lot of lancers into blade master though grenades are naturally a risk. Another thing about this combination... it doesn't use a resource that isn't renewable. Shadow / concealment tech is useful in a pinch, but you only get so much of that. It also makes a great skill for anyone who has ever vigilant, because that's dash, down, overwatch. Makes for great map moves. It definitely is going up against a major skill though, getting a free block is greaf especially if you want a different PCS or setup. Someone running aim certainly benefits from the free block and stacking with reaper is obviously great. It just has its uses. I definitely spend team AP to get it, because that unlucky scout happens and when I'm on ironman, I like the panic button synergy and the aid / overwatch combo, to me, is just super fun. Anyway just sharing.
I do like seeing the failed attempts or maybe even intermittently cutting in at key points to highlight where you failed in previous runs would be cool
I am not sure how it works now but last time i checked bladestorm had 70% accuracy modifier so it could miss some times. And assassin's blade is not technically "never misses" it has +100 accuracy so it is really hard to miss with it. Although i believe some rare combinations of circumstances can lead to that. But regular bladestorm accuracy modifier is not enough to bring that +100% modified attack below guarantied hit.
This is good info. Cheers.
From what killer assassins blade discription it says i “think” that never miss a target!!
@@theartofgames1307
The description does say that, which is mostly accurate. It adds enough accuracy that it only has a chance to miss when used against a target that would be impossible to hit with any other melee weapon.
The only case i see is a poisoned squaddie targeting a gatekepper 69 (Base aim) + 100 (Katana buff) = 169, 169-30 (Poisoned) - 40 (Gatekepper defense) = 99% chance to hit
Even with 100% chance you'll still have a chance to miss the game alters the values based on how well your doing vs how well the enemy is doing and things like getting hit or missing shots (it's very complicated and I don't remember the exact values but) getting hit will (if I remember correctly) lower your chance of well getting hit again by a certain percentage basically the game never really has 100% hit chance for you or the enemies as its constantly being lowered and raised yes the RNG has RNG
Running into a pod to slash them all with Blademaster as they scatter is one of my favorite things in the game. The only thing cooler is when enemies drop reinforcements, to put a Bladestorm soldier right on top of the red dot. It's so fun to imagine Advent soldiers looking down from their dropship, seeing a grinning Ranger with a blade drawn out, and realizing they have no choice but to go down right next to that madman.
Until they drop a Purifier on you and...
Well, you know the rest.
and get absolutetly destroyed
@@LAZERAK47V2 Until you get a Templar with Bladestorm and Fortress. Then it's "come on Purifier, explode all you want - I could use the extra damage on your buddies".
RULES OF NATURE
Raiden voicepack when modders?
Same for me.
Specially If they got stunned
Cannot wait for the Gunslinger only campaign where you just activate all pods and have all your soldiers use Face-off, ahhhh good times....
One gunslinger has to be named “Oprah”. You get a bullet, you get a bullet, everyone gets a bullet.
I'm in the middle of a Sharpshooter Only campaign right now at the moment. The only problem with that is it feels like you need so much xp to level up and get to that point.
Once you get to that point though? A platoon of gunslingers using lightning hands and face off is amazing.
when i did a sharpshooter only playthrough, I found it BRUTAL in the first few missions, but a complete cake walk once my guys were ranked up a bit. Easier at that point than any other I've done.
I would watch that
Also known as the McCree moment.
ITS HIGH NOON
There is a reason to give assault rifles to rangers in normal gameplay:
When your assault rifles are upgraded but shot guns are not in case you don't have enough resources to upgrade both
Agreed, the guranteed higher damage at a safer range from the magnetic rifles are more worth it then hoping for a crit with the same or lower damage then the base shotguns. This changes when you finally get the upgraded shotgun obviously.
Or when you've gotten breakthroughs for rifle damage or other upgrades
I do that in almost every playthrough of XCOM enemy within, because upgraded guns are limited there
A word of advice be carefull when selecting a Ranger for your mission if u have magnetic assult rifles but not Shard guns for the Rangers. Maybe this only happens when u use the reset equipped weapons button at the button of the screen. But i found out the hard way that becouse magnetic assult rifles did higher base dmg then regular shotguns my Ranger was auto equipped with a magnetic assult rifle instead of hes regular shotgun.
I love giving a blade master ranger the warlocks rifle. Makes them super deadly in any situation.
I’ve always found it interesting that rangers get an ability called Reaper, and then they later introduced a faction called the Reapers that has nothing to do with melee at all.
Yeah, that does bother me a little bit.
Should have gave them a skill that allows Reapers to move further when dashing.
They could call it Ranger
I can respect it. The topic of Death, the Grim Reaper in our culture, is such a broad subject, and every cultures interpretation of it is very varied from sad to welcoming. I see the ability is where you invoke the personification of Death’s dreaded passion for slicing, having death all around you. The group of reapers are just a team where they love the idea of moving in the shadows, just like Death, and blowing out the light of their healthy enemies when they least expects it. It’s nasty to think that the personification of Death is hanging around in the background, and you don’t know it til he wants you to know.
Perhaps there is an in universe debate among them.
Also, reapers have the banish ability that deals tremendous amounts of damage among others, something that is part of ranger culture.
52:18 That is correct: each soldier can only use Bladestorm once per turn on each individual enemy. So your two Rangers there couldn't Bladestorm the Viper King on the way to his portal because they'd already Bladestormed him earlier in that turn.
Also, yes, Spectres (or any other enemy with Lightning Reflexes) can and will cause Bladestorm attacks from the Katana to miss. Aside from enemies with Shadowstep, which won't trigger Bladestorm at all, that's the only case where the Katana won't hit.
It was never a question of if it could be done, but how hard the aliens were going to be stomped.
And I do appreciate showing off that failed run. Failure is the best teacher, they say.
1:02:30
I believe reaction attacks, including Bladestorm, have noticeably reduced accuracy. That's the only way I can justify my Rangers missing them so often.
Bladestorm suffers -20 accuracy of overwatch attacks, or -40 if the enemy is dashing.
They are considered a reaction so there is a penalty and lightning reflexes should dodge it even with assassin’s blade.
templars with bladestorm, now that's the stuff.
@@SaltyRocksPew laughs in Katana
I can honestly say watching these have actually made me a better player (Idk how, but they have)
Yeah me too!
I believe it has to do with you growing an understanding of the value of a class
@@vixshire3672 When seeing these classes in a vacuum you really start seeing the strengths and weaknesses they have. Under normal circumstances you don't bring just X class because it's understood that bringing variety multiplies your effectiveness.
@@kirbyis4ever that’s true but when there in a vacuum like this they’re S&W are magnified substantially letting you better select what you need to cover what example bringing a billion and one assaults is fun until you need range
I just noticed you were on my side… I thought you were saying that the variety invalidates any information that these focus campaigns give
same
I believe I had on instance of a Ranger rolling the "Aim" perk, whom I've give Deep Cover to, but only for AP in addition to Untouchable. It's just such a good perk.
Rangers are my favourite class and I rarely play a mission without two. Specters and their immunity against Bladestorm are therefore the bane of my existence
Arashi is a game changer. I play with a mod that adds the ballistic shields from Long War of the Chosen, which have a mobility penalty, and Arashi's reduced long range shot accuracy penalty on a shield-carrying ranger makes them ultra-deadly.
And yet, somehow, Katana is on yet another level. It is _insanely_ powerful.
When you replied to my comment on your previous video that none of the chosen had "Brittle" I knew exactly what was going to happen instead. And I can't fault you for starting over, I would probably have Alt+F4'd upon seeing the melee-immune 'Lock too. It's nice to have this insight into how these challenge runs can be doomed... I really need to start watching your twitch channel.
That shotgun blast in the first supply raid that missed and destroyed a crate instead hurt me on a spiritual level. But I guess the faceless corpses were the real valuable stuff.
After this series is done, would you be interested in trying single class challenge runs with modded classes? Such as Lucubration's "Infantry" class, Iridar's "Stormrider" or maybe the LWotC classes?
One thing i always loved about running from enemies in this game, is getting a free shot on enemies when you are in the evac area!
As long as you stand in the evac area, you can shoot at an enemy and still evac on the same turn. I use this often to grind some kills if i have time left on the timer, just letting reinforcements drop into me, and then shoot at them until i can't kill all of them, or the timer is at 1...
I’ve used Deep Cover when I get it as an xcom ability on Sharpshooter. Combine that with the ability that gives you +15 aim after hunkering and your first shot after moving is very good
I like how you keep reusing the "rules" card, gives a character to the whole series.
Yeah the early game was painful and honestly, the fact that a chosen even COULD spawn in with immunity to a type of damage AND health regeneration should have been patched out...but I guess things only get patched out if they make things to easy for the player.
Anyway, letting out your inner "Samurai Jack" looks awesome and I'm proud to see ADVENT on the business end of a one sided ass kicking for once in the late game. I'm looking forward to the Grenadiers only playthrough, the amount of explosions and fires are probably going to lead to a LOT of game crashes. The only problem I can see with this class will be...Grenadiers have bad aim at every range early on.
The melee immunity isn't a huge deal, the problem was the challenge run. Most times, you aren't running all Rangers, so being immune to melee isn't a big deal.
The Health Regen can be brutal though, especially on the Assassin.
Melee attacks are highly discouraged by most high end players because of how risky they are. Getting up close for a shotgun shot is usually far more reliable, as you are much more accurate (prior to obtaining Blademaster) and you aren't potentially left out of cover and exposed to other pods.
People even recommend (if the mission allows it) to drop an evac zone on your Ranger's future position, just in case things go south (and they often do). That way, you can extract them from the mission without potentially losing them to a whole bunch of flanked shots and the activated pod will have to relocate towards your back line.
Hell Yeah! I love this series! Keep them coming bro!
Can't wait for "Can I beat XCOM 2 WOTC using only Psi Operatives?"
Oh yeah, psi ops will be awesome, and so will snipers lmao, having pistol and sniper snipers as a mix will be good fun xD
@@yann9915 spi will annoying. Obly beeing able to train one soldier at once after you build the spi Lab. Squad size is gonna take a while
@@Musik2Huhn True but I think the power boost that having psy operatives early will make up for that.
Plus as long as you are careful and play it smart they are really hard to kill.
@@Musik2Huhn You can actually get an entire roster of Psi Operatives without building the Psi Lab with the "WOTC Use My Class" mod, so getting a full squad wouldn't be too hard.
Though they would still need the Psi Lab to actually learn their skills.
I feel like that one is going to be the last in the series
When it finally comes time for marksmen only, we all know what Sniper name will be obligatory
*White Death*
(totally going to live up to the name despite this being XCOM)
Or white dead when they get destroyed
You've always got lyudia as a back up in case they don't
Sounds Finnish.
YOU'RE IN THE BULLET'S WAY
THE WHITE DEATH'S PREY
SAY GOODBYE
@@shanehudson3995 yeah it is. Simo Hayha, the sniper with the highest kill count
I always love using the axe with rangers. It has the same stats as the normal swords, but it also has a stunchance and gives you a free attack once every mission, which has saved my skin many times
Sectoids generally prioritize flanking shots over mindspin, but also generally reanimate over flank shots.
A really good challenge! Honestly, the rangers are one of my favorite classes, and your run just made me love them even more! Have you tried beating XCOM2 with only secondary weapons (pistols, swords, gremlins, claymores, ripjacks, autopistols, etc)
I absolutely *love* max-ranked rangers. With Run and Gun, Implacible, Untouchable, and Rapid Fire, I just go up with two of them, one-shot kill with their storm guns, then position them so the rest just fizzle out their turns attacking them.
This pretty much sums up my experience with rangers. I find them rather lacking in the early game (and probably the class i'm least upset about being on sick leave), but come mid-game, around the time you get hunter's instinct, they really start just kicking anything and everything to the curb.
I think it’s worth noting that the first retaliation mission has little consequence for failure. Because it can be so difficult I evac from it all the time when the chosen start to wreck me and all that comes of it is a small monthly supply reduction.
Another endlessly entertaining video Drifter. I love the story telling you can weave with these characters, it really adds that extra layer into these videos. Looking forward to seeing the squad reimagined as grenadiers next time!
What happened with the sarcophagus and Rapid Fire is something that can happen on every object you theoretically are guaranteed to hit; Relays, the spike on Avenger Defense etc. Skills like Chain Shot, Rapid Fire, Deadeye and so on carry an aim penalty. That penalty applies to those objects. So what happened in this video is that Rapid Fire gave you two 85% shots against the sarcophagus; 100% to hit minus the 15% penalty of Rapid Fire.
I would assume that Stun Lancers are included in the "Beast" category because their autopsy states that ADVENT included Berserker genes in them to heighten their aggression.
Ngl I’d consider it a stretch but it does make sense with the lore I suppose, it also makes sense as to how stun lancers never seem to be hit by berserkers while they are raging
My reasoning is that "beast" is just a synonym of "melee" for the game, so it just includes everything whose primary mode of attack is to slap/claw/poke you.
I really liked seeing that first campaign attempt. It completely caught me off guard to see how it ended. Great challenge!
I evac from the first retaliation mission all the time when something like the assassin comes in and instakills my rookie. The only consequence is a small monthly supply reduction lol. You might want to consider it when future play throughs also look dire at the first retaliation mission.
This is why I don't contact a new region before the first retaliation.
Finding your videos got me back into XCOM. I played it a few years ago but rage quit because I had no idea about the gorilla tactics facility upgrading squad size! Now I'm utterly addicted and just took out the assassin's fortress!
I love this series, amazing stuff
Great stuff!
As flak/bulletproof vests are armour when facing enemies with range/projectile weapons it's worth bearing in mind that mindshields are armour when facing enemies with psi-abilities.
This man is mopping XCOM with these challenge runs and here I am, struggling to survive on commander lmao but seriously love the content keep it up!
Alternate title option: Murder alien gods with the power of god and anime on your side.
A really fun mod I would suggest is Ayy Lmao. It replaces a lot of game text, with different, "funnier" options. They can be pretty vulgar, so it's not really for everyone, but maybe it's your cup of tea? Screenshots in Steam convey what to expect pretty well. My favorite ones are Faceless as "Fellow Humans", Advent Troopers as "Advent Mall Ninjas", "Wow you survived" for victory screen, and, of course, Chosen as "Edgelords". That one is golden.
I found your channel about a week ago and want to say Thank you for the amazing content. Gonna wait for the next run to unleash hell on advent with grenades and rockets
fun fact the word casualties doesnt mean only death, it means injuries too!
There are so many fun ways to play xcom 2, which is why ppl are still making videos 6 years later. Such a good game.
I love a good bladestorm. Especially when those cheeky stunlancers run into them.
I just got back into xcom2 and found your videos. Keep making really good quality content.
havent watched the whole thing yet, but i do have to say that ranger does have a very strong advantage over templars, and that's the ability to have three weapon choices instead of 1 and a half. you have amazing flexibility over whether or not to engage within sword-slashing distance, or keeping at range with an assault rifle or shotgun at mid range.
I'm not sure if I should thank you or curse you, your videos got me back into playing XCOM and let's just say that if I was in charge XCOM 2 is definitely canon.
Great video, looking forward to more.
Welcome back, Commander. >:)
I think the "intel for people" on the black market could be seen as a hiring service, not trafficking. We give them Intel, they let us hire one of their own. Or, alternatively, they tell us where someone who wants to work with us is.
I was concerned at the early difficulty but by the end the advent were just getting massacred. Awesome stuff and I can't wait for Grenadiers. No cover left standing I hope.
I got so addicted to these videos! Great work Drifter
Thank you for bring back the crossing out the old classes that you have tried it the best.
"We're just gonna ignore the aliens"
*failed dies
Faceless: "Why do I hear boss music"
That shot from Cat on the Warlock was fucking beautiful man.
I love all your solo runs and this one might have been my personal favorite because I love the ranger
bradford knows just how to tickle my funny bone with dissing the dead.
"the erly game was brutal"
The sharpshooters: *demonic laughter*
27:19 I’m imaging the call Hoffman made about his shot to their teammate.
“Duck.”
“What?”
*shotgun fires*
“WHAT? I CANT HEAR YOU”
I so look forward to these! Keep it up!
0:34 Thank you Drifter for trying to make XCOM memes trendy in 2022.
o7
Entertaining as always Drifter, hope you keep up the good work.
That moment with the sarcophagus and rapid fire. Yeah that can happen with Rapid Fire, Chain Shot or Deadeye. Basically the game sets your "to hit" chance at 100% when you're attacking an object, regardless of your positioning or other bonuses like scopes. However, when you use an ability that reduces your accuracy, it will apply that reduction to 100% straight up. In short, you cannot benefit from aim bonuses vs objects, but aim penalties due to abilities do still apply.
What was the music used at 1:16:55? It's not in the description.
Can't remember sorry, but all the songs are listed in the end credits of the video, so that should help narrow it down.
Great video Drifter! Looking forward to the grenadiers video!
Deep Cover can work pretty well if you can't close the distance with an enemy (like the problems you were having at the start). But Untouchable is just vastly superior, since you always want to be killing enemies regardless and it makes one of melee combat's biggest weaknesses (being exposed) far less punishing.
You can also use it to manipulate the AI, since they'll likely try for the flank shot on your out of cover soldier (and Untouchable forces the attack to miss). It's especially good if you can use it to force buried Crysalids out of the ground, since they'll sprint at your Ranger and make an attack (potentially taking a Bladestorm), which will also miss (due to Untouchable). Make sure to set it up with a kill though.
Deep Cover is better used as a sidegrade (pick it up if you have some spare ability points), but it's actually quite viable on Sharpshooters as a bonus ability, since they can pair it with Aim. As long as they don't make an attack that turn (something they can't do with their Sniper Rifles if they move), they can benefit from the Deep Cover, which procs Aim on the next turn. As an added bonus, you can trigger Deep Cover after entering Overwatch, which will add the Aim buff to the Overwatch shot, meaning you can have a Sniper with nigh perfect accuracy out-ranging the Hunter himself.
Basically, the choice between the two for a Ranger is the same problem Blast Padding and Shredder have: One is defensive (Deep Cover) and the other is offensive (Untouchable) and the best defense in Xcom is to make sure you never get shot at to begin with.
I was really cheering for Drifter to be kitted in RAGE armor, simply for the style points.
Grenadier only? I'm ready to see you almost NEVER hit with the machinegun but turn most missions into the 1812 Overture.
Rangers are definitely one of my favourites, and my second pick for Class only runs, although, most of my main game squads once i had the squad upgrades got an extra Sharpshooter and Ranger where available. I'd never gone only Rangers for the whole campaign, but seeing it certainly didn't disappoint.
Excellent job Drifter, see you in the next one.
Those concealed ranger Doing ratbag type of scouting
Ratbag: I'll stay back and scout the area I'm a really good scout
Talion: scouts usually go on ahead
Ratbag: and die that's why I'm such a good scout
28:44 I am so relieved to hear I am not the only one who encounters that bullshittery
ranger is really difficuult early on, but once you have concealment on 3 or 4 it becomes so overpowered. i did a ranger run after watching this video and now i am doing a wotc run. both times concealment has been key to my playstyle. Once you have untouchable you are literally untouchable with a bunch of rangers.
Aka the 'CLOSE RANGE??' challenge.
Rangers are my second favourite class. Bladestorm, though, is my favourite ability in the entire game. Though, bladestorm does suffer the -20% to hit of normal overwatch attacks. (which is why getting on a templar is so lit) but the Arashi gives the same effect.
I liked the failed attempt being put in, it puts the whole run where you win into perspective in how hard it is to get a wining run
Man i am so glad i subscribed to your channel, love this. Hoping you can keep this series going.
the Warlocks gun is pretty much the only time I give an assault an assault rifle. I usually have my specialists doing other things and you can easily kill stuff like Codexes and Gatekeepers, especially if you combine it with special ammo like blue screen rounds or armor piercing rounds.
"There's no reason to give a ranger an assault rifle" I prefer the higher chance to hit over the increased damage, at least until they get to a higher rank where I can push rangers up further without worry (I.E captain+) where I switch to the shard gun and later the storm gun.
In the early game, the ranger is more of a specialist in combat (I.R move and shoot) with the ability to deal with sectoids and finishing enemies in full cover and no available nades.
Every time i watch one of your videos i really want to play xcom2. You make this game look so fun :D.
To bad i don't have time for it. Thanks for the great uploads.
I can't believe that you play a challenge run without extending the mission timers tho. They feel so short.
Oh and i really liked the fact that you showed the failed attempt in the beginning. I didn't expect this but it was a really nice surprise. And it shows that you are just as mortal as we are :D.
One nitpick tho: i would explain things like tactical analysis at least once per video. There is always the chance that this video is the first XCOM 2 video someone sees.
I have thought about explaining the abilities, but I think explaining all of them every video would just take too long, so I normally do it once and then that's it. Not perfect, I know.
Your videos came up in my recommend, which made me have the itch for playing Xcom2 again. I never bothered with Mimic beacons before but I'm finding them stupidly beneficial that it's like I am playing the game for the first time. I will say though the Bonds giving teammates additional moves is definitely something you could abuse more in your runs, if you're going to do an all Sniper run I recommend investing in the bonds because it'll pay off with you being able to move the snipers and then overwatch or give line of sight snipers an extra shot from ones not in line of sight or too far away.
I'm glad you had time to hear about our lord and saviour the mimic beacon. :)
@The Drifter's Broadcast Also haven't checked out your twitch channel for full playthroughs, but just throwing this out incase because apparently it's not well known.
If you hold down the Ctrl key you can make your own path for the soldiers by selecting waypoints with the right mouse button. It lessens the amount of movement overall but it's been a godsend for stopping me from triggering patrols or breaking glass and causing a reveal.
It's so nice to go back home open youtube and see that one of the recommendations being of drifter's new content
Rapid fire not hitting sarcophagus is not a glitch (or it is kind of, but not glitchy glitch). Targeting sarcophagus works on 100% hit cap. That means normal attacks always have a 100% chance to hit the sarcophagus. But if you take any ability like rapid fire, chain shot, deadeye etc which decreases the chance to hit because of aim penalties, irrespective of chance to hit shown to you, game will always calculate it from base 100% and then subtract the penalty amount.
So a 100% dead eye shot can also miss sarcophagus, because actually it is 100% minus the dead eye penalty. Rapid fire also puts 15% penalty so it may miss. Similar for chain shot.etc.
Man you are keeping me alive with these bids😄😄 love the channel
The only time I have used Deep Cover was when I was lucky enough to get it as a bonus ability for a sharpshooter. Works really good with another ability.
Deep Cover is pretty useful for a gun wielding mimic beacon with Aid Protocol, giving a soldier 70% defense and 20 dodge which along with dodge stacking can make for a great distraction which combined with tactical analysis can make enemies have to choose between either being out of position or not shooting. Threat Assessment also gives the Deep Cover Ranger an extra shot when an enemy does anything and he can still proc bladestorm to do a hefty about of damage. All of this still isn't better than Untouchable however and is something to grab on the side as an "in case of emergency" play where you need to cover some out of position soldiers from a surprise pod or from RNG going bad.
This inspired me to do my own ranger only run, but in standard Xcom2 and the alien hunters DLC.
I just got a ranger who completed 2 missions completly by herself Without an injury while being a sqauddie on the first and a corporal on the 2nd mission.
The game nicknamed her "Judgment day".
Update report for just me, I think: I have both the last missions of Xcom 2 prepared, about to do the Avenger defense mission, and planning to kill all the rulers after the defense mission.
However proving ground experimental ammo is glitched out and I have not been given my experimental ammo aftee they were completes 3 times. Now I am also doing a no experimental ammo run.
Edit: I one shot the viper king with an execution and nearly killed the beserker Queen on my first encounter with her.
Edit 2: beserker queen died on the second encounter.
Edit 3: Archon king suffered the same fate as beserker queen.
You inspired me to try and finally complete this game on commander difficulty. I've done it several times on veteran, but I always get crushed and demoralized on commander. The hardest missions really are the first few ones, since (as you've already mentioned) the soldiers' aim is absolute dogshit before they rank up and get better gear.
Right then, I guess I was correct last time that this was going to be an easy run *conveniently forgets all the failed ones*.
I predict the lost missions on the next run should be a bit annoying :p but also that you'll get complacent and run out of grenades since they really don't do as much damage as one might like. Loot will be harder to come by, too. All those poor blown up elerium cores.
Should be a fun watch, tho!
"If I showed every mission, these videos would be 8 hours long," he says as if it's a bad thing. Idk about anyone else, but I'd still watch it. It'd just have to be in 4 or 5 sittings instead of 2 or 3.
Also, your vids have inspired me to try my hand at my own challenge run for this game. Cheers!
YOOOOO already a new one. This is great.
I can't wait for the only grenadiers video. Grenadiers are my favorite class, I like to make things go boom.
This series is a joy to watch
I look forward to the all psy-unit run. Almost feel like it's a Soviet Run because of their give another action ability
"Comrade, my turn is over" "The turn is never over comrade for it is OUR turn"
(and then you add team-bonds and basically you can have one guy do everything).
Thank you for the awesome vids, the detail and tips you give are amazing.
Regarding the question at 49:35 about Deep Cover. By it self, Deep Cover is fairly useless, but if a soldier also gets the Aim (Hunker Down gives +20 aim next shot made) perk from the Sharpshooter tree then I will. If you also get Ever Vigilent from Specialist on top of that, then you end up with a soldier that gets a stupid amount of aim on overwatch while doing a double move. This is scary on nearly any class, but for Rangers, it means you can run them into a position where they can force an enemy to move, and there is a high chance the Ranger will kill that enemy on Advent's turn.
Ah yes baby, Rangers only. Splendid idea.
Haven't watched the video yet, but considering that rangers are the only class that I ever train at the GTS and typically run 4 or 5 of them for every mission, I'm going to say that's a big yes.
Finally, I'm so hyped, idk why. I've been waiting
Goodness, Grenadiers only will be crazy.
I can't help but wonder what Marksmen only will be like. They'll do well in most missions, but the timed missions will make things dicey, at least early on before you get the really good pistol skills.
Grenadiers are CURSED. My grenadiers in ALL playthroughs RELIABLY miss 90%+ shoots multiple times in a single mission. And it's the reason i hate them, but in normal game they are the only ones who can "reliably" shred enemy armor. But i throw them away as shooting units if 2-3 of my non grenadier soldiers have shred. I just launch grenades and holotarget enemy units with them as they are garbage in my eyes.
Funny you should say that. Just wait until the grenadier video drops. :) :O
I think that the game classifies the sectopod taser field and priests stasis as abilities, not attacks, so you wont get a reaction attack on them. Not 100% on this but it could make sense.
I really like these challenge runs and they’ve made me wish that there was a way to only use the robots in chimera squad as that would be quite the challenge and one I’d really love to see. Keep on keeping on.
I mostly use Deep Cover with modded classes/the xcom tree that give it to snipers or medics, since it makes much more sense on them. But I can see why it's part of the stealth tree for Ranger; You're more likely to be sprinting with your phantom rangers to scout, so if they get flanked and revealed they have the benefit of the extra defense and dodge in case they get shot at. Also I think it activates if you soldier is hit by stasis from a priest and when they panic, which usually puts them in pretty bad cover. It's just ultimately outclassed by Untouchable since Rangers are such high burst damage, so even your phantom is more likely to one shot enemies than they are do not attack.
If you are looking for ideas once you finish all the base game things, using the RPG Overhaul and some of the compatible mods, there is an option to randomize the classes, which could create some interesting combinations.
I've used a rifle on a ranger. It was because I only had 1 leveled up ranger and didn't want to spend the research and resources to upgrade the shotgun. So for most of that campaign my ranger used a rifle.
Near the end I finally had the time/resources and got that ranger a shotgun.
I got my wisdom teeth removed yesterday and still hurts pretty bad. I love xcom and all ur playthroughs to the point I think I've seen all ur one class runs. Rangers are my favorite class and I want to thank you for the distraction with your amazing content
I've heard that's a painful procedure. Hope you're doing alright.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast I'm doing a lot better then when I started at least. Pain is minimal especially with the ibuprofen. Thank you for your concern:). Currently watching the primary weapons only video again while I play my own game of xcom.
Hi drifter one more time a good video, love this challengers and i m wainting to see another one!! This i think was one of the easiest to andle, even when u started like 5 times of so, but was much easier than the others i think!! I think the real challenge will be only with snipers and only with psi operatives that the fact that u don’t have psi amp at the beggining!! Look forward to those challanges. Keep up my friend!
Watching all these challenges and they are great.
Joyous day, a new Xcom Challenge.
I have found some success with giving rangers ARs in the mid-game and using them one very large maps as long range flank-classes when dealing with cover loving high damage enemies such as mutons or higher level advent troops (I use the better advent mod a lot) it's also worth using a mag-rifle over a standard shot-gun if you can't afford the shard-gun IMO as early-mid game crit modifiers are pretty low anyway.
I really like deep cover on rangers to help with scouting. Scanning beacons miss, sometimes I just accidentally scout too far ahead on that first turn.
Hunker down works great with a support who can use Aid to give them very high dodge chance. I stack my rangers with dodge so when I make a mistake a ranger can soak up some of that. I also prefer assault rifles on them since I find shotguns unreliable and somewhat redundant when you have a sword.
Automatic misses are great, but when you've already stacked dodge it can be redundant. Also aid grants overwatch, which makes it really good action economy. I don't use rangers as much as other players, so I prefer to keep them safer and I don't go fishing for big kill strings because I have unbearably bad luck - when I get a bad string it's crazy.
Mox's inspiration can cover misplays a bit, or mimic beacons, but I tend to send rangers on risky objectives because it's fun. I like trying to get across the map to save civilians, which means more risk for them even though civilians are not worth the risk, I like to play a different way.
Mostly it's the synergy with specialists that I like about it, it makes for an interesting first turn. I tend to mix and match teams a lot too - a well designed squad with a reaper and scan beacons will never have this problem, but if the reaper gets caught it's reload time.
If a ranger gets caught, time to get creative. One other benefit, if your ranger gets burning you can just run and it's gone.
I can be impatient though too, and I don't like risking sword combinations. For me having 3-4 ways to shore up an accidental "spot" really helps. Not just one guy with a mimic beacon or a scan beacon, but a synergy of them so when you accidentally draw half the map you have SOME recourse.
But I tend to play wildly with a kind of roleplaying aspect. I also didn't particularly spend to upgrade my rangers, going for grenadiers and sharpshooters because I feel rangers / reapers are gods of doing objectives. This where it's really useful. Run in, stop, use teamwork to finish the objective and get some distance. Hunker down, aid. It's kinda thrilling and I found this tactic very useful mid game when I was having major issues. It also baits a lot of lancers into blade master though grenades are naturally a risk. Another thing about this combination... it doesn't use a resource that isn't renewable. Shadow / concealment tech is useful in a pinch, but you only get so much of that.
It also makes a great skill for anyone who has ever vigilant, because that's dash, down, overwatch. Makes for great map moves.
It definitely is going up against a major skill though, getting a free block is greaf especially if you want a different PCS or setup. Someone running aim certainly benefits from the free block and stacking with reaper is obviously great.
It just has its uses. I definitely spend team AP to get it, because that unlucky scout happens and when I'm on ironman, I like the panic button synergy and the aid / overwatch combo, to me, is just super fun.
Anyway just sharing.
Oh hell yeah! The most overpowered unit vs everything else.
Wow, the warlock mind control definitely needed a longer cooldown, the mission at 13:00 was utterly ridiculous
I do like seeing the failed attempts or maybe even intermittently cutting in at key points to highlight where you failed in previous runs would be cool