Flashbang is seriously underrated. It doesn’t just disorient enemies. It disables their abilities as well. It frees your units from grabs, mind control etc… Lowers both attack and defence, enemies can’t dodge. Prevents enemy units from teleporting, codex from splitting in 2, prevents psych attacks and other special abilities. It may lose some effectiveness in the late game due to higher enemies and your own units using skills & dealing more damage, but it can still find some use. But for first 1/2, maybe 2/3 of game I find it absolutely crucial to help control the battlefield. It also helps immensely with DLC alien rulers. They straight up ignored my mimic beacons. But flashbang slowed them down and again prevented them from using their massive AoE abilities.
ty, the bezerker queen been givin me issues, this is gonna help, along with the snake king armor i think ill get him dealt with now, was gonna invest in the frost, but this is cheaper lol
I think the Flashbank deserves a B-tier. True its not used as mutch outside of maybe the early game but what it does to enemy aim, mobility and passive abilitys i think ppl underastimate. U flashbang a Codex and they cant split from taking dmg anymore, It also disables the melee counterattack from Mutons. It really shines vs those melee based enemys like faceless, Berserkers, Chryssalids and Stun lancers. A lancer still has a gun but if hes shooting at u hes not using hes stun baton which can be by far worse and hes getting -20% aim aswell. 1 reson why the flashbang isent talked about as mutch is becouse the better u get at the game the less u will need it. If u can control the battlefield which with the introduction of the Reaper class in WOTC has become very easy u wont need a flashbang. But the moment shit hits the fan then a flashbang could be as good as a Mimic beacon in negating dmg. The Skulljacks uses i se more as a passive hacking bonus to a specialist and its actual use function yeah its very situational after the story mission. I think i should mention that i also always use the Hack+ mod that increases a specialist hacking stat the more they do hacking attempts. It only makes sense that a hacker should get better at it the more they try and imo that feature should have been included in the base game. I suppose u could make the same argument for soldier aim but if that got increased when they shoot it would blow game balancing out the window. Not to mention that soldiers already get increased aim as they rank up so they already have a sourse of getting more aim. Bluescreen on Gatekeepers i could be wrong here but arent they only vulnerable to Bluescreen rounds when there shell is closed? When the shell is open your attacking the biological parts of the unit so it would make sense that it depends on what phase the Gatekeeper is in for Bluescreen rounds to be effective.
I love Hack Plus but it’s slightly too broken for my taste, shouldve been one point for fails and 2 points for successes, getting 3-5 just snowballs so fast. Late game I had near 100% to hack sectopods
@@jenkinsuu Was that for shuting down the Sectopod or taking it over? If it was to take over the unit then damn u must have hard stacked that soldier with every single hack bonus possable becouse even with the resistance card that reduce hacking defense i think i hade at most 65-70% for a takeover on a very stacked unit carrying the skulljack. I have hade close to 100% on a shutdown but doing that to a Sectopod unless its your last action is almost useless becouse all it does is taking away 1 of its 3 actions so its not gonna effect mutch if anything.
1 Use case for the proximity mine wasn't considered: Reinforcement pod. You know in advance where it's gonna land. Not a game changer by any means since it's somewhat rare, but it can be nice.
So many of these items are very situational; plus we should acknowledge the difference between "normal" missions versus Story specific ones + also consider Guerilla Ops such as in WOTC. Stasis Vest for example is pretty rubbish in normal missions, but actually could be a smart choice for a high risk 2x person guerilla Op mission. Likewise, the Hazmat Vest can also greatly increase the movement range for Rangers or Templars etc, due to them nor having to avoid and move around hazards. Finally, never forget the impact on the strategic game, i.e., the Skull-Jack can enable you to get intel from a tactical mission when you really need it; perhaps to cancel an upcoming effect, or use intel to buy another item from the black market. Thank you however for a great and insightful video from another true Xcom fan. Well Done!
I have almost never used Mimic Beacons. I did like a couple of times, saw how it was a combination of OP, cheesy and boring, and decided to just play without them. Such a shame, it could have been an item that, instead of forcing enemies into brainless monke atack mode, just does what you would sensibly expect it to do: trick the enemy into thinking that there's a soldier. No more ignoring all other of your soldiers, running into open, and wasting an attack on taking the beacon down. Instead, they would treat it exactly like they would one of your soldiers: favor shooting at it if it's the easiest target to shoot at, and maybe lob a grenade or use some other AoE ability if it's close to some other soldiers. This would make it a tool to be used with consideration and tactical sense, instead of a get out of jail for free card. Maybe you could even use it to trigger an unactivated pod by throwing it into the pod's sight range. Maybe there could occasionally be some use cases for that kind of stuff. As a compensation for the beacon being obviously less powerful than it is currently, maybe it could be thrown without ending one's turn, maybe even as a free action.
This is how I thought it worked at first and it should work like this. I kept throwing the beacon into bad positions because I thought that would bait them into attacking it. Little did I know it turns off their brain.
Frag Grenade is B tier for me. Early game its a way to kill when hit chance sucks. Also shreds armor and softens up big targets. You can hurt multiple enemies and detonate ignited cars. And remove cover or walls for better shooting and shortcuts. Basically lots of utility for one item with no cost
I agree. The fact that you have infinite of them and never have to spend resources to buy them should on its own put it a tier above a lot of the things that do cost resources. The early game relies on them heavily.
Fun fact that I learned recently, freezing the avatars counts as killing them for some reason. I got down to the last avatar in my playthrough and used the viper king suit to freeze it because I wanted to deal with some other stuff first so I could guarantee a kill on it and instead the campaign just ended instantly as soon as it hit lmao.
That weird. I'm gonna need to test that out myself. As to why it happens, making an enemy unable to fight counts as victory conditions when they're the last one. Same with unconscious. Was the Avatar the only enemy left?
@@zero1zerolast393 No, like I said in the original comment there was other stuff on the field that I wanted to deal with lol. It was the very last of the avatars, so I'm pretty sure it was because the mission ends when all the avatars die. So with it being the last required enemy left, freezing it likely triggered that behavior you mentioned.
Just found this channel and you're very relaxing to listen to. I like that you approach most of these items from pros and cons instead of just talking up your favorites and lambasting the items you're not fond of which is really common tierlist behavior that's not particularly helpful. Great video.
Another thing that makes smoke really bad is the janky exception crit chance has in this game. If the hit chance of any attack is lower than its crit chance and it lands, then it will always crit. So yeah. Whenever your soldier gets crit in cover with smoke on him, that's why. 5% hit with 10% crit = 100% crit chance. That's insane
I think they fixed that at some point - in any case, lowering hit below crit would still lower your actual chance of receiving a critical hit. Otherwise you could claim that anything that increases evasion gives you a higher chance of being crit, including disorienting the enemy.
@@Wormdo yeah it's like the illusion of choice. If it was gonna hit anyways, it was gonna be a crit as well, due to how roles work. EU aim roles mod makes it roll twice for hitting and then critting
The one saving grace about the Smoke Grenade that people always forget is that it doesn't actually count as a "Grenade" slot item (unlike, say, the Flashbang Grenade). Since you can (typically) only carry one Grenade plus a second non-grenade item, you could have both a Frag and a Smoke grenade on one unit, but the Flashbang would have to *replace* your Frag grenade. I still agree that the Flashbang is better than the Smoke Grenade, but the fact that you can take both a Frag and a Smoke with you does mean I usually buy a Smoke to fill an empty non-grenade slot. It's like what you said about the Nanoscale vest, buying it to fill a non-grenade slot item slot... The Smoke Grenade can be used in the same way.
Surprised you didn’t mention sharpshooters with blue screen. Gunslinger abilities allow you to shoot so many times with plus 5 damage each. Lightning bands for free, fan fire to do 28 damage to a single target, then face off to do 8-9 to everything else is a nasty turn
Battle scanner is honestly C-tier for me off the back of the fact that it completely neutralizes one of the most annoying parts of the assassin fight (finding her when she disappears)
Don't sleep on specialists with scanning protocol! It has a rather large range, and while it costs an action, so does deploying a scanner, and it doesn't take up an item slot.
Sustaining sphere for solo reaper runs on facilities to quickly get avatar progress down and no worry about triggering a pod when you just want to rush in and out.
I love the hazmat vest for any melee class or even just close range (skirmisher/ranger/templar mainly) Also cause I love using experimentals with dots to set said units up
EMP Grenades are sooo goood. I always keep one with me on my grenadier. I think what justifies it's use case is that nearly all of the highest threat/HP enemies are mechanical. Being able to stun them for a few turns so you don't have to spend some many of your squad actions to burn through all their HP in one turn and let you focus on other enemies in a pod first is very helpful. Or if you need some breathing room because you accidently activated more than one pod, or got ambushed. I'm also pretty sure it has a larger radius than the explosive grenades. If everyone in your squad is running bluescreen rounds already, I guess things like sectopods or gatekeepers aren't as big of an issue, but your also giving up a lot of other utility slots to outfit them on all your soldiers.
My preference is the Skirmisher, good for flexibility/high damage potential with equipment, Reaper also good for consistent/strong ambushes, and Templars I find the most niche but good for slash/parry andromadons. I do use Templars the least simply because slash scares me, too many unwanted pod activations
@@EdwinofEberron I like to play the game in a rp manner with one soldier being the protag "think commander shepard" and the templar fill a certain power fantasy for me. But yea they can be a bit niche lol
One thing I love about the Mind Shield is how useless the Warlock becomes if you use it. All of his attacks become worthless unless it is summoning a ghost, ally or shooting you. But since he uses most of his psy abilities, it blocks ALL of them. I once baited him by placing my assault ranger equipped with a mind shield close to him and ofc he went for him. It was funny.
Reaper with using banish with superior extended magazine, superior scope, and AP rounds is the best way to deal with chosen and things like sectopods and gatekeepers
Sustaining sphere has use for late game rank ups too. If you want to give some corporal a better chance at ranking up later in the game it's a helpful tool Not enough to bring it up a tier, but worth considering for that edge case
I understood the power of gas grenade on advanced grenadier well, but despised using it becase i thought that the same gas cloud would later limit my own movements, that can be crucial in turn based missions
I think the way the proximity mine is worded you can also use it on a personal stealthed ranger to throw the mine, pod activates but he does not lose stealth vs if he threw another kind of mine
I feel disappointed when smoke grenade got nerf too bad. In Enemy Within, you have support who carry 3 smoke grenades with +40 defense. I guess the only way I can get it back is through mod.
Honestly, I love setting folk on fire with the flame grenade. Because burning foes lose quite a bit of functionality. Can't mind control. Can't use most special abilities.
Yeh, haven’t seen thorns that useful in recent times. The last 2 times I remember was 1 in a game called Neverwinter where I stacked acid, elemental and other shields. If anyone attacked my mage, they would explode while I didn’t get any damage or very low. Was busted. 2 was in borderlands with a siren, there was a build that used elemental shields and counter damage as part of the build, was also crazy busted.
I understand that ppl don't like the lost but the little dopamine hits I get from killing them is enough to make me like them. Also I have some mods that make for absolutely chaotic missions with Lost, Chosen, Resistance, Alien, & XCOM turns
Can the prox mine be set up and then exploded manually with sabo/a grenade? Because if it can be blown up I could see a weirdo use case for double booming an area with a plasma grenade while enemies are still stationary. I still don't like it much because I prefer reactive tools in xcom but thats *a* possible use case.
According to the wiki it cannot be blown up with another grenade, I used it once before, stacked a grenade on it and still it only blew up when the enemies repositioned, still get both explosions sure but can only do that cosistantly on ambush, if you have phantom on your gred. with salvo, I could see that unit ambushing and giving advantage over the second pod with the mine
@@EdwinofEberron A proximity mine is a great tool for the safe first ambush while the whole squad is concealed. The throw won't break concealment while it's activation will which will happen on alien's turn, the affected pod will effectively loose a turn due to triggered scatter move and have it's armor shredded, your team will do their overwatch shots as normal and will be in position to finish off whatever survived at the start of the turn. The first pod encountered is usually patrol one so activation is rarely an issue.
so if someone tosses the mine down on a strong pod, then a reaper tosses their claymore, a grenadier can launch their shredding grenade, which triggersthe claymore, for a BIG boom, then whatever survives runs for cover triggering the mine for a secondary boom. and what.e you just ambushed is done, if its say a ruler who in turn survives the squad sighted sniper on overwatch will def finish them off with ammo to help. bit of an investment for a true ambush, but i bet its fun to watch go off lol
EMP grenades with volatile mix and biggest booms are OP against Codex, you can kill them in one hit. Also Sectopods and Gatekeepers are pretty easy to kill, as they only take like 2 grenades and sometimes they get stunned too.
I'm playing a lwotc campaign right now, and I'd say 4 or the 6 soldiers i usually bring have 2 smoke grenades. I use those things so much. Its good against robotic enemies who are immune to flashbangs unless you have a specific class character with that perk throw it
For me the ammo types Burn and Poison are A tier since they finish off 1 HP enemies on their turn or affects their abilities if they continue to survive. Talon rounds are S-tier when given to your Skirmisher and Sniper.
On my last Ironman Commander run I rolled a Ranger with Serial. I gave her Talon Rounds, a Laser Sight, an Extended Magazine, and the Archon Suit and she could literally mow down entire pods in a single turn. My Sharpshooters always get Bluescreen/AP Rounds. The flat 20% to crit isn't worth it, especially since their damage is so ridiculously high already.
how is AP rounds so low, my rangers and sharpshooters absolutely bulldozer with them. Grenadiers are good just for the shred but i often bring 2 sharpshooters with serial and ap rounds, since with those rounds grenadiers lose a bit of their reason to be brought.
Your list is not really that good to be honest with you, I'm talking about this as an L/I completionist. 1. Frost bomb and Mimic Beacon should be S tier. These are broken as hell; 2. Medikit and Improved one should be A tier, it cures poison, it let soldier recover quickly after mission and it's rare that you don't use it on higher difficulty. It's like a must in many cases; 3. Skulljack is definitely S tier. Not just because it gets 20bonus to hacking, but also because you can 1 shot full health and full armor Advent like Shieldbearer, Priest (thus preventing the annoying Sustain), and even the Purifier cannot explore because of this kill. The cheery on top? you get to get some intel or cache of alien goods for a successful skulljack. If you got a specialist, this is a no brainer thing to bring in any mission with her, along with the medikit. 4. Mindshield being A tier? Excuse me? In what way are you lacking means to disrupt an enemy mind controlling your soldier? Frost bomb the enemy? flashbang? Bonded teammate? Psi Ops? Or better yet, just kill the damn bastard. For other effects, that's where the Specialist Revival is for, and it's not even turn ending action. This Mindshield is so useless that is actually probably F or D best.
I do no squadsize upgrade runs and these rankings reflect that, but everything you said is exactly how I felt when using six units as you have more flexibility and utility slots
yes, mindshield is not worth it just to protect one guy. Better to get a flashbang and be able to protect everyone else. All in all, the devs did a poor job of balancing all these things.
Guess i'm the only smoke grenade fan. :D. I usually sport a sniper team and a "cleanup crew" , that cleanup crew avoids full pods and usually stands back until the sniper crew has engaged, if for whatever reason another pod or the cleanup crew gets my snipers into danger i really want to avoid moving them even in low cover because you waste their turn. Smoke grenade shines in those situations. I will keep a smoke on one of the snipers and use it on their off turn if i can. And if i'm really worried about casualties then it's flashbang/poison time on top of that. If you smoke, bang and poison you don't even need cover. Oh and smoke lasts longer than flash.
The devs did a poor job balancing all these things. Too many are so worthless that they should never be considered. For example the vest that gives only one health - absolute garbage. They should have made it give two health, and then slightly increased the cost. Smoke grenades also need to be buffed in some way - maybe allow two, but increase the cost. Maybe cause it to release a healing gas or something - anything to make it not shite. I also think they should have been creative with more methods to heal. Med kits are really good with specialist and pretty bad with everyone else. They should have been more creative. Regular grenades become pretty weak in later game - only good with the grenadier. Some kind of 2-grenade pack could have been cool that all classes could use. Maybe give it some cost, to justify its extra goodness.
I think battle scanners are good if you run w/ a lot of sharpshooters. You can use the to spot pods and then just sit back at a safe position and take potshots at enemies across the map w/o actually having to engage. Even if you hit chance is rather low, since they can't see you back you can just keep shooting till your rolls line up. But you can also just do this with a ranger or reaper w/ pretty much the same effect. Just keeping them concealed for the whole map to spot units for you. And of course map layout and mission parameters can make this less viable, but when you don't have a timer you can really break the game, and even complete cheese the final mission. I'm also pretty sure they reveal the Chosen assassin if you have general idea of where she is. Which is all to say I also never use them lol. But I do think they can be used effectively so I would probably have put them in C. Edit: LOL I see you moved it up later. :D
Having a cloaked character spot turrets/weak enemies and just taking potshots at them with my sniper is my favorite early game strategy, and it's frankly busted for missions with no time limit, especially if you have a stock for the occasional miss. Perfect for early blacksite missions.
I'm interested in your content, but the speech is a bit too long and gets exhausting, bud. I think it would be great if you had a script or something to make it more concise and easier to follow. Just not into 20 minutes of talking about a basic nade, you know?
What's the point of doing a tier list while looking bored AF and starting with the fact that some items you've never or only once used and then you didn't even know flashbang stopped sectoid mind control? Like everyone's free to do whatever but to me this is 0 value add
People are still talking about this game. Come on, Firaxis. Update the console version. Maybe even release it for current-generation consoles. The optimization just isn't there, and the bugs are still present. I would still buy it again since I am currently playing the PS4 version on PS5.
A Disclaimer - These rankings reflect my personal experience of these items not only in general but in 4Man/Legend/Ironman runs as well
As a new player to the series the skill gap between you and I is great im sitting here thinking medkits and most grenades are A- or higher tier
If you want the Avenger to have a bar and not a memorial, use the Mimic Beacon.
Ha!
Flashbang is seriously underrated. It doesn’t just disorient enemies. It disables their abilities as well. It frees your units from grabs, mind control etc… Lowers both attack and defence, enemies can’t dodge. Prevents enemy units from teleporting, codex from splitting in 2, prevents psych attacks and other special abilities.
It may lose some effectiveness in the late game due to higher enemies and your own units using skills & dealing more damage, but it can still find some use. But for first 1/2, maybe 2/3 of game I find it absolutely crucial to help control the battlefield.
It also helps immensely with DLC alien rulers. They straight up ignored my mimic beacons. But flashbang slowed them down and again prevented them from using their massive AoE abilities.
ty, the bezerker queen been givin me issues, this is gonna help, along with the snake king armor i think ill get him dealt with now, was gonna invest in the frost, but this is cheaper lol
I think the Flashbank deserves a B-tier. True its not used as mutch outside of maybe the early game but what it does to enemy aim, mobility and passive abilitys i think ppl underastimate. U flashbang a Codex and they cant split from taking dmg anymore, It also disables the melee counterattack from Mutons. It really shines vs those melee based enemys like faceless, Berserkers, Chryssalids and Stun lancers. A lancer still has a gun but if hes shooting at u hes not using hes stun baton which can be by far worse and hes getting -20% aim aswell. 1 reson why the flashbang isent talked about as mutch is becouse the better u get at the game the less u will need it. If u can control the battlefield which with the introduction of the Reaper class in WOTC has become very easy u wont need a flashbang. But the moment shit hits the fan then a flashbang could be as good as a Mimic beacon in negating dmg.
The Skulljacks uses i se more as a passive hacking bonus to a specialist and its actual use function yeah its very situational after the story mission. I think i should mention that i also always use the Hack+ mod that increases a specialist hacking stat the more they do hacking attempts. It only makes sense that a hacker should get better at it the more they try and imo that feature should have been included in the base game. I suppose u could make the same argument for soldier aim but if that got increased when they shoot it would blow game balancing out the window. Not to mention that soldiers already get increased aim as they rank up so they already have a sourse of getting more aim.
Bluescreen on Gatekeepers i could be wrong here but arent they only vulnerable to Bluescreen rounds when there shell is closed? When the shell is open your attacking the biological parts of the unit so it would make sense that it depends on what phase the Gatekeeper is in for Bluescreen rounds to be effective.
was coming down to say this
You make a good case for it, I just don't use it as much doing no squadsize upgrade runs
I was trying to read your comment, but your grammar is all over the place, i had to give up. Bro, please, try a bit harder :(
I love Hack Plus but it’s slightly too broken for my taste, shouldve been one point for fails and 2 points for successes, getting 3-5 just snowballs so fast. Late game I had near 100% to hack sectopods
@@jenkinsuu Was that for shuting down the Sectopod or taking it over? If it was to take over the unit then damn u must have hard stacked that soldier with every single hack bonus possable becouse even with the resistance card that reduce hacking defense i think i hade at most 65-70% for a takeover on a very stacked unit carrying the skulljack. I have hade close to 100% on a shutdown but doing that to a Sectopod unless its your last action is almost useless becouse all it does is taking away 1 of its 3 actions so its not gonna effect mutch if anything.
Watching your lists is making me want to play XCOM 2 again, good content
1 Use case for the proximity mine wasn't considered: Reinforcement pod. You know in advance where it's gonna land. Not a game changer by any means since it's somewhat rare, but it can be nice.
oh, very true
Or on a pod tangent to your time sensitive objective. Just drop it on them and keep moving. Can mop up later.
That's actually kinda a cool usage of it!
So many of these items are very situational; plus we should acknowledge the difference between "normal" missions versus Story specific ones + also consider Guerilla Ops such as in WOTC.
Stasis Vest for example is pretty rubbish in normal missions, but actually could be a smart choice for a high risk 2x person guerilla Op mission. Likewise, the Hazmat Vest can also greatly increase the movement range for Rangers or Templars etc, due to them nor having to avoid and move around hazards.
Finally, never forget the impact on the strategic game, i.e., the Skull-Jack can enable you to get intel from a tactical mission when you really need it; perhaps to cancel an upcoming effect, or use intel to buy another item from the black market.
Thank you however for a great and insightful video from another true Xcom fan. Well Done!
I remember the days when sectoids could raise the corpse of the mimic beacon as a psi zombie, and the mimic becon could use cover
Also your soldier would freak out more when it died
Lol, yea good times
@@sampy901tbf that would freak me out
I have almost never used Mimic Beacons. I did like a couple of times, saw how it was a combination of OP, cheesy and boring, and decided to just play without them.
Such a shame, it could have been an item that, instead of forcing enemies into brainless monke atack mode, just does what you would sensibly expect it to do: trick the enemy into thinking that there's a soldier. No more ignoring all other of your soldiers, running into open, and wasting an attack on taking the beacon down. Instead, they would treat it exactly like they would one of your soldiers: favor shooting at it if it's the easiest target to shoot at, and maybe lob a grenade or use some other AoE ability if it's close to some other soldiers. This would make it a tool to be used with consideration and tactical sense, instead of a get out of jail for free card. Maybe you could even use it to trigger an unactivated pod by throwing it into the pod's sight range. Maybe there could occasionally be some use cases for that kind of stuff. As a compensation for the beacon being obviously less powerful than it is currently, maybe it could be thrown without ending one's turn, maybe even as a free action.
This is how I thought it worked at first and it should work like this. I kept throwing the beacon into bad positions because I thought that would bait them into attacking it. Little did I know it turns off their brain.
Another great tierlist. Good work man. I was happy when you moved the medkit up a tier. It can be a run saver.
Yea I don't know what I was thinking lol
Frag Grenade is B tier for me. Early game its a way to kill when hit chance sucks. Also shreds armor and softens up big targets. You can hurt multiple enemies and detonate ignited cars. And remove cover or walls for better shooting and shortcuts. Basically lots of utility for one item with no cost
I agree. The fact that you have infinite of them and never have to spend resources to buy them should on its own put it a tier above a lot of the things that do cost resources. The early game relies on them heavily.
Did you know you can use battle scanner to find faceless in groups kf people? The humans will crouch ehile the mimics stand. Just a fun fact
ty ill see if this holds up, if so niiiice
Fun fact that I learned recently, freezing the avatars counts as killing them for some reason. I got down to the last avatar in my playthrough and used the viper king suit to freeze it because I wanted to deal with some other stuff first so I could guarantee a kill on it and instead the campaign just ended instantly as soon as it hit lmao.
Bruh
Guess avatar is quad weak to ice (pokemon joke)
That weird. I'm gonna need to test that out myself.
As to why it happens, making an enemy unable to fight counts as victory conditions when they're the last one. Same with unconscious. Was the Avatar the only enemy left?
@@zero1zerolast393 No, like I said in the original comment there was other stuff on the field that I wanted to deal with lol. It was the very last of the avatars, so I'm pretty sure it was because the mission ends when all the avatars die. So with it being the last required enemy left, freezing it likely triggered that behavior you mentioned.
Can anyone confirm if this is still working? This sounds very interesting
Just found this channel and you're very relaxing to listen to. I like that you approach most of these items from pros and cons instead of just talking up your favorites and lambasting the items you're not fond of which is really common tierlist behavior that's not particularly helpful. Great video.
Another thing that makes smoke really bad is the janky exception crit chance has in this game.
If the hit chance of any attack is lower than its crit chance and it lands, then it will always crit.
So yeah. Whenever your soldier gets crit in cover with smoke on him, that's why. 5% hit with 10% crit = 100% crit chance. That's insane
I always wondered that, good to know, i always felt the game only rolled once to check the "Hit" & "Crit"
I think they fixed that at some point - in any case, lowering hit below crit would still lower your actual chance of receiving a critical hit.
Otherwise you could claim that anything that increases evasion gives you a higher chance of being crit, including disorienting the enemy.
@@Wormdo yeah it's like the illusion of choice. If it was gonna hit anyways, it was gonna be a crit as well, due to how roles work. EU aim roles mod makes it roll twice for hitting and then critting
The one saving grace about the Smoke Grenade that people always forget is that it doesn't actually count as a "Grenade" slot item (unlike, say, the Flashbang Grenade). Since you can (typically) only carry one Grenade plus a second non-grenade item, you could have both a Frag and a Smoke grenade on one unit, but the Flashbang would have to *replace* your Frag grenade. I still agree that the Flashbang is better than the Smoke Grenade, but the fact that you can take both a Frag and a Smoke with you does mean I usually buy a Smoke to fill an empty non-grenade slot. It's like what you said about the Nanoscale vest, buying it to fill a non-grenade slot item slot... The Smoke Grenade can be used in the same way.
I have to play xcom 2 at least once a year. Just the best turn based game I've ever played. Mods really help with replay value also.
Surprised you didn’t mention sharpshooters with blue screen. Gunslinger abilities allow you to shoot so many times with plus 5 damage each.
Lightning bands for free, fan fire to do 28 damage to a single target, then face off to do 8-9 to everything else is a nasty turn
Battle scanner is honestly C-tier for me off the back of the fact that it completely neutralizes one of the most annoying parts of the assassin fight (finding her when she disappears)
So true, my favorite reason to keep it around
Don't sleep on specialists with scanning protocol! It has a rather large range, and while it costs an action, so does deploying a scanner, and it doesn't take up an item slot.
Sustaining sphere for solo reaper runs on facilities to quickly get avatar progress down and no worry about triggering a pod when you just want to rush in and out.
I love the hazmat vest for any melee class or even just close range (skirmisher/ranger/templar mainly)
Also cause I love using experimentals with dots to set said units up
EMP Grenades are sooo goood. I always keep one with me on my grenadier. I think what justifies it's use case is that nearly all of the highest threat/HP enemies are mechanical. Being able to stun them for a few turns so you don't have to spend some many of your squad actions to burn through all their HP in one turn and let you focus on other enemies in a pod first is very helpful. Or if you need some breathing room because you accidently activated more than one pod, or got ambushed. I'm also pretty sure it has a larger radius than the explosive grenades. If everyone in your squad is running bluescreen rounds already, I guess things like sectopods or gatekeepers aren't as big of an issue, but your also giving up a lot of other utility slots to outfit them on all your soldiers.
watching this and the enemy tier list has me in the mood for xcom again. what is your thoughts on the 3 resistance units. i prefer the templar
My preference is the Skirmisher, good for flexibility/high damage potential with equipment, Reaper also good for consistent/strong ambushes, and Templars I find the most niche but good for slash/parry andromadons. I do use Templars the least simply because slash scares me, too many unwanted pod activations
@@EdwinofEberron I like to play the game in a rp manner with one soldier being the protag "think commander shepard" and the templar fill a certain power fantasy for me. But yea they can be a bit niche lol
One thing I love about the Mind Shield is how useless the Warlock becomes if you use it. All of his attacks become worthless unless it is summoning a ghost, ally or shooting you. But since he uses most of his psy abilities, it blocks ALL of them. I once baited him by placing my assault ranger equipped with a mind shield close to him and ofc he went for him. It was funny.
My tempar with bladestorm, fortress and mindshield says hello. Don't forget he is assisted with threat assesment and parrying.
Reaper with using banish with superior extended magazine, superior scope, and AP rounds is the best way to deal with chosen and things like sectopods and gatekeepers
Throw in a superior repeater, or if you're stuck on only 2 upgrades for it replace scope with it. It's worth it, trust me
YES I LOVE THESE VIDEOS! You should do an xcom missions tier list or maybe dark events next
I actually like that idea, i'm always worried about certain mission types
Sustaining sphere has use for late game rank ups too. If you want to give some corporal a better chance at ranking up later in the game it's a helpful tool
Not enough to bring it up a tier, but worth considering for that edge case
I understood the power of gas grenade on advanced grenadier well, but despised using it becase i thought that the same gas cloud would later limit my own movements, that can be crucial in turn based missions
I think the way the proximity mine is worded you can also use it on a personal stealthed ranger to throw the mine, pod activates but he does not lose stealth vs if he threw another kind of mine
I feel disappointed when smoke grenade got nerf too bad. In Enemy Within, you have support who carry 3 smoke grenades with +40 defense. I guess the only way I can get it back is through mod.
Honestly, I love setting folk on fire with the flame grenade. Because burning foes lose quite a bit of functionality. Can't mind control. Can't use most special abilities.
Yeh, haven’t seen thorns that useful in recent times. The last 2 times I remember was 1 in a game called Neverwinter where I stacked acid, elemental and other shields. If anyone attacked my mage, they would explode while I didn’t get any damage or very low. Was busted. 2 was in borderlands with a siren, there was a build that used elemental shields and counter damage as part of the build, was also crazy busted.
I understand that ppl don't like the lost but the little dopamine hits I get from killing them is enough to make me like them.
Also I have some mods that make for absolutely chaotic missions with Lost, Chosen, Resistance, Alien, & XCOM turns
Grenades are also great for the shred. An extra bit of shred is never bad.
Can the prox mine be set up and then exploded manually with sabo/a grenade? Because if it can be blown up I could see a weirdo use case for double booming an area with a plasma grenade while enemies are still stationary. I still don't like it much because I prefer reactive tools in xcom but thats *a* possible use case.
According to the wiki it cannot be blown up with another grenade, I used it once before, stacked a grenade on it and still it only blew up when the enemies repositioned, still get both explosions sure but can only do that cosistantly on ambush, if you have phantom on your gred. with salvo, I could see that unit ambushing and giving advantage over the second pod with the mine
@@EdwinofEberron A proximity mine is a great tool for the safe first ambush while the whole squad is concealed. The throw won't break concealment while it's activation will which will happen on alien's turn, the affected pod will effectively loose a turn due to triggered scatter move and have it's armor shredded, your team will do their overwatch shots as normal and will be in position to finish off whatever survived at the start of the turn. The first pod encountered is usually patrol one so activation is rarely an issue.
so if someone tosses the mine down on a strong pod, then a reaper tosses their claymore, a grenadier can launch their shredding grenade, which triggersthe claymore, for a BIG boom, then whatever survives runs for cover triggering the mine for a secondary boom. and what.e you just ambushed is done, if its say a ruler who in turn survives the squad sighted sniper on overwatch will def finish them off with ammo to help. bit of an investment for a true ambush, but i bet its fun to watch go off lol
I believe due to a bug special ammunition only applies to the first enemy in a multihit like faceoff
EMP grenades with volatile mix and biggest booms are OP against Codex, you can kill them in one hit.
Also Sectopods and Gatekeepers are pretty easy to kill, as they only take like 2 grenades and sometimes they get stunned too.
Love these videos! Idk if this is in another tier list, but including the special suits and heavy weapons would be cool too
I might do a separate one for weapons/suits
I'm playing a lwotc campaign right now, and I'd say 4 or the 6 soldiers i usually bring have 2 smoke grenades. I use those things so much. Its good against robotic enemies who are immune to flashbangs unless you have a specific class character with that perk throw it
grenade and plasma althoiugh ist different but it function the same , plasma is the upgraded so grenade in that in category,
Also you skipped talking about Mimic beacon and talked about mind shield isntesd i think
For me the ammo types Burn and Poison are A tier since they finish off 1 HP enemies on their turn or affects their abilities if they continue to survive. Talon rounds are S-tier when given to your Skirmisher and Sniper.
On my last Ironman Commander run I rolled a Ranger with Serial. I gave her Talon Rounds, a Laser Sight, an Extended Magazine, and the Archon Suit and she could literally mow down entire pods in a single turn.
My Sharpshooters always get Bluescreen/AP Rounds. The flat 20% to crit isn't worth it, especially since their damage is so ridiculously high already.
@@direct278 Nice! Yeah the blue screen rounds are great with the sharpshooter when you need to one shot a codex or two. 😊
Smoke grenade must do reverse, not cover our troops, but cover enemy reduce aim in area
how is AP rounds so low, my rangers and sharpshooters absolutely bulldozer with them. Grenadiers are good just for the shred but i often bring 2 sharpshooters with serial and ap rounds, since with those rounds grenadiers lose a bit of their reason to be brought.
Smoke greanade suffers a lot because xcom 2 rewards agressive play way more than defensive play
Yea, for sure, smoke was pretty good prior to xcom2
Am i the only person that loves Proximity Mines? I think theyre the best grenades
Might be too short for a video, but I'd be interested in a class tier list
Your list is not really that good to be honest with you, I'm talking about this as an L/I completionist.
1. Frost bomb and Mimic Beacon should be S tier. These are broken as hell;
2. Medikit and Improved one should be A tier, it cures poison, it let soldier recover quickly after mission and it's rare that you don't use it on higher difficulty. It's like a must in many cases;
3. Skulljack is definitely S tier. Not just because it gets 20bonus to hacking, but also because you can 1 shot full health and full armor Advent like Shieldbearer, Priest (thus preventing the annoying Sustain), and even the Purifier cannot explore because of this kill. The cheery on top? you get to get some intel or cache of alien goods for a successful skulljack. If you got a specialist, this is a no brainer thing to bring in any mission with her, along with the medikit.
4. Mindshield being A tier? Excuse me? In what way are you lacking means to disrupt an enemy mind controlling your soldier? Frost bomb the enemy? flashbang? Bonded teammate? Psi Ops? Or better yet, just kill the damn bastard. For other effects, that's where the Specialist Revival is for, and it's not even turn ending action. This Mindshield is so useless that is actually probably F or D best.
I do no squadsize upgrade runs and these rankings reflect that, but everything you said is exactly how I felt when using six units as you have more flexibility and utility slots
yes, mindshield is not worth it just to protect one guy. Better to get a flashbang and be able to protect everyone else. All in all, the devs did a poor job of balancing all these things.
what is the name of the background music?
Enemy Unknown Act 1 HQ
@@EdwinofEberron thanks man!
So you are going to help me with my new game run just got the dlc to play so ty
Guess i'm the only smoke grenade fan. :D. I usually sport a sniper team and a "cleanup crew" , that cleanup crew avoids full pods and usually stands back until the sniper crew has engaged, if for whatever reason another pod or the cleanup crew gets my snipers into danger i really want to avoid moving them even in low cover because you waste their turn. Smoke grenade shines in those situations. I will keep a smoke on one of the snipers and use it on their off turn if i can. And if i'm really worried about casualties then it's flashbang/poison time on top of that. If you smoke, bang and poison you don't even need cover. Oh and smoke lasts longer than flash.
it would be tight af if someone timestamped each item
let's go
I can't believe this video is 1.5 hours long... We definitely have too much data storage capacity.
Hahaha
You should try the prox mine. You might like it.
Were you doing this during a live stream? Cause holy shit dude with a script and not all the back and forth this video could've been 30 min
For sure
Nice analysis
Spectre are vulnerable to bluescreen rounds?
Yes
But not EMP. I never understood that.
@@Matthewjs33 yea same here
@Matthewjs33 yeah spectres are just weird in general
@@sebastianbronowicki7073 Or am I wrong? I can't remember.
The devs did a poor job balancing all these things. Too many are so worthless that they should never be considered. For example the vest that gives only one health - absolute garbage. They should have made it give two health, and then slightly increased the cost. Smoke grenades also need to be buffed in some way - maybe allow two, but increase the cost. Maybe cause it to release a healing gas or something - anything to make it not shite. I also think they should have been creative with more methods to heal. Med kits are really good with specialist and pretty bad with everyone else. They should have been more creative.
Regular grenades become pretty weak in later game - only good with the grenadier. Some kind of 2-grenade pack could have been cool that all classes could use. Maybe give it some cost, to justify its extra goodness.
Smoke garnades also make anyone in it not trigger overwatch i learned this when i climbed a roof and 3 codex overwatched on top
I think battle scanners are good if you run w/ a lot of sharpshooters. You can use the to spot pods and then just sit back at a safe position and take potshots at enemies across the map w/o actually having to engage. Even if you hit chance is rather low, since they can't see you back you can just keep shooting till your rolls line up. But you can also just do this with a ranger or reaper w/ pretty much the same effect. Just keeping them concealed for the whole map to spot units for you. And of course map layout and mission parameters can make this less viable, but when you don't have a timer you can really break the game, and even complete cheese the final mission. I'm also pretty sure they reveal the Chosen assassin if you have general idea of where she is.
Which is all to say I also never use them lol. But I do think they can be used effectively so I would probably have put them in C.
Edit: LOL I see you moved it up later. :D
Having a cloaked character spot turrets/weak enemies and just taking potshots at them with my sniper is my favorite early game strategy, and it's frankly busted for missions with no time limit, especially if you have a stock for the occasional miss. Perfect for early blacksite missions.
flashbang should go higher especially for long war
Bro, 4 man legend iron Man is a thing🤯🤯🤯
It's definitely not common, but there are a few of us doing it
You put flash bang in C
90 minutes!? Are you serious? He starts out sounding bored AF.
Who would watch this all the way?
Beats me
I'm interested in your content, but the speech is a bit too long and gets exhausting, bud. I think it would be great if you had a script or something to make it more concise and easier to follow. Just not into 20 minutes of talking about a basic nade, you know?
That's valid
Lmaoo just save your game before alien activity quit load save and there you have it Time Skip
I am no spiffing brit lol
You sound like you gave up in life five years ago
😂
This is a bad list, he put all your counters at bottom, they situational counters to enemy skills.
What's the point of doing a tier list while looking bored AF and starting with the fact that some items you've never or only once used and then you didn't even know flashbang stopped sectoid mind control?
Like everyone's free to do whatever but to me this is 0 value add
imo one time use items are E tier haha 100% trash
People are still talking about this game. Come on, Firaxis. Update the console version. Maybe even release it for current-generation consoles. The optimization just isn't there, and the bugs are still present. I would still buy it again since I am currently playing the PS4 version on PS5.
Went back to it after crippling bugs and crashes on release and I'm in love. Got it off humble to play with mods on pc.😊