Xcom 2 Tips

[Catfood220]

Ok, so a bit late to the party because I play on PS4, but I finally got around to playing this amazing game that I love and hate in about equal measures.

When everything goes well then the game is fantastic. When everything goes wrong, then I'm not so keen on the game. Seriously, how can all six of you of missed your shots at that Muton? Its just standing there and its fucking huge.

I'm coming to the point of this post, I am coming to the end of my first play through because the Avatar progress bar is almost full and I have a feeling that its going to end badly. So, I ask all of you Xcom 2 veterans for your help and tips of stuff that I should be doing on my next attempt. Or just discuss what you love and hate about this game if you want.

 

[happyninja42]

General tips, as it's been a while since i played and can't remember much in the way of detailed strategies but:

1. Don't drag your heels with those Avatar related missions. They start stacking up quick, and you find yourself about to lose because you didn't focus on them. You should be doing those every 2-3 missions in my opinion, if not more frequently.

2. Train psionics, in my playthrough, by the end, I had a full 6 man team of psionics, and they were a powerhouse that was unstoppable. Some people feel this is overkill, and that 1 is all you need. My opinion: Screw that noise, go Scanners on those alien bastards! Staggering out their use of psionics, means that you always have 1-2 agents who can dish out some terrifying mind power for the entire fight. I suggest upgrading to 2 people in the psi lab ASAP, and just keep 1 person in there ( possibly 2 if you don't mind waiting) in there 24/7. The same 2 people. Let them stack up several powers before you bring them out to fight. Then, when they do hit the field, they will be a huge benefit to your team.

3. Snipers with the Team View Overwatch trick. I lost count of how many enemies my snipers killed by using a teammates vision range to hit them. It was super crazy.

I'm sure there's more but I can't think of any of them atm.

 

[DoPo]

I've got some tips for you:
1. Grenadiers.
2. Grenadiers.
3. Grenadiers.

These guys and gals are awesome. Early to mid game they kick ass and late game they also kick ass.

On a slightly more serious note, grenadiers are indeed very useful. They destroy cover, they do damage, they can even stack some nasty effects on a lot of enemies with special grenades. Early game the guaranteed damage is incredibly useful - it can one shot weaker enemies, it can finish off slightly or even more hurt enemies, it can soften up tough enemies. The cover destruction is also really useful for exposing enemies, so the rest of your squad can score kills. Moving towards midgame, these advantages stay but you gain more and more of the special grenades which enhances the situations where grenadiers will be useful - an acid grenade will melt armour like it's butter, a fire grenade will do the equivalent to flesh and will also disable most powers to those who remain alive (yet burning).

Towards late game grenadiers aren't as powerful comparably, but only because everybody else is quite powerful.

I'd definitely recommend keeping several grenadiers around - have at least two in a squad (so, you might need 3-4 to keep on rotation, for when somebody gets injured).

4. Utility items.

Do not underestimate them. Flashbangs can be life-savers. I'd equip some on the grenadiers, too for extended range and radius, but other soldiers can use them to great effect, too. A flash bang disables special abilities and also applies some hefty penalties to enemies. Stun lancers early game are quite nasty but a flash makes them almost harmless, since they won't be able to melee you, they won't be able to move far and they will only be able to shoot (with a large penalty to hit). Battle scanners are also useful, among other stuff.

5. Psi-ops

They are pretty much OP but require a large time investment, so are going to be active towards late-game.

 

[Zhukov]

Use explosives liberally. Aside from the guaranteed damage, they shred armour and destroy cover, allowing for potent follow-up shots.

There is a utility item called a mimic beacon. It's a hologram decoy that draws enemy fire. Once deployed enemies will prioritize shooting it. Sometimes they'll even get out of position in order to get a shot on it. It's a massively useful item that can salvage a fubar situation. Take at least one every mission. Hell, I always take two.

There is an enemy called a Stun Lancer. A melee trooper with a riot prod. They charge you to melee and can cover a lot of ground very quickly. If they get close bad things can happen. Try to kill them on the same turn you see them. If you can't kill them, flashbang them.

Do not melee a Muton. Bad shit will go down.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Not sure if this trick can still be used (they might've patched it), but try to arrange things such that you break concealment in the enemy's turn, and not yours.

What this does is makes it so the enemy spends their turn moving to cover, triggering overwatch shots normally, allowing you to go straight to your turn afterwards. If you break concealment in your turn like a normal ambush, the enemy gets their free move into cover and then gets a turn straight after.

The easiest way to do this is to leave a character around the corner ahead of an enemy patrol, so that the patrol rounds the corner and sees him, breaking concealment. This does potentially expose that character to flanking fire, so use it carefully, but if you can pull it off your entire team gets overwatch shots followed by a full turn. You can clean out entire pods without taking damage this way.

 

[cathou]

flashbang. dont underestimate them. it prevent the lancer from stunning your team, it prevent the Codex to clone itself when you hit it, and the avatar to teleport each time you hit it.

bluescreen rounds. once you have research them, be sure to equip a few of your guys with it when you know you will encounter robots.

there's no shame in fleeing. if you know you will not be able to succeed you mission and that your team is in danger of being wiped, extract them. if one of your guy will die from poisoning, extract him, and if one of your guy is about to bleed to death, extract him. that said, if they are roockies, let them die, but if they are high ranked, saved them.

keep you objective in mind. some mission will have endless enemy waves to battle, so if your objective say save the scientist and flee, then do so, dont try to kill everyone

dont rush avatar prject mission, but try to have at least one accessible at any time. so if your avatar project bar goes critical, you can reduce it by doing a mission.

 

[DoPo]

Ooh, something else: Evac

Don't forget that on a lot of missions you can call Evac at any time and any place. So, if you have a levelled up soldier in a really sticky situation, you can just drop the evacuation zone on them and let them ride away to live another day. Trained soldiers are really valuable and you should really focus on keeping them alive - if one is surrounded and on low health and/or poisoned/burning/whatever condition - you can just pull them out of combat.

 

[Zydrate]

I personally just modded the shit out of the game to make it easier on me, to the point that only Sectopods pose a legit threat to me. I've disabled the game ender event, made it so I could have eight people on a mission, unused soldiers still get passive background experience so that when my peeps DO get wounded I'll still have some at-level people available.
And a few other things.

Obviously this may neuter the fun for you personally but that's "my" advice.

 

[squid5580]

You really don't need to focus on the avatar missions. Just focus on getting up the radio facilities so you can get to them. When the bar is full and there is just a few hours left then do 1 (take into account travel time). This will buy you extra time.

 

[Terminal Blue]

One thing which confused a lot of people and induced unnecessary anxiety.

The Avatar progress bar filling is not a game over. What it does is to start a timer which counts down to game over. If you manage to lower Avatar progress during that time the timer is stopped and seems to reset after some time has passed. The game is actually quite forgiving in terms of lose conditions. Weirdly, the "blow up the research base" missions are the ones I generally found the most fun because there's no time limit and they reward you for using stealth (since you'll always evacuate, there's no point in killing everyone on the map, just sneak in, plant the bomb and run).

Everyone's going to have their own strategy, but for me the decisive one is generally to rush psionics. It takes a little time for your psi operatives to start being worth bringing on missions, but once they hit that point are they're incredibly useful due to their crowd control, support and reusable always-hit abilities. Several points in the game which are normally ramps in the difficulty curve become much, much easier if you have psionic support.

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

Rush Predator armor and Mag weapons.

Also, you don't have to accept EVERY mission the council throw at you. Only gurilla ops and red missions will fuck you if you skip them.

Also, focus on collecting engineers early game.

 

[Catnip1024]

Anti-armour everything. AP Rounds, Incendiary Grenades (and rounds). Give your people PCS bonuses as soon as you can.

Oh, and pick the sniper skill that lets them shoot everyone in sight with the pistol. If you give them a good ammo type it becomes ridiculously powerful (especially against things like the Codex). Lightning hands is good too.

The assault class are extremely powerful, but you want to be careful about using them for melee attacks when they might reveal another 6 enemies by accident.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I've got some tips for you:
1. Grenadiers.
2. Grenadiers.
3. Grenadiers.

This man knows what he's talking about.

Grenadiers, hell, explosives in general are beyond essential.

There's a really powerful enemy with just 3-4 HP left that absolutely positively NEEDS to die? Grenade for guaranteed damage!

Mutons hiding behind high cover that you can't hit? GRENADE! And now they are open and exposed!

A bunch of touch mechanical enemies and an armored guy in a bunch? GRENADE! Armor is now shredded!

A wall in your way, preventing a unit from making it to where you want her to go? GRENADE! Wall, what wall, now it's an escape route!

Just the ability to effectively delete cover is already something that makes Grenadiers beyond incredible.

And that's without going into their special abilities or the fact that with the right upgrades you can literally have an endgame grenadier that regularly has a 100% hit rate.

Shred armor on attack? Awesome. Giant cone of death or heavy damage that makes the target take more damage from everything else? AWESOME!

Yes, an Assault with that skill that lets you evade incoming shots after getting a kill will let you save people's lives from certain death with less risk. Yes, a Gunslinger with Serial Shot and a good Autoloader can devastate a huge mob of enemies. Yes, a gunslinger with the Triple-tap or Face-off skill and Flaming ammo can wreck an army's shit on his own. Yes, supports save lives.

But nothing compares to the raw versatility of explosions. It's why my endgame teams were composed of 3 Grenadiers and one of each other class both times I played the game.

Aside from that, always have backup troops, don't ignore the Avatar Progress bar, and always, ALWAYS have a plan B and a plan C.

Oh, and exo suits and the other advanced attack armor are both super useful. Get them for sure! Extra protection and "Heavy utility weapons" are amazing. Having a pinpoint rocket is great, as is having a wide-cone-of-death-shrapnel gun.

Also, if the PS4 version is "moddable" (Doubtful), the True Concealment mod is a must. It makes the turn counter not tick down while you're concealed, which is a godsend.

 

[DoPo]

A bunch of touch mechanical enemies and an armored guy in a bunch? GRENADE! Armor is now shredded!

Yeah - on that - I had my gunslinger sharpshooter and my grenadier team up for an complete wipe of the enemies once.

So, situation - it was one of those missions where you had to raid a UFO. Went in and things went slightly sideways as I attacked the people inside, and another enemy pod also walked in. Along with sectopod which came in through the wall.

So, I resolved the situation by using an acid grenade on the sectopod with a bunch of other enemies which applied a large DOT on them as well as pretty much annihilate all armour. The gunslinger, who was equipped with bluescreen rounds, shot the sectopod five times in the face as well as everybody else once[footnote]Free first shot with the pistol, Faceoff to shoot everybody in sight, and Fan fire to shoot a target three times. Yes, you can do that.[/footnote]. That destroyed the sectopod and most of the other enemies were either basically dead (because of the acid burn) or almost dead and the rest of the squad just dealt with them.

It was like a duo of angels of death spreading their wings. It was glorious.