Actually I didn’t mean to exaggerate, because I didn’t remember about the acc penalty! So I stand corrected about the distance. Now, why do you say the old version was not useful against sirens?
Sure, they’re just 2 OP builds, the only difference is that one was nerfed and the other not… yet. I wasn’t really comparing the 2, just saying that the RB/SR combo was too OP to exist, the changes were appropriate, and that I wouldn’t want the old version back.
In general I also prefer long range builds, so I would agree. I’ve never used the Archangel though and I recently saw a canny post complaining that they’re inaccurate and usually hit 30 degrees off. So, is it accurate or not?
I think the other way around… removing the OP / alpha combos helps to show the survivability problems and may lead to better balance. Maybe even some tier 2 armor, one can dream
ugh, well if there is a massive damage multiplier out there you bet players will be spamming the dahm thing.
personally I dispise high damage multipliers like those granted by sneak attack (because it demotes tactics to “MOAR PEW-PEW, MOAR DAMAGE”) but that is a bit besides the point of the OP.
in effect the OP is somewhat right, it reduces the value of billy with the shotgun giving a rectal exam to every singe enemy he faces. this however is not innately a bad thing, as it means you cannot take care of every tactical problem with the same tool…what is a bad thing is if the pendulum swings completely the other way and a single long range build becomes dominant…and while I don’t really like sneak attack spam…it luckily isn’t the only powerful build around.
however, even though I don’t mind umbra’s chewing up careless shotgunners, I do feel they should be more obvious. because I have feeling most deaths by umbra’s occur because of “oh shit I didn’t know he was an umbra” after having slaughtered like 6 non-umbra crabs.
Because of the accuracy penalty and Sirens are small targets … out of my memory you mostly hit 1 or 2 out of the 5 shot burst, so it was more reliable to simply do 2 Quick Aim shots with the same or even better result but without to kill it → Sniper/Infiltrator combo kills it with 2 hits.
Basically, it doesn’t matter whether one or the other is better or not in that detail. What remains, however, that in my opinion it wouldn’t hurt much if they reverted to the last version of RB. (with acc penalty and restricted to 5 shots per RB).
999 range with the direct fire free aim instead of the usual “bubble” aim for explosives.
I don’t know anything about inaccuracy issues and the last time I used it it was very accurate.
Edit:
Just tested Archangel RL, here 2 pics to show its insane accuracy with free aim:
Heavy Priest combo, his Archangel aim (999 range):
… compared to his Subjugator aim (51 range) from the same position:
On the Arthron Umbra I agree with OP and @conductiv: it is in a way meant to make spamming close range attacks with something like Rapid Clearance and/or Adrenaline more risky and less universally viable, which is a good thing.
For me the main problem with Sneak Attack is that it’s just a very bad skill - it’s a straight massive damage multiplier that doesn’t require putting any thought into it. You are in stealth? Shoot. Not in stealth? Cast Vanish first, then shoot. (and btw that was my main complaint with the old Rage Burst: in practice, it was just multiplying damage by 5, and the penalty to accuracy didn’t matter that much because it could be easily offset with the right armor/skills, or just closing the distance to the target)
What if Sneak Attack was an active skill that cost 3 WP, required to be in Stealth and broke stealth after attack if attacking with a non-silent weapon?
(And echo head did something else other than make every weapon silent…)
I agree, basically. IMO, the main difference between Sneak Attack and RB is that the latter has an opportunity cost (5 WP, acc penalty and also more ammo cost), but SA is passive, so completely free, except maybe a Vanish to get in stealth mode.
+ maybe decrease the damage buff to +50% (on par with Brawler and MfD). It is still stupidly high and don’t forget that melee is basically also a silent attack.
Some ideas related to the fact that this is a Synedrion augmentation and basically meant to use for Infiltrators (i.e. scouting), one of them or maybe even two (Night Vision is already given):
Increasing hearing range, similar to the Motion Detection Module or the Priests Mind sense
Integrated Repeller Module
Increasing Perception
Increasing Accuracy
Something new like the good old “Holo Targeting” (maybe for 1 AP and some WP cost?) to increase accuracy on the target for any allied soldier
I think any of that is good. It would also be interesting to know how hearing works exactly with the enemy AI - maybe silent echo could make the operative move silently, if that isn’t the case already.
I like the ideas for the infiltrator, seems it would be much better. I have a doubt though that you guys may be able to answer… I don’t have that much experience with infiltrators, I only made sniper/infs and mainly for the double damage, vanish and the spider drones. Never used much of the other stuff.
Now forget about the augmentation problem for a moment and imagine that the proposed changes were applied to Sneak Attack. Would the infiltrator class become “meh”? Would it not be worth it as single or dual class, compared to other classes?
For my personal playstyle (I hate sneaking mechanics in general) the only reason I get infiltrators is for the double damage. I love the spider drones but it would not be enough for me. If a perk existed for them, I wouldn’t miss the class at all in these circumstances.
Good point. I would stay with my combinations, I like the sneaky gameplay generally. But it could well be that they will become even less popular than I suspect they already are.
I see only a few discussions about their possibilities, only a few individuals report that they are actually far too strong.
I think that’s maybe why the developers haven’t really addressed their class properties yet. Their internal statistics may also show that infiltrators are simply hardly used, so probably they cannot see the OP’nes at all.
But pure guesswork on my part …
Edit to try to answer your question:
I think not, one of their most hidden strength is their general invisibility, they are very hard to spot for the enemies and invisibility means mostly invulnerability. Even with the proposed changes to SA I think they would still be very strong.
The only question is whether the majority of players would accept it.
It’s weird isn’t it - I find it hard not to MC everyone into Infiltrator at level 7 at least.
It is as Voland says a boring no brainer capstone skill and should probably be no more than +50% damage or be active as he described or maybe both.
The level 7 skills in this are different from the top tier stuff in WOTC as they are generally useable infinitely, subject to WP, while the WOTC ones have long cool downs if they are not once per mission. This turns them into degenerate staples rather than cool finishing moves.
The power spike at 7th level is also very pronounced and the game could do with a smoother progression. The same applies to the Ancient weapons. The mechanics - massive discounting on probes with extra bases - encourage you to get them all in a rush. So again there is a big spike rather than a gradual increase. Also this rush means lots of ancient site missions together rather than mixed in with many others which exacerbates the pacing issue of the late game (ie it is very samey and boring defending endless havens with your many A teams )
WOTC does have this issue - the first adversary may be tough but the others will be trivial.
Back to original point the Umbra issue makes melee worse too and it is already pretty terrible. I don’t have any issue with melee being bad in a game with modern guns but then the game should not have trap options making it appear viable. Those backwards Anu guys can keep their Fists of Marduk & PP will use guns tvm.
Well, the surprise attacks has (surprisingly ) grown on me, but the drone pack is meh, because it can only be used with a single equipment piece. I like drones very much, particularly in combination with a Technician, but it’s a very limited skill. Decoy is good, I like it. Vanish is very good as well, but I wonder how useful it would be without a strong Sneak Attack.
I think though that Sneak Attack would still be strong as an active skill, and even at 50% damage. Or keep at 100% but remove some meta like blast damage benefitting from it.
Another idea: what if Sneak Attack was passive but required the target to have some affliction to work? Like be poisoned, on fire, bleeding, etc?
Don’t get me wrong, I very much liked 50% + active. Also 3WP is not much so it could still be used a lot. I also agree with auto reveal on use unless it’s a silent weapon, something to make crossbows more enticing (again, forgetting about the augmentation for now).
I like this better than requiring an affliction, as it would conflict with the scouting nature of the class. It’s a pity we didn’t get the robots, maybe it could have some synergy with the robot dogs, like making them get the target’s attention or holding them.
What I meant is that infiltrators lack more support skills. Is there any skill in PP that acts as a temporary restriction to movement and/or action? I can’t recall any right now, it would suit infiltrators. Maybe some kind of net that would make targets easier to kill or paralyze. That would make it more valuable to have at least one infiltrator in the team as a scout/pokeball thrower with decoy/drones/net, as it is for technicians with healing/repairs/sentries. Technicians have good offense with the laser PDW, infiltrators would’ve good offense with the sneaky crossbow when undetected.
In general they are good supporters and master of distraction. With Surprise Attack an Infiltrator can daze up to 4 enemies per turn. The Decoy works pretty nice when placed in front of an enemy that you don’t want to act against your Squad. The Spider Drones are not only little walking bombs, they also force the enemy to react against them instead of your soldiers. That said, the Drone Pack is literally also a triple decoy, good for attracting at least 3 attacks*. Vanish give them always the chance to go invisible if something went badly wrong.
At the end Sneak Attack shines over all these possibilities, but the others are IMO all viable and very useful to distract the enemies while mainly spotting for the team. I use the lower skills a lot when I recruit Infiltrators and level them in missions. It changes when Sneak Attack is skilled, because simply killing the enemy is more effective than distracting them.
*Edit:
Imagine an Infiltrator with Drone Pack and a spare spider drone magazine in a ready slot, 6 drones in one turn and if placed in front of the enemies your team is mostly save + you have probably some smart bombs left in the next turn.
Maybe something like auto reveal when attacking with out a silent weapon and sneak attack pierces all armor but no damage bonus.
It would make crossbows more useful and open up a possibility for phoenix silent weapon tech to give some sort of new silenced weapon.
Also detection range is pretty short. You can sometimes be right next to enemies and they still don´t detect you so that could be tweaked a bit.
Comparing survivability of armored vs stealthed soldiers looks really bleak on the armored side.
Even a soldier with heavy armor in full cover for the whole mission is way more likely to die than a stealth soldier standing in open for the whole mission and that is something that makes infiltrators so strong.
Maybe new stronger armor should be a thing to balance it out a bit and/or make better animations for taking cover so soldier would leave less of themselves visible to be shot at.
I´m still laughing at my trooper with cyborg shield torso who got shot in the face all the time because the energy shield animation left his head visible.
These would be fun second wave options to tweak.
+50% detection range for enemies and louder weapons.
+30-50% AV for phoenix forces
With “don’t detect you” I assume you don’t mean getting revealed (visible) but heard (the red blips we get when our units hear something)?
Otherwise any stealthed unit, that is not vanished, is revealed (get visible) automatic at a minimum of 5 tiles distance, even when it has 100% or more stealth. A Triton with double perception can reveal Infiltrators without Thief perk and full stealth armor, so 75% stealth, at a distance of 15 tiles. In my opinion that is quite a lot and enough dangerous for any “normal” Infiltrator without Thief.
On the other side, the standard hearing range is IMO quite close, I assume 5 tiles and to get detected by hearing the unit must do something like moving or shooting a nonsilent weapon. I guess that vanish is also silent, so can not be heard, detected. If you don’t do something like this, than an Infiltrator can probably stay undetectet a whole mission.
But, how do you know that they hear (detect) you?
There is no indicator for and the AI can’t do much if a soldier is only heard but not visible. They don’t shoot and also Arthrons don’t launch their grenades, the only enemy that I’m aware of that reacts on heard, detected units are Chirons, but only if they are alarmed.
I just want to express support for the original complaint here. I think Umbras need some balancing, they are too punishing. With 1 WP 90 damage attacks they kill anything within a pretty big area, including maxed out full health 300 HP soldiers. Scyllas dont even do this, its just silly. I like the idea of them, they just need to do like half the damage they currently do. There also needs to be a way better visual indicator of which Arthrons will spawn Umbras.
I don´t know how the rules for stealth work but pretty often when i attack a nest or some other cave on first enemy turn an arthron or two run right in the middle of my troopers and not all my infiltrators get revealed.
By which i mean they still have the shady screen edges and do double damage.
Same thing with chiron worms. Sometimes they land very close to my troops but some stay hidden.
To me any range you can reliably use a shotgun from is “right next to”
Whether the enemies can hear them or just don´t detect them at all seems irrelevant since they do nothing about the sound blips. No reaction is in effect same as no detection.
Of course, line of sight (LOS) is necessary to reveal (or spot) a hidden unit. If an enemy is around a corner without LOS then he will not reveal an Infiltrator even when he is closer as 5 tiles. Some “high cover” rocks are also blocking LOS completely in one direction. That is in nests/caves often the case, so maybe that’s why your Infiltrators not get revealed(?).
I think, no LOS is also often the reason that close worms didn’t reveal hidden units, when they land behind some obstacles.
you can damage the spawnpoint umbra with flamethrower and mindcrush. Also best strategie is to prevent umbras from spawning. You can check on the infos of arthrons if they will spawn an umbra. They have the tar shadow ability. Then use paralyze weapons on them. Or disable their limbs, mindcontrol and heal them. If they have a shield they will only shield up every turn without moving. Otherwise they will move around without any purpose. It’s funny. You can even warcry an umbra spawnpoint. Last resort would be overwatch. They only have melee. They have to move.
+ maybe decrease the damage buff to +50% (on par with Brawler and MfD). It is still stupidly high and don’t forget that melee is basically also a silent attack.
) grown on me, but the drone pack is meh, because it can only be used with a single equipment piece. I like drones very much, particularly in combination with a Technician, but it’s a very limited skill. Decoy is good, I like it. Vanish is very good as well, but I wonder how useful it would be without a strong Sneak Attack.