After some unconfirmed rumors of difficulty-balance in the new patch I started up my first Legendary game today, ready to rage quit at any moment. Took and accepted one casultie in NJ first Diplomacy/Story mission. Then played very defensively and managed Anu first mission with remaining team of 3. Took things slow and build up my roster, but never got a full Manticore ready for either of the first 2 Nests appearing. Not noticing the one Nest had turned into af Lair I sent in my team of level 3-5 once I could fill all spots. When I realized it was a Lair I was just about to cancel the mission, but then thought, hey, lets get blown up. Might grap a few XP and retreat.
Was met by a Fire Worm Chiron, a sentinel and some eggs. Then later a few each of Arthrons and Tritons and further towards the center of the map a pair of Sirenes. Then reinforcements started coming in, but no quicker, than most of the team could fight their way up to the Spawnery cowered by snipers from center of the map and start killing it. An Arthron showed up and tried to finish the Spawnery off with a grenade-launcher together with my team, but a Phoenix soldier took the kill!
That was a fun play-session and a total different expirience than my privious runs on Veteran and later Easy. Ofcourse I have learned from hours spent on those, but at current progression with ODI at 6% the game does feel very different to me.
I don`t recall when first Lair appeared in previous runs, but in those I did destroy the first Nest, that supposedly sets of the creation of Lairs. Could mean a significant difference.
Just today had a similar fun run in a new Lair. It does take some hours to complete - no cheese/multiple-dash or jumps to get anywhere. Just one occasionally now and then.
Games feels much better now!
Getting Lairs a bit rapidly, hope that doesn`t keep up!
Did lose a soldier on this Lair towards the end of it.
My last lair could be considered as a cheese but this cheese made a defense mission with with extra management and it’s a bit slow:
Setup a defense plan and area, 1rst turn.
First goal, kill enough enemies until get low morale with a Crab with poison, 2 or 3 turns.
Control the crab and find the target, despite I’m never sure, I could guess once more. One turn to help defense, 3 turns to reach the target.
Apply poison to target, 3 turns.
Defend until target die, which is longer since target HP get extended, 4 turns.
13 or 14 turns, but risks are minimal, the game hasn’t really defense missions because Haven defense and scavenging play very differently.
You need a Priest, had one with 14 WP. You need have a defense area not too awful. Have Fenzy can help fairly well. At previous attempt it was a lot faster, Frenzy, get a crab sooner and rushed it to target, could control longer the crab and apply more poison, and rushed 2 soldiers to finish the job but it was just one turn less.
I wonder if dev knew this way to manage it. It’s possible only through poison.
Also known as the most difficult mission in your entire play through (if you take it early and don’t wait for a full squad) So, you’re in for a smooth ride
Cheese is ambigous, I used cheese because this strategy refuse enter in the mission design, a bit of it only, and sort of simplify the mission. That said it isn’t really elementary, but the risk is quite reduced.
I think cheese mean easy to apply, but in video games it’s perhaps more ambiguous. For example sometimes isolation tactics will allow a much easier struggle but sometimes isolate is very complex, is it cheese or not, if isolate is complex it’s not really cheesing because the whole isn’t easy.
I started Legendary mentally ready for punishment, at just took a go at it. Clearly knowing the mission from previous runs makes a big difference.
Overall thought a loss of one team-member was accepteble!
setup a defense? HELL NO! rush one side with everybody one by one… in 3-4 turns its done. and toying with poison? lol, why? you can easily shot off arms of crabs and they will do nothing… and all you need is a single guy that gets to the spawnery and he will kill it in 2 turns with a shotgun (sometimes in single turn)
you can use Dash 4 times with enough of Willpoints… you dont have to kill it same turn you get there… next turn you have 2 shots from shotgun (Iconocast deals 480 damage so you can deal 960 damage from 2 shots…), and if you aim it at unarmored part, you will disable it, and remove 500 Hitpoints from it… next shot will kill it… and if not, you will do it in third turn… no need to spend 15 turns there like Zzzz said… 3 turns and its done…
It’s even a lot more cheesy than my “strategy”. But also can it work that easily is the question. You should try it before to argue:
Maps don’t start like before, there’s a lot of parts in fow, you can’t even see spawn points or not all. It means at least one or two turns of scouting los. Perhaps a Heavy but I hadn’t jetpack in that team.
You’ll need have luck not have a Sentinel too close or kill it before. There’s no more RB to do it very fast, it’s at least a 6 team turn, should be doable in 1.5 turn, I don’t remind.
You need at least one Berzerk/Assault for that, I had none. Assault/Infiltrator won’t work I think or with 100% stealth exploit and a huge pool of WP to hide again.
High Will points is after many combats, so quite further in campaign. At Legend attributes start low, and I had better usage of global skill points than to build an Assault exploit. Moreover it’s not that close without jump legs, and very high speed is another problem of global SP.
There’s no more unarmored part, or it’s eggs under it but I suspected those are just lure. The lower armored part is 10 only but later in campaign it’s probably more. That said the personal shotgun skill will increase damages, and a Berzerk could in theory use Armor Break but with even more WP.
If you you go there alone there should be a pack of crab not far, yeah they wait not far. This aspect is RNG, sometimes they are well positioned, sometimes not. It means sometimes you’ll reach a point that crabs will have a los in 3 turns, but most often it’s 2 turns and one shot for one or two. That said since last patch it’s perhaps changed.
So, I’ll try to experiment, if I can setup an Assault/Berzerk soon enough, I have already the Lair available. I don’t believe it will be that easy with huge pool of global SP spend in the exploit, I won’t be able offer me that.
So I’ll try instead:
First los scout, and identify target location, in my opinion 3 turns.
Try setup multi turn paths with will restore turns, so locations very hard to access so probably jetpack and fumbling management. At least 5 turns, certainly more.
Get to target with 3 turns and 2 will restore and that’s an optimistic evaluation for a non straight path.
Kill in 3 turns, or 2 full turns perhaps.
15 turns, not faster, faster would be with a superman character with ton of global SP spend in him, I can’t offer me that.
EDIT: The solution is perhaps improvable (without superman character but using also Heavy/Berzerk and Frenxy (no potion yet so Priest with mutation so luck, I don’t have one like that). Not sure I want a Heavy/Berzerk just for that.
IMO 15 turns is way too long. I just move all my soldiers at once to the side of the map and then to the Spawnery, and it takes 5 turns to finish, especially if Frenzy is available. Sometimes I leave a stealth Sniper behind to cover the advance.
it seems to me you dont know how to play this game… in 15 turns i’m usually destroying 5 lairs… My longest so far was done at turn 5… but only because there were 5 sirens in my path and i had to kill them all. (shots to the head, then killed)
I’m using 6 guys, level 6 and 7 assault/infiltrators and assault/snipers… dash, vanish, quick aim, sneak attack… some of them have reckless… some PDW proficiency… they go through like hot knife through butter… and that 5turn mission, is my longest ever… in average, it doesnt take more than 3 turns.
And there are plenty of youtube playthroughs where these missions are finished like this…
Btw, sneak attack doubles your damage, with reckless and iconocast, you do 1100 damage per shot… so two shots are enough to kill Spawnery… hell, if that first shot also disables the body, it will deal 1600 damage so it will still die from single shot
But also can it work that easily is the question. You should try it before to argue: