Medium difficulty salvage mission against Pure is like an Extreme difficulty Pandoran mission

Basically what the title says. I can handle a medium difficulty salvage mission against the Pure about as easily as the most difficult mission possible against the Pandorans.

They are so overpowered. Their armor and shields render anything but heavies and snipers irrelevant for the most part. They have seemingly unlimited distance for their abilities to cause disorientation. Their shields have way too much HP.

A lot of great work was done in making the difficulty and scaling work better with the last patch. Amazing work, actually, Snapshot. Although I think the Pure don’t scale the same way, or fit the same difficulty classifications as other enemies. This should be revisited. That isn’t to say that they need to be nerfed at all. Just, a “medium” difficulty against them should probably be reclassified as harder. And they appear 95% of the time now on these mission types, so I think that encounter percentage should be reduced some.

2 Likes

Yeah, they might be a bit too common. Of my missions (scavenge + haven defense), nearly half have been against the Pure. Forsaken have had 3 with one being Pure mission 3. Pure are…really odd. Haven’t been too much of a problem (all the extra armour shred helps), but their scaling is bizarre. One medium mission in the Mist had 2 Armadillo’s and 3 Pure with MG’s and snipers. Restarted from the geoscape and it changed to 6 or 7 infantry with half Neuralisers, the other half snipers or assault rifles.

They actually have been getting less difficult since most of them don’t have Juggernaut torsos anymore (no shields) so are more vulnerable to gunfire.

Also… If none of my soldiers are in range of the turrets deployed by the Pure, those turrets attack the Pure. To stress the point, enemy turrets deployed by the pure attack other Pure soldiers if none of my soldiers are in range. I have seen this happen 3 times. It may not be a guaranteed, 100% thing as I don’t know when my soldiers are in range of those things.

I was about to start a topic along these lines. I haven’t seen a pandoran for a couple of weeks now as everything is pure with the odd forsaken mission. I’m still fairly early on and my assault rifles don’t even damage them as they have 40+ armour.
Is this working as designed? I feel like the only class worth using are snipers.

Use:

  • Berserker with assault rifle and Armor Break make wonders agains Pure. Just give him good amount of Willpower and spare magazine.
  • Sniper shot in the arm, with Quick Aim 2 enemies disabled - they run away
  • Heavy with Goliath and preferably Boom Blast - even if will not kill an enemy he will shred armor so others will be able to finish Cyborgs (you can also use Hel Cannon but it brings more risk).

My first impression was “Oh hell, 40+ armor” but there are ways to deal with them. Pure can be powerful, but usually their numbers are not so high as with Pandorans.

2 Likes

This is correct. It is exactly how I dealt with them. It was just so hard to handle them early on before I could reasonably counter them.

On my 1 mission against the pure i left my solders out of enemy sight and watch how haven solders wage war against the pure. I left it that they kill or weakens themself and then i go to kill remaining enemy. Granade, sniper, dash with shotguns do quick kill. Attack from behind, flank… Try to kill pure snipers first…

Oh I’m not saying they can’t be dealt with, but they have huge armour for early game and do a lot of damage - they seem to have 5aps as they shoot twice and then deploy shields. That’s pretty crazy! There can be 6+ if you get them on a mist mission but usually around 3-5.

Snipers have been my counter as it was too early to get Goliath (and they are expensive) and haven’t picked up any Berserkers. I don’t tend to go with melee or close range troops as getting too close just seems to be a massacre. Maybe those troops need to be able to move further per turn or have better armour options to tank those hits. Late game does seem like it needs another armour tier.

I don’t encourage you to go into melee. Just multiclass your Berserker with Assault or take Trooper perk and rain death with 2 lvl skill. :slight_smile:

At the early game I almost use normal grenades against pure in addition to my sniper(s), pretty effective if you can manage to get some guys close enough and of course in cover. My early standard layout for my assaults is the AR and 2 grenades in the ready slots, works fine for me.

1 Like