I know this is not a new topic. I read before from others how sirens are massively annoying. I am still posting it because I started playing recently and made the same experience others made before me, and I think you desperately need to listen to the feedback.
I’m neither a great nor a bad player of strategy games. To me, Sirens are overpowered and not fun to fight. The second point is a lot more important: If fighting them was at least fun or an interesting challenge, all would be fine. BUt this is just disheartening.
My team of Lvl 4 Soldiers is in a mission where we have to kill two sirens who appear always together, and it is impossible. They are too heavily armored, they seem to never fail taking over characters and there is no strategy to make them lose control over my soldiers - except killing them, of course.
This is annoying, exhausting and unfair. What the hell were you thinking when you came up with those fuckers? Die you not test this before launch?
PS: Yes, I am also aware that comparisons to XCom are a dangerous topic in these forums. I respect that. This game does not need to be XCom. But I think that there is a difference between providing a different, harder, less streamlined game, and providing an annoying, unfair game that discourages people. I’m just frustrated at the moment, and can not imagine buying any DLCs if this is how you balance Phoenix Point.
Sirens had already been hit with a nerf bat. I guess they look powerful to you because there were only 2 of them in your mission. Wait till you start seeing five of them together and they would start feeling more like a regular mob))
I’ve got 5 Sirens + 2 Chirons + some Arthrones and Tritons in my second Siren mission (Synedrion haven defence). I’ve managed to win it on the second try after making a retreat and luring them to a position where I could attack them point-blank with several soldiers.
By the way: beware their psychic scream ability! -10 WP in a wide area even from behind a wall is no joke!
Tip 1: aim for the head! With no head they have 0 WP and start panicking all the time + no mind tricks.
Tip 2: Level 6 Berserkers are your best friends against these bitches. They make your front lines much more resilent to panic, mind control and close quater damage abalities.
Tip 3: you may wish to let beheaded Siren be alive for sometime, but remember - finishing it is a -5 WP hit to all enemy army, so don’t neglect the opportunity and use it to your advantage!
Tip 4: even if your soldiers are mind controlled they are not lost forever! Eventually the Siren runs out of WP and the soldier is free again.
I’ve had a mission where the only soldier remaining was my Berserker with 8 HP. I didn’t want to reload just yet, and several turns later my guys started to return from mind control. Two of them survived this mission together with the Berserker. I didn’t save the outcome (obviously) but it was good to test the limits))
This is the major tip, you need go over this feeling that if this happens it’s end of combat.
It’s not a good tip I advise but if you can’t go over it, start consider metal control as a lure for siren. If they can do it they’ll do it and as Lorifel quoted they already got a good nerf and now can control only one soldier per turn and it cost WP to maintain them.
Try use civil as lure. unequip a soldier to use him as Lure, then use a normal soldier as lure and consider your tools, low will and ensure panic him, hurt siren will probably avoid him shooting at you, shoot at you could not be such a big deal, and that’s where is the point to organize the lure yourself.
Siren are terrifying also, but less dangerous than they seem. An Heavy armor will probably get no damages for a Siren close range attack.
EDIT:
Siren at Will zero will lost all mental control at their next turn.
Control Mental a Siren seems it can works I haven’t yet decipher how because I got very weird cases so it was complicated to analyze well.
You can’t mental control a unit already controlled, forget that approach.
Siren are a lot here to avoid you rush into a soldier, avoid it.
Isolated Soldier isn’t the best with Sirens around, try avoid it.
I had 3 sirens close to the starting position in a lair mission.
two Sirens went behind a wall (impossible to target) using psychic scream one after the other. That was about multiple turns with 3 soldiers panicking (on 6). My soldiers was running in cover in range of the psychic scream (they do not see the siren they don’t flee it).
After that a fire chiron separes two of my soldiers because of the fire on the ground (3 soldiers to kill the worns, and other ennemies is not easy). My heavy have done 20 damage to two worms with a rocket (80 damage).
A soldier takes fire (it had virus damages from the siren I have killed) and get his head disable. He had a medkit but could’nt use it, because he was panicking. Another soldier have wasted two turns to try to heal it. You can give items but not take them. I have lost two turns to understand that.
My heavy fire another rockect on two ennemies(about 10 meters on a different level) the rocket hit none. The rocket have missed by 2 good meters. OK restart.
Done the mission without any injuries.
Morality either sirens are not that hard or they are living nightmare.
I for one, vote to leave sirens alone. The rest of the pandorans are so bland and the sirens pose the first real threat to your squad. But if u know what you are doing, even sirens are easy to take out (“Off with it’s head” and now they just roam aimlessly on the map). I like them.
Yes the Sirens are annoying. Even more at the highest difficulty. They are priority targets unless killin scylla instawins the map, also 2 sirens together can combo frenzy which give them ludicrous speed. Here are some tips that work for me.
Head or tails. Snipe the head or explode/shoot the tail from far away.
Reaserch the anu’s shotgun then go dash and double tap the head. (maybe with some mark for death).
3a) To use mind control unit needs to have more willpower. Crush all the chaff to lower their WP along with disabled arms or torso u prob got one turn mind control max. Mind control from lack of WP ends at your turn. Frenzied
3b) WP loss from clearing chaff affects mind controled soldiers as well so you can easily panick them by again killing off trithons and artrons.
Sirens behind the walls. There is no turn limit. Unless its a lair go around or fall back and preapare a lil kill zone.
Neurazers can do the work if you can dash 2 guys in range.
Dont bother with assault rifles unless u can put whole magazine from laser gun in one limb. its better to throw standard grenade to lower armor for other shooters.
Sirens are a threat of course, but in my opinion, nothing compare with some tritons with shotgun and sniper rifle, and worst the heavy armoured arthrons. Anyway taken alone any pandas are a threat, but when you are swarmed even a fire worm can be a real threat
A fireworm is almost never a threat but most often an asset. Usually you can Mind Control it for 0 AP and 0 WP cost and send back to enemy lines (preferably with Frenzy) to burn some legs off or at least to trigger some overwatch shot =)
In my opinion Sirens are rarely a first priority to kill nor even destroy head. The reason is if they control they do nothing else and come close, the soldier will do nothing, and panic will give a lot of margin, interestingly the soldier can play twice in a row if you stop the control, restore will during enemy turn and your turn right after.
For me the priority is organize the turn to fit some meta aspect, and be ready manage a Siren and soldiers controlled. For example a sniper have often a better target then.
What are the meta aspect depends of team composition. First you need check the tools you have to manage Siren and controlled Soldiers. Then you play the turn for managing other targets more urgent but be ready use the tools at next turn.
Some special tricks for Siren:
They don’t like Overwatch, think of this tool.
They are quite close range and destroy Tail slow them a lot.
They use 2 WP per turn and soldier controlled. This can be enough to take back controls of soldiers.
Control them seems work but a double check need to be done, the few time I used this to take back soldiers control it was rather bizarre.
Panic soldiers controlled can be rather powerful, for sure it’s easier with a Priest but with enemy kills it’s often an open possibility.
Panic soldier will ensure will restored during enemy turn if he is still controlled.
A nice combo is panic a soldier and break his control during enemy turn (mind control or will exhaustion), at enemy turn soldier restore will, and you have full control right after during your turn.
Controlled soldier is very rarely attacked, rare exception seems from Siren and Scylla.
I never seen a turret attack a soldier controlled.
An enemy controlled can’t be controlled by a Siren, it can be a useful tool to manage many Sirens.
You can’t control a soldier controlled, so forget this option.
Technician with armor piercing turret is a potentially flexible and powerful tool to kill a Siren that controlled soldiers (move, throw, double attack).
Better armors (30 and more) make quite insignificant their close range attack.
They need see soldier to control him, but caution sometimes the los is hard to guess and there’s perhaps a few los bugs there and there.
Siren tend waste their WP so the longer it is in the field, the easier it is to panic or control. Another reason to not rush and prefer kill multiple other enemies first.
Try lure them with a soldier to control can work very well, but take care they prefer choose soldier with lowest will, not sure of other criteria selection.
Control doesn’t require any AP but Siren AI is aware about hiding like go on a top position or retreat or hide back.
Civil and building in Haven defense can become their priority target, even containers in Scavenging. They can be tools to gain time against Siren, but they prefer kill civil than control them. (Civil are better against Mindfragger)
Again and once more, Siren are more frightening than they are dangerous, and soldiers controlled is not combat end.
In one of my most memorable Siren moments, I shot my own tech in the arm with a sniper rifle, after that he only had one grenade and wasn’t much of a threat. He was MC’ed for several turns but didn’t do much damage. In the end, we bested that Siren, despite the problems it caused.
I’ve found their threat level to be very based on the map.
I had three show up on a haven defense mission quite early on. Two were close and the other turned up after a turn or two.
Between those three and grenades flying over it was a bit of a mess. Then again, I’ve had the big alien thing start right next to em as well, that did not end well (also had a Siren on that mission as well).
So far I’ve had very few missions that were near the wire, they either went very well or pear shaped real fast.
