Sometimes it feels good to clad one of your soldiers in full set of heavy armour. However -30% feels awful. What weapons do you give them?
I’ve tried Goliath grenade launcher, but sometimes it misses the target completely (especially when I’ve tried to use it with Adrenaline Rush).
Shotgun would be OK when fired at point blank, but it requires mobility and heavy armour cuts it seriously.
So far the only reliable move I’ve found was to jetpack point blank to your target, bash it with a heavy weapon and war cry to weaken retaliation for the next turn.
I leave usual weapons. Heavy cannon, grenade launcher, machine gun. I pump speed for him, to be able to change position according to enemies. And I defend mostly with heavy. Let them come closer and Hel or Deceptor them. Or play as explosive support from behind with Goliath. Heavy armor right now seems underperforming, as enemies are really powerful so those 10 more armor points are not so interesting for a protection. Well something went wrong during balancing armors and weapons.
Of course mounted weapons come into play with this armor.
In my opinion it worth for nothing and you can build something close much better for aiming. You can use Quick Aiming to reduce some aiming penalty and double attack, but it has limits.
Moreover my more armored soldiers only for scouts, I didn’t buy yet the classic Heavy design suggested by the game, but it worth a dig with a bash boosted and war cry.
Instead of the full heavy set I use a mix, useful stuff to setup something solid and much more acceptable, for example:
NJ Tech Helm and Legs + NJ Heavy Armor, +7 aiming -3 Speed 25/40/25
Stomp legs + NJ Heavy Armor and Helm, +0 Aiming -4 Speed 30/40/33
Stomp legs + NJ Heavy Armor + NJ Tech Helm, +20 Aiming -4 Speed 30/40/25
But I also use more tempered armors for scout variations, for example:
Agile legs + Regen Torso + Tech Helm, +0 Aiming, +3 Speed 10/34/25 Weak legs but fast and jump up one floor
Agile legs + NJ Heavy Armor + Tech Helm, +0 Aiming, +3 Speed 10/40/25 Weak legs but fast and jump up one floor
Various variations of legs around NJ Heavy Armor + Tech Helm or NJ Tech Armor and Helm
Crabs shred armor, poison goes through, grenades everywhere, sniper tritons, 95 damage pincers, mind control, … I don’t use heavy armor, it brings only drawbacks and doesn’t protect that much.
Just heavy/priest for jetpack instead of speed. He doesn’t need a weapon, but pistol is ok. And I stopped using those as priest is an unfair advantage (except for last mission).
It’s not that insignificant in my opinion, there’s a very obvious difference for my scouts I setup with good armor (never the full set), and scouts favoring speed mainly. But play with a global aiming penalty is an error in my opinion. Also variations with Agile Legs looks interesting, I failed noticed clearly more broken legs.
I usually go for styx on lots of soldiers to reduce the distance at which Pandas see me. So I can get closer, without them being alerted (sound seems to be half-perception). No-one over 75% stealth, so thief allows me to use some other armor piece.
Like in fencing, I manage the distance to my enemies to have only a few at a time (except when they spawn on the building just next to my soldiers, in which case … grenades).
Annoying to be forced to count tiles manually for stealth and sound…
I’m @pantolomin on that one. I use Heavy armour only for jetpack and mounts. New Jericho heavy armour can be good early to mid game, when enemies don’t do much more than 30-40 damage per shot. When Crabmen start to use the 50 dmg guns and Tritons equip sniper rifles I usually switch to lighter armour. My soldiers always use fastest or most stealthy legs (so Anu/Infiltrator). I also use sniper helmet a lot either NJ for a bit more defense of Syn for more acc.
Wow! I should definitely try this! Behold! I am a messanger of Doom on the Wings of Destruction! I come from the sky and by my mind alone I crash my enemies - rejoice, bretheren!
(Can take Mind Crush, Mind Control, War Cry, Brawler and Inspire - and that’s it!)
Sniper rifle is the obvious choice, any weapon if you have a perk the counters the penalty. Laser weapons really counter the penalty nicely. Outside that the Pandas only need to be about 6 tiles closer for it to not even matter.
You don’t need to be a sniper to use sniper armor. Heavy / Assault gives you the obvious dash boost and the return fire from deceptor is no joke.
In any case, heavy body armour gives you jump jets and rockets, what’s not to like? With BB and goliath that’s three explosions down range, watch those pieces of sushi go flying…
The Goliath Grenade Launcher still remains adequate even with low accuracy, but is best utilized by someone who can increase its damage or armor shredding potential - the trick is to consider the fact it may hit within a 3 tile radius or so and adjust your aim/position to ensure that as few obstacles as possible exist between you and the target. It’s not absolutely crucial to hit the target on the same tile. The side the grenade it lands on will likely damage the limbs of the enemy on that side, so take that into consideration as well if possible. Note: the enemy does a fantastic job of positioning themselves to make this difficult for you, but not impossible and sometimes they screw up.
If you have the Cautious talent (even better if also Sniperist), consider crossing into Sniper at level 5 and don’t choose any talents other than Marksman, Quick Shot and Rage Burst (maybe Inspire and/or Weak Spot or the cheaper overwatch). Wield Sniper Rifle (any special or the laser one), Cannon and Pistol. At close and long ranges you remain effective (with mid being the weak point, but not that weak) utilizing the jet pack to find your favorite position early on, or to close in/escape depending on situation. Biggest issue is the Marksman talent bug that still needs to be fixed (corpses count). Can also take off the heavy helm/legs for even better accuracy, but it can be kind of overkill I find and personally prefer the armor (though tech armor is my favorite once I get it).
Surprisingly, a PDW. You can jump to a point and shoot on the same turn. If you have Self Defense Specialist this works out pretty well. He’s tanky and doesn’t need to worry about much retaliation against many types of enemies in the game. Rage Burst does a surprising amount and is cheap. You can load up on lightweight ammo clips and utilize skill points for WP to do a lot of shouts, jumping and rage bursts. Don’t need bash since the PDW will do more with a shot. Just to be clear, you can jump, war cry, and rage burst on the same turn.
Close Quarters Specialist (melee/shotgun). I made a Hammer/Shotgun one, hammer only being there for the increased melee damage/daze whenever I don’t want to waste shotgun ammo (or ran out) because of Rage Burst. Utilized the JP mostly for early positioning, but then the soldier just acted as a guard for my sniper in a Lair. He did kill a screaming sentinel though with Rage Burst across a gap when none of my other soldiers could gain LOS. Crossed him with an assault for Return Fire. Many enemies will run close to you without being able to hit you if you’re not hugging the corner (dropping LOS), war cry and overwatch and they’ll run into you next turn and still not hit you or maybe once. Kill them all. Your sniper appreciates it. You remain tough against everything that does cross the boundary and land a hit on you, return fire, kill it.
Is there any reason to keep using the Goliath once the Archangel is available? Indirect vs Direct fire of course but how often is that really ever a factor.
Did they fixed Archangel?
When i played some time ago Goliath did decent AOE dmg, and could criple few body parts, while Archangel had no AOE at all, just 70 point dmg… like bigger pistol with 3AP to fire.
The PDW 30 damages is quickly obsolete because or armor scaling. Or there’s one I never saw.
With Aimed Shot/Adrenalin Rush and Shotgun, the combo should be much better but rare because of WP price, particularly because often you’ll want use War Cry too.
It’s really a small combo I never bothered test. I also wondered about boosting bash. The Heavy skill plus a special skill that seems target bash but probably not.
I don’t think I understood fully your explanation, but for close quarter you can consider the risked mutation Tentacle Torso, it’s weird but it seems attract close range attack of Siren. This mutation design is on base of the dev general design of Berzerk that I couldn’t explain (close range and low armor). But the retaliation is great and the paralyze attack is powerful if you want capture. The retaliation works also when it’s another soldier that is attacked, ok both should be close together and the enemy still close contact, but it’s fun and cool.
EDIT: I have the mutation on a stealth soldier, sigh it involves a -10% stealth like all torso mutations. This soldier has only 70% stealth, it’s playable, but that’s also probably why the mutation didn’t look that bad, and clearly it’s not compatible with Jetpack that was the topic.
Sniperist is a huge cost with -4 Will. In my opinion there’s a problem with that lack of cap for amount of global WP used on one soldier.
Death Mark could only be mainly for big targets but is a very powerful tool for 4 WP.
I didn’t tried enough the jetpack but what I didn’t like (a detail still) is the game seems not favor higher positions, very often it will just remove more targets and there’s very rarely position covering well a large terrain, particularly because it will be hard to predict enemy movements.
Thanks, woo never saw one. But why compare to Goliath instead of Hell Cannon? That said its only point seems the range and perhaps the blast when compared to Hell Cannon.
