What weapons do you give your soldiers with -30% penalty from Heavy armour?

It’s supposed to be an upgrade/replacement to the Goliath. It’s not a main weapon.

Hel cannon is 180 STD dmg, 10 SHRED, and 250 SHOCK

Mmm the only time I multiple scream more than two time (mind crush) it was just a bad move, sigh, yeah I should have compute before. It’s typically a skill I don’ consider OP, the AoE is limited, that damages not that high, and if there’s any enemy just out of the AoE they are still rather close range. Just a crab with 50 AR could be devastating, but sure the heavy armor should temper, I don’t remind if it protects arms, probably.

Of course it has to be use with care. But I have killed 10 units once with mind crush spam. It was lucky placement on map but still fun :slight_smile:

The will you get from kills just lets you keep going.

Sigh, yeah I planned very badly my “mass” killing with multiple mind crush. Ok perhaps there’s a design problem but I think you prepared it, it was hardly 10 non injured enemies.

I’ll offer up some good examples here:

  1. Lairs. You can maneuver around it very quickly, using the pack to cross gaps/walls that sirens can’t to just outright avoid and ignore them. The heavy armor allowing you to withstand every long range attack other than sniper rifles (seriously those really cause a change up in strategy once Tritons start coming at you with them). As long as you’re not close enough for multiple Arthrons to rip you to shreds or poison you, the non-sniper Tritons/Chiron/Sirens can be dealt with from some other distractions (even a Scarab at the entrance), War Cry and mostly ignored, best if disabled and killed only when it’ll cause mass panic and you want that for the following turn.

  2. If doing the sniper thing, I find the high points in Anu Fabrication Facilities (those cranes) are always useful. Always seem to have a WP zone on it too. NJ/Syn you have to worry about Snipers and the height advantage never really comes into play unless you’re defending against Pandorans without snipers. Still, jetpack is always useful for repositioning and since it’s a Heavy with a Sniper/Cannon, just because you have a sniper doesn’t mean you have to be on the other side of the map. It’s all about expanding a character to be more of a multi-tool as opposed to the best damn hammer you’ve ever seen. I always have a hammer on a team, but I like having other tools too.

I’ve used these characters and found them to not be particularly useless through at least the first 3/4 of the game, and not overpowered either. More of what I’d expect from SOME combination of perks/abilities this game offers… As long as I have some reliable AOE and limb destruction, someone to pick off multiple weak targets and clear packs quickly, something to offset enemy turns (electric reinforcement, panic, war cry, daze, etc.), something to take out large targets instantly (rage burst + sniper/heavy), baiting enemy snipers to expose themselves since there’s no real hard counter for them other than standing behind a wall, and something to take the focus in case it doesn’t all line up perfectly for me (I choose you, Scarab! - but never on a hard mission). As long as these tools are in my kit, the characters/abilities/equipment specifically don’t really matter to me, and multiple characters that can do multiple things in case something goes wrong isn’t a bad thing either.

I find the opposite to be true. Granted I don’t know EXACTLY where they’ll move, but I can usually tell exactly what kind of action they’re going to take. A human sniper will always snipe someone he can see, otherwise he’ll move to a position where he can (very short range), otherwise he’ll run as close to you as he can and maybe pull a pistol on you, for example. Only time it becomes weird is once the enemy begins Dashing, because that shit makes zero sense. But regularly the enemy will always move to a position that breaks LOS with any troop their team can see (except the Arthrons, they just seem to run straight at you most of the time). Enemies tend only expose themselves when they don’t know you’ve got LOS on them, so if you end a turn out of LOS, they’ll likely end theirs more out in the open while trying to gain LOS on you. Otherwise they’ll be running for cover unless they “feel” like they can outmatch you. Which is why when ending turns in the open back to back, they seem to have an advantage or it becomes overwhelming because they won’t back down and keep pressing the assault until they lose a limb.

Whenever the mission is down to 1 or 2 enemies they do a good job of baiting me into a position where they might get a hit off before dying. But if there’s 10 of them to the 4 of me, they do no such thing and just keep pushing forward. Positioning a sniper out in the open when they know he’s there will have them running for cover at the end of their turn. So I’m not sure what has them hiding from your characters specifically, but I also believe they get some version of those Red Beacon Sound warnings and try to position themselves against your position still even when they can’t see you sometimes. Distance in this regard matters for sniping it seems (except against Arthrons), and I’m not positive but you might also reveal your position to them for a turn after firing the weapon as well which they’ll learn from - so maybe firing once they’re all out in the open instead of just one standing out in the open might make a difference too.

The rooftops on this game offer 2 main advantages:

  1. having the ability to see down over low cover (minor) and
  2. creating a massive barrier between any enemy that wants to attack you vs you attacking it. You can always shoot down with good accuracy (pistol even directly down), but they can’t climb up to you and shoot you point blank on the same turn… so they never will. You’re safe up there against everything other than Chirons, Sniper rifles and Grenades. Makes Anu pretty laughable when you just put all of your soldiers on one of their rooftops and their entire team becomes useless as long as you take out the berserkers with grenades, because the Assaults will just sit at the bottom (and fire at your scarab doing next to no dmg). Entire game that’s a problem for them.
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Top position: just got a Haven defense with all team spawned on top of highest building and single building to defend (the higher the scaling the smaller the maps)…but the Armadillo. :slight_smile: Nothing amazing, and the team had to move down fast because of a bombard Chiron.

Predict moves: Your comments seems more about factions, not aliens, I don’t attack factions and wars was very short. In Haven defense the case you quote don’t work, they could or not change focus for buildings or civil. Right most will tend move to you, which means on top you’ll lost their track and will have to go down. For the low cover better ignored, it’s not really valid with snipers, and anything else is too far from target from top positions.

Don’t know perhaps I need try more, even with let’s play and people not playing like me, I didn’t quoted great top positions use unlike you can in XCOM1&2 for example. At reverse ground positions from far can be quite strong.

A lot of advises, but almost no one answered question what do you use when having full set of heavy armor. It wasn’t a question if you use heavy armor, or any part of it and then what kind of weapon. :smiley:

Well, actually the discussion was useful, and I am grateful for all the answers! What I’ve got so far about the things not requiring accuracy:

  • Jetpack + Mind Crush (should definitely try that as soon as I have soldier with these skills)
  • Melee (bash with heavy gun or strike with Hammer or Neurazer)
  • Flamethrower

Also I’ve got “full set of Heavy armour is very situational at best” feedback which I totally agree to =)

Huuu? Where?

Lairs too, but I don’t remind if it’s in this thread. And I agree with Rainer, Jetpack isn’t the only point higher armor is a value too, I would add it’s just the full set that’s hardly worth it.

But with personal skills Adding 10 Accuracy, and 20 damages and accuracy to AR, I’d be tempted try a full set with Heavy/Berzerk. And with Shotgun personal skill too, there’s a good chance it’s an interesting build, nothing OP.

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Hel II cannon (at close range if you want to hit anything), or the grenade launcher. Late on, pretty much only hte grenade launcher, as the Hel II cannon becomes a little weak late on. I’ve not found any other heavy weapon worth packing irrespective of accuracy. I might use the Archangel, but last I played it was (I assume) bugged with no AoE effect.

In practice, I usually cross-train heavies as assault or sniper and switch out the heavy leg and helmet armour for lighter stuff without the negatives. I only keep the heavy torso for the jetpack / mount. Heavies are slightly tougher than assault, but as the damage of enemies ramps up to the 70-100 range, the extra 10-15 armour starts becoming a bit trivial.

I don’t actually much “get” the idea of accuracy being so reliant on armour. (I’d have thought accuracy should go up with level and be connected with class, which it doesn’t seem to be). I think the heavy “feels” odd: you’d assume a heavy should pack weaponry for major damage usually at medium-long range and this seems consistent with the weapons themselves and slow speed, but the accuracy issue drives them to close range.

I guess its a bug, cause Archangel had no AOE dmg. Splash circle was not much more than just a point. (very rare it hits 2 body parts with total dmg about 100, but mostly it was just 70 point dmg)
With blast radius similar to Goliath it would be good weapon (maybe not the best, cause you cant rage burst whole magazine with this one).

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I need try some more experimenting but I played last night and I also didn’t notice any AOE damage. It’s supposed to be a rocket launcher, it claims it is Blast Damage same as a grenade, but doesn’t actually seem to do any blast damage.

Can anyone check the code on grenade blast damage and see if it has a radius attribute? Maybe the Archangel’s is set with the wrong value.

So, during moonlaunch defense (a lot of fun but so many bugs lol) I used some more focus on mind crush, and yes multiple death bring back more WP but it’s diminishing, 3/2/1/nothing. You’ll argue 6 still refund the skill. Pretty sure many players in this forum want nerf it like with an AP cost. I don’t know perhaps, but you can’t do such jetpack jump without a huge preparation to lower enemies Hp before, this is work and planing, not just a push win button.

Or you have a team of 6 such priests :wink:
They move together with the head that adds 2WP to other units at begining of turn => +10WP each on each turn.

All of that is obsolete with big Priest nerf, so just for theory and arguing, I’d say play really your team of 6 Priests, and keep them packed together most often, there’s many situations you’ll manage awfully I believe.

All those Ap cost added will probably give a lot more value to Rally without allow abuse a lot.

Well, I replied before the patch note. It’s obviously much less effective now.
I personally haven’t been using priests lately. I’ll probably start using them again.

Even before patch I think 6 Priests wouldn’t solve well any problems.

I intend finish my campaign without the last patch, I could try a team of 6 priests, I wonder if I have 6 and all are mono class. It changes a lot to have them nerfed.

Rage burst with Hell Cannon is even better as it wipes the armour off.

Totally agree on the tile counting. Give us something a bit quicker please, like a number popping up next to the cursor or whatever.

A plastic ruler with every download.

Two years later