I started pratically every FiraXCom battle moving and Overwatching. No downside to it, as it was both an excellent defensive and offensive maneuver. I thought it was a really good design choice to introduce a WP cost to PP’s Overwatch, as it prevented the Overwatch turtling.
The more recent BB’s have taken away the WP cost, and with it came the directional cone. The reasoning was that said cone reduced OW’s usefulness, and there was no need for any other penalty.
I would reason, however, that the directional cone makes Overwatching even better.
I can reduce the distance from which the soldier will fire, in FiraXCom, shotguns and machineguns would fire as soon as the enemy started moving, and if they were far away it was a missed shot. In PP, I can wait for the enemy to come much closer, giving much better accuracy to shot/machineguns OW.
And the OW cone gives a much better idea of which enemy I want to shoot. If I wanted to OW that muton that was coming so close, but a puny sectoid first entered the fray coming from the fog of war, it was also a missed opportunity. Controlling the cone’s area will give a much better assertion that I want to shoot that mindfragger just two feet away, and not that crabman hanging beyond the buidings.
My suggestion would just to reinstate the WP cost to OW.
