The Drifter Podcast had a pod on the final mission, and it was just 8 mutons. It was probably two pods mashed into one, but it was still rather shocking
Seems like a pretty good tier list, the only one I disagree with is the Avatar. Yes, it may not be dangerous on turn 1, but that's because you invested up to 6 item slots specifically into nullifying it. I don't think that an enemy that makes you gear up your entire team specifically against it can be anything lower than A tier.
If there were no avatars I would still take mind shields for the 3 chosen on the finale and to remove any chance a Lancer or Zerk can get an unconscious off, I would rank them A if I brought mind shields specifically for avatars
@@EdwinofEberron I play with the mod that makes the warlock punishes you for wearing mind shields and other general tuning for each of the chosen. It's honestly baffling how easy the rest of the chosen are when you finally manage to keep your cool and think rationally with the assassin
@@EdwinofEberron Agree with this since you still run into I think 3 avatars in the final mission not to mention all the other things you want the shields against. I do somewhat agree with the thought that they should be higher since they somewhat mandate you having the shields to be as weak as you say
99% shotgun eith aim mods....misses Not a skill issue Sniper. Up 2 levels of height long range 3 lost 100% 2 of them but third 1 is 99% 1 space apart from each other...... miss Still not a skill issue
Tier lists in xcom are extremely subjective depending on where you are on the power curve. If youre behind you'll care less about beeing scratched and more about surviving the mission. If you're ahead, you'll look at avoiding even the small scratches and managing will/maxing resource gain, etc. And this will make some enemies move between tiers imo. And there's also the time when you compute.. a sectoid late game is a nuisence, a sectoid early game can do a squad wipe (as example). That being said.. there's no scenario where an archon is an A-tier unless you mess something up really bad. They give you a free turn to kill them as their 1st action will (almost) always be blazing pinions.
In a regular game i would agree with u but keep in mind that hes playing with no squad size upgrades on Legend so hes stuck with a 4-man squad vs high hp enemy at that stage and the damn Archon not only has high Defense but also has dodge.
@@oblivionfan345Tony If that is really true then its becouse u very likly attacked them before they got there first turn. If an Archon on there first turn still has full hp its almost guaranteed to do there Blazing Pinion ability. If there is more then 1 Archon in combat then only 1 can do the ability. They dont always do but its very rare that a full hp Archon dont do this ability. Its usually so reliable that u can bait an Archon not to attack u on there turn by not causing any dmg to it and instead just kill the rest of the pod and giving u another turn to kill it before it starts to direct attack your squad. The reson for why they dont do it is becouse when they take dmg they activate a passive ability called Battle Frenzy and cant do Blazing Pinion anymore and they gain 1 more action point for the next 1-2 turns.
@@Shiftry87 squad positions take a huge factor into determining whether archon will do its aoe attack or not. If your squad is all spread out, it will prioritize single target attack instead.
I feel like with the Chryssalids the devs did the opposite of enemy unknown. EU - introduced too early, high health (early on), hard to deal with (especially on first encounter) Xcom2 - Introduced too late, low health, easy to deal with (they all die before they even get to attack you)
Yeah the chryssalids in enemy unknown are waaaaay worse. They show up around month 2, so way earlier, and they show up on pretty much every civilian rescue mission and can run around with their crazy mobility converting a shitload of them into zombies before you have a chance to do much, which can get out of hand if your civilians happen to spawn clustered together
You're absolutely right about sectopods. When I first encountered one, I was terrified and couldn't believe how many actions it got to take. But by the time they start showing up you have blue screen and emps which easily take care of it. Andromedons on the hand, are a fucking pain in the ass.
Both Gatekeepers and Sectopods need to be a tier higher IMHO, for two main reasons. The Frostbomb doesn’t really work on them, so you can’t delay their actions, giving you the breath room. They are a must kill first. Then they die with an explosion, so this prevents melee in a round killing them. Or blade storm them accidentally killing them (next to an environmental explosive.)
Fun note when there's only 1 active archon: if you dont attack it, it's guaranteed to waste its first turn on blazing pinions. If there's more than 1 active, only 1 of them will cast blazing pinions and the other will attack normally.
One way to deal with andromedon is to get it low health on it's first form and then overwatch it. On it's turn in my experience it will always move before firing and if killed it will end the turn of the 2nd form without it acting. This will effectively give you 2 turns to kill it instead of 1.
So, I don't know if it was a bug, but I tried this and after the overwatch shot killed the first form it then went into 2nd form, but it also moved and attacked. So now I'm hesitant to try this strategy again. I wonder if anyone else experienced this
@@arckmage5218 Hmm, it's always worked for me, but I will note I only have the base game and War of the Chosen, so maybe it got changed in one of the other DLCs.
If I recall berserker will attack anything close to it if it can’t reach your squad or if it doesn’t know were your squad is like it getting hit by a lost then rampaging the whole map
I sorta agree with the sectopod, but when they come in with another pod and does it wrath cannon, its insane damage. And if you arent equipped to deal with it (like without bluescreen) it makes it horrible to deal with
Flashbang pretty much counters everything, specially the aliens. They are great to counter sectoids, codexes and the avatar coz it disables their psionic abilities. Its a must have item in all missions.
@@josefrancisco4178 yes. they stop everything, and movement slow. I think they even stop mind control. Its an absolute must have item every mission imo.
Hey! Started watching your content recently and I'm loving it as I'm finally trying to finish this game ironman above veteran dfficulty. I only disagree with your Chosen tier, in my experience the Assassin is the most difficult to deal with because it will frequently come out from nowhere, damage/daze someone and retreat somewhere beyong my line of sight. If I don't have a reaper with the skill to permanently see targets, then I'm always gonna struggle and come back with most of my squad in bad shape. Hunter has been ALWAYS a piece of cake, he is almost always trying to tranq dart/daze bomb or mark a target that do nothing but stall his demise and give me time to kill other aliens before dealing with him.
@@NoName-mi8js Assassin always has shadow step. Hard coded. It's a difficult enemy until you learn it's patterns. It's still a RNG dependent fight. It can screw you early dashing to a very remote location that your low level low mobility troops can't reach. But that's rare. Second action will most often be an ability and those are not doing any damage. Either she does a harbor wave if your troops are in a line or a smoke bomb that blinds them if they are bunched up. The blind is not bad, your troops just can't spot beyond 2 tiles. They still can throw grenades at max range you just have to do it in the dark. You can see where the assassin is with the guy that isn't blind (rarely it hits more than 2 or 3 it's not a big aoe) and then use that to guide your blind troops in range of her and shoot her. Against the assassin you can use battlescanners to reveal her before she attacks. She's annoying but manageable once you know how to approach the fight. I find the hunter to be much less of a problem though I think it's mainly because I start reaper so he appears later on. The chosen which you will find the hardest is always the one you encounter first when your troops have shit aim, shit mobility and no abilities. Once you have a templar with invert chosen become a joke you just swap them into the middle of your squad and they die.
@@NotYourBusiness-bp2qn assassin always has shadowstep if you have lost and abandoned turned on. same with adversary to reapers. if you don't have that mission turned then, then it's random just like all the others.
I definitely gotta disagree with the placement of the flame trooper, if you hit it with a flashbang it is completely unable to do anything, and later missions it’s just… one shot The only thing that makes them annoying for me is the fact they have a chance to explode, so if I’m using a Templar, I risk injuring my Templar I think they should be behind sectoid in D teir
Priests-they aren't particularly dangerous, but they are exceptionally annoying, especially if they trigger their stupid stasis thing to slow you down and be a pest. They're definitely one of the most obnoxious enemies that aren't extremely lethal andromedons-they definitely feel like one of the top threats of the game, and one of the hardest to take down. Even with 5-6 units, taking it down can take all of them, and that possibly prevents you from taking down anything else that was in the pod with it. sectopods-they can be super, super dangerous, but blue screen rounds really shut them down. But if you don't have bluescreen rounds, or they show up after your bluescreen round unit has moved, they can probably cause heavy damage, if not a few casualties. Also high tier annoyance for them being really, really irritating with frequently just ruining mission objectives because they just walk over it and destroy the thing
I'd actually put the mutton in s tier because of how dangerous they are early to mid game and how they can still be dangerous later. 2 things to note you haven't talked about 1. They have a pretty strong grenade that has a tendency to shred cover really hard and the counter strike has a significant chance to instantly knock the soldier unconscious. This is also something i've noticed with ADVENT lancer they have a surprisingly high chance to just KO your guy in one hit and there's nothing you can do about it. A bending reed lancer is absolutely terrifying because he'll just beat up one of your guy and run off to cover.
You know I have beat xcom 2 legs and I haven't once even used blue screen rounds or mimic beacon in my 800ish hours. You sir have given me another reason to beat it again
I saw when you almost put the rulers in the lower tiers for a sec and was just like "huh?" before you put them higher, because they are the single biggest threat in the game. Whenever one of them appears, you just pray that you're in a situation where they are the only thing on the field, because if you have to fight them with a half decent pod or god forbid two pods, the game suddenly becomes extremely different and very, very dangerous. When they show up, any other concerns on the field that you had are no longer your problem. If you don't give them most of your attention, they clap the hell out of your squad, and goddamn the Archon King is the roughest of them all by a long shot with the pinions move. Even when you do deal with the ruler, if there are other enemies around you're suddenly taking a turn of attacks from them that you don't get to do much to react to. Hilariously, all of the rulers seem to have an overwhelming allergy to cheese, which in this case would be called sharpshooters taking shots from out of their range while a concealed unit keeps sight on them. Nice tier list dude, I was surprised the sectopod was as low as it was, but then, if you're always running half a squad of bluescreen rounds it makes sense lol.
Speaking of Crits, the topic reminds me of a convi I had with someone when I was playing Warframe. The guy was high and mighty abiut having a weapon that does INSANE crit. And yet the weapon he was refering to had vastly less base damage output than that of other weapons with much higher base damage output that I've seen crits hit almost a million, where his did maybe 5k... Thats Warframe, this is xcom... but it was something I was remided of. 😁
I use mods to make the chosen harder to fight. Smarter AI, more health, reworked action economy and ability reworks. A core thing to the warlock is that he breaks mindshields, hes so much harder to fight without shields, hes no joke when you cant cheese him.
Sounds crazy. I only just started and I was having trouble with the assassin just using grenades on where I think she's hiding to reveal her then using my team to spray her down. Then I realized I bet you can just use those scanner items to reveal her. I just met the hunter and he seems pretty easy considering he gives you a turn to move every time before he fires across the map, a lot less trouble than an invisible melee attacker you can't overwatch
@@anthonychase6906 if ever you fear the assassin might show up Bring a reaper and keep them cloaked. The assassin cannot find the reaper unless you get unlucky and she runs right next to them, but that is 1/1000 chance. The reaper is able to scout ahead and keep the assassin perma revealed as long as you keep going to her last known location, keep the reaper behind enemy lines that way she'll never catch you off guard. nading her out of cover is also always a good strategy. Shes not that hard to deal with, just dont clump up or she'll use her wave attack which will daze your units, making them prime targets to be abducted. The hunters crossmap snipe is also secondary, hes a lot more dangerous when you get face to face with him, the Sniping is there to be an annoyance and throw a wrench in your positioning, The hunter has borderline aimbot, i cant actually think of a single time where he has missed a shot, out of all the chosen hes the most lethal as his sniper hits hard and causes bleeding, which can quickly end a trooper who dont have adequite armor on. Hes also th easiest to just dogpile, once you have him cornered he goes down pretty fast, but if he stays on high ground and you dont have a way to bring him down he can be very dangerous. the Hunter AI, is pretty dumb tho and will sometimes rope on a roof, just to jump back down. Thats where the AI mods i downloaded comes in, it makes them think smarter and not do silly things like that.
That's so funny, I never used Mindshields and only ever struggled with Assassin. Hunter and Warlock I trounced everytime they appeared often without them even getting a hit off
Andromedons are fun. I like running psy bois and hitting one with Domination on phase one gets you a pretty tanky dude with lots of armor that also has an armor crackin grenade. Tho thats just me.
I love this game so much i don't even want to play it, if i dominate it i won't even have the illusion i could play it again in the future and enjoy it closer to the 1st time again. Both 1 and 2 btw.
My current run is the first time I've had the Warlock as a starting Chosen and the retaliation mission where he showed up was a fucking 70 minute gauntlet where I was just struggling to survive and keep him at bay. The constant mind control was really fucking my squad up considering that I didn't have any real upgrades yet.
with the white and red mechs you can think about it kind of like when the military makes a new tank or something in war, they don't just recall all the old ones but start putting out new ones alongside them, maybe the intended idea at the last mission was you hurt advent so bad that they have to use white mechs for the final mission.
I didnt realize the codex didnt show up until you skulljacked an officer. Id always rush skulljacking and codexs would absolutely dumpster my squad of seargents with basic weapons and armor
I did encounter two Sectopods in the same facility that houses the progress for the avatar. Despite being in separate groups, if I was reckless you can imagine the devastation they'd have if they are right next to each other. Arguably it depends how you strategize as well and sometimes running forward with very few actions towards an area you run into it's never fun and yes they attack three times, but usually how I've seen them do it is normal cannon first twice in a row and then wrath cannon. Pretty painful if you don't suppress them unless they risk moving forward and then just shoot you to the ground.
I had went through the workshop to try and create the most terrifying Chosen combos i can think of. Most of all i wanted to turn the Warlock into the scariest enemy possible and i have succeeded on that. The new Warlock has new abilities like using Null Lance and even Dimension rift in late games, he also has the Parry ability that has a 33% chance to trigger so taking shots on him is a gamble. He no longer uses Psi Zombies but instead when he uses Spectral Army he can still move around and shoot. Making him an active threat. Although because of this i did increase the cooldown of Spectral army and made it so he only uses it when all other ADVENT is wiped out or he's surrounded. But to be fair i did make him this strong because i have quite a lot of Strong Hero Classes and i needed to make the Chosen formidable in every engagement. Oh and Chosen Ruler reaction mod to make things even more of a gamble.
I agree with everything on this list except for the chosen. I guess it depends on how you are playing the game, if you play with the story mode enabled where you meet the reapers and skirmishers and the chosen all in one three part mission, or if you don't. Also I don't know if the AI plays differently depending on difficulty, I'm always playing on the normal difficulty level. I always play with that story mode enabled so I always have the assassin first and she is by far the worst of the three to have to go against first. She just runs up to you, beats the crap out of somebody, leaves their unconscious body and then runs away and cloaks up again. She is legit just a super advent lancer and it is awful, easily S tier, probably top of S tier imo. Hunter, I'll be honest, I don't remember ever taking any damage from the Hunter ever. I probably have at some point but I really don't remember it ever happening because it seems like all he does is the two turn ability where he lays down a cone and then fires at someone in the cone next turn, but I always move everyone out. Warlock you summed up pretty well, he is a pain just because he is constantly summoning more guys you have to deal with and has his psi abilities on top of that. Once you actually get up to the Warlock and get to fighting him then he isn't a problem but he slows down everything until you get to him. For me Assassin is top S tier, Warlock is either top A tier or bottom S tier and Hunter is D tier.
My assassin had shadowstep and watchful so auto overwatch and immune to overwatch was a nightmare. Hunter is allergic to rockets. Warlock had a Templar weakness so I never noticed him
This list is very specific to the authors play style and choices. The hardest Chosen you will encounter will always be the first one. By the time you get to the second or third your troops are high level and you have lots of kit to deal with them. So yes, for most players who start Reaper first the Assassin will be the hardest. He starts Skirmisher without the tutorial so he has a different perspective. Warlock is by far the hardest Chosen to encounter first, the multiple additional enemies are a joke later on but very difficult to deal with early and especially before you can expand your squad to six or if you choose not to as a challenge. In fact the Assassin is the easiest to deal with in the early game, still hard but easier than even the hunter. Later when you have kit he becomes the easiest of them all but in the beginning he hits very hard every round and takes multiple rounds to kill. Assassin will slash one of your troops as her opening move but more often than not will follow it up with abilities that don't do damage and can be dealt with.
@@NotYourBusiness-bp2qn How do you even get hit by the hunter is my question? I've literally never been hit by him as far as I can remember. All he does is spam his two turn cone fire ability pretty much so you just move out of it while still moving up. He eventually flashbangs you when you get close but that isn't a big deal at all when you can just run up to him and shoot him point blank.
@@LagunaFox Have you encountered him as your first Chosen? He's a pushover with 5 or six mid to high level soldiers but with a squad made of 4 low level troops he can be quite hard. You won't close the distance as easy to hit him point blank since you don't have mobility at low levels and when he starts shooting it hurts bad. Depending on the map he can be very tough if there are buildings around he will grapple every round to a flanking high ground position and lay death on your guys. I think the reason people rate the Assassin much higher is they encounter her early and also even later when you are kitted up she still can manage at least one hit on your team if you don't reveal her while the Hunter and the Warlock can't do shit. So most people will consider her the toughest but that is a bit deceiving. Early the Hunter can be more dangerous. If you know what to do the Assassin is manageable early, she will slash one of your guys and then you can dispose of her without any other casualties. If the Hunter shows up early and you get unlucky with what abilities he chooses to use it can easily result in a wipe. Same with Warlock.
@@NotYourBusiness-bp2qn I don't play it that much honestly but I can't even imagine that being an issue. The biggest problems with the Assassin are her insane mobility and the ability to go back invis after attacking. I would much rather fight either one first over the Assassin. She is the only Choosen I have to specifically gear up my team to deal with what she does specifically. Warlock I take whatever, Hunter I take whatever, neither of them is a problem, Assassin if you don't take battle field scanners and crap it is a nightmare.
In a conquered world with all kinds of intergalactic terrors that stalk Earth post-invasion, it's what can be likened to a police officer armed with an electric baton and combat drugs running through their veins that manages to instill primal fear in methat used to be reserved for creatures such as Sectopods & Chryssalids, or even the Tentaculat or Lobster Man in Terror From The Deep. OG Chryssalids though? And I mean true OG's? Nothing compares. You saw a Snakeman on a Terror Mission back then? You would feel dread for the rest of the mission.
Nice tier list. But most of your strategies boil down to Alpha strike and kill them turn 1. Any chance you could do a Long War of the Chosen tier list? Stuff sorta change when you got far more soldiers vs far more enemies. Certain missions I have had to deal with 20+ enemies at the same time.
@@EdwinofEberron I see. I enjoy the slower phasing and far larger combats with 8 operatives, where everyone got much more hp causing the battles to take multiple turns with extra pods usually joining in over time. Also having to manage 20+ Operatives is fun and the game feels more like classic XCOM that way. Standard mode feels too much like a knife-fight in a Phonebooth.
@@zealgaming8161 Everyone having higher hp is achievable without long war or any mods whatsoever Just activate the beta strike advanced options, it doubles alien and XCOM soldiers HP, and increases mission timers by 50%
I started with xcom2, then war of the chosen, then I went back and played enemy within, I like how much I have to change my playstyle to adjust to enemy within but I don't not like that the enemies can run into the fog and camp after being revealed, while I agree it makes since that they do that it still doesn't feel good lol, I wish the ufo battles had more to them, screw satellites, screw the exalt faction (felt like game padding and slowed the pace, also human enemies *yawn) loved the atmosphere/music and loved the base attack mission (very tense). The stun gun is very fun for collecting alien gear and bodies, however did not like having to stun an outsider for story progression because I still think back to the first time I failed the stun, had to kill it and didn't see another outsider for several missions which halted story progress and failed my impossible run
i'm afraid i don't believe your tier list there. i just got back into xcom because of your videos and ignoring the sectoids has resulted in 1 game over, due to mind control succeeding. and my current run, i've had 3 mind controls and 2 deaths as a result. sectoids are a B for me
Mind control takes a turn and you are only missing one guy. Can you not kill a sectoid using the three attacks you have left in that turn? I mean, positioning and RNG matter, but generally speaking on turn one I take out every non-sectoid and on turn 2 I take out the sectoid.
I am not nearly as experienced at this game as you, but i feel like there is a specific outlier in that B tier lol. Sectopod is a whole other level imo. If this is a tierlist about threat level, it doesnt feel right to put it in B because it is such a threat that you build your whole squad to take it out in overwatch/first turn. Put another way...if all those b tiers are getting a turn, who is the scariest?
Should have ordered it based on when they generally appear in the campaign/force level relative to the estimated strength of XCOM squad. Would've been much cleaner.
Mecs are easy because you kill them quickly If you leave them alone they will almost always use micromissiles for guaranteed damage which will leave your at least one of your guys exposed with no cover and hurt them or outright kill them if they were already damaged and it’s early game That’s why I always take them out first
I think the priest should go up one tier for one reason, his gun. his Spyker powers make him feel silly and useless and you ignore him for more valuable targets. He has been on 3 missions and done nothing useful, and then he shoots and you guy just dies because the priest's gun is crazy.
I am very surprised that the Assassin is lower tier than the Hunter. I've never had any issue with the Hunter at all in any playthrough. The Assassin has outright killed some of my ironman runs.
i feel like its hard to do this kind of tier list because do you go by the order of priority to kill or in a vacuum or do you order it by how often you actually get punished by the unit. because although andromedon are part of that number one priority and are like top 3 hardest in a vacuum they are basically always the strongest in their pod and it feels like they make the pod weaker as a result because a good ranger or templar makes an andromedon easy because it only takes 2 units to deal with them. this lets you use the majority of your soldiers to deal with the like 2 sectoids or something that spawned with it.
These lists depend heavily on the play style of whomever makes them. This guy plays 4 man challenge runs. As a result his team composition tends to exclude close range specialists like crit ranger and templar. He simply can't afford to pull a second pod with a four man team even in the late game. If you run a six man squad you will usually have a crit ranger and or a templar and those turn andromedons into a joke you just face tank them with parry and untouchable and their inherent defense and tendency to hide behind high cover isn't that big of a deal if you come in close. But if you have to keep your distance they are a nightmare. This game is a completely different beast if you play it with a four man team in the late game.
Bladestorm just absolutely annihilates chrysallids late game. Like the gate crasher mission (I think that’s the one with the gate) I just send a ranger/templar forward to trigger the reaction attacks and he kills them with bladestorm before they get to attack.
Dude plays legend difficulty. Unless you have the Assassin katana and get a lucky max roll you're not killing the chryssalid in one hit with your bladestorm.
I had an early op with savage sitrep and accidentally popped 6 faceless in one turn. I didnt have mag wep at this point so it was a tough battle. Still managed a flawless.
Hunter/avatar B Assasin C and Warlock S? We play the same game? The hunter is the useless chosen, and Assasin hits you 1 or 2 times mostly times, and I hace more fear of cerberus than andromedon (the 2nd easier mind control/disrupt, and the 2nd life ez hacking)
1 thing i think u missed on the Mechs or maybe i missed it but becouse they move very often if not always first they have a nasty habit of blowing up your cover if its not solid with that rocket they have on turn 1. So if they dont die when u reveal them or on Overwatch as they move your likly having 1 or more guys standing with no cover as the rest of the enemy pod now moves after the Mech. Thats also the same reson why Mutons that is a relativly early/mid game unit can still be dangerous as they have that Plasma grenade to the point that they are prime targets for frost bombs or mimic beacons if u cant guarantee the kill. Most enemy units have a prefered thing u want them to do but both the Mutons weapon and the grenade are really bad things for your squad just in different ways. I´m guessing that the Cryssalid shows up so late becouse of there Burrow and that there poison is as far as i know guaranteed if they hit u. Assuming the soldier isent holding a Medkit as they cant be poisoned if they do.
Cryssalids are pretty poopy unless they spawn on a retaliation, I had a retaliation with 3 pods of them attacking civilians & spawning cocoons. That mission I killed 50 enemies. On a fucking retaliation.
Really hard to agree with your chosen placements. Assassin is to me easily the worst one to deal with because of one simple thing: you can't control when to fight her. Hunter and Warlock will usually just flick their testicles at the back of the map, but Assassin might just attack you at the worst possible moment as you are engaged with a pod. On top of that, she consistently goes for dealing damage, and has the best AoE ability in Harbor Wave. She's not any more likely to cause a squad wipe than the other two, but she manages to hurt my team and get kills most consistently and is the trickiest to deal with IMO. Because of her being on the mission is a constant threat until you kill her, and her tendency to go for actual damage, I would place her at A tier. Warlock is a nuisance even when he's at the back of the map because of the Spectral Zombies, but they are quite predictable and you can usually pace your engagements to avoid them being a big threat. Warlock rarely goes for damaging attacks, which makes him less of an immediate threat than the other two, but his MC of course has a potential to wipe you. However, I find it very rarely a big problem, and I in fact don't really use mindshields to prevent it. That's because of his Spectral Army ability: you don't need to kill him to get rid of MC, because he will basically always use this ability when he goes low on HP, which puts him into stasis and cuts the MC. Overall, he can be a threat and consistently makes the whole mission harder even when not engaged, B tier. I just tend to disrespect the shit out of Hunter. He is basically a 0 threat before you choose to engage him. Sure, his shots are accurate and hurt, and he actually goes consistently for damage unlike Warlock. But because you can almost always choose when to fight him, he simply doesn't have enough staying power to make that damage matter most of the time. He's much bigger threat if you activate him too early, either because you screwed up or because you just get really unlucky with his movement patterns. On some mission types or map layouts you also just don't have the luxury of killing all the enemies before running into him. Since he's usually D tier but occasionally can even be an A tier threat, I'd place him in C. Edit: I do agree with Warlock being much worse if you do a no squad size upgrade run though. As you said, zombies destroy your action economy, and just one team member getting MC'd is much worse if you only have 4 soldiers to begin with. In this case he is A or even S tier.
I'd say the assassin is worse than the sniper because she will almost always have the opportunity to do damage and melee is hard to dodge already. If you get unlucky she will just merc a squad member in 1 shot and you never had a chance to prevent it. At least with the sniper you have some control over how and when hes gonna hit you.
Chosen is so easy with 6 shot banish + 15% repeater instant kill same with king and queen 15% instant kill chance with 6 shot probability = 62.285% chance of instant kill activate at least once with Inside Knowledge 20% instant kill chance with 7 shot probability = 79.028% chance of instant kill activate at least once
i did a legend playthrough my self and holy heck the archon king is just... NOPE. My most hated enemy by far and only time ive had a squad wipe. Basically S for me, and engage only if you got the advantage in the fight unlike the rest that you can survive.
I agree on most of these but one question Why is Andromedon the only S tier and also higher than Gatekeeper? Gatekeeper is harder to kill imo. And more punishing if you dont kill him.
Bluescreen rounds work on the gatekeeper. Even when you leave it up, it may choose to direct its aoe atk. to a group of corpses for psi zombies, so there is an avenue where it doesn't even try to attack you
@ ah I see, that makes sense. I never leave him up though, out of fear he’s gonna use the guaranteed aoe damage on my guys. I also don’t use Bluescreen as much as you do so that’s probably why we feel different about the Gatekeeper.
@@EdwinofEberron Ah me and my big mouth. I stunned him in my first turn thinking he cannot use his AOE like that untill he did anyways, and lost my run...
I only had a minute to watch this, so I skipped to the end - I've always found Warlock to be weak AF, and the only Chosen that ever annoys me is Assassin. Hunter is as pathetic as a sectoid.
watched for 1,5min . . . putting commander above trooper is bs. The commander puts up mark, and rarely uses granades ( only if they are 2+ targets ) and never uses it to demolish cover. They always use mark if the previous mark is out of range, so its basically 0dmg dealer trooper.
Advent officer forces you to spread out your soldiers (grenade threat) has more health than the troopers & can mark & shoot in the same turn. I'm not sure in what world they are a lower threat than regular troopers.
A Disclaimer - These rankings reflect my personal experience with these enemies not only in general but in 4Man/Legend/Ironman runs as well
The Drifter Podcast had a pod on the final mission, and it was just 8 mutons. It was probably two pods mashed into one, but it was still rather shocking
Seems like a pretty good tier list, the only one I disagree with is the Avatar. Yes, it may not be dangerous on turn 1, but that's because you invested up to 6 item slots specifically into nullifying it. I don't think that an enemy that makes you gear up your entire team specifically against it can be anything lower than A tier.
If there were no avatars I would still take mind shields for the 3 chosen on the finale and to remove any chance a Lancer or Zerk can get an unconscious off, I would rank them A if I brought mind shields specifically for avatars
@@EdwinofEberron I play with the mod that makes the warlock punishes you for wearing mind shields and other general tuning for each of the chosen. It's honestly baffling how easy the rest of the chosen are when you finally manage to keep your cool and think rationally with the assassin
@EdwinofEberron you're thinking of that backwards. If there were only avatars, no chosen, would you bring mind shields?
Lol yea @RCG3.
@@EdwinofEberron Agree with this since you still run into I think 3 avatars in the final mission not to mention all the other things you want the shields against. I do somewhat agree with the thought that they should be higher since they somewhat mandate you having the shields to be as weak as you say
If the RNG isnt number 1 then this list is fickle 😂
Skill issue
@@BichNickGurrsur clearly a 9yro lol
99% shotgun eith aim mods....misses
Not a skill issue
Sniper. Up 2 levels of height long range
3 lost
100% 2 of them but third 1 is 99% 1 space apart from each other...... miss
Still not a skill issue
@@MadLadMartyMcFly85 ur bad
@@Crusader-wy7sh bad....ass
Tier lists in xcom are extremely subjective depending on where you are on the power curve. If youre behind you'll care less about beeing scratched and more about surviving the mission. If you're ahead, you'll look at avoiding even the small scratches and managing will/maxing resource gain, etc. And this will make some enemies move between tiers imo. And there's also the time when you compute.. a sectoid late game is a nuisence, a sectoid early game can do a squad wipe (as example).
That being said.. there's no scenario where an archon is an A-tier unless you mess something up really bad. They give you a free turn to kill them as their 1st action will (almost) always be blazing pinions.
In a regular game i would agree with u but keep in mind that hes playing with no squad size upgrades on Legend so hes stuck with a 4-man squad vs high hp enemy at that stage and the damn Archon not only has high Defense but also has dodge.
Sectoids are nearly purely support, so take out all non-sectoids first and sectoids become harmless.
I've literally never seen an Archon do blazing pinione
@@oblivionfan345Tony If that is really true then its becouse u very likly attacked them before they got there first turn. If an Archon on there first turn still has full hp its almost guaranteed to do there Blazing Pinion ability. If there is more then 1 Archon in combat then only 1 can do the ability. They dont always do but its very rare that a full hp Archon dont do this ability. Its usually so reliable that u can bait an Archon not to attack u on there turn by not causing any dmg to it and instead just kill the rest of the pod and giving u another turn to kill it before it starts to direct attack your squad. The reson for why they dont do it is becouse when they take dmg they activate a passive ability called Battle Frenzy and cant do Blazing Pinion anymore and they gain 1 more action point for the next 1-2 turns.
@@Shiftry87 squad positions take a huge factor into determining whether archon will do its aoe attack or not. If your squad is all spread out, it will prioritize single target attack instead.
I feel like with the Chryssalids the devs did the opposite of enemy unknown.
EU - introduced too early, high health (early on), hard to deal with (especially on first encounter)
Xcom2 - Introduced too late, low health, easy to deal with (they all die before they even get to attack you)
Yeah the chryssalids in enemy unknown are waaaaay worse. They show up around month 2, so way earlier, and they show up on pretty much every civilian rescue mission and can run around with their crazy mobility converting a shitload of them into zombies before you have a chance to do much, which can get out of hand if your civilians happen to spawn clustered together
I like to run n gun so then i get into these tense situations where im like, jimmy you're taking 5 shots for the team😂😂
4:20 i actually love that dark event because that means I'm getting more mimic beacons. And as we all know, those things are OP
Yea, it is a blessing in disguise
You're absolutely right about sectopods. When I first encountered one, I was terrified and couldn't believe how many actions it got to take. But by the time they start showing up you have blue screen and emps which easily take care of it. Andromedons on the hand, are a fucking pain in the ass.
Chrysalids and Sectopods were so much worse in Enemy Unknown. How the mighty have fallen.
I went back to try 4man impossible and yea, sectopods be out here killing my runs
Viper tongue makes a soldier act unwise
Both Gatekeepers and Sectopods need to be a tier higher IMHO, for two main reasons.
The Frostbomb doesn’t really work on them, so you can’t delay their actions, giving you the breath room. They are a must kill first.
Then they die with an explosion, so this prevents melee in a round killing them. Or blade storm them accidentally killing them (next to an environmental explosive.)
Meme beacons.
Fun note when there's only 1 active archon: if you dont attack it, it's guaranteed to waste its first turn on blazing pinions. If there's more than 1 active, only 1 of them will cast blazing pinions and the other will attack normally.
Oh, didn't know that
One way to deal with andromedon is to get it low health on it's first form and then overwatch it. On it's turn in my experience it will always move before firing and if killed it will end the turn of the 2nd form without it acting. This will effectively give you 2 turns to kill it instead of 1.
That's a great strategy
And then. Boom. Whiffed overwatch.
@@robertharris6092 lol well, it is still X-Com :P
So, I don't know if it was a bug, but I tried this and after the overwatch shot killed the first form it then went into 2nd form, but it also moved and attacked. So now I'm hesitant to try this strategy again. I wonder if anyone else experienced this
@@arckmage5218 Hmm, it's always worked for me, but I will note I only have the base game and War of the Chosen, so maybe it got changed in one of the other DLCs.
Sectopod is fr only difficult when you accidentally activate it early
Tbf, any enemy is trivial if you prepare for it.
Yesterday I had a pod of two of them . Not fun
I've had a gatekeeper use the psyonic bomb on a group of about 10 lost killed them all and all were raised as psi zombies,
I'd be so worried that would crash my computer lol
If I recall berserker will attack anything close to it if it can’t reach your squad or if it doesn’t know were your squad is like it getting hit by a lost then rampaging the whole map
From what I've noticed, yea, had a zerk take burn on the other side of the map and it ended up completing the mission for me
Makes me wonder how many friendly fire incidents advent had with berserkeres.
Yeah, I remember Sethorven's first playthrough with the Alien rulers the Berserker Queen was whooping the Muton escort she had
I sorta agree with the sectopod, but when they come in with another pod and does it wrath cannon, its insane damage. And if you arent equipped to deal with it (like without bluescreen) it makes it horrible to deal with
Priests threatening your mental health has me dead
Flashbang pretty much counters everything, specially the aliens. They are great to counter sectoids, codexes and the avatar coz it disables their psionic abilities. Its a must have item in all missions.
Flashbangs work on codexes? 👀
@@josefrancisco4178 yes. they stop everything, and movement slow. I think they even stop mind control. Its an absolute must have item every mission imo.
Hey! Started watching your content recently and I'm loving it as I'm finally trying to finish this game ironman above veteran dfficulty.
I only disagree with your Chosen tier, in my experience the Assassin is the most difficult to deal with because it will frequently come out from nowhere, damage/daze someone and retreat somewhere beyong my line of sight. If I don't have a reaper with the skill to permanently see targets, then I'm always gonna struggle and come back with most of my squad in bad shape. Hunter has been ALWAYS a piece of cake, he is almost always trying to tranq dart/daze bomb or mark a target that do nothing but stall his demise and give me time to kill other aliens before dealing with him.
What about ranger with blade storm? (Auto translated word for ability)
Shouldn't activate?
@@lucagubernati4695 Assassins tend to have shadowstep, so ignores reaction shots.
@@NoName-mi8js Assassin always has shadow step. Hard coded. It's a difficult enemy until you learn it's patterns. It's still a RNG dependent fight. It can screw you early dashing to a very remote location that your low level low mobility troops can't reach. But that's rare. Second action will most often be an ability and those are not doing any damage. Either she does a harbor wave if your troops are in a line or a smoke bomb that blinds them if they are bunched up. The blind is not bad, your troops just can't spot beyond 2 tiles. They still can throw grenades at max range you just have to do it in the dark. You can see where the assassin is with the guy that isn't blind (rarely it hits more than 2 or 3 it's not a big aoe) and then use that to guide your blind troops in range of her and shoot her. Against the assassin you can use battlescanners to reveal her before she attacks. She's annoying but manageable once you know how to approach the fight. I find the hunter to be much less of a problem though I think it's mainly because I start reaper so he appears later on. The chosen which you will find the hardest is always the one you encounter first when your troops have shit aim, shit mobility and no abilities. Once you have a templar with invert chosen become a joke you just swap them into the middle of your squad and they die.
@@NotYourBusiness-bp2qn assassin always has shadowstep if you have lost and abandoned turned on. same with adversary to reapers. if you don't have that mission turned then, then it's random just like all the others.
I definitely gotta disagree with the placement of the flame trooper, if you hit it with a flashbang it is completely unable to do anything, and later missions it’s just… one shot
The only thing that makes them annoying for me is the fact they have a chance to explode, so if I’m using a Templar, I risk injuring my Templar
I think they should be behind sectoid in D teir
Together with the codex. Doing basically nothihg on its first turn puts it at a solid D tier for me
Three words to add: fortress psi operatives
It completely removes any threat they pose
Priests-they aren't particularly dangerous, but they are exceptionally annoying, especially if they trigger their stupid stasis thing to slow you down and be a pest. They're definitely one of the most obnoxious enemies that aren't extremely lethal
andromedons-they definitely feel like one of the top threats of the game, and one of the hardest to take down. Even with 5-6 units, taking it down can take all of them, and that possibly prevents you from taking down anything else that was in the pod with it.
sectopods-they can be super, super dangerous, but blue screen rounds really shut them down. But if you don't have bluescreen rounds, or they show up after your bluescreen round unit has moved, they can probably cause heavy damage, if not a few casualties. Also high tier annoyance for them being really, really irritating with frequently just ruining mission objectives because they just walk over it and destroy the thing
I'd actually put the mutton in s tier because of how dangerous they are early to mid game and how they can still be dangerous later. 2 things to note you haven't talked about 1. They have a pretty strong grenade that has a tendency to shred cover really hard and the counter strike has a significant chance to instantly knock the soldier unconscious. This is also something i've noticed with ADVENT lancer they have a surprisingly high chance to just KO your guy in one hit and there's nothing you can do about it. A bending reed lancer is absolutely terrifying because he'll just beat up one of your guy and run off to cover.
You know I have beat xcom 2 legs and I haven't once even used blue screen rounds or mimic beacon in my 800ish hours. You sir have given me another reason to beat it again
I saw when you almost put the rulers in the lower tiers for a sec and was just like "huh?" before you put them higher, because they are the single biggest threat in the game. Whenever one of them appears, you just pray that you're in a situation where they are the only thing on the field, because if you have to fight them with a half decent pod or god forbid two pods, the game suddenly becomes extremely different and very, very dangerous. When they show up, any other concerns on the field that you had are no longer your problem. If you don't give them most of your attention, they clap the hell out of your squad, and goddamn the Archon King is the roughest of them all by a long shot with the pinions move. Even when you do deal with the ruler, if there are other enemies around you're suddenly taking a turn of attacks from them that you don't get to do much to react to. Hilariously, all of the rulers seem to have an overwhelming allergy to cheese, which in this case would be called sharpshooters taking shots from out of their range while a concealed unit keeps sight on them. Nice tier list dude, I was surprised the sectopod was as low as it was, but then, if you're always running half a squad of bluescreen rounds it makes sense lol.
Speaking of Crits, the topic reminds me of a convi I had with someone when I was playing Warframe. The guy was high and mighty abiut having a weapon that does INSANE crit. And yet the weapon he was refering to had vastly less base damage output than that of other weapons with much higher base damage output that I've seen crits hit almost a million, where his did maybe 5k...
Thats Warframe, this is xcom... but it was something I was remided of. 😁
I use mods to make the chosen harder to fight. Smarter AI, more health, reworked action economy and ability reworks. A core thing to the warlock is that he breaks mindshields, hes so much harder to fight without shields, hes no joke when you cant cheese him.
Sounds crazy. I only just started and I was having trouble with the assassin just using grenades on where I think she's hiding to reveal her then using my team to spray her down. Then I realized I bet you can just use those scanner items to reveal her. I just met the hunter and he seems pretty easy considering he gives you a turn to move every time before he fires across the map, a lot less trouble than an invisible melee attacker you can't overwatch
@@anthonychase6906 if ever you fear the assassin might show up Bring a reaper and keep them cloaked. The assassin cannot find the reaper unless you get unlucky and she runs right next to them, but that is 1/1000 chance.
The reaper is able to scout ahead and keep the assassin perma revealed as long as you keep going to her last known location, keep the reaper behind enemy lines that way she'll never catch you off guard. nading her out of cover is also always a good strategy. Shes not that hard to deal with, just dont clump up or she'll use her wave attack which will daze your units, making them prime targets to be abducted.
The hunters crossmap snipe is also secondary, hes a lot more dangerous when you get face to face with him, the Sniping is there to be an annoyance and throw a wrench in your positioning,
The hunter has borderline aimbot, i cant actually think of a single time where he has missed a shot, out of all the chosen hes the most lethal as his sniper hits hard and causes bleeding, which can quickly end a trooper who dont have adequite armor on. Hes also th easiest to just dogpile, once you have him cornered he goes down pretty fast, but if he stays on high ground and you dont have a way to bring him down he can be very dangerous. the Hunter AI, is pretty dumb tho and will sometimes rope on a roof, just to jump back down.
Thats where the AI mods i downloaded comes in, it makes them think smarter and not do silly things like that.
That's so funny, I never used Mindshields and only ever struggled with Assassin. Hunter and Warlock I trounced everytime they appeared often without them even getting a hit off
Andromedons are fun. I like running psy bois and hitting one with Domination on phase one gets you a pretty tanky dude with lots of armor that also has an armor crackin grenade. Tho thats just me.
Right, I would even take an andro over a gatekeeper
I think the Specter only really uses the Horror ability if it's damaged. That's why you rarely see it.
subbed! loving your content so far! keep up the great work!
Sectoid is dangerous in a group, if you manage to take his entourage out first, he is practically harmless
I love this game so much i don't even want to play it, if i dominate it i won't even have the illusion i could play it again in the future and enjoy it closer to the 1st time again. Both 1 and 2 btw.
My current run is the first time I've had the Warlock as a starting Chosen and the retaliation mission where he showed up was a fucking 70 minute gauntlet where I was just struggling to survive and keep him at bay. The constant mind control was really fucking my squad up considering that I didn't have any real upgrades yet.
with the white and red mechs you can think about it kind of like when the military makes a new tank or something in war, they don't just recall all the old ones but start putting out new ones alongside them, maybe the intended idea at the last mission was you hurt advent so bad that they have to use white mechs for the final mission.
Nice video mate, love xcom 2
I didnt realize the codex didnt show up until you skulljacked an officer. Id always rush skulljacking and codexs would absolutely dumpster my squad of seargents with basic weapons and armor
I did encounter two Sectopods in the same facility that houses the progress for the avatar. Despite being in separate groups, if I was reckless you can imagine the devastation they'd have if they are right next to each other. Arguably it depends how you strategize as well and sometimes running forward with very few actions towards an area you run into it's never fun and yes they attack three times, but usually how I've seen them do it is normal cannon first twice in a row and then wrath cannon. Pretty painful if you don't suppress them unless they risk moving forward and then just shoot you to the ground.
I had went through the workshop to try and create the most terrifying Chosen combos i can think of. Most of all i wanted to turn the Warlock into the scariest enemy possible and i have succeeded on that. The new Warlock has new abilities like using Null Lance and even Dimension rift in late games, he also has the Parry ability that has a 33% chance to trigger so taking shots on him is a gamble. He no longer uses Psi Zombies but instead when he uses Spectral Army he can still move around and shoot. Making him an active threat. Although because of this i did increase the cooldown of Spectral army and made it so he only uses it when all other ADVENT is wiped out or he's surrounded. But to be fair i did make him this strong because i have quite a lot of Strong Hero Classes and i needed to make the Chosen formidable in every engagement. Oh and Chosen Ruler reaction mod to make things even more of a gamble.
I agree with everything on this list except for the chosen. I guess it depends on how you are playing the game, if you play with the story mode enabled where you meet the reapers and skirmishers and the chosen all in one three part mission, or if you don't. Also I don't know if the AI plays differently depending on difficulty, I'm always playing on the normal difficulty level. I always play with that story mode enabled so I always have the assassin first and she is by far the worst of the three to have to go against first. She just runs up to you, beats the crap out of somebody, leaves their unconscious body and then runs away and cloaks up again. She is legit just a super advent lancer and it is awful, easily S tier, probably top of S tier imo. Hunter, I'll be honest, I don't remember ever taking any damage from the Hunter ever. I probably have at some point but I really don't remember it ever happening because it seems like all he does is the two turn ability where he lays down a cone and then fires at someone in the cone next turn, but I always move everyone out. Warlock you summed up pretty well, he is a pain just because he is constantly summoning more guys you have to deal with and has his psi abilities on top of that. Once you actually get up to the Warlock and get to fighting him then he isn't a problem but he slows down everything until you get to him. For me Assassin is top S tier, Warlock is either top A tier or bottom S tier and Hunter is D tier.
My assassin had shadowstep and watchful so auto overwatch and immune to overwatch was a nightmare. Hunter is allergic to rockets. Warlock had a Templar weakness so I never noticed him
This list is very specific to the authors play style and choices. The hardest Chosen you will encounter will always be the first one. By the time you get to the second or third your troops are high level and you have lots of kit to deal with them. So yes, for most players who start Reaper first the Assassin will be the hardest. He starts Skirmisher without the tutorial so he has a different perspective. Warlock is by far the hardest Chosen to encounter first, the multiple additional enemies are a joke later on but very difficult to deal with early and especially before you can expand your squad to six or if you choose not to as a challenge. In fact the Assassin is the easiest to deal with in the early game, still hard but easier than even the hunter. Later when you have kit he becomes the easiest of them all but in the beginning he hits very hard every round and takes multiple rounds to kill. Assassin will slash one of your troops as her opening move but more often than not will follow it up with abilities that don't do damage and can be dealt with.
@@NotYourBusiness-bp2qn How do you even get hit by the hunter is my question? I've literally never been hit by him as far as I can remember. All he does is spam his two turn cone fire ability pretty much so you just move out of it while still moving up. He eventually flashbangs you when you get close but that isn't a big deal at all when you can just run up to him and shoot him point blank.
@@LagunaFox Have you encountered him as your first Chosen? He's a pushover with 5 or six mid to high level soldiers but with a squad made of 4 low level troops he can be quite hard. You won't close the distance as easy to hit him point blank since you don't have mobility at low levels and when he starts shooting it hurts bad. Depending on the map he can be very tough if there are buildings around he will grapple every round to a flanking high ground position and lay death on your guys. I think the reason people rate the Assassin much higher is they encounter her early and also even later when you are kitted up she still can manage at least one hit on your team if you don't reveal her while the Hunter and the Warlock can't do shit. So most people will consider her the toughest but that is a bit deceiving. Early the Hunter can be more dangerous. If you know what to do the Assassin is manageable early, she will slash one of your guys and then you can dispose of her without any other casualties. If the Hunter shows up early and you get unlucky with what abilities he chooses to use it can easily result in a wipe. Same with Warlock.
@@NotYourBusiness-bp2qn I don't play it that much honestly but I can't even imagine that being an issue. The biggest problems with the Assassin are her insane mobility and the ability to go back invis after attacking. I would much rather fight either one first over the Assassin. She is the only Choosen I have to specifically gear up my team to deal with what she does specifically. Warlock I take whatever, Hunter I take whatever, neither of them is a problem, Assassin if you don't take battle field scanners and crap it is a nightmare.
In a conquered world with all kinds of intergalactic terrors that stalk Earth post-invasion, it's what can be likened to a police officer armed with an electric baton and combat drugs running through their veins that manages to instill primal fear in methat used to be reserved for creatures such as Sectopods & Chryssalids, or even the Tentaculat or Lobster Man in Terror From The Deep.
OG Chryssalids though? And I mean true OG's? Nothing compares. You saw a Snakeman on a Terror Mission back then? You would feel dread for the rest of the mission.
Nice tier list. But most of your strategies boil down to Alpha strike and kill them turn 1.
Any chance you could do a Long War of the Chosen tier list? Stuff sorta change when you got far more soldiers vs far more enemies. Certain missions I have had to deal with 20+ enemies at the same time.
I don't play Long War
@@EdwinofEberron I see. I enjoy the slower phasing and far larger combats with 8 operatives, where everyone got much more hp causing the battles to take multiple turns with extra pods usually joining in over time.
Also having to manage 20+ Operatives is fun and the game feels more like classic XCOM that way.
Standard mode feels too much like a knife-fight in a Phonebooth.
@@zealgaming8161 Everyone having higher hp is achievable without long war or any mods whatsoever
Just activate the beta strike advanced options, it doubles alien and XCOM soldiers HP, and increases mission timers by 50%
I love your xcom 2 content! Question though; what are your thoughts on the other xcom games? (Enemy Within, UFO Defense, Terror, ect)
I started with xcom2, then war of the chosen, then I went back and played enemy within, I like how much I have to change my playstyle to adjust to enemy within but I don't not like that the enemies can run into the fog and camp after being revealed, while I agree it makes since that they do that it still doesn't feel good lol, I wish the ufo battles had more to them, screw satellites, screw the exalt faction (felt like game padding and slowed the pace, also human enemies *yawn) loved the atmosphere/music and loved the base attack mission (very tense). The stun gun is very fun for collecting alien gear and bodies, however did not like having to stun an outsider for story progression because I still think back to the first time I failed the stun, had to kill it and didn't see another outsider for several missions which halted story progress and failed my impossible run
i'm afraid i don't believe your tier list there. i just got back into xcom because of your videos and ignoring the sectoids has resulted in 1 game over, due to mind control succeeding. and my current run, i've had 3 mind controls and 2 deaths as a result. sectoids are a B for me
It should go without saying that tierlists in general are subjective, but yea sectoids are one of those that vary alot from person to person
Mind control takes a turn and you are only missing one guy. Can you not kill a sectoid using the three attacks you have left in that turn? I mean, positioning and RNG matter, but generally speaking on turn one I take out every non-sectoid and on turn 2 I take out the sectoid.
My first wotc playthrough (second campaign) got assassin first with shadowstep and watchful. Was brutal
I am not nearly as experienced at this game as you, but i feel like there is a specific outlier in that B tier lol. Sectopod is a whole other level imo.
If this is a tierlist about threat level, it doesnt feel right to put it in B because it is such a threat that you build your whole squad to take it out in overwatch/first turn.
Put another way...if all those b tiers are getting a turn, who is the scariest?
There's no "correct" way to do a tierlist so I just base it on how much they've f'ed me, and the sectos haven't f'ed me that much
@@EdwinofEberron true. Like your content brother! Keep it up!
Should have ordered it based on when they generally appear in the campaign/force level relative to the estimated strength of XCOM squad. Would've been much cleaner.
Mecs are easy because you kill them quickly
If you leave them alone they will almost always use micromissiles for guaranteed damage which will leave your at least one of your guys exposed with no cover and hurt them or outright kill them if they were already damaged and it’s early game
That’s why I always take them out first
I think the priest should go up one tier for one reason, his gun. his Spyker powers make him feel silly and useless and you ignore him for more valuable targets. He has been on 3 missions and done nothing useful, and then he shoots and you guy just dies because the priest's gun is crazy.
I am very surprised that the Assassin is lower tier than the Hunter. I've never had any issue with the Hunter at all in any playthrough. The Assassin has outright killed some of my ironman runs.
i feel like its hard to do this kind of tier list because do you go by the order of priority to kill or in a vacuum or do you order it by how often you actually get punished by the unit. because although andromedon are part of that number one priority and are like top 3 hardest in a vacuum they are basically always the strongest in their pod and it feels like they make the pod weaker as a result because a good ranger or templar makes an andromedon easy because it only takes 2 units to deal with them. this lets you use the majority of your soldiers to deal with the like 2 sectoids or something that spawned with it.
I agree, there's a lot of variables, I just consider my experience against them on average
These lists depend heavily on the play style of whomever makes them. This guy plays 4 man challenge runs. As a result his team composition tends to exclude close range specialists like crit ranger and templar. He simply can't afford to pull a second pod with a four man team even in the late game. If you run a six man squad you will usually have a crit ranger and or a templar and those turn andromedons into a joke you just face tank them with parry and untouchable and their inherent defense and tendency to hide behind high cover isn't that big of a deal if you come in close. But if you have to keep your distance they are a nightmare.
This game is a completely different beast if you play it with a four man team in the late game.
@@NotYourBusiness-bp2qn true
Bladestorm just absolutely annihilates chrysallids late game. Like the gate crasher mission (I think that’s the one with the gate) I just send a ranger/templar forward to trigger the reaction attacks and he kills them with bladestorm before they get to attack.
Dude plays legend difficulty. Unless you have the Assassin katana and get a lucky max roll you're not killing the chryssalid in one hit with your bladestorm.
@@NotYourBusiness-bp2qn fair. I don’t play legend so ig my opinions kinda invalid on a tier list 😂
I had an early op with savage sitrep and accidentally popped 6 faceless in one turn. I didnt have mag wep at this point so it was a tough battle. Still managed a flawless.
Been considering another playthrough
Hunter/avatar B Assasin C and Warlock S? We play the same game? The hunter is the useless chosen, and Assasin hits you 1 or 2 times mostly times, and I hace more fear of cerberus than andromedon (the 2nd easier mind control/disrupt, and the 2nd life ez hacking)
Andromedon gets hard countered by mind control and other psionics, and they make for good bullet sponges
If you know there are cryssalids just scout with a ranger with bladestorm and watch him repeatedly one shot the bugs as they charge you
Will you do this tier list for XCOM Enemy within?
If I go back to enemy within then maybe
1 thing i think u missed on the Mechs or maybe i missed it but becouse they move very often if not always first they have a nasty habit of blowing up your cover if its not solid with that rocket they have on turn 1. So if they dont die when u reveal them or on Overwatch as they move your likly having 1 or more guys standing with no cover as the rest of the enemy pod now moves after the Mech. Thats also the same reson why Mutons that is a relativly early/mid game unit can still be dangerous as they have that Plasma grenade to the point that they are prime targets for frost bombs or mimic beacons if u cant guarantee the kill. Most enemy units have a prefered thing u want them to do but both the Mutons weapon and the grenade are really bad things for your squad just in different ways.
I´m guessing that the Cryssalid shows up so late becouse of there Burrow and that there poison is as far as i know guaranteed if they hit u. Assuming the soldier isent holding a Medkit as they cant be poisoned if they do.
Cryssalids are pretty poopy unless they spawn on a retaliation, I had a retaliation with 3 pods of them attacking civilians & spawning cocoons.
That mission I killed 50 enemies. On a fucking retaliation.
Really hard to agree with your chosen placements. Assassin is to me easily the worst one to deal with because of one simple thing: you can't control when to fight her. Hunter and Warlock will usually just flick their testicles at the back of the map, but Assassin might just attack you at the worst possible moment as you are engaged with a pod. On top of that, she consistently goes for dealing damage, and has the best AoE ability in Harbor Wave. She's not any more likely to cause a squad wipe than the other two, but she manages to hurt my team and get kills most consistently and is the trickiest to deal with IMO. Because of her being on the mission is a constant threat until you kill her, and her tendency to go for actual damage, I would place her at A tier.
Warlock is a nuisance even when he's at the back of the map because of the Spectral Zombies, but they are quite predictable and you can usually pace your engagements to avoid them being a big threat. Warlock rarely goes for damaging attacks, which makes him less of an immediate threat than the other two, but his MC of course has a potential to wipe you. However, I find it very rarely a big problem, and I in fact don't really use mindshields to prevent it. That's because of his Spectral Army ability: you don't need to kill him to get rid of MC, because he will basically always use this ability when he goes low on HP, which puts him into stasis and cuts the MC. Overall, he can be a threat and consistently makes the whole mission harder even when not engaged, B tier.
I just tend to disrespect the shit out of Hunter. He is basically a 0 threat before you choose to engage him. Sure, his shots are accurate and hurt, and he actually goes consistently for damage unlike Warlock. But because you can almost always choose when to fight him, he simply doesn't have enough staying power to make that damage matter most of the time. He's much bigger threat if you activate him too early, either because you screwed up or because you just get really unlucky with his movement patterns. On some mission types or map layouts you also just don't have the luxury of killing all the enemies before running into him. Since he's usually D tier but occasionally can even be an A tier threat, I'd place him in C.
Edit: I do agree with Warlock being much worse if you do a no squad size upgrade run though. As you said, zombies destroy your action economy, and just one team member getting MC'd is much worse if you only have 4 soldiers to begin with. In this case he is A or even S tier.
I'd say the assassin is worse than the sniper because she will almost always have the opportunity to do damage and melee is hard to dodge already. If you get unlucky she will just merc a squad member in 1 shot and you never had a chance to prevent it. At least with the sniper you have some control over how and when hes gonna hit you.
Chosen is so easy with 6 shot banish + 15% repeater instant kill
same with king and queen
15% instant kill chance with 6 shot probability = 62.285% chance of instant kill activate at least once
with Inside Knowledge
20% instant kill chance with 7 shot probability = 79.028% chance of instant kill activate at least once
Horror has only missed on an untouchable unit or Templar parry for me
Sectopods are so much scarier in enemy unknown/within imo
i did a legend playthrough my self and holy heck the archon king is just... NOPE. My most hated enemy by far and only time ive had a squad wipe.
Basically S for me, and engage only if you got the advantage in the fight unlike the rest that you can survive.
I agree on most of these but one question
Why is Andromedon the only S tier and also higher than Gatekeeper? Gatekeeper is harder to kill imo. And more punishing if you dont kill him.
Bluescreen rounds work on the gatekeeper. Even when you leave it up, it may choose to direct its aoe atk. to a group of corpses for psi zombies, so there is an avenue where it doesn't even try to attack you
@ ah I see, that makes sense. I never leave him up though, out of fear he’s gonna use the guaranteed aoe damage on my guys. I also don’t use Bluescreen as much as you do so that’s probably why we feel different about the Gatekeeper.
Anybody know why I don’t have the option to make an advanced warfare room?
Can the Archon king be stunned? Id so then he could become realy helpless
Yes
@@EdwinofEberron but then he cannot use his AOE ability. Sounds like a win-win
@@EdwinofEberron Ah me and my big mouth. I stunned him in my first turn thinking he cannot use his AOE like that untill he did anyways, and lost my run...
Stun lancer don’t displace your unfit my ass, they displace you out the mission lol
Hahaha
I normally get chrysalyds and berserkers within like 2 months.
I only had a minute to watch this, so I skipped to the end - I've always found Warlock to be weak AF, and the only Chosen that ever annoys me is Assassin. Hunter is as pathetic as a sectoid.
Truly the age of neckbeards
This "Tier List" is the worst ive seen for XCOM.
WHERE! IS! THE! RNG!
99% MISS!
TAKE EM ALL DOWN
If shouldn’t take a hour and a half to do this 😂😂😂😂😂
watched for 1,5min . . . putting commander above trooper is bs. The commander puts up mark, and rarely uses granades ( only if they are 2+ targets ) and never uses it to demolish cover. They always use mark if the previous mark is out of range, so its basically 0dmg dealer trooper.
The commander can mark and shoot in the same turn
Advent officer forces you to spread out your soldiers (grenade threat) has more health than the troopers & can mark & shoot in the same turn. I'm not sure in what world they are a lower threat than regular troopers.
List is insanely wrong