i went with 4 and 2 psychic's for a run, having the effect for overwatch till out of ammo, gremlin overwatch with the armor bonus, the lack of penalty on overwatch shots, superior scope and tracer ammo, it was pretty freaking effective when specters weren't involved... that was painful in my run, no clue how you did it but im wanting to comment in the early seeing of this video lol edited to add a question, do critical hit shots have higher probability the less likely you are to hit? I feel that the more assured the damage is, the lower the damage will be like, the 1 insured damage add on to a gun seems to push accuracy beyond comparison low
Yes for enemies at least. I don’t remember exactly how it work but when the game rolls for damage it makes it so it rolls everything with one dice instead of 2: one for the hit and then 1 for crit. This is why your full cover hunkered down rookie gets one shotted by the disoriented one hp advent trooper even though his crit chance should have been 0 and instead he hits you with a 7. I think there’s a mod that puts the dice roll in that tells you what’s your chance to hit/hit but dodge/hit and crit/miss entirely but idk since I play on my Xbox. So it goes like this for what I remember. Enemy shoots, chance is 20% crit chance is 33% since I think that’s just base in advent troops as a whole. Chance to miss is 80% it hits and it crits since the chance to hit was lower than the crit chance. Again I don’t remember pretty well since it was an old Reddit post/steam forum explaining their frustrations with this system so maybe I misinterpreted something. I remember stumbling upon it when I was searching how percentages work on Xcom 2 and as far as I know (and suffered) in WOTC since it’s a pretty fundamental mechanic.
If you have a 40% chance to crit, and a 40% chance to hit, any landed shot will crit. Basically you have a 40% Chance to crit and a 60% chance to miss.
Thank you commenters, I always wondered why the shotgun from half a block out seemed to always crit over the rifle, bow another question would be, do shots have a higher hit chance if they miss? The gunstock mods seem to cause weapons to drop accuracy worse than anything it feels, having a 99 to hit on 3-8 shots but widdled enemies to death with a gun stock more than once and I've questioned that as much as the rate of crit being higher in sensation over the accuracy
49:37 or alternatively imagine the more likely scenario of a civilian who supports Advent, watching as the terrorist group responsible for so many attacks of terror, can't hit a single advent mech. And being in despair anyways because your government can't kill these idiots.
There's a third option - well, an evolution of the second. After the attack, being told by the propaganda machine it was a training exercise, and despairing because "your own soldiers" are that incompetent, no wonder XCom are so prolific 😆
the gremlin jolt should absolutely not be discounted. Having six guys with 12 shots of 4 guaranteed damage, shoot. This should be easier than the skirmisher run at least. Plus the relentless healing...man I wanna see this with shrpshooters. All gunslinger colonels and everybody fanfiring on one target at once.
When you're editing it, you should just replace the part where one of the chosen comes out of the obelisk when it's destroyed and gets gunned down with John Marston's death.
33:25 "I think these random abilities are maybe one of the more under appreciated of war of the chosen" My templar with Reaper, Bladestorm AND Fortress: "You don't say?"
Bluescreen rounds bypass shields in addition to the increased damage against robotic enemies. There's so many comments this probably won't be seen, but didn't see anyone else saying this.
my dedicated sniper last game, literally 1 shot a sectopod with a fanfire (3x pistol shots) criting and bluescreen rounds using the hunter's pistol. they also disable/ignore the shield-bearer added yellow shields. I just keep bluescreens on the sniper permanently these days.
@@ffadicto AP can be clutch against sectopods and gatekeepers, but if you're seeing them constantly you're probably capable of dealing with them anyway.
By all means cheese the alien rulers until the cows come home. They're so hilariously overpowered using anything on them but maximum cheese is asking for a squad wipe, especially the archon king he's the worst one. He's got innate high cover defense everywhere he goes, like quadruple the health of a sectopod, AND he shows up in a pod of two other archons. So if he doesn't KO someone his little backup buddies definitely will. I tend to just spam him with shredstorm cannons or banish him with a repeater reaper every game because I just don't want to deal with him.
First time I fought the Serpent King if got trapped in a van with some lost out of line of sight and they slowly killed it and it didn't/ couldn't react so I basically got the armour for free. Never going to happen again.
Alien rulers are a blast. Ad on the viper princesses and prince and you on the go! I never actually finish a xcom 2 run, because I mod it out so crazy that comes tô a time where the game can’t Handle e say fuck it! “U stronkk?? I strong too. Take this pod.go ahead
I feel like if a character class can mind control or hack another unit it should be allowed. I'm sure most people would agree with me. It'll make the inevitable psi operative playthrough be so much more fun
The thing where Drifter shot the Warlock and ignored the shield was due to him having bluescreen rounds. It’s not stated in the infamerer descriptions anywhere, but works as a neat bonus.
Oh. This will be a very interesting run. Really like the specialist, but as you said i mostly consider them a support. Hacking a few robots and give you the control over them is really fun though.
The only time specialists can be good is when you build them up. Guardian and whatever that one that gives you free overwatch after moving combo so well.
I’ve never played x-com and probably never will but I find this videos interesting and I often just play it in the background to goto sleep to. Thanks for your smooth voice homie
'Drifter' equipped with the Warlock's Rifle, Archon Suit and Bluescreen Rounds - Playing favourites, eh? :P I can't decide on which run will be the nastier one. "Sharpshooters Only" for the slow start, or "Grenadiers Only" because there is no Chosen's Heavy Cannon... 1:26:40 This was really cool and I would love to see more of this! Your narration is very pleasant to listen to (I really like your accent as well :) ) but this shot of one soldier doing something remarkable was a really nice little added spice
I remember one run where I had a team of "the carry". Assault in rage armour with the assassin sword, bonded team-mate and psychics. Basically, the assault takes all the turns and turns everything on the map to dead. Kind of comically watching this one guy run up to everything and all with a sword. The game really is "oh dear god this is hard" at the start and turns into straight up bullying the AI late game...well...if you don't get X-Commed!
i know i'm late on this, but 31:00 dj was not in full cover, but half cover. Advanced troopers have a aim stat of 70, minus 20 for low cover, minus 20 for disorientation, so he had a 30% chance to hit. If it was full cover, then it'd be a 10% chance. Now I know you didn't want to know that, but it is six am for me and I can't get back to sleep, so you must suffer with me.
23:30 trust me dude, I already know. I put my grenadier I made after myself through dozens of those missions. Ended up with like 40 health and 100 dodge. Pair that with the 4 armor from a plated vest, war suit, and the blast padding skill, and he was literally a walking tank
@@TheDriftersBroadcast What about deliberately dragging out the ending of the campaign just to see how much you can stack bonuses? Avatar won't be a problem thanks to Covert Ops.
@@antongrigoryev6381 I actually did that in my first WOTC run, just to see how OP I could get. The problem is I eventually get bored of stomping ayys and just want to finish things.
Nicely done. Definitely a thrill. Here's an assortment of things that either explain some of the oddities or are just general tips for future challenges (Like say, one involving copious amounts of grenades) Berserkers can in fact panic from the rage suit, it's just hard. Kinetic plating's ablative health is identical to the shieldbearer's shield. Both of these can actually be outright ignored if you have bluescreen. Purifiers are generally harmless because their main attack has a very low chance to hit even when flanked and only sets you on fire. Watch out for firebombs though. support enemies like the shieldbearer and sectoid will decide to attack instead if a soldier is flanked and no other enemies are there to dish the punishment. This includes the advent general, but they'll try to pull back first if it keeps you in line of sight. Blinded enraged berserkers (queen included) can actually trigger a 'blind rage' where they assault their own allies. If you somehow have chrysalids on a city level, they'll prioritise killing the (nonessential) civilians to create nests. turrets instantly die if you destroy the floor beneath them retraining soldiers will refund their soldier AP and will refresh their xcom ability pool. Useful if one of your high rollers has really counter intuitive also, less useful but for the vanilla players out there. hidden abilities tied to lower ranks will still be unlocked once you build the advanced warfare centre. they'll just be awarded on the next promotion. Hope these are useful
I'm only 10 minutes in but holy crap that sectoid must have had an guardian angel. How he dodged 5 point blank flanks was insane. there's supposed to even be an invisible aim bonus on your troops after missing a shot how disgusting that was to watch lol
Coming back to this after watching all the more recent ones, and man your thoughts on the civilians had changed drastically. Here you kind of felt bad when one of your own was forced to gun down a civy, but now you praise those that do.
29:52 I have a theory: The Psionic Bomb does not jam weapons themselves, but, for a brief moment, takes control of the soldier and makes him forcefully eject his magazine.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast I don`t think it does. Mindshield blocks panic, mind control, stun and disorient. I remember using a lot of mind-shields on my teams, but I don`t remember anyone being unaffected by the weapon-disable. Another way to look at this would be to say that "unconscious" puts you in a stasis-like state. I think characters in stasis are immune to all damage AND effects. The first explanation was funnier lorewise (an operator not remembering that they broke their own weapon).
Specialists actually is my second favorite base class after sharpshooter, especially at early game, and "why" is simple - they have pretty damn good aim with decent damage. In late game you just put scope and repeater on them, use "Capacitor discharge" on large groups for disorientation(or just throw flashbang if you have it), they are INSANE against mechs and if you have multiple of them - you pretty much have second team, that consist of enemy mech units. I always have 4 in my barracks, but out of need of both damage and healers. If i did this challenge - my take would have been 4 DDs and 2 healers. And i'm at 2:26 so i don't yet know how Drifter went with his strategy and how it went.
I didn't make too much use of hacking, honestly. After reading your post, I wish I had, as having an army of robots walking around doing our bidding sounds pretty great.
I can't help but feel like you should have made use of the bolt caster the whole way through the run. It's the king of alpha strike, apparently +15% aim according to the wiki, _and_ has a stun chance, which more than makes up for its single-shot magazine IMO. 52:30 If you're wondering about the line of sight thing, what probably happened is that you destroyed its cover. When in cover, characters can see & be seen from the tiles next to the cover, otherwise standing by the corner of a building wouldn't allow for shooting. So when you destroy someone's cover, you stop having this extended line of sight, potentially making them disappear into the fog of war.
there was a time in this avenger defense mission that oh my god, there was my base, then literally 6 tiles away, a building, and like, 2 dashes of distance from outrider, the objective was in sight, and ALL OF THE PODS between the objective and my base were activated, there was 2 andromedons, 2 heavy mecs, 2 priests, 3 sectoids, 3 troopers, 1 officer, 2 spectres 2 mutons, 1 berserker and 1 stun lancer, and 2 archons next to the objective who were not activated, i didn't even know that this mission could spawn that many enemies at the same time, talk about rotten luck
@@TheDriftersBroadcast only spi operatives could be cool. You can only train 1 or 2 soldiers at a time and you will be Stuck with squaddis a looong time. 1 squad sie may also take some time. But in the late game it could get silly
although some might find this video long and boring, i find this video incredible fun, with a good amount of salt, funny scenarios, and overall, is a very good watch if you enjoy strategy games and videos. keep up the good work, top 10 most underated youtubers.
To be fair, the "miss chance" is more of an abstract of missing and armor deflection. Not every shot penetrates. Sometimes a shot that misses technically doesnt actually miss...it just glanced off of the armor
I'm happy to see this series continue! With 5 classes down, some might say there's 4 more to go. To them I ask: "How many rookies does it take to shoot to the center of the Avatar Project?"
I think early on ONLY having a single healer in a squad is a mistake. I think having 2 and having them farther back from the squad is very important, as shown by some of your early missions where your healers kept getting dropped and you couldn't use them to get themselves up. Giving some of your combat protocol guys revival protocol here and there is also nice just with the amount of disabling effects that the game can throw at you. Overall though I think this challenge really shows the power of the underappreciated overwatch abilities of Specialists, and the strength of being able to utilize items and armor more freely. The special tools like the War Suit and its heavy weapons are just such a massive amount of versatility that can be provided to a squad, and can really let you handle problems that some of these previous challenges ran into.
Yeah, I did learn the lesson about taking two medics the hard way haha. It could have saved quite a few headaches if I had done it earlier. Agree with you on the extra gear too. It gives a lot of flexibility.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast You might want to give the “Team Crafter” mod by a Dad a try. This mod solves the duplicate solider bug that occurs with “Starting Soldiers.” Still enjoying the series! Looking forward to watching the Ranger run!
I can't wait to see a Psi Soldiers run later on, I never really see them used too often tbh. I am also pretty guilty of this, and would love to see their potential
@@TheDriftersBroadcast honestly it sounds more like 'd be fun, cause with a full squad of psi ops with Domination you could potentially have a full squad of up to 12 people sadly you can't mind control the alien rulers though (already tried on archon king, didn't work, but not sure about the Chosen though)
Another absolute blast of an episode Drifter! I’ll admit, I thought this run would be a lot more challenging, but the Specialists really wiped the floor with Advent this time around. I’m sure the Skirmishes are feeling a bit sheepish after that final chamber. I’m really looking forward to seeing the Rangers show the aliens what they’re made of of!
this was the funniest episode for sure HAHAHA I watched them all and I'm literally waiting for the grenadier one. I'm happy that UA-cam algorithm made me find you. I love Xcom and see all the love that is spreading for it it's heartwarming. I'd love to see Xcom 3 soon. Keep it up man!
Regardless of whether this is a successful run or not, I've always considered the specialist to be one of generally the most reliable classes to have, for the most part. Well-upgraded, they're quite good, and fairly accurate, with mid-tier damage.
You know, funnily enough, I consider Specialists to be the second strongest base game class. In my games, some of my strongest and most reliable soldiers have been specialists.
You're really making me wanna play XCOM again! Thank you so much for the video! Really fun to watch your journey! A small criticism I have is the lack of game audio after an hour feels a little weird. I get that the footage is from your stream, but I think even having it on low volume as you narrate would make the video more engaging audio-wise.
I get what you're saying, but I think with the amount of cuts, having the game audio in there would prove quite distracting and not very nice to listen to. I appreciate the feedback though.
Have I mentioned that I love this channel? I can't wait for the remaining videos for rangers, grenadiers, and sharpshooters. Also, can I request that you attempt a lone wolf or army of two challenge? Syken4games managed to do both of them (with great difficulty) and I'd love to see you give them a whirl.
For Sectopod on the Forge - I vaguely remember on one of my first ever playthroughs it was on our side of the bridge the bridge. It actually stuck in my mind and I have to remind myself it actually spawns on the other side.
Prediction: they'll perform competantly but unremarkably until Major rank, and then start slaughtering everything in overwatch with mass combined Covering Fire + Ever Vigilent + Guardian.
Thank you for your challenges. In this current shithole of geopolitical circumstances it is just lovely to watch you mop down the ADVENT forces. Vigilo Confido!
@@colinayre2109 on hard? They're certainly not *necessary* but on an iron-man ruleset on hard they're the difference between losing a single character and a total squad wipe. There's situations where, say, two pods wake up at once and you're being harassed by the chosen when, statistically speaking, you're screwed. You might get lucky with some misses or weird AI bs but over the course of a campaign you're almost guaranteed to run out of luck sooner or later. Without mimic beacons that's a game over. The only way to potentially avoid that outcome is to play super safe by overwatch creep across the entire map - if that's your play style then more power to you! I don't really enjoy it and it doesn't make for great content IMO but it's generally viable.
@@Cortanakya "If you don't use mimic beacons, you need to overwatch creep to make sure you don't activate everyone" Ehh I'm not doing either. I'm in my 1st Legend "honestman" campaign now. Still no deaths, yeah boiiiiiiiii. I haven't relied on either of those things--hell, didn't even build a beacon. This game gives you so much more options in combat (compared to xcom 1), especially scouting w/ concealment--the biggest advantage. **Reapers OP.** I mean use whatever you want, but mimic beacons or overwatch creep aren't THAT big a deal that you need them, unless you constantly make bad pod activations.
Really love the videos, when YT algorithm popped Your channel binged the whole xcom2 series. Keep up the good work looking forward to the other class videos. Any ideas on doing something similar with Xcom enemy unknown? DLC included ofc.
I had to smile when u said cat is your sisters character, as my brother introduced me to xcom 2 and your videos and now i'm addicted, it also started with me creating characters for him lol
Specialists are pretty great, especially when you get them specc'ed up with Guardian and weapons with repeaters and stocks. Having a single soldier use the Warlock's rifle and wipe out a whole pod in overwatch on the final mission is just beautiful. I do wish they had changed the camera when using Combat Protocol, though. The way it just sits there on your soldier while Advent die off-screen is a bit weird, but also unintentionally funny. I definitely agree on the enemy hacking. Even when you get a high-level specialist with boosted stats from covert ops and a skull-jack, the robotic enemies at that point have such high defense that you're always at around 40% chance of success, and it's just not worth it versus killing them off with said specialist. I guess blue-screen rounds help, but again, why not just kill them? Really looking forward to the Sharpshooter run in particular, gunslingers are just crazy when you get going with them, they might be my favorite soldiers.
Oh, the grenadier episode is gonna be friggin funny... I can't wait to see 'missed' dozens of times. Edit: Thought I was following your twitch channel, apparently I wasn't! Now I'll get notifications finally, don't underestimate the power of telling people to follow your twitch!
I'm imagining the Ranger playthrough as the Assassin getting into some kind of old-school action movie 1 vs 6 swordfight That and the Hunter pulling an Indiana Jones vs that one swordsman
Specs might be a support class, but when you've got a whole bunch of them, their abilities do add up together. The power of a guaranteed damage is huge, because it defuses so much situations where you would have to rely on a shot with a chance to miss otherwise. And specs are probably the class which benefits the most from the training center. Having all the protocols allows you to cover a lot of areas tactical wise, and all the overwatch related abilities stack really well between each other. And the skullmine is great too, buffing the hack and allowing an insta kill attack, although it might not connect and it would be really bad time then
I think 2 medic out of a team of 6 would have been better. It counters the chance of getting the medic knocked out first and make your life so much easier
Big agree on your conclusions for hacking. The only time I've ever used it is either when I first started playing and would savescum till it worked, or when you have a soldier with obscene hacking buffs... And even then I only really used the buffed soldier to shut down enemies because the odds of taking them over were so bad. Hacking is a really fun idea, but it really should have just stayed in the "if you fail you've wasted your turn" realm. Hell, even just locking you out of hacking that unit would've been fine. It's just way too punishing to fail to stun a unit, essentially lose your action, and then buff your enemy. I'd way rather just try to kill/injure the damn thing.
Agreed. Enemies don't get a buff if you fail to mind control them, so I don't know why the devs felt the need to add this in for hacking. It just makes it very unappealing as a tactical option.
I'm surprised that you like to give the archon suit to a specialist. To me it's perfect for snipers--it helps get them into perches, then they can sit there while you push forward, and then once the squad gets too far ahead they can Icarus jump to catch up immediately. A sniper with the archon suit, the hunter's sniper, and of course death from above can just teleport into a battle and wipe everything out.
You might use the same mod I use to set your starting squad soldiers. Starting Soldiers. There appears to be a bug where it puts duplicates of the soldiers in the rookie pool. That might be why you got those soldiers in yours. Edit: And it looks like someone else noticed and commented about it so you know. I guess this is another bit of datum to confirm it as a culprit.
If it's any consolation, I understand why you came down from the roof on that mission, (I can see the though process maybe at least) You'd just had part of the floor blown out by one of your own men, injuring another man, so getting off the roof to avoid the enemy doing the same makes sense, plus, simply chafing against the bad luck of that would have maybe distracted you from the decisions being made, leading to the simple mistakes. Although (and I should follow my own advice) XCOM is the kings of hindsight, we can ALWAYS see what we SHOULD have done. That's XCOM baby. You sure came a long way from that mission though, that final mission was a stomp. Fantastic video Drifter, I look eagerly forward to the sharpshooter and Ranger videos, they're some of my favourite classes, show me what you can do with Face Off.
When you are done with the classes it would be cool to see a Commander only run just for fun. Imagine what 6 avatars could pull off. Or maybe a named character only run, where you make up a character for each named character and run with them. Bradford could be an assault, the commander could either be the avatar or a sniper to show how he stays back and watches over the squad, Shen would either be a spark or a specialist. The main challenge would be that you can't replace them, so if they get injured you have to run with a smaller squad for a little while and if they die you lose a solider permanently.
I am interested in a "Commander only" run, but I haven't been able to find a mod for playable AVATARs. I also thought about a "Bradford and Shen" only run, but had the same mod issue.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast I don't really know anything about the backend of modding but the player already gains access to the Commander's Avatar in the final mission. It should be fairly simple to just copy paste that unit over a few rookies and make those available from the start. As for the Bradford and Shen run, there is a youtuber called Sethoven that makes Xcom videos and he has shown a Bradford unit so that might help. Now that I think about it he has also shown a Commander unit but it has nothing to do with avatars and is just a really powerful unique unit.
I almost never see the enemy miss on the first 2 missions. It's almost like the game is programmed to kill at least one of my soldiers in those first 2 to try and send me a message.
I’m looking forward to the grenadier run. Easily my favorite class. Love them to death. Also, guardian and ever vigilant if you train both pair so well together. Free potentially unlimited overwatch shots with their bonus to aim in overwatch is so good
If you have people saved in the character customisation then they have a chance to appear in all you're games either as starting soldiers, VIPs, mission rewards or new recruits.
I'm looking forward to the Sharpshooter run because I'm a sadist, and Skirmishers can't have the worst campaign. They.. They just can't. They CAN'T. It is not allowed.
Since you asked... In my very first campaign, I actually beat the Avatar on the Blacksite mission. Of course it took some savescumming and it was right before I encountered the Sectopod, so more savescumming ensued because I hate losing soldiers...and then I found my first Andromedron which I proceeded to demolish before I ever found out what it even does. But it was fun! Also the Avatar indeed can ignore the mimic beacon. Pretty sure the beacon's description literally says that some powerful enemies can ignore it.
I can't wait to see the high level sniper run. I can guess a few strategies for how this would work. But. I also can't wait till the lost section. A sniper with between the eyes, and 20 lost. Long as the gunslinger sniper can see a lost. It will likely go down. I've had a sniper nearly solo a hoard mission with just the pistol
@@TheDriftersBroadcast also as for the specialist run. I had serial on a specialist with the warlock rifle. On the final mission. I had the entire final room clear. Granted I got lucky but still.
A combo that you slept (and the comment section as well it seems) is threat assessment + guardian + over watch/movement You grab a specialist with guardian and give him threat assessment aid protocol from either himself or another specialist and then send en forward or over watch for 2 + over watch shots without aim penalty and crit chance. Bonus points if you use the Archon Armor to move to high ground and make the combo with one soldier It’s basically superior hunter protocol
@@TheDriftersBroadcast it works on every class (if there’s ammo) but ofc as we learn in the final mission, specialist are scary good at over watching and 2 guaranteed ov shots without guardian activating. Sadly sniper gets the short end since it only gives a pistol over watch. Also for the ranger/sniper runs watch out for Deep cover/AIM combo +20 Aim for free and you can buy untouchable as well. It’s kinda niche but having a use for deep cover is just beautiful. Specially useful for snipers for a 30 aim bonus with steady hands and aim. Ok imma shut up now this is like my sixth comment/reply and I don’t wanna seem condescending or spammy. Good day/night and Keep up the great series. Fave was def Bellator in Machina I mean sparks.
My favourite Ruler and armour is the Viper King. The Viper Ruler's design is the most interesting, not to mention the Lore behind it. And the Armour is the coolest looking. R.A.G.E is just meaty, and Icarus is what, some shoulder décor? Though the whole Ruler storyline kind of feels like a lost opportunity. Would have loved a more in-depth side-campaign. But the Viper armour goes to my character, who usually is the sniper.
Yeah, Viper armour on the sniper is a must IMO. It would have been cool if we actually got to meet Vahlen again. I'm guessing she'll show up in XCOM 3.
I love this "story" angle you're putting on these videos. Especially the focus on the small soldier stories, like pointing out that it was the mind controlled guy who got a final shot on the Warlock. To me this is what XCOM is all about and I love hearing these stories! I have one suggestion for improvement though: please announce the chosen traits. They're not easy to make out all the time and pointing out which ones were rolled might make some tactical choices more understandable
Most definitely. The dynamic storytelling of XCOM is its greatest strength in my opinion. Also one of the reasons I'm not as big a fan of Chimera Squad. I like your idea on the Chosen abilities. I'm going to start adding that to my vids. The Ranger one is already in progress though, so after that one.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast Thank you for responding! I'm happy to know you're considering my suggestion :) "Only Rangers" being in the works right now is of course a really nasty coincidence since a chosen with the 'Brittle' trait would have been exactly the kind of thing that would be worth specifically pointing out to the audience IMO
i went with 4 and 2 psychic's for a run, having the effect for overwatch till out of ammo, gremlin overwatch with the armor bonus, the lack of penalty on overwatch shots, superior scope and tracer ammo, it was pretty freaking effective when specters weren't involved... that was painful in my run, no clue how you did it but im wanting to comment in the early seeing of this video lol
edited to add a question, do critical hit shots have higher probability the less likely you are to hit? I feel that the more assured the damage is, the lower the damage will be like, the 1 insured damage add on to a gun seems to push accuracy beyond comparison low
I'm not sure of the relationship between hitting and scoring a crit, sorry. Have stickied this post, as maybe someone else will know. :)
Yes for enemies at least. I don’t remember exactly how it work but when the game rolls for damage it makes it so it rolls everything with one dice instead of 2: one for the hit and then 1 for crit.
This is why your full cover hunkered down rookie gets one shotted by the disoriented one hp advent trooper even though his crit chance should have been 0 and instead he hits you with a 7.
I think there’s a mod that puts the dice roll in that tells you what’s your chance to hit/hit but dodge/hit and crit/miss entirely but idk since I play on my Xbox.
So it goes like this for what I remember. Enemy shoots, chance is 20% crit chance is 33% since I think that’s just base in advent troops as a whole.
Chance to miss is 80% it hits and it crits since the chance to hit was lower than the crit chance.
Again I don’t remember pretty well since it was an old Reddit post/steam forum explaining their frustrations with this system so maybe I misinterpreted something. I remember stumbling upon it when I was searching how percentages work on Xcom 2 and as far as I know (and suffered) in WOTC since it’s a pretty fundamental mechanic.
To your grenadier idea there was a video which was a autotune remix of valen saying show restraint when using explosives
If you have a 40% chance to crit, and a 40% chance to hit, any landed shot will crit. Basically you have a 40% Chance to crit and a 60% chance to miss.
Thank you commenters, I always wondered why the shotgun from half a block out seemed to always crit over the rifle, bow another question would be, do shots have a higher hit chance if they miss? The gunstock mods seem to cause weapons to drop accuracy worse than anything it feels, having a 99 to hit on 3-8 shots but widdled enemies to death with a gun stock more than once and I've questioned that as much as the rate of crit being higher in sensation over the accuracy
X-COM Philosophy - "For every 70% shot you missed, you could have taken a 30% shot and hit"
Can't wait for the final challenge to be all Grenadiers and a montage of explosions set to 1812 Overture.
Please this would be the best
I agree. If a single building is left on the map has the job really been finished?
Lost: Did I hear something?
I love it. We're making this a thing!
I've done all grenadiers....its INSANE
49:37 or alternatively imagine the more likely scenario of a civilian who supports Advent, watching as the terrorist group responsible for so many attacks of terror, can't hit a single advent mech. And being in despair anyways because your government can't kill these idiots.
LOL good point. "Oh no, those blind terrorists are coming back again! No one stand near the car!"
true
@@TheDriftersBroadcast LOL
There's a third option - well, an evolution of the second.
After the attack, being told by the propaganda machine it was a training exercise, and despairing because "your own soldiers" are that incompetent, no wonder XCom are so prolific 😆
the gremlin jolt should absolutely not be discounted. Having six guys with 12 shots of 4 guaranteed damage, shoot. This should be easier than the skirmisher run at least. Plus the relentless healing...man I wanna see this with shrpshooters. All gunslinger colonels and everybody fanfiring on one target at once.
That does sound pretty spectacular. I'll try to bring it to fruition!
all-cowboy run let's gooo
@@Haru-spicy Yes, cowboy hats will be mandatory on all gunslingers. :D
When you're editing it, you should just replace the part where one of the chosen comes out of the obelisk when it's destroyed and gets gunned down with John Marston's death.
@@ophunta LOL I like that idea!
33:25 "I think these random abilities are maybe one of the more under appreciated of war of the chosen"
My templar with Reaper, Bladestorm AND Fortress: "You don't say?"
'Niam Leeson, and he is horrifying.' - Drifter in the heady days of 2022, before he truly realized the monster that he had just been cursed with.
Bluescreen rounds bypass shields in addition to the increased damage against robotic enemies. There's so many comments this probably won't be seen, but didn't see anyone else saying this.
I didn't know that. Thanks so much for the info.
my dedicated sniper last game, literally 1 shot a sectopod with a fanfire (3x pistol shots) criting and bluescreen rounds using the hunter's pistol. they also disable/ignore the shield-bearer added yellow shields. I just keep bluescreens on the sniper permanently these days.
@@Keri-Kerigan are you telling me that there's another ammo/equipment to use on the sniper that is not blue screen?
@@ffadicto I used to use the ones that increase your aim. But I also used to suck at the game hard, so there's that.
@@ffadicto AP can be clutch against sectopods and gatekeepers, but if you're seeing them constantly you're probably capable of dealing with them anyway.
By all means cheese the alien rulers until the cows come home. They're so hilariously overpowered using anything on them but maximum cheese is asking for a squad wipe, especially the archon king he's the worst one. He's got innate high cover defense everywhere he goes, like quadruple the health of a sectopod, AND he shows up in a pod of two other archons. So if he doesn't KO someone his little backup buddies definitely will. I tend to just spam him with shredstorm cannons or banish him with a repeater reaper every game because I just don't want to deal with him.
I agree. Cheese is the only way to deal with a ruler haha. I think there was a mod that made all 3 of them spawn on the same mission. Brutal.
First time I fought the Serpent King if got trapped in a van with some lost out of line of sight and they slowly killed it and it didn't/ couldn't react so I basically got the armour for free. Never going to happen again.
@@Banquet42 Hope you enjoyed it while it lasted lol.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast My current Ironman campaign is three moves away from complete failure, I look back on those days with fond remembrance!
Alien rulers are a blast. Ad on the viper princesses and prince and you on the go! I never actually finish a xcom 2 run, because I mod it out so crazy that comes tô a time where the game can’t Handle e say fuck it! “U stronkk?? I strong too. Take this pod.go ahead
I feel like if a character class can mind control or hack another unit it should be allowed. I'm sure most people would agree with me.
It'll make the inevitable psi operative playthrough be so much more fun
keep doing these challenges, they're pretty interesting bruv
Cheers. :)
The thing where Drifter shot the Warlock and ignored the shield was due to him having bluescreen rounds. It’s not stated in the infamerer descriptions anywhere, but works as a neat bonus.
Oh. This will be a very interesting run. Really like the specialist, but as you said i mostly consider them a support. Hacking a few robots and give you the control over them is really fun though.
The only time specialists can be good is when you build them up. Guardian and whatever that one that gives you free overwatch after moving combo so well.
Fought my first sectopod, with no damage, because my specialist hacked an advent mech.
They surprised and impressed me in this one.
I’ve never played x-com and probably never will but I find this videos interesting and I often just play it in the background to goto sleep to. Thanks for your smooth voice homie
Same. Very good for sleeping. I just got xcom myself and these vanilla challanges are so cool
I used to always go to sleep listening to UA-cam vids. Thanks for watching and the kind words.
'Drifter' equipped with the Warlock's Rifle, Archon Suit and Bluescreen Rounds - Playing favourites, eh? :P
I can't decide on which run will be the nastier one. "Sharpshooters Only" for the slow start, or "Grenadiers Only" because there is no Chosen's Heavy Cannon...
1:26:40
This was really cool and I would love to see more of this! Your narration is very pleasant to listen to (I really like your accent as well :) ) but this shot of one soldier doing something remarkable was a really nice little added spice
A little bit of favouritism yeah haha. Glad you enjoyed. :)
I remember one run where I had a team of "the carry". Assault in rage armour with the assassin sword, bonded team-mate and psychics. Basically, the assault takes all the turns and turns everything on the map to dead. Kind of comically watching this one guy run up to everything and all with a sword. The game really is "oh dear god this is hard" at the start and turns into straight up bullying the AI late game...well...if you don't get X-Commed!
So basically he was The Hulk? That sounds like a pretty amazing run haha.
i know i'm late on this, but 31:00 dj was not in full cover, but half cover.
Advanced troopers have a aim stat of 70, minus 20 for low cover, minus 20 for disorientation, so he had a 30% chance to hit. If it was full cover, then it'd be a 10% chance. Now I know you didn't want to know that, but it is six am for me and I can't get back to sleep, so you must suffer with me.
23:30 trust me dude, I already know. I put my grenadier I made after myself through dozens of those missions. Ended up with like 40 health and 100 dodge. Pair that with the 4 armor from a plated vest, war suit, and the blast padding skill, and he was literally a walking tank
central: Oh no the sectopods destroyed all the human armies in a few days
commander: release that kraken-man
that-grenadier: finally my breakfast
I want to do this myself now. Sounds amazing.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast What about deliberately dragging out the ending of the campaign just to see how much you can stack bonuses? Avatar won't be a problem thanks to Covert Ops.
@@antongrigoryev6381 I actually did that in my first WOTC run, just to see how OP I could get. The problem is I eventually get bored of stomping ayys and just want to finish things.
@@MalinaBoy yes very much. Stacking buffs one a couple of soldiers and dragging the game out to 2 years is awesome
Nicely done. Definitely a thrill. Here's an assortment of things that either explain some of the oddities or are just general tips for future challenges (Like say, one involving copious amounts of grenades)
Berserkers can in fact panic from the rage suit, it's just hard.
Kinetic plating's ablative health is identical to the shieldbearer's shield. Both of these can actually be outright ignored if you have bluescreen.
Purifiers are generally harmless because their main attack has a very low chance to hit even when flanked and only sets you on fire. Watch out for firebombs though.
support enemies like the shieldbearer and sectoid will decide to attack instead if a soldier is flanked and no other enemies are there to dish the punishment. This includes the advent general, but they'll try to pull back first if it keeps you in line of sight.
Blinded enraged berserkers (queen included) can actually trigger a 'blind rage' where they assault their own allies.
If you somehow have chrysalids on a city level, they'll prioritise killing the (nonessential) civilians to create nests.
turrets instantly die if you destroy the floor beneath them
retraining soldiers will refund their soldier AP and will refresh their xcom ability pool. Useful if one of your high rollers has really counter intuitive
also, less useful but for the vanilla players out there. hidden abilities tied to lower ranks will still be unlocked once you build the advanced warfare centre. they'll just be awarded on the next promotion.
Hope these are useful
Some very good tips in there. Appreciate it.
I love these single class challenge runs. Looking forward to watching the remaining classes get their own videos
Thanks so much. Glad you like them. :D
I'm only 10 minutes in but holy crap that sectoid must have had an guardian angel. How he dodged 5 point blank flanks was insane. there's supposed to even be an invisible aim bonus on your troops after missing a shot how disgusting that was to watch lol
Berserkers can definitely panic from the suit. They seem to panic more than mutons
I can't remember ever seeing it, but I really want to now. the idea of a berserker cowering in fear is honestly pretty hilarious.
At the 10:00 Minute mark you actually hit with your shot, the sektoid goes from 5 to 2 Hp, you just rolled low damage
Yeah, thanks for that. I realised as the video was uploading I had messed that part up, but it was too late by then.
ok i love this run just because of the "Thats is X-com baby" moment
This game can be so brutal haha.
Coming back to this after watching all the more recent ones, and man your thoughts on the civilians had changed drastically. Here you kind of felt bad when one of your own was forced to gun down a civy, but now you praise those that do.
A brutal world will darken a man's heart...
@@TheDriftersBroadcast ain't that the truth.
,,13 enemies down in a single turn, and he could have kept going but we ran out of enemies.''
-Drifter
🤣
29:52
I have a theory: The Psionic Bomb does not jam weapons themselves, but, for a brief moment, takes control of the soldier and makes him forcefully eject his magazine.
Heh. Easy way to test this theory. Does a mindshield prevent your gun from jamming?
@@TheDriftersBroadcast I don`t think it does. Mindshield blocks panic, mind control, stun and disorient. I remember using a lot of mind-shields on my teams, but I don`t remember anyone being unaffected by the weapon-disable.
Another way to look at this would be to say that "unconscious" puts you in a stasis-like state. I think characters in stasis are immune to all damage AND effects.
The first explanation was funnier lorewise (an operator not remembering that they broke their own weapon).
Specialists actually is my second favorite base class after sharpshooter, especially at early game, and "why" is simple - they have pretty damn good aim with decent damage. In late game you just put scope and repeater on them, use "Capacitor discharge" on large groups for disorientation(or just throw flashbang if you have it), they are INSANE against mechs and if you have multiple of them - you pretty much have second team, that consist of enemy mech units. I always have 4 in my barracks, but out of need of both damage and healers. If i did this challenge - my take would have been 4 DDs and 2 healers. And i'm at 2:26 so i don't yet know how Drifter went with his strategy and how it went.
I didn't make too much use of hacking, honestly. After reading your post, I wish I had, as having an army of robots walking around doing our bidding sounds pretty great.
In my first run, i never destroyed any sectopods because my hackers rolled extremely well. Good times...
It's worth to send them on cover ops to imporve their hacking abilities. This way you can get one very strong hacker.
Specialist is easily the worst class in the game. Unless on legendary difficulty
I really like these videos, your style of commentary and the interesting challenge is a great combo.
Thanks so much.:)
I can't help but feel like you should have made use of the bolt caster the whole way through the run. It's the king of alpha strike, apparently +15% aim according to the wiki, _and_ has a stun chance, which more than makes up for its single-shot magazine IMO.
52:30 If you're wondering about the line of sight thing, what probably happened is that you destroyed its cover. When in cover, characters can see & be seen from the tiles next to the cover, otherwise standing by the corner of a building wouldn't allow for shooting. So when you destroy someone's cover, you stop having this extended line of sight, potentially making them disappear into the fog of war.
there was a time in this avenger defense mission that oh my god, there was my base, then literally 6 tiles away, a building, and like, 2 dashes of distance from outrider, the objective was in sight, and ALL OF THE PODS between the objective and my base were activated, there was 2 andromedons, 2 heavy mecs, 2 priests, 3 sectoids, 3 troopers, 1 officer, 2 spectres 2 mutons, 1 berserker and 1 stun lancer, and 2 archons next to the objective who were not activated, i didn't even know that this mission could spawn that many enemies at the same time, talk about rotten luck
Oof. How did you handle it?
I look forward to the Ranger run to see the mix of shotgun and assault rifle equips.
and the snipers for the pistil/snipers
Can you get phantom on snipers? Could be op
A phantom gunslinger with a whole squad of snipers would be insane. If I can make it happen, I will haha.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast only spi operatives could be cool. You can only train 1 or 2 soldiers at a time and you will be Stuck with squaddis a looong time. 1 squad sie may also take some time. But in the late game it could get silly
@@Musik2Huhn Definitely going to do a video on that one. The pain will be immense haha.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast a bit late, but is it possible to build multiple psi labs?
although some might find this video long and boring, i find this video incredible fun, with a good amount of salt, funny scenarios, and overall, is a very good watch if you enjoy strategy games and videos. keep up the good work, top 10 most underated youtubers.
To be fair, the "miss chance" is more of an abstract of missing and armor deflection. Not every shot penetrates. Sometimes a shot that misses technically doesnt actually miss...it just glanced off of the armor
That's a good point.
That's called dodge : grazed. Not missed
I love these videos. I just jumped back into xcom2 after like 3 years because of your reaper video. Thanks for making these.
Thanks for watching. Glad I could get you back into my favourite game.:)
I'm happy to see this series continue! With 5 classes down, some might say there's 4 more to go. To them I ask: "How many rookies does it take to shoot to the center of the Avatar Project?"
Rookie Run when?
Why do you guys want me to suffer like this? :( LOL.
Rookies....with starting-equipment only....
@@TheDriftersBroadcast Rookie run but every month you add +1 larger squad size
@@TheDriftersBroadcast You just need a mod to put squad size to what the old XCOM games had and throw 24 rookies at the final mission!
The chances of missing 5 88% shots in a row are 50/50. Your playing XCom.
I think early on ONLY having a single healer in a squad is a mistake. I think having 2 and having them farther back from the squad is very important, as shown by some of your early missions where your healers kept getting dropped and you couldn't use them to get themselves up. Giving some of your combat protocol guys revival protocol here and there is also nice just with the amount of disabling effects that the game can throw at you. Overall though I think this challenge really shows the power of the underappreciated overwatch abilities of Specialists, and the strength of being able to utilize items and armor more freely. The special tools like the War Suit and its heavy weapons are just such a massive amount of versatility that can be provided to a squad, and can really let you handle problems that some of these previous challenges ran into.
Yeah, I did learn the lesson about taking two medics the hard way haha. It could have saved quite a few headaches if I had done it earlier. Agree with you on the extra gear too. It gives a lot of flexibility.
That thing with soldiers in the recruit list that are also already in the barracks is caused by the "Starting Soldiers" mod.
I suspected that was the culprit. Thanks for confirming.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast You might want to give the “Team Crafter” mod by a Dad a try. This mod solves the duplicate solider bug that occurs with “Starting Soldiers.”
Still enjoying the series! Looking forward to watching the Ranger run!
I can't wait to see a Psi Soldiers run later on, I never really see them used too often tbh. I am also pretty guilty of this, and would love to see their potential
I love using psi operatives in regular runs, but having them as the only option is going to be really bad lol.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast you’d absolutely need to cheat/mod in the building for them to start off
@@TheDriftersBroadcast honestly it sounds more like 'd be fun, cause with a full squad of psi ops with Domination you could potentially have a full squad of up to 12 people
sadly you can't mind control the alien rulers though (already tried on archon king, didn't work, but not sure about the Chosen though)
@@lisabilby2006 it could be 14 solders, including 1 regular guy and 1 advent (from special orders or something i dunno how it would be in english)
finally another challenge run ive been waiting, love this series keep it up man
I'm glad you're enjoying. Thanks for the support. :)
this video came faster than I thought! Awesome!!!
I'm going to try and make the faster release schedule a regular thing. Hope you enjoy this one.
Another absolute blast of an episode Drifter! I’ll admit, I thought this run would be a lot more challenging, but the Specialists really wiped the floor with Advent this time around. I’m sure the Skirmishes are feeling a bit sheepish after that final chamber. I’m really looking forward to seeing the Rangers show the aliens what they’re made of of!
Thanks for the support, brother. The specialists definitely impressed me in this one. I'm working on the rangers vid already. :)
Personally, my favorite classes to give icarus armor to are sharpshooters and grenadiers.
Icarus jump lets sharpshooters reposition a lot easier.
Youve inspired me to replay this lovely game thanks for that my friend, really interesting runs here
I'm glad to hear it. Thanks for watching. :)
this was the funniest episode for sure HAHAHA
I watched them all and I'm literally waiting for the grenadier one. I'm happy that UA-cam algorithm made me find you. I love Xcom and see all the love that is spreading for it it's heartwarming. I'd love to see Xcom 3 soon. Keep it up man!
Regardless of whether this is a successful run or not, I've always considered the specialist to be one of generally the most reliable classes to have, for the most part. Well-upgraded, they're quite good, and fairly accurate, with mid-tier damage.
Another incredible video! As always, incredible work. I was having a stressful day, but your videos surely made things better! Thank you, Drifter!
Sorry to hear about your day. Glad I could help make it better, if only a little :)
You know, funnily enough, I consider Specialists to be the second strongest base game class. In my games, some of my strongest and most reliable soldiers have been specialists.
very excited to watch this when i get home, these videos have really been getting me back into xcom! thank you for all the effort
Thanks for the support. I hope you enjoy this one.
1:05:59 Drifter ignore the shield is because bluescreen round, bluescreen ignore shields
Yeah, I've learned this since posting the video. It's very good to know. Cheers.
Babe wake up, new The Drifter's Broadcast XCOM challenge run
You're too kind. :D
You're really making me wanna play XCOM again! Thank you so much for the video! Really fun to watch your journey!
A small criticism I have is the lack of game audio after an hour feels a little weird. I get that the footage is from your stream, but I think even having it on low volume as you narrate would make the video more engaging audio-wise.
I get what you're saying, but I think with the amount of cuts, having the game audio in there would prove quite distracting and not very nice to listen to. I appreciate the feedback though.
Just found this channel today at 4AM, and now I'm binging the hell out of it. Well done sir.
Sorry I kept you up haha.
Have I mentioned that I love this channel? I can't wait for the remaining videos for rangers, grenadiers, and sharpshooters. Also, can I request that you attempt a lone wolf or army of two challenge? Syken4games managed to do both of them (with great difficulty) and I'd love to see you give them a whirl.
I will have to check those videos out. I plan to give a solo operative run at some stage. Not sure I'll make to the end, but I'll give it my best.
Im so glad you're still making these videos!
Thanks! No plans on stopping anytime soon. :)
For Sectopod on the Forge - I vaguely remember on one of my first ever playthroughs it was on our side of the bridge the bridge. It actually stuck in my mind and I have to remind myself it actually spawns on the other side.
Almost all the time it just hangs out the front of the main building, waiting for me. Always throws me for a loop when it turns up somewhere else.
that start with the sectoid... XCOM BABY!
Jake would be pleased, no doubt haha.
Prediction: they'll perform competantly but unremarkably until Major rank, and then start slaughtering everything in overwatch with mass combined Covering Fire + Ever Vigilent + Guardian.
Thank you for your challenges. In this current shithole of geopolitical circumstances it is just lovely to watch you mop down the ADVENT forces. Vigilo Confido!
Challenge idea: complete a whole campaign without mimic beacons. Or, even more diabolical... No grenades of any kind. Good luck!
What about flashes and smoke? XSWAT.
Wait that's just Chimera squad...
I mean, whenever I play I usually don’t use mimic beacons, I’ve done several runs without mimic beacons at all
@@colinayre2109 on hard? They're certainly not *necessary* but on an iron-man ruleset on hard they're the difference between losing a single character and a total squad wipe. There's situations where, say, two pods wake up at once and you're being harassed by the chosen when, statistically speaking, you're screwed. You might get lucky with some misses or weird AI bs but over the course of a campaign you're almost guaranteed to run out of luck sooner or later. Without mimic beacons that's a game over. The only way to potentially avoid that outcome is to play super safe by overwatch creep across the entire map - if that's your play style then more power to you! I don't really enjoy it and it doesn't make for great content IMO but it's generally viable.
@@Cortanakya ya I usually go slow and super safe, abusing reactions and what not
@@Cortanakya "If you don't use mimic beacons, you need to overwatch creep to make sure you don't activate everyone"
Ehh I'm not doing either. I'm in my 1st Legend "honestman" campaign now. Still no deaths, yeah boiiiiiiiii. I haven't relied on either of those things--hell, didn't even build a beacon.
This game gives you so much more options in combat (compared to xcom 1), especially scouting w/ concealment--the biggest advantage. **Reapers OP.** I mean use whatever you want, but mimic beacons or overwatch creep aren't THAT big a deal that you need them, unless you constantly make bad pod activations.
Found you recently, and I gotta say this sort of challenge run series is right up my alley, keep up the good work.
Cheers. Glad you're enjoying.
Really love the videos, when YT algorithm popped Your channel binged the whole xcom2 series. Keep up the good work looking forward to the other class videos.
Any ideas on doing something similar with Xcom enemy unknown? DLC included ofc.
I'm definitely interested in doing it with EW. Just not sure of the mod support that game has, so I'll have to look into that.
I had to smile when u said cat is your sisters character, as my brother introduced me to xcom 2 and your videos and now i'm addicted, it also started with me creating characters for him lol
Specialists are pretty great, especially when you get them specc'ed up with Guardian and weapons with repeaters and stocks. Having a single soldier use the Warlock's rifle and wipe out a whole pod in overwatch on the final mission is just beautiful.
I do wish they had changed the camera when using Combat Protocol, though. The way it just sits there on your soldier while Advent die off-screen is a bit weird, but also unintentionally funny. I definitely agree on the enemy hacking. Even when you get a high-level specialist with boosted stats from covert ops and a skull-jack, the robotic enemies at that point have such high defense that you're always at around 40% chance of success, and it's just not worth it versus killing them off with said specialist. I guess blue-screen rounds help, but again, why not just kill them?
Really looking forward to the Sharpshooter run in particular, gunslingers are just crazy when you get going with them, they might be my favorite soldiers.
I have since installed a mod to fix the combat protocol camera, so we shouldn't have to deal with it again. :)
Oh, the grenadier episode is gonna be friggin funny... I can't wait to see 'missed' dozens of times.
Edit: Thought I was following your twitch channel, apparently I wasn't! Now I'll get notifications finally, don't underestimate the power of telling people to follow your twitch!
Thanks for the follow. I'll keep the cheap plugs coming haha.
I'm imagining the Ranger playthrough as the Assassin getting into some kind of old-school action movie 1 vs 6 swordfight
That and the Hunter pulling an Indiana Jones vs that one swordsman
I'm hoping it's more like that guy on Black Lagoon who can slice bullets in half with his sword haha.
Specs might be a support class, but when you've got a whole bunch of them, their abilities do add up together. The power of a guaranteed damage is huge, because it defuses so much situations where you would have to rely on a shot with a chance to miss otherwise. And specs are probably the class which benefits the most from the training center. Having all the protocols allows you to cover a lot of areas tactical wise, and all the overwatch related abilities stack really well between each other. And the skullmine is great too, buffing the hack and allowing an insta kill attack, although it might not connect and it would be really bad time then
I think 2 medic out of a team of 6 would have been better. It counters the chance of getting the medic knocked out first and make your life so much easier
Big agree on your conclusions for hacking. The only time I've ever used it is either when I first started playing and would savescum till it worked, or when you have a soldier with obscene hacking buffs... And even then I only really used the buffed soldier to shut down enemies because the odds of taking them over were so bad.
Hacking is a really fun idea, but it really should have just stayed in the "if you fail you've wasted your turn" realm. Hell, even just locking you out of hacking that unit would've been fine. It's just way too punishing to fail to stun a unit, essentially lose your action, and then buff your enemy. I'd way rather just try to kill/injure the damn thing.
Agreed. Enemies don't get a buff if you fail to mind control them, so I don't know why the devs felt the need to add this in for hacking. It just makes it very unappealing as a tactical option.
I'm surprised that you like to give the archon suit to a specialist. To me it's perfect for snipers--it helps get them into perches, then they can sit there while you push forward, and then once the squad gets too far ahead they can Icarus jump to catch up immediately. A sniper with the archon suit, the hunter's sniper, and of course death from above can just teleport into a battle and wipe everything out.
I am loving these Challenge Runs, thank you for the Upload.
My pleasure. Thanks for watching. :)
Man Watching your Videos made me better at Xcom and I thank you for that.
You are most welcome. And thanks so much for the support.
That first encounter with the warlock and your commentary had me rolling on the floor lmao. Except for DJ killing the civilian, it was hilarious
You might use the same mod I use to set your starting squad soldiers. Starting Soldiers. There appears to be a bug where it puts duplicates of the soldiers in the rookie pool. That might be why you got those soldiers in yours. Edit: And it looks like someone else noticed and commented about it so you know. I guess this is another bit of datum to confirm it as a culprit.
watching these videos is more fun than actually playing XCOM with those requirements
All specialists seems a bit bad
But four to six consecutive discharges with several heals though it sounds good if you can get there
Yeah, they're surprisingly good. Even in the early game, multiple combat protocols is awesome.
If it's any consolation, I understand why you came down from the roof on that mission, (I can see the though process maybe at least) You'd just had part of the floor blown out by one of your own men, injuring another man, so getting off the roof to avoid the enemy doing the same makes sense, plus, simply chafing against the bad luck of that would have maybe distracted you from the decisions being made, leading to the simple mistakes. Although (and I should follow my own advice) XCOM is the kings of hindsight, we can ALWAYS see what we SHOULD have done. That's XCOM baby.
You sure came a long way from that mission though, that final mission was a stomp.
Fantastic video Drifter, I look eagerly forward to the sharpshooter and Ranger videos, they're some of my favourite classes, show me what you can do with Face Off.
I really like this comment. Thanks for the support, bud.
Actually when it comes to Snake bite antidotes they need the snake venom to synthesize antidotes so maybe they do something similar
Yeah, true. I think still being able to build the original medikits without the viper corpse would have been a good inclusion.
When you are done with the classes it would be cool to see a Commander only run just for fun. Imagine what 6 avatars could pull off.
Or maybe a named character only run, where you make up a character for each named character and run with them. Bradford could be an assault, the commander could either be the avatar or a sniper to show how he stays back and watches over the squad, Shen would either be a spark or a specialist.
The main challenge would be that you can't replace them, so if they get injured you have to run with a smaller squad for a little while and if they die you lose a solider permanently.
I am interested in a "Commander only" run, but I haven't been able to find a mod for playable AVATARs. I also thought about a "Bradford and Shen" only run, but had the same mod issue.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast I don't really know anything about the backend of modding but the player already gains access to the Commander's Avatar in the final mission.
It should be fairly simple to just copy paste that unit over a few rookies and make those available from the start.
As for the Bradford and Shen run, there is a youtuber called Sethoven that makes Xcom videos and he has shown a Bradford unit so that might help.
Now that I think about it he has also shown a Commander unit but it has nothing to do with avatars and is just a really powerful unique unit.
@@mateusmessias360 Modding XCOM 2 is horrific, so I doubt I'd be up to it. But I'll check out Sethoven to see if it helps. Cheers.
I almost never see the enemy miss on the first 2 missions. It's almost like the game is programmed to kill at least one of my soldiers in those first 2 to try and send me a message.
i think it would be a straight run. i like the specialist class. there are support of course, but there are very versatile. greetings from germany :)
The chosen weapons don’t affect each other, so the bonuses against psionics just don’t proc.
It makes sense, but I'm still bummed about it haha.
I love this series! Thank you for posting this so quickly!!
No problem. Thanks for the support. :)
I’m looking forward to the grenadier run. Easily my favorite class. Love them to death. Also, guardian and ever vigilant if you train both pair so well together. Free potentially unlimited overwatch shots with their bonus to aim in overwatch is so good
Yeah, I did sleep on ever vigilant. But your strat is a great one.
Just finished watching all of this series yesterday, so seeing a new episode was out today was a nice surprise
Perfect timing. I hope you enjoy.
I can barely beat the game normally dawg
Watching you do these chalenge runs it's really fun, can't wait to see what's coming next
Thanks for the kind words!
First comment, Hyped for this video!
Nice! Hope you enjoy.
If you have people saved in the character customisation then they have a chance to appear in all you're games either as starting soldiers, VIPs, mission rewards or new recruits.
I'm looking forward to the Sharpshooter run because I'm a sadist, and Skirmishers can't have the worst campaign. They.. They just can't. They CAN'T. It is not allowed.
I love these vanilla challanges. Keep uploading these!
Most definitely. Thanks for the support.
Since you asked...
In my very first campaign, I actually beat the Avatar on the Blacksite mission. Of course it took some savescumming and it was right before I encountered the Sectopod, so more savescumming ensued because I hate losing soldiers...and then I found my first Andromedron which I proceeded to demolish before I ever found out what it even does.
But it was fun!
Also the Avatar indeed can ignore the mimic beacon. Pretty sure the beacon's description literally says that some powerful enemies can ignore it.
Absolutely enjoy the series. Thanks a lot for making these highlight videos
Thank YOU for watching. :)
I can't wait to see the high level sniper run. I can guess a few strategies for how this would work. But. I also can't wait till the lost section. A sniper with between the eyes, and 20 lost. Long as the gunslinger sniper can see a lost. It will likely go down. I've had a sniper nearly solo a hoard mission with just the pistol
Oh yeah, I'm definitely making gunslinger + between the eyes happen if I can.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast also as for the specialist run. I had serial on a specialist with the warlock rifle. On the final mission. I had the entire final room clear. Granted I got lucky but still.
A combo that you slept (and the comment section as well it seems) is threat assessment + guardian + over watch/movement
You grab a specialist with guardian and give him threat assessment aid protocol from either himself or another specialist and then send en forward or over watch for 2 + over watch shots without aim penalty and crit chance.
Bonus points if you use the Archon Armor to move to high ground and make the combo with one soldier
It’s basically superior hunter protocol
I didn't know you could stack overwatch shots. That would be pretty amazing.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast it works on every class (if there’s ammo) but ofc as we learn in the final mission, specialist are scary good at over watching and 2 guaranteed ov shots without guardian activating. Sadly sniper gets the short end since it only gives a pistol over watch.
Also for the ranger/sniper runs watch out for Deep cover/AIM combo +20 Aim for free and you can buy untouchable as well. It’s kinda niche but having a use for deep cover is just beautiful. Specially useful for snipers for a 30 aim bonus with steady hands and aim.
Ok imma shut up now this is like my sixth comment/reply and I don’t wanna seem condescending or spammy.
Good day/night and Keep up the great series. Fave was def Bellator in Machina I mean sparks.
@@foxyelpirata6698 It's all good, mate. Comment to your heart's content. :)
These videos are great, it helped reignite my love for xcom 2
That's awesome. Hope you're having a good time getting back into it.
My favourite Ruler and armour is the Viper King. The Viper Ruler's design is the most interesting, not to mention the Lore behind it. And the Armour is the coolest looking. R.A.G.E is just meaty, and Icarus is what, some shoulder décor? Though the whole Ruler storyline kind of feels like a lost opportunity. Would have loved a more in-depth side-campaign. But the Viper armour goes to my character, who usually is the sniper.
Yeah, Viper armour on the sniper is a must IMO. It would have been cool if we actually got to meet Vahlen again. I'm guessing she'll show up in XCOM 3.
Can't wait for rangers only.
*bladestorm intensifies*
It's coming soon. :)
I love this "story" angle you're putting on these videos. Especially the focus on the small soldier stories, like pointing out that it was the mind controlled guy who got a final shot on the Warlock. To me this is what XCOM is all about and I love hearing these stories!
I have one suggestion for improvement though: please announce the chosen traits. They're not easy to make out all the time and pointing out which ones were rolled might make some tactical choices more understandable
Most definitely. The dynamic storytelling of XCOM is its greatest strength in my opinion. Also one of the reasons I'm not as big a fan of Chimera Squad.
I like your idea on the Chosen abilities. I'm going to start adding that to my vids. The Ranger one is already in progress though, so after that one.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast Thank you for responding! I'm happy to know you're considering my suggestion :)
"Only Rangers" being in the works right now is of course a really nasty coincidence since a chosen with the 'Brittle' trait would have been exactly the kind of thing that would be worth specifically pointing out to the audience IMO
@@CErra310 I don't think any of them picked brittle up, if I remember correctly.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast oh no