The Firaxis XCOM Series

There's 11, plus the androids. And Patchwork is really damn useful, especially if you take the time to upgrade her chain-lightning ability. If you're lucky, you can stun half the enemy per turn, and that's not counting how she is against robots.

I think my preferred team is Verge (always useful), Terminal (both for healing and her support abilities), Patchwork, and Godmother (for raw damage). On my first run I didn't get Axiom, Claymore, or Shelter, so I don't know how they stack up.

There's probably a mod to have all 11 recruited at once.

There is, but the UI isn't made for it so you run into issues when assigning people to the APC/OPS/Training.

Favorite members for me are Claymore, Godmother, Blueblood and Terminal. I found Verge loses use in the late game coz his neural network takes time to set up for his best abilities to pay off. His stun is great but the berserk move is really inconsistent.

Shelter is okay. He's very situational. His location swap move is good if you get the upgrade where it pushes enemy targets down the turn order. But a lot of time it's tricky to use coz he's likely to end up in the open. He has a GREAT special move during breach however and his capstone ability is arguably the best since it creates a copy of himself. He also gets Solace so he cancels all mental effects around him.

Edited by Ghilz on May 6th 2020 at 1:53:51 PM

torque is great because permanently immobilizing the most annoying enemy unit every map is really good

or poisoning everyone

also she snek

Also she hard counters Ronins

And Fuck Ronins

I'm kind of disappointed by their visual design, honestly. They're just dudes in hoodies with tiny arm knives. The ADVENT Stun Lancer looked way more threatening.

Yeah I admit I would have liked Sacred Coil a lot better if they and their elite units were wearing broken/salvaged ADVENT armor or something

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on May 6th 2020 at 6:12:51 AM

This game has a lot of funny combo and also combos that may in fact be bugs.

For example I was using Patchwork with the auto-zap and also the extra damage on zap so she could just run up to people and Subdue them for 6-9 damage + chaining (with the weapon upgrade that increases subdue damage).

But when I was doing that I also noticed that when you run up to subdue someone but they die from the auto-zap before the subdue actually happens you get her entire turn back. Because I guess it canceled her action? So basically she passively has Reaper up at all times.

Edited by Clarste on May 6th 2020 at 9:38:52 AM

Speaking of Reaper

Zephyr's Reaper skill doesn't trigger momentum or Parry (neither does crowd control)

Which means her two active skills disable her only real means of survival.

Reinstating my belief that Zephyr is the worst character.

Also having finished a 2nd playthrough, I can confirm the Progeny end mission has not only 2 different stories but includes entire different maps. The two version I've had has only 1 map in common between them.

Edited by Ghilz on May 8th 2020 at 7:47:46 AM

Well there's a talent that lets Crowd Control activate Momentum, but it's competing with her armor-piercing attacks talent, and she needs every point of damage she can get.

I would say her biggest problem is damage scaling, and the source of that is A) her weapon never upgrades, and B) both of her optional talents contain things that really should just be part of her base kit. As she levels up she becomes "functional" while everyone else starts there and becomes a living god.

As for the end mission maps, my understanding is that each end mission has three variations depending on the order you do them. If you do them first you gets maps 1-2-3, do them second you get 2-3-4, and do them last and you get 3-4-5. So naturally map three will be the only one shared by all variants.

Edited by Clarste on May 8th 2020 at 6:01:56 AM

I like her a lot in the early game, where she basically invalidates the "last character through this entrance has their weapon disabled" thing during breach ata point in the game where a lot of characters don't have decent alternatives to deal with that.

But the problem with leaving her last to move is that she'll stand out in the open for the entire round.

Also she doesn't attack during the breach, but after meaning she doesn't reduce the incomming fire you take during Breach.

And yeah, afterwards 2 times out of 3 she's left standing in the open, last in the initiative queue, waiting to be shot.

For sure there's moments where she shines (you can do "Retrieve the loot item and escape" missions with her in 2 turns), but I find those moments are too rare to make up for her various shortcomings. Compared with Godmother, Blueblood, Terminal, Patchwork, Torque and Claymore who are amazing basically all the time. And she even falls short of solid, if not always OP characters like Axiom, Cherub, Verge and even Shelter.

I know. The main surprise though is that Reaper doesn't trigger momentum, despite reaper attacks being regular crippling blow attacks, which to me makes no sense.

Edited by Ghilz on May 8th 2020 at 11:12:52 AM

Which is why I said I like her in the early game, when there are way less enemies and they're much weaker than they'll be later, meaning you can almost negate Breach damage if you're lucky, and her low damage doesn't matter as much. I'm not saying she's good by any means, but she's not entirely useless.

Plus, like the Templars of old, she can draw out the next enemy on the timeline with Parry, because they always shoot the parried enemy first. Saved my guys a few time on the early game against Grey Phoenix' muton lads.

Still, though, I mainly use a squad of Godmother, Verge, Axiom and Shelter. Or Claymore, depending on the mission.

Enemies seem to default to the most damaged target first. I've seen the AI sometimes ignore her standing in the open to shoot at a more wounded enemy. They seem to favor shooting her if the most wounded target is a particularly bad shot.

And I find her more useless in the early game. Her low damage means she does fuck, everyone's low damage means any shot taken in breach is devastating coz there's no armor and every attack takes like half your health pool. Later in the game there's more options to deal being short one character in breach - You can use cease fire bombs, Cherub's Phalanx, Shelter's dazzle, etc...

Claymore is amazing. In my last run, one the 3 of the final 4 missions at the Shrike HQ, he took out the two reinforcement waves in a turn by stacking 2 grenades and 2 shrapnel bombs

Also came to appreciate Dragon Rounds. If you do Progeny last, Dragon Rounds are so OP since burning psions can't use their psionics, and end-game sorcerers are immune to flashbangs.

Edited by Ghilz on May 8th 2020 at 11:52:47 AM

I tend to prefer Godmother more. Between Team Up, a Motile Inducer, and her own ability, she can mess with the timeline in your favor pretty badly. I floored one of those Shrike missions by using all three at the same time on the last encounter and then also using the other agents' best abilities, it was a beautiful thing to watch.

Just had to restart the third encounter of Gray Phoenix First". Crew Chief Yarvo was the first enemy selected to try and start the UFO, cannot be Stupored, got there on turn 1 and I couldn't whittle down his HP in time (especially with his regenerating armor).

Also, I think my main mistake was using the side door, which made me too far away for Axiom to melee him. Restarted with the front door, took him down before he could act.

Edited by Medinoc on May 9th 2020 at 10:27:16 AM

On the subject of Zephyr, if she's the first one in turn order then you can get a guaranteed turn out of her (and thus punch and move or punch and deflect). She also cancels the Alert actions of of her breach target, so those Alert Resonants don't get their Psi Domain off (and thus don't need to be murdered during breach when I'd rather murder actual Aggressive enemies), among other things. She has uses, but I've not inducted her in my II playthrough. I'm also ignoring a weapon class completely so that I have fewer Assembly projects to do.

And if you guys haven't tried it out yet, Viper's tongue grab and Shelter's position swap both trigger Blueblood's 360-degree Overwatch-after-ending-a-turn via-moving. Yes, I have been abusing that. Usually by combining With Terminal's Guardian and Co-operation abilities, so that I can act as much as possible outside of my own turns.

Just finished up my impossible run of Chimera Squad, something I didn't do on XCOM EU/EW or XCOM 2.

Not only that, but it was more or less an honestman version of ironman hardcore as well, since there were only two moments when I needed to reload. One of them was the game completely screwing up and refusing to let me use Terminal to do a breach until I eventually reloaded the game and chose a different agent to use in her place (not that it was fun running a purple 2 encounter +3 waves of reinforcements mission without my fully leveled Terminal) and the other was when I accidentally bought one of those breech items that gives you additional critical instead of one that holotargets your enemies to give you extra aim.

My A team was Terminal, Cherub, Blueblood and Patchwork. Those holotargetting breach items are really good (to the point that I'd bring two of them, and have Patchwork use her special ability for an effective third) because I'm pretty sure their effect sticks around after the breach phase, and that +15 to aim really helps tilt the odds in your favor.

Huh, there are quotes for days where you choose to do nothing :D

" "There is no 'andromedon ban.' I'll take any agent who can do the job. However, the extralegal status of andromedons prevents their inclusion as agent candidates."

—Director Kelly, Reclamation Agency internal memo

"Per XCOM statute, the species commonly referred to as 'faceless' are not eligible for Reclamation squads. This could change once we better understand Psychic Fragmentation Syndrome, but for now HQ's guidelines."

—Director Kelly, Reclamation Agency internal memo"

See now THERE'S some lore that needs expanding on!

Wonder if the faceless basically get multiple personality disorder as a result of imprinting an identity. Or what the actual NATURE of the Andromedons is...

So faceless agents can be possible if they can find a way to help Faceless with psychic fragmentation syndrome. That's quite interesting

Its very possible that it's that. The psychic part implies to me that either the Faceless use some form of psionics to morph their bodies into whomever they are mimicking and that causes issues or perhaps their own minds were fragmented by the Elders control which was further exasperated by their shapeshifting.

The Faceless being seen in Chimaera squad as a part of Gray Phoenix raises questions of its own though. Makes me wonder what was their home planet like if it still even exists anymore.

Edited by Wispy on May 12th 2020 at 6:54:31 AM

Im nearly done with XCOM 2. Great game.

Back in XCOM2 Dr Tygan wonders if they even had a home planet, or if they were engineered from the ground up by the Elders. But the idea that transformation brings mental problems goes well with the fact that all faceless you meet in the game are unmorphed.

Faceless might suffer from a form of disassociative disorder when they copy someone, taking on the personality and quirks of their template.

Fitting that the first game Trailer about a Modern XCOM without the Council Guy is the only one not voiced by his Voice Actor