XCOM 2: War of the Chosen

I'm in an odd position in that I have xcom2 but haven't really had the chance to play it much (just a few hours). Do you guys think I should play through the vanilla xcom 2 first before buying the expansion?

Or should I just jump straight into the expansion?
 
Mercutio said:
Yeap, did my first chosen base assault. My templar got completely destroyed in the line of duty (but survived, albeit with a poison fear I'll need to clean up). What should happen to be waiting on the final rank up..? REAPER :D
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If you try to kill the Chosen after power armour and energy weapons (especially after having 2-3 wraith suits), with all colonel team, you shouldn't have issues.
Especially the Assassin, if she gets fully trained, has a nasty ability where she teleports when receive damage.
However if you have spread out the troops in the room, you can push her near the reaper, who drops the whole 10 shell clip with Banish on her. Job done.

Also having 3 troops with EM bullets, would drop the sarcophagus before it hits 50% on Commander difficulty.


The other 2 Chosen, are easier to kill because they do not go invisible. So blast them, especially landing Jane Kelly, with the Assassin weapons, next to them. They cannot even shoot before receiving 12-15 damage from bladestorm+blademaster killing them quickly the second time they pop.
 
It's been nearly a year since I've played a game for hours and wondered where the time went.

So mission 45 playing veteran and it's pretty much end game now. Ignoring lots of stuff on the geoscape and just whack down an Avatar thing when the timer starts up. Training some psi ops but not sure I will even use them given that I've been stat boosting loads of soldiers through covert missions. Got one guy that's 20 mobility and nearly 30 health lol. And that DLC robot is pretty solid once you've pimped it out too.

Game is easier at the end. No one is dies anymore unless it's a 'very difficult' mission and I aggro more stuff than I can handle. Had about 10 mecs and a sectopod on a mission once, plus some of them acid robots surround this building I was in. It was brutal. Most my first squad died and nothing of the building was left. By the way I love the away acid burns through the floor, like something out of Aliens :)

First Chosen mission was also hard. Dunno if they're all the same but I did the one with sword. Anyway saved all my explosives and abilities for the final showdown and still thought was going to lose everyone. The Andomedon spam was mental.

I played XCOM 2 and really enjoyed it. Now playing this with all the DLC (that's 90Gb and I desperately need this installed on an SSD) and it's a much more padded out. Tonnes of mission variety, awesome attention to detail and that overwatch action cam thing never gets old.

My only complaints are that attributes are not presented like the very first xcom, long bars on a graph or something to gauge it against. And comparing the stats on weapons/armour and the like could have a better interface. I still think about shooting down UFOs and crashsites, but plot etc. Oh and the Chosen trash talk between turns.

Very impressed so far though.
 
Ah ok, that's fair enough. Time to work out the sweet spot between quickest levelling, or best combination of soldier skill sets. So far I've only got the one bonded pair, which was just the first pair I got to see how it worked out. As the skills pick up I'll start to get ideas of nice combinations.
Imagine a shotgun/melee Ranger alongside Mox would be a pretty sweet combination to have for brawling :)

How are others here finding the Reaper class, I'm not sure I like it any more than the Sniper for most usage right now. Less damage and right now I'm not convinced the other abilities make up for it. Maybe that'll change later on. I still never really get along with the Grenader like with the base game, such bad accuracy, so only bring them along to spam some grenades. Literally haven't found another good use for them.
 
PinkFloyd said:
Ah ok, that's fair enough. Time to work out the sweet spot between quickest levelling, or best combination of soldier skill sets. So far I've only got the one bonded pair, which was just the first pair I got to see how it worked out. As the skills pick up I'll start to get ideas of nice combinations.
Imagine a shotgun/melee Ranger alongside Mox would be a pretty sweet combination to have for brawling :)

How are others here finding the Reaper class, I'm not sure I like it any more than the Sniper for most usage right now. Less damage and right now I'm not convinced the other abilities make up for it. Maybe that'll change later on. I still never really get along with the Grenader like with the base game, such bad accuracy, so only bring them along to spam some grenades. Literally haven't found another good use for them.
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I had the same thoughts but finally figured out use the Reaper as a scout. It can basically go anywhere on the map undetected so you can use this first to find the enemy undetected then plan accordingly.
 
I've never really tried scouting with a single soldier, always tended to keep everyone together. But that makes sense, ignore the fact that it looks like the reaper has a sniper rifle and play it to the other strengths. I'd never really bothered making the most of the ability to stay stealthed.
I've used remote start though, that was pretty awesome. Boom :D

Want to go home and play more now. But few more hours of work first... :(
 
The Reaper is insane a scout, enemies pretty much need to stand next to him to see, he also has a few ways to do dmg and not break conceal. Loving skirmisher as well, between grapple, justice, whiplash and a few shots he can kill loads a turn. Templar only one not getting on with atm but still early days
 
Ok loving the Reaper now I started using her differently :D Got her buddied up by a somewhat stealthy Ranger. Had them on a Covert Op together but they required an extraction. Walked across the entire map dodging all the Advent and Lost killing each other, caused a few big explosions to kill groups of them with the Reaper, then got kills for a few rounds whilst on the extraction point until I got bored. Easy mode!

Skirmisher is nice, but mine is in dire need of some better armour, he's too squishy right now. Especially when you compare him to someone wearing an exosuit or similar! Not hugely getting on with the Templar either, like the Skirmisher he's a bit under tanked for getting up close currently and none of his abilities are that great right now.

Have had some good fortune on the bonus abilities you can get. Can bypass armour when firing with my Reaper, my dps ranger destroys armour and I've got a specialist with so many skills now (woop Savant Combat Inteligence) that she's taken all of her own abilities plus has the option of getting Rupture which will be handy against really high hitpoint targets in the future I reckon.

With luck I may even end up with a Grenader that can hit a barn door, I've just sent him on about the 4th covert op mission where he will receive an aim bonus! :D
 
Finally on the last few "story missions" (forge/gateway). I don't think there's anyone in my A-team I can pick out as a favourite now they're all fully ranked up. A sniper with run+gun, lightning hands (free pistol), fan fire (pistol everything), serial (keep shooting till ammo runs out or something doesn't die) and kill zone (overwatch shots at any movement in a cone) with a war suit for a random rocket shot is... probably the most all round useful, adaptable member. Still big love for my _fully_ skilled specialist (serial, every overwatch skill, etc) and the ranger bondmate. Ranger rolls in a wraith suit which is proving entertaining for endless hit and run clean ups (reaper ofc too).

It's all gotten a _little_ bit easy now. Constantly had my A-team on convert missions for +aim, +hacking +movement etc so they're all pretty much peerless compared to anyone else on the roster. It works though, still satisfying :)
 
Completed last week. Last mission was called Operation Cakewalk I believe.

Only lost the robot and that was because the acid kept melting it and I couldn't stop it. Hugely underwhelming to be honest. I hate games that fall off at the end and are only challenging at the beginning/middle game.

This time I'm playing on Legendary and permanent dark events (sounds awesome), and if I get to the last mission I will leave all 3 chosen alive to meet me there :D

Retreating to high cover + overwatch seems to be the only viable tactic so far.
 
Anyone else feel that calling this "Xcom 2.5" and that they were considering releasing this as a stand alone game is a bit cheaky? I love XCOM and I don't regret buying the expansions but it feels like a decent piece of DLC, nothing like a whole new game. Considering I paid £35 for it I feel that theyre cashing in a little
 
Aloreth said:
Anyone else feel that calling this "Xcom 2.5" and that they were considering releasing this as a stand alone game is a bit cheaky? I love XCOM and I don't regret buying the expansions but it feels like a decent piece of DLC, nothing like a whole new game. Considering I paid £35 for it I feel that theyre cashing in a little
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I think we've been rather spoiled by Long war 2 (unless that's just me?). If you compare this to the original, it's a pretty big expansion. If you compare it to longwar 2, it's... something of a sidegrade. I'll finish this and jump back on with the long war 2 slogfest (I call it a slog but it's honestly so well balanced/put together that despite endless missions and a roster of about 45-50 all approaching high ranks, it's still an absolute joy to play). Next time I get the replay itch, there should be "long war of the chosen" waiting for me to drop a couple of months of game time on.

I made a point of buying it cheaply - paid £24. Might have been slightly more aggrieved at full price.
 
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