The sharpshooters: performs terribly and gets mopped the floor by Advent Drifter: sleeps Skirmishers: passes campign with flying color and only lost due to poor play at one mission Drifter: TOP PRIORITY RERUN MATERIAL
Probably because the Skirmishers were the first failed run, so he had already been working on this run back before the Sharpshooter campaign even happened. He likely won’t get around to the Sharpshooter 2 campaign till after the Psi Ops one
Is there anything more satisfying than seeing the final squad at full power? And I’m not talking just Colonel rank. The attention to Tactical Rigging. The multiple Bullpup/Beam weapon improvements. The max bonds. It’s truly a sight to behold when you take the final mission so seriously that you go all out on every advantage possible and end up with true Battlelords.
I was watching this at around night time, I just turned it on and were laying in bed, while I were about to sleep. But then, when Drifter had NOT Warlock as his first chosen - I instantly felt such a shock, I jumped from the bed and fell on the floor and asked like "WHAT ??! AM I SEEING IT RIGHT ?"
55:05 You can use the waypoint system to make a move that uses two action points, but if your final position is in your "blue move" range, it will count as a blue move, which is why Brute still has an action point at the end of the turn. It actually is really nice to run around terrain/overwatches/acid
For future runs here is a tip, will loss does not depend on how long a mission is, it's pod activation and combat from taking hits or suffering effects, if you hold back and wait for whatever reason you will not lose will
I really want to see you do a “Can I beat War of The Chosen without a mimic beacon” legendary, all classes. You seen really dependent on it. Might even install “Rebel Rullers” and all raiders mods (specially MocX and rebelling them with 100% chance) to increase the number of another enemies to advent, as “false mimic beacons”, in the field. They rarely hurt Xcom (on my plays), and advent like to focus fire on them.
I feel like there is a limit how hard you can push challenges in games that aren't entirely skill based. If RNGesus hates you and your entire team misses point blank shots and the enemy dodges the few hits that do get through then you might lose hours of progress. This is not Dark Souls where it is possible to reliably no-hit bosses if you are skilled enough
12:50 The assassin? In my experience you have a 1/3 chance of getting the Warlock on that mission with the other 2/3 chances also being the Warlock. Is this some sort of glitch where the game isn't out to ruin your day?
Yes. If you get Warlock 3+ times in a row in different campaigns in different challenges. This thing called “The Universe” will force the game to have a 50/50 chance of the other 2 Chosen. Otherwise however you are right Warlock is a 100% chance.
This reminds me of the "modded beyond reason" playthrough of overly english man how he was called back then. Somehow the game glitch out and he had 3 (or 4) warlocks at the final stage of the .. well warlock fortress mission
The curse of the Warlock has been broken. The Skirmishers were the only thing that could cause him fear. Even with insane buffs. And wow, this run went way, way better then the previous.
The Lost are not an enemy, they are an ally as long as you have the ultrasonic lure. It’s so easy to abuse this mechanic and overwhelm ADVENT with the Lost by just hitting them with lures and spamming grenades.
@@kirbyis4ever the Lost won’t do a lot of damage on their own (w the exception of sectoids and other enemies that are vulnerable to melee attacks) but what they lack in damage they make up for in becoming cannon fodder for ADVENT. The mark does not wear off on them, just be careful not to accidentally mark one of your own soldiers in the process. The enemy (when marked with the lure) will almost exclusively target the Lost on their turn and will get bogged down fighting them.
I'm doing a permanent dark event playthrough and the lost have a chance to show up on any mission. That chance must be 90% because they show up nearly every mission and there is NO WARNING. They just show up as soon as my turn is over and I'm in combat. It makes for some interesting missions at times.
Lost World is the Dark Event. Per my previous comment about abusing the ultrasonic lure, this dark event can actually be an unfair advantage for you Commander. The lures are so OP and I never realized it until I saw Chris Odd using them in his campaign and then I was like…damn, how did I not ever try using these before?
I remember when WOTC first launched, Lost World was glitched and if you got it, it could stay active for the rest of the campaign. My goodness I was tired of seeing the lost by the time I made it to the end. My first WOTC campaign too.
@@TheDriftersBroadcast I will say that if you decide to abuse the lure and employ the technique I described, be ready to spend some extra turns just cleaning up all the Lost left over at the end. Make sure you bring some folks that can shoot a lot (gunslinger marksman or the like)
Absolutely. When I first found the channel, I asked “could you break these down into 20-30 minute episodes?” But now I have no problem sitting through a whole adventure
It’s going to be almost impossible in the early game. Sectoid autopsy, at least 2 psi labs, plus the power and infrastructure along with it. It’ll be crushing in the early game with zero promotions, but once a few labs are up and running, it’s going to get incredibly easy. Casting inspires and teamworks all on a single squad mate, rushing the objective with an archon suit… true cheese.
If he can get past the early game it will be a cakewalk with psi operatives. Once you get them trained up enough they’re overpowered, especially when you have multiple in a squad. Mind control becomes absurdly overpowered once multiple operatives in the same squad have it. Being able to control 2 or more enemies gives you such a big advantage it’s impossible to lose.
Its not that hard, but takes awhile. I know i''ve done it on legendary/honsetman. (Can't do ironman because there were a few times the game crashed and ooof.) Even 40 alien trains weren't too bad, just gotta spam a ton of AoE and clear all the cover with those bunker busters.
Fun fact, the assassin has 20 mobility, which lets her move almost as far as your soldiers orange movement in a single movement. Scary shit Edit: Your soldiers have 12 for reference.
I hope this means another Sharpshooter attempt. It was rough, but I think with more Gunslingers and a bit of adjustment to playstyle, it could be feasible.
Snipers are support and sustained classes. They don't like being up close or being pushed for time. They sit back and obliterate. But our lord and savior got too ambitious and his squad suffered
I think these might be my favorite youtube videos ever. This man is so underrated and the humor + editing is just amazing. Good job man, never stop. I will always watch these vids, they are soooo entertaining and I won’t let you give up!!
For 55:25, Brute still has an action point because you dashed him... into an area he could reach with a blue move. This is a bug with XCOM2 - it'll let you dash along a route that should be an orange double move, but so long as you COULD have reached that location with a single move, the entire dash will only take a single action. Most of the time this is pointless. Sometimes it is useful to get around some terrain without smashing a window.
I wonder if it would be physically possible to do a run with only rookies. Any equipment is fair game, any tactical gear, but once your troops get their first promotion, you have to retire them. I honestly don’t know if you could recruit new troops fast enough to maintain your roster, but I suspect you’re just the guy to help the world figure out!
@@buttergod42 Very true. However, at the time of posting this, I had never actually played XCOM2, merely watched other people playing it, and was unaware of this fact. I thought that they were promoted automatically.
So, one thing about the Warlock having immunity to melee: Even so, it's usually worth using Wrath to get right next to him, even if you can't damage him. You're right in his face and your Lash/follow up attack are very likely going to hit him. You might lose out on one attack, but your next one (or two) are pretty much guaranteed. If you think about it, that's 6 potential close range Bullpup shots (along with any Lashes). This almost guarantees a 1 round kill, or at the very least, you'll force him to retreat and use Spectral Army (which has the added benefit of breaking Mind Control).
I feel like this run really vindicated my comment on your last one - the signature ability of the skirmisher is the ability to fire twice in a round, so capitalizing on ammunition and weapon mods is the logical way to maximize their strength while minimizing their weaknesses (no shredding, low base damage, low ammo capacity). Their class ability to grant AP along with soldier bonds is, as I'm sure you realized, incredibly freaking powerful. That being said, it never occurred to me that AP rounds + stocks was a viable combo. It feels really cheesy, but hey guaranteed damage is guaranteed damage and it synergizes super freaking well with their multiple shots per turn. It's super cool to pick up a trick like that after so many years of playing this game.
Per your comment about full throttle, it's hilariously effective when you have a skirmisher with a superior expanded mag, facing a horde of lost. No joke, Mox got reflex on top of that and ran from mission end, to mission start, to mission end again just for the hell of it because his mobility range for a single action point was the entire map, on a sizeable sewer map.
The equipment combos really made this attempt a power trip. Coupled with the abilities of Skirmishers, and they might just be the most power soldiers in the game.
It doesn't look like you saw much of this in this campaign but I'm glad you are using bonds more because without a Psi Op having Solace, Stand By Me, the level 2 bond ability, is the only way to remove mind control. Really the level 3 abilities are obviously useful, but level 2 passive abilities are quite strong in ways you might not immediately notice. In fact you can see how you benefit from Spotter at various points in the final mission, getting +10 aim on the Avatar.
If you've got enough troops otherwise, late game having extra with the Level 2 Bond can be really nice for covert ops as well - reducing each op by 1 day adds up over time! Sometimes I can fit in an extra op per month.
@@Boggboy Yeah totally, especially on this difficulty where the covert action time isn't very long, you might get some that take only 3 days. Usually I end a campaign with a pair of dudes who have never been on a mission but are monstrously powerful because they got the buffs from doing 20+ covert actions.
@@jwbaker haha yeah, my last playthrough had a Templar like that where he ended up with something like 75 Dodge. Made him tanking the last few missions a breeze. :P
Can you beat XCOM 2 WOTC using only 1 of each class (Having only different classes on board the Avenger) Love your style in these videos, just the right amount of added humor and effects. Not too little nor too much. The jokes always have a certain punch to them that way
so glad the skirmisher's got a second chance ! also it kinda seems like the battlelord fix wasn't super crucial from our PoV but otherwise excellent work Drifter ! absolutely love your content, found the SPARK video first and have been happily along for the ride ! Can't wait to see whats next !
Skirmishers get a fair bit of pity, but I have to say they're probably my favourite of the three hero classes, competing closely with Reapers. Never could really get behind the Templars, though they're undoubtedly strong. Think I'm more attracted to aesthetics than how useful a class is. I might want to look into that ...
Something that really annoys me is how you lose contact with a region just because you decided to not take a mission. Council guy is infamous for roasting you if you get a B rank (and even in EU/EW failing a single mission immediately gets you the worst rank), but frankly, the resistance is just as whiny. They act like spoiled brats just because you dared to not help them. Makes sense for retals at least.
Amazing video! I honestly think one of the biggest victory factors was tactical rigging. Being able to just equip an extra item can decide between a win and a loss, especially with the ammo types.
Everyone talks shit about skirmishers being the weakest resistance class, but imagine for a second how horrifying would be fighting an enemy type skirmisher. Doesn't even have to be full level, just wrath, justice, total combat and zero in would be enough
Having so many of the Skirmisher abilities be once-per-mission is such a weird design choice on Xcom's part. Like I understand balance and all that, but just give them a really long cooldown or something instead of "you get this once ever". I think they have like 3x as many abilities that are once-only as any other class/hero class in the game.
Man do I love these! I’m really excited about sharpshooter v2 Plus that would be cool if you found a way to make psy ops only a thing (mod changing the way they level up or beginning with a psy chamber)
Honestly, I think it would be cooler if he has to wait for unlocking the psi chamber and each rookie gets one or two random abilities at the beginning.
Finally, the rematch of the century! So glad to see you do another run with the Skirmishers Drifter. I’m glad they got some redemption after last run. Looking forward to the Psi-Ops run next!
What I really would want to see, can you beat XCOM 2 WOTC as ADVENT? meaning you have the mod which lets you have the ADVENT weapons, and you only use what ADVENT can use, but also add in some extra mod enemies because it might not be hard enough, because you can still use SPARKs, cause ADVENT mechs, so it would be really interesting to see.
Not going to lie, I was expecting a second run, but I'd foolishly assumed Sharpshooters. Given that Skirmishers are my favorite class though, this was absolutely a welcome surprise.
23:23 After you finished Chosen, you could just evac Scourge out with another guy. You would be down two bodies, but against only Lost it wouldn't be much of a problem imo.
I remember playing playing the first X com series on pc,crappy graffics but thats what we had at time.X hours of fun :) X terror from the deep on ps1 and looooong loading times.Its fun to see and hear you play :) Subscribed .
Well the end was kinda expected (Unlike Warlock not being the first chosen holy crap!!!), but there still one way to improve the run even further. Allow yourself to use regular soilders for covert ops and free the skirmishers for the proper missions only. You don't break your rules and still get to use the full advantages of covert ops. And in case of ambush simply run away without fighting. You might even equip them with mobility PCS and light armor so that they could sprint past all the enemies. It's funny that you installed a mod to fix battlelord yet you didn't seem to use the ability during the final mission. The Archon King watched to much Matrix and decided to pull a Neo on you.
The mission where you actually use the sitrep plus shadow chamber to correctly predict the Archon King and had that insane turn where you use the free grapple to break LOS meaning the squad doesn't get shredded was amazing. I've seen a lot of people on subreddits and comment sections complaining about things like seemingly random rulers or weird glitches ruining their ideal move, but this goes to show there is something you can do about it if you really put the brain to work. Sure, there's randomness, but it's like a card game, the best players accept that there is going to be randomness, and use their knowledge to make the best with what they have.
1:04:00 looks really bad, but when you realize 6 skirmishers can attack ~18 times in one turn, only missing damage on 7 attacks isn't too bad. Definitely frustrating, but it could have gone way worse. That 91% hurts though.
I started my first run on commander around the time the sniper video aired and now have even more appreciation for you doing so well with class limitations. I broke my honest man rule when trying to take down the warlock with magnetic weaponry (I usually took down 2 Chosen before plasma on normal difficulty). I lost a team mate during the first stage to an archon that survived an entire team shooting it with 80%+ chance to hit, so RNG wasn't on my side. But taking the Warlock out with mag guns felt like drilling a hole with a screwdriver. So I had to reload before the attempt. And twice later I had to reload when the game threw two missions at me where 3 pods practically stood within spitting distance, both times with a sectopod. Commander does not f*ck around.
The lost are worth 1/5th a kill, meaning you need to kill 5 lost to get the same EXP you would get from killing a single trooper. The chosen, Alien Rulers and Sectopods however are worth 5 kills of EXP, so anyone who participates in defeating these will earn even at the worst rates 1 full kill worth of EXP if they deal any damage, shred or status to them, while whoever gets the killing blow earns 5 EXP. Typically its best to let grenadiers or sharpshooters get kill credit as they only get 1/5 EXP from assists, whereas rangers get 1/4th and specialists get 1/3. Skirmishers can attack a lot of different targets so intentionally spreading fire and having multiple soldiers constantly hit the same target can lead to a not so insignificant EXP bonus, depending on the kinds of enemies and how diligent you are with that nonsense it can lead to roughly 15% more EXP on average for all your skirmishers. If you dont want to do that religiously though, just make The Chosen, Alien Rulers and Sectopods your choice and you will get at least a full kills worth of EXP for everyone. One note though is that you cannot get the final point of EXP needed to promote from assist EXP, you must get a kill or complete a mission for that last point.
01:03:26 If you ever do a legend challenge run, make this your wallpaper, so you'll never forget you should avoid taking shots below 90% (or 95% but this hard to achieve every time)
When you were confused about the extra action after yellow dash. Yes it is waypoint but it wasn't the backtrack. You can semi abuse it to walk a little further sometimes
55:36 maybe Brute has the “inspirational” positive attribute where soldiers randomly get an extra action? If you never use the negative attribute recovery in the infirmary, soldiers can recover naturally and get positive traits instead.
Dunno if you've already been told but this is why brute got an extra action vs the king If your soldier moves into a blue square despite moving more than that, it'll never count as a Dash and only cost one action. I think they did this so you're not forced to reveal yourself or walk through fire when in a god awful position.
Around 55:30, I've noticed on my own playthroughs of xcom 2 that yellow dashes are really broken if you don't use the unit's entire movement. You can actual sort of exploit this by yellow dashing only 1 tile past a regular move and usually it'll give another turn, too unreliable to use too much though
Haven't watched yet, but I honestly dont understand why no one likes the 3 action upon fired ability. You are bound to get at least 1 soldier under fire, and it activates in hits or misses, so having an extra action on top of a lot of actions that dont count is kind of the selling point of the skirmishers for me.
Favorite Reaper moment was Mox bonding with my full melee Templar. Having Mox grapple and move, then swap positions to let the Templar wreck shop. Bond Action if he couldn't killed everything.
This is my fav run so far. I love how ridiculously over prepared that last mission was, I hope to see that happen more at some point, maybe for the sharpshooter retry, if im lucky.
Today's fun facts! So this is more of a guess than a fact, but I think I know why that Codex Clone got an action. And that's because it wasn't actually the clone. The way Codices work is that they spawn a clone in their current location, then the original teleports to another location. After it teleported, it still had it's action from scattering, but because it wasn't actually scattering anymore (the cloning had essentially set it's AI from "scatter" to "active") it could use the action to bubble the team. Damage buffs are very weird when it comes to Stocks. Some modded perks also buff Stock Damage. I think it's improved Beam weapons that effects it, but I'm not entirely sure. I think effects that apply a "universal" damage buff, rather than specific weapon buffs, are the ones that effect Stocks. Oh and although it wasn't asked in the video, Gatekeepers and Sectopods do have 3 actions. The act of Freezing them is *meant* to strip one action away so they only have 2, but the effect doesn't actually work, so they still keep all 3 actions. Not that it matters for Gatekeepers, since most of their actions are turn ending anyway, but still. So yeah, freezing boss enemies doesn't really do anything aside from reducing their defense by 10.
11:30 Sharing some thoughts and info on what I've found out about will. When I last played and was wondering if I could keep will loss down, I looked at the wiki for details. Turns out what causes the most Will loss is almost entirely just enemies spotted by the trooper. Seeing an enemy is a 50% chance to lose will with a 33% chance for seeing lost; And that check is rolled per target. Other Triggers for losing will: Wounds (getting hit), Squadmates death, unconscious or Capture, And other Squadmates panicking. So fairly intuitive triggers but the most common is every enemy seen by the trooper.
I'm still interested in how you'd do an all psychic run. All of the classes are designed so that it's difficult if you use all one class. But psychics are weird in that they're good at so many things, but the Psi Lab limits how many good psychics you can have. And of course, you'd have to mod in an early psi lab or the game would become virtually unwinnable.
He's been trying that for quite some time on stream and as someone how has tried psi ops only runs ever since I downloaded the starting soldier mod after the ranger video came out it is doable but you need a lot of luck if you're trying it on honest man. The Endgame becomes a joke though especially on missions without a turn timer since almost all your great abilities can recharge
I enjoyed the rematch, I would like to see another Sniper attempt. I just know that my sniper with the arkon armor and chosen sniper dominates the team as the MVP every time
@@TheDriftersBroadcast Do you have a Patreon? I can not find it under your Video or on your Twitch. Would like to support you a bit more then just 1 comment
I cant wait for you to start playing LWotc! Also consider the 'Mod jam' Collection for LWotc. Balance and compatibility where the top priority for the pack and from what ive played so far its the superior why to play LWOTC.
The sergeant by mission 4 is a neat trick. The game was probably initially balanced around having 5 guys by the first retaliation (and also having no Chosen show up) but later patches just made the early game harder and harder at the cost of making the later game only moderately more interesting.
hello love your vids, i've even begun using some of your mods, one question, was is the mods that gives all that information including will, in the barracks, without actually having to select them thanks
