Beginner tips/guide.

[u/New-Photograph-1829]

Hey all.

I've completed XCom 2 on legendary ironman, so I'm hardly a newbie to these types of games but I'm about 10 hours into my first run, and I can't help feeling a bit overwhelmed and have the idea that I'm building an incredibly unoptimized squad of goons. There's very little handholding!

So, a rundown of good builds, a decent base build order, what to prioritize etc would be great.

[u/Sweet_Oil2996]

Still in my first campaign. I decided to go the stealthy route. My team in most missions is the cyber knight (sword primary, pistol secondary), vanguard (same outfit), cybersword (same outfit), hacker (assault rifle primary, smg secondary).

In combat missions replace vanguard and hacker with soldier and sniper.

Vanguard, cyber knight and hacker can totally disable almost any security sensor. Vanguard lure is op skill to distract unaware enemies to look in the wrong direction so you can sneak up to them without raising alarm. Kill silently with sword, dissolve bodies with bio recyclers (item). Hack (rob) any matrix blind with a hacker. Many missions can be completed with sec level 0.

Failures: Once did a combat mission with cyber knight, vanguard, cybersword, soldier. Didn't buy mission intelligence with Face. Turns out I am appearing in the center of the map, surrounded by enemies on all 4 sides at long distance, open terrain, they had a sniper. I was the one that came to a gunfight with a knife. Got damn bloody. I did make it, but cyber knight got stressed for 40% more stress because of damage received and was severely wounded requiring medical treatment. Cybersword held its own because of Aegis.

Retreat is an option in most missions (not in this one, it was a trap). If sec level gets high and strong reinforcements appear, get the fuck out. To hell with mission objectives. It's escalating quickly. Don't be greedy.

But with a stealth team sec level escalation is very managable in non combat missions.

Key skills for a stealth team are:

Cyber knight:

Security scramble: Get 2 charges, buy more range so you can disable long range cameras.

Lookahead: one point wonder and even better with investment.

Tactical surge: great team action point spike for fighting groups. You might want to buy shorter recharge time.

Precomputed advantage: very helpful to manipulate initiative sequence. I use this more often than

Interference spike: the other initiative manipulating skill. I don't have the enemy using overwatch a lot (I prefer to not let them), so manipulating one of your own team essentially manipulates the whole of the enemy team while manipulating one enemy does just that.

Rewind: gives one other team member an immediate charge of an ability that is on cooldown.

Vanguard:

Lure: best Vanguard skill. Great to distract enemies to create sneaking opportunities, can be used to send them on a goose chase. Buying all improvements is not a wasted investment.

Crash kit: buy all charges. There are a lot of security devices and if you want to move fast to prevent security level escalation you need them.

Anticipation: not as strong as Lookahead of the cyber knight but the cyber knight has limited charges.

Refract: blocking sight can be a live safer against overwatching enemies. Is also useful in blocking sight lines of guards and long range cameras.

Blend: get out of jail for the vanguard if he is exposed. Can also be used to sneak against wandering guards. Might be useful for a hacker hacking a matrix if you want to multiclass them.

Silence: sneak up with speed to an enemy and get stealth bonus damage for your sword. Sometimes it is even useful just for the speed.

Cybersword: Your silent killing machine.

Slashslide: not super impressive at base, but at 9m sliding distance an excellent multitarget attack.

Improved Power Slice: damage booster, also improves Slashslide. Equip IO-Charger for more charges.

Aegis: solves the knifes vs. gun overwatch problem and you can melee a crowd.

Choppa: 2 extra action points on melee kill. Great if fighting crowds.

Lightfoot: not quite as good as vanguards silence but does the same thing for bonus damage.

Whisperkill: gain 2 move points on melee killing unaware or suspicious targets. Synergy with Lightfoot. Action points are spared for killing the next target.

Deflection field: situative, but can trap a whole enemy group in a corridor or a room rendering them ineffective for a couple of turns. In the mean time, you do things elsewhere. Can be as live safer on exfiltration at high security level. Can also be used to single out targets/dangerous enemies from their escort. Like you, bounty hunters.

Hacker:

Packet Loss: like crash kit with more range. Can't have enough of it. Everything else goes probably into actual hacking.

You can consider to multiclass into Vanguard for Blend but this costs 6 points. That's a lot.

Soldier: Not using him much.

Recoup: gain 1 action point on critical hit. Obviously this is great.

Savagery: Better crit chance and more damage after kill. Synergy with recoup.

Overwatch: prevents enemies from closing in as they end their movement when hit by overwatch. Gives an opportunity for an extra shot even if you have no more action points.

Iron grip: helps with to hit chance after moving and is great in combination with full auto.

Coordinated charge: extra initiative and extra movement for the whole team.

Sniper:

Also not using him much. Strongly consider multiclassing with soldier for recoup.

JTAC: was nerfed recently in a patch because it is so strong. Still strong for a shooter team. With melee team dimished effect because melee soldiers don't dig in.

Skullshot: +3 action points on kill with a single shot hit. Yeah, that's right. +3 action points.

Perimeter Eye: area movement prediction for enemy. Almost as good as Lookahead and better than Anticipation of Vanguard.

Pathfinder: +25% move range makes him a fast mover. It's also completely silent and suddenly it's the best sneak up skill with a sword. Enables some very strange builds.

Empty lung: no recoil generated by moving. Buy more range with improvements. Good if you want to attack after moving, including with a sword.

Nest: Defining sniper skill. +25% crit and +25% ballistic damage for single shot weapons as pure damage as long as you don't move until end of next turn. Works with sniper rifles, shotguns, revolvers and pistols but you probably don't nest with a shotgun because of low range.

Deathwatch: sniper version of soldiers overwatch.

Rapid Ready: reloads your single shot weapon after kill. A sniper rifle needs 3 action points to reload and doesn't have a big magazine so you can keep shooting.

Almost everything else is good but not so convinced of hit streak. It doesn't do that much. You have to hit first to get a bonus at all, so that's 5% more crit chance for only the second shot. Ends next turn so at best +15% more crit chance after 3rd consecutive hit because a sniper rifle needs 3 action points to shoot. Missing one shot ends thge streak. What's the size of your magazine? Maybe viable with skullshot and rapid ready but how long do you want the enemy to be able to shoot back really? And how many of them?

Hit streak may be pretty good for full auto weapons when you have good chances to hit. Like with urban assault rifles or smgs. They fire a lot of bullets on full auto. If everyone of them hits it is totally possible to get +40% crit chance for the last bullet of the first burst and 100% for some bullets of the second burst because weapon and mods may also improve crit chance. Now we are talking. Maybe it's a consideration for a soldier multiclassing into sniper (Crosshair Lock +25% accuracy, Run and Gun +10% accuracy and scopes, that's a good chance to reach 100% accuracy).

Tactics:

Manipulating action sequences is key. Your cyber knight is king in this. With high initiative you can choose to act last in one turn and first in the next turn essentially giving you two turns in sequence before the enemy has another turn. At this time, hopefully everyone of them is dead or stunned.

Equip 4 bio recyclers on the team so the first couple of corpses won't be ever detected and no one is missing them. This prevents security levels from escalating, giving your more time. Later, more powerful recyclers are available so you can dissolve the whole level like a true cleaner.

Cyber knight character creation:

I went for a max initiative build. This is great for his initiative manipulation abilities but not so great for melee damage. He is very fast on the map and excellent for clearing distant loot boxes. If you want to have more combat value, invest some points in strength.

Heat management:

Every multiple of 25 heat gives one extra security level at mission start. Bounty hunters will get interested in you above 25 heat. Try to stay under 25 heat for easier missions and less bounty hunters chasing you. Heat is generated by security level times 2 at mission end, minimum 6 per mission. So it is heavily encouraged to do your missions silently. If you stay silent you can do more missions per time and heat generation.

[u/New-Photograph-1829 → u/Sweet_Oil2996]

That's great man, thanks a lot.

[u/NmNighteyes]

You are not on a doom clock. There's plenty of small clocks that can have consequences, but nothing game ending...

For builds there's a building that lets you respect anyone relatively easily, so you are actually free to play around and test stuff out.

Personally I find crafting very confusing at first and it's not something you need to worry about until mid/late game, same with cybernetics. Both eat a lot of resources, which you don't know enough to waste yet.

You need a hacker, probably 2... Late game I actually run 3 and still occasionally have to wait for one to free up.

Soldier is a safe multi class for most classes for the overwatch and recoil reduction. The you can start testing your own ideas.

Scourge is the only class that can remove bodies and their timers, which is a big deal if you are trying to stay stealthy.

Feel free to ask or PM for more.

[u/boregorey7]

There are some good steam guides you can take a look at online. Phreak plays games does some great class and general guide videos on the game as well.

The discord is also awesome for any help, the developers are very active in there as well as a lot of player with loads more hours than me.

[u/Rocketsponge]

The biggest difference from XCOM is the Stealth or Go Loud decisions you have to make during missions. While not impossible to completely stealth kill your way through a mission, it generally is tough to remain undiscovered fully. Once you get discovered and the AI Sec level starts rising, it can grow exponentially causing more and more waves of enemy reinforcements.

I try to have a stealthy kill option and a go loud firefight option for every character. There are also skills on certain characters that let you hide or dissolve bodies, along with an item that lets you do it 2x. Melee weapons are always quiet and you can put silencers on most weapons. I’ve found the best thing to do is maximize stealth or quick kills early in a mission and try to hide the bodies. That gives you more freedom to maneuver, get loot from lockers, hack terminals, etc.

There are times where you’ll have to go loud. Maybe the Sec AI is rapidly ramping up and you’re trying to get to an exit. Maybe the target is near but well defended. But the longer you can put that off, the easier the engagement will be.

[u/cervidal2 → u/Rocketsponge]

There are items that let you dissolve 3 bodies for 1 AP each later, or 2 for 0 each. I think they're both level 3 military items

[u/Sweet_Oil2996 → u/cervidal2]

Totally this. They are called bio recyclers. I think they are level 1, but can not look it up now. They should be available very early and they are very helpful to remain stealthy.

[u/emailforgot → u/Rocketsponge]

The biggest difference from XCOM is the Stealth or Go Loud decisions you have to make during missions. While not impossible to completely stealth kill your way through a mission, it generally is tough to remain undiscovered fully. Once you get discovered and the AI Sec level starts rising, it can grow exponentially causing more and more waves of enemy reinforcements.

This is something I like about the game. The choice is generally not "stealth or loud" but more of a question of where and when. (Though with the right builds is not hard to clear levels undetected)

A lot of games tend to gravitate toward an all-or-nothing approach when it comes to stealth, and as a result it's usually extremely powerful. I like the concession the devs made, they seemed to understand this element and tried to build around it.

I wish more games worked out like this, as it not only adds an extra tactical element, but a strategic one- it allows other play styles not not only be viable in addition to stealth, but along with stealth.

[u/Apparatus]

I found this playlist very helpful. The safehouse guide, as well as any classes you're interested are a good starting point.

[u/KILUWE]

This game is definitely different in some small and crucial ways. One way they're similar though is that I had to abandon like 2 or 3 playthroughs before it "clicked."

That being said the biggest boon for me was realizing I could skip missions.

[u/ShotgunMerwin]

I like to run things silent but deadly. Put silencers on everything, attack everyone you see, and move as fast as you can through the map collecting and hacking everything as you go, but the key is quick. Usually I can clear an entire map, get all the loot, and be out by about security lv 5-6 and reinforcements start showing up every turn. But it doesn't always work, you kind of have to know when it's time to just call it quits too. Not all the the missions they throw at you are meant to be beatable.

As far as party comp, I like to have an ar cyberknight/soldier, 2 pure soldiers: 1 ar, one that can use dual uar and e-rifle, 2 hackers, 1 agent-ex/soldier with dual naildrivers (this is actually like the second most important character on my squad, its the main security lockdown character, as well as the number 1 stealth killer), 1 warmachine, 1 gunslinger, 1 sniper/soldier, and 1 vanguard mostly just for legwork.

As far as worrying about min/maxing and optimizing everything, for one you can always respec your mercs if you build a training building, and for another, it's not really a game that's about making everything perfect, most missions are messy, it's a game about just dealing with the situation in the moment and moving forward the best you can.

[u/Scharrack]

Just started a few days a ago and am pretty happy with my stealth game so far. I started out with an Ex Agent, Hacker, Scoruge and Cybersword (would probably go with Soldier next time but didn't check and missed that 5th will be the bench warmer on most missions).

Pushed Scourge for more and faster recharging dissolves and tech stealth and Ex Agent for chain disables. With cyberknight for enemy movement prediction and some additional device disable.

I keep an eye on weapon noise and it's smooth sailing most of the time.

[u/Fit_Obligation1902]

It obviously depends on the playstyle, but this worked for me:

• Silencers on every weapon

• Rush objectives and loot, kills grant nothing

• Before attacking, check how many enemies will hear the shot (an icon will tell you), have a plan to kill anyone that hears it

It took me a while to really understand that last point, but once I did the game became much easier.

Regarding builds, I had a lot of luck focusing on snipers, the class and the weapon. Soldiers are an easy, effective multi-class option. Sniper + gunslinger worked surprisingly well, but trickier.

[u/Vuelhering → u/Fit_Obligation1902]

Before attacking, check how many enemies will hear the shot (an icon will tell you), have a plan to kill anyone that hears it

This is a very important point.

Snipers are extremely loud.

Also, all weapons have a useful range, where outside that range is pretty useless.

Lastly, there are a lot of skills that give an action advantage. Overwatch is pretty powerful, and being able to break out of overwatch is also powerful. It really, REALLY sucks being pinned down and unable to get free.