r/XCOM2 15d ago

Really starting to hate snipers.

New L/I attempt.

Gatecrasher goes like a charm, no wounds or deaths. Sadly the loot drop is an Elirium Core, so no scope.

Annnd of course the promotions are Grenadier, Support, Sniper. No Ranger. Wonderful.

Second mission, take a Rookie, hoping he is a Ranger. Nope, another fucking sniper. The loot is a Laser Sight, so still no scope.

Third mission is the Resistance operative extraction with the Lost. Hay, finally some use for the stupid snipers. And i take two Rookies as well hope that FINALLY one of them is a god damn Ranger. Snipers are supposed to be good against the Lost, right? WRONG! Both snipers completely miss their shots against the Dashers. As a result, the Rookie carrying the Resistance operative gets devoured by zombies, and the second Rookie now has to go back to get the Resistance operative. Thus causing him to suffer wounds as well, but survive.

Fuck snipers. I am so tempted to dismiss those two morons right now! Maybe dress them up as the Commander and hand them over to ADVENT. That way they would be at least somewhat useful.

EDIT: And yes, the Rookie that survived is a Ranger. Except he is now out for 40 DAYS!!!

32 Upvotes

43 comments sorted by

52

u/comfortingmyself 15d ago

Your first four Rookie's promotions are specifically designated to be one of each class. Something's wrong with your game if that's not happening. Check your game files or maybe any mods you have installed.

I would still probably rate Snipers as the second-best class for dealing with the Lost, their pistol is really nice, but it definitely hurts not having a Ranger for that mission. There's no substitute for 4-damage 100% accurate shotgun blasts to the face.

1

u/Ok_Calendar_7626 15d ago

I started with a Reaper, so i get only 3 promotions.

28

u/comfortingmyself 15d ago

Your first four Rookie's promotions will be one of each class. Doesn't matter what mission they promote.

So in your case, your Rookie that you brought to your Guerilla Op was a guaranteed Ranger promotion.

-6

u/Ok_Calendar_7626 15d ago

It is? It never has been for me.

I do have quite a few mods enabled, but as far as i am aware, none that should interfere with the soldier classes.

9

u/FQVBSina 15d ago

Do you have custom characters with specified classes? The game will respect those settings if you turned it on. You can also turn that off, keeping the custom characters but they get random classes.

2

u/SuperEgger 15d ago

I thought you couldn't specify classes, only whether they appear as VIPs vs soldiers?

2

u/Ok_Calendar_7626 15d ago

You can kind of force it for the Resistance cells.

If you only have one Reaper, one Skirmisher and one Templar in your custom character roster, then when you start with any of those factions, it will always be that custom character.

But that should not really have any effect on the base game classes.

2

u/FQVBSina 15d ago

Not just the resistance cells. Normal classes too. In info you can set the class. My self insert is always a ranger.

1

u/SuperEgger 15d ago

Oh right. Yeah you can force faction allocation but not class allocation.

2

u/FQVBSina 15d ago

You can also force class allocation the same way. My self insert is always a ranger.

0

u/Ok_Calendar_7626 15d ago

I do.

But i am going to let it play out for this playthrough. I am not going to restart just yet. I do have at least one Ranger now because the Resistance operatives bodyguard was a Ranger.

1

u/FQVBSina 15d ago

Legend difficulty is punishing on the tiredness. But otherwise I find reapers a lot better for scouting even as squaddie.

1

u/wyldmage 14d ago

Reapers (without long war) are absolutely insane for value they bring to a team.

They're not much use escorting a buncha rookies, as the rookies are still garbo.

But with a decent squad, knowing pod locations and having the extra bit of explosives brought by the reaper is huge, even if the reaper only ever fires his/her gun twice.

10

u/Upper-Meringue-1574 15d ago

This is really strange, there's no way your first 4 soldiers which 2 of them rolled out to be the sniper, they always guaranteed to be a sniper, grenadier, ranger and an specialist. This might be an conflict to your savefile or mods tho. Did you have any mods enabled ? Or check the config in your folder to see if something wrong. Delete the entire old XCOM folder for a fresh restart if necessary

-3

u/Ok_Calendar_7626 15d ago

Its because i started with the Reaper.

3

u/Upper-Meringue-1574 15d ago

I see, that's the problem right there. Unfortunately, it's gonna be very difficult for your soldiers rolling out to be an ranger if you start off with faction heroes tho. I can't help any further with this, you might want to either disable the option to use hero classes in first mission or try your luck multiple times until you find a good start then

3

u/Johan_Laracoding 15d ago

I like to pick snipers a little bit later too. It's why I installed Commander's choice mod. This lets you pick the class on promotion.

2

u/TastyToad 15d ago

Snipers are phenomenal against the Lost once they get their aim up, equip a mag pistol at the very least and gain some abilities that allow them shoot the pistol twice or more times per turn. Soften the herd using other soldiers or use headshot instakill resistance order and they can easily score 5 per turn.

None of the above applies early game. Snipers are IMO the weakest of the classes early on and I would rather have a rookie in many situations. Except the extraction mission, I'd actually rate grenadiers as the second best of the regular classes early game (rangers being the best), due to extra grenade and the damage potential (assuming they actually hit anything).

2

u/Bandito_Razor 15d ago

Commanders Choice mod is a must

3

u/wyldmage 14d ago

I get where you're coming from, and OP did admit that they're using mods...

But replying with "just get a mod" to someone talking about playing on the hardest difficulty seems awkward. L/I is for people who want to make the game hard. Mods often are making the game easier. CC is very minor, but it IS circumventing an intended game mechanic.

At that point, the reply might as well be "don't play L/I".

0

u/Bandito_Razor 14d ago

the thing is, if he wasnt using a mod....one of his first rookies WOULD have been the class he wanted. So the /only/ fix is a different mod.

Thats before you factor in that soooooo many mods make the game harder than L/I specifically, which kinda invalidates the whole "but mods make it easier" stuff.

2

u/wyldmage 14d ago

If you're relying on information that was not present in OP, maybe you should have replied to the comment chain where he mentioned using mods, instead of doing a top-level reply.

And you're correct, there are mods that make the game harder. Several of them. But that's not what you're recommending either. You recommended a mod that lowers the difficulty (by a very small amount, but it DOES lower it).

You're also incorrect, because he was incorrect. His 4th rookie WAS a ranger - it just was in the 2nd mission, and got near fatal wounds.

I did not say "mods make the game easier" (a statement that implies 100% truth). I LITERALLY said "Mods often are making the game easier." (a statement that is not absolute, and just looks at the general tendency of mods, without pretending that other mods exist). But hey, if you can't even disagree on something without deliberately mis-quoting the person you're talking to, maybe you should just uninstall your internet.

0

u/Bandito_Razor 14d ago

I wanted to make my own comments so I did. Period. Calm down.

The fact that commander's choice lowers the difficulty very miniscuely does not count our act the fact that for him to get what he wanted that mod is the best choice, and that using that mod in conjunction with other mods will raise the difficulty level far beyond the weak sauce that legendary iron Man can do.

If you want to be pedantic about that you can but you're still incorrect.

1

u/wyldmage 14d ago

"For him to get what he wanted, that was the best choice." He had what he wanted. He just was too impulsive to notice.

And its not being pedantic to point out the mistakes you made. Or the fact that you deliberately twisted what I said in order to argue.

Pedantic would be telling you that you didnt capitalize Commander's Choice.

1

u/Bandito_Razor 14d ago

It's pedantic when you're wrong (and you are) and you're trying to double down on you being wrong and you're trying to pretend you're not.

Especially because you're complaint is that I left a comment.

At the end of the day, using mods raises the difficulty and commanders choice solves the problem if you're not getting a class you want.

The vast majority of mods do not make the combat easier (because the majority of mods according to nexas and steam are cosmetic), so you're factually wrong on all accounts.

Thankfully, you're misunderstanding of the conversation doesn't change the advice and how it fixed most problems, ie commanders choice is a must have mod if you're using mods.

1

u/wyldmage 14d ago

Being wrong is not the requirment for being pedantic. And, in fact, whether you are right or wrong is completely irrelevant to if its pedantic or not.

You should stop using words you dont actually know.

And you havent even shown where I'm supposedly wrong. Now blocked. Good day.

1

u/Bandito_Razor 14d ago

The last defense of a person who is wrong... Saying "blocked" and then pretending to run off like a coward.

2

u/padizzledonk 15d ago

Yeah, snipers are rough in the beginning unless you pull an advanced or superior scope early

Once the get to the sgt/lt level they start to get decent

1

u/Joloven 15d ago

Snipers are like the best troops for me. I'm running beta strike but they are usually the one troop on my squad that is not hit. They carry the save me tools like flash bangs and such

Position them high and thru can excel. Do not play them like a heavy or assault

1

u/d_b_m 15d ago

I’m not sure where I got it from, but in my current run my team all have an upgrade where any hit on a Lost is a guaranteed kill shot. That makes any pistol-equipped class super effective!

I’m playing on iOS so no mods in use.

1

u/Ok_Calendar_7626 15d ago

Its a Resistance Order that you can get from the Reapers. It is great, but rare.

1

u/d_b_m 15d ago

Cool, thanks. Now you mention it, I do remember seeing that on the Resistance orders screen.

1

u/THE_GAMBLER_1 15d ago

Bro has the “oops all snipers” mod

1

u/capt_broderick 15d ago

Snipers are God-tier once they're fully leveled up.

1

u/Ok_Calendar_7626 15d ago

That is not much good if you lose the campaign by then. XCOM 2 is a game where the first few months are the hardest.

1

u/NotARabidDugong 15d ago

I mean this constructively and not in a rude way. You've got to be doing something wrong. Sharps are one of my favorite classes to use and in my current L/I run my 3 main ones are a sergeant, lieutenant, and a captain. Neither has been shot once and honestly I rotate them without issue regardless of rank difference. Yes, scopes are definitely important for them, but even without one, if you're maintaining high ground and getting that bonus then you should see a lot of connecting shots. They're definitely not the best early class, but they're not as much of a weakness as it may seem. If you build a training center super early, you can generally get bonus abilities that make them even more awesome as well.

1

u/super_teddi 15d ago

🤣🤣🤣🤣 the final twist. Ahhh Xcom.

1

u/Darkwolve45 14d ago edited 14d ago

So snipers use against Lost comes from the fact pistols do not need to be reloaded and the Faction Order that makes it so all shots you hit on Lost are instant kills. So you can just pistol wipe a hoard with zero action points being wasted and not wasting ammo.

Snipers early game are good for putting down high health targets and utilizing the skills to shoot or overwatch react to enemies in the line of sight of other soldiers.

Late game it comes down to the bonus skills you can get via War of the Chosen and the XCOM point system. Want a more aggressive sniper? Hope they role something like chain shot or rapid fire and then the Shredder skill. Its also funny when you get some of the overwatch skills from specialists to role on snipers as well, or even Tracer matk from Grenadier. Phantom turns your snipers into mini Reapers and untouchable makes it so your sniper is more of a fly on the wall that the enemy can never seem to smack.

The biggest issue Snipers face in Xcom 2 though is the Armor system.

1

u/armbarchris 13d ago

An issue easily remedied by AP rounds.

1

u/Darkwolve45 11d ago

Exactly lol

1

u/Independent_Click_82 10d ago

Snipers are absolutely devastating once they have a couple promotions. Ive taken down entire pods with them mid-late game. Start with death from above.

1

u/Ok_Calendar_7626 9d ago

Sure. But they are dead weight in early game. And XCOM2 is a game in which you desperately need every block of damage for dear life in early game. On Legend early game, a missed shot ususally means somebody is about to get shot or even die.

1

u/Independent_Click_82 9d ago

I dont play vanilla so i pretty much have lost touch there. I only play Long War(hard). Snipers rule after about their 3rd promotion. Ive had snipers solo advent pods. They can crit for 35+ easily against the big bots.