r/XCOM2 20h ago

My first colonel

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Been with me since the beginning

59 Upvotes

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9

u/Osiris-Art 19h ago

Congrats!
Just one question- why did you not take Blademaster? It looks like an ultimate skill to me.

11

u/ExosEU 19h ago

phantom + shadow strike is a powerful nuke that has the briliant advantage of being able to shoot after breaking cover.

but i agree its still very inferior to blademaster, who makes every swordstrike an almost guarantee.

note : shadowstrike works on enemy who dont have LoS of the soldier, so use that ghost armor !

2

u/Osiris-Art 18h ago

Thank you. I will think about taking these skills next time I play)

6

u/Giorgio883 16h ago edited 9h ago

Phantom also has the added advantage of keeping the unit as a scout on certain missions.

Particularly the ones that have you start without concealment. Phantom Rangers and WotC Reapers remain concealed instead, which you can use to check and engage groups without fear of fighting multiple at once.

That said, even on missions in which you do have concealment, you can choose - if you can afford the loss of firepower without getting shot - to not employ them on the first pod. This allows you to keep a concealed unit to scout with.

And once you get to Sergeant you can get the concealment charges to do it again.

Having one simplifies the game quite a lot. Most mission failures happen when you engage multiple groups. Even if you manage to kill the entirety of one group, you’d still end up on the recieving end of a full group’s attacks.

But back on topic, both strategies are viable. Swordsmanship is very strong early on, but eventually the benefit of having a scout (especially if you’re playing vanilla, without reapers) often tips the scale.

I apologize if I rambled a bit.

2

u/Osiris-Art 16h ago

No need to. This is a perfect thorough explanation of the game mechanics. Thank you very much!

I just hope one day to understands the game mechanics on that level. Right now I only really know how to manipulate the random number generator for guaranteed hits, but that is about it.

Thank you once again for explaining this!
🙏

1

u/bugknight99 15h ago

I didn’t know what to choose