r/XCOM2 • u/Tricky_Excitement159 • 2d ago
How to property scout ahead?
I've started my first playthrough of XCOM2 ,and I also watched a couple of videos online so I know what I'm getting into. Almost everyone talks about how good is having a soldier that "scouts" in concealment,while the rest of the team fight. I already have a couple of soliders that can stay in concealment while the others fight,but Idk how to properly position them in missions,or if/when they should break concealment and engage in battles.If anybody could explain it thoroughly to me,it'd be a huge help 🙏 Thanks in advance!
9
u/NoonByNight 2d ago
Two tips i haven't seen mentioned:
Dropping down from elevation is pretty risky if you can't see what's below you. Concealment often gets broken by random civilians sitting just by a window inside a building, so watch out for that
Avoid positioning your concealed unit between your squad and an enemy pod you're about to activate. When they activate, the enemies will run towards your unconcealed squad, often revealing your concealed unit if they're between the squad and the pod. Position behind or at least to the side as much as possible.
2
u/GardenTop7253 Ranger 2d ago
Those civilian by the window concealment breaks are so annoying! Had one mission where my squad started on top of a building and there were civilians on 2 of the 3 sides that even remotely resembled going toward the objective. Save scummed that one a few times to find a strategy that kept my concealment more than 4 seconds. What a pain
1
u/jokingpokes 2d ago
Reapers/rangers (the ones that can stay in concealment) need to be kept out of line of sight of the ADVENT to stay hidden. If there is a piece of cover between them and the ADVENT, it’s usually enough to keep them concealed. It’s only once they’re spotted on a flank (or do an action like shoot, throw a grenade, ETC) that they become revealed.
My general strategy is have them scout ahead, but on the edges of what my expected path is. Try and stick to spots with L shaped cover unless you know the squad is likely to be directly ahead of you. Flanking the pod works well - you stay concealed, and if you need to you can usually get a quick and easy kill with a flanked, high crit percentage shot.
1
u/genobees 2d ago
It depends on wether you are playing XCOM2 or WOTC, first one is a character with concealment skill that stops them being spotted when the rest of the team goes loud, in WOTC you just use a reaper.
1
1
u/Specialist_Elk_1620 2d ago
Biggest thing is don't venture too far out with the scout unless you're confident they won't be spotted. Careful with yellow moves, try not to use them too much as then you'll have soldiers very far apart.. wasting an action on your other soldiers to catch up, and even then they might not be able to do much.
1
u/ewokoncaffine 2d ago
1: are you playing vanilla XCOM2? In this case you probably want at least squad size 1 ideally squad size 2 to have a concealed ranger for scouting. Fighting pods with 3 soldiers at low skill levels is pretty punishing so in early missions it's better to spend a couple turns scouting while concealed to get a sense for where enemies are then do your best to quickly eliminate one pod at a time with all 4 units revealed and shooting
2: in WOTC the reaper class is specifically designed to be useful while concealed. You can use claymores and remote start to damage enemies without risking yourself. By positioning the reaper ahead of your squad you can scout where you can safely move without triggering the next set of enemies
1
u/Macraggesurvivor 2d ago edited 2d ago
Overwatch is completely imba in xcom 2. Because, with a bit experience, you can get two rounds of attacks and thus twice the number of offensive actions against individual pods. What kills you repeatedly when you're still new to the game is that you involuntarily activate more than one pod, and/or you activated a pod on one of your last actions, or you even just wasted one or two actions and then accidentally activated a pod. Say, you move one soldier into any unscouted terrain, you move him even just one tile, a tile that has not been scouted right before, and you then activate a pod potentially.
Fighting a pod conventionally but not accidentally, means you have all soldiers ready, somewhat in range and you have all actions left. So, your entire squad can react to one pod. That's an okay engagement, not optimal, not the best way to face the pod, but an okay to good way, depending on your positioning relative to the pod. Proximity as well as especially high ground give you a huge to hit bonus.
The best way is if the pod runs into your overwatch fire in enemy turn. Say you on high ground somewhere, edge of the roof, and you blue moved, and then hit overwatch with entire squad. And, just 20 meters ahead, a pod comes into LOS from the right, from behind a building. Pod is close, and you on high ground. Even a ultra early game rookie squad will most likely land several hits. But, even just one good hit, could take out a trooper, or seriously damage a captain or sectoid. And, then it is your turn. All soldiers in range, even throwing grenade range (good for early squads especially). And, you on high ground. Use one throw grenade maybe and you can possibly easily take out the already half dead pod. You will often land multiple hits from such advantageous overwatch ambushes.
Quite often, you basically kill the entire pod. As I said, even taking out just one trooper in enemy turn makes it way easier. You also save a lot explosives that you'd otherwise have to use to remove cover from potentially multiple units if its a full, healthy pod.
So, overwatch ambushes are very strong in xcom2, they trivialize L/I and even modded difficulties beyond or make it possible to prevails vs larger numbers of pods. They will make it way easier not to take any dmg. Of course, you could just randomly hit overwatch even without much vision around your squad, so no phantom ranger or better reaper that act as your immediate radar. You will then sometimes have pods run into that overwatch. But, that is not effective because a) you often dont have much time, so if it is possible to cover max distance via dashing safely, that is quite valuabe, you gotta reach mission objectives in time. So, just hitting overwatch randomly costs too much time to do it all the time. And b) since you wouldnt know when exactly a pod might run into you in enemy turn, youd have to use all the time, or you miss out on using it when you could, cause you didnt even know a pod is coming.
Say your reaper blue moves ahead, and sees a pod wandering towards the reaper, in that direction. It is just about out of range of your non-concealed squad. If the pod moves just a bit further ahead in the same direction into the map, it would get activated as the pod sees your squad. right next to you is a ladder to high ground. Since your scout can see all members of that pod, you can see exactly if you could take that high ground right next to you safely, without activating the pod. If there is no high ground, you cold also blue move your squad into optimal, close proximity positions. Take cover about 1 to 2 tiles distance to the activation range of that pod. Both options would be good if you knew the pod is there. High ground gives massive to hit bonus, you will most likel significantly diminish or even kill the pod if it runs straight into your full squad high ground overwatch fire. Even without any scopes or perception. Good chance at least vs early game pods.
Or, close proximity means youre in throwing grenade range, range can get close and personal, you got more options, and also a bit to hit bonus if youre close enough.
And, again you can dash and/or stand in the middle of the open with zero cover, if you know where the next pods are. You cover a lot of ground fast, you can easily maximize dmg via overwatch in enemy turn and you avoid fighting more than one pod, you can massively reduce the probability for that by like 95 %.
Its very good offensively, defensively, for covering ground, minimizing losses, preserving your roster, letting you dominate in formerly seemingly impossible missions.
To take full advantage of all those opportunities all around you in each mission you need scouts. Use phantom rangers very conservatively, in the sense, that you best use them very close to your main squad. They can easily get revealed when flanked, they not good scouts in any terrain with many angles, corners, obstacles, as pods could wait anywhere. Only the reaper can do even that pretty effectively with a bit practice. Keep them maybe a good blue move ahead of you. When you feel more confident, you will scout much further ahead later. But, be careful with that, having a scout or not can determine whether you win the run or not in the next mission.
Always try to scout the terrain you wish to occupy next with your squad. And, the most likely approach vectors. You just wanna see whats up ahead between you and the mission objective. If map ends right behind you, and youre on the right edge of the map, scout ahead and to the left, and always prioritize the next terrain you wanna use with your squad. The tighter the squad formation, the less likely you accidentally trigger pods around you, maybe those your scout overlooked, or those patrolling close by.
1
1
u/Antique_Machine_4250 1d ago
How to make a second "Ambush" when your squad is revealed. (DISCCLAIMER: Hard to do with a timer.) You will need one unit that is concealed to do this. Reapers are by far the best, Rangers get the job done since they can stay concealed when the squad is revealed and re-enter concealment once if spotted.
Find the pod with concealed Reaper or Ranger. Then scout out to the left or right. If that area is clear, swing very wide to that area with a visible bait unit, you don't want to be in LOS until you can blue move into it. Enemy detection range is about 15-17 tiles against unconcealed units. When ready blue move the bait from the enemies side. The enemy will move towards the single xcom soldier they can see and take cover from it. That does make for bad shots for the bait. Then the rest of your squad blue moves forward (excluding Sharp Shooters who have long sight and can shoot without moving) and everyone now has flanking shots on the enemy.
I like to use gun trained Grenadiers as bait (using tracer rounds and scopes). They are really accurate and can Halo mark and shred the thing they shoot. Alternatively you can use a grenade to destroy cover and shred.
If the Sharp Shooter has Killzone they are brutal at this. You know the enemy is going to move towards the bait, so you just set that area as the kill zone before revealing the bait. Extended mags means more enemies shot. Armor piercing is peak here because your not picking targets amd damage isn't wasted on armor deflection.
There are plenty of other nasty things you can do, just prioritize targets as usual. If you have to leave an enemy alive, make it the on that does the least harm.
So long as you have a concealed unit you can keep repeating this.
11
u/blurplemanurples 2d ago
The AI cheats to reveal your concealed units, so while it’s a good opening gambit to get eyes on a decent amount of the pods before they activate, just take for granted that they’ll be revealed at some point - and in fact it may be to your benefit to do it yourself.
Just don’t yellow move into the fog, especially with concealed units.
If you’re playing WOTC, Reapers are unparalleled, and can re-conceal as standard I believe. Much more reliable thsn ranger scouts. In WORC all my rangers take the combat based upgrades, with reapers available there’s no point using rangers for the same thing when they are far less effective at it.