New Version of Xcom

[dazedroyalty]

I don't like snipers. A few maps have great and easily accessible vantage points. Most don't, and the low mobility is a pain when moving the squad. There are also plenty of random obstacles that block LoS for squad sight. They also contribute very little to the team, as until they get their primary damage ability (at Colonel!) their damage output isn't amazing and their utility is poor. And then once they get to colonel of course you have to use them to the full to justify the effort of getting them there, and they steal everyone else's experience. Disabling shot is a decent ability and shutting down a sectopod's main gun can be useful sometimes if everyone else missed the thing, but the accuracy is poor, and if you want an alien capture assisting ability Supports can get suppression.

WHAT?! They contribute very little to the team? My last sniper had 150 kills!!! Their damage output with a Plasma Sniper rifle is just as good as almost anything except the Alloy Cannon. With Squad Site (a must have perk) they can shoot most things on some maps and a lot of things on other maps. With In the Zone, I've often been able to kill 3-5 aliens in a row which can be extremely helpful, especially against Crysalids and Beserkers who don't ever use cover.

I understand they can be XP stealers but they can also really help by softening up an alien with lots of HP and then allowing someone closer to get the killing shot for the XP. I in most cases when I am not trying to simply kill ASAP to avoid being killed, I'd save the sniper for last to shoot so that everyone else got XP first since it's harder for a Support to get XP than Sniper.

While I admit there are some maps that they are not as useful on, I would actually argue that a fully upgraded Sniper is probably the most overpowered and imbalanced part of the game. I'd rather have a fully upgraded Sniper than anything else in the game.

[uberfish]

Well yeah I agree ITZ is overpowered, but snipers really don't pull their weight before Colonel level imo, and the early game is the hardest part.

[dazedroyalty]

They definitely aren't as strong, but I really like having a unit that can take shots without being in imminent danger himself. It's a nice way to relieve pressure on front line units that might have multiple targets to shoot at (and be shot at by!)

[Yazilliclick]

Personally I find as soon as they get to Corporal promotion to get squad sight they are great. Can safely park them well behind your squad as it moves up and they can rule the battlefield. Can give them a scope to improve their deadliness since they shouldn't be getting shot at back there anyway. Of course you need to be smart with their usage, really shouldn't bring more than one, may want to avoid altogether if it's mostly going to be building/ufo clearing where they can't use that range etc...

[haphazard1]

I am also in the pro-sniper camp. Snipers can be awesome, and they do not need to be Colonel level to be highly effective. They do have the toughest early development curve: squaddie snipers are actually worse than recruits as they "gain" the sniper movement restrictions without yet having any of the truly useful abilities. Sergeant gets you Squad Sight which helps a lot, and then one more level gets you Gunslinger to largely eliminate their move-and-shoot restrictions. Everything after that just keeps boosting their awesomeness. My experience is similar to dazedroyalty's: my top sniper has by far my highest kill total on my late game 6 colonel squad, and with Double Tap she is regularly killing two muton elites/heavy floaters/whatever every other round and another during the cool down turns.

Assaults are decent, and they definitely get one of the two best initial squaddie perks (along with heavies and their rockets). But my assault soldiers are not primary damage dealers, although they certainly do their share. Mostly I use them to "disarm" overwatching aliens with Lightning Reflexes and for forward scouts who can either attack or withdraw and still shoot while providing squad sight range to my snipers. The need to research scatter lasers or the alloy cannon separately from general rifle upgrades had mine using assault rifle type weapons much of the game, and in a lot of ways supports are better for that anyway.

Supports are an integral part of any squad, and I prefer to run two if I have them available. Field Medic is a must, along with sprinter and rifle suppression. Later on deep pockets is incredibly valuable as well. Supports are great all around soldiers who can do a bit of everything, and they have the speed to get to wherever I need them.

Heavies are my favorite class, even more than snipers. Rockets, Bullet Swarm or Holo Targeting (both useful, I like to have one of each), Suppression, HEAT ammo, Danger Zone, and at colonel Mayhem for area-effect suppression that does damage (double to mech type enemies)...these guys and gals provide so many options. I usually run two heavies at all times.

[uberfish]

Yeah well, if you knew what map you were going to be fighting on then mid-rank snipers might actually be more than dead weight that the rest of the squad has to carry, there are a couple with mostly unrestricted LoS from a point near the starting position where they're very good.

My experiences with snipers have been mostly negative, I sit them as far back as possible and a random vehicle / tree / rock blocks their LoS half the time. Or I advance onto a hill on a UFO assault and move the sniper up there, next turn enough aliens activate that I want to do a fighting retreat, guess what the sniper just did the fantastic total of 2 damage with a pistol because I have better things to put my resources into than researching Plasma Pistol or the foundry pistol upgrades. (I suppose that's an argument for Gunslinger.) And then I realise that if I had some actually useful class like... any of the other 3 classes on the team I could have simply used their skills to destroy cover, flank and/or suppress and win the fight on the spot. Whereas, I've NEVER felt "oh I really wish I had a sniper in this situation" when running a sniper-less team. Not once.

It's possible snipers just don't suit my playstyle.

[Tasunke]

supports are awesome, Assaults get lots of kills (tier 1)

Snipers are weak early on, but at high level are godly. (tier 2)

Heavies are good if you use them right, but have piss poor aim (tier 3). They make up for it with their rockets ... of which they have only 1. (or 2)

[antisocialmunky]

Heavies are good if you use them right, but have piss poor aim (tier 3). They make up for it with their rockets ... of which they have only 1. (or 2)

They do more damage and have supression.

[uberfish]

Once you have the shredder rocket you can afford to put a scope on the heavies to fix the accuracy problem. Before that you have a grenade. Explosives are the big equalizer early game because rockets are 90% accurate and grenades 100% even in the hands of rookies. I prefer not to build items and just carry a grenade on everyone in the first month or so.

[haphazard1]

Snipers may not work with every play style, certainly a good point. I find them extremely useful on all kinds of maps, but I almost never leave them far behind the front. I usually keep my snipers in the thick of things, using their Gunslinger-boosted pistol so they can keep moving whenever there is nothing to shoot with Squad Sight. You get laser pistols along with the same research project as laser rifles, and a gunslinger sniper with a laser pistol can regularly do 4 or 5 damage as they get a sniper's high accuracy on pistol shots. This is quite comparable to other classes using a laser rifle or similar level weapon, and I would estimate that about a quarter of my snipers' total kills are made with pistols. Given that my top sniper has more than twice the kills of my next best soldier (a heavy) and close to three times as many kills as my "average" colonel-rank soldiers...I would say that she is almost as deadly with a pistol as they are with their best weapons. :smile:

I have to disagree with Tasunke's rankings: I think heavies are awesome. My best heavy has my second-highest kill total on my late game all-colonel squad, and my other heavy has the fourth-highest despite having gone on fewer missions than any other member of the squad. Their accuracy is not as high as other classes, but it is not as horrible as many seem to think and a scope helps a lot if you choose to use one. Suppression is incredibly useful, and once you start running into cyberdisks and especially sectopods the HEAT ammo is a life saver. And of course rockets are fantastic for solving all kinds of difficult situations. :smile:

I would rank assaults lower -- a lot lower in fact. Useful, but I have run squads with zero assaults and not missed them. The times when I have had to run with zero heavies or snipers or supports have been major pains, but I have never missed assaults when I don't have them. I guess this is just my playstyle, in the same way that uberfish doesn't much care for snipers.