Thanks for the replies about the sword. BTW Miramon, the way you just used that word “proc,” is that short for process? I gather it comes from MMOs or something (I never got into them)–what does it mean exactly?
Yeah, “proc” comes from MMO’s (as far as I know) and it’s short for “Programmed Random OCcurrence” (or so it’s theorized) and it’s just short hand for “chance a thing will happen when another thing happens first” like if a sword has a chance to cast an ice-blast “on hit” than you would say, “I hit him and my ice blast proc’d”
…“triggered” being too lengthy to bother typing, of course ;)
Miramon
1705
Term of art, man, term of art.
ShivaX
1706
Thing is, while the shotgun might usually be best, melee can still be insanely viable with the perks for it. Getting free hits and being able to chain attack and drop 3+ guys in one turn isn’t a weak ability. Yeah, you probably shouldn’t try to take down Sectopods with it, but it’s far from useless.
I dont think anyone can justify taking reaper over rapid fire. It is simply not a strong skill at the same time rapid fire is one of the best skills in the game. Yes, similar to gunslinger, if you have multiple grenadiers setting up a perfect situation, you can indeed finish off five enemies or something like that, but that is a carefully created situation requiring a team effort. To do that you’re giving up significant signal target damage EVERY TURN.
Because i don’t like concealment focused rangers, my perfect ranger is full blades except rapid fire. This is almost entirely so i can bladestorm enemies who try to melee me and because some of the blade perks (untouchables, run & gun) are REALLY good. I never plan to actually melee unless i have absolutely no other choice. At the same time though, i play like a blade ranger, closing to close range and shooting the enemy in the face for 20-30 damage with 100% hit chance. Then that kill makes me invulnerable so i often put my ranger in the line of fire specifically so enemies target her.
Yup, the risk vs reward calculations break end game for melee sadly.
The proc rate on the stun sword sword seems really crappy for the player in my experience, which is funny because the alien version seems to work 2/3 of the time.
robc04
1709
I don’t like giving up -15 aim and took reaper over rapid fire. I used it many times for multiple kills. Yeah, it does depend on making it a team effort to be effective but isn’t that what we are supposed to be doing?
Melee was way better in the first game. The MECs did way more damage, they destroyed cover and they sort of turned invisible while behind high cover.
I miss the MECs :(
I’d argue that you’re devoting a team effort to create a situation where reaper is worth it, almost entirely because it has a big number and not because it is more effective over time. I see this as similar to the people who rather do one 1000 damage hit in a minute instead of 30 100 damage hits. The big number (such as killing 5 guys in a turn with a gunslinger) looks sexy, but you have to look at the real cost of getting it.
Things might be different if melee did more damage, but you’re using a medium damage attack that gets lower damage with every hit and needs to kill each hit to keep chaining.
Meh crunch all the numbers you want, I want my guys to be on ESPN top 10 plays of the week. Multi Reaper kills, and Gunslinger kills rock.
robc04
1713
It’s not like I forced the situation. When it made sense, I tried to set up the chain kills. When it didn’t I made other plans. Not every option has it’s place 100% of the time. You tend to speak in absolutes about what is best based on your campaign. I think I did fairly well. I won 33 battles and lost 0. I did reload 2x, both when I was getting tired and just rushed forward because I wanted to get the mission done. On average I had over 3 turns left on the timer.
I don’t know if a melee-based ranger is always the best option, but on my team, with their set of skills, he was a valuable member.
Maybe that came out wrong.
What i meant was that in order for reaper to be truly worthwhile, you need to specifically go out of your way to bring multiple enemies close to death without killing them. Then you need to hope your ranger can kill each one. This is generally not a situation i find occurring unless i specifically plan to create it.
I do personally believe that the effort required to set that up is not worth it in the end. Yes, it feels great to kill a bunch of enemies, but the effort required seems like it is higher than if i just killed them one at a time.
I can’t see how reaper can compare to rapid shot. At close range, you’re going to hit with both hits and you’re going to have higher hit chance than someone using a sword, without the fear that you will get counter attack killed in one hit. You’re also going to do double the damage, if not more.
I really like melee and i used it for 2/3 of the game, having 1-2 melee rangers at all times. That is why i’m so upset that it doesn’t scale well enough to justify using as a primary weapon in late game.
Strato
1715
My reaper ranger works well with a grenadier who has specced the demolition expert skills for an ambush attack. Even when out of concealment, and being able to get the drop on the enemy, with a well placed rocket or grenade, and the enemy scattering away, she is able to still reach them all and slice them up. The ranger doesn’t have to do all those kills in a row, I can select another soldier and get them to attack a target. If there is an enemy with a few bars of health left not worth the devoted single attack from someone holding a rifle, then off she goes hacking away another kill. It isn’t hard to set up the sexy chain kills, but it is effective. I don’t see reaper as being any different to the Sharpshooter’s serial ability. And my sniper is pretty much a legend right now able to dispatch a pod once the rest of the team have done their bit. It is a team effort, that’s what the combined arms tactics are about.
Some of this discussion to me comes off sounding like a min-max thing as if the goal was to find one answer. If it was possible to do that, not that I even want to set it as a goal, I’d consider it a game design failure.
MikeJ
1717
I found I used Serial about 4x as often as Reaper. I guess Reaper has the advantage that you don’t have to worry much about line of sight, but the Serial damage is so powerful, especially with free reloads. I was worried that my sniper was sucking up all the XP in the missions.
This game is absolutely great as far as I am concerned, but at the same time, it could really use better story pathing.
Too many times, it is urgently screaming at me to do shit that I don’t really need to do yet, where actually trying to do it gets my squad wiped out for no good reason.
Last night, it was screaming at me to Skulljack a Codex. I did. Without giving spoilers, let’s just say that the result basically fucked my squad of all veteran guys over pretty badly based on the point of the game I was at.
Then, after I manage to stumble through that, squad wrecked (but successful at least in the underlying goal), the game basically tells me, “Oh, you didn’t need that yet, you need to go do these other things first for that to be useful.”
Fuck you, game. Your dipshit screaming warnings about needing to do this thing just wrecked my squad for nothing.
So that you understand it is not isolated to this one occurrence, I can already think of a couple of other areas where the game does this (e.g. how urgent it seems to make taking that secret enemy base in the beginning, when going after it too early is just going to get you wrecked).
I want some mystery and unknown, but I also do not want to feel like the game is directing me into really bad decisions.
RichVR
1719
Slyfrog, I hear you. I just recently was at that point and it turned into a clusterfuck with two dead veterans. Not my finest hour.
MikeJ
1720
It’s of a piece with the screams to rush ahead and save those poor civies on relation missions. I don’t know how Central kept things together for a few decades while the commander was under. He doesn’t come across as somehow who values caution.
I don’t think they did a very good job balancing the individual skills in the classes. Pretty often i feel like there is a clear choice.
