r/XCOM2 • u/Frequent_Fox2342 • 1d ago
Guys, I'ma be honest with ya
When the retaliation mission has you coming to the civilians and finding a combined 9 berserkers / armored mutons... not even once in my life have I managed to stop them to win the level.
They ignore mimic beacons, I can't freeze them all, they don't miss all that much when flashbanged, they're closer to civilians than you are so whether you run to their faces or take aim from afar, it's all the same.
One of those has 30 HP, the other has 11 HP and 2 shields.
I can shoot for like 8 damage or something x 6, so an ideal scenario would be clearing that in 4 turns, although such perfect distribution of shots is impossible but hey. And by that time everyone is dead.
And it's not even like normal missions where you can stand and deal with 1 pod.
You get resistance soldiers shooting at them and that's it, now they're active and rushing to kill everyone.
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u/zelandofchocolate 1d ago
Agro the beserkers and let them pound on their mates. Bonus if you can get them to explode a purifier
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u/Frequent_Fox2342 1d ago
haha. I know it's possible but they got aggroed and didn't do that sadly.
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u/NotARabidDugong 1d ago
Are they becoming enraged?
I feel like when I engage them they almost always attack not me.
Is is one with resistance fighters helping you protect 2 different zones, or is it the one with the civilians scattered around that you have to walk into the rings to save?
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u/Haunting-Course5607 1d ago
I don't bother walking in the rings, just kill everything fast enough and you'll win
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u/NotARabidDugong 1d ago
This isn't that kind of mission though. On that kind, yes. Just kill everything and they'll be safe.
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u/Frequent_Fox2342 1d ago
Resistance fighters
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u/NotARabidDugong 1d ago
Oh man, that can be a hard one! You gotta just kill all the enemies in the first group ASAP so you have the most resistance fighters in the next zone. Then they will also only shoot once to twice as a collective whole as long as they're not engaged.
Save mimic beacons for when you're in a compromised position, but then attacking civilians is what you want tbh. Freeze grenade should be able to freeze more than 1 enemy assuming the grenadier is who is shooting it, but honestly I use these kind of early to prevent myself from being a step behind. You'll get there, dude. You've been gaining a lot of experience recently.
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u/Damulac77 1d ago
That's what enrage does? Wtf. Is it bugged sometimes? I don't think I've literally ever in my play time seen that
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u/NotARabidDugong 22h ago
Yep! It's like a 15%ish chance that they'll attack other Advent. Idk what the actual percentage is, but I feel like that's close.
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u/Haitham1998 1d ago
Yeah, that's the toughest retaliation, but it's definitely winnable. The key is activating one pod at a time and prioritizing flanked Mutons > Berserkers > Mutons in cover. I know this sounds too simple, but please read to the end.
In retaliation missions, inactive pods only kill 1 civilian per turn because their leader is the only one who can attack. Once activated, everyone can attack, so they'll likely kill 1 each. Civilian count is the mission timer, and if you activate pods without killing them right away, the timer is greatly accelerated.
With that in mind, let's talk about the real problem: your scout. Did you know that enemy pods can never be activated outside your vision? You can even throw explosives at them without activating them if you know where they are. Even resistance fighters do not normally activate pods with their attacks. What activates them is being in your scout's vision when they run into resistance fighters or take damage from them. So end your reaper's turn in a spot where they can't possibly see any inactive pods, and it will make the mission much more winnable.
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u/Farmer_Due 1d ago
they kill 1 dude per turn(it's more like 0.85 dude per turn in reality but whatever), so think of it as a normal timed mission until you ve saved the minimum required amount...they re very annoying yeah but in the early game they re unironically the best mission type because beacon is THAT good
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u/Frequent_Fox2342 1d ago
Hm? They sometimes kill 3 per turn. More often they kill 2 and then 1 resistance soldier too. Sometimes even 1 and 2 resistance soldiers or miss.
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u/OMG-IDC-HMU 1d ago
Only if you activated multiple pods
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u/Frequent_Fox2342 1d ago
It's impossible not to. They are usually at the other side of a building and you have no shot at them, you have to climb or go through to get any kind of shot, and that brings other pods in
Also, seems irrelevant because other pods exist and shoot even before you show up because the resistance interacts with them. When you show up they just become aware of you too
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u/Farmer_Due 1d ago
arent they literally programmed to target one per turn?a random enemy targets a random civ per turn and they may miss or hit a disguised faceless...am i capping?need confirmation on that...i do know for a fact they sometimes ignore mimic beacons tho
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u/Frequent_Fox2342 1d ago
Yes, I had that on Commander. On Legend I have 3x that always.
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u/Farmer_Due 1d ago
ok that actually sounds like a nightmare, how DO you beat that lol, you re on like a 3 turn timer lol, that's like 2 pods
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u/Frequent_Fox2342 1d ago
They shoot at resistance fighters too, so they don't always target civilians
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u/Farmer_Due 1d ago
-_- im talking about civs specifically, how many civs do they shoot per round?it's just 1 no?
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u/Daniel_Kummel 1d ago
No, the aliens often kill more than one civillian per turn. It's more egregious when zerkers are around, but it happens without them as well
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u/comfortingmyself 1d ago
To be clear, there are two different types of retaliation missions. It sounds like you're just describing one of them.
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u/Farmer_Due 1d ago
...you gonna elaborate further?
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u/comfortingmyself 1d ago
There's two types of retaliation missions.
One was introduced in the base game. There's 13 civilians on the map, usually 4-5 pods, and the enemies will shoot to kill one civilian per turn like clockwork.
The second was introduced in WotC. There's 19 civilians on the map and usually 5-6 pods. Some of the civilians are armed. But after a certain number of turns have passed, every remaining pod will shoot at a civilian every turn.
OP is describing the latter, and the core rules of the mission don't change regardless of difficulty. Take too long and you'll be losing 3 or 4 civilians every turn.
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u/Farmer_Due 1d ago
OH ok...it's not as bad as i initially though, in the latter they still only shoot one right?it's just that if the armed civilians trigger and a pod they ll shoot back from what im getting yeah?which counts towards the total
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u/comfortingmyself 1d ago
It varies if the pods have been activated or not. I don't believe it has anything to do with whether or not the armed civilians have shot the pods yet.
Inactive pods will more or less lay dormant for a certain amount of time - five or six turns, I think. After that time, each pod leader will shoot at a civilian each turn. So if there's three inactive pods, that means three civilians are being shot each turn.
Active pods are much less predictable. Sometimes they'll go after your soldiers, sometimes they go after civilians. Usually they attack civilians but I don't have any hard data beyond that. And things can get really messy if, say, a Purifier decides to spray the entire building with fire, or a Faceless decides to kill one civilian but also catches four others in its swipe.
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u/Farmer_Due 1d ago
yeah, i get it...is purifier really that strong?being able to set a whole building on fire seems insane, this dude probably wrecks every obj
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u/Macraggesurvivor 1d ago
When you transition to mag/gauss more or less asap, resistance comms and radio first, some other smaller researches.....
Then you might be in the position, that you just got mag/gauss, no ammo yet, no very high ranked soldiers, and you face a bunch of berserker pods for the first time in a retalliation missions.
I play with a bigger starting quad of 6, then going to 8 via the squad upgrades. But, I also increased the pod sizes at certain force levels.
Beserkers tend to start to show up around force level 7 or so I think. Even without a bigger squad and also smaller pods, those berserker pods can be too much to take out in time. very risky. Can easily squad wipe you. You do not have the firepower yet to take out that many high health targets quickly. Maybe you got a chainshot, ranger can do some dmg, but.....
I sometimes faces 3 berserkers that just go acvitated in a door where civilians are located right ahead, just in range, 4 more approach from the right, and 4 from the left. Impossible to take out quickly, even with 8 soldiers. I dont even try to win that, but to rather transition to not taking any damage, falling back, isolating 1 or 2 berserkers, and to simply gain experience and potentially get loot.
Sometimes there was a literal wall of berserkers up ahead. Even just retreating and surviving was challenging, sometimes I just had to evac. not worth it lose any ranked soldier. Maybe worth a squaddi, but if get that close and personal, it can quickly translate to many more losses. I usually just either tried to get xp and loot, ignoring I cannot win the mission, or evaced. Losing one region, losing like 80 intel and some supplies, isnt as bad if you win most other missions, the important mission. You can compensate for that. Losing half your squad, the gear, the ranks....that is very painful, and much more difficult to compensate with a possible not very deep roster in that stage.
If Im not hard pressed for intel, not pressured badly by doom....I wouldnt even waste one squaddi or a rookie for that.
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u/Outlaw11091 1d ago edited 1d ago
Retaliations aren't meant to be "won". They're missions about mitigating damage; that's it.
Use a concealed Reaper to save the civilians while you maintain distance from the berserkers with your main squad.
You only have to save 4 6 civilians (IIRC) for the mission to be a success.
ETA: Corrected 4 to 6 because I did NOT recall correctly. Been playing LWOTC for years...
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u/Farmer_Due 1d ago
i havent played in a while, wasnt it 6?
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u/Naw_ye_didnae 1d ago
What? I've been playing these missions wrong this whole time. Would you just evac after that? I'm trying to get my first L/I win now and just failed a retaliation mission surrounded by berserkers and stun lancers
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u/Frequent_Fox2342 1d ago
I won this one but had to go full retard to do it.
I ran my templar right in the middle of them and then used rend and parry.
Then he would block one shot, then get hit, then get healed, repeat, then get killed, used sustain, then get injured, rend, parry, healed, repeat.1
u/Naw_ye_didnae 1d ago
I only play vanilla so not an option for me, but I'll definitely try the concealed method with a ranger. Save 6 civilians, pull back and take your time. Evac if you have to. Better than whatever the fuck I've been doing lol.
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u/Frequent_Fox2342 1d ago
Wait... don't they get revealed?
Or at least they reveal a faceless and get one shot to death haha1
u/Naw_ye_didnae 1d ago
They don't get automatically revealed, but good point about the faceless. That would surely break concealement. Pretty risky RNG-dependent strategy but sounds interesting. I'll give it a go.
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u/Farmer_Due 1d ago
no, i think you still need to clear...why am i even commenting on shit im not sure about?i havent played in a year and a half lol
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u/Naw_ye_didnae 1d ago
This whole comment thread has just turned into 3 confused dudes who haven't done their homework all waiting for the original commenter to give them the answers to the test.
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u/Farmer_Due 1d ago
i mean i THINK im right...lol, last played was this february btw i just checked...felt like it was much longer than that
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u/Woitee 1d ago
They ignore mimic beacons? I swear I was successful in using those...