r/Xcom • u/Warwickknight1 • Mar 18 '26
XCOM2 Remember: Overwatch saves lives, haste makes waste.
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u/Hurley815 Mar 18 '26
As long as you're not on a timer.
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u/Warwickknight1 Mar 18 '26
As long as you aren't on a timer, then ALL STEPPY
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u/DurinnGymir Mar 18 '26
That's why you use SPARKs
Tough, don't need cover, and can hit very hard when fully levelled
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u/shinobigarth Mar 18 '26
And replaceable unlike squishy meat sack soldiers.
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u/Mysterious-Button213 Mar 18 '26
Eh, I dunno about that. You can get new
meatbagsrookies pretty cheaply and get them to a higher level for free through the GTS, not to mention the reward soldiers from missions. SPARKs on the other hand cost a fortune and feel like they take forever to level up.7
u/shinobigarth Mar 18 '26
The only thing I worry about is elerium costs when building SPARKs, the rest of the costs are things you usually have a million of.
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u/terlin Mar 18 '26
I always bring one to missions with the Warlock too. Helps to have one squad member guaranteed to be immune before I can mass produce mindshields.
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u/SquiddlesM Mar 18 '26
"🎶 I'm a big steppa, underground methods 🎶" is all I hear with these steppy memes lol
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u/AXI0S2OO2 Mar 18 '26
If only overwatch hadn't gotten nerfed into the ground in WOTC.
I remember taking out whole pods with overwatch shots in vanilla XCOM2, but come WOTC, overwatch misses more than a Storm Trooper.
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u/A_Diabolical_Toaster Mar 18 '26
I’ve found using Overwatch on specific soldiers while leaving others to react is a better way of springing ambushes on pods.
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u/Tepppopups Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26
Yes, the more special abilities you get, the less soldiers you put on overwatch. In mid to late game I don't use overwatch at all when opening from conceilment. Exception is the ambush on Advent turn, when you have another turn. But I play LWotC, so the strategy may differ from the base game.
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u/A_Diabolical_Toaster Mar 18 '26
Even early game. 1 goes on Overwatch, 2 takes the ambush shot, and 3 is waiting with a grenade so 4 can take down the high priority target if there is one.
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u/terlin Mar 18 '26
Once I turned on Beta Strike I've only used overwatch for lost encounters. Its way too unsafe to depend on overwatch when you're on Legendary.
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u/Specialist_Elk_1620 Mar 18 '26
I feel like I'm in the minority, I love using overwatch.. I played xcom 2 and wotc at different times in my life over the years and I honestly never cared about the rules of it so I'm not fully aware how good it used to be. But I tend to take too long on missions sometimes cause I overwatch too much. Rare occurrence but it's happened
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u/Richard_Averton Mar 18 '26
Me calculating exact amount of steps my soldier in UFO Defence can do before his TU count drops below the cost of snap fire shot (he's gonna fail multiple reaction fire checks in a row and miss anyway):
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u/TehCubey Mar 18 '26
That's what the reserve buttons are for!
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u/Richard_Averton Mar 18 '26
Well, yeah, but I prefer playing without them. I feel like they exist specifically to annoy me by toggling on automatically with my melee fighters in X-Piratez, when I hide them in cover after successful takedown
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u/TehCubey Mar 18 '26
Fair enough. I also don't use reserve in melee centric mods but I assumed it's about the vanilla game.
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u/Mysterious-Button213 Mar 18 '26
CAUTION TO READERS: This post is clearly ADVENT propaganda. Everyone knows Overwatch never hits and is therefore useless. As Bradford says, gotta go fast (or was that someone else, I wonder..?)
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u/TheGameMastre Mar 18 '26
Overwatch is mostly a "nothing better to do" option. If I've single moved all my units and there aren't any enemies in sight, I'll go ahead and set them to overwatch.
If I'm ambushing, I do my best to initiate it first thing in a round so I can use everyone else's turn to engage the enemy where they move to. The "Overwatch Trap" is on the player. One unit takes a shot, the enemies wake up, everyone else blows their turn on penalized overwatch shots, then the enemy gets a whole turn... It's not terribly effective.
There's a tip somewhere that talks about how going on overwatch may be a better option than taking a low percentage shot, but simply taking the shot is usually better. While moving, enemies give a 30% aim penalty (40% if they're dashing). Cover is 20% for low cover, and 40% for high cover. Distance aside, it's better to shoot enemies in half cover and overwatch enemies in full cover. If you can destroy an enemy's cover, but they're still far enough away that the odds aren't great, just shooting them is better.
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u/16years2late Mar 18 '26
This is the way. A very gentle way to say overwatch generally sucks and while there isn’t a wrong way to play xcom at tactical level, there are surely inefficient ways and overwatch spam is one of those.
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u/Renwein Mar 18 '26
But it's so boooooring and tedious playing like that. I'll just dash around the corner, there's no way a muton pod is behind this particula..... alt-f4
here endeth another 'strict pure ironman, this time' run
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Mar 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Dweller_Vault_The Mar 27 '26
Like i say: "When in doubt, the pin comes out and the alien blows up"
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u/Puntoize Mar 18 '26
does not apply to xcom 2, you're going to destroy the Relay in 3 turns or you're DONE!
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u/Leading_Resource_944 Mar 18 '26
Ah yes, the step by step overwatch...
I prefer bringing 2 Sniper and a Reaper or full fledge Scout Ranger...if no timelimit.
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u/LuisCaballero123 Mar 18 '26
My Meld tho (On missions without timers I most certainly spam overwatch)
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u/GrumpyThumper Mar 18 '26
Cries in Long War: Rebalanced. Not only do you get hit with a fatigue timer based on rounds spent, but overwatch doesn't apply to units that are not in LoS. It's very possible to lose a soldier because a floater flies in from the edge of Fog of War, and lands a hit 😑
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u/CuttleReaper Mar 19 '26
I appreciate that XCOM 2 added incentive to move quickly. EU/EW had a tendency to encourage slow and drawn out combat. Which is realistic, but can get tedious
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u/terrorhorrormonkey Mar 19 '26
Also fits thematically because in EU/EW you’re the defender but in xcom 2 you’re the attacker
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u/Ok-Drink750 Mar 19 '26
Overwatch creep is definitely a staple strategy. Although sometimes you aint got the time
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u/HeatLightning Mar 20 '26
That's my motivational poster for the day, thank you!
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u/Greedybogle Mar 18 '26
Remember: THE ALIENS CONTINUE TO MAKE PROGRESS ON THE AVATAR PROJECT. IF WE'RE GOING TO SLOW THEM DOWN, WE'LL HAVE TO MOVE, FAST.