Overview
This contains tips, tricks, and strategies to keep in mind in the multiplayer mode of XCOM 2, ranging from effective team loadouts to combat tactics.
Building a squad
- Codex – Its ability to teleport at will to any location within sight range gives it incredible flanking potential, and with Psionic Bomb I can mass-disable enemy units’ ability to shoot back at me. I take a Codex to keep my enemies busy and to scout for me.
- Psi Operative – With most of my units specialized to dealing with light- to mid-weight targets, I need something capable of handling heavy threats and giving support to allies. A psi is perfect for this largely due to its Stasis ability which can completely take an Andromedon, Gatekeeper or similar high-threat target out of action for a whole turn.
- Viper – Vipers are the best when it comes to dealing with humanoids. Tongue Pull is an absolute death sentence for any XCOM soldier if I’ve got allies nearby who can finish them off, especially a Chryssalid with its poison claws for a combined damage-over-time effect. I take a Viper for the express purpose of dealing with troublesome XCOM units with all their dangerous abilities.
- MEC – MECs are terrifying if used correctly. Their cannons can shred armor and do respectable damage, they can Suppress enemies, their Micro Missiles can arc over obstacles, and they can leap up to high ground as easily as a Chryssalid. I took them for this squad because I needed versatile heavy infantry to back up my disablers.
- Chryssalid – Everyone knows these. Lids can dash over insane distances to infect any organic enemy so that they spawn more lids upon death. I keep one around here for the amazing ambush ability, free poison on every hit, and the potential to multiply my forces.
This is a versatile squad built around mid-range combat w/ heavy emphasis on indirect burst damage and disabling the enemy’s capacity to fight back. I am less reliant on cover since half my squad (the MECs and Chryssalid) don’t use it, meaning my ideal ground is generally a place like City Center or Slums with lots of walls and sight obstructions to hide out of sight, ready to spring an ambush. If I was to get stuck in an open area with wide sight lanes, I would be at extreme risk of exposure to enemy Snipers, Demo Experts, Sectopods, and virtually anything else specialized in long-range combat.
However, this squad would be very weak if forced to fight a pitched battle against enemies with lots of staying power and/or burst damage of their own; I’d be in a lot of trouble against someone packing Grenadiers or MECs, as their rockets and grenades would absolutely destroy everything on this list if given time to use them. My lack of healing abilities makes me very vulnerable to the damage-over-time effects of Vipers, Chryssalids and Andromedons. Rangers, especially Blademasters, could absolutely lay waste to my squad with their Reaper and Bladestorm abilities. And don’t get me started on Snipers with an enemy who knows how to use them properly.
Now, what could we change to make this build a little better? I could, say, remove the Psi Operative in favor of a Heavy Gunner to take advantage of Holo-Targeting and all its lethal damage potential with Shredder, Rupture, Chain Shot and Hail of Bullets. Or a Demo Expert to use its rocket launcher as an answer against enemy Snipers and whatever is out of range for my MECs. A Combat Hacker could be the most useful of all; I could use its enhanced Aid Protocol on my Codex, or MECs and/or Chryssalid out of cover so that they don’t die and can take Covering Fire shots on enemies that try to move or attack, as well as Capacitor Discharge to nullify most enemy special abilities and absolutely decimate enemy MECs, not to mention Scanning Protocol as an extremely potent scouting tool that can even see through walls and let me get the drop on burrowed Chryssalids and concealed Phantom Rangers.
But what would I be losing if I did that? A Combat Hacker could fill the void left by the Psi Operative’s Soulfire and Void Rift abilities, but it can’t replace the incredibly useful Stasis and Inspire. Don’t forget, Stasis can be used with the psi’s first action, so I could potentially Stasis a dangerous enemy, charge another with my Chryssalid, then use Inspire on that Chryssalid and have it attack (and poison) a second enemy on that same turn. Hell, I could use it on my Viper to let her Poison Spit one or more enemies, then Tongue Pull another to both disable them and take advantage of combined poison and bind damage. Or Stasis my own Viper/Chryssalid that just dashed into the enemy’s frontline so they can’t be hit, guaranteeing one of their troops will be in trouble next turn if they don’t move away.
Building a squad – Conclusion
So, we have now covered:
- How to recognize what a certain team setup is good at, and what it is not
- How to determine what your ideal battleground is before combat even starts
- Recognizing the units your enemy could field that pose the highest threat to your strategy
- How to think critically in terms of what your best unit picks for a given squad build & strategy may be
This should give you a good idea of what ideas you need to take into consideration when building a squad. Later, I will cover specific units and their stats, abilities, and what archetype I believe they fall under.
Combat tactics
Here, you are always vulnerable to being shot on any enemy turn by any unit that has line of sight to your troops. Other players can and will use explosives to blow up walls and roofs to get clean shots at you, unlike AI opponents. Your enemy can sneakily hide their units out of sight behind walls, ready to spring into action for deadly ambushes on you. However, nothing is stopping you from doing this and more to whoever you face, except your own tactical awareness, and sometimes a nice spot of luck as well.
Combat tactics – Placement
One of the most important aspects of effective tactics in battle is selecting the best ground to fight on. If I haven’t covered recognizing the best ground you have for your squad yet, I’ll likely get to that in a future installment of this guide. Suffice to say, since you have an average of two to three turns before you make contact with the enemy squad, you should take some time to look around the battlefield and get your units into favorable positions.
Do you have units with grenades or abilities with arcing shots? Stick them behind walls and obstacles where they can surprise the enemy with those attacks. Got a Psi Operative or two? Keep them well out of harm’s way because they are phenomenally attractive targets for enemy fire, and save them when their abilities will be most decisive, such as simultaneously throwing Stasis on a Gatekeeper and then Void Rift through a wall to damage and potentially cast Insanity on any organic followers it has. Have an Andromedon who can walk through walls? Consider putting him behind a wall, ready to smash through and make a sneak attack no one will see coming.
Also, pay close attention to the kind of map you’re on. If it’s the Slums (especially a Trainyard variant) or Resistance Haven, you are likely to find a very large number of dangerous explosive objects in the environment. I once caught a Berserker trying to hide behind a wall in the Slums — that was right next to a 500 gallon propane tank. Big boom, extra damage, and a whole turn in which I killed every member of the enemy team except that Berserker — who died to a pistol overwatch immediately after. Pay very, VERY close attention so that this doesn’t happen to you.
Combat tactics – Repositioning
Knowing when to adapt, to move to a different location during battle is even more important than initial placement, however. Let me tell you a little story about this. I was in a standard 10000 point ranked game, on City Center. I had a Psi Operative, Demo Expert, Chryssalid, Viper, and 2 Officers (this is all before the patch, when Officers still had 12 HP and some Dodge). This is a mid- to long-range build with plenty of capacity for ruining enemies who get close, but thanks to the grenades and Rocket Launcher offered by the Grenadier, I wasn’t a slouch at a distance either. I was against 2 Demo Experts and a Blademaster, Chryssalid, and 2 Officers — a build focused heavily on shock value with explosives followed up by melee rushes, with his Officers running mop-up duty.
I started in a street, and decided to take cover in a building not far away. I holed up there for a while and listened, cursing my luck when I heard the telltale clink-clank of E.X.O. Suit footsteps, meaning my enemy had Grenadiers. We engaged in a standoff for some time, but once it became clear that he was winning the Overwatch battle after dealing some nasty hits to an Officer and my Chryssalid, and after he actually MISSED a rocket launcher shot (likely due to a flick of the mouse), I decided to fall back. I ran my Viper, ‘lid and Officers to the street to join the others, and started dashing up the street to the next building. My Chryssalid remained behind in Burrowed mode to act as lookout, and to catch unawares anyone who crept up too close.
What ended up happening was: He started moving his Officers up to get a bead on me, but I made short work of them with a Rocket Launcher shot and a Soulfire from my Psi Operative to kill one on low health from an Overwatch. I caught his Blademaster trying to sneak up on me through the very building I chose as my next cover, moved up to a roof and grenaded him with one of my wounded Officers, and then had my Viper jump out of cover to poison him. Poison is a nasty thing to hit a Ranger with because it slices their movement range in half in addition to imposing penalties on their Aim, and damaging them every turn.
I’ll skip ahead a bit here for the sake of brevity: His Grenadiers couldn’t effectively take heavy cover because we’d already blown up half the walls of the first building I was in, his Blademaster died when my full-health Viper risked a Tongue Pull to take him out of action (nearly dying herself in the process), and my Psi Operative helped mop up everyone else with Stasis and psychic attacks which screw up anyone reliant on special abilities.
All of this was made possible because I refused to commit to a losing tactical position, and instead fell back and chose a different location to fight from, where I could set up again without him seeing where I was. A story with a similar moral came about when I ran right the hell away from a close range engagement with a Blademaster, Archon, and 2 Faceless all being healed up by a Medic — which is, by the way, an extremely effective squad, as long as you don’t go up against heavy armored enemies or really high damagers like Andromedons. (Which, of course, I had for that round. 15 damage face-crits are good times. ^_^)
So, always remember to try and not let your enemy put your back against a wall. Keep a retreat route open, and try to make sure it won’t leave you exposed to your enemy’s choice of weapons. For example, DO NOT retreat into open ground if there’s a Sniper, DO NOT hide behind cars if they’ve got explosives, and DO NOT try to hide behind walls with a Gatekeeper or Andromedon within movement range to smash through them.
Utility items
Most players don’t really budget for extra items for their XCOM soldiers, in favor of simply purchasing more units with their limited points. And there’s some logic to that, since an extra ADVENT Officer is essentially a frag grenade and aim bonuses you can point at whatever people you don’t like, running on legs and scouting ahead for you. But when you get down to brass tacks, there are plenty of potential situations in XCOM 2 where you will say, “Boy, I wish I’d brought that one item.” I’m here to try and help you make an informed decision on this, so here we go.
- Plasma/Frag Grenade – Throughout the course of this guide, I’ve emphasized the importance of taking your enemy by surprise. This item does just that. I was surprised once by a pair of Chryssalids who attempted to target my Combat Hacker after she’d already used her Capacitor Discharge ability. All I had aside from that that could react quick enough was some Officers who’d used most of their grenades already, and a Shieldbearer who could do nothing but shoot. My opponent never expected my Specialist to suddenly chuck a plasma grenade point blank at the Chryssalids, knocking their armor off, killing one, and putting the other’s HP in the red. A couple shots later and that threat was dealt with, with me still safely behind a wall while my Codex and Gunslinger Sharpshooter cleaned up the others. Grenades are normally expected from Grenadiers, and while these do go great on such units, I feel that putting them on soldiers who don’t normally have cover-breaching potential, or who are expected to fight at low- to mid-range works even better.
- Battle Scanner – Ah… this is a thing of beauty. And not just because it lets you see invisible units. It’s beautiful because it lets you scout ahead for enemies without risking your units by having them stick their necks out, which, since you don’t have the advantage of concealed first strike (without a Phantom Ranger, anyway), can literally be a lifesaver. The fact that it lets you see units behind walls CANNOT be overstated, because a lot of good strategies involve hiding MECs behind buildings to jump onto the roof, Andromedons crashing through walls for a surprise flank, or keeping other critical trump card units out of sight range until they can come in to devastate you. If your build is particularly vulnerable to certain units, having this can let you reposition (notice how much emphasis I put on the importance of this earlier in the guide) to attack the enemy more effectively.
- Stasis Vest – Here is a cardinal tactic of XCOM 2 for you: Poking. This involves wearing down tough units thorugh lots of little bits of damage at a time, until they are at risk of being killed in a single hit. Damage-over-time effects like poison and acid are pretty common in Multiplayer, as are XCOM soldiers being targeted because of their extremely dangerous abilities. This is why the Stasis Vest can be useful. It offers +2 max HP and 2 HP regeneration per turn, up to a max of 8 HP regenerated. This may not sound like a lot at first, but over the course of a firefight, you will find that XCOM soldiers are able to take about 2-3 solid hits before dying. This item can up that to around 4. Its healing powers counteract DoTs by simply healing all the damage they deal, and let the wearer recover a lot of health from enemy poking in general. Preferably equip this on already tough-to-kill soldiers like Blademasters (due to their Untouchable perk) and Grenadiers of any type; armor points will increase the vest’s effectiveness even more. I can personally vouch for this item because it kept a Field Medic of mine healed through a firefight, preventing her from having to use valuable healing abilities on herself so she could focus on my Andromedon while it one-shotted 4 enemy MECs one after the other.