Alloy Cannon or plasma rifle?

[Run4TheHills321]

I am at the end of my classic game, because I sadly don't have enough free time to have gotten myself prepared enough to try C/I, and I have a question.

In normal mode, I had no use for the alloy cannon, I could 2 shot everything anyways. Now that I am building the gollop chamber, I don't know if I should use it. I haven't yet, and until after I finish the battleship I'm going to raid tomorrow, I can't even build one if I want to.

Is the raw damage worth the risk? I'm sure it would allow me to one shot almost anything since the crit potential even with rapid fire is enormous, but I don't know how situational it is.

I should say, my current setup is 2 snipers, psi assault (will not be using the alloy cannon), psi heavy, support, and I'm kinda stuck on what the last guy should be. At the moment he is just whoever is high rank and not hurt in the Barracks (usually another support or a heavy, but there is a reasonably high assault who is a potential candidate for the cannon).
I have 4 sets of ghost armor and 2 psi, so he will have ghost available to him.

Does anyone run alloy cannon? If so, do you have any tactical advice involving using it without risking anyone?

I think I know the answer here, but I have been proven wrong by the forum often enough to go ahead and ask.

[shorn]

I love the Alloy Cannon myself although it really depends on the units abilities. If you go with lighting reflexes (or close and personal), aggression, and close combat specialist you have a really nice front line troop that is great for tight ufo assaults. They are not your core guy for long hall ways but are great for clearing doors and fun with you are in overwatch and get two reaction shots...one when the alien moves and another when they move within 4 tiles of you.

Balance it out though..One guy with a cannon and one with a plasma

[Star428]

AC is awesome. I can't imagine myself playing through a campaign without using it on one of my usual two assaults. It takes practice though to recognize when it's relatively safe to use a run &gun to deliver an AC blast to some poor alien's face. Just make sure that assault has tactical sense to help keep him alive in case he bites off more than he can chew by accidentally activating more aliens. I usually give him chitin plating too as i do all my shotty assaults for extra protection.

[Rustilin]

Assaults are designed to take punishment. Extra conditioning, critical immunity, titan armour and combat stims turns them into a tank making run and gun less risky up close. An alloy canon is then essential for those close encounters, because rapid fire can get into the 90% aim.

I use may assaults aggressively late game, but I make sure I have a support with three med packs.

[Traul]

It doesn't really matter. By the time you have that choice, combat should be getting easier anyway and you should be close to winning the game. In my last Impossible playthrough, I could only afford my first Alloy Cannon for the final mission.

If you can, get Alloy Cannons. If you can't, it's not a big deal. Plasma sniper, heavy plasma and ghost armor definitely get priority over it.

[Exterrestrial_killer]

I prefer the rifle with the assaults up to the point were you get the alloy cannon. As they said certain perks and titan make your guy a tank and ghost almost unhittable. For the last one I say another support with titan. It's always nice to have 6 medics capable of healing 10 hp each.

[manageri]

I prefer rifles for my assaults but I tend to use only one of em. If you're careful with when/where you run n gun then the extra damage from an AC assault can be useful. If, on the other hand, you blitz around like a retard, then shotgun assaults will get you killed.

[Run4TheHills321]

Wow, not one person said they are a bad idea like I thought. I guess it is true that when I get to that stage I can probably take down any extra aliens he activates by accident without any real problem, and since I always grab all defensive perks with assaults (a live assault with 5 less damage per shot is better than the assault who died 3 missions ago one-shoting the sectopod). And with ghost, I have 4 run 'n guns that I can just go for without worrying about activating aliens until my next turn when he is revealed. Alright, I'm going to go raid that battleship, and then I'll train that assault until he has crit immunity, then give him an AC.

[CitizenKang]

A word of warning... once you have activated run & gun you cannot use the ghost ability on the ghost armor. After activating run & gun your only options are shoot or overwatch, so don't count on invisibility to save your unit if you run & gun into trouble.

I'd still take the alloy cannon over a rifle for a defensively spec'd assault. Ghost armor and tactical sense means minimum 25% defense in the open, and with critical immunity you can survive a few hits. With that extra survivability you can be a little more free in getting up in the alien's faces, and few things feel better than doing 30+ damage with one attack like you can get from a rapid-fire alloy cannon blast.

I'd recommend you run with chitin plating or stims. Stims can only be used twice per mission, but if you've got your squad in a hairy situation they're great for moving your assault out from cover towards the aliens, using the stims, then laughing as the aliens ignore the rest of your team to do piddling damage to the assault, who can then run forward recklessly the next turn and take out any unit you see. Chitin plating is just about the extra cushion you get, but having the bonus built-in and constant can be very nice.

[Akula]

It's not uncommon for Assaults in my games to have the highest kill count of all my troops. Even beating out the double tap, squad sight, snipers. Even better in my current game as both my primary Assaults just happen the have the gift. So those two girls are just hell-on-wheels in missions wiping out everything from mutons to sectpods with ease.

Back on topic. There is nothing like seeing an Assault put the barrel of a Alloy Cannon flush with a Muton Elite's face and pulling the trigger. Most of the time it ends very badly for the elite.

[amanasleep]

It's not uncommon for Assaults in my games to have the highest kill count of all my troops. Even beating out the double tap, squad sight, snipers. Even better in my current game as both my primary Assaults just happen the have the gift. So those two girls are just hell-on-wheels in missions wiping out everything from mutons to sectpods with ease.

Back on topic. There is nothing like seeing an Assault put the barrel of a Alloy Cannon flush with a Muton Elite's face and pulling the trigger. Most of the time it ends very badly for the elite.

But with Rapid Fire the ME is dead even with the Plasma Rifle.

[Exterrestrial_killer]

True and renember this simple fact. For 5 months you did a slow crawl up to the alien technology. Time to do this halo style. Run up and rapid fire that beserker in the face.

[Run4TheHills321]

True and renember this simple fact. For 5 months you did a slow crawl up to the alien technology. Time to do this halo style. Run up and rapid fire that beserker in the face.

Haha, true enough. It's not like this is ironman or anything, might as well go hard!

[FacultyOfReason]

Alloy can one shot kill elite muttons, if you're lucky.

Tactical advice...without wasting Ghost (in the final mission I mean. I.e. you might want 1 ghost left to dash into the final room, say), in a good spot you can ghost dash next to or within run and gun distance of whatever you want.

Also, since your one shot kill chance can miss...I use the double shot option...to be sure, to be sure, to be sure.

Having two Assaults with alloy cannons and ghost is a nice option...if you are facing 3 mutons say, and you have something like a plasma hover SHIV to to kill or suppress the 3rd muton.

I'm wondering what class I'll have as the psi warrior in my upcoming final mission...I should probably go with the assault, as I would like to ghost my sniper(s)/heav(y)ies to within striking distance of the head ethereal.

[Run4TheHills321]

Alloy can one shot kill elite muttons, if you're lucky.

Tactical advice...without wasting Ghost (in the final mission I mean. I.e. you might want 1 ghost left to dash into the final room, say), in a good spot you can ghost dash next to or within run and gun distance of whatever you want.

Also, since your one shot kill chance can miss...I use the double shot option...to be sure, to be sure, to be sure.

Having two Assaults with alloy cannons and ghost is a nice option...if you are facing 3 mutons say, and you have something like a plasma hover SHIV to to kill or suppress the 3rd muton.

I'm wondering what class I'll have as the psi warrior in my upcoming final mission...I should probably go with the assault, as I would like to ghost my sniper(s)/heav(y)ies to within striking distance of the head ethereal.

I haven't played it on impossible, but I just don't understand why people even consider the final room a threat. I got a 19 damage crit with my sniper against the boss, and took him down with the second shot... AKA I 1v1'd him. I still had a second sniper and rift, I can't imagine him ever surviving a single turn, considering he has nothing to protect him...

I mean heck, I saved right before i killed him just to experience fighting him... Still not all that hard...

[Akula]

But with Rapid Fire the ME is dead even with the Plasma Rifle.

Assaults are all about being in point-blank range doing maximum damage in a single turn. The skill tree for this class is setup to get them in range to effectively use their primary weapon, or maximumize the damage output from that weapon. With the exception of rapid fire I run down the left side for the defensive skills. Don't forget when not in range of a scatter gun the assault has a pistol on the hip and maybe a grenade to chuck.

On supply barge UFOs late game having Alloy Cannon Assaults on the team can spell the difference between barely having a scratch on that team or suffering the pain of a full squad wipe. With those UFOs things can, and often do, get real ugly real fast. Inside any UFO the assault is going to be in it's element and there is at least one abduction map (the construction yard) where the scatter gun armed assault is going to be more useful than a squad sight sniper.

In short, outside counsel missions where the SCOPE LPR is the best weapon for everyone that can use it. The assault is better off walking up to ET and saying, "Hello!" with buckshot to the face.

[CelticBloodFireDeath]

Nothing about the final mission is threatening on any difficulty once you've gone through it about two times.

As for alloy cannon vs plasma rifle, in impossible, you need the damage and finality of a rapid fire alloy cannon to the face, at times. Elite Mutons are incredibly hard to hit from distance, you really need to get in their face quite a bit, normally with a run and gun, and the last thing you want them to do when you're each flanking one another at the edge of a corner is survive. My squad is usually a sniper, support, two heavies, two assaults, and the assaults have an alloy and a plasma each.

It also spells instant doom for a berserker and can absolutely wreck a sectopod if your heavies are otherwise preoccupied and you can't lace it with HEAT ammo ... or worse yet, they miss. The thing about the alloy cannon is it's rarely ever going to miss, because you're normally going to be face to face with a high percentage rapid fire shot.

[Star428]

Yeah, the entire last mission is a joke. I've ended about 70-80% of my C/I games with a double tap sniper shot to the uber ethereal from out on the balcony before the UE even gets a turn to do something. Most of the other times i give him an alloy cannon blast to the face from a ghosted rapid-fire assault. Ending was a little different on my last game. The UE actually survived to do something but my bullet swarm heavy took him out afterwards from an elevated close range position.

[Star428]

Assaults are all about being in point-blank range doing maximum damage in a single turn. The skill tree for this class is setup to get them in range to effectively use their primary weapon, or maximumize the damage output from that weapon. With the exception of rapid fire I run down the left side for the defensive skills. Don't forget when not in range of a scatter gun the assault has a pistol on the hip and maybe a grenade to chuck.

On supply barge UFOs late game having Alloy Cannon Assaults on the team can spell the difference between barely having a scratch on that team or suffering the pain of a full squad wipe. With those UFOs things can, and often do, get real ugly real fast. Inside any UFO the assault is going to be in it's element and there is at least one abduction map (the construction yard) where the scatter gun armed assault is going to be more useful than a squad sight sniper.

In short, outside counsel missions where the SCOPE LPR is the best weapon for everyone that can use it. The assault is better off walking up to ET and saying, "Hello!" with buckshot to the face.

Agree with almost all of this. Especially the parts about scatter lasers. Most people don't recognize how useful they can be. IMO, all the shotgun variants are extremely useful.

[Traul]

Scatter lasers are good, but they come at a time when you can barely afford them: since they take extra research on top of laser rifles, you probably already have the rifles by that time, and you still need to put your money into heavy/sniper lasers, satellites and better armor. The problem is not: scatter laser or laser rifle? It is: Scatter laser to replace my laser rifle or laser sniper to replace my vanilla sniper rifle? It is all about priorities.

[Run4TheHills321]

Scatter lasers are good, but they come at a time when you can barely afford them: since they take extra research on top of laser rifles, you probably already the rifles by that time, and you still need to put your money into heavy/sniper lasers, satellites and better armor. The problem is not: scatter laser or laser rifle? It is: Scatter laser to replace my laser rifle or laser sniper to replace my vanilla sniper rifle? It is all about priorities.

I agree with that. In my non impossible (because as I said, I have not completed it) experiences, I find that, as far as lasers go, I just buy myself 3-4 of the basic rifles (depending on my squad) and 2 laser snipers (because I almost never run without 2 snipers, they are just too much of a powerhouse after double tap/plasma). Other than that, I rush the plasma tree as quickly as I can, prioritizing the heavy plasma after the rifle, then the sniper.

I might be completely wrong, but I find the laser tree to be a dead end waste of money if you can survive without it. I can’t, so I have to go quite hard into it… only skipping heavy laser. The reason I choose that one to skip is that I find heavies to be way too unreliable to field more than one. I make him rocketeer to make up for my lack of a second rocket launcher, but double assault or double support have both worked out really well due to how well they work with my slow play style. Dense smoke is great on the turns I hunker my whole squad due to lack of good shots, and the assault run ‘n gun is way too good at flanking to not have.

[amanasleep]

I do not understand the value of the Scatter Laser. It only has +1 damage and +10% crit over Laser Rifle, and requires extra research and money to produce. LPR is basically better in every way, provided you take Aggression and Bring 'em On, which I do.

The same thing basically applies to Alloy Cannon vs. Plasma Rifle. You will always get PR's first, which are strictly better than Scatter Lasers. But I never go for Alloy Cannons because by the time you can get them you have Colonel Assaults with Killer Instinct, which makes Alloy Cannons overkill even Impossible Sectopods. The only shotgun weapon I ever use on I/I is the basic shotgun because it has better lethality against Sectoids. After I get Laser Rifles I never look back.

[hroskar]

Personally I run two assaults:
One with a shotgun weapon built with mostly defensive talents from the left-side of the tree (except ofc rapid fire) and usually nanoweave/chitin plating; and another with a rifle weapon, all the aggressive talents of the right-side (including Bring 'Em On) and usually a scope.
Both of them are about equally lethal up-close, but the tanky shotgun type is better able to survive enemy fire if that can't be avoided; while the other can act like a super-mobile sniper great for flanking and killing stuff from a distance when I don't want to risk running to the target's position (for fear of triggering new groups or retaliation from nearby aliens).

Assuming no offensive talents other than rapid fire, the alloy cannon will always kill a full health muton elite or heavy floater up-close if both shots hit (which they should do), while the plasma rifle can potentially fail to do so even with two hits. Two alloy cannon hits are also fairly likely to kill a full-health cyberdisc, while two PR hits will be hard-pressed to do so. A shotgun assault with an alloy cannon and close-combat specialist should also be able to solo-kill a muton berserker by leaving room for the berserker to run into his third CCS shot; with a plasma rifle his hit chance would be slightly lower and the three shots could potentially not do the full 25 damage. I think this all of those are significant cases to take into account.

End of the day, I treat the shotgun-assault and rifle-assault as two slightly different tools, and ideally I want to have both of them and apply each of them appropriately to the situations that come up.

[CitizenKang]

I can understand deciding to stick with rifle weapons for offensively-spec'd assaults as they can kill pretty well without needing the extra fire power of an alloy cannon. But a defensively spec'd assault with an alloy cannon can match the damage of an offensively spec'd assault with a plasma rifle while while getting bonuses to survivability. They make for different but still extremely effective units.

[amanasleep]

I also don't understand the "Defense Spec" assault either. With the notable exception of Lighting Reflexes, which allows you to scout against activated enemies, and Close Combat Specialist, which gives you free shots, the Defense side of the Assault skills tree sounds a lot better than it actually is in practice because Defensive perks help your Assault unit survive, while Offensive perks (which kill aliens faster/more reliably) help your entire squad survive.

This is especially true on I/I where killing every alien in sight before they have a chance to fire is my primary strategy. Therefore I want to maximize lethality while minimizing the number of alien spawns in a turn. For instance:

Tac Sense gives you +5% per enemy to avoid damage, but in I/I you should never allow enemies to take shots at you.
Agression gives you +10% crit chance per enemy, which helps you every time you take a shot, and kills more enemies ensuring that they never get chances to take shots.

Same logic applies to Killer Instinct vs. Resilience, and to a lesser extent Close Combat Specialist vs. Bring 'Em On, except that CCS is very useful against Chryssalids and Berzerkers, which can often rush you from out of sight range. Still, when I run 2 Assaults I try to have 1 CCS and 1 Bring 'Em On because extra crit damage is really good especially with Rapid Fire, and allows an LPR Assault to do tons of damage even when not flanking.

[CitizenKang]

It is a matter of intention vs. execution. If I could somehow know that I will always kill all aliens I encounter before they are able to take a shot at me, the defensive skills in the assault tree would be worthless, as would normal and dense smoke grenades, disabling shot, suppression, covering fire and probably a few more skills I'm forgetting. But given the density of enemy contacts in Impossible (as well as the whole "That's XCOM, baby" thing of 95% shots missing sometimes) I know I won't always be able to kill all aliens before they take a shot at me; a defensive assault at the vanguard of my squad can take alien attention that otherwise might focus on units more easily killed, and with shotgun variants can deal damage equivalent to offensive assaults with rifles.

I'd like to emphasize I'm not talking down offensive assaults; I like to take one along on most missions, and having aggression, bring 'em on, and killer instinct on one with an LPR and a scope is fantastic. But I frequently run with two assaults and I've found having a defensive shotgunner around to be very useful.

[Nosmirc]

Tac Sense gives you +5% per enemy to avoid damage, but in I/I you should never allow enemies to take shots at you.
Agression gives you +10% crit chance per enemy, which helps you every time you take a shot, and kills more enemies ensuring that they never get chances to take shots.

But sometimes, you can't avoid it. You still eventually be shot at in any game, on any difficulty. Saying "Kill them all, and you're safe!" is rather nonsense, because if you are relying on THAT to keep people alive, you're gonna have dead soldiers eventually.

Whereas an Assault with Tac Sense can be made into the most enticing, but still hard to hit target, saving your weaker units from fire.

[amanasleep]

It is true that on I/I you will not always kill all the aliens on your turn. In these cases I prefer to pop smoke, suppress, retreat, etc. The problem with Assault defensive perks is that they only help 1 soldier, while for instance smoke or suppression can boost defense for any soldier or against any alien. I want my assaults to be as lethal as possible at all times. If it wasn't for the issue of triggering more spawns I would be all about shotguns, but since in I/I controlling spawns is paramount I think that rifles and offense perks are much, much safer.

If I want a unit to absorb fire/alien attention or tank for my squad, I can do that much more effectively with Combat Stims. Before that I do it with Hunker Down (yes, even with the spawn bug I use it) and armor that is sufficient to absorb a hit from the most dangerous gun on the map.

edit: My contention is regardless of the RNG, killing more aliens IS safer than defense bonuses. Yes, you will get shot at, but Tac Sense gives you a marginally better chance of survival, while Aggression gives a marginally better chance of killing an alien. But increasing the number of situations where I have a dead alien unable to shoot at me is better than having more situations where aliens shoot at me and surviving those situations more often.

If your soldiers are not getting flanked, a smoke grenade is better than Tac Sense.

[CitizenKang]

...My contention is regardless of the RNG, killing more aliens IS safer than defense bonuses. Yes, you will get shot at, but Tac Sense gives you a marginally better chance of survival, while Aggression gives a marginally better chance of killing an alien. But increasing the number of situations where I have a dead alien unable to shoot at me is better than having more situations where aliens shoot at me and surviving those situations more often...

amanasleep, I agree with this completely. But here's where I think we get to the meat of this thread; a defensive assault with an alloy cannon is just as deadly as an offensive assault with a plasma rifle, AND the unit has the built-in defense. A real issue is triggering more aliens when moving into shotgun range, so I can understand exceedingly careful play styles avoiding the defensive assault so they don't wind up getting their team in more trouble. But in terms of killing aliens dead, a defensive alloy cannon is on par with an offensive plasma rifle.

[amanasleep]

amanasleep, I agree with this completely. But here's where I think we get to the meat of this thread; a defensive assault with an alloy cannon is just as deadly as an offensive assault with a plasma rifle, AND the unit has the built-in defense. A real issue is triggering more aliens when moving into shotgun range, so I can understand exceedingly careful play styles avoiding the defensive assault so they don't wind up getting their team in more trouble. But in terms of killing aliens dead, a defensive alloy cannon is on par with an offensive plasma rifle.

You are correct, with one key exception: The offensive rifle assault has the option of firing from cover or flanking from a distance, whereas the defensive Shotgun Assault MUST close distance with the target to be effective.

In my experience, besides not wanting to trigger more spawns there are many other good reasons for not wanting to close distance with enemies. I find that closing to point blank range to kill an alien when there are 5 aliens in sight, means I kill 1 and now the others have flank shots on the assault, and Tac Sense is not going to save him.

If I have a rifle assault I can take rapid fire scoped LPR shots from indestructible full cover and have a good chance to hit and crit and do extra crit damage, and if there are aliens still alive I can smoke up and pray. But if I have a shotgun assault then my only choices are a risky run and gun or total retreat, which is also risky because overwatch traps are not great on I/I and shotgun assaults are terrible at them.

[Traul]

1) Shotguns are at least as accurate as rifles up to 10 squares away. You do not have to put your assault in danger to use an Alloy Cannon.
2) Aliens use overwatch from the first mission to the last. You already need to defuse overwatches before you can get Lightning Reflexes, and at that time a tactical sense assault is the best thing available.
3) In the late game Agression and Killer instinct become less useful because you can get +100% critical chance from Ghost armor, which is better than both of them together.

[CitizenKang]

...3) In the late game Agression and Killer instinct become less useful because you can get +100% critical chance from Ghost armor, which is better than both of them together.

Aggression and Close & Personal are less useful since can use the +100% bonus to crit from the ghost armor's invisibility mode (although there are only four uses per mission). Killer Instinct and Bring 'Em On are actually more useful, since they don't change your chance to crit, they add damage to crits that you do.

[amanasleep]

1) Shotguns are at least as accurate as rifles up to 10 squares away. You do not have to put your assault in danger to use an Alloy Cannon.
2) Aliens use overwatch from the first mission to the last. You already need to defuse overwatches before you can get Lightning Reflexes, and at that time a tactical sense assault is the best thing available.
3) In the late game Agression and Killer instinct become less useful because you can get +100% critical chance from Ghost armor, which is better than both of them together.

1) True enough, but most combat happens at max sight range. When you trigger enemy spawns they tend to take cover either out of sight range or just inside it. At 14-17 squares shotguns have significant range penalties.

2) Tac Sense is a terrible method of "defusing" overwatches. When I know enemies are overwatching out of sight range I peek corners or maneuver to where I can block LOS.

3) Aggression is less useful in the late game, but very useful in the early and mid game, where you need advantages. Late game even on I/I is basically much easier, so it's less of an issue. As CitizenKang points out Killer Instinct and Bring 'Em On are always useful because they add damage, not crit %.

[Star428]

I also don't understand the "Defense Spec" assault either. With the notable exception of Lighting Reflexes, which allows you to scout against activated enemies, and Close Combat Specialist, which gives you free shots, the Defense side of the Assault skills tree sounds a lot better than it actually is in practice because Defensive perks help your Assault unit survive, while Offensive perks (which kill aliens faster/more reliably) help your entire squad survive.

This is especially true on I/I where killing every alien in sight before they have a chance to fire is my primary strategy. Therefore I want to maximize lethality while minimizing the number of alien spawns in a turn. For instance:

Tac Sense gives you +5% per enemy to avoid damage, but in I/I you should never allow enemies to take shots at you.

Well, i only play on C/I so any advice about what works very well on I/I doesn't mean anything to me. However, even on C/I, i still play by the same rule of trying to minimize how many shots/actions the aliens get at my squad. I value my assaults more than any other class except for SS snipers so i almost always give them 'Tactical Sense'. The few times i've given them 'Aggression' (in over a dozen games, at least) i've ended up regretting it. Oh, and i just find scatter lasers to be more reliable at doing enough damage to kill something than an LPR...You say that offensive perks help keep your entire squad alive which i agree with to an extent but aggression > tactical sense? Not with my playstyle, it isn't and frankly, i've never had a problem lately with keeping my squad alive even though i usually have 2 assaults with 'tactical sense' on my squad. On my last campaign, i had a grand total of ONE soldier death, lol. Was doing my usual thing with assaults. Always giving them 'tac sense' and equipping one of the two on squad with whatever the strongest shotgun variant was that i had available at time. So obviously i'm doing something right. If it ain't broke, why fix it?

[amanasleep]

Well, i only play on C/I so any advice about what works very well on I/I doesn't mean anything to me. However, even on C/I, i still play by the same rule of trying to minimize how many shots/actions the aliens get at my squad. I value my assaults more than any other class except for SS snipers so i almost always give them 'Tactical Sense'. The few times i've given them 'Aggression' (in over a dozen games, at least) i've ended up regretting it. Oh, and i just find scatter lasers to be more reliable at doing enough damage to kill something than an LPR...You say that offensive perks help keep your entire squad alive which i agree with to an extent but aggression > tactical sense? Not with my playstyle, it isn't and frankly, i've never had a problem lately with keeping my squad alive even though i usually have 2 assaults with 'tactical sense' on my squad. On my last campaign, i had a grand total of ONE soldier death, lol. Was doing my usual thing with assaults. Always giving them 'tac sense' and equipping one of the two on squad with whatever the strongest shotgun variant was that i had available at time. So obviously i'm doing something right. If it ain't broke, why fix it?

This result is because your tactical skill in the game is good enough to trivialize the soldier perk progression in C/I. Sounds like you're ready to level up to I/I.

BTW it's unclear to me how anybody can possibly evaluate whether they can regret not having Tac Sense. I mean, if your Assault gets hit, how can you tell the alien didn't roll 100? However, I have definitely regretted not having Aggression when I failed to crit a flanked Thin Man on first Council Mission with my Shotgun when Aggression would have given me 100% crit chance.

[TxBuckeye]

I never used an Alloy Cannon until I read this thread. I now have one Assault running it in my C/I run through. Man, the dude is a beast with that thing. I have it paired with Ghost Armor. I have accidently triggered another group while closing with the enemy. But the Ghost option let me retreat back out of sight. Seriously enjoy the killing power it brings.

[Star428]

This result is because your tactical skill in the game is good enough to trivialize the soldier perk progression in C/I. Sounds like you're ready to level up to I/I.

BTW it's unclear to me how anybody can possibly evaluate whether they can regret not having Tac Sense. I mean, if your Assault gets hit, how can you tell the alien didn't roll 100? However, I have definitely regretted not having Aggression when I failed to crit a flanked Thin Man on first Council Mission with my Shotgun when Aggression would have given me 100% crit chance.

There is, of course, no way to know for sure. What i meant was i regretted not having it because it made me more nervous about using run & gun to flank an alien for fear that i would activate more aliens by doing so and my assault would more easily be killed than if he/she had TS. I guess what i'm trying to say is that not having the psychological assurance that my assault would be relatively safe when doing a flanking maneuver made me unsure of myself and thus altered how i played the game. As i said, i love my assaults and value any kind of extra protection i can give them.

I will only ever do I/I for the trophy and to unlock more SW options. That's it. I don't think i would actually enjoy the kind of play needed to beat I/I. I've still got lots of SW options i can use on C/I before i get tired of it.

[amanasleep]

There is, of course, no way to know for sure. What i meant was i regretted not having it because it made me more nervous about using run & gun to flank an alien for fear that i would activate more aliens by doing so and my assault would more easily be killed than if he/she had TS. I guess what i'm trying to say is that not having the psychological assurance that my assault would be relatively safe when doing a flanking maneuver made me unsure of myself and thus altered how i played the game. As i said, i love my assaults and value any kind of extra protection i can give them.

I will only ever do I/I for the trophy and to unlock more SW options. That's it. I don't think i would actually enjoy the kind of play needed to beat I/I. I've still got lots of SW options i can use on C/I before i get tired of it.

Understood. I think that for whatever reason the Assault class is most likely to produce soldiers that players feel are special, so I understand the need to protect those soldiers for RP reasons, or to make sure that they survive to get the later perk upgrades.

Still, in the situation you describe I wouldn't attempt the flank even in C/I. I would stay in cover and attempt to remove theirs or take potshots from smoke, etc. That is a better way of protecting your assaults than TS.

[Star428]

Well, i usually have some kind of contingency plan anyway in case my assault gets into too much trouble. For example, I usually keep my field medic close enough to the assault so that he can throw smoke on him if needed or suppress a dangerous alien. Lots of times i just do what you suggest. I don't always blindly do a run & gun every chance i get but i like having lots of different kinds of options available.

[Akula]

Yeah, the scatter gun armed assaults are not John J. Rambos and do require the other classes doing their thing so they can do theirs. Supports suppress, toss smoke and heal. Heavies with their rockets (Shredder rocket + Alloy Cannon = dead anything in one turn) and other abilities. Sniper to pick off the more exposed targets that the assault is giving LOS for. Think of the assault, and what it is armed with, less as an individual combatant but rather how it fits in with the rest of the team.

I got really lucky with my current C/I play through. Both of my primary assaults happen to be Psi-Gifted. When they can't get into range for their Alloy Cannons those two chicks are still causing the aliens all kinds of problems with Psi attacks.