This is a continuation of my post on Early Game Tactics, which covered basic tactics and the enemies faced in the first few months of the campaign. In this guide I want to discuss tactics in the mid to late game, and all the remaining enemies. I am going to leave out the Alien Rulers and the Chosen which I will discuss in a separate post.
During this phase of the campaign, combat becomes more about control. There will be more abilities that control enemies, and more need of controlling enemies because they will be tougher, more dangerous, and more numerous. Some examples of this are the Berserker which has 30 HP (Legendary), the Spectre which can Shadowbind any of your soldiers, and the Troop Ambush missions, which often have around 20 enemies on the map. While the best method of control - just killing them - is still effective, it is more difficult now, and so focusing on the other ways to neutralize enemies, of which there are many, makes a lot of sense.
Common Methods of Control
I am going to list the most common ways that you can control enemies, sorting them roughly by when they become available. For simplicity, I am going to leave out a bunch of things: XCOM row abilities that provide control, and the less reliable control from sources such as the Arc Blades.
On Day 1:
Disorient w/ Flashbang
Suppression
Hack
Stun w/ Arc Thrower
Burn w/ Flamethrower
At the jump, there are not very many ways to control advent, and they are not very effective. Only 4 classes have innate control (Gunner, Assault, Specialist, and Technical) and all of them have significant limitations. The Gunner offers only soft control. The Specialist and Assault will often have mediocre odds of landing the stun. The Technical has the best method of control, but the Flamethrower can only hit nearby targets, and they are not guaranteed to burn.
Every other soldier can only control enemies with Flashbangs, only offering soft control unless paired with Suppression.
~April-July:
Combatives
Burn w/ Incendiary Grenade
Freeze w/ Frost Grenade
Panic w/ Insanity
A few months into the campaign, and 3 soldier classes gain solid methods of control. Shinobis acquire Combatives; Grenadiers will (hopefully) get Incendiary/Frost grenades; and Psi Operators arrive with the Insanity ability. The most significant upgrade is to grenades. With either an Incendiary or Frost grenade, a Grenadier (or perhaps Skirmisher) will become the best class at controlling enemies from a distance. Combatives and Insanity are also really strong, but Combatives is very situational, and Insanity is less reliable.
Existing methods of control become more effective as well. With the Stun Gunner ability at SGT rank, Assaults will most likely hit their stun, and the Technical can get Napalm-X, to improve the Flamethrower. Hacking improves the most. The Specialist’s Hack skill increases, they obtain a Gremlin MkII and perhaps also a skulljack, and they are aided by Bluescreen Bombs or Redscreen Rounds. With all these bonuses, the odds of successfully stunning enemies will reach 100%; more significantly, the option to take control of mechanical enemies becomes viable, and that will not only remove one threat, but diminish the threat of other enemies because advent will often prioritize targeting their turncoats.
Maybe 75% of the soldiers in your barracks should possess some form of control by the summer; and overall these abilities should be more reliable.
~August-October:
Stasis
Domination
See AlsoLong War of the ChosenStun w/ Sting Grenades
Burn with Dragon Rounds
Disabling Shot
Full Override
Chain Lightning
As we approach the end game, a lot of very powerful control abilities become available, and they are concentrated in three classes: The Psi Operative, Grenadier, and Assault. These classes are the kings of control, provided that you build them for that purpose. With all three of these soldiers in your squad it becomes easy to neutralize every normal enemy in most encounters.
In addition to Insanity, the Psi Operative should eventually have two of the most powerful control abilities: Stasis, and Domination. This will enable the PsiOp to completely neutralize any normal enemy, and permanently mind control one low will enemy. The opportunity to recruit a pet Archon, or other meat puppet, is what makes the PsiOp so strong. Again, advent prefers to target their turncoats, thus reducing the threat to your squad.
By contrast the Grenadier has less reliable control, but can hit multiple targets. Late game Grenadiers should have 4 or more charges of Incendiary/Sting, and a large target radius that will hit 3+ enemies on most turns. Against a large number of enemies (12+), the control focused Grenadier is one of the most valuable soldiers in the game. For example during a recent Chosen Avenger Defense, my grenadier dropped a Sting Grenade on a MEC3, an Advent General, and 3 other units, then later in the mission dropped a Sting Grenade on a Sectopod, a Hive Queen, and 2 Muton Elites. Sting Grenades are really strong on these missions.
The Assault’s control abilities are limited to Stun effects, but this class is also quite good at just killing stuff. Assaults are not great at control until obtaining an Arc Blaster and Chain Lightning at MSGT rank - then they are incredible at control. Chain Lightning can trivialize many encounters.
The Sharpshooter primarily controls enemies by just killing them, but Disabling Shot is very useful against Sectopods and other tough enemies.
Full Override gives the Specialist a chance to leash a mechanical enemy for the entire mission. This is quite strong, but not as reliable as Domination.
Boss Killer
Control is not everything. Your squad will need at least one serious shooter, preferably with Shredder/Bluescreen Rounds to kill boss enemies. Just killing stuff remains the best form of control, and the toughest enemies will often have substantial armor, while also being difficult to control by other means (I am thinking about Sectopods in particular). In an effective squad, the killers will keep pace with the controllers, creating a happy balance of fire and blood.
Tanking as a Form of Control
The best tanks are mind controlled enemies, but sometimes there are no good targets for Hack or Domination, and sometimes you don’t even have access to those abilities. In those situations, you may benefit from having a soldier who can perform this role for your squad. There are only a few soldier builds that can tank effectively; none better than the Templar. The Spark can also do the job, though not as well.
It is also possible to use Mind Merge, Untouchable, Combat Awareness, Aid Protocol, Overdrive Serum, Null Ward, or some combination thereof to create an ad hoc tank from some other class, but most soldiers will still want or need to be in cover, whereas the Spark has innate 30 defense when standing out in the open, which the AI perceives as uncovered, and will target preferentially. Templars can acquire sufficient ablative and damage reduction to make standing out in the open desirable.
Tactics for Specific Enemies:
The enemies that appear early in the campaign are discussed in my post on Early Game Tactics. Below are all the enemies that show up later in the campaign.
Advent Soldiers: Advent soldiers get tougher and more dangerous in the mid-late game, but are susceptible to the same methods of control as their lower tier counterparts; with exception of tier 2 and 3 Priests (immune to stun), and all Purifiers (immune to fire). Keep in mind that Vanguards have CCS and Elite Gunners can shoot twice.Priest: You want to overkill priests; the more damage dealt above their HP the less the chance they are kept alive in Stasis. Fire is great against Priests; often the best way to control them. Advanced Priests have immunity to mental status effects, and Elite Priests project a field of mental status immunity, which shields their allies. Your Assault will still be allowed to target Advanced/Elite Priests with the Arc Thrower, but it won't do anything. Do not move your pet Archon close to Elite Priests. Berserker: It is usually easy to ignore a Berserker for a turn while killing other enemies. Stun and Combatives are the best ways to safely manage a Berserker. Disorient also works well if the Berserker is not too close or enraged.Chryssalid: Burrowed Chryssalids do not attack when triggered, but will reveal your scout. They can double move and attack on their turn so long as they are not burning. The burning status will not stop them from using melee attacks when adjacent, so they will be able to attack when burning, if they can use their first action to move adjacent to a target. Lids can be easily controlled with either stun or Combatives.Codex: A stunned/disoriented codex will not clone/teleport when it is damaged. However the stun effect will not actually cause them to lose a turn. Codices are hard to control because of their immunity to stun and fire. Killing them is best done with Rapid Fire. Alternatively, they can be ignored for a turn, in which case they will likely cast psi bomb. They take damage as mechanicals.Spectre: These enemies are very dangerous because of their Shadowbind ability, which KO's one of your soldiers and creates another enemy. The best way to counter this attack is to prevent it from happening in the first place by either killing or stunning the Spectre. Disorient is a good second best option as it will disable the Shadowbind ability. If it is not possible to control the Spectre, it is best to keep your soldiers closer together. An Assault or Shinobi that has charged forward will be an easy target for Shadowbind, and the Spectre can retreat further away from the rest of your squad. Spectres take damage as mechanicals and are immune to fire; strangely they are still susceptible to stun.Archon: Insanity and Domination are easy ways to counter this low will enemy. Just remember that panic does not prevent CCS. Stun is great against Archons; also Combatives if the Archon is enraged or burning.Andromedon: These are dangerous enemies because of their acid grenades. They are immune to fire, but can be controlled with Stun and Combatives. Destroying their cover also works well.Stasis, Frost Grenade, and Disabling Shot:All normal enemies (everything listed above) can be easily controlled with Stasis, Frost Grenade, and Disabling Shot. Stasis will not work on oversized enemies (those listed below). The Frost Grenade will only remove a single action on oversized enemies. Disabling Shot is noteworthy for controlling oversized enemies.Sectopod: The hardest oversized enemy, Sectopods can only be controlled by Disabling Shot, Sting/EMP Grenades, and Hacking. Sting Grenades only have a 50% chance of stunning, and hacking will also have a coin flip chance of shutting them down. Disabling Shot is clearly the best option. Killing a Sectopod in a single turn is very difficult. Even if you can disable the Sectopod it is a good idea to bring a boss killer (multi-shot with Shred, preferably Bluescreen rounds as well) on every mission where a Sectopod might appear.Hive Queen: The easiest of the oversized boss enemies, Hive Queens can be controlled with stun and Combatives, and are the easiest to kill. As with ordinary Chryssalids, fire will not prevent the Hive Queen from using her melee attack.Gatekeeper: These guys are almost as easy to control as Hive Queens; they can be stunned, and they have a melee attack but are not guaranteed to use it, so Combatives may work, and it may not. When their shell is closed they take reduced damage and have 40 Defense, making them very resilient. They take damage as mechanicals.
Testing Abilities and Class Builds
It’s very helpful to test abilities and/or builds before you select them. You don’t want to try out a new build, and find out months into your campaign, that it was a bad choice. Instead, I would suggest that you try out new builds in advance, by using old saves, and console commands.
First you should load up an old save file with a retaliation mission pending. This is important because scanning into the future can reveal important information about upcoming events/missions, which is kind of cheating, and that may prevent you from enjoying the rest of the campaign. It also a lot quicker to just load up an old save with a retaliation pending.
Then you can use the console command “RespecSelectedSoldier” to instantly respec your soldiers. If the soldier you want to test has not reached the required rank, then you can level up your barracks using the “LevelUpBarracks” command. And there you go.
Unfortunately this will not work for Officer/Psi abilities.
