Snipers viable still in Xcom 2? Also general strategy talk

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

So I have been playing Xcom 2 furiously on normal. I think Im ready for hard now. But I ended up getting to the point where I was ignoring snipers because most missions involve having to move quickly or get to a set evac point. My snipers either seem to be getting left behind or moving too often to shoot. And the resources I save not buying their new sniper rifles came in handy. If I went the pistol route it would be even more resources wasted buying their pistols and would pistol guys be better than other more naturally mobile guys? I usually ended up doubling up on rangers or grenadiers seemed better most of the time or even during serious missions using both my psi-ops (holy shit psi guys are broken!)

So am I being a noob or what? Sniper guys definitly feel weaker this time. Maybe its good though, they were OP in the old one. (How do I beat 'X' was always answered by sniper with double tap.)

 

[Pseudonym]

Well, there are various missions without timers or at least without having to get to a specific point, grappling suits can add a ton of mobility to catch up with the rest of the squad (the grappling hook now does not cost an action) and snipers can be very useful. Their specific use is their high aim, and abilities to fire multiple times in a single turn. Their aim is decent but because of squad sight you can far more easily get them to get that 20% aim bonus for height difference. As for the multiple shot abilities. When combined with expanded clip size you can get your high level snipers to do overwatchdamage to all members of an indropping squad or to finish off a whole bunch of units in a single turn. Once a sniper turns into a colonel, they become beasts. Weak targets can be killed whilst getting free extra moves and for strong targets late game, your plasma sniper rifles have armour shredding, making the useful to get the first hit on that sectopod.

Because of squad sight they are also less likely to be under fire meaning they are good candidates for early game leveling for your guerilla school upgrades. (you need squadsize asap)

All that said, snipers require a little more thought this time around. Positioning them well is important because you don't want them left behind, this is also where those grappling suits come in. Another trick is to manage your engagements. If you've just beaten a large group of enemies, now is the time to move your sniper forward. If you haven't met anyone yet, you might want to wait with getting them down from that building. I don't think you really need snipers if you don't like them but the same can be said for rangers. Your squad can probaly function well with more of the other classes. I did notice that I used one sniper per mission rather than two like I did in EU. That one sniper got a ton of kills though, especially later in the game. I agree that they are slightly weaker than they used to be but they certainly have their uses.

I also recommend for commander difficulty to ignore psionics alltogether. Having better armour and higher damage is more important than having a fifth unneccesary class.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

Snipers are not the incredibly overpowered class they were in XCOM:EU, and of all the classes they are now the least necessary. I would not field a squad without a specialist, a grenadier, or a ranger, but I would field without a sniper, and I would never field more than 1.

That said, they are still very effective at what they do, and their pistol abilities are incredibly powerful if used correctly. I tend to use their pistol as much if not more than their rifle, because they now need to be constantly relocated to remain relevant, and often the pistol will do enough damage to get the job done that I need them to do. Deadshot in particular is a bad ability, lightning hands is far better. And when you absolutely need to score a point or two of damage there is nothing like a sharpshooter with lightning hands and quick draw, giving them 3 chances to hit. Put bluescreen rounds on a sharpshooter and watch them pistol every mech in sight into the ground.

Second, sharpshooters are extremely underwhelming at actually sniping early on, they need a very high aim to shoot past cover, which they almost always will be since by their nature they cannot flank with their rifle. In addition, all their useful abilities for sniping (like killzone) unlock later on.

Make sure to put your best auto loader and your best scope on the one sniper rifle you are actually using. Snipers also benefit greatly from light armor with grappling hooks because it allows them to relocate without using an action (or at least the third tier armor does, I never made a second tier light armor.)

Basically, if you used them like you did in EU they are going to under perform to the point you should just probably field something else entirely. But they can be absolute murder machines if used right.

That all said, there might be merit in just ignoring the class completely and using those resources elsewhere.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Have to generally agree with the above.

ONE Sniper, high levelled and properly positioned can be very, very good. Lightning Hands is one of my favourite abilities in the entire game. However that's it...more than that is pointless and I can't think of a single mission where I've said "I wish I had another Sniper here". Also early on they're pretty damn useless because so many early missions have timers which means you'll basically never get to use them to their full potential.

The timers tend to slack off a bit later on I've found. Which makes them significantly better.


In contrast you literally ALWAYS want a Grenadier and probably always want a medic-specced Specialist. Rangers can be incredibly useful shock troops and psionics require a lot of training to make them viable, but once you've unlocked about half their abilities they're basically gods. Which simply doesn't leave space for more than one Sniper.

That being said...typically I'll take a Sniper, Grenadier and Medic-Specialist. Then add to that a mix of anything other than more Snipers. I've fallen into a rather comfortable pattern lately for 'serious' missions of taking Sniper/Grenadier/Specialist/Ranger/Psionic/Psionic which I've not had any real difficulties with in a while.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

Ermmm... Somewhat. Assuming that you got your sniper to your max level + scope + Accuracy PCM + some kind of accuracy/damage buffing experimental rounds. They are killing machines.
Their second last skill is Uber overwatch, and their last skill allows you to shoot with no cost as long as you kill the target.(insane if you think about it)

In the early game they suck, A lot. Accuracy sucks, can't hit ANYthing more than 20 feets away and within less than 5 feets. can't reload and fire, can't move and fire, slow as molasses. But they are worth it at the end.

I replaced rangers and grenadiers(W.A.R suits for everyone!) into psi ops by the end though. Who thought giving class a CC, another CC, permanent mind control, AoE with chance of CC and a armor-and-obstacle-ignoring-Death ray was a good idea of balancing?

 

[Don Incognito]

Gunslinger snipers can be very, VERY powerful. They have an ability to fire at every enemy in range; another to fire three shots at single target. Combine that one with lightning hands, and their ability to fire a normal shot without ending their turn, and they can potentially fire five pistol shots at a single target.

Give them, say, bluescreen rounds? So long, sectoids.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Snipers are still useful, but they're not as OP as they were in the last game, where they were basically the Angel of Death with a rifle.

The Rifle side of the tree is massively weakened and is thus only "pretty decent" up until you hit Colonel and get the Serial ability (especially if you slap a Superior Auto-Loader onto the rifle). You set that up right and with some softening up and Grenading work, you can set your sniper up for up to 9 consecutive kills in one turn.

On the second run that I'm doing, I'm going the Gunslinger route and I find it a LOT more useful. You still have the Rifle for those "clutch" high damage long-range shots that absolutely need to land, but you can also finish off weaker enemies with Faceoff, and in general take a ton of extra shots with the pistol (preferably loaded with useful Ammo). It's superior to the rifle path in general, but still not Enemy Unknown levels of broken.

...Still, my favourite class is the Grenadier. I usually take (no joke) THREE on each mission, and at least one of them is in an EXO suit with a rocket strapped to their arm. Explosives are just so useful. They shred armor, you can slap on special nades that poison or ruin armor, or EMP things, or disorient, and they're good at weakening mobs of enemies, AND they take out cover, allowing your other soldiers to get nice and easy shots.

Oh, and it has to be said, Stealth Ranger is the way to go. Sometimes my Ranger never even fires a shot all mission, because he's so busy staying in concealment to be a Spotter for everyone else so I can continually set up long-range ambushes.

I really love the game. ^_^

 

[Zhukov]

I've found them to be, if anything, more godly than they were in EU/EW.

My sniper has the most kills of my entire roster and was the first to hit max rank.

Granted, they're not as accurate at long range due to the squadsight nerf, but their late game abilities are ridiculous. Killzone gives lets to designate a cone and your sniper takes a squadsight covering fire (ie will shoot upon enemy action, not just movement) shot at anything in the cone. You can Killzone on an unaltered enemy pod, fire on them with someone else and your sniper will get a shot at each of them as they scatter, then another shot at any of them who move in the cone on their turn.

Serial lets you keep taking rifle shots so long as you kill your target each time and you still have ammo. Combine this with a grenadier to remove cover along with ammo capacity and free reload upgrades on your sniper rifle and you can potentially kill 12 enemies in a single round. My record is 7.

Gunslinger sharpshooters are less useful. Once enemies start showing up with a ton of armour they become pretty impotent due to their focus on taking many low damage shots. As far as I can tell their main strength is the fact that they combine well with special ammo types. Each shot they take will get the ammo effect, so if you can bring the right kind then they can do some work.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Snipers are still useful, but they're not as OP as they were in the last game, where they were basically the Angel of Death with a rifle.

The Rifle side of the tree is massively weakened and is thus only "pretty decent" up until you hit Colonel and get the Serial ability (especially if you slap a Superior Auto-Loader onto the rifle). You set that up right and with some softening up and Grenading work, you can set your sniper up for up to 9 consecutive kills in one turn.

On the second run that I'm doing, I'm going the Gunslinger route and I find it a LOT more useful. You still have the Rifle for those "clutch" high damage long-range shots that absolutely need to land, but you can also finish off weaker enemies with Faceoff, and in general take a ton of extra shots with the pistol (preferably loaded with useful Ammo). It's superior to the rifle path in general, but still not Enemy Unknown levels of broken.

...Still, my favourite class is the Grenadier. I usually take (no joke) THREE on each mission, and at least one of them is in an EXO suit with a rocket strapped to their arm. Explosives are just so useful. They shred armor, you can slap on special nades that poison or ruin armor, or EMP things, or disorient, and they're good at weakening mobs of enemies, AND they take out cover, allowing your other soldiers to get nice and easy shots.

Oh, and it has to be said, Stealth Ranger is the way to go. Sometimes my Ranger never even fires a shot all mission, because he's so busy staying in concealment to be a Spotter for everyone else so I can continually set up long-range ambushes.

I really love the game. ^_^

Im finding Stealth rangers super useful for Terror missions. Seems good to have a quiet one gathering up citizens whilst your main guys fight the baddies(fingers crossed no shapeshifters ). Or if I feel pressured I can slip the stealth guy around whatever group I am fighting to aggro the guys in the back still killing civs. Since aggroing usually seems to distract them from killing civs. Then I just run for it with the ranger or stealth again, super risky but its helped, and I might even get lucky early on and find a weak group of advent troops my guy can hold out against.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

So I have been playing Xcom 2 furiously on normal. I think Im ready for hard now. But I ended up getting to the point where I was ignoring snipers because most missions involve having to move quickly or get to a set evac point. My snipers either seem to be getting left behind or moving too often to shoot. And the resources I save not buying their new sniper rifles came in handy. If I went the pistol route it would be even more resources wasted buying their pistols and would pistol guys be better than other more naturally mobile guys? I usually ended up doubling up on rangers or grenadiers seemed better most of the time or even during serious missions using both my psi-ops (holy shit psi guys are broken!)

So am I being a noob or what? Sniper guys definitly feel weaker this time. Maybe its good though, they were OP in the old one. (How do I beat 'X' was always answered by sniper with double tap.)

Long Range Snipers are easily the 2nd most OP class in the game, overshadowed only by Salvo Grenadiers. Spider/Wraith armor mitigates any mobility issues, and they're perfectly designed to mop up what your grenadiers set up. I generally bring one, but two isn't wasted. More than two would be overkill and rob you of a better option.

In both campaigns my Sniper ran away with the kill lead...~120 in campaign one, ~200 in campaign two (with +1 enemies per pod). As I grew more experienced with the game, my Sniper became a more dominant entity in my team composition. Not sure how many fights opened up with 4-6 enemies down in a single sniper turn. He finished some missions with double digit kills.

Gunslingers have their uses but they're outshone badly by their longer range cousins. I usually make one for variety's sake, but I've virtually never had a moment where I would have preferred the gunslinger to the sniper.

Rangers are generally good for scouting, and have some mop-up capacity. Can be nice when you need a lot of damage on a dangerous target, but dodge stands a high chance of screwing that up, and then your Ranger is out in the wind without an untouchable proc.

Specialists are there to hack Sectopods and look pretty.

Im finding Stealth rangers super useful for Terror missions. Seems good to have a quiet one gathering up citizens whilst your main guys fight the baddies(fingers crossed no shapeshifters ). Or if I feel pressured I can slip the stealth guy around whatever group I am fighting to aggro the guys in the back still killing civs. Since aggroing usually seems to distract them from killing civs. Then I just run for it with the ranger or stealth again, super risky but its helped, and I might even get lucky early on and find a weak group of advent troops my guy can hold out against.

Stealth Rangers are super useful all the time, and almost essential on 90% of missions. You use them to set up crazy killzone/salvo/serial traps. Many missions go by where my Ranger never comes out of stealth.

It's good to have one Bladestorm Ranger for Chrysalid popping duty, but the rest should all climb the scouting tree.

 

[pookie101]

the only time i dont find snipers useful is the terror missions, the battles are to fast and you need people who can work well in close combat.

as for the rest of the battles i always take a snipe. having them provide high cover half way across the map in an installation raid is a good feeling

 

[monkeymangler]

Snipers aren't gods anymore. That status is easily in the hands of PsiOps. A PsiOps with Void Lance, Rift, Dominate, Soul Steal, and Stasis can effectively solo most missions.

Pistoliers are much better, though I like having a squadsight sniper for raid missions. Give him a boosted movement PCS and he can catch up with the team rather quickly. Good on open missions and hilarious in cityscapes.

 

[DoPo]

Snipers are super useful and don't even need that much positioning. Plop them on a high spot which overlooks your path to the objective and they get to do work. Sure, it's not always possible, but using the grappling hook they are basically Spiderman. Actually better - Spiderman with a sniper rifle. First turn you should aim to get them on a roof - move, grapple hook, move - they make convenient lookouts for enemy pods there as well. By the time they need to move, the grapple hook is usually off cooldown so they don't really get to lose that many shots while they get to a new vantage point.

With their really high aim and the height advantage and (later on) Steady Hands, they pretty much have a guaranteed hit on most mobs. I also gave my sniper the Perception PCS and a scope - it means she gets to shoot even further away and not miss.

Kill Zone is terrifyingly effective. You DEFINITELY want to run the best expanded magazine on your sniper just for KZ. Autoloader also helps but it's not mandatory - I found just using Death From Above was enough to get a reload when needed (the sniper doesn't really have much else to do with the extra action, anyway). But back to KZ - lay it down for an ambush and you shoot the entire pod as they scamper when you spook them. Then you might get an extra shot if they pass through the zone again - given that you are setting up the ambush yourself, it's often easy to position your soldiers such as that the enemy needs to take a sniper shot if they want to attack you.

Good ammo to put on the snipers are bluescreen (bye, bye Codexes) and later on armour piercing (just kill everything without needing to shred their armour).

Admittedly, sometimes the snipers aren't that good. Depends on the mission layout and you don't really have that beforehand. On blacksite operations it's almost guaranteed you can put them in one place and not need to move them until extraction time but on other missions it's not so sure a bet.

As for gunslingers, they are really good as well. They can solo sectopods...well, assuming you shred some of their armour. But put bluescreen rounds on them and they rule against robots. And, hey, you know what else takes bonus damage from that ammo? Codexes. Doesn't really matter if you face one or three - just use your other soldier to hit them each, so they clone. There are now twice as much lower HP codexes there. Good - Face Off and they all die. Seriously, there is a special kind of satisfaction to have one of your people shoot six others dead in one turn.

Oh, but it doesn't stop there. See, gunslingers manage to have the absolute highest amound of shots they can take of all soldiers - Lightning Hands gives them a free pistol shot - they can use that and are left with two actions. Then there is Quick Draw - this allows them to use the first action for a pistol shot and then still have the second action. If that's another pistol shot, you get three so far. However, there are the other abilities - Face Off shoots once at each visible enemy - so far you have 2 shots + visible enemies. Finally, there is Fan Fire, which shoots three times at the same person. So you could go for a total of 5 shots at the same guy or a distributed 2 + visible enemies (for example, you could weaken one or two enemies to be within execution range and just off them while hitting a bunch of others). However, there is something else - Quick Draw does NOT mandate that you use it with only a plain shot: you can very happily sring together Lightning Hands + Fan Fire + Face Off all in the same turn. That amounts to, roughly, a fuckton of shooting.

I just love how versatile Face Off is - around mid game when you get the special ammo types, you can equip them with poison or fire ammo and just have them ruin the enemies' day. Fire would be my favourite, since burning enemies also cannot use abilities - lancers become pathetic and so on. Moreover, since the enemies also take the DoT tick, you can kill way more people now if they were previously just outside of your damage range. Also - igniting entire pods - it's not the privilege of only grenadiers any more.

Overall, I'm really fond of sharpshooters. I agree that they can be cut out from the squad but that's true for almost any class. I'd sooner replace my specialist than a sharpshooter. With that said, it was a bit sad that on the final mission my sniper wasn't as useful as I thought she would be - my gunslinger obliterated a bunch of codexes and stuff that came out of the woodwork, so that was cool.

 

[happyninja42]

I love my snipers, and regularly run with 2 of them in my 6 man squad.

Yes on timed evac missions, you have to be mindful of moving them up early so they don't get left behind, but aside from that, they are a vital asset to any squad in my opinion.

I've never had any issues with them specifically when it comes to the timers, other than the above mentioned timed evacs, but aside from those, it's very easy to keep them moving up with the rest of the team as you head for whatever objective you have. In fact, the spider suits help make it even easier to move them around. They effectively get 3 movements if you are simply moving into position, which makes it very easy to get them into position for a sniper's nest.

Since it usually takes 3-5 turns to get into an effective location to actually assault whatever objective you've got (hack terminal, exploding supplies, whatever), it's not that hard to get your snipers in position by round 3-4, and then let the rest of the team breach and assault the target. And if it's a hacking target, and you have a support class with a gremlin, you don't even need to get that close. So the timer usually isn't that big of a deal in my experience.

Hell, just last night, I had what was probably going to be a total wipe, but I turned it into a route thanks to my 2 snipers. We assaulted a power node, that we had 8 turns to destroy. Due to it's location, I was able to bypass the squads and just rush to the nearby rooftop, overlooking the target. I had everyone arrayed on the roof, ready to blast. My grenadier lobbed a grenade into the wall, exposing it for everyone else, and my ranger and support class (i keep forgetting their name for some reason), blasted it.

And then things went ugly. I had 3 pods react at once. Two of them were patrols that ran in once we broke concealment, and the next was a drop pod of reinforcements. So I had 9 (NINE) enemies all active at once. Buuuut, I had 2 snipers in precise positions. I had my pistolier sniper, use the "Shoot everyone in sight 1 time each" power. Now keep in mind, this is late game, so I'm running into Archons, Advent Shieldbearers, Lancers, and the MEC units as well. Not an easy mix of baddies. But my sniper soften them all up, missing only 1 guy in her volley, and then I activated Serial Killer with my other sniper, and started aiming for the weaker targets. I'd upgraded his rifle to have 5 rounds, instead of just 3, and he dropped all 5 targets he shot at. Then, my grenadier/ranger/support guys cleaned up the others (it was the next round by this point), with very little in the way of damage done to me. Then we still had another pod that hadn't triggered yet to deal with, and they were little threat.

So yeah, I'd say that snipers are damn useful if utilized correctly. Sure at first, they aren't useful as you are moving them quickly with the team, but if you take a few moments to consider a good vantage point for them, and move them there while everyone else moves to their positions, it's really not hard to get your money's worth out of them.

I love my snipers, and will use the shit out of them on every mission xD

 

[happyninja42]

Im finding Stealth rangers super useful for Terror missions. Seems good to have a quiet one gathering up citizens whilst your main guys fight the baddies(fingers crossed no shapeshifters ). Or if I feel pressured I can slip the stealth guy around whatever group I am fighting to aggro the guys in the back still killing civs. Since aggroing usually seems to distract them from killing civs. Then I just run for it with the ranger or stealth again, super risky but its helped, and I might even get lucky early on and find a weak group of advent troops my guy can hold out against.

....I never even thought to try that shit! Holy fuckballs, that totally reworks my Terror mission approach! *facepalm* Hell even if you pop a shapeshifter (which by the way, does that break your Rangers concealment?), if you have the talent to re-conceal yourself, you can run away and pop it and keep looking for civvies.

Stealth Rangers are super useful all the time, and almost essential on 90% of missions. You use them to set up crazy killzone/salvo/serial traps. Many missions go by where my Ranger never comes out of stealth.

Oooh, I never thought of that either, using them to intentionally trigger pods for ambushes. Can you elaborate on this strategy a bit more please? Because I'm having trouble seeing how it's doable, considering the detection ranges the enemies have, it seems like they would be spotted fairly easily, thus breaking their stealth. I've been trying to figure out a way to do a full stealth team, and have it be a viable strategy (mostly because I just love stealth, and find the challenge interesting), and would like some input on it. I had a theory, that having all Rangers, who won't break stealth if someone else does, could be useful, you could have them each break concealment one at a time for some ambush strike, and then re-conceal later to re-position and strike again. But considering the squads stop moving in a way where they cover both flanks, it's nearly impossible to sneak up on them and do a hidden strike with melee. Any tips?

 

[The_Darkness]

If you don't have a timer, snipers are still practically OP. In combination with a phantom Ranger, you can use them to set up as many over-watch ambushes as you like. Just have your ranger providing eyes on the enemy pod, have most of your squad on overwatch *just* outside the LOS of the enemy pod, and have your sniper at a decent range on long-watch.

Enemy turn starts around, enemy pod moves, sniper takes a shot, enemy pod activates and runs toward you... right into the waiting overwatches of the rest of your squad. And then it's your turn

If you do have a timer - consider taking snipers on missions where you don't need to evac. They can be very useful on Guerrila Ops since it doesn't matter if they get left behind somewhere with a height advantage and a good view.

However, on Council Missions you ALWAYS need to evac. A squadsight sniper can't really be left on a high ground perch in this context. So yeah, for Council VIP missions, consider leaving the sniper behind, and bring an extra grenadier or ranger to blitz through the enemy pods that little bit faster.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Oooh, I never thought of that either, using them to intentionally trigger pods for ambushes. Can you elaborate on this strategy a bit more please? Because I'm having trouble seeing how it's doable, considering the detection ranges the enemies have, it seems like they would be spotted fairly easily, thus breaking their stealth. I've been trying to figure out a way to do a full stealth team, and have it be a viable strategy (mostly because I just love stealth, and find the challenge interesting), and would like some input on it. I had a theory, that having all Rangers, who won't break stealth if someone else does, could be useful, you could have them each break concealment one at a time for some ambush strike, and then re-conceal later to re-position and strike again. But considering the squads stop moving in a way where they cover both flanks, it's nearly impossible to sneak up on them and do a hidden strike with melee. Any tips?

You move aggressively forward with your scout, and roll the team up behind them. Sniper takes high ground or the best available location for sniping (there's almost always high ground). The Hunker-gives-aim ability is a great one to take, so they can be setting up while the team rolls forward. Once enemies are spotted, have your Ranger take cover away from the fight, and do one of two things:

1. Have Sniper set killzone, open with a grenade.
2. Open with a grenade, have Sniper mop up with Serial.

At the end of this, all enemies should be dead and your Ranger should still be in concealment. If there's a worrisome enemy you cannot kill through these methods (you still have the whole rest of your team available for salvo, shredder, hacking, etc) then you can drop a Mimic and repeat the next turn.

Should be pretty easy to roll missions and come under ZERO enemy fire this way.

 

[Lucane]

Snipers never get to a point where the base rifle can kill most things on it's own, but with Dragon rounds or Bluescreen they can just about murder anything they hit or Dragon rounds kill next turn. What I tend to do is almost always Bring one sniper it's fairly easy to have them keep up either them behind your group ground level or if a building nearby is overlooking your current path take the perch. I tend to start my Sharpshooters on Gunslinger and switch over after a few ranks because you can't guarantee high-ground early on and not wanting to be a man/woman down during a fire-fight. And like others have said Aim boosts and either the Auto-Loader or Magazine Expansion on a Sharpshooter Officer is a beautiful thing when the cover is gone or it's a Mech or Melee class alien since those two types can't take cover.

 

[happyninja42]

Oooh, I never thought of that either, using them to intentionally trigger pods for ambushes. Can you elaborate on this strategy a bit more please? Because I'm having trouble seeing how it's doable, considering the detection ranges the enemies have, it seems like they would be spotted fairly easily, thus breaking their stealth. I've been trying to figure out a way to do a full stealth team, and have it be a viable strategy (mostly because I just love stealth, and find the challenge interesting), and would like some input on it. I had a theory, that having all Rangers, who won't break stealth if someone else does, could be useful, you could have them each break concealment one at a time for some ambush strike, and then re-conceal later to re-position and strike again. But considering the squads stop moving in a way where they cover both flanks, it's nearly impossible to sneak up on them and do a hidden strike with melee. Any tips?

You move aggressively forward with your scout, and roll the team up behind them. Sniper takes high ground or the best available location for sniping (there's almost always high ground). The Hunker-gives-aim ability is a great one to take, so they can be setting up while the team rolls forward. Once enemies are spotted, have your Ranger take cover away from the fight, and do one of two things:

1. Have Sniper set killzone, open with a grenade.
2. Open with a grenade, have Sniper mop up with Serial.

At the end of this, all enemies should be dead and your Ranger should still be in concealment. If there's a worrisome enemy you cannot kill through these methods (you still have the whole rest of your team available for salvo, shredder, hacking, etc) then you can drop a Mimic and repeat the next turn.

Should be pretty easy to roll missions and come under ZERO enemy fire this way.

Ah, that's pretty much what I do anyway, just minus the "intentionally using the ranger as scout". Usually my sniper is the first to spot roaming pods, as I put him at elevation. My usual tactic is Kill Zone the sniper, and have everyone else on Overwatch, except for one person, who pops the pod with a blaster shot (i usually don't roll with grenades much, usually rock augmented ammo and a nano-vest), and then I watch all the overwatch trigger and fry the scrabbling enemies. Overwatch is the primary aspect of most of my tactics, and it's worked just fine for XCOM EU/EW, and XCOM 2. I don't come under zero enemy fire with this method, but the fights almost always go my way with minimal injury. Though I usually run 2 specialists with the medic tree, and upgraded medikits so I've got like 40 hp worth of healing to toss around as needed. I usually end up with 1-2 people gravely injured, but they're usually rangers or specialists, and i've got spares of those to fill the ranks while they heal.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Ah, that's pretty much what I do anyway, just minus the "intentionally using the ranger as scout". Usually my sniper is the first to spot roaming pods, as I put him at elevation. My usual tactic is Kill Zone the sniper, and have everyone else on Overwatch, except for one person, who pops the pod with a blaster shot (i usually don't roll with grenades much, usually rock augmented ammo and a nano-vest), and then I watch all the overwatch trigger and fry the scrabbling enemies. Overwatch is the primary aspect of most of my tactics, and it's worked just fine for XCOM EU/EW, and XCOM 2. I don't come under zero enemy fire with this method, but the fights almost always go my way with minimal injury. Though I usually run 2 specialists with the medic tree, and upgraded medikits so I've got like 40 hp worth of healing to toss around as needed. I usually end up with 1-2 people gravely injured, but they're usually rangers or specialists, and i've got spares of those to fill the ranks while they heal.

While units on OW have no accuracy penalty in concealment, they do out of concealment, and it's quite steep (-30% I believe). OW traps are the best way to handle early encounters when you have literally no other tools. Once you have a few tools, using OW outside of Kill Zone or the very rare super-OW specialist is kind of meh. You're just taking a lot of low accuracy shots and surrendering CONTROL to do it. CONTROL is the most important element of any battle. Can't use grenades on OW. Can't set up high crit flanks on OW. Can't hack or mind control on OW. Can't flash bang or drop a mimic beacon. Can't use combat protocol for assured damage. Can't strip cover to optimize a shot. In almost all situations past the very early game, taking overwatch shots is one of your worst available options. The only reason Kill Zone is so good is that it fires on everyone and Snipers with aim PCS, scopes, hunker, etc usually have such ridiculously high accuracy they don't miss.

Medics can be nice, and I recommend having one medic, but generally speaking the other tree is vastly superior. The ideal XCOM team is proactive, not reactive, and the RNG injury timers make even slight grazes potentially devastating, particularly early in the campaign, so you're always working to end missions woundless, making half of your medic's skill set redundant. Arguably the worst/most situational of the eight "classes", tied with blade Rangers. Gun-focused Grenadiers could be down there too, what with their propensity for setting themselves on fire and the opportunity cost inflicted by not just going for an explosives build.