17 Long War of the Chosen LWOTC Guide to Squad composition and Equipment

[@rustinatchison3146]

I might of missed it, did you cover the hero classes? That was epic stuff from you. I would be interested in you going down a list of EVERY item (what are your opinions on acid grenades, tactic armor, etc..) How imperative is the psi whip for the psi soldier? Speaking of psi, will you do a guide on this class as well? Also weapon upgrades, which do you focus for which classes. I know I must sound needy but I enjoy your insight more than any other!!

[@SykenPlays]

Great ideas that you bring up. Upon reflecting on your requests, I think that I will create some more guides and go through the topics. I have been asked for the hero classes and the equipment multiple times now.

[@falc1052]

Love your guides, they are making so much a lot more understandable. it`s my first attempt for Lwotc, i`m in April and had a rough start, cause i tried to play the game as vanilla. I`m trying to afford Laser atm and try to manage my squads with the income missions. i have a lot of injuries, round about 25-30 soldiers, but i`m able to handle 2-3 missions at the same time in my 3 contacted areas. at beginning the classes confused me a lot, i meant the split up. I`m struggeling to pick the right classes, because i like to have all the abilities ^^ good to know for me( as a lowtc beginner) would be specific points in the campaign or months, where i can notice, if i am doing good enough or i`m about to fail. for example: "in Mai 2035 u should liberate 2 areas, have laser guns and a income of 1000" or something like this Lwotc doing things so much different, the progress ist very slow and i am getting nervous. atm i`m doing mission over mission and try not to die, but there is no indicator for me, what will happen,what should i really do, how much time is left to do missions, should i expand more and more or should i stay in my 3 areas and how long should i stay there? Next struggle: should i liberate every area after another and focus on that or should my focus on other points? I noticed yesterday, that i never played the Legacy Pack and i started with it, heard that i will get some goodies, when i`m doing it...but this DLC is awesome as well, my playstyle changed a lot after seeing your videos and this DLC, so my "Rambo" tactic is vanished und my suvivabilty raised a lot ^^ Thank u for ur content and sorry for my bad english, keep going :)

[@SykenPlays]

Hi Helge, it sounds like you are doing well, which is great. Long War is difficult and requires a lot of knowledge to pull it off, but it is likewise rewarding when you succeed at it.

[@falc1052]

@@SykenPlays thank u for the love :D one comment below this one i have a conversation with Angel69. He helped me a lot in the last few days und i reported my current progress in this campaign. I guess, this campaign will fail, it starts to become overhelming and some bad decisions made it a bit harder for me. But who knows, maybe i can fix it :)

[@falc1052]

@@SykenPlays a request: would u like to make a region managment/liberate guide for early/mid/endgame?

[@DrZaius3141]

Bit of constructive criticism: The most important information (well, 2nd most important, if we want to be precise) out of this entire series was hidden in this video. After getting 3 missions before even being ready to start the first one, I wanted to know how many squads I'm expected to manage.^^

[@SykenPlays]

Hi Dr.Zaius, thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. When I did the guides that thought process did not cross my mind, but it makes sense.

[@GuardDaos64]

Very useful series! Would you consider covering the Officer tree as well? I'm curious to hear your thoughts on those abilities.

[@SykenPlays]

Hi Joris, I am currently producing this as we speak, hopefully I can finish the LWOTC guide section this weekend and release the last few of them. Thanks for the input and inspiring me to cover it.

[@GuardDaos64]

@@SykenPlays Amazing! Looking forward to it.

[@GuardDaos64]

@@SykenPlays Heya Syken! Did you ever get round to making this Officer guide? With LWOTC fully released, it's becoming tantalizing to start a new playthrough... :)

[@zion5637]

Hello-I thought I would give WOTC Long War a shot. I found these guides which are quite useful. I also found your playthrough and was looking at (for example) your skill choices of a Templar in the 2nd episode, and it wasn't the same skills I see now. I then noticed that your playthrough started in December 2019 and ended in December 2020..... Seems there have been changes. Just curious if you have a skill/guide for hero types etc that is up to date? I also am a bit rusty and find that Veteran on LW WOTC is really hard. I just seem to be outnumbered etc. I think I need to start using smoke grenades etc more or moving waaayyy slower. I also find that even with light enemies they seem pretty smart. I was going to try as a rookie but was a bit proud about it. It seems the gap between Rookie and Veteran is a large one. Using your methods for Intel etc from the newer guides you have, just a bit frustrating how easily I'm shot and killed. I need to get my mind on a more defensive strategy I guess

[@SykenPlays]

Yes, a defensive strategy definitely is the way to go (at least in my book). You can always play aggressive if needed, but the core idea is to not lose too many soldiers.

[@anthonychase6906]

Thank you for these guidee

[@SykenPlays]

Glad you like them!

[@michelney8810]

Hey man your guides helped me a lot to understand the game and get into long war! I follow most of your tips and it has been working out really well. However, one thing kills me: officers, how should I handle those? I tried a couple of things: grenadiers with rapid deployment, the problem is the high intensity rounds where I would want to use the command ability are also the rounds where I need to use my frag grenades and blow up cover etc. Then I tried holo targetting snipers but bringing a holo sniper with officer abilities stills feels worse than a damage sniper. For shinobis, at least for me, I want to be slashing people instead of commanding them. I am still relatively early game, so maybe the melee will start to fall off in value but so far I am not satisfied with any of my officer choices. What is your preferred officer class? Do you value them highly?

[@SykenPlays]

Hi Michel, you might approach the officer topic from the wrong angle. The abilities that the officer has are "on top" of everything else that the class has to offer. I would not specifically build a class around that, but instead see it purely as an add-on. As such, generally speaking, abilities that do not take away from the action economy of the base class are preferable - either passive abilities that work all the time or cooldown abilities that can be triggered freely (such as the reduction from explosion damage). The ability to shift turns to other classes just means that the officer trades 1:1 with whatever class currently has the best position / most agency on the field, which in itself is already fantastic. I personally value shinoby or specialist officers very highly. Shinoby are used as scouts until you are forced to take them out of stealth because too many enemies appear. The ability to scout ahead and take engagements with upcoming pods is oftentimes more important than a bit more damage in the current engagement. It depends on the situation though and thus I would be careful with generalized advice. Specialists very nicely lend themselves to support type of activities. Giving them the officer role on-top just makes a great class even better.

[@michelney8810]

@@SykenPlays Thank you so much!

[@billfromwork7203]

Thank you!

[@SykenPlays]

You are most welcome.

[@angelseeker]

Great explanation as always. Thank you very much. Q1: Would you say that it is suggested to at the very least skip 1 of the weapon upgrades? I.e. 5 tiers of weapons; 1Basic/2Laser/3Magnetic/4Coil/5Plasma; then it would be 1/3/4/5 or 1/2/4/5 or 1/2/3/5? Because you say that you skip coil but for me i 'skipped' laser but I would like to know the reasoning why you skipped coil and is it a standard or is it just with a certain campaign? Q2: In a previous vid you said that you mostly allocate all resistance members to be fully allocated to 1 task. Because of dark events increasing aliens abilities; when would you take them off of intel as you could miss the mission to prevent these upgrades? Q3: In your opinion; which class as a whole will be most suited to act as officers? Or do you just take the 'best' soldiers as officers? Or maybe wait for psi ops as they have reduced training time of officer abilities? Then "Trial by Fire" officer ability is moot when you wait for psi as soldiers would all be at least Sgt rank? What I mean by 'best' soldier is because of the stat increases officers give to the soldiers within command range ie Aim and Hack and something else. Like if the officer has 100 aim and another soldier has 80. The other soldiers aim will be increased to 90 as half of the difference is the increase if im not mistaken. Q4: Do you have a system of 'teamworking' certain classes together? Why these classes? Like for instance; I don't see which class the shinobi can teamwork because they are usually far in front of the rest of the squad and you need LOS to use the teamworking. Certainly never a sharpshooter (except a mobile pistol user maybe and who even does this...). Or do you just use whichever class they have the most compatibility with? Gunnar/Granadier. Ranger/Technician. And then there are 8 classes excluding Psi ops. Do you just never teamwork a Psi op? Or do you save a class until you get them unlocked? In which case the value of the 'saved' class gets reduced until then? Do you teamwork soldiers that have low/very low compatibility? Q5: When would you say is the 'time-limit' to get the buy-able abilities in the GTS. Like vulture to buy before end of March at least?

[@angelseeker]

If these were already discussed; I do apologize for the time waste.

[@SykenPlays]

Great Questions, I take those as a motivation to make a specific guide for them as a Q&A for Long War. Would take a bit too long to type it all out.

[@sammysaboteur2455]

Maybe it's a bug or maybe I'm playa different version of LWOTC, but for me hazmat vests (and fortress) don't stop the damage from the purifiers flamethrower, just prevents the "burning" status condition.

[@SykenPlays]

In the version that I was playing, it made you immune to the damage. That is also how it works in normal Xcom2 WOTC. They might have patched it in consecutive releases.

[@soosh9852]

the more advanced purifiers have the phosphorus upgrade (similar to the one in the tech's ability tree that allows them to damage fire-immune enemies like robots)

[@Шестик-ю1ц]

I don't get the moment with cover removal: I play modified lwotc and still Grenadier with sapper as base ability just can't destroy a lot of covers, rendering him useless until the very lategame and combat engineer. Technician, on the other side, have one(two with EXO) launches that pretty good, but will remove cover from 2, rarely 3 enemies, which is god, but for 10-12 enemies maximum. I genuinely have no freakin' idea how to deal with more enemies with such a small team, always fearing that assault's run'n'gun will spot another pack and then nothing will save him, nor +20 defence from an ability, nor 2 ablative armor also from ability. Not to mention that he could used this +20 defence a few turn earlier and 5-turn cd is just... it's just to much when nearby packs hear you shooting and banging grenades, so almost immediately after dealing with one pack, another just shows up outa nowhere and bangs you. And if you survived this, well hello out there, reinforcements are coming to bang you as well. And that's what literally what happened to me on 13-15 enemies on a mission. How to deal with more? No idea

[@SykenPlays]

It seems as if you are not infiltrating enough or do not yet find the sweet spots to have enough people in your team and still be able to deal with the enemies. You might want to review our infiltration strategy.

[@Шестик-ю1ц]

@@SykenPlays I'm always go with 100% infiltrate, and for some tough missions even more. Also I take no less than 5 units on a mission except the very first missions, where i can go on with four just fine(difficulty prior to legend). In one of previous videos you sent 4 people against 19-21 enemies and i have no clue how this is even possible. And yeah, what do you mean by "spots"?

[@456death654]

Skill issue

[@radoslawmazurekwaw]

Good aim and damage also contributes to survivability. Kill hostiles before they kill you.

[@SykenPlays]

Nothing wrong with offensive skills at all, my experience is that you are better suited with defensive ones, as the soldiers get offensive skills regardless. And no matter how good you play, it is just a matter of time until a 2nd or 3rd large pod adds and all of a sudden you need to fight 10+ enemies. No amount of alpha striking will get you through this, but a good defensive skills let you survive it without casualties.

[@radoslawmazurekwaw]

@@SykenPlays I guess I should shut up and play Long War 2 instead ;) Again I say based on experience from previous one. In this case it's kind of balance between armor and damage. For example, if you delay to much laser or more advanced weapons then armor will not help because aliens will kill your soldiers eventually because you can't kill them fast enough. On the other hand, if you focus on weapons only then at some point you will loose more soldiers because one shot will kill them. I guess here it's balanced differently and armor is more important, at least to a degree.

[@radoslawmazurekwaw]

Instant build in Long War? That's new.

[@SykenPlays]

Yes

[@radoslawmazurekwaw]

@@SykenPlays I hope there is additional mod to make it not instant again. For me it's ridiculous. And much less interesting. It removes all level of strategy to build in advance what may be needed in the future.

[@falc1052]

me again...i suffer from a annoying bug at the moment and cant find a fix for it. i`m in may 15, i killed the first chosen,after he showed up, ended the mission,got my rewards, doing stuff in the avenger and always, when ich go to the map, the cam snaps on the big red avater and nothing happens. Time still ticking, but nothing controllable. i gues there should trigger anything, but it wont. i disabled the not lwotc necessary mods and started over and over again, but still when i enter the map i stuck. has anyone an idea?

[@SykenPlays]

Hello Helge, I am sorry to hear that you have problems. I have never encountered that issue, so I would advice you to maybe look for help in the technical forum of Firstes or Long-War themselves.

[@falc1052]

@@SykenPlays thx for your reply. I posted that problem in the nexus mod forum as well. prnt.sc/109dn7d thats a screenshot of my stucked view with my installed mods. Such a nice game and i cant be sure, that starting a new campaign would avoid this.

[@angelseeker]

@@falc1052 My first suggestion would be. Unselect all mods except the LWOTC with the 4 require mods. Put all voicepacks and accessory mods in a named category, unselected. Run the game until you get that screen. If the error persists. Uninstall/Unsub and delete LWOTC and required mods (5 of them) and download them again according to the Nexus Forum exactly like the steps they list there. Then start the game and get up to that point of the Screenshot. If the error is gone - exit and select 5 mods (that are not voicepacks or accessory packs) and get to that point again. If those 5 mods work - add 5 more and just keep going until you get the mod that is causing the error. Its a process but when you get the conflicting mod it really is a relief.

[@falc1052]

@@angelseeker thank you for the tips. i did some of it already, but there are also advices which i could try after work. for example ich had unsub and deleted all non Lwotc mods and tried without success. but i havent tried it without any mods and also i havent used a mod category so far. fun fact: this "geoscape bug" exists also in vanilla since 2016. Maybe its not a modproblem but a gamebreakin, not patched bug of xcom. is there maybe a thing i didnt do, which is necessary for the chosen show up and the game didnt notice? a needed research or something like that? i could imagine, that the game break, when ich havent the progress for it and cause of a bug it still trigger the chosen

[@angelseeker]

@@falc1052 Remember that not only does the nexus mod description detail which *required* mods to download from steam but also there are settings to change when starting a new campaign...

[@DeathEatsCurry]

I'm a year late, but still wanted to drop a bit of constructive criticism: With long guides like this covering specific topic, use chapter timestamps to section off said topics. Even if someone watches through the whole video, it's nice to know what's coming up, and it's a godsend for returning viewers that need to quickly reference part of your video.

[@SykenPlays]

Great suggestion DeathEatsCurry, thanks for taking the time.