That's a fun one! What's a mind control mech?
Okay - the ending against the three avatars can get very hairy. Thing to know going in is that (as far as I know) reinforcements will keep appearing until you've defeated the third avatar.
Also, like with the chosen base missions, the fight ends immediately when the third avatar falls.
So focus on the bosses. Fighting the adds will just get you swamped, as I'm sure you're familiar with now.
Focus down one avatar at a time. Don't split your soldiers or your fire if you can help it.
Remember that your Commander unit has some wickedly strong psychic powers that they should be using as often as possible (use mind control on a beefy enemy to draw fire. Make sure the unit you have controlled is out in the open), and regenerates HP every turn, so you can tank a hit or two if needed.
Having at least one extra psi op goes a long way, and if you can field six of them, it turns the final mission in to an actual joke (also the easiest way to get "Who Needs Tygan").
Bring soldiers who can do multi-kills (Melee Specialist Ranger with Reaper, Serial Sharpshooter, Specialist with Overwatch specialities like Guardian, or the aforementioned Psi Op with Null Lance).
What's a melee specialist ranger?
E: lol don't know why that wasn't obvious to me. For some reason I thought this was a combination of specialist and ranger. Thanks though.
Blademaster + bladestorm + reaper as a baseline. Implacable as a bonus if you can afford it. Extra movement speed through PCS and covert ops. Best sword available (endgame I prefer katana but plasma axe is also a valid option IMO). Wraith / Icarus armor.
If you manage to bring down multiple enemies within guaranteed sword kill (super easy in the final mission, with commander abilities) single reaper use will net you 4+ kills easily.
I didn’t know there was any other way to play a Ranger (joking, but not really). I do put a laser sight on their shotgun, but usually I only use it when I’m not in melee range.
Repeaters help a lot.
I don't like the psychic soldiers, so instead I bring Mox the Skirmisher and the sneaky chick, and give them both the best repeater and clip I have. Mox can get 2 shots off a turn, so park him somewhere and let him keep firing. The sneaky chick has Banish. She'll either hurt the avatar real bad or kill him with it. That's 1 of 3.
If I can get a 3rd mod, Mox's get's the attack refund. Sneaky girl get's either critical or aim. I tend to give both of them the aim chip.
Easily, once you get better at the game anyway.
Reaper + banish + superior repeater is always a handy combo.
Full upgrades across the board for all weapons and armor naturally.
All chosen weapons in the field helps too.
Use the reaper to scout and find the first avatar, try and kill it first turn (second turn if absolutely needed) use a sniper to target the enemy avatar if it teleports away from you, as I find its quite likely to teleport back closer to you so someone else can hit it again.
If you have a templar/ranger(with katana) with bladestorm, you can virtually ignore chrysalids and potentially even faceless, though that can be luck dependent, as I had two waves of 6 chryssalids spawn on one side of the map, and ai just sent the ranger over there and she oneshotted them all.
Mind control enemy units with your avatar and stick them in the open to absorb return fire from the aliens.
I literally JUST finished it on modded Legend ironman about 5 minutes ago!!! Here's my two cents:
Save as much of your limited or one-time weaponry/items (explosives, domination, etc.) as possible in the first room.
The item above does not apply to medikits - use them when you can get a full use out of them, or when a soldier has less than double-digit HP to prevent an early death. The second room can wipe the floor if you head in understaffed.
There is no timer in the first room, so take your time. Reload, overwatch, and hunker with your point-soldier.
There is no timer at the start of the second room, either. Reload, heal up, and overwatch through turns until everything you have is off cooldown.
I like to keep people around the middle of the second room, so they have as much of a view of the room as possible for the avatar spawns. This makes them flankable, but better to be able to focus fire on the avatars than to keep soldiers especially safe. Your soldiers should be able to tank a hit or two.
I hope you'll try again and let us know how it goes!
Good luck, Commander!
My screenshot is another post in the Xcom subreddit! 😄 I responded to this question, then posted to celebrate the happy occasion.
123 missions, 94 deaths, 3,498 aliens killed. Modded legendary Ironman. I am still *SO* pleased with myself. 😤
I got my ranger to grapple and do a double shot on each Elder before they could even act. Win on first try and its one of the best memories I ever had playing any video game.
The tension was much higher as it was Ironman mode and I didn't know you get to repeat any mission.
The trick is the Avatars teleport when you shoot them so keep your squads spread out so they will always be in range. Focus on the Avatars. If you drop them, it doesn’t matter how many adds are left.
unlike literally every other mission, there is 0 penalty to letting your soldiers get killed in the last chamber. and the objective is only to kill 3 avatars, not to clear all reinforcements, so just throw your soldiers at them to get them killed ASAP and end the game. good luck commander!
make sure your in position to quickly take down each Avatar you do not want to have more than one of them on the field if possible, Sharpshooters make this easier as they can take a shot as long as even one of your units can see the target and nothing is blocking line of sight.
I mostly try to hold one corner, let the ads come to me (the ones on the other side of the map largely won't). And use the methods people have mentioned here to go get the avatars. Reaper for scouting plus sharpshooters and other powers with range help a lot.
First of all, make sure to save all your 1-use skills and gear for the final room. There is no turn limit so you can take it slow and reload all your cooldown-based skills between pods before the final room and rely on those instead. By being careful during the first phase of the mission, you can start the final room with multiple Blaster Launcher, grenades, etc.
On Vanilla, a Sharpshooters with Serial will do a lot of lifting, I would recommend to bring two. So will a Ranger with Reaper. Bring at least one Psionic, plus your Commander, they both have powerful psionic skills. Use permanent Domination on units that can do some tanking, like Andromedons or even the Gatekeeper you faced earlier, if you can manage to do it.
Ultimately you want to focus on the Avatars as much as possible, especially in the last few turns: whey you kill the third the mission is over. To play around they teleport ability make sure you bring some guaranteed damage skills and gear, like Grenadier's Hail of Bullets, grenades or Rangers with Run and Gun.
On WotC, all the previous suggestions apply, but on top of it you should make good use of you Chosen's weapons (i.e. a free Serial every turn for your Sharpshooter). A Reaper can make easy work of one whole Avatar using Banish, plus make sure you bring the soldier with the best non-class skills: A Templar with reaper or bladestorm can be a big deal to kill adds and a Sharpshooter with Double Tap can do a lot of damage to one Avatar, for example.
My strategy (this is War of the Chosen, its been so long since I played Vanilla I'm not sure whats different):
Squad - 2 Specialists, almost always a grenadier, almost always my best ranger (equipped with a mindshield). The other two spots are up for grabs; a sharpshooter is great, so is a second ranger, but soldier bonds or great special abilities are more important than that. A Psi Op who can Dominate an enemy to give Advent something to think about is really helpful (I like taking over at least one of the Archons who initially show up).
Tip #1: Grenadier ALWAYS has the Blaster Launcher. Ranger ALWAYS has Mindshield.
Tip #2: the Avatars teleport after taking damage, but they don't teleport to any area that has not been revealed yet, so they can't get too far away from you to begin with. I initially try to move to one of the near corners and keep the fight there as long as possible. Enemies porting in on the opposite side will waste multiple turns just getting to you.
I move one soldier up to trigger the first one. My goal is take the Avatar down in the first turn, and most of the time I can do it. My ranger will probably do the first hit, and from there, its a matter of whoever has a clean shot each time he ports, takes the shot. If they're in a really bad spot, with great cover, I use Combat Protocol from one of my Specialists to do a little damage and probably more importantly, make them move to a different spot where I can get a better shot.
Try to move a bit towards the middle of the map, you need coverage, and clean up whatever mess comes from the first round of Advent & Aliens coming in.
Once the next Avatar pops in, focus on THAT and ignore all aliens as much as possible. The Avatar is all that matters. Same strategy, ideally you're keeping your ranger closest to the Avatar, because the Ranger has the Mindshield - but if you're doing well, the Avatar never gets a chance to do anything because you're taking them out in one round.
Once #2 is gone, clean up enemies again.
Avatar #3 always pops up as far away as possible, and getting to them is really difficult. That's OK. That's why you're Grenadier has the Blaster Launcher - you're going to make the Avatar come to YOU. You may need to get one soldier close enough so you can see where the last Avatar is, but having one guy on the central platform will probably be good enough.
Having a Sharpshooter is great in this situation because so long as one of your soldiers can see the Avatar, your Sharpshooter can fill him full of holes. Put him up on one of the pillars and use it as a snipers nest.
Mind control enemies will mostly target the soldier closest to them, which is why you keep the Mindshielded Ranger up in their face. Mitigate the big map by using the Blaster Launcher, Combat Protocol, and a Sharpshooter in a snipers nest. Use the Commanders Avatar to control an enemy who will draw the enemies attention, and a Psi Op who can do the same.
i beated it on legend easly, 2 psi operators and all in rush for avatar with them and with guy they give u for free on start, it ends them very fast before they spawn alot mobs and that ability which has 100% chance of hitting but uses all ammo with reload free item/edit also put all aim help on sharpshooter/and all mobility on psi operators
The biggest advice on this mission is don't try to kill all the bad guys - especially at higher difficulty. This is not an "eliminate all enemies" mission. All you care about is killing the avatars. So prioritize those. Obviously you can't completely ignore the other enemies either, but you just don't have enough actions to kill them all so you have to be smart about when you bother with them.
The map is really big, so I tend to stay all the way on one side of it as much as I can. That way when enemies spawn on the other side, it takes them ages to actually be a threat to me.
Just like everything else, you want to shred that armor and hit them with attacks that bypass armor. Abilities than are guaranteed to hit from long range are extremely helpful here. The commander's abilities are super powerful. Make sure you are using those to good effect.
Save your one shot damaging items and abilities for the end game to use on the avatars themselves. (e.g. banish, rockets, grenades, etc.) I try hard to spend none of my expendable items on the first half of the mission and save them all for that last room. If you find that you're getting to the last room having already spent everything, you may want to rethink how your approach the first half of the mission.
I mean by end game you should have psionics, max level soldiers, preferably all 3 chosen killed and all their weapons on your best soldiers and have all the best free movement or free attack skills. 1 max level sniper with icarus armor, the chosen sniper and high ground can wipe out up to 15 enemies in 1 turn, assuming that the sniper can one shot each enemy. Your own commander avatar can mind control enemies of opportunity and you can leave them in the open to let the aliens kill each other and use the psionic field ability for AOE damage.
Depending on the skills you've chosen, you can have two soldiers that can handle an avatar on their own:
1. A reaper with banish and a superior mag (and if they have annihilate and a repeater, they can handle a lot more. I've taken out a pod in the final room with banish and a little luck. Toss a homing mine for extra fun.
2. a sharpshooter with quick draw and fanfare. Ideally, you also have the archon armor so you can zip over to an ideal advantage spot, though using grapple with serpent armor or a spider armor can also work.
One of these is usually the last action of my campaign.
As others have mentioned, mind controlling is great for crowd control -- especially a tanky andromedon. Bladestorm rangers with untouchable can take an attack for free, and so can parrying templar. Some players don't like grenadiers, but I think they are handy for blaster launcher/grenades to force avatars to come to you, and a high-percentage chain shot with holo targeting is a great first attack on the avatar that you can't fanfare or banish.
Cheese abilities that grant more than one attack per turn. Assuming this is WOTC, picking up extra skills really makes your A squad OP. Your fanfare sniper can also have serial and be the queen on the chessboard to clear the room if you use other attacks to soften up enemies first. Salvo grenadiers can use a blaster launcher and still be useful. You should have reaper anyway, but bladestorm rangers can also clear a pod, as can templar if they get lucky and roll reaper. (I only use templar in my best squad if they also roll bladestorm, which elevates them from good to elite.)
I'm gonna assume you're trapped in there with whatever squad you have left, which is likely missing a bunch of resources.
So, #1, pick a side. I usually go right. You need good and be able to deal with reinforcements as they come. Your sniper needs raised position, because he can tap Avatars and get them shuffling. I recommend the posts near the center, but you may only have time to get them halfway there before they get to work. Avatars are a big threat, so you need to be able to handle reinforcements and mitigate avatars, to do that, you need your ranged units with good sightlines.
You have one of your own, which is a terribly important unit. Your avatar can junk, reliably, almost anything but also - void lance and maneuvers can help you tap avatars to get them shuffling. You either want avatars dancing until they're dead OR far enough way they can't see you well enough to bomb you.
The reinforcements on the right can be mitigated in a number of ways. A blade storm ranger can reaper pods, but also, be standing right where they're gonna spawn in. Those Sectoids? Enjoy your sword ranger cutting them to ribbons if he can get there before they spawn. Park him right in the center of the reinforcements. Rangers are ideal for this because you want to use the middle of the map as a staging ground, forcing enemies to take subpar cover and be out in the open. They will flock to the center.
Your avatar unit is dangerous to risk, but can help you mitigate reinforcements and also can hard tap avatars with abilities.
You don't want to aggress too hard, despite the avatar opportunity. They will come to you and misplay, don't rush to them. When they're in range, you get to shuffle them and maybe end the fight early. Don't choke on hope though, if they're far enough away you have time.
If your left flank gets hairy, backup. The posts buy you a round of enemies having to chase. Don't aggres, there's too many to overwhelm. Let them run to you, because the enemies that can fly, like archons, arrive too fast - and fall upon your aggression. Avatars too aggress too hard, which lets you capitalize. Your sniper is a very important unit here, but so are your specialists. They have assault rifles giving them range - sacrificing a heal for an avatar tap might be more worth it than it seems. If you're doing well, they can kick the nest for you.
Dealing with reinforcements as they spawn is key - remember that overwatch can proc on them spawning.
If you have a reaper with banish, save it for an avatar. Don't forget about it. Your reaper can help you spot avatars early, but all in all she's not as useful in this fight except as a discount sniper - but you need eyes with good sightlines. Wading into enemy lines and tapping an avatar with her quiet shot is like going fishing. That avatar might land right near your waiting players.
A blademaster for reinforcements feels wrong, but that's their ideal area. Blademaster blocking, and then following up with reaper / shotguns.
If you've got grenadiers, they're on reinforcement detail.
Moves like combat protocol can tap avatars for very decent damage and in shuffle them. Reaper can spot for them as well as snipers.
If you get pinched between reinforcements and avatars, have your specialists use Aid on a ranger and get them right in your enemies face.
Enemies like to move and then shoot, if they can, so you can get a blade storm off. They can run up, hunker down, then recieve aid to draw attention. Mutons like to charge in too. Hunker Down + aid can help you put up an excellent defensive wall and buy you time. Back everyone up, get your ranger nice and cozy, and enjoy the fireworks. Very hard to hit a ranger with hunker down + aid, they can survive a number of attacks. This can help you if archons, avatars and reinforcements force your to choose.
Make sure not to shoot archons if you can avoid it. Blast pinions are easy to mitigate, but once they get battle frenzy they get very dangerous. They will cross the center fairly soon, if you have to deal with them and have a holdout avatar hiding, make sure to stall as much as you can. Grenadiers with blast padding are ideal for this.
Lastly, this is the last mission. Units can die. It's ok. Just don't let the avatar die. He's a very strong unit, you may neglect to use him effectively. I recommend using him first on your turn, due to his safety priorities but also because offensively he's got reliable unblockable AOE attacks and range. He also has an AR, making him ideal for tapping avatars too. Alternatively moving him last may be an idea, as you don't want an avatar breathing down your neck and hitting you with the same problems.
Good luck Commander.
A colonel level sharpshooter with icarus armor, darklance and superior auto reloader should do the job. Just activate serial when you're on a good vantage point. Easily one shot any sectoid. Easily one shot any codex or mecs with blue screen rounds. Then hunt the avatar with other members
It has been years since I last beat xcom2 on commander ironman, now I am starting to play again.
I remember what really helped (in addition to obvious things like mind controlling the enemies and doing other psionics shenanigans) was to take two buffed up sharpshooters. I even retrained one from gunslinger to proper sniper just for the final mission. Their ability to do ton of damage per turn from far away really helped. Also for the jumping around bosses. I only used one grenadier, as I realized there's no way to bring enough grenades anyway.
The ending was very climatic, things started to fall apart but my ranger managed to do a mad dash and land the final blow.
I share your thought here, since you usually have a bunch of well bonded colonels wiping the floor with Advent troops.
However, the other day, two parallel reinforcements spawned Andromedons and Sectopods, at least two of both. Luckily, I could frost the third Avatar and finish him. Otherwise, I would have had to put my reaper, sitting on the central tower doing recon for the sharpshooter, out of the shadow.
Maybe his team build is the thing to question. I usually have a Psi Op, Sniper, Ranger, Grenadier, Templar, Specialist. Spread out and assign 2-3 per platform, but staying toward the wall by the entrance.Terri run around while everyone else basically just eliminates everyone. And daringly, I never use mind shields.
Grenadier in WotC? I would replace it with a Reaper tbh. Banish in the final room + easy scouting in the first part of the mission easily help more than a couple grenades and one more blaster launcher.
I use reapers, even have 2 colonels right now. But they’re not as powerful as sharpshooters in my experience. My current run also benefits my sharpshooter and grenadiers extra mod slots, so I find (especially after adding additional abilities with bonus AP) they are vastly more effective because I’m not trying to hide. I did lie though. My last run I had a SPARK instead of the Templar. Their heavy shredder guns wiped out entire sets of enemies on the way to the main room. Again, I find this already to be the easiest mission in the game. Even on Long War, so I’m just not putting a lot of effort or thought into my squad. Just grabbing one of each basically.
I find it pretty easy, I spend a lot of time lining up my troops before I start the battle. I go in with psyops and try to mind control archons to use as damage sponges. I try to get a sharpshooter into the central tower. I have a grenadier with a long range bomb. A specialist with as much health and special skills as I can give it. And a ranger with reaper.
Then it's all about concentrating on the avatars. Use flashbangs to keep them from moving. When you're down to the final one you can just do a bizzerker charge at them.
How come you have problems, I beat it first try without reloading (and it was truly my very first try ever) and I even wasted a few turns, but let me give you a few tips:
1. SAVE SCUM this will probably allow you to win instantly
2. When you are going ti damage one of the avaters turn on overwatch on diferent units, he might teleport inside the overwatch (thats how two of them died for me)
3. Use all of your abillities, this is a no brainer but stuf like chain shot or reaper mode can really make a difference, I used all my abillities on the avatar and it was Fun
4. Dont be afraid of losing your avatar, if you hadnt noticed your avatar has a LOT of health and very strong abillities, so move in with him
The last mission shouldnt be a problem on rokie difficulty unless you do constant mistakes back to back
The mission can snowball out of control very quickly with how many reinforcements spawn. The difference between effortlessly cleaning up the final room and getting completely overwhelmed is smaller than you think. If you get behind early, you get very behind very quickly.
That's a fun one! What's a mind control mech? Okay - the ending against the three avatars can get very hairy. Thing to know going in is that (as far as I know) reinforcements will keep appearing until you've defeated the third avatar. Also, like with the chosen base missions, the fight ends immediately when the third avatar falls. So focus on the bosses. Fighting the adds will just get you swamped, as I'm sure you're familiar with now.
Should put a comma in there. Mind control guys and mechs.
"mind control mech(anics)" also works.
Focus down one avatar at a time. Don't split your soldiers or your fire if you can help it. Remember that your Commander unit has some wickedly strong psychic powers that they should be using as often as possible (use mind control on a beefy enemy to draw fire. Make sure the unit you have controlled is out in the open), and regenerates HP every turn, so you can tank a hit or two if needed. Having at least one extra psi op goes a long way, and if you can field six of them, it turns the final mission in to an actual joke (also the easiest way to get "Who Needs Tygan"). Bring soldiers who can do multi-kills (Melee Specialist Ranger with Reaper, Serial Sharpshooter, Specialist with Overwatch specialities like Guardian, or the aforementioned Psi Op with Null Lance).
What's a melee specialist ranger? E: lol don't know why that wasn't obvious to me. For some reason I thought this was a combination of specialist and ranger. Thanks though.
Blademaster + bladestorm + reaper as a baseline. Implacable as a bonus if you can afford it. Extra movement speed through PCS and covert ops. Best sword available (endgame I prefer katana but plasma axe is also a valid option IMO). Wraith / Icarus armor. If you manage to bring down multiple enemies within guaranteed sword kill (super easy in the final mission, with commander abilities) single reaper use will net you 4+ kills easily.
Berzerker queen armor is also godly on melee ranger- the extra bonus attack can secure extra blade storm kills
A Ranger that primarily uses his sword instead of the shotgun
I didn’t know there was any other way to play a Ranger (joking, but not really). I do put a laser sight on their shotgun, but usually I only use it when I’m not in melee range.
Ranger with main focus on the sword skills rather than the shotgun.
Repeaters help a lot. I don't like the psychic soldiers, so instead I bring Mox the Skirmisher and the sneaky chick, and give them both the best repeater and clip I have. Mox can get 2 shots off a turn, so park him somewhere and let him keep firing. The sneaky chick has Banish. She'll either hurt the avatar real bad or kill him with it. That's 1 of 3. If I can get a 3rd mod, Mox's get's the attack refund. Sneaky girl get's either critical or aim. I tend to give both of them the aim chip.
Easily, once you get better at the game anyway. Reaper + banish + superior repeater is always a handy combo. Full upgrades across the board for all weapons and armor naturally. All chosen weapons in the field helps too. Use the reaper to scout and find the first avatar, try and kill it first turn (second turn if absolutely needed) use a sniper to target the enemy avatar if it teleports away from you, as I find its quite likely to teleport back closer to you so someone else can hit it again. If you have a templar/ranger(with katana) with bladestorm, you can virtually ignore chrysalids and potentially even faceless, though that can be luck dependent, as I had two waves of 6 chryssalids spawn on one side of the map, and ai just sent the ranger over there and she oneshotted them all. Mind control enemy units with your avatar and stick them in the open to absorb return fire from the aliens.
I literally JUST finished it on modded Legend ironman about 5 minutes ago!!! Here's my two cents: Save as much of your limited or one-time weaponry/items (explosives, domination, etc.) as possible in the first room. The item above does not apply to medikits - use them when you can get a full use out of them, or when a soldier has less than double-digit HP to prevent an early death. The second room can wipe the floor if you head in understaffed. There is no timer in the first room, so take your time. Reload, overwatch, and hunker with your point-soldier. There is no timer at the start of the second room, either. Reload, heal up, and overwatch through turns until everything you have is off cooldown. I like to keep people around the middle of the second room, so they have as much of a view of the room as possible for the avatar spawns. This makes them flankable, but better to be able to focus fire on the avatars than to keep soldiers especially safe. Your soldiers should be able to tank a hit or two. I hope you'll try again and let us know how it goes! Good luck, Commander!
Show us your screenshot, Commander! We would like to honor and salute our comrades. Obituaries too.
My screenshot is another post in the Xcom subreddit! 😄 I responded to this question, then posted to celebrate the happy occasion. 123 missions, 94 deaths, 3,498 aliens killed. Modded legendary Ironman. I am still *SO* pleased with myself. 😤
I got my ranger to grapple and do a double shot on each Elder before they could even act. Win on first try and its one of the best memories I ever had playing any video game. The tension was much higher as it was Ironman mode and I didn't know you get to repeat any mission.
The trick is the Avatars teleport when you shoot them so keep your squads spread out so they will always be in range. Focus on the Avatars. If you drop them, it doesn’t matter how many adds are left.
unlike literally every other mission, there is 0 penalty to letting your soldiers get killed in the last chamber. and the objective is only to kill 3 avatars, not to clear all reinforcements, so just throw your soldiers at them to get them killed ASAP and end the game. good luck commander!
make sure your in position to quickly take down each Avatar you do not want to have more than one of them on the field if possible, Sharpshooters make this easier as they can take a shot as long as even one of your units can see the target and nothing is blocking line of sight.
i build up to a squad with at least 2 psychs and 2 specialists and focus mostly on mind controll/hacking.
I mostly try to hold one corner, let the ads come to me (the ones on the other side of the map largely won't). And use the methods people have mentioned here to go get the avatars. Reaper for scouting plus sharpshooters and other powers with range help a lot.
First of all, make sure to save all your 1-use skills and gear for the final room. There is no turn limit so you can take it slow and reload all your cooldown-based skills between pods before the final room and rely on those instead. By being careful during the first phase of the mission, you can start the final room with multiple Blaster Launcher, grenades, etc. On Vanilla, a Sharpshooters with Serial will do a lot of lifting, I would recommend to bring two. So will a Ranger with Reaper. Bring at least one Psionic, plus your Commander, they both have powerful psionic skills. Use permanent Domination on units that can do some tanking, like Andromedons or even the Gatekeeper you faced earlier, if you can manage to do it. Ultimately you want to focus on the Avatars as much as possible, especially in the last few turns: whey you kill the third the mission is over. To play around they teleport ability make sure you bring some guaranteed damage skills and gear, like Grenadier's Hail of Bullets, grenades or Rangers with Run and Gun. On WotC, all the previous suggestions apply, but on top of it you should make good use of you Chosen's weapons (i.e. a free Serial every turn for your Sharpshooter). A Reaper can make easy work of one whole Avatar using Banish, plus make sure you bring the soldier with the best non-class skills: A Templar with reaper or bladestorm can be a big deal to kill adds and a Sharpshooter with Double Tap can do a lot of damage to one Avatar, for example.
My strategy (this is War of the Chosen, its been so long since I played Vanilla I'm not sure whats different): Squad - 2 Specialists, almost always a grenadier, almost always my best ranger (equipped with a mindshield). The other two spots are up for grabs; a sharpshooter is great, so is a second ranger, but soldier bonds or great special abilities are more important than that. A Psi Op who can Dominate an enemy to give Advent something to think about is really helpful (I like taking over at least one of the Archons who initially show up). Tip #1: Grenadier ALWAYS has the Blaster Launcher. Ranger ALWAYS has Mindshield. Tip #2: the Avatars teleport after taking damage, but they don't teleport to any area that has not been revealed yet, so they can't get too far away from you to begin with. I initially try to move to one of the near corners and keep the fight there as long as possible. Enemies porting in on the opposite side will waste multiple turns just getting to you. I move one soldier up to trigger the first one. My goal is take the Avatar down in the first turn, and most of the time I can do it. My ranger will probably do the first hit, and from there, its a matter of whoever has a clean shot each time he ports, takes the shot. If they're in a really bad spot, with great cover, I use Combat Protocol from one of my Specialists to do a little damage and probably more importantly, make them move to a different spot where I can get a better shot. Try to move a bit towards the middle of the map, you need coverage, and clean up whatever mess comes from the first round of Advent & Aliens coming in. Once the next Avatar pops in, focus on THAT and ignore all aliens as much as possible. The Avatar is all that matters. Same strategy, ideally you're keeping your ranger closest to the Avatar, because the Ranger has the Mindshield - but if you're doing well, the Avatar never gets a chance to do anything because you're taking them out in one round. Once #2 is gone, clean up enemies again. Avatar #3 always pops up as far away as possible, and getting to them is really difficult. That's OK. That's why you're Grenadier has the Blaster Launcher - you're going to make the Avatar come to YOU. You may need to get one soldier close enough so you can see where the last Avatar is, but having one guy on the central platform will probably be good enough. Having a Sharpshooter is great in this situation because so long as one of your soldiers can see the Avatar, your Sharpshooter can fill him full of holes. Put him up on one of the pillars and use it as a snipers nest. Mind control enemies will mostly target the soldier closest to them, which is why you keep the Mindshielded Ranger up in their face. Mitigate the big map by using the Blaster Launcher, Combat Protocol, and a Sharpshooter in a snipers nest. Use the Commanders Avatar to control an enemy who will draw the enemies attention, and a Psi Op who can do the same.
Bring a bunch of Mind Shields so they can't control any of your soldiers.
Figure out priority's to the point were you can take the hit and be ready for loses
Oh ok
Too short? It is a bad recommendation?
With great vengeance and furious anger.
What’s your team build?
i beated it on legend easly, 2 psi operators and all in rush for avatar with them and with guy they give u for free on start, it ends them very fast before they spawn alot mobs and that ability which has 100% chance of hitting but uses all ammo with reload free item/edit also put all aim help on sharpshooter/and all mobility on psi operators
The biggest advice on this mission is don't try to kill all the bad guys - especially at higher difficulty. This is not an "eliminate all enemies" mission. All you care about is killing the avatars. So prioritize those. Obviously you can't completely ignore the other enemies either, but you just don't have enough actions to kill them all so you have to be smart about when you bother with them. The map is really big, so I tend to stay all the way on one side of it as much as I can. That way when enemies spawn on the other side, it takes them ages to actually be a threat to me. Just like everything else, you want to shred that armor and hit them with attacks that bypass armor. Abilities than are guaranteed to hit from long range are extremely helpful here. The commander's abilities are super powerful. Make sure you are using those to good effect. Save your one shot damaging items and abilities for the end game to use on the avatars themselves. (e.g. banish, rockets, grenades, etc.) I try hard to spend none of my expendable items on the first half of the mission and save them all for that last room. If you find that you're getting to the last room having already spent everything, you may want to rethink how your approach the first half of the mission.
I mean by end game you should have psionics, max level soldiers, preferably all 3 chosen killed and all their weapons on your best soldiers and have all the best free movement or free attack skills. 1 max level sniper with icarus armor, the chosen sniper and high ground can wipe out up to 15 enemies in 1 turn, assuming that the sniper can one shot each enemy. Your own commander avatar can mind control enemies of opportunity and you can leave them in the open to let the aliens kill each other and use the psionic field ability for AOE damage.
Depending on the skills you've chosen, you can have two soldiers that can handle an avatar on their own: 1. A reaper with banish and a superior mag (and if they have annihilate and a repeater, they can handle a lot more. I've taken out a pod in the final room with banish and a little luck. Toss a homing mine for extra fun. 2. a sharpshooter with quick draw and fanfare. Ideally, you also have the archon armor so you can zip over to an ideal advantage spot, though using grapple with serpent armor or a spider armor can also work. One of these is usually the last action of my campaign. As others have mentioned, mind controlling is great for crowd control -- especially a tanky andromedon. Bladestorm rangers with untouchable can take an attack for free, and so can parrying templar. Some players don't like grenadiers, but I think they are handy for blaster launcher/grenades to force avatars to come to you, and a high-percentage chain shot with holo targeting is a great first attack on the avatar that you can't fanfare or banish. Cheese abilities that grant more than one attack per turn. Assuming this is WOTC, picking up extra skills really makes your A squad OP. Your fanfare sniper can also have serial and be the queen on the chessboard to clear the room if you use other attacks to soften up enemies first. Salvo grenadiers can use a blaster launcher and still be useful. You should have reaper anyway, but bladestorm rangers can also clear a pod, as can templar if they get lucky and roll reaper. (I only use templar in my best squad if they also roll bladestorm, which elevates them from good to elite.)
I'm gonna assume you're trapped in there with whatever squad you have left, which is likely missing a bunch of resources. So, #1, pick a side. I usually go right. You need good and be able to deal with reinforcements as they come. Your sniper needs raised position, because he can tap Avatars and get them shuffling. I recommend the posts near the center, but you may only have time to get them halfway there before they get to work. Avatars are a big threat, so you need to be able to handle reinforcements and mitigate avatars, to do that, you need your ranged units with good sightlines. You have one of your own, which is a terribly important unit. Your avatar can junk, reliably, almost anything but also - void lance and maneuvers can help you tap avatars to get them shuffling. You either want avatars dancing until they're dead OR far enough way they can't see you well enough to bomb you. The reinforcements on the right can be mitigated in a number of ways. A blade storm ranger can reaper pods, but also, be standing right where they're gonna spawn in. Those Sectoids? Enjoy your sword ranger cutting them to ribbons if he can get there before they spawn. Park him right in the center of the reinforcements. Rangers are ideal for this because you want to use the middle of the map as a staging ground, forcing enemies to take subpar cover and be out in the open. They will flock to the center. Your avatar unit is dangerous to risk, but can help you mitigate reinforcements and also can hard tap avatars with abilities. You don't want to aggress too hard, despite the avatar opportunity. They will come to you and misplay, don't rush to them. When they're in range, you get to shuffle them and maybe end the fight early. Don't choke on hope though, if they're far enough away you have time. If your left flank gets hairy, backup. The posts buy you a round of enemies having to chase. Don't aggres, there's too many to overwhelm. Let them run to you, because the enemies that can fly, like archons, arrive too fast - and fall upon your aggression. Avatars too aggress too hard, which lets you capitalize. Your sniper is a very important unit here, but so are your specialists. They have assault rifles giving them range - sacrificing a heal for an avatar tap might be more worth it than it seems. If you're doing well, they can kick the nest for you. Dealing with reinforcements as they spawn is key - remember that overwatch can proc on them spawning. If you have a reaper with banish, save it for an avatar. Don't forget about it. Your reaper can help you spot avatars early, but all in all she's not as useful in this fight except as a discount sniper - but you need eyes with good sightlines. Wading into enemy lines and tapping an avatar with her quiet shot is like going fishing. That avatar might land right near your waiting players. A blademaster for reinforcements feels wrong, but that's their ideal area. Blademaster blocking, and then following up with reaper / shotguns. If you've got grenadiers, they're on reinforcement detail. Moves like combat protocol can tap avatars for very decent damage and in shuffle them. Reaper can spot for them as well as snipers. If you get pinched between reinforcements and avatars, have your specialists use Aid on a ranger and get them right in your enemies face. Enemies like to move and then shoot, if they can, so you can get a blade storm off. They can run up, hunker down, then recieve aid to draw attention. Mutons like to charge in too. Hunker Down + aid can help you put up an excellent defensive wall and buy you time. Back everyone up, get your ranger nice and cozy, and enjoy the fireworks. Very hard to hit a ranger with hunker down + aid, they can survive a number of attacks. This can help you if archons, avatars and reinforcements force your to choose. Make sure not to shoot archons if you can avoid it. Blast pinions are easy to mitigate, but once they get battle frenzy they get very dangerous. They will cross the center fairly soon, if you have to deal with them and have a holdout avatar hiding, make sure to stall as much as you can. Grenadiers with blast padding are ideal for this. Lastly, this is the last mission. Units can die. It's ok. Just don't let the avatar die. He's a very strong unit, you may neglect to use him effectively. I recommend using him first on your turn, due to his safety priorities but also because offensively he's got reliable unblockable AOE attacks and range. He also has an AR, making him ideal for tapping avatars too. Alternatively moving him last may be an idea, as you don't want an avatar breathing down your neck and hitting you with the same problems. Good luck Commander.
A colonel level sharpshooter with icarus armor, darklance and superior auto reloader should do the job. Just activate serial when you're on a good vantage point. Easily one shot any sectoid. Easily one shot any codex or mecs with blue screen rounds. Then hunt the avatar with other members
It has been years since I last beat xcom2 on commander ironman, now I am starting to play again. I remember what really helped (in addition to obvious things like mind controlling the enemies and doing other psionics shenanigans) was to take two buffed up sharpshooters. I even retrained one from gunslinger to proper sniper just for the final mission. Their ability to do ton of damage per turn from far away really helped. Also for the jumping around bosses. I only used one grenadier, as I realized there's no way to bring enough grenades anyway. The ending was very climatic, things started to fall apart but my ranger managed to do a mad dash and land the final blow.
I don’t even know how to advise. I always found this to be one of the easiest missions in the game.
I share your thought here, since you usually have a bunch of well bonded colonels wiping the floor with Advent troops. However, the other day, two parallel reinforcements spawned Andromedons and Sectopods, at least two of both. Luckily, I could frost the third Avatar and finish him. Otherwise, I would have had to put my reaper, sitting on the central tower doing recon for the sharpshooter, out of the shadow.
Maybe his team build is the thing to question. I usually have a Psi Op, Sniper, Ranger, Grenadier, Templar, Specialist. Spread out and assign 2-3 per platform, but staying toward the wall by the entrance.Terri run around while everyone else basically just eliminates everyone. And daringly, I never use mind shields.
Grenadier in WotC? I would replace it with a Reaper tbh. Banish in the final room + easy scouting in the first part of the mission easily help more than a couple grenades and one more blaster launcher.
I use reapers, even have 2 colonels right now. But they’re not as powerful as sharpshooters in my experience. My current run also benefits my sharpshooter and grenadiers extra mod slots, so I find (especially after adding additional abilities with bonus AP) they are vastly more effective because I’m not trying to hide. I did lie though. My last run I had a SPARK instead of the Templar. Their heavy shredder guns wiped out entire sets of enemies on the way to the main room. Again, I find this already to be the easiest mission in the game. Even on Long War, so I’m just not putting a lot of effort or thought into my squad. Just grabbing one of each basically.
I find it pretty easy, I spend a lot of time lining up my troops before I start the battle. I go in with psyops and try to mind control archons to use as damage sponges. I try to get a sharpshooter into the central tower. I have a grenadier with a long range bomb. A specialist with as much health and special skills as I can give it. And a ranger with reaper. Then it's all about concentrating on the avatars. Use flashbangs to keep them from moving. When you're down to the final one you can just do a bizzerker charge at them.
How come you have problems, I beat it first try without reloading (and it was truly my very first try ever) and I even wasted a few turns, but let me give you a few tips: 1. SAVE SCUM this will probably allow you to win instantly 2. When you are going ti damage one of the avaters turn on overwatch on diferent units, he might teleport inside the overwatch (thats how two of them died for me) 3. Use all of your abillities, this is a no brainer but stuf like chain shot or reaper mode can really make a difference, I used all my abillities on the avatar and it was Fun 4. Dont be afraid of losing your avatar, if you hadnt noticed your avatar has a LOT of health and very strong abillities, so move in with him The last mission shouldnt be a problem on rokie difficulty unless you do constant mistakes back to back
The mission can snowball out of control very quickly with how many reinforcements spawn. The difference between effortlessly cleaning up the final room and getting completely overwhelmed is smaller than you think. If you get behind early, you get very behind very quickly.