Tips for a brutal play through

[hissrad]

So I beat the game and decided I wanted to move up the difficulty. So any tips for brutal? Never gone above Demanding so....bet it'll be fun.

[Kanly]

As you increase the difficulty, the margin for error shrinks. The xeno hit harder and there are more of them. To do well, you need to better maximize the way your team executes. This means paying closer attention to buffs, talents, positioning, and which templars you deploy when.

That said, brutal isn't that much of a step up from demanding and unless you go for the last two difficulties instead, you probably won't feel the difference all that much.

[En1gma]

So there are definitely a few things to keep in mind. Kanly is correct that the margin of error shrinks, for sure.

The increase in enemies is immediately apparent. Even when I go back to Normal to test something before I go back to Brutal (95% of my games are on Brutal), I find that there is a marked increase in enemy numbers.
- This means AoE is more important than ever, and the Hydras and Neptunes become far more valuable as they have more targets to affect.
- This will also mean that your enemies will be very difficult to avoid, so investment in +MP Talents is a smart way to play. Stay mobile and you stay alive.

You need to begin thinking about your metagame. You should design your BF before you even start the game. Below Brutal, you can shotgun the entire game, not worrying too much about messing up your points and making the game unbeatable. Brutal and above is different. Go as far as to plan out how to handle 4, 6, 9, and 12 Templar deployments, including what Templars you want your BF to include, Check your balance of Melee/Ranged/Mixed Templars and make sure it's viable for your playstyle. Think about when and where to spend your Req points to best unlock your needed BF, and stick to a plan.

Your tactics will need to include contingencies for ambushes, be able to set up rear-guards, have a few high MP players able to rush to objectives, hit and run missions, among others. You need to be able to stand ground for Heat dispersal. Make sure you invest in accuracy gear and points, while not neglecting Con and Wil.

OW becomes very important here, as even Hunters become major threats to any Templar. Being able to stop them short is very valuable. Hydras are able to drastically reduce enemy spawns, and should be considered.

If I think of anything else I'll let you know.

[ntsheep]

I've been play testing on Brutal the past few days. A lot of my guide is still usable but major things to consider are,

1: Heat plays a bigger role. There will be times you want to just hold a position a turn or two so you burn some off.

2: As others have said, more MP = better defense. The more spaces between the enemy and you, the safer you are.

3: Choose the extra levels carefully. I've been losing templars on the second Kaldun level a lot. This might be a part to skip until your second play. The Ferarai lance level where you hold for 12 turns is the safest bet. Airlock level you may want to just run through opening the doors and skipping going for the secondary objectives. I have have gotten both though, but almost lost my knights.

4:

[hissrad]

Thanks for the tips guys, so far I've noticed I'm using Overwatch and grenades a lot more. My team almost got overrun on power relay grid part of the Ferrari Lance. Lost a Scout and his back up Soldier but the rest made it.

I think I'm gonna focus on aoe as suggested, the overwatch talent alone has saved my team a bunch of times.

I usually try to keep the mp boosting gear as much as I can, that swift kit is one of my favorites. Rallying Charge makes a good bonus, especially on a heavy armor

The new heat burning move manual vent looks pretty sweet. I've noticed my team is catching heat faster, the Engineer in particular seems to be running hot most of the time.

[hissrad]

Nov 10, 2016 12:24:16 GMT -5 ntsheep said:

I've been play testing on Brutal the past few days. A lot of my guide is still usable but major things to consider are,

1: Heat plays a bigger role. There will be times you want to just hold a position a turn or two so you burn some off.

2: As others have said, more MP = better defense. The more spaces between the enemy and you, the safer you are.

3: Choose the extra levels carefully. I've been losing templars on the second Kaldun level a lot. This might be a part to skip until your second play. The Ferarai lance level where you hold for 12 turns is the safest bet. Airlock level you may want to just run through opening the doors and skipping going for the secondary objectives. I have have gotten both though, but almost lost my knights.

4:

Your guide is really helpful, its got me unstuck a few times now. Try to go in blind when I can but get stumped on how to do it.

[ntsheep]

No matter what difficulty, the best gear you can give one Engineer is the relic cyclone reactor. +1MP +60 Heat.

[hissrad]

On lower difficulties I've kind of ignored heat dealing equipment but....damn my engineer needs a fire extinguisher just to use her turrets.

Proper use of overwatch and grenades and my team is doing ok at the moment.

[contributor]

I mostly play above brutal, but I think that knowing where your knights are going to end a turn is huge. With the move then fire dynamics of bf you can change a lot in one turn. So always place first then fire. In one turn you can have Xeno coming from 5 directions, but the next turn you can move, occupy a hallway, kill off a few xeno and then have the xeno coming at you from one or two directions. When they start to swarm, get out of the pocket and make them walk through some OW to get to you.

I also find that big D melee captains are very useful. They don't have to kill right away, just defend and stack up critters for your aoe gunners.

[algesan]

Since my last saved games got wiped I haven't run the full game up again just piddling with it, but I tend to want a heavy heatsink Eng to cool off everyone or they end up cooking faster than two Paladins can heal. Don't be afraid to rest for heat recovery and blow off the turn bonus in later levels.

[hissrad]

I've been distracted by....Pokémon of all things(found an emulator and played/beat Pokemon Emerald)

Current question: Requisitions, which way would you recommend focusing early on? Usually I just take stuff as I need it but...since I'm higher up I don't want get too spread out, you know?

So far I've unlocked all the classes and I've got the Paladin leveled to the one that unlocks Medic resupply and a bit in soldier and engineer.

Any recommendations?

[En1gma]

I go pretty even everywhere, but focus on getting Turrets for Engineers, Overdrive for Scouts, Overwatch for Soldiers, pick a specialist and go deep until you get good gear unlocks...

This question boils down to your group plan, though...

[hissrad]

I've had good luck with defensive Paladins so probably gonna keep pushing there, shield bearer and warding fire are badass. Paladin seems to make a good squad leader when I split the troops as well.

As for a group plan...I've pick out who's gonna be what:Dalan on overwatch,generic templars #2 and #9 plasma. Scouts...I'm having a rough time with,either they get overwhelmed or burn out. I can make it work though, I think.

Are flame turrets worth picking up early or should I wait? They seem cool but...lack of overwatch is a pain. Have two engineers now to go either way.

Thanks for the tips btw.

[redartrats]

I've been playing through brutal the 2nd time, though on Replay+ from a captain previously on Hard, so I may be a bit biased in terms of how things would look if you start a fresh squad on Brutal...

But I find that as difficulty increases, my strategy becomes more and more focused on crowd control and highly-focused damage. For that, OW is an essential part of my strategy, and since xeno numbers increase the higher the difficulty you go, I'm finding that I'm struggling to deal enough damage to keep up with the number of xeno. OW is a good way of helping with that, since it basically gives you free extra shots while it's the enemy's turn.  Originally my squad had another soldier in addition to Dalan, but I hired a Neptune some time ago and now I regularly deploy him instead of the second soldier, because Full Auto has higher damage and larger "splatter" radius.  Neptune's OW can also be quite powerful.

Besides OW, I have my scouts max out on Gunnery and Tactics, kit them with high-crit or high penetration rifles, and focus on the Headshot talent. Once they have gained enough talent points to reach Headshot 10 and equip Deaden scan (+12% crit), they are become deadly snipers good for taking out Lancers and other ranged-attacking xeno, as well as weakening goliaths and cleaning up any xeno that made it past the OW template.  Scouts are almost essential when I need long-ranged, high-damage attacks.

On missions with Engineers, I find it useful to max out Capture first (for quick takeovers of TPs), and then focus on gunnery, and give them a longer-range weapon. Then they become useful as additional firepower to weaken xeno before they step into the OW template, or take them out if they made it through and got hit enough by OW that the Engineer's lower damage can kill them.  Sometimes it helps to give your Engineer high-penetration revolvers: penetrating shots can make his generally lower damage a lot more effective.

I've been playing a sword-and-shield captain, and I find that he's good as a tank sometimes, especially now that he has enough equipment points to wear high counter-attack equipment. Counterattack is another way to keep up with increasing xeno numbers. Though where possible I still prefer to keep cappy covered by OW, since at brutal difficulty the wrong combination of xeno can take his HP down frighteningly fast.

From time to time I also like deploying my hydra: nothing thins down a large xeno horde as fast as Napalm Charge 10 plus soldier / neptune's OW.   I've also gotten my hydra high level enough that his Hellstorm is at level 7 with Slayer-C Hellfire Cannon (+102 Fire dmg), so even when he's not making promethium lakes his primary attack is very high-damage, and good for taking down spawn towers and significantly weakening Goliaths, not to mention igniting small swarms of xeno.  Where I don't need that many templars with OW, I actually prefer deploying my hydra for the higher damage he can deal.

[Beldurax]

How is Permadeath turned on ?