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[Sean Mirrsen]

Actually, I think Floaters and Heavy Floaters start using the regular Plasma Rifle, so the Thin Men do end up as the only ones with Lights.

At least, that's the only way I can explain how they can keep remaining a threat when you're up against sectoid commanders and mechtoids.

[umiman]

Heavy floaters start with heavy plasma. They never use light plasma at all.

Regular floaters use light plasma only. When they die the text says "floater plasma rifle explodes into bits" but it's still a light plasma when you capture one regardless if you did it 20 months into the invasion. Though you'll never see one after heavy floaters appear anyway.

They're a threat because in many ways light plasma is better than heavy plasma. It has a significant bonus to aim without sacrificing too much damage. Furthermore, we fear them in higher difficulty levels because in Impossible, all aliens get huge bonuses to accuracy and crit chance to begin with. This is why Thin Men on impossible basically crit all the freaking time and they don't miss. It's why I tell people you need to kill them before they can do anything. Not to mention the aliens get more liberal in using grenades and other AOE abilities on higher difficulty.

More info here: http://xcom.wikia.com/wiki/Game_difficulty_%28XCOM:_Enemy_Unknown%29

[EnigmaticHat]

Did Enemy Within buff the aliens or some shit? I've been getting these bullshit critical hits and oneshots from aliens while behind full cover at the most inopportune times. It's absurdly cheaper than what I experienced in Enemy Unknown on Classic Ironman.

One time a sectoid managed to blast through the corner of a cargo crate I was using for cover to crit one of my soldiers. It shot through two layers of full cover, and with a freaking plasma pistol.

Another time a single thin man managed to kill off 3 of my four soldiers in just as many turns. It crit all of them. Actually, screw all thin men in general. There's countless times they pulled some bullshit on me and ruined the mission. The most absurd crit shots, or being able to move further in one turn so that even though I thought I was safe on the building top where the thinmen can't see me, instead it jumps straight up the rooftop, landing in half cover, and oneshotting one of my soldiers. I'm half expecting a 360 noscope critshot from across the map on my soldiers who are behind full cover, because thin men gonna thin my men.

I barely cleared the Portent council mission, because of those effing thin men. Lost 2 of my best troops, my highest ranking heavy(sergeant) and my only assault.

So, early game got way way way harder. Promotions take forever, equipment takes longer to set up, and those effing thin men are being thin men. Bloody hell.

I'm finding II to be fucking ridiculous recently.  Like my most recent wipe on the second mission: first turn of fight I grab meld, reveal two groups, pull back.  Alien turn, they one-shot the hunkered down rookie, causing two of the remaining squad members to panic.  Then, in the same alien turn, two groups reveal themselves... one of them flanking both the panicked squad members.  Go from no aliens revealed to dead in one turn

I mean, II has always been like that.  Soloman said in a preview close to release that it was never intended to be beaten, and only two of the testers had beaten it.  Adding 1 health the sectoids makes grenades not kill them, which gives you far too little control of the early missions where you can't possibly have upgraded your squad or interceptors.  Taking one health away from rookies lets sectoids one-shot them when they are hunkered down; plasma pistol does 3 damage, weapons will only deal 1 extra damage without damage roulette or crits.  For all that it now feels way worse than before.  At least the teleporting glitch is gone, so you can be pretty sure that if you've cleared out an area aliens won't start jumping out of it.  Barring that obnoxious behavior where unrevealed cryssalids can convert civs even if they would have to walk through your LOS to get to them.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I find that Not Created Equal is kind of fun to have on Normal, and I'd imagine it's in some ways interesting on harder difficulties as well.

Among other things, it randomizes the starting health of rookies, so you can have rookies with 7 health at start sometimes.
(of course, then you have absolute rejects with 55 Aim and 23 Will...)

Aiming Angles and Absolutely Critical are great too, if you are good at taking it slow and using tactical approach. No more missing a point blank Chryssalid out in the open, and Rapid Fire even with a basic rifle (not to mention a shotgun) will kill it dead.

[EnigmaticHat]

I find that Not Created Equal is kind of fun to have on Normal, and I'd imagine it's in some ways interesting on harder difficulties as well.

Among other things, it randomizes the starting health of rookies, so you can have rookies with 7 health at start sometimes.
(of course, then you have absolute rejects with 55 Aim and 23 Will...)

Aiming Angles and Absolutely Critical are great too, if you are good at taking it slow and using tactical approach. No more missing a point blank Chryssalid out in the open, and Rapid Fire even with a basic rifle (not to mention a shotgun) will kill it dead.

The net effect of all of those things it to make long range shooting a bunch more effective.  Which isn't good or bad, its just a thing.  Aiming Angles + Not Created Equal can (and basically will) add aim buffs beyond the default for each rank of soldier, while Absolutely Critical lets you reliably crit at a range with non-sniper classes.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I find that Not Created Equal is kind of fun to have on Normal, and I'd imagine it's in some ways interesting on harder difficulties as well.

Among other things, it randomizes the starting health of rookies, so you can have rookies with 7 health at start sometimes.
(of course, then you have absolute rejects with 55 Aim and 23 Will...)

Aiming Angles and Absolutely Critical are great too, if you are good at taking it slow and using tactical approach. No more missing a point blank Chryssalid out in the open, and Rapid Fire even with a basic rifle (not to mention a shotgun) will kill it dead.

The net effect of all of those things it to make long range shooting a bunch more effective.  Which isn't good or bad, its just a thing.  Aiming Angles + Not Created Equal can (and basically will) add aim buffs beyond the default for each rank of soldier, while Absolutely Critical lets you reliably crit at a range with non-sniper classes.

Absolutely Critical and Aiming Angles all basically apply only to tactical maneuvers around cover though. In a regular mid-range firefight, with both sides hiding behind cover, you're not going to see any improvement. Flanking, however, becomes an entirely different story.

It's also worth noting that the same things apply to the aliens as well. A soldier caught standing in the open (or in flanked cover) by a mechtoid is pretty much guaranteed dead regardless of class, rank, and equipment.

[EnigmaticHat]

Yeah but how often does that actually happen when you know Absolutely Critical is on?  I mean worst comes to worst, you can take your soldiers out of cover, and then its not an automatic crit (or at least it wasn't back in EU).

I haven't used aiming angles, but doesn't it make it so that if you shoot at a 45 degree angle, you get half the bonus of flanking?  Or something like that.  That sounds like it would be really useful in a firefight, minus the part where the enemy gets the same bonus.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Absolutely Critical means that any shot on any soldier or alien out of cover, or from a flanking position, is an automatic 100% critical. Aiming Angles gives you a gradual increase in aim (or rather a reduction of cover penalty) as you are closer to flanking, and I don't think it's as linear as that, but that's the general idea. It does make fighting more interesting, since cover is no longer binary, and tactical positioning is much more important.

It also means that you no longer have Sectoid Commanders with a ridiculous evasion rate against point blank machineguns.

[Mr Space Cat]

Most recent cheap death at the hands of thin men was during a raid on a downed UFO. While engaging a pack of three sectoids, one of them shoots at a rookie, misses, and destroys the rookie's full cover from the UFO wall. By destroying the wall, line of sight is revealed to the inside of the UFO, triggering the aliens inside. A floater pack of three flies off somewhere out of the way, and the single surviving thin man from an earlier encounter is revealed in a flanked position.

Because it's still the alien's turn when the thin man is revealed, it gets to take its turn. It moves into better cover, and then takes a free shot at my now completely coverless rookie, instacritting them.

That's sorta kinda rubbish, if the wall hadn't been blown down by the sectoid's missing shot then the thin man wouldn't have done anything at all.

On the brightside, the death count from the past couple missions went down exponentially from more than one to just one. MECs are pretty useful.

[stabbymcstabstab]

I hate, and I mean HATE thin men I lost a Rookie and a Squadie to them before I should have.(on easy to), then lost the Council mission where I should have meet them because one of the skinny bastards dropped behind him.

[Metalax]

Bah, just picked up enemy within when it was on the daily sale, and on starting it up have just found that it doesn't preserve your completion status with respect to what second wave options are available.

[loose nut]

Yeah, it's separate for Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within. :|

[Mr Space Cat]

So, MECs are pretty fantastic. I can just run them into the thick of combat and reliably put soldiers into half cover knowing that the aliens will shoot at the MECs. I can rush MEcs to get meld canisters since MECs don't need cover and can travel huge distances. I can rescue civilians or disable those little bombs charges in good time without putting my frailer soldiers at risk. I can launch grenades like artillery. I can punch the face off almost anything.

MECs are great. I'm having so much fun with EW right now. Early game was harder, I lost twice the number of soldiers I usually lost in EU early game, but now the difficulty curve is leveling off, and all the new changes are great.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Ha, MECs. Have you tried SHIVs? Less useful early on, to be sure, but with some research... Alloy MECs are ridiculously useful once they have at least a laser, plus once you get ammo conservation, suppression, and the sentinel drone upgrade... none of which are terribly costly, I must add, and retroactively apply to any SHIVs you've built, for free. A pair of SHIVs becomes the most welcome addition on any Chryssalid mission.

[Xantalos]

Ha, MECs. Have you tried SHIVs? Less useful early on, to be sure, but with some research... Alloy MECs are ridiculously useful once they have at least a laser, plus once you get ammo conservation, suppression, and the sentinel drone upgrade... none of which are terribly costly, I must add, and retroactively apply to any SHIVs you've built, for free. A pair of SHIVs becomes the most welcome addition on any Chryssalid mission.

Plus they fly.