XCOM BI Standard Lategame Builds and Loadouts
Short video for people not wanting to sift through playthrough to look at builds and loadouts. Pause the video for longer look. Explanations below...
Jaeger
pure dps: pretty standard
itz - sharp - executioner - ranger - aggression - bringem - vpt
loadout: optics, battle computer, targeting module
all 4 shots are consistent big crits, reload. Battle computer is to make its defense slightly higher than the 5 DR pathfinders and shoguns, so aliens target it less. 130 aim aliens will still go for it sometimes though, but it's no big deal, you'll get mist splashed anyways.
Shogun
dps with servos and medic: pretty standard
CD - heat ammo - rapidfire - servos - ranger - lightem - medic
loadout: alloy carbide, scope, optics
extremely versatile, better perk order than valk, can hold 6 mists for base assaults, robot killers, high dps up to 3 shots, 5 DR let's them tank all sorts of shots. If you take 15 damage - 5 = 10, you still regen 8 from servos. By the end of regen you've only taken 2 damage. Combined with pathfinders, you can spread damage out and heal them all up with mists, easily getting 15-20 healed per mist. On a base assault this means you can heal like 300 damage, and survive like 1k damage if it's spread out enough. Zero chance of losing if played cautiously.
Pathfinder
pure dps, except substitute servos for ranger.
HNR - lone - sharp - SERVOS not ranger - vpt - bringem - rapidfire
Servos seems unnecessary superficially, but it's HUGE. I've never built servos on pathfinders before this version of BI. Over a hundred runs getting ranger. But in BI there are so many unavoidable shots in lategame. Aliens won't always target your shoguns, they will target by accuracy and proximity, so it's a 50/50 tossup between pathfinder and shogun. With extremely limited access to ghost grenades in this version, you NEED to extra tankiness. Having 4 instead of 2 MEC with servos to spread out damage lets you tank so much more damage. You lose only 3-4% team damage output, but you gain an insane amount of survivability. If I had to put a number on it I'd say 40% more survivability. Do not underestimate servos on pathfinders to complement shoguns in BI.
Loadout: holotargeter, alloy carbide 5 DR total, optics
Scout:
I always built pure dps in vanilla LW. In BI, battle scanner is better. Terror panic is problematic without it. And in clusterfuck maps each scan can be worth up to a ghost grenade. Now that ghost grenades are restricted, do not be stubborn ranking up scanner over aggression. It's not only worth it.... I'd go as far as saying aggression over scanner is a strict misplay in BI
This video doesn't show the bulk of my engineers. Through most of the game I had 12-13 engineers, and now it's down to 2. I bring sapper engineers on every yolo comp mission in early-mid game. They help carry while you're weak. I build them sapper -ranger - WTS, and they all become shoguns. Good way to fill ranks with powerful soldiers in early-mid, and shoguns are op in late.
Gunners - all bullet wizards, rapid fire heat are useless when you can just have a shogun, don't bother with overwatch builds in BI. Just horrible, even guardian, especially guardian.
Infantry - early game carriers, a core component of ronar comp, crit build only, tank doesn't scale well in BI since psi screen nerf over a year ago.
Assaults - I use 11 of them in early-mid. Some of the early-mid missions with yolo comp seem easier than they would be. 12 muton pulls beaten with with early HNR + flashbangs, zero damage taken. Lategame they're pretty useless. Take ranger over aggression. Aggression's EV is higher, yes. For this reason I built aggression for maybe first 50 BI tries. Wrong. All they're there for is early-mid carrying. Get ranger over aggression.
Medic standard dense smoke, don't bother with drugs. You will not be mindcontrolling an ethereal in this version. If you're mindcontrolling an ethereal, you will lose. It means you're delaying ending on purpose. Delaying ending just makes alien densities eventually get too high, and alien turns lock up forever, basically the same as a file corruption.
rocketeer is early-mid carrier like assault. Very powerful early-mid and a core of ronarcomp. They don't scale and become pretty much useless in lategame. If you bring too much non-scaling deadweight to even a crashed scout in january, you are asking to get the real soldiers that went along to babysit them killed.
Valkyrie, goliath, guardian are useless. Marauder is ok, but not really worth it. Archer is pretty good for maybe a month, and then it becomes useless. Sniper is good for disabling: there are lots of sectopods with big hp bars. I wouldn't build more than 1-2 though. They have subpar throughput until MSGT, and jaeger is better in every way. The more endgame you see, the less you'll want to build snipers over scouts in BI. And finally, 1-2 capture engineers is enough.