Imagine, if you will, using a Grenadier to soften up – but not quite kill – a squad of Advent soldiers with an explosive area-of-effect attack. On its own, that ability allows you to dash out of cover, strike down an enemy, and dash back – effectively turning the Ranger’s sword into a ranged weapon (although exposing him to Overwatch cover fire).Ī Phantom-Reaper Ranger could be absolutely devastating. So if you have two enemies standing side by side, you could run up, kill both, and then take a shot at a distant third with your rifle.Īnother high-level skill, called Phantom, allows the Ranger to move again after a kill. Towards the top of the Ranger’s skill tree you’ll get access to the ultra-powerful Reaper with it, scoring a melee kill allows you to combo into another attack – and you can chain that as many times as you want, as long as you keep scoring kills. “DeAngelis detailed two skills that could make the Ranger even deadlier than Enemy Unknown’s famous Double-Tap Sniper. It's an interesting decision there's other enemies around you, so you probably don't want to do that.” “So, making that risk/reward choice is very powerful. But once spotted, the close-range nature of the Ranger’s abilities means using them aggressively can leave him out of cover and vulnerable. Leaping out of the shadows with a sword to deal a huge amount of damage on the most powerful enemy targets before they know what hit them, or locating enemies for long-range allies can turn the tables on what would have been a losing fight. “Every unit is in concealment when they start the map the ranger can push that further, depending on how you spec them out in their specialty tree,” said DeAngelis., and the Ranger is among the best equipped to make the most of the element of surprise. 'We talked a little bit about the backstabbing stuff, but we led with the melee.'Ĭoncealment is a big part of XCOM 2 combat, and that can work both for and against the Ranger. 'It's hardcore melee combat,' DeAngelis clarified. While a stealth approach allows you the first shot, the Ranger doesn’t do backstabbing or throat-cutting style kills.

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