XCOM 2 – Surivival Strategy Guide

My surivival strategies which helped me personally.

How to Survive on Highest Difficult

• Double the mission timers and avatar progress.
• Use equipment like smoke grenades, flash bangs, suppressing fire.
• Always keep up in science progress.
• Hacking and Psi-Domination are your friends as you not only take away one enemy, you also “win” one. Some missions I was using up to 3 Psi Operatives. Without them I NEVER had beaten the last battle.
• Take your time, plan ahead and use overwatch in the beginning stages. Later overwatch is not so powerful anymore as some skills are used best as fast as possible.
• make use of every opportunity, for example bonded mates.
• Winning stats through cov-ops are a must.
• Some missions are destined to are lost, don’t waste your soldiers once you see the tide turning. There is no shame in retreat.
• Always create your best friends as soldiers. So you will be double careful.
• Start over and over, it requires luck in ironmode or reloading sometimes.
• Don’t play when tired or in a hurry. You will rush forward and loose someone.
• Skills that do not deal damage to enemies (destroying cover) are absolutely underrated but a must have.
• Always try to kill wounded aliens instead of sharing damage equally. A dead alien cannot hurt. Well.. Except for the andromedon.
• Sniper and reaper are a heavenly combination if no mission timer present.
• Always smile when shooting, this pleases the rng god.
• Make use of cooldowns, if a skill is ready again in 3 turns just use it now.
• Don’t eat advent burgers.
• Play it your style, for example: I beat the game on high difficulty in a very slow playstyle, I never managed to beat the game for the fast achievement. If you are a careful and slow player, make use of it, it helped me a lot.
• When using dlcs, robots are your friends with a lot of useful skills, for example creating cover in open fields.
• Again: Plan ahead your movements. There is no medal when rushing to the LZ with 4 turns left and then loose someone.
• If one choosen is your weak spot and cannot be beaten (no overwatch against assassin always make things hard for me in the early stage) “expand” to another continent and operate your missions mostly there if possible, e.g. for “target missions”.
• Don’t use mods for enhanced difficulty or more enemies with even crazier skills.
• If possible on “easier” missions take 1 rookie with you to teach him. Also cov-ops are a great opportunity to fetch some xp, especially when no chance fpr an ambush.
• Skills that cannot miss (Grenades, maybe PSI Powers with 100%) are great against those guys in heavy cover.
• No need to rush into DLC content (Alien hunters except for the 2 items, Shens last gift), just let them wait on the map for you once you feel extremely strong.
• Depending on how “earned” the achievement should feel… there are mods who could help you while maintaining a high difficulty like Grimy’s Loot Mod or expanding the rooster up to 8 soldiers. I would recommend to beat it without mods for the first time for the best feeling, but on the other hand… the main thing is you’re having fun with the game.