Overwatch (EU2012)

A soldier or alien with a remaining action can enter Overwatch (default hotkey Y). This ends the soldier's turn, but allows them to shoot at the first enemy that enters their overwatch range during the enemy turn, albeit at a small penalty(aim penalty/cannot crit).

Some class abilities alter or improve various aspects and properties of Overwatch. These include Rapid Reaction (Heavy), Squad Sight (Sniper), Opportunist (Sniper), Covering Fire (Support), and Sentinel (Support).

When overwatching be aware of what accuracy percentage you are likely to get. It is better to hunker down and double your defense bonus rather than risking a 20% shot. Especially early on with rookies with low accuracy and carrying weak weapons it isn't worth the risk.

Due to the aim penalty, overwatch can be more effectively used to "pin down" aliens while your squad maneuvers, rather than for direct damage. An aliens will never, or very rarely move if it sees an agent enter overwatch (this holds true for aliens under suppressing fire as well). This can be exploited to great effect: it allows you to move your agents into flanking positions, while at the same time preventing the aliens from doing the same to you. Please note that aliens that do NOT see the agent go into overwatch will still freely move, and will more than likely trigger the reaction shot. If all your squad's reaction shots are triggered, then the aliens will once again move freely, so care must be taken when setting up overwatch for this tactic.

Here is a more in-depth guide to effective overwatch usage, credit to 1stGear of the Something Awful forums:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3508281&perpage=40&pagenumber=395#post408751257

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I'm going to cover a bunch of stuff in this post, but I'm going to start with Overwatch and using it properly. This is because Overwatching correctly is one of the most fundamentally important parts of playing this game on Classic and Impossible and the aliens will destroy you every single time if you don't do it right.

What is Overwatch?

Just so we're on the same page, Overwatching is the act of having your soldier reaction fire on any enemy that makes a move action within their field of view. Overwatch shots cannot crit, are made at an Aim penalty, and the Overwatcher must have line-of-sight on the victim. Overwatch shots do not trigger on any action except for movement. Choosing to Overwatch ends your soldier's turn entirely, regardless of how many actions they had left. I'll interchangeably refer to Overwatch shots as reaction fire.

I know that and I use it all the time, what's the problem?

The using it all the time is the problem. Its a common refrain in this thread that should always end your turn on Overwatch and that's a false statement that will result in the death of a lot of soldiers. This is because of something incredibly, unbelievably important that the game does not directly tell you:

An alien that knows it is being Overwatched will not move for any reason (Short of panic). This is for the same reason that you try to avoid moving when you're being Overwatched: the AI doesn't want to give you the free shot and potential kill. However, a human player has the capacity to judge the risk of taking reaction fire against other potential risks, like being flanked or a car about to explode. The AI does not. Again, if the AI knows a unit is being Overwatched, it will not move that unit under any circumstance. Instead, it will fire at one of your units. On unmodded Classic, this is super-bad because the aliens receive bonuses to their Aim and Crit chance, meaning their chances of hitting and killing one of your soldiers is significantly higher.

This is why you are fucking up using Overwatch. By always choosing to Overwatch if you can't think of anything else, you are essentially forcing the AI to make more shots on your soldiers, significantly increasing the chance of those soldiers dying.

So Overwatch is useless then.

No, Overwatch still has two primary uses:

1)The AI in XCOM is not omnipotent. If it doesn't have line-of-sight on you, it legitimately does not know where you are and what you are doing (This appears to extend even further than a human player's lack of knowledge in that the AI doesn't seem to cohesively use all of its units' vision, meaning that the AI might move Sectoid A into an Overwatching soldier's LOS even though Sectoid B already had LOS on the Overwatcher). This means the AI will walk into Overwatch fire if the Overwatcher was in the fog of war. This is why, when you are in the initial scouting phase, you should be ending every turn on Overwatch in case an alien pack runs into view. This is also useful for Overwatch traps, where you pull your soldiers back, Overwatch them, then let Muton Berserkers charge in and get fucked up by a criss-crossing plasma disco.

2) The refusal of the AI to move while it is Overwatched is as much as a risk to them as it is a risk to you. This means they won't shift out of half-cover, they won't run from being flanked, and they won't move from an exploding car. Using Overwatch is a way of 'fixing' an alien in place if that alien is in an advantageous place for you or if you are moving soldiers to flank it. Keep in mind that the pinned alien will continue to shoot at your people, so make sure that the potential gain of pinning it is higher than the potential risk of injury or death. Its honestly better to use Suppression for this particular use.

I'm a goon, break it down into bullet points

• Overwatch when you are scouting and not certain what you'll run into.
• Overwatch when you want to keep an alien pinned down to flank it/shoot it/whatever.
• Overwatch when you know the AI doesn't have LOS on you and thus doesn't know what you're doing.
• DO NOT Overwatch if you will gain nothing from this alien's current position. Either take the shot if its >40% or Hunker Down.
• AVOID Overwatching while in half-cover. Half-cover is not hugely useful on Classic and it is almost always better to Hunker Down than doing anything else.

People who say you should always end by Overwatching are straight-up wrong. I followed that particular advice and was losing 1+ soldiers every mission. When I learned how the AI responded to Overwatch and began thinking about my use of it in that context, I started using it a lot less while using Hunker Down or taking shots I wouldn't have taken before. Abruptly, I start winning more missions with no casualties. Overwatch is a very powerful ability when used correctly and its is an anchor around your neck if you use it without thought.

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