Hi, this is TapCat and today I want to help
you kill the Viper King! The Viper King is the first alien ruler you'll
encounter as part of the Alien Hunters DLC. We'll go through his abilities first and then
talk about how to counteract them in just a couple of minutes. One of the defining characteristics of the
rulers is that they REACT every time one of your soldiers takes an action. Simply put, you'll take an action and then
he will immediately get to respond in kind. And throughout the turn, as each of your soldiers
takes an action, he will get to react with one of his own. He gets to both attack and move multiple times
in a single turn and that makes him extremely dangerous. The one small consolation to this is that he only gets the reaction phases. When all the other aliens are doing something during the Alien Activity turn, he won't. So he'll never get 2 actions in a row before you at least have a chance to do something. But wait, there's more! His health ranges from 44 on rookie all the
way up to 69 on Legend difficulty. On top of that, he'll have 3 armor on Legend
and 2 on the other difficulty levels. Like regular vipers, he has a chance to dodge
any hits you may land and that makes chipping away at his enormous health-bar even more
painfully difficult. Another ability he shares with vipers is the
tongue pull which will haul in one of your soldiers but his has a little extra oomph. When he binds your soldier, he'll squeeze
2-4 health out of him AND have a 50% chance to knock him unconscious each reaction phase...
not turn, reaction phase. One area where he differs from the normal
vipers is in his breath weapon. Rather than poison, he spits a frost cloud
that freezes any soldiers caught in the blast for 2 turns, leaving them unable to do anything
at all during that time. In my encounters with him, he's tended to
favor these abilities over a straigtfoward attack, but when the mood strikes him he will
shoot with a bolt caster that deals 4-6 damage. Finally, he has the ability to summon a psionic
gate either after enough time has passed or he's taken enough damage to drive him off. Usually that seems to be about 1/3 of his total health. Once he opens the gate, you'll have exactly
one action left before he runs away. If he does make it through the gate, then
you can look forward to meeting him again during a future mission when he'll have the
same amount of remaining health and armor that he did when he escaped. So, allow me to summarize all of the above. The Viper King can really tear up a squad. If you meet him early in the game, I can all
but promise that some of your troops are going home in body bags. If you're still using the starter armor and
weapons, you'll feel like you're trying to chop down a redwood tree with a kitchen knife
while he's easily killing your soldiers with his crush move as well as the bolt caster. And that brings me to my first piece of advice. Do NOT fight him early. At some point, you'll be offered a chance
to scan for a "Triangulated Position." Go ahead and do that. You'll then be offered a mission and Bradford
will offer to lead the team. That mission location will be marked on your
global map and it will never expire. You can wait as long as you like before going. My advice is to avoid it until you've upgraded
the entire squad's weapons to magnetic level and bought the 2nd tier of armor as well. While you're at it, try and get dragon rounds
and plasma grenades at a minimum from the proving grounds. You want to go in loaded for bear. Once you do fight him, the first step is to
try and get rid of his armor. Thankfully, that shouldn't be too difficult
if you've waited. An acid grenade would be ideal because it
would also establish burn damage. But in truth, any variety of upgraded grenade
will help and a grenadier with shredder would also make a good start. Speaking of grenadiers, they tend to be very
useful in the these encounters. If you've managed to get one to colonel, then
leading off a turn with Rupture will help all of your other soldiers do more damage. And a grenadier with Heavy Ordnance can get
an extra use out of the frost bomb. Why does that matter? Because the frost bomb will freeze the Viper
King and deny him 3 reaction phases. And this is a key point. Those constant reactions are his most devastating
ability that make fighting him so difficult. Whenever possible, we want to deny him all
those extra actions. So first, keep in mind that EVERY action you
take triggers this. Moving and reloading will give him the same
opportunity to do something that attacking does. So measure your actions carefully. If you do need to move a long distance, do
it on a dash which is one action rather than moving 2 separate times. But ask yourself if you truly need to move
at all or if can you stay put is it likely that he will come toward you a little later
in the turn. In the end, of course, you will take actions
to win this fight and the frost bomb is one way to shut him down when you do. Another is to take advantage of so-called
free actions. These are things you can do that don't count
as one of your two actions for a turn. These are useful at any time but doubly so
here, because they don't trigger a reaction phase. Specific examples include throwing the Hunter's
Axe, using an armor's grappling hook to move, and a gunslinger attacking with Lightning
Hands. Another way to get extra value out of a single
action is to use the sharpshooter ability, Killzone. It will be triggered every time the viper
king moves, even if that happens multiple times in that one turn. For once all of his extra reactions will have
a chance to work partly to your benefit. You can also shoot him with the Bolt Caster
and that will give you a chance to stun him. That's great if it happens but stuns aren't guaranteed
and remember that you'll have to reload the bolt caster after every shot so you could actually lose
more actions than you take from him depending on how unlucky you get with those stuns. If you've upgraded your ranger's sword or
the Hunter's Axe to the second tier, they'll also have a chance to stun him. Just be aware that if you move into melee
range he's very likely to use his bind and crush move. We'll talk more about that little trick in
a minute but, for now, let's stick to ways we can hamper him. Flashbang grenades will reduce his mobility
and aim and venom rounds will have a similar effect. Sadly, while mimic beacons are usually my
favorite form of crowd control in this game, all of the alien rulers typically ignore them
completely and if you use one at all, it should only be to occupy any other aliens in the
area that are sufficiently dangerous to spend even one precious action on in the midst of
fighting the King. Okay, now let's go back to his python-like
ability to crush your soldiers. There's a very good chance that your trooper
will be knocked unconscious if you don't free him immediately after he's grabbed. To keep from losing him for the rest of the
fight, find a way to do some damage to the king with your very next action. Now be warned, that he may just grab that same soldier again on his next reaction but if he does you'll simply have to respond again because there's
no real way to prevent that. So what are the different ways to cause damage? Well, shooting him in the face is always good,
a carefully placed grenade can free your soldier without hurting him, and combat protocol will
also do the trick. But arguably the best approach is to stack
damage-over-time effects on him whenever you get the chance as that will hurt him again
and again without you having to lift a finger. For example, shoot him with dragon rounds
and he'll burn on every single reaction phase until the flame goes out. If he grabs anyone during that time, he'll
automatically let them go when he takes that damage. But it's worth pointing out that the
damage itself is a worthy goal because if you can keep him on fire for most of the fight
you'll have gone a long way toward driving him off or even killing him. Acid grenades and venom rounds will offer
similar benefits although not for as much damage. A thoroughly unreliable but potentially enjoyable
strategy is to equip everyone's weapon with the best repeaters you can scrounge up and
see if you can score an instant kill.. Yes, it is possible to execute alien rulers. As a side note: Keep in mind that he has that
frost breath and don't cluster your soldiers tightly together. Getting half your squad frozen solid at one
time is not going to be helpful. And more than any other fight, please remember
when fighting alien rulers that this is a turn based game. Don't get rattled Don't panic and rush. You have time to think. Use it. Figure out which ability or weapon will help
you most when used first and what should be held for later. Just keep your cool, use the resources available
to you, and his days are numbered. All right, if you've made it this far then
hopefully you've found this video helpful, if so please give it a like so other people
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hope we see you next time.
