Editing XCOM (section)

==== Long War Rebalance ====
The largest Long War sub-mod, Long War Rebalance completely overhauls everything drastically for the 3rd time, from base management to even air combat. In terms of difficulty, LWR tries to maintain the sweet spot between bullshit (early-game Long War) to cake walk (late-game Long war) while reducing the tedium in base-game and LW. One of the most boring parts of LW (and vanilla impossible) was overwatch creeping, which was the solution to prevent a possibly game-ending pod activation. While XCOM 2 alleviates this with concealment, LWR removes the ability to overwatch hidden enemies (only OWing visible enemies), and activated pods activate nearby pods (An Outsider pod may alert every pod on the map!). Before you shit your pants, UCross (the main dev) made pod activation much less punishing by giving Your Dudes a free movement point if they have no action points, similar to how aliens can scramble if activated. This produces a much more fast-paced game, allowing you to dash to your content.

Despite how horrible it sounds to face two or three pods, they're never as large as LW, and classes have been reworked to shoot multiple times (Infantry can hit 4 times with correct build). Even then, most pods can't be instantly wiped like X2, thanks to innate DR in cover for both XCOM and xenos (~30% DR in half, ~60% DR in full), so the enemy will usually have a chance to hit, and they can hit hard. Every alien (and EXALT) unit is now a serious threats in the battlefield, with even the weakest units having serious potential. For example, Sectoids now have Psi Panic and a buffed Mindfray in the beginning, making them fantastic in annihilating rookie brains, and Drones have the ability to Holo Target and heal a Cyberdisc back to half health with Master Mechanic. In LWR, there are less aliens, but they can be serious threats in themselves.