Mass Effect General Discussion (spoilers)

MP is the best. All the bade Human characters save the Inflitrator are among the best of their class, by the way.

Really? Is that because of being jack of all stats, or power load?

I was playing alongside a Krogan Battlemaster and that guy was tanking Geth Primes. He could've solo'd the gold map we were on, almost did tbh (The anti air base one, horrible layout, barely any cover... interesting for skirmishing.)

I want an infiltrator geth, just so I can yell "I'm doing this intentionally!"

Also, I find it interesting how there's an Edi Expy MP character and a Phantom one as well... I have unlocked one that has an OMNI BOW.

Seriously. An Omni-bow. What next. "Yeah, I traded my old one in for my omni catapault. Got an omni trebuchet over there too, plus this omni morning star. For the lulz."

Well, let's see. Human Soldier is the only class that has the excellent Adrenaline Rush, which gives it a lot of firepower, and has a good (yet forgoable if you want to specialize) secondary power and grenade. Adept has the best powers for biotic combinations and crowd control, with Warp/Shockwave having the strongest explosions and Singularity being able to either trap unshielded enemies or set up even multiple enemies for detonation. Engineer has both Incinerate and Overload, which lets him set off his own explosions and make short work of defenses, plus the drone for harrying. Sentinel is great with a shotgun given thr extra bulk from Tech Armor, and Warp plus Throw makes for quick, powerful explosions. And lastly the MANGUARD has exclusive acces to Nova and is therefore the best. Needs hosting, though.

Among the best would be a little bit too much. There are quite a few Adepts that are much better than the Human. The Asari Justicar is amazing, period, and the best choke controller of the entire game, the Drell Adept is a clear-cut Glass Cannon with incredible damage output, and the Awakened Collector is either a bulky weapon user, or the best at creating biotic explosions. I'd put the Fury too, but I consider the Valkyrie Sentinel to be all-around more efficient than her.

No one tops both Geth Soldiers, Toaster and Juggernaut, and when it comes to damage output, the Turian Soldier puts everyone to shame, the Destroyer being the only one coming close.

I agree with the Engineer (the Taliquarian is good too) and Vanguard (although the Cabal is better imo).

The Human Sentinel is a bad character, since the Asari Adept is flat-out better, Stasis being much more useful for a power player than Tech Armor, and has better damage bonuses. The Turian Sentinel is less powerful but much more versatile than its Soldier equivalent, and the Valkyrie is a better Fury as said above.

edited 26th Jan '15 8:49:04 AM by Julep

Nah, the Valkyrie doesn't have the mobility or raw DPS of the Fury. The Collector actually has the worst biotic explosions in the game, but Dark Sphere outdamages them anyway. Agreed on the Soldiers, but the Trooper and Juggernaut are cheating. You might be confusing the Turian Soldier with the Ghost, though, since the latter is the one with the incomparable DPS. Human Sentinel is better for mixed than pure powers. And I gotta disagree with you, the female Quarian Engineer is shit, and the MANGUARD is leagues beyond the Cabal.

Destroyer or nothing is my motto.

But I'm a strange man when it comes to my multiplayer.

When you go for Annihilation Field, survivability is essential, and that's something the Fury has none to speak of, she is a pure Glass Cannon - the Valkyrie can tank a few hits before going down at least. And her dodge is much more versatile and fast than the Fury. On some small maps, the TP is great, but sometimes you'd rather just hide behind cover instead of reappearing 5 meters away. The Awakened Collector and the Justicar are the two Adepts that shine with Assault Rifles instead of light weapons with their defensive powers, which makes them amazing since they still have access to some excellent biotic primers (Reave/Dark Channel). And if you want to go power damage, then Dark Sphere has no equal when it comes to pure damage.

I'm not mistaken, the Turian Soldier with a Hurricane has exactly zero equivalent when it comes to DPS when Marksman is on, since he completely negates the huge recoil. Slap Armor-Piercing Ammo, and anything that gets reasonably close dies quickly. It's almost like a long-range Reegar.

The Female Quariangineer is one of the greatest teamplayers out there, she can spam her powers and set up every kind of tech explosion there is. I agree that she would fare better with Overload than Cryo Blast, but she is very useful anyway (not as solo).

And I'm sorry, but no. Cabal rules. Novaguard is better on Bronze and Silver, they tie on Gold (and I am being generous), and she wrecks him on Platinum, with her incredible survivability/mobility, while there are a lot of things that will just lay waste on the 'guard every time he uses Nova. Basically, depleting your shields is suicidal, and it's all he is capable about. Geth Primes do mincemeat of him (to be fair Platinum Primes do mincemeat of a huge lot of things).

The Fury can use the shield drain evolution of AF for survivability, but that's not the point. Once you detonate an explosion, you have to get out of range and back in order to prime again, which is what the teleport excels at. Plus, Throw recharges almost instantly, especially compared to a Tech Armor-slowed Warp. It's DPS versus bulk — one's not necessarily better than the other, but I'll take wanton destruction every day.

Agreed on the Collector and Justicar, though when I'm using Adepts, I prefer focusing on pure powers. Plus, Dark Sphere's recharge time is so long that having that +200% recharge really makes a difference.

I had a tool to test the DPS, but I can't find it right now. Regardless, a Ghost with a Harrier and Assault Rifle Damage evolution on the cloak gets double damage for six seconds — long enough to recharge, giving you a near-permanent boost. Add in Overload, instant shield recharge and damage boost with its pack power, and excellent dodge, and it's just plain better than the vanilla Turian Soldier.

Cryo Blast is one of the worst powers in the game. The Talineer is completely outclassed by the Male Quarian and the Paladin.

Cabal I might concede, but only if it's not used as a Vanguard, using its shield recharge, teleportation and Nightshade Blades as opposed to its actually fun Poison Strike and melee. And if you know how to Nova-cancel, the only times you'll be without your shields as a Manguard is for a split second where everything's reeling and you're about to charge again anyway.

The split second is enough to get stunned by:

• a Ravager
• a Scion
• a Possessed Scion's cluster grenades
• a Bomber's cluster grenades
• a Hunter
• a Prime
• a Prime's Drone (especially those little fuckers)

I've made my fair share of Platinum games, and I've never ever seen a Novaguard perform well, even as host. Aside from the Cabal and some good Kroguard players, the one Vanguard that had surprisingly good results when well played is the N7 Slayer (with Phase Disruptor only). The difference being that, while weaker, you can use the Disruptor at range, which means that if an enemy survives a hit, you are not necessarily a sitting duck when you deplete your shields yourself. I've seen a guy performing extremely well as a Volus VG once too, but he had an insane N7 score and probably practiced a lot.

As for DPS/bulk, I almost always go for bulk, which is a bit more forgiving on Gold and Platinum, especially with my little sight troubles. Except as a Drell (Adept or Assassin, the Vanguard sucks), on whom I usually slap a Wraith and hope to have a team nice enough to frequently raise me (easier with the Assassin, the squaddies usually love the Recon Mine). I don't see many characters able to do more overall (single-target & aoe) damage than a Shotgun-wielding Drell Adept.

edited 26th Jan '15 1:41:28 PM by Julep

The loot system of MP just killed the experience for me, random jumps were a huge waste of time. I would much prefer an in-game store.

It's true that they should have allowed to buy at least some of the stuff. However, the excitement of opening a pack is not to be underestimated - at least when you still have Gold content to unlock, because once you're done and only need to get UR weapons, then it's common to waste 10 99k packs without getting anything except consumables.

edited 26th Jan '15 3:59:13 PM by Julep

I definitely wouldn't take the Manguard to Platinum. But he's surprisingly great at killing Phantoms and other assorted Cerberus on Gold and below. And yeah the Slayer is fucking awesome, Phase Disruptor has insane DPS and great penetration. Only hard bit is avoiding sync kills when charging to replenish your shield. Stupid Banshees.

I had a surprisingly good run with the Alliance Infiltrator Unit. Upgraded her Cloak and Cryo Blast ability for minimum cooldown and solo-ed silver with her. Haven't really touched the MP much after that though, I should get back online.

The AIU is incredible, but I find her not to be as great for soloing as she looks to be - especially if you follow the clues on her abilities and give her a shotgun. With a team, the automatic resurrection is a blast that save your squadmates from some traps (like the stealthy Phantom near the downed player, OR the turret saying hello) since you get away by yourself with minimal enemy pressure. However, when you are soloing, going down may be a death warrant when you are surrounded by certain enemies, that will kill you again during the brief interval you use to get back on your feet - Phantoms, Praetorians, Brutes, Hunters or Banshees are among the offenders. It's possible, of course, but the Medikits aren't as awesome as they seem to be.

So as a whole, I'd rather solo with a good assault rifle, because to play shotguns you don't need to resurrect, you need not to die - like the Cabal or the Ghost (even if sadly they both have Assault Rifle buffs as Turians).

She is the best character for farming money though. Just slap Incendiary Ammo and gear that gives you more grenades, and you're ready to go on Gold for minimal cost (you won't use that many medigels or health kits with her).

edited 27th Jan '15 9:55:10 AM by Julep

The AIU is one of the best units. Take Tactical Cloak with power and shotgun evolutions, 5/3 the recharge packs and Cryo Blast, and max out the passive abilities. With a Claymore and good knowledge of reload cancelling, it gets absolutely insane DPS. The Claymore can bypass shield gate, so it can OHK any infantry unit, and Cryo Blast can freeze several unprotected enemies to give you breathing space or weaken heavy units' armor to do even more absurd damage.

I never played the MP, so I have nothing to contribute to this discussion.

Claymore means reloading trick, which I personnally dislike. I usually go for either Reegar or Wraith.

My particular build for the AIU revolved around the use of sniper rifles. With the damage bonus from cloaking, most shots from higher-tiered sniper rifles became one-hit kills.

Add to that the minimum cooldown for cloaking means that I was going through a steady cycle of cloaking-headshot-reload, cloaking-headshot-reload...etc

It was incredibly effective. You also get good crowd control with the cryo blast to get away from enemies if they crowd you.

edited 28th Jan '15 1:01:53 PM by GutstheBerserker

The best infiltrator for sniper rifles, in my opinion, is the Drell. With Recon Mine, you get target assistance w/ possibility to go through walls with enough piercing ability, a debuff on enemies, and a bigass explosion if you wish. You can add the cloak for absurd damage, with Armor-Piercing Ammo and a Black Widow, he is completely insane. And of course, like all Drells, he gest the biggest weapon damage bonuses from his Class tree (32.5%), making him the ultimate Glass Cannon - the only characters with equal or lesser defensive abilities all have at least one power that improves their survivability; Voluses have their Shield recharge, Drell Adepts have Reave and Drell VG have Biotic Charge.

edited 28th Jan '15 3:38:36 PM by Julep

@Discar: I'm here. I was in the ME Politics thread earlier, because I looked in here and saw the ME 3 SP restriction and figured that would cripple discussion. But it doesn't seem to matter much anymore.

I agree that the trilogy's pacing was off. 2 needed to accomplish a lot of things, and it wound up accomplishing almost none of them. It's especially facepalm-worthy because the premise of 2 — gathering a team — would work fine if the focus had been gathering a team to stop the Eldritch Abomination army that's about to invade, rather than stopping the tenuously-related space bugs. The Collectors wound up just kind of being a waste of time, because the focus was so heavily on them. They are a lot of fun to fight though, I'll give them that.

And, Cerberus's entire plotline throughout 2 and 3 was stupid, IMO. They worked a lot better in 1, where they were basically just the organization behind all the weird eldritch stuff that wasn't Reaper-related. Which would make them perfect for a post-Reaper plotline. Keep them in the background for now, and then when the Reapers are done with, have Cerberus do something stupid and bring about the next Cthulhu apocalypse.

I would've had the non-Alliance benefactor in 2 be the True Geth, albeit secretly via one of the corporations from the first game. (I kind of liked the whole "this is a civilian ship; it's all posh" plot point.) They're trying to prepare the galaxy for the Reapers by having you go around investigating, and gathering a team of soldiers. As well as doing all the Galactic Cleanup that wound up being shoehorned in in 3 — Rannoch, the genophage, etc. You initially have no idea who's funding the corporation, and then at the halfway point or so you're told to meet them somewhere, and it turns out to be Legion.

I also really like the WMG that the geth are actually Shepard cultists.

Eh, reload cancelling is such a minor exploit I barely even consider it one. And honestly if you have a unique evolution, you might as well use it, play to your strengths. The Ghost with assault rifles, Shadow with melee, Huntress with powers, AIU with shotguns. All other Infiltrators get the sniper rifle damage evolution. And yeah, the Assassin is probably the best sniper. Only rival, I think, is the Geth Infiltrator.

Geth do not infiltrate.

After a small check, it is rather hard to know which one is the most powerful. I always assumed a Javelin shot by the GI was the most powerful thing there was, but outside of Hunter Mode, the Assassin gets the same total weapon bonus - and on any weapon, not just geth ones. And while Hunter Mode gives +17.5% damage, Recon Mine debuff increases damage by 25%. Technically, the GI can surpass that with a proxy mine, but it is not an extremely reliable power to use with sniper rifles (unlike recon mine which is perfect), it's more for a shotgun wielding GI. And in any event, a Jav on the Assassin would be redundant; no need to see through walls when you have a Recon Mine, the Black Widow is much better.

I find the Huntress to be another great sniper rifle user, because her powers lack punch, which is why it is better to use them at a distance. And Dark Channel staggers opponents, making it easier to hit.

Her powers lack punch, but punch is not what you need. A max-power Dark Channel fired under power-boosting Cloak has really high DPS, chewing through unshielded enemies in a blink and jumping to the next. Using Warp to detonate explosions and pile on the damage and a heavy pistol or sniper rifle with Warp Ammo is also good practice.

Is it just me or are the Collectors really stupidly hard to deal with in MP? I mean, the other day I was trying to fight them, Silver challenge, and I kept getting killed by things I couldn't even see. It was ridiculous. Granted, I suck (for now), but nonetheless.