The Mass Effect thread

[TheButtonmen]

I actually didn't like the trailer for ME3; I mean they spent 1 and 2 building up how utterly unstoppable even a single reaper is and then show swarms of them descending on earth in the trailer which means the only way they can solve this issue is be severe ret-conning of power levels or by some deus-ex machina.

[TheButtonmen]

Relevant.

[TheButtonmen]

What exactly are you meant to spend money on in this game?

I ended the game with >600K in the bank because the only thing I ever bought that cost >4k was a set of armor (Inferno Armor) which I then used for the entire game. I mean it might have been a

first world

vanguard problem due to charge / nova meaning I never needed to buy weapons and I found the guns my companions needed (Carn/Widow) for free. Other Vanguard problems involve ending the game with >50 skill points because once you max ammo power, charge, nova, assault mastery and fitness there's nothing to spend points on (In ME2 I had Geth Shield Boost but in ME3 all those types of abilites slow power usage which is suicide for vanguards).

Also Banshee's are goddamn terrifying when you're melee focused though Brutes and Phantoms are hilariously unthreatening for vanguards as you can just bash lock them (while chaining invincibility periods) with charge->nova->roll back->charge endlessly.

Also honestly for me the ending while complete trash was counter-balanced by the rest of the game / serious having some of the best writing I've ever found in a game. All the alien races were interesting and well designed (Krogan history alone get them a gold star), you fly the coolest damn ship ever (Normandy > aluminum falcon and enterprise combined), the endless background flavour for even things as small as the ads (Blasto!) and your companions are some of my favourite NPCs ever (Garrus is #1, spacebros for ever). I can ignore the last .01% of the series being awful when the rest of it is so well done.

Over all ME2 > ME3 > ME1 but all of them hold a special place in my heart and I admire what Bioware did here by establishing the first true trilogy we've seen yet.

[TheButtonmen]

Also has anyone beaten an insanity playthrough yet?

I've done about 60% of the game insanity so far and I think i've figured it out enough to do the rest.

(Vanguard specific)
Charge / Shotguns are worse in ME3 then ME2 (I've ended up just carrying a SMG (Lotus/Tempest depending on the enemy)/Heavy Pistol (Carnifex) for the +196% cooldowns) but it's counteracted by the addition of Nova (I lovelovelove this skill) but I'm still having troubles running insanity in any cerberus section (Reapers are a joke when you're a vanguard and Geth aren't bad as long as I don't terribly miscalculate a charge and end up next to two cloaked hunters).

(General)
I'm finding it in general easier then ME2 insanity but there are some specific fights / enemies I find a lot harder then ME2 ones (Atlas/'shee/Phantom and their ability to instagib me from full, though this should probably go under vanguard specific as other classes don't spend most of their time in melee range of them), I'm not having the ammo issues I had in ME2 and the ability to revive your allies for free makes things much easier as I can endlessly throw them at key targets and Liara makes fights so much easier with Stasis (maxed duration / aoe) spam locking down half the foes at a time (seriously singularity blows compared to stasis) and how armor piercing works in ME3 completely negates things such as brutes / guardians positioning and cover (in ME2 I had to flush foes out of cover for Legion/Garrus to make explode but in ME3 Garrus w/ max AP ammo and a Widow with AP mod can shoot through almost anything people hide behind).

In all Insanity is easier in ME3 then ME2 but you'll randomly die a couple times and if you were running a class like Sentinel or Infiltrator then I'm pretty sure Insanity is very do-able.

[TheButtonmen]

Soooooo uh it appears that charging a banshee while is uses it's charge can somehow make your charge go off course and shoot you off the map....

My 'guard is now floating hundreds of feet in the in air, I can't move and there's nothing I can charge to.

[TheButtonmen]

Infiltrators are probably the best class in the game for random gold (and even in specific match ups they're at least tied for best), their only competition comes from Asari Adepts. Tact cloak and a big ol' sniper rifle are absurdly good on objective levels as you can easily move around without getting bogged down, capture points while cloaked and take out key enemies while holding a point.

I've been playing pretty much exclusively human vanguard though as their by far the least equipment dependant and can easily handle silver with the starting guns.

[TheButtonmen]

Hide yo wife, hide yo kids!

They be releasing Krogan Vanguards.

[TheButtonmen]

I really like the new ending, much more satisfying then the others.

[TheButtonmen]

In the middle of another playthrough of the series, wanted to try out a class I haven't used yet (I've previously done an insanity play through with Vanguard and dabbled with engineers).

Adepts are completely hilarious in ME1, I ran a Tali/Liara team and basically every fight was our opponents being juggled in lifts / throw / singularity / sabotage so that they never actually got a chance to shoot back.

Adept is the most gimped class in ME2 I've seen, their entire kit is completely shut down on insanity simply due to the fact that everyone has shield/armor/barrier so you're reduced to spraying SMG shots / tossing warps every 6.5 seconds and wishing you could use actual guns / abilities. The only way I've found to make it work so far is bonus power Warp Ammo (for the +50% weapon dmg) / taking ARifle training on the collector ship and turning myself into a psudo-soldier. Team is Miranda + (Thane/Garrus/Zaheed) depending on what the opponents are for the mission.

ME3 is coming up soon, hopefully adepts work a bit better there.

[TheButtonmen]

ME 2: Ignore all super powers in favor of any power that involves shooting faster/harder or living longer. Warp Ammo is broken-good, but you can get it on any class (thanks Bioware!) and that means

SOLDIER

Vanguard is the god class of ME2.

Anything a Soldier can do a Vanguard can do and then become invunerable while healing themselves and teleporting around the fight.

I don't think it's all classes having access to Warp Ammo that's the problem, it's that all classes can use ARifles which is the real issue imo.

[TheButtonmen]

I did an adept insanity run for ME1/2 and the hardest part for me IIRC was Horizon. Fighting two of the scions and the praetorian with a whole bunch of husks chasing you... no matter who I brought with me, my squadmates dropped like flies and literally the only way I was able to complete that was by running like fuck from cover to cover until I glitched the enemy pathing AI.

I uh just ran laps of the entire area throwing warps over my shoulder for 8 mins, exciting stuff.

[TheButtonmen]

You took the time dilation upgrade and the 100% shield upgrade and used a weapon with knockback / long reload animation (Claymore worked well for animation cancelling), plow through insanity without a worry in the world. Once you got the -20% CDR research the game became hilariously easy barring certain fights (mainly involving scions).

[TheButtonmen]

lol guns

[TheButtonmen]

That being said dear lord is the new difficulty unforgiving for (human) vanguards.

[TheButtonmen]

Because fighting Phantoms and Banshees at the same time makes melee characters cry.

[TheButtonmen]

Manguards are great at clogging up a flank to let the rest of the team focus on a narrower area as well as distracting heavies while the rest of the team focuses them down. They're also great at running cover when someone goes down or you need to move quickly for an objective. Pretty bad at actually killing things though but when it comes to just being a distraction or covering a flank they're my favourite.