Gaming Mass Effect Series

The other thing to remember with Search and Rescue (if you didn't see it in the Wiki) is that you can locate fuel caches just by running over them; you get the same tone you would for coming across a planet. It's damned tedious to search a system like that (marine surveyors call the technique "mowing the lawn"), but you can then double-click (at least on the PC version) on the spot to salvage it - no scanning pulse required. But yes, I can imagine I would be frustrated as hell trying to find everything (and burning fuel going to empty systems) while being chased by giant robot space-krakens.

Hmm, haven't had any major issues with crashes. The only two I've come across have been an occasional ladder glitch (Shep does sliding animation but remains stuck atop ladder; fix is to try again while looking straight up) and some lag issues. The latter seems to occur if I play for an extended period of time; gameplay gets laggy and the targeting gets glitchy (targeting box on an enemy will flicker on and off). That one is solved the old-fashioned way, just quit and restart the game.

Certain weapon mods from Leviathan fit in the same mod "slot" as others - the barrel mods, the SMG Mass Pulse Recoil System and SMG Ultralight Materials, and the Pistol Magazine and Pistol Ultralight Materials. Those mods can't be equipped with each other, gotta pick one or the other.

As far as armor builds, it really depends on how you want to spec your soldier. Do you want to balance him between increased survivability, weapon damage, and ammo capacity or just go whole hog in one area? Personally, for aesthetics I like to assemble a set of matching components (not always from the same manufacturer; for instance the Serrice gauntlets match the Kassa chestplate and shoulderpads better than the Kassa gauntlets) and I also like to either beef up whatever stat is my class's strong suit or cover a weakness. This is what I have for all classes:

Soldier - Full Hahne-Kedar armor with Kuwashii visor; 45% weapon damage and 10% headshot damage. The Recon Hood or Delumcore Overlay might be better for raw weapon damage, but a) I like to be able to see Shep's face without selecting "helmet off" for cutscenes, and b) no way in hell am I wearing anything that reminds me of Kai Leng's ugly mug. The downside is this build makes your soldier kind of squishy, with no shielding or health bonuses. That said, a 45% boost to every bullet from your N7 Typhoon means there's not much that lives long enough to kill you, and even if you skip out on every intel terminal option to boost shields you should still have 850 health and 825 shields. You also have options in evolving Adrenaline Rush to reduce incoming damage. Alternatives are to juice up ammo capacity, shielding, or power damage; power damage will apply to your ammo powers, frag grenades, and the damage boost from Adrenaline Rush.

Infiltrator - Full Armax Arsenal armor with Kuwashii visor; 30% headshot damage, 15% weapon damage, 20% ammo capacity. Same weaknesses as the soldier set, but you have cloak to slip away from trouble. Massive boost to headshots and some extra ammo for heavy sniper rifles or shotguns. An unorthodox alternative is to take some melee damage boosts, then cloak and go around ninja-killing things.

Vanguard - Sentry interface, Serrice chestplate and shoulders, Kassa gauntlets and greaves; 30% shield boost, 20% power damage. If you're willing to spend 45-50k credits, you can get Blood Dragon armor that does all that and throws in a 10% cooldown bonus. I picked this because my cooldowns are generally manageable; the shield boost helps survivability and Nova damage and power damage gives an extra oomph to the suite of biotic abilities including my bonus Reave power. Generally, the vanguard has the most potentially useful combinations; just about any armor stat boost comes in handy. Vanguards are the other class aside from infiltrators that's really effective with melee damage boosts; Charge + Heavy Melee + Nova is a nasty combo.

Sentinel - Full Rosenkov armor with Capacitor helmet; 40% power cooldown, 10% shield recharge. The Capacitor helmet was more an aesthetic choice to match gal pal Tali out in the field, but it also makes it quicker to recharge shields and get back out into the firing line. The cooldown reduction almost cancels out the Tech Armor penalty, which means I have to do less calculating when it comes to loadouts. That works for a sentinel who's happy sacrificing some defensive buffs in favor of using the full suite of offensive powers regularly. On the other hand, you can boost shields to turn the guy into a nigh-unkillable tank, carry a crapload of heavy guns, and say the hell with cooldowns.

Engineer - Archon visor, Kassa chestplate and shoulders, Serrice arms and legs; 10% cooldown, 10% shield recharge, 10% shield boost, 20% power damage. Sort of a more all-around set that allows survival and power spamming; coupled with maxed-out fitness and some intel terminal boosts to shields and health the engineer can be played very aggressively.

Adept - Haven't gotten here yet. In theory the same setup as the Engineer could work; for mine I'm planning on just going with Blood Dragon armor both for the "Sithy" look and the defense and damage boosts that will let me play as something of a light vanguard without Charge/Nova.

 

Working on that at the moment, thanks for the advice...

I'd more or less cleaned out the available galaxy on scanning ahead of Priority: Sur'kesh, which left me with roughly a 150,000-odd bank account or so. I'm pretty sure some of that was from ending ME 2 with a decent splash of cash, but either way the shopping on the Citadel was fun. The only thing I've balked at was the Aquarium VI: half a full set of armour's cost just for that? That's more exorbitant than chatting Kelly Chambers up in ME 2 just so she'll feed the fish.

But I did, perhaps foolishly, decide to disregard your advice and went and did the first big combat mission of Leviathan - i.e. the miners with the artifact. I almost wish I didn't - not because that mission turned out unbelievably hard, but because I ran into my first Banshees there. Of course, the team started referring to it like they already knew what it was, which was an unfortunate hit to suspension of disbelief, but as it turned out the team was up to the challenge. I mean, Javik was sporting a Particle Rifle, Garrus had a Krysae and I was carrying my Typhoon, or as I like to call it, Reason The durability of the Banshee's barrier made me crap my pants for a couple of seconds, but Garrus hit it with an Overload and I'd wound up Reason's rate of fire by then with level 6 explosive ammo. It didn't last terribly long with all that thrown at it, or at least it didn't last long enough to kill me. Either way, I've learned my lesson and I'm not coming back to the other Leviathan missions until later.

Then, on to Sur'kesh. Javik and Garrus were my buddies for this one, so needless to say it was a chortle-fest. "Raw Salarian liver", and all that. I'd spent more cash, so the crew were carrying Particle Rifle IVs and Garrus a Krysae V with stability and extended barrel mods, and me with Reason of course. Having to run from level to level panicked me a bit -- crap, crap, where's a ladder, the lift's going up to the next level without me -- but the combat itself was very efficient and over very fast. We make a good team, especially when you're scrambling under big green energy bursts all round you. Nice, gritty fight from beginning to end. I also managed the trick of taking down the Atlas before Wrex called me "too old"; Garrus with an Overload, and I just stood my ground with Reason. I don't think it even got one shot off - I seem to remember it was getting staggered, but I could be wrong on that. Certainly repeated other experiences here that my shields didn't get scratched. Either way, Typhoon at close range is a joy to behold. I'm seriously contemplating having Garrus and Javik tote their own around from here on in. I seriously haven't switched weapons once in two straight missions.

Other part is that the quality of conversations and interactions is still superb. That shot of Hackett at the Crucible you get after Sur'kesh is just great scenery porn. Wrex, Eve, Mordin, and to a lesser extent Victus are all gloriously-realised characters. Mordin's voice actor changed, of course, but his character just shines through, and the dialogue, even if auto-ed, even if there's less to actually choose from, is excellent at least at this point. And the sequence with Shepard, Victus, the Dalatrass, and Wrex all arguing in the Normandy's meeting room had a lot of punch to it. If ME 2 is narrative chocolate, then ME 3 strikes me as dark chocolate - it's a slightly different taste, but right now it's hard to understand the fanboy feeling that I'm just doing fetch quests while the important stuff happens elsewhere. I do actually feel like I'm commanding an important raider unit, one that actually is about the only vessel in the galaxy that can pull real commando missions across the entire Milky Way. I do actually feel like I'm part of a war. I'm regretting to some extent the fact I don't tend to read all the War Asset, Codex, and planetary descriptions, because I've got the feeling there's a lot of good backstory in there - that alone says they clearly put their time into it. I just wish I had more time to peruse it.

 

Hah, "Reason?" Not "Vera?"

Yeah, as far as shopping goes I wait to get the aquarium VI, the second round of weapon mod purchases, any alternate armor sets, any Spectre Requisitions weapons, and any squadmate-only weapons until after acquiring the additional 5% price discount at the Ardat-Yakshi monastery. That helps stretch the budget. A good tip is to try and streamline your weapons inventory (the reason I ended up redoing five ME3 characters from scratch was largely because I upgraded every gun I could the first time around), and don't buy a Spectre-issue gun if you're not going to use it. The aquarium VI isn't a necessity, but if you don't get it you have to remember to feed your damn fish after every mission. That Prejek Paddlefish is actually worth a 10% weapon damage or power damage bonus in New Game+ if you bought it in ME2, get it back from Kelly Chambers, and keep it alive through ME3.

I've yet to do Sur'Kesh with Javik - I always do it with Liara and Garrus, or as I call it the Virmire Class Reunion. Liara has some pretty good lines; I love when says she admires something about Wrex and he replies, "My smoldering good looks?" Giving squadmates the Typhoon is a fairly good idea, although I tend to mix it up. Javik just doesn't look right to me without his trusty Particle Rifle, I usually give James the Striker as he's the boomstick guy, and if Kaidan's around he gets the Harrier. If you rescued Ashley in ME1 and get her to join your squad later, wait until you see her with the Typhoon - her Marksman power can increase the firing rate by as much as 70%. The first time I took her on the Mahavid mission she and EDI pretty much took on the last Banshee by themselves while I was doing something else or didn't have a clear shot. Next time I looked its barrier was down and its armor was at 50%. Sur'Kesh also gives you two useful guns - the Raptor sniper rifle and the Scorpion "pistol" (read: mini-grenade launcher). Give the Scorpion to Liara and EDI, select squad cryo ammo, and watch the fun. The Raptor is good for N7 missions where there aren't heavies around and "Reason" might be a bit of overkill - it essentially functions as a dual-role battle rifle and sniper; fit it with scope and piercing mods and you can see through smokescreens and punch holes in Guardian shields. The Raptor's also one of the few snipers that delivers full damage when fired from the hip, which means you can snapshot guys at close range. That and a nasty shotgun like the N7 Piranha gives you a devastating "housecleaning" loadout.

Right now I'm just about to do the derelict Reaper in ME2 with my adept - finally decided to get his facial scarring fixed as insulting the Quarian admirals at Tali's trial was enough to make him look like a beat-up T-800 unit. That's all very badass, but I can't see how Miranda's going to be attracted to a guy with glowing red eyes and a face that looks like it got splattered with lava. The adept is pretty devastating in a fight - I've got him wearing Cerberus assault armor which makes him a bit less squishy, and a lot of times he doesn't even have to fire his gun. It's kind of like how I played my vanguard in ME1, before Charge came along - knock everyone on their ass or send them flying with biotics, then finish them off. Except this time I have the added bonuses of Shockwave and Warp detonations, and with the faster cooldowns I can just keep hammering away.

 

Javik doesn't look entirely right with anything other than a Particle Rifle, you're quite right. On the other hand, the Krysae and the Rifle both feature "glowing green light of coolness" on their portraits, so Garrus at least matches Wrex is always a joy, no matter who you take with you - and even he is well-rounded. Even says at one point in reference to Eve "You hurt her, and I hurt". It's quick, almost ignored, but it says volumes about Wrex, too.

I agree, the facial scarring in ME 2 is pretty repugnant. I got it healed fairly early on in the game - for me, female Shepard is much scarier when she's a pretty Ice Queen pushing people off balconies. I've never played Adept, of course, but you owe it to yourself to carry the Cain onto the derelict Reaper, even if it makes all the Scion fights a bit trickier. It'll make that last "drive core" much, much more straightforward, and I sort of headcanon it as the mission the Cain was meant for. I've also been pleasantly surprised by the efficacy of the Snowball Gun, er, the Avalanche - it was pretty effective back on the Okeer mission, at least for me.

EDIT: Also, I noticed - did you say "overkill"? In that case, good sir, I refute it thus:

 

I fully agree on there being no kill like overkill, but sometimes ya gotta mix it up - I also like the old Marine Corps saying that there's nothing better than a shotgun for close-quarter combat, besides a flamethrower. I assume they would thus approve of a shotgun with incendiary ammo. Given that most of the N7 missions are a mix of sniping and close combat, I like to have a nice semiauto sniper and a boomstick for those jobs. The exception is the Fuel Reactors mission; there I usually go with a scoped heavy pistol for potting those Marauders and a shotgun for the husks and Brute.

Oh yeah, the Cain comes along for the derelict Reaper, as well as Horizon, the Collector ship, Tali's recruitment mission, Grunt's loyalty mission, and the Collector base. The first time I played ME2 I tried taking out Praetorians with the Particle Beam and the ML-77; then said "screw this" and brought the Cain. Same with the Geth Colossus that gets between you and Tali. As for the other two, of course I'm going to bring the biggest damn bazooka in the arsenal to bear on a giant sandworm and a giant Terminator

The Avalanche is probably one of my more frequently-carried heavy weapons (although I very rarely use them in ME2, preferring to rack up 100 creds a pop for power cell pickups), simply because it carries a lot of ammo, it strips barriers, shields, and armor quite effectively, and it can be put to interesting use. The classic one is when I take it on the Arrival mission and save it for the YMIR mech that comes in at the end of the Object Rho battle. If you hit it fast enough you can freeze it right next to a couch where the enemy mooks like to hunker down; then you shatter its head with a sniper or pistol, duck, and wait for the fireworks when it thaws out. Usually takes out most of the last wave and leaves me with just one or two battered survivors to personally finish.

 

Speaking of flamethrowers, I went into the Utukku mission last night - Grunt's big moment in the sun. Tense, even if it did amount to playing a level of Colonial Marines The flamethrowers were a lot more useful than I thought they'd be, and I finally got my Executioner out for some long-range fun. I also actually felt pretty bad choosing to free the Queen - had Grunt's curses ringing in my ears for sacrificing Aralakh Company. That last sequence where he stays behind to hold the line was a tearjerker, even suspecting what was going to happen as I did. Narratively, it was also beautiful to watch: the ultimate Krogan fights a last stand to make sure the krogans' most ancient enemy, the Rachni, survives.

I wonder if the big DLC coming out is going to be an expansion on the Rachni storyline? I gathered it might be the team's last hurrah before they leave the franchise, and they might actually try and make good on the promise that preserving the Rachni has a huge impact on the final battle or something...

 

After doing the Quarian storyline again I do find it funny how everyone is so angry that Han Gerrel fired on the dreadnaught when Shepard was on-board but then when the whole 5th fleet fires on the Cerberus base while Shepard is on-board Shepard is like 'nah it's cool.'

Still would've preferred Gerrel hadn't destroyed it, would've made a nice war asset.

 

It's a matter of choice. It's one thing to walk into a fire, knowing you'll be putting your life in danger, but doing it anyway for the risk of a greater good. It's quite another to believe you're secure, only for your supposed "ally" to decide—initially without your input and later against your wishes—that it's perfectly acceptable to kill you if it means destroying an enemy asset.

 

If I had to guess, probably not. Most likely it'll be some random mission where someone wants/needs Shep's help, Shep goes and kills the baddies, and gets War Assets for his/her trouble. And yeah, probably not too surprising, but after Leviathan and Omega, I don't hold out much hope for this next (last?) bit of DLC. At the very least, however, they have me curious, supposedly being an "all hands on deck" sort of deal. Been hearing that all the writers, all the squad VAs (including Seth Green?), and Sam Hulick were doing work for it. So at the very least, it sounds big.

I guess I'm mostly using the philosophy from a certain turian vigilante. "I like to expect the worst. That way there's always a chance I'll be pleasantly surprised."

I agree. You can never have too much Dakka.

 

Yeah but still I kinda would've expected them to take the chance. I mean I doubt Ackbar would've held fire if three Rebel commandos onboard the Executor shut down the power to it during the Battle of Endor.

Also just how big was that dreadnaught? It seemed bigger than a Reaper.

Also I thought the lore said the Geth had a massive fleet being machines and all? Did the Quarians wipe 90% of it out with their secret weapon or something?

 

I've always liked his philosophy on firefights: hospitals are no fun to fight through, but gardens, shopping malls are okay. Antique stores, too, but only if they're classy.

Speaking of turians, I ran through the Turian Platoon/Tuchanka Bomb missions last night. More tense, good stuff. I particularly liked that Shepard just about lost his temper with Wrex and Victus when they were arguing after the event. Actually happy I got no choice on that one, because I suspect Shepard as much as me was getting frustrated with idiots who can't let the past go.

Oh, and the missions were fun. Reason took care of all three Harvesters, no problem at all. And Cerberus squads are basically just speedbumps right now. They dropped in a Fatlas on me at the end of the Tuchanka Bomb mission, and I almost didn't have to do a thing - I didn't have a shot, but Garrus and Javik were up in its face already. I think I got a round off before the boys blew it away.

 

Actually, Utukku is about the only mission where I take up the Particle Rifle for my own use, even if it means leaving the Typhoon at home. It can effectively replace the flamethrower, except with a refilling ammo pool and a much longer range. That's much preferable to getting within flamethrower range and potentially getting a Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong.

Finally tried out the Executioner? I was a convert to that gun the first time I tried it. The recoil ends up with you looking at the sky, but damn if it doesn't hit. As a Vanguard I preferred to whittle down Banshees at range with that thing rather than charging with a shotgun, and it will take chunks off those monstrosities.

Just finished the Suicide Mission in ME2 with my adept ... I hardly had to fire a shot; just used biotics to plow right through enemies. The final boss took a clip of Squad AP rounds from my Carnifex on the first pass and then a "double tap" to the chest with the Cain. Very short fight. Now it's just knock off Arrival and I've got my final character into ME3.

 

I have a soft spot for Arrival, if only because of the acknolwedgment by the enemies that Shepard is, in fact, badass -- the comm chatter to the effect of "Shepard's tearing us apart here!" and so on. And the five-wave fight at Object Rho is always a nice "last stand" battle to have.

 

Tuchanka: Bomb has plenty of opportunities to mess with Cerberus troops - I like to nail the ones running for their evac shuttles just to be a jerk. The end is one of those points where the Krysae can come in handy - wait till a shuttle opens the hatch, mail in a greeting, and observe the "chunky salsa rule." That may be the last storyline mission in the game where I usually take James along; a frag grenade right in the troop bay or a Fire Explosion Combo has similar effects. When I get there with my adept he'll have Flare, which so far on Omega has made shuttle drops massacres. Even the Centurions don't get out alive.

 

Did the second Leviathan mission last night, rescuing Ann Bryson. (What is it with doctors that they're all surnamed X-son in Mass Effect? First Amanda Kenson in Arrival, now the Bryson family...) Getting easier, and the Banshee they dropped in just didn't come in close enough to cause any problems: it was in a free field of fire against a Krysae, Particle Rifle, and Typhoon. Most annoying part was probably just the Ravagers sniping from above me, but brute force dealt with that easily enough...

Also did the Cerberus Abductions mission, too, and what a memorable firefight that was! Civilians cowering by a railing while me and the boys run madly from cover to cover trying to smack down Cerberus troopers coming out of what felt like every rathole on Benning. They just didn't seem to stop!

 

Personally I didn't care for Cerberus turning into Cobra in terms of stupidity and unending resources. I mean they went from morally ambiguous in ME2 to full blown 80s cartoon evil. A ruthless terrorist organization bent on ruling the galaxy, full of insane bad scientists, full of legions of nameless canon fodder henchmen, nefarious plans for the sake of being nefarious, ninjas(of course then again Cobra's ultimate ninja warrior was actually a cool character). Heck if Miranda had stayed with Cerberus in her black loyalty outfit and the Illusive Man started wearing a mask it would be Cobra.

 

Cerberus Abductions is kind of a mook stampede; recently what I've done is hole my squadmates (usually James and EDI) up in the building on the right connecting the taxi stand to the landing pad area. Then I move myself back to the building in the rear, usually armed with an M-13 Raptor and either an AR, shotgun, or SMG. The squaddies hold up a good chunk of the Cerberus troops in a vicious close-quarter fight, while I hang back and have a clear field of fire almost all the way back to the landing pad. The only real threat is Cerberus troops flanking through the buildings high and to the left ... but they either go down the stairs to the courtyard (right in front of my sniper perch) or have to climb down a ladder which gives me an easy chance to spot them on radar, move over, and shoot them in the back while on the ladder.

Finished Arrival with my adept; I just smashed through. Singularity + Warp was the main means of mook massacre, but at the very end I was able to take out the eight guards at the comm tower with just pull - yanked them off their feet one after the other, high enough that they got blown off the asteroid. Hit a snag importing him into ME3 though - for some reason the Bonus Power menu isn't showing the Leviathan and Omega bonus powers. Which stinks, because I really had my heart set on picking up Flare. Might try for a work-around.

 

I always wondered why the Recon Hood always made me think of Snake Eyes...

In other news, I'm thinking for the Shroud mission (which I've got next up) I'll change things up a bit - rather than mass bullet massacre, I'll tote a Krysae and a Piranha into battle and see how I go with that instead!

 

And just like GI Joe good guys and bad guys can't hit anyone if they are a main character, even if shooting at point black range.

 

Death is but a Speedbump in combat in the Mass Effect universe.

 

Towards the end, when you pick up the M-5 Phalanx and have a chance to switch out weapons, I recommend loading up with just the Venom "shotgun." It'll make getting through the waves of Brutes at the end so much easier - stand your ground and hit them with a charged shot of incendiary ammo. Blammo, move on. The Krysae should work well on the rest of that mission, plenty of chances to gib things at range. As for the Piranha, whatever else you do fit it with a smart choke. Otherwise it'll be a close-range weapon only unless you're shooting at a Brute or Atlas.

On the topic of Cerberus's resources - I do have to wonder at possible explanations for how they're fielding armies and fleets. Armies is somewhat explained, given that they're kidnapping civilians and indoctrinating/implanting them, but I also wonder if in the six months between ME2 and ME3 Cerberus managed to induce some elements of the Alliance military to defect. They certainly had enough sleeper agents scattered around, and a pretty compelling recruitment message given the Alliance was sitting on its can while the Collectors kidnapped and slaughtered tens of thousands of humans.

And quite frankly, I find myself missing Miranda's black loyalty outfit in ME3. I mean, I realize she's designed as fanservice for adolescent males, but there is such a thing as overkill ... and an entirely-too-clingy, mostly white ensemble. I think most of us can figure out to our heart's (or another portion of the anatomy's) content what the character would look like naked without the extra help.

 

Honestly the new DLC revealing Cerberus has their own Star Forge would explain a lot. I can't imagine defectors getting whole ships to Cerberus, I mean maybe a handful, but not for the fleets they have. ME2 stressed that building Shepard and the Normandy nearly bankrupted Cerberus, so how they have all those ships I don't know.

And yeah, I was disappointed all my allies threw away their loyalty costumes. I worked hard to get them those, they can at least wear it when they meet me! I now feel like whenever Shepard left the room all his squadmates started complaining about how terrible their new clothes are.

 

Maybe they get them from beyond the Omega Four relay? They are mostly indoctrinated, after all, and there's a crapload of ancient ships sitting on the accretion disk from where Shepard blew up/genocided the Collector base...

+1 for loss of loyalty costumes and alternative appearance packs I'm a big fan of sunglasses. Jack, Thane, Miranda, and Grunt all had a visor/sunnies of one kind or another by reason of their alt.outfits on ME 2. I personally liked Jack a lot more with her shades on: she actually was even creepier when you couldn't see her eyes. And I don't care what anyone says, Thane's sunglasses were bad. Ass.

 

Bet Thane regretted not wearing his armored costume I got him. You know, the one that would've protected you from swords?

 

On the plus side, I looked specifically, and Miranda's ass suit white outfit doesn't have a Cerberus logo on it anymore. Attention to detail