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Schenck v. U.S.
Sep 8, 2010

Gestalt Intellect posted:

Am I missing something about Quarian Infiltrator? I have experience with 3 classes so far so this doesn't really mean anything but it's just seemed far weaker than the Turian Soldier I was rocking before. The damage bonus on cloak is only significant if I use the Mantis which is a pain on a lot of maps, sabotage doesn't seem very good, and sticky grenade is naturally very limited.

It's not a top tier class. I play it from time to time just for variety. I ignore sticky grenade, build cloak for duration and bonus power, sabotage for backfire and tech damage, fitness for survivability, and the other passive I can't remember off hand. Then I grab a Wraith and an Acolyte. I just run around sabotaging people and shooting them in the head from cloak, and stripping shields off bosses with the Acolyte. It's not optimal but it is a change of pace, great for objectives and rezzing people, and the one-two punch of sabotage backfire and the shotgun is great at cleaning out enemies. If you had a regular buddy who was good with another tech class like human engineer or something, you could probably put in some work with the +50% tech damage.

Also, speaking of the Wraith, infiltrators and shotguns are best friends. Originally everybody just sniped with them like Bioware intended, but generally they have better synergy with shotguns. Shotguns are also overall the better weapon on Gold because they have very high per-shot damage (meaning less time exposed to the enemy per unit of damage) and ignore the shield gate. If all you have is a mantis, there's not much point to sniping.

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Wowporn
May 31, 2012

HarumphHarumphHarumph

Gestalt Intellect posted:

Am I missing something about Quarian Infiltrator? I have experience with 3 classes so far so this doesn't really mean anything but it's just seemed far weaker than the Turian Soldier I was rocking before. The damage bonus on cloak is only significant if I use the Mantis which is a pain on a lot of maps, sabotage doesn't seem very good, and sticky grenade is naturally very limited. So far the best strategy I've had with the class involves cloaking to get close and then annihilating with the Piranha, but I could just run up and do that as Turian without needing a skill. Carrying another weapon with that setup also means my abilities recharge very slowly, making sabotage seem even more pointless.

Does the cloak damage bonus work better with certain snipers I don't have yet (more versatile than Mantis)? The Raptor is definitely the best one I own but it's basically a Mattock and not much of a sniper. I don't have any non-default assault rifles, SMGs, or pistols either, so what packs would I be best off buying to get some weapon variety? I have a decent quantity of characters I haven't tried yet so I'm more interested in weapons right now.

I did horrible at first with infiltrators, partially because I couldn't snipe for poo poo, and partially because it took me forever to get high damage weapons. Once I got the Widow and was actually able to hit things with it the class actually became useful to me(a low level mantis is a single shot rifle that can't even kill lowest tier infantry in one shot, it does become useful though if you get it to 10). Also the high damage charge up/single shot shotguns like the Graal, GPS, and Claymore are good on infiltrators if you prefer to get all up in their poo poo rather than snipe things. Basically what I'm saying is if you're like me the infiltrators will feel useless until you unlock the correct weapons.

In other news, my xbox live gold ran out today, and I won't re renewing it until I either get more money, or they have another $1 per month sale. I hope one of them happens soon :saddowns:.

Felinoid
Mar 8, 2009

Marginally better than Shepard's dancing. 2/10

EvanSchenck posted:

Shotguns are also overall the better weapon on Gold because they have very high per-shot damage (meaning less time exposed to the enemy per unit of damage) and ignore the shield gate. If all you have is a mantis, there's not much point to sniping.

Shotguns also suffer heavily from Gold armor thanks to the multiple pellets (unless you have one of the projectile ones) so a shredder mod is pretty much required. They also don't ignore the shield gate so much as it doesn't matter that much to them because only one pellet out of eight will be gated. And the fact that shotguns are also very viable doesn't really affect the point of sniping, which is to not be in dick-punching range of the enemy while still laying on the hurt. The Mantis performs very well in that, especially when you get the hang of reload-cancelling.

MJeff
Jun 2, 2011

THE LIAR
Oh hey are we posting our own multiplayer manifests in this thread and getting advice based on them now? I totally wanna get in on that. Here's mine.

Vietnamwees
May 8, 2008

by Fluffdaddy

VJeff posted:

Oh hey are we posting our own multiplayer manifests in this thread and getting advice based on them now? I totally wanna get in on that. Here's mine.

I see you've got Thermal Clips maxed out, and Ops Packs are almost there. Continue packing away Ops Packs and not spending Thermal, and when you do you'll guarantee you'll get either Medigel or Missiles in your packs, and if you continue playing games where you get a Net Gain on consumables used, you'll have a pretty high number of gel and rockets in no time. I see that you still need to max out a few Uncommon guns, so Veteran Packs aren't such a bad idea for you since a Veteran Pack will net you two 3x Consumable cards, along with a good chance for an Uncommon weapon, for just 20k.

Or, once you max out Ops packs, it might be worth it to you to just buy a bunch of JEPs since your consumable stock is a bit sparse. If you do it after you max out Ops and Thermal Clips, you'll get like 12 rockets/gels, along with other decent consumables.

MJeff
Jun 2, 2011

THE LIAR
I was just buying Vet packs for a while, but I stopped to start saving money for PSPs for the Earth DLC, I sorta just never got back into it and kept buying PSPs, and my medi-gel and cobra stock have just been really suffering for it ever since. I really want a freakin' Shadow or a Destroyer, but my consumables are pretty pathetic, so yeah, I might just play a buttload of Silver games to get some of that stuff maxed.

Paracelsus
Apr 6, 2009

bless this post ~kya

EvanSchenck posted:

He was probably just a moron, but since you say he was playing a Krogan, it's somewhat possible you were stepping on his play by preventing him from getting rage mode. Vorcha and melee-focused Krogan are pretty much the only case where kill stealing is actually a thing, because they need credit for kills to stack bloodlust and trigger rage mode. If you're playing with somebody who is doing that kind of play, you can just pay attention to what they're killing and aim at something else a little further down the line, so they can get rolling.

Of course, even then he'd be an idiot, because that's a really dumb style to farm WGG with.
Isn't rage mode bugged to not do anything anyway? I don't remember him meleeing anything other than me.

Paracelsus fucked around with this message at 09:43 on Aug 14, 2012

Rudoku
Jun 15, 2003

Damn I need a drink...


Paracelsus posted:

Isn't rage mode bugged to not do anything anyway? I don't remember him meleeing anything other than me.

For Vanguards, yeah.

Rape Jake.
Feb 23, 2012

by T. Mascis

VJeff posted:

Oh hey are we posting our own multiplayer manifests in this thread and getting advice based on them now? I totally wanna get in on that. Here's mine.

My method is to buy PSPs and Spectre Packs alternately after every Gold game depending on how much money I have. I only play on and off and I've got every gold weapon maxed, all the mods and all the characters bar the Shadow. All I'm missing is a bunch of gear and a few Silver weapons. Most of the silver stuff is trash I never use, and it's still more than kept up with my gold unlocks.

nacon
May 7, 2005

VJeff posted:

Oh hey are we posting our own multiplayer manifests in this thread and getting advice based on them now? I totally wanna get in on that. Here's mine.

You have enough silver gear items that aren't unlocked to merit going on a silver buying spree. You could do a plat glacier with the following stuff you've got:

Cerberus Vanguard/Commando Package/Talon 1/Power Amp or Efficiency/AP or Disruptor rounds. Smash through the wall constantly, and profit!

duffath
May 9, 2007

My name is Legion for we are many.

Lagomorphic posted:

Okay with that pool you should try the Geth Plasma Shotgun with the High Caliber Barrel and Spare clip mods. The GPSG ignores the armor reduction entirely so it's equally effective at killing everything at rank 4 it'll put you at +90% which is lower than ideal but totally manageable. With the GPSG you want to hold down the trigger to charge whenever you can. Keep in mind you can still run with a charged shot. If you're in cover charging will cause you to pop out so ideally you want to be by the edge of wall so you can charge and then strafe out to take the shot. The GPSG shoots homing projectiles so use the aim button and then get the reticule to turn red then release the shot. You can hit enemies across the map this way.


You also have a Talon which is the best gun in the game if you run it with the scope and piercing mods, unfortunately you need to level up your piercing mod before it'll be decent against armor. I'm guessing that you're mostly buying the premium spectre packs, I'd strongly suggest that you switch to the regular spectres until you get your uncommon weapon mods all maxed, it'll also help with your supply of medigel and other consumables since you'll be getting nearly twice the consumables for only 20% more.


Thanks! I really appreciate the advice, although I'd like to pick your brains a little further on this.

I have used the geth plasma shotgun on other classes before so I am familiar with it. Admittedly I haven't considered GPS or the Talon before and I've always found a Phaeston or some decent low weight assault rifle works well because it allows me to throw out some damage at range and you can't snipe long range with the Geth plasma shotgun. Something about putting out some constant DPS/Distracting fire and something with a fast rate of fire to help versus shields makes sense to me for some reason, but please correct me if this is somehow terrible.

This is my current spec on my Justicar:

http://narida.pytalhost.com/me3/classes/#03PODIR@0@0@A@@@0@0@0@0

The main thing I'm going to change is have Rank 5 on Bubble increase enemy damage taken.

I figure adding an AOE to Pull at Rank 4 could be pretty useful. Justicar is support/utility so it makes sense to have it hit multiple unshielded and reduce the incoming fire the front line are taking from them. This basically means I'd lose the 15% power damage from my passive, but if that's bugged anyway then I guess I should look elsewhere.

Assuming I was to leave Reave as it is with the 75% barrier/armour setup does the DPS on harder targets actually work out as respectable at gold and beyond? If so then wouldn't that technically mean that the justicar could deal with Armour effectively and therefore the main weakness would be shielded targets?

If the damage output from Reave is at least viable then would it be reasonable to consider/assume that the build could work this way and have an assault rifle/SMG loadout to deal with shielded targets? If this is the case do you have any recommendations on good weapons for that? Feels like it's more flexible when I can DPS with my gun effectively from all ranges than like for example with the GPS or the Talon??

Just throwing these ideas out there. It sort of makes sense to me, but I don't consider myself pro enough to be some sort of authority on what constitutes good damage output and such.

That DICK!
Sep 28, 2010

Vietnamwees posted:

I see you've got Thermal Clips maxed out, and Ops Packs are almost there. Continue packing away Ops Packs and not spending Thermal, and when you do you'll guarantee you'll get either Medigel or Missiles in your packs, and if you continue playing games where you get a Net Gain on consumables used, you'll have a pretty high number of gel and rockets in no time. I see that you still need to max out a few Uncommon guns, so Veteran Packs aren't such a bad idea for you since a Veteran Pack will net you two 3x Consumable cards, along with a good chance for an Uncommon weapon, for just 20k.

Or, once you max out Ops packs, it might be worth it to you to just buy a bunch of JEPs since your consumable stock is a bit sparse. If you do it after you max out Ops and Thermal Clips, you'll get like 12 rockets/gels, along with other decent consumables.

I'm fairly certain this is inaccurate although I would appreciate someone calling me out of I'm wrong - you don't get medi-gel/missiles instead, you get a level 1 ammo. Still not a raw deal if you can resist playing grenade-heavy classes while you buy a bunch of Jumbo Equipments, but once you start getting level IV ammo every single pack it's less appealing

Hyperactive
Mar 10, 2004

RICHARDS!

A loving Javelin VI and still not a single loving Harrier, are you loving kidding me you piece of poo poo RNG?

Lagomorphic
Apr 21, 2008

AKA: Orthonormal

VJeff posted:

Oh hey are we posting our own multiplayer manifests in this thread and getting advice based on them now? I totally wanna get in on that. Here's mine.

Switch to the regular Spectre packs. For the price of a PSP and a Veteren pack you can just buy 2 spectre packs. Which will give you more gel/rockets/etc. and lvl 3 consumables. It'll still give you at least 2 rares and you'll get a bunch of extra uncommons. Also in my experience uncommon gear/weapon mods will very rarely drop in veteran packs and are much more frequent in the regular spectres.


duffath posted:

Justicar stuff.

The GPSG and Talon (when scoped) are both great at all ranges. With the GPSG you just need to get the hang of using the homing feature. For the Talon you just use the aim button for snipeing and hip fire for close range. I'd give them both a try.

If you like the Phaeston though and it's working for you and you don't want to change then you need to do two things:

1) Spec your bubble for shield regen, damage reduction, warp effect. With the Phaeston you have to expose yourself for a long time when firing so you'll want the extra protection from the bubble on gold. Keep the warp effect though so you can explode anything that gets into your bubble with reave.

2) Use AP, warp, or cryo ammo until you get you AR piercing mod leveled, it'll help keep your damage from being completely tanked when firing at armor.

Yeah taking pull to 4 only costs you the headshot bonus since the bonus damage doesn't do anything. Also the GPSG can't score headshots so if you do use it you literally lose nothing by going for pull 4 instead of 3.

The thing about the Reave damage is it does 100 damage/second. You can boost this to 175 per second against armor/barriers or to 130 against everything and get 15% extra damage reduction. On gold a Banshee has 10,125 barriers and 16,875 armor. Exploding a reave on a Banshee will deal over 2000 damage to the Banshee and everything near it. You don't use Reave for the damage over time you use it to prime explosions and to give you damage reduction.

You don't want a gun that is good only against shields because any gun that does good damage against armor will also work well against shields.

That DICK! posted:

I'm fairly certain this is inaccurate although I would appreciate someone calling me out of I'm wrong - you don't get medi-gel/missiles instead, you get a level 1 ammo. Still not a raw deal if you can resist playing grenade-heavy classes while you buy a bunch of Jumbo Equipments, but once you start getting level IV ammo every single pack it's less appealing

You get a lvl 1 ammo in place of the guaranteed drop in the JEP but the first slot in a Spectre pack will always be +5 to one on the ones you don't have maxed. If you want to game the system and still be able to use ammo packs and ops packs what you should do is save up credits until you are low on a consumable or you just have a bunch and then buy the JEP's until you have at least one consumable maxed then spend the rest on regular spectre packs. If you do this for a while you'll get to the point where you'll be getting spectre packs with guaranteed +5 gel/rockets.

Nordick
Sep 3, 2011

Yes.

Hyperactive posted:

A loving Javelin VI and still not a single loving Harrier, are you loving kidding me you piece of poo poo RNG?
I have a grand majority of classes unlocked. I have all uncommon and rare weapons unlocked, most of the uncommons at a high level. I also have a good handful of ultra-rare guns. But you know what I don't have? The goddamn Assault Rifle Extended Barrel. Sure, I have all other AR mods but the Omni-blade at level 5, but loving HELL I WANT MORE DAMAGE ON MY MATTOCK GODDAMNIT.
Oh yeah, and the Harrier sure would be nice too.

Lagomorphic
Apr 21, 2008

AKA: Orthonormal
Stop buying PSP's for a while. You'll have better luck getting uncommon mods in the regular spectre packs then you will with PSP's and Veterans.

nacon
May 7, 2005

Gestalt Intellect posted:

Am I missing something about Quarian Infiltrator?

As an aside, I have new-found love for this class in Platinum (wield that Piranha!). Being able to sabotage an atlas or a prime in a chokepoint is really, really useful crowd control. The tech damage bonus can be really strong, as well.

LeastActionHero
Oct 23, 2008

Lagomorphic posted:

The thing about the Reave damage is it does 100 damage/second. You can boost this to 175 per second against armor/barriers or to 130 against everything and get 15% extra damage reduction. On gold a Banshee has 10,125 barriers and 16,875 armor. Exploding a reave on a Banshee will deal over 2000 damage to the Banshee and everything near it. You don't use Reave for the damage over time you use it to prime explosions and to give you damage reduction.

As revealed by the devs, that's not the whole story. Reave has an intrinsic bonus vs armour and barriers, though a penalty against shields.

Reave (Base) (Armor=150%, Barrier=200%, Shields=50%)

So that 100/s becomes 350/s against barriers (130/s becomes 260/s). That's not a great way to kill a Banshee (though it's not the worst, either), but it is an awesome way to safely strip the barriers off a Phantom.

That said, it's definitely better to take the increased DR. The biggest advantage of the Justicar is that you can actually take a hit without collapsing, in sharp contrast to every other adept.

Lagomorphic
Apr 21, 2008

AKA: Orthonormal
Oh yeah you're right, I completely forgot about that.

bring back old gbs
Feb 28, 2007

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Hyperactive posted:

A loving Javelin VI and still not a single loving Harrier, are you loving kidding me you piece of poo poo RNG?

Just keep grinding. I had every single gun other than UR's maxed to X, every gun upgrade, even 255 Medigel/Missile/Ammo Pack/Health Pack and it wouldn't give me a god drat Harrier.

Then one day I got it. Then a few PSP's later I got the harrier II, then the next day the harrier III. I just got the IV yesterday. It may just be my luck but it seems biased, like once you have the gun you'll get upgrades for it much faster, but you have to get that Version 1.

FronzelNeekburm
Jun 1, 2001

STOP, MORTTIME

Vietnamwees posted:

and if you continue playing games where you get a Net Gain on consumables used, you'll have a pretty high number of gel and rockets in no time.
If only it were this easy :negative:

Fight Club Sandwich
Apr 29, 2006

you want a piece of me???

Dilb posted:

That said, it's definitely better to take the increased DR. The biggest advantage of the Justicar is that you can actually take a hit without collapsing, in sharp contrast to every other adept.

I disagree with this. Justicar has a massive health reserve already and one of the better dodges, she doesn't really need extra DR whereas the extra armor/barrier damage really does a number on reapers.

quote:

So that 100/s becomes 350/s against barriers (130/s becomes 260/s)

This kinda understates the damage difference. The 30% flat damage bonus in the DR upgrade only applies to base damage whereas the 75% boost to armor/barrier is a multiplier after all the other damage bonuses have been applied. In practice the difference will be amplified further since the DoTs stack.

MrDude posted:

Watching the FQE video, curiosity: Do we have confirmation/denial of the snippet at the end of the Mass Effect Wiki's page on Cryo Blast?

Maybe the author is trying to say something different, but cryo blast absolutely gives a damage to armor (the 25% debuff). It's possible it doesn't weaken armor further (though i'm pretty sure it does), but the 25% global bonus is more than enough to make it useful vs. armor by itself.

AngryBooch
Sep 26, 2009

ACanofPepsi posted:

Just keep grinding. I had every single gun other than UR's maxed to X, every gun upgrade, even 255 Medigel/Missile/Ammo Pack/Health Pack and it wouldn't give me a god drat Harrier.

Then one day I got it. Then a few PSP's later I got the harrier II, then the next day the harrier III. I just got the IV yesterday. It may just be my luck but it seems biased, like once you have the gun you'll get upgrades for it much faster, but you have to get that Version 1.

I have a Valiant IV and Hurricane IV, still no Eagle. :smug:

Now that I've said this I will get an Eagle in the pack this week.

Leif.
Mar 27, 2005

Son of the Defender
Formerly Diplomaticus/SWATJester
Can't get a Talon or Piranha to save my life wtf.

Vietnamwees
May 8, 2008

by Fluffdaddy

Hyperactive posted:

A loving Javelin VI and still not a single loving Harrier, are you loving kidding me you piece of poo poo RNG?

Like ACanofPepsi said, just keep grinding. Once you max out segments of the RNG, it gets pretty easy to get the other stuff quickly(except Ultra Rares, obviously), especially if you know what you're doing and can consistently clear wave 6 gold.

From what I've seen in other people's Manifests that asked for help, my overall impression is that you guys burn through rockets, gel, and maybe the other consumables, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, your low supply puts you in a constant position of needing to get JEPs, which takes away credits from buying the packs you actually want/need to start gaming the RNG system. If you guys farm Gold or Platinum for a few days (or just play normally)and use few or no consumables in each run then it shouldn't take too long to get a nice pool of gel and rockets going. I think I may have maxed out my consumables in a "golden" period when it wasn't uncommon to join a random missile glitching lobby doing a W/G/G run, and while I didn't do it myself, I usually stuck around for the easy credits.

Midee
Jun 22, 2000

If I want to get to shotgun amp V (or any of the weapon amps), would it be better to use PSPs or just spam vet packs?

Midee fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Aug 14, 2012

Hyperactive
Mar 10, 2004

RICHARDS!

Vietnamwees posted:

Like ACanofPepsi said, just keep grinding. Once you max out segments of the RNG, it gets pretty easy to get the other stuff quickly(except Ultra Rares, obviously), especially if you know what you're doing and can consistently clear wave 6 gold.
Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaah. I've got literally everything but Ultra-rares maxed out, and the only two ultra-rares I'm missing are the Harrier and Valiant. :smith:

LeastActionHero
Oct 23, 2008

Fight Club Sandwich posted:

I disagree with this. Justicar has a massive health reserve already and one of the better dodges, she doesn't really need extra DR whereas the extra armor/barrier damage really does a number on reapers.


This kinda understates the damage difference. The 30% flat damage bonus in the DR upgrade only applies to base damage whereas the 75% boost to armor/barrier is a multiplier after all the other damage bonuses have been applied. In practice the difference will be amplified further since the DoTs stack.

Actually that's not an issue. The rank 6 evolution is the only thing that adds to the base damage, so it really is 130 vs 175. Justicars don't get damage bonuses from passives, so the only way to amplify the difference is with consumables and gear, and gear is a pretty small bonus.

I think the DR is entirely worth it. Justicars only have 600 base shields, so they need a fair bit of help if they're going to take a Geth rocket on the chin without their barriers dropping. Stacking 30 DR from bubble, 40 from Reave, and staying in cover, my Justicar gets about 5700 effective barriers, and can absorb ravager shots, grenades, anything. Dropping 15 DR from Reave would reduce that to 3500.

Since you also get a longer duration, you get a lot more damage per Reave against health, and the difference vs armour is smaller than you might think. Say the long-term DPS is (total damage)/(time per Reave). With increased damage and duration, I'm adding about 475/713/951 DPS vs health/armour/barriers. With increased damage vs armour and barriers, the damage is 317/832/1109.

With a rank 3 Power Amplifier those become 584/876/1168 vs 412/1081/1441.

Vietnamwees
May 8, 2008

by Fluffdaddy

Hyperactive posted:

Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaah. I've got literally everything but Ultra-rares maxed out, and the only two ultra-rares I'm missing are the Harrier and Valiant. :smith:

Oh, well welcome to the club, buddy! Aside from the Gear(which I have a decent number maxed already) and Ultra Rares, I've got everything maxed out too. I think Lagomorphic said a few pages back that regular Spectre Packs might give a better statistical chance at Ultra Rares, or am I just imagining someone said that? Either way, I'm gonna try it in a day or so once I get enough credits to buy a bunch.

http://social.bioware.com/3990653/&v=bw_games&game=masseffect3_xbox&pid=291636066&display=multiplayer

Would Veteran Packs be the best way to go to max out Uncommon Gear? I think I bought a couple recently but it just gave me level II and III consumables instead of Gear.

Nordick
Sep 3, 2011

Yes.

Lagomorphic posted:

Stop buying PSP's for a while. You'll have better luck getting uncommon mods in the regular spectre packs then you will with PSP's and Veterans.
See that's the really funny part, I've been buying assloads of Vet packs. They've been giving me all the other goddamn weapon mods, interspersed with uncommon guns and class upgrades. Welp, at least my Mattock is maxed out thanks to this.

EDIT: Oh poo poo, I can't read. Regular Spectre packs, not vets. Right. Will try that.

Nordick fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Aug 14, 2012

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

I'm pretty sure the answer is "no" but is there any pack that encourages getting gear upgrades? My luck has dealt me a lot of I and a couple II but nothing bigger.

http://social.bioware.com/3742002/&v=bw_games&game=masseffect3_pc&pid=327961945&display=multiplayer

Zikan
Feb 29, 2004

For silver gear buy spectre packs and veteran packs depending on your fancy and wait. For gold gear buy PSPs and just pray.

There is no real strategy beyond that really.

Fight Club Sandwich
Apr 29, 2006

you want a piece of me???

Dilb posted:

Actually that's not an issue. The rank 6 evolution is the only thing that adds to the base damage, so it really is 130 vs 175. Justicars don't get damage bonuses from passives, so the only way to amplify the difference is with consumables and gear, and gear is a pretty small bonus.

It's only the rank 5 power passive that doesn't work. The other passives work fine, so do gear and power amps, which all benefit from pierce's multiplier.

quote:

I think the DR is entirely worth it. Justicars only have 600 base shields, so they need a fair bit of help if they're going to take a Geth rocket on the chin without their barriers dropping. Stacking 30 DR from bubble, 40 from Reave, and staying in cover, my Justicar gets about 5700 effective barriers, and can absorb ravager shots, grenades, anything. Dropping 15 DR from Reave would reduce that to 3500.

I guess if you're going to go with a gimmicky defensive bubble camping build then yeah take Reave DR, but it's really a lot easier to just kill stuff fast with offensive reave and offensive bubble than it would be to try to grind it out with defensive reave and defensive bubble.

quote:

Since you also get a longer duration, you get a lot more damage per Reave against health, and the difference vs armour is smaller than you might think. Say the long-term DPS is (total damage)/(time per Reave). With increased damage and duration, I'm adding about 475/713/951 DPS vs health/armour/barriers. With increased damage vs armour and barriers, the damage is 317/832/1109.

With a rank 3 Power Amplifier those become 584/876/1168 vs 412/1081/1441.

Damage x duration = total reave damage doesn't actually reflect what happens in game. You'll never reave a target once until the duration runs out and only then reave something else, the extra duration is irrelevant since the DoTs stack. Only Reave's damage per second matters, which is a lot more for pierce than it is for the DR upgrade.

Burning Mustache
Sep 4, 2006

Zaeed got stories.
Kasumi got loot.
All I got was a hole in my suit.
What's the deal with people recommending regular Spectre Packs all of a sudden?
If you want to get gold and / or ultra-rare gear, PSPs are obviously the best deal because a single PSP will guarantee you two gold cards as opposed to one with the regular SPs, so no matter how much money you spend on SPs, you'll always get more gold cards with the PSPs. And a better chance for ultra-rares as well.
If you don't care about gold and ultra-rares, because, for example, you want to get silver gear, you absolutely should go for Veteran Packs as one VP will guarantee one silver, so you get a guaranteed 3 silver cards for the same price a single SP costs you (which can end up with 0 silver cards IIRC). Plus you get more consumables with the three VPs as well.

Why exactly would you ever want to buy a regular SP again?

Lagomorphic
Apr 21, 2008

AKA: Orthonormal

Fight Club Sandwich posted:

I disagree with this. Justicar has a massive health reserve already and one of the better dodges, she doesn't really need extra DR whereas the extra armor/barrier damage really does a number on reapers.


This kinda understates the damage difference. The 30% flat damage bonus in the DR upgrade only applies to base damage whereas the 75% boost to armor/barrier is a multiplier after all the other damage bonuses have been applied. In practice the difference will be amplified further since the DoTs stack.

The Justicar doesn't get the damage boost from the passive though so it being a multiplier will only make a huge difference with the offensive bubble and/or gear/consumables.

That said you do make a valid point and you know what you're talking about so I'd say he should probably with your recommendation instead since it's what he originally wanted to do anyways. He should make bonus power damage a top priority when equipping though.

Vietnamwees posted:

I think Lagomorphic said a few pages back that regular Spectre Packs might give a better statistical chance at Ultra Rares, or am I just imagining someone said that?

I think you're misremembering. We know that there is a higher chance of getting an ultrarare in a PSP over a regular spectre pack because the description says so. I'm assuming this is because you have two guaranteed rares slots so you have two chances at getting an ultrarare upgrade and that the actual per slot ultra-rare upgrade rate is the same. If all this is true (and bioware is silent on the actual numbers) then you're getting roughly the same drop rate of ultrarares over two regular spectre packs as you would over one PSP while also getting for consumables and uncommons making the regular packs the better buy unless either a)You're good for consumables and you have all the uncommons you need or b) You really want the new rare characters to play with and are willing to postpone getting uncommons a while to get them a little bit sooner.

That said I could very well be wrong about the drop rate and be slightly screwing myself on the ultra-rares, but I do seem to still be getting them at a decent clip. This is of course to small of a sample to be conclusive though.


Bruceski posted:

I'm pretty sure the answer is "no" but is there any pack that encourages getting gear upgrades? My luck has dealt me a lot of I and a couple II but nothing bigger.

http://social.bioware.com/3742002/&v=bw_games&game=masseffect3_pc&pid=327961945&display=multiplayer

I think regular spectres are your best option.

Edit:

Burning Mustache posted:

What's the deal with people recommending regular Spectre Packs all of a sudden?

Why exactly would you ever want to buy a regular SP again?
It's basically me doing most of the recommending. Compare the cost of buying a veteren pack and a PSP with the cost of buying two regular spectre packs and then compare what you're getting out of them.

Unless you don't care at all about uncommons you'll get more value out of the regular spectre pack.

Lagomorphic fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Aug 14, 2012

Sapozhnik
Jan 2, 2005

Nap Ghost
lol, going back to my ME2 SP run, even on Insanity this feels like a stroll in the park now. Derelict Reaper ship used to make me want to chimp out after the fifteenth reload, now it's just whatever, keep backpedalling, use AP ammo and at least one of (Incinerate|Shockwave|Conc Shot) is off cooldown at any given time. Worst comes to worst I can just cloak and PTFO. Scion comes along, bust out the Widow (remember when that was a top-tier weapon?). Piece of cake.

MP punishes mistakes way way way more quickly than SP does. On the other hand, you don't get medigels that you can use on yourself in SP. Or ops packs or thermal clips for that matter.

Burning Mustache
Sep 4, 2006

Zaeed got stories.
Kasumi got loot.
All I got was a hole in my suit.

Lagomorphic posted:

It's basically me doing most of the recommending. Compare the cost of buying a veteren pack and a PSP with the cost of buying two regular spectre packs and then compare what you're getting out of them.

Unless you don't care at all about uncommons you'll get more value out of the regular spectre pack.

1 VP + 1 PSP = 1 silver + 2 gold (guaranteed)
2 SPs = 2 gold (guaranteed)

I might be wrong on this, but I don't think regular SPs (or even PSPs) have guaranteed silver cards (although there's certainly a good chance you'll get one with either), so again, if you want to maximize your bang / buck ratio for uncommons, you'd be far better of just buying 3 VPs, or heck, even 6, for the price of 1 or 2 SPs because you'd get at least 3 or at least 6 uncommon cards respectively.

Honestly not trying to sound like a dick here, I'm genuinely curious, but I feel like I'm missing something here!

Paracelsus
Apr 6, 2009

bless this post ~kya
I had a bad string of buying VPs and just getting consumables because my UC characters are all maxed out and the RNG loves characters a lot more than mods or gear. I buy PSPs because I know I'll still at least get something other than consumables out of the rares, and I think it's more efficient in the long run, since once you're done filling out your UC slots with VPs you still need to buy just as many PSPs to fill out your rares and URs as you would if you'd started buying them in the first place.

Owl Inspector
Sep 14, 2011

So far I've mostly just been getting veteran packs because I want some new weapons faster and I'm still playing bronze. Would I be better off saving for PSPs anyway? Also, what RNG factors exactly can you "max out" to eliminate them and increase the chances of getting a character or weapon I want?

Mr Dog posted:

MP punishes mistakes way way way more quickly than SP does. On the other hand, you don't get medigels that you can use on yourself in SP. Or ops packs or thermal clips for that matter.

You do get the equivalent of ops packs in SP though since medigel restores health and in ME2 you could upgrade it to restore all your shields too (not sure if that's available in ME3 since I'm only around a third through the game).

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Burning Mustache
Sep 4, 2006

Zaeed got stories.
Kasumi got loot.
All I got was a hole in my suit.

Gestalt Intellect posted:

So far I've mostly just been getting veteran packs because I want some new weapons faster and I'm still playing bronze. Would I be better off saving for PSPs anyway? Also, what RNG factors exactly can you "max out" to eliminate them and increase the chances of getting a character or weapon I want?

There are no RNG factors you have any control over.
The only thing you can "max out" is the "bang for your buck ratio" if you're specifically going for a certain kind of item / class.
For example, if you want consumables, your best bet would be a Jumbo Equipment pack.
If you're going for silver cards exclusively (and don't care about gold cards and ultra-rares), your best bet would be Veteran Packs.
If you're going for gold cards exclusively (and don't care about silver cards), Premium Spectre Packs are your best bet.

In your situation (with still plenty of silver and gold stuff to unlock), I'd alternately go for VPs and PSPs.
Considering you're still playing mostly Bronze, you might as well just go with VPs for a while (because saving up for PSPs can take a while) until you have some decent silver weapons and are comfortable to play silver difficulty regularly, at which point you might want to save up for PSPs to get in on the gold equipment and characters (and pop the occasional VP for silver weapon mods and gear).

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