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SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
Just tried proper Glacier/Platinum farming for the first time and... 3/3 successes.

There was only one game out of four I joined with a team composition I didn't feel comfortable with (plus one N7 58 guy - thanks, but no), the rest were all filled with various biotic class combinations, consisting of at least one smasher (or equivalent) and one AJ. The objectives can get hairy, but everyone generally knows using missiles is the way to go in such situations. The quickest W10 completion run was about 20 minutes - far quicker than the average W/G/G run, considering how most people playing that go for extraction for some reason (the fastest I ever had on there was 18 minutes, which was with people who actually knew what they were doing). The rest were about on par time-wise, though obviously with double the cash reward and infinitely less stupidity. And more excitement.

My impression so far: I feel a lot more comfortable joining a G/?/P game than a random Silver one, assuming the former has a class composition that looks like it's going to work and the players put on consumables.

Speaking of Silver, it's gotten so, so bad. I tried two games for the squad goal and both failed because some dunce inevitably got executed on the extraction wave. I used to like Silver because it's not as sleep inducing as Bronze while still allowing you to fool around somewhat, but holy crap it's become so unnecessarily painful. You better be using a class you feel comfortable soloing with, because that's what you'll end up doing half the time. Also don't expect anyone to use missiles or Medi-Gel, ever. (Finally completed the goal on Bronze with a Shadow, which was absolutely ridiculous. Cloak > SS > Heavy melee, dead Brute. Repeat twice, dead Banshee [if you stand on a slope so she can't grab you]. The only thing remotely dangerous was Ravager acid.)

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SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Thundercloud posted:

I've played a fair bit of Silver today and I've seen the usual problem, pubbies running off on their own and getting killed.
Exactly. Guess the main problem is that Bronze doesn't teach the basic Do's and Don'ts of ME3 MP, instead allowing you to Rambo curbstomp with pretty much any class, especially so with the Earth ones. Cue Silver, which actually requires following the basic rules to a minimum degree, and everything starts falling apart.

However, I couldn't really say how to fix that either. A difficulty as forgiving as Bronze is required so you don't scare away new players and to give casual players who just try to get their readiness rating up a chance (not that that's going to be many players at this point). Making Silver easier wouldn't accomplish anything either, as it'd just end up as Bronze+ then. Maybe some actual valid, MP-related loadscreen messages explaining the basics could help a little.

TacticalGranny posted:

I can say with certainty that this is not 'far quicker'.
I was talking about the average random W/G/G PUG, not ones with coordinated effort :). I just found that the G/P games so far were as fast or faster than W/G/G ones. Though I haven't tried W/G/P yet, so maybe those go even faster.


Also just had a few rounds with Vietnamwees (remembered your GT), though we got a bit unlucky with people dropping out during the match, and getting ill fitting replacements to boot (Krogan Soldier with Avenger :raise:). Playing an AJ without anyone to explode the Reaves isn't very effective, either. Still, 2 out of 3 wasn't that bad, and the failed one at least netted us 70k as well. Hope the games I hosted weren't too laggy, me sitting in Europe and all. I generally try to avoid hosting - I don't like how super accurate and focused-on-you the enemies suddenly become.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Vietnamwees posted:

But yeah, we did pretty that first game, but then the servers took a poo poo on us while we were on wave 7 with our high level consumables on. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm afraid of when I use consumables, wasting my stuff like that just infuriates me to no end.
Yeah, that sucked. Though, having everything but Gear and Ultra-Rares maxed out means at least the lvl IV consumables slowly started filling up - a lot better than receiving useless character cards at least. Gear still seems pretty rare though, all things considered.

Vietnamwees posted:

EDIT: You know the sad thing about failing this event? That there's basically NO reason to care if we succeed or not. The Allied Victory pack isn't going to have any promo weapon, right? Then whats the point in doing anything besides the Squad Goal?
Victory packs were always borderline insulting (except that one time it had a promo weapon), but I start feeling the same for Commendation packs. Once you have every promo gun unlocked you're basically done with them. I'd be much more interested in the Ultra-Rares at this point.


Also I completely missed that they're tracking the status for this event:

https://twitter.com/masseffect/, 4 hours ago posted:

Operation: OLYMPUS update - Allied Goals: Bronze (36%), Silver (32%), Gold (31%). There's still time. To arms, soldiers!
Welp, no Victory pack this time...

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Gestalt Intellect posted:

How important it is to finish singleplayer before starting MP? I'd like to give it a run but I haven't seen a lot of the enemy types I'm reading mentioned in the thread yet so I get the impression I'd be a liability at this point.

Also, is the quality of a weapon in singleplayer generally indicative of how good it is in MP? So far the Mattock and Katana seem outstanding. The Mattock certainly was in ME2 but not the Katana.
SP and MP require two completely different playstyles, the biggest difference coming from the lack of time slowdown/pause, forcing you to think fast and play much more aggressively overall. Apart from one or two missions near the end, SP is generally much much easier as well (okay, the upper difficulty levels may be somewhat comparable to Bronze). Whether you finish SP or not is basically of no consequence, as it doesn't prepare you for the things important to MP at all. Once you start comfortably dominating Bronze, anything SP throws at you will seem like a bad joke anyway.

The weapons are... not really comparable. Since SP is so much easier, a lot of the weapons outright didn't work beyond Bronze (and some still don't), requiring them to be buffed considerably to be not completely worthless. MP has also introduced a few weapons (especially with the Earth DLC) that completely and utterly dominate all others, making the original weapons look even more like peashooters. Granted, those are generally weapons with high rarity, so it's not that easy to get them if you're unlucky with the packs.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
Yeah, just got the Victory pack as well. Can't believe we've made it though. The last report I saw were completion numbers of ~35% with only 17 hours left. Either those were complete BS or I massively underestimate the amount of Sunday evening players.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

TJO posted:

What's so terrible about the Eagle? I do okay with it, it honestly doesn't seem like some awful dud. I'm genuinely asking, I tend to mix up class and weapon and everything with each new game so maybe haven't compared it to alternatives objectively or anything.
After they buffed it a few times it's now barely not worthless, though it still has the lowest pistol DPS unless you have it at something like lvl VII (my condolences). What makes it so comparatively lovely is that it's completely not worth being a promotional weapon - if it were gold rarity (while not even worth that) noone would seriously complain, just receiving it as a every-two-weeks "reward" item, and thus not receiving one of the worthwhile ones, is insulting. (Though the Crusader is pretty :geno:, too.)

The only thing it has going for it is its low weight and being full auto with high accuracy, making it a somewhat acceptable sidearm for a caster build. However, since the introduction of ULM for pistols the low weight far less of an advantage, especially when you have the Talon; on my Human Engineer I can pack both a Talon+ULM and Hurricane+ULM and still have 200% cooldown. Hell, even a much more easily obtained Piranha X will leave you at 170%+ cooldown, and that gun will actually do something if an enemy catches you off guard. There's just no reason to use the Eagle unless you just don't have any better guns/mods yet.

Though, even if I didn't have the Talon I'd pick something like the Phalanx, as I personally really don't care about full auto at all. Also, unlike most pistols it actually has recoil (of the kind that moves your aim) which is annoying to deal with on a controller and ruins long range damage output pretty effectively.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

subroc posted:

Interesting. So instead of using the charge-up delay of the missile to make the glitch work, they're using the rate-of-fire delay between two missile shots. Kinda crafty.

Bioware patch notes posted:

Cobra Missile Launcher
- Rate of fire disabled; limited to one missile per wave to fix rocket glitch
:ohdear:

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Elotana posted:

The Acolyte is actually not that efficient for stripping shields because you have to count the time you spend switching guns, charging the shot, and switching back. Unless your main weapon is incredibly lovely you're almost always better off just shooting more regular bullets.
For trash mobs, sure, I wouldn't bother switching to the Acolyte if you have it as a secondary weapon. But holy poo poo does it wreck shields. An unaugmented lvl X Acolyte shot does 2450 damage versus shields/barriers. Throw in a High-Caliber Barrel + Pistol Rail Amp + Commando Gear and that ramps up to a ridiculous 4230 damage. Five shots of that (a single clip if you put in the heat sink mod) will single-handedly kill the shields of an Atlas on Gold, whereas three shots will deal with both Banshees and Primes. Everything else is shield-stripped in a single hit.

The Acolyte works really well for biotic caster classes, and especially the Fury. Biotic explosions are really rather weak against shields, and unless the boss mob is surrounded by juicy targets you're much better off killing the shields in like 1/10th the time it'd take biotic explosions to do. If you're good at bouncing shots off walls you'll have the target completely shield-stripped before it even walks around the corner.

Also if you're somewhat up close (=Fury) Geth become much easier to deal with as well. Hunter approaches? Acolyte shot (which strips shields and staggers, so no dodging) closely followed by Throw gets rid of it in no time at all. Plus the projectile has some kind of electric effect as well, so unshielded enemies will stand there twitching as if you'd hit them with Overload. The only real drawback is the charge-up delay, so you need to make preemptively charging it up a habit. Otherwise 'oh poo poo' situations can become rather problematic, especially if you're impatient and don't wait for the charge to finish completely, leaving you standing there like an idiot without anything to show for it.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Nordick posted:

often the visual effect just plain doesn't show up.
Sometimes it also shows up too much. I think it happens when you explode a target that doesn't die from the explosion - in that case the visual effect frequently seems to jump to a random enemy, or multiple enemies if you detonate multiple times, even though none have actually been primed. AFAIK it only truly transfers and primes the next target if the original target dies, which is also when you'll hear the sound effect of it transferring.

On a side note, having throw specced for radius (always do this) helps detonating if you don't know exactly which enemy in a group it has transferred to. Aiming above the enemy for the throw will also greatly increase the chances of the throw detonating in case the enemy dodges - the projectile will hit the ground instead of flying off and the AOE impact will set off the explosion.

SirViver fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Aug 25, 2012

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Lagomorphic posted:

The change to shield gate also seems like it could be a big deal.
It sure is! That change makes single-shot kills through shields possible again, assuming you're sporting the right gear and spec your powers accordingly. That's a huge usability boost to the Widow and Javelin right there.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
/\ /\ /\ I don't believe the shield gate was ever significant for weapons other than the Widow/Javelin. The semi-autos might see a slight improvement in edge-cases, but otherwise weapon balance stays effectively untouched by that change.

UnknownMercenary posted:

Yeah, a cloak and headshot is still needed, for the Widow at least. The Javelin might allow body shots though.
I doubt body shots will work. The two weakest shielded units - Geth Rocket Trooper and Nemesis - need a damage of 6750 and 6660 respectively to be killed in a single bodyshot. The raw damage of a Javelin X is 1288.1, so you'd need to somehow get a 417-424% effective damage increase, which I don't think is possible without headshots.

SirViver fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Aug 28, 2012

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Synastren posted:

then 99*.75 damage to health.
99*.25 :eng101:

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

thevoiceofdog posted:

Now that I've maxed out a lot of the decent sniper rifles (Widow, Krysae, Kishock Harpoon Gun), I've been trying to get back into using them since I don't really play inflitrator ever. Been trying out the GethInf but I really have trouble with the Krysae and just staying alive in general. I maxed out the Prox. mine and cloak but probably should've maxed my shields instead, I spend way too much time on the ground. I hate playing with people who just take a widow and then can't do anything to enemies right next to them so I take a Talon for when guys sneak up on me.

So barring that, which sniper rifles are still good and how do you use them? Especially the weird unwieldy ones like the Krysae and Kishock.
I think the GethInf is more suited to a Piranha annihilation build than raw sniping. More accuracy and firerate benefit automatics - especially shotguns - and the wallhack has more benefits when you're up close.

For traditional sniping the SalInf is the best. Now that the shield gate has been capped at 75%, weapons like the Widow and Javelin are able to one-hit-kill through shields again if you spec accordingly and score a headshot. Except that the SalInf's Energy Drain also gets rid of most shields in a single cast, so bodyshots will suffice in many cases. ED also helps a lot with the staying alive part. After some practice you'll be able to enter a comfortable rhythm of Cloak-ED-Shoot for shielded/regular targets respectively Cloak-ProxyMine-Shoot for boss enemies down to armor.

Can't really comment on the Kishock, which I don't like due to the unpredictable (lag-dependent) hit detection, but the Krysae has been nerfed pretty badly, which is probably why you're not doing so hot with it. Granted, it was massively overpowered before, but in usual Bioware fashion they overshot the goal and made it useless. Maybe a future balance patch will restore some of its former glory, without making it the weapon you slap on any class to win.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Two Finger posted:

Am I an rear end in a top hat for immediately reporting people doing this? It annoys me.
Nope! Though I didn't report anyone myself yet (:effort:), I always either kickvote or leave the lobby if there's an obvious cheater present. Sure, farming is lame as well, but it at least requires some effort and stays within the rules. The risk getting reprimanded for staying with an exploiter is admittedly very low unless you do it all day, but I'd rather take 10 minutes longer per round than gamble on getting my equipment reset or similar.

You never know, one day Bioware might figure out how hire a contractor to do SQL queries and gather Plat matches with < 15min wave 10 completion that had a Striker/Falcon/Scorpion involved for closer investigation. If that ever happens I don't want to show up in their reports with increased frequency.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

TheDK posted:

I'm having trouble finding a weapon (or weapons) I like with it.
Talon + ULM. Secondary mod up to you but it should probably be the piercing one so you can deal with Guardians and are more effective vs. armor and cover. Scope if you really need the range.

Equip Disruptor ammo. Shoot -> ED/Incinerate. Tech Bursts all day err' day.


Thanks to ULM, the Talon has become my go-to gun whenever I'm playing a class that's not weapon focused. You can even throw in an ULM'd Hurricane on top as backup while retaining 200% cooldown. What makes it so good beside being the highest DPS pistol is it being a highly accurate, lightweight (with ULM) shotgun, and shooting multiple pellets instead of a single powerful shot increases your chances of the ammo power being applied by a significant margin. So the real magic behind it is the ammo power, specifically Disruptor ammo which primes Tech Bursts, but Cryo can work as a good crowd control tool as well. The other ammo powers are better suited to builds that aim to exploit the raw damage of the gun itself.

Consistently causing Tech Bursts is what makes the difference between being near the bottom and top of the scoreboard as "support" class, if you care about that kinda thing. If you're crafty and have at least one of your powers specced for AoE, you can even shoot two targets between cooldowns and pull off a double-Tech Burst, if they were close enough together.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Psion posted:

This game finally coughed up an N7 Destroyer for me. I know missile launcher is still stupid, but what's the fun way to set up multifrag and devastator mode?
I've had success with this build, though things aren't as clear cut with this class and you might want to tweak a choice or two depending on your weapon loadout and playstyle. The only thing I'd always recommend is picking the Grenade Count evolution for Multi-Frag lvl 6, because carpet bombing rules (it also does more damage if you dump it in the face of an Atlas).

For the loadout pick whatever, but you should probably include the Piranha, since you get +75% total accuracy bonus which transforms it into a killing machine even at medium ranges, and it'd be a shame not to utilize that.

E: Oh yeah and pick gear that gives +grenades. Either Warfighter or Shock Trooper will do fine - the dedicated Grenade Capacity one might be overkill though.

SirViver fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Sep 2, 2012

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Pumpking posted:

Am I going mad or does the harrier have MORE recoil when you stand in cover? Been noticing that for a while and it certainly seems like it.
Yes, it does. No, it makes no sense. Bioware Quality Engineering™

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
Wow, I just had an intense game. All started out with some random Silver match to test out the Submission Net (it's... meh, guess I don't mesh well with it. At least on Jade/Geth I'd have seen far better results with other classes - maxed Blade Armor and Fitness makes him very beefy, though). The other players were N7 ~100ish, so not that experienced yet, which was apparent by them running off alone all Bronze-hero like and getting themselves killed in stupid places.

I've seen worse, though, so when the host switched to Gold next round I thought gently caress it, let's see how long we'll last. However, to even the odds a little I switched to my Piranha GethInf, because there's no way in hell I'd attempt that with a BatSent, boosted Submission Net or not. It ended up being FBW/Cerberus (the host might've set it, can't remember) and unfortunately I had to use most of my medigel on wave 3 where I ended up soloing the last half of the hack at the landing pad. The other two objectives were both escort missions, which we've actually managed to complete relatively intact, despite the neverending waves of Phantoms. To my great astonishment we reached extraction and my teammates died surprisingly (comparatively) little for how much they were running off, though I think I ended up carrying the match somewhat. :stare:


(Sorry for the lovely cellphone pic.)

Of course, I ended up getting Phantom gutted on extraction :v:

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Ruin Completely posted:

Also I tried the Piranha Geth infiltrator people were advocating so much, but I couldn't really make it work. He's too fragile to stand in one place unloading the eight round clip, and the cloak only boosts like one shot's damage. I far prefer the claymore or GPS because I like large damage per shot weapons that can hit from more than five feet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-aqc-IjaCo

You must be doing something really wrong, because the Piranha GethInf is probably the most overpowered class right now, even after the Piranha was tuned down again. Equip AP ammo, Shotgun Rail Amp and maybe a Cyclonic Modulator and go to town.

You being fragile barely matters, as nothing really lives long enough to harm you. Seriously, an Atlas dies in like 1.5-2 clips without anybody helping. You can singlehandedly hold the stairs while Geth farming, no matter how many Primes come down. A Claymore doesn't even come close DPS wise.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
It's been said before, but seriously, if you have problems soloing Bronze for the event, just pick any Vorcha specced for max Bloodlust regen vs Geth and you're basically unkillable. No joke you can sit there disabling a device with a Hunter and Pyro unloading in your face and not give a drat - no grenades and no sync kills make them the safest faction to play against by a large margin.

It's also a really great way to gently caress around with weapons you haven't given a serious try so far, or just practicing getting headshots in your own personal Geth shooting gallery. Even if both weapons suck you can just fall back to heavy-melee bouncing your way through enemy ranks like some kind of razor covered pinball. By far the most annoying thing you'll encounter is getting staggered because it slows down your killing.

I'm sure there's a way to get killed still, but it'd probably involve running into a freshly spawned group containing Prime with your regen stack at minimum and doing nothing.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
Nah, in their usual wisdom Bioware has set the default filter to any/any/any, which makes new players who don't pay any attention show up in non-bronze games from time to time.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Lagomorphic posted:

Weird, I bought 14 PSP's today and got the same thing.


:shepface:

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Psion posted:

The radius is 6m, a 30% bonus to that never really felt like it meant much to me - arc radius is huge as is.
Note that the radius is actually 3m. Pretty much every AoE power besides the Biotic Bubble should read diameter in the description instead, or display halved values.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

VJeff posted:

Is the Graal at all a pain to use if you're not a host?
Depends on the lag. If it's low-ish and stable you can generally adjust to the amount of pre-aim needed on the current host, but hitting moving targets is tricky either way. I'd recommend running it with a class that has a decent stagger power and using that to your advantage.

It works really well with the Batarian Soldier for example - Ballistic Blades to stagger, shoot your three shots on now easy to hit target(s), start reload, reload-cancel with the now again ready Ballistic Blades, repeat. I find the build very fun to play, but keep in mind that you're more of a brawler that can very effectively deal with crowds of mobs, not a boss killer.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Gestalt Intellect posted:

Sometimes you stop taking damage as soon as you leave the acid, other times it keeps going for about 10 seconds and your shields don't come back for even longer for some reason.
Nah, I don't think acid damage is what kills you - it's Swarmers biting you in the rear end. Each hit from one will apply a sizable amount of DoT, which can easily kill you off you've already taken damage from elsewhere. Unless you stay undetected and OHK it, a Ravager will pop one of its Swarmer sacks if it sees someone close by, and the Shadow being rather squishy means certain death if all of them hit you.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
Meh, the Acolyte is pretty good if you know when and how to use it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXEJlOAOUSg

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

PCjr sidecar posted:

the Geth Plasma Shotgun with the shredder mod
Shredder mod does nothing on the GPS. It already ignores armor none of the projectile weapons can actually penetrate map geometry.

E: Looking at your manifest, you should probably try a bit of W/G/G farming to get better unlocks. Concentrate on power-focused builds: SalEng, HSent and HEng (in that order) are all quite safe bets that can easily contribute in a useful way to farming. Note that how high your score is at the end of a round =/= your usefulness. Especially Decoy can make a big difference if you have hotshot teammates that feel hunkering down behind the console is beneath them. What weapon you pick is pretty much an afterthought - your only concern regarding that should be getting low enough cooldowns.

For weapon based builds the GPS is IMO by far your best shot at the moment. Put it on one of the Turians, or the HSoldier, and it should be usable enough. Though generally speaking on Gold you need to use consumables if you want to make effective use of a weapon (with a few exceptions); particularly ARs like the Phaeston (high-rof, low-medium damage) really need them to be workable. And in my personal opinion, weapon based builds are more difficult to pull off on consoles in general anyway, as you simply don't have the speed and accuracy which can make a big difference in the effectiveness of certain builds/weapons. So if you're still getting to grips with Gold, stick to Power builds (and cover) until you get a feel for what you can and can't do.

SirViver fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Sep 29, 2012

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Pumpking posted:

And a power centric salarian engineer:
http://narida.pytalhost.com/me3/classes/#22OIPIFP0@0@A@@I0J4@0@0

Incinerate isn't anything special but it does ok damage to armor and can be used after an energy drain to set off a tech burst, which will do a lot of damage to one target.
[...]
Energy drain everything and follow up with a few pistol shots or an incinerate. Against armor energy drain wont do much by itself, but the tech burst when you use incinerate after will do quite a bit, and with the burn damage over time from incinerate as well you can knock off quite a large chunk of armor in a short space of time.
Tech bursts are really nice, especially if a group of enemies is clustered up, multiplying its damage output. It's not particularly hot against single (boss) enemies once they're down to armor, though. I just did some quick calculations comparing Incinerate spam vs ED/Incinerate/TB alternation and the overall DPS is roughly in the same ballpark, so choosing either won't put you at a huge disadvantage. Higher difficulties somewhat push the favor towards the latter due to the damage-scaling nature of power combos, but it all depends on the exact power spec and on the faction you're playing against to determine which does more DPS. Overall, you can't go wrong by tech bursting if there are targets in AoE range and switching to Incinerate otherwise.

One thing to keep in mind though is that the tech burst window on Energy Drain is prohibitively short (3 seconds, of which 2.5 seconds will be taken by cooldown) compared to Overload, even before the latter got buffed, so your solo tech burst capabilities are severely gimped. Unless you're really close to your ED'd target you won't get tech bursts with any kind of regularity, simply due to how long it takes for the Incinerate projectile to reach it. If you don't have 200% cooldown you don't even need to bother, and playing on a host with unstable latency won't do you any favors in that regard either. The +CD evolution on ED would help considerably, but you'd lose out on 100% shield restoration which I'm not entirely sure would be worth it. If you're behind cover, make sure to manually pop out by aiming your gun before the ED cooldown finishes, so you don't waste precious time on the pop-out-of-cover animation.

Regarding the build, personally I'd forgo the two levels in Decoy and max Fitness instead. The decoy only takes damage from rockets anyway and shock is basically useless except for getting last-hit kill credit on extraction. In my experience three levels in Decoy let it perform its purpose just fine and anything above that is better invested in other skills.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Elotana posted:

Counterpoint: max out Decoy because if you pick your spots right it will tank goddamn near everything

Any weapon with a low cooldown and disruptor ammo will produce plenty of TBs because you can use E-Drain as a detonator instead of a primer. gently caress Incinerate.
Sure, if you can spare the consumables, but the whole point was to offer builds that work reasonably well without being fully kitted out :). Most weapons also aren't exactly great at consistently applying the ammo effects.

Also that Decoy would've tanked pretty much exactly as well at level three, the only difference being having to recast it slightly more often due to the shorter duration. I believe the only tangible difference maxing the Decoy's shields makes is whether it takes two or three rockets to be taken out - that's a few seconds at most.

\/\/\/ You have a point there, shock might let it draw more aggro, true.

SirViver fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Sep 30, 2012

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Psion posted:

extraction bonus credits: My extraction bonus popup just reads +1000cr regardless of silver or gold. I thought it was supposed to be 10%?

75184 for a gold ... yeah, I'm not getting 10%, I should be getting about 83000.
Uh-oh, they're applying Bitcoin math.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
+100% bonus damage to frozen/chilled targets sure does work with Incinerate now. Played a round of QFE and maxed Incinerate plus maxed Cryo Blast (specced for debuff) dishes out quite good damage, especially to fat armored targets. Definitely gives the QFE some bite in addition to having a very good support/debuff power.

Gonna try Singularity next...

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Arcaeris posted:

Also, the Battlefield 3 class is a regular rare now? I didn't really care to unlock it...
Yeah, it is. Thankfully it doesn't have any appearance customizations, so you only waste one gold card on it.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
^ On PC? Was he the host? If so, he might've cheated by editing the stats of the Argus.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Drunken_Pirate posted:

I'd rather imagine that he was just really good.
Yeah, I doubt that. To get those kinda scores you really need to outperform the other players by an order of magnitude, and while technically possible if the other three players including you sucked really bad and the game took 35-40 minutes because he was essentially soloing, the Argus on a SalEng is not going to give you that kind of performance, especially without consumables.

I mean, look at this guy's ME3 videos. He's freakishly good and regularly gets those kind of scores even with "crappy" weapons, but in order to do so he uses builds specifically designed to work well with the chosen loadout and is always decked out in consumables.

A lvl 14 SalEng w/ Argus has basically no special offensive capability that would make him stand out DPS wise, and generally speaking if you don't out-damage your teammates you're not going to out-score them. Entering non-farming Gold games without consumables is maybe OK if you use one of the top-tier (overpowered) builds like KroGuard or GethInf, but really not advisable on a mainly support class with a mediocre weapon (if you want to score high / deal lots of damage). Maybe it'd be somewhat workable if you can offset the disadvantage with skill, but not top-score-by-large-margin workable. Combine that with the fact cheaters tend to modify weapons generally seen as not worthwhile (=rarely used by other players) to lessen the chances of being discovered, and the whole setup reeks of cheating.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Samurai Sanders posted:

I'm watching one of this guy's videos and it isn't really telling me anything but that if you have a Krogan vanguard with the right equipment, you can just run directly into enemy groups and clobber them all instantly.
Yeah, you should probably watch the non-Krogan videos :v:

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Pumpking posted:

Yeah this is what I'm thinking too. I don't really want to waste a respec card taking incinerate to 6 if it turns out to still be quite mediocre, extra damage to chilled targets or no. I guess I could promote him now its less of a chore.
According to a thread (or two) on BSN the rank 6 Incinerate evo only works with Cryo Blast and Cryo Ammo, but has no effect on Snap Freeze, so don't waste that respec card. Great job as always, Bioware!

SirViver fucked around with this message at 12:36 on Oct 8, 2012

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Pumpking posted:

Dont worry you only lost 1000. The 10% bonus is bugged to only give 1000 regardless of difficulty. Bioware...
It was bugged right after the patch, but they apparently updated their servers to fix the problem.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Mr Dog posted:

Volus Adept is great but I'm not really feeling the Engineer. Recon Mine in particular confuses me, why would you scan dudes instead of just blowing them up?
Invasive Scan. It's not so much about the direct explosion damage (though it's good for finishing off enemies and is hilarious on bronze - note that the explosion damage goes through walls, like arc grenade), but the +25% damage from all sources debuff plus 30% slowdown is really good against bosses, especially clusters of them. Combined with the Proxy Mine you get a +45% damage debuff that is a bit more elaborate to set up, but lasts a lot longer and can be applied consistently. The built-in Tactical Scan is a nice boon and also works as a magnet for your teammates, so they actually make use of the debuff, even if they don't realize it's there.

Mr Dog posted:

OTOH the Adept's ability to stack three debuffs onto bosses is worth the price of admission alone, makes Atlases go down like bags of rocks. Spam Shield Boost to keep people alive, and drop a Stasis at critical chokes every now and again as well.
I personally haven't tried the debuff evolution on the Hula Balls yet, and while I love the Potato Adept, the debuff itself, while also reaching +45% damage, cannot be applied as consistently as the Engineer's can, due to the cooldown and recast delay of of the BioBalls; by the time your third ball hits, the debuff from the first one is only going to last for 3 more seconds or so. Also, it only applies to a single target (unless targets caught in the radius are debuffed as well?) and your teammates won't instinctively shoot your target either.

Overall I'd say the Engineer is the a bit more "useful" one, though neither is useless by any means.
Now to imagine both teaming up for a +90% debuff and an Adept or Sentinel doing a fully Warp/Throw specced BE... should be about 10k damage? :haw:

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Dr. Red Ranger posted:

I think there might be something to the Geth bombers not getting hit with Overload. I played another Gold/Geth game today as my HuEng and the little bastards would float over, get overloaded and not have their shield bar move at all, then zap/bomb me. It may just be lag but I've never had anything lag out of an "instant" power like that. Scooting 10 feet to the left in a split second to avoid an incinerate is annoying too but everything else does it so whatever. Is anyone else seeing this?
Yes! I'm noticing the exact same thing. It seems to randomly ignore Overload, as do the swarmers sometimes (or they're simply a lot more resistant to powers than they should be). I even have the impression that it ignores or heavily resists weapon damage from time to time, at least how fast they died varied widely under similar conditions.

God it felt so good Shadow Striking them out of the air over and over.

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SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Tremors posted:

:argh: I managed to get to wave 10 soloing gold geth on giant as a turian ghost, only to have the objective be a 4 point hack. By the time I got to the fourth point, it was surrounded by primes and pyros and my last missile didn't take them all out.
I think your problem was rushing things too much and overestimating the effectiveness of cloak, since "Infiltrators = hack easy mode, right?". The point of a solo run is to survive, not to speedrun it for maximum cash payout. Unless you were running out of time for some reason, all you had to do was run to the other side of the map, wait till the mob closes in on you, and then haul rear end (and boy can the Turian jetpackers do that) back to the objective to complete it. The overall timelimit is generous enough to allow doing that for all of the hack points, and with the cloak it should've been a breeze, even though it barely works on solo runs. The main thing you need to watch out for when doing that is leaving open a good escape route to get past the pain train without getting staggered to death.

That's also the main strategy on how to solo single hack/upload objectives if you're not playing a Kroguard. Even Drone/Delivery objectives can warrant doing that, since bruteforcing your way through with missiles doesn't really work that well when you're alone. You just need to remind yourself that you're not farming, that you have the time to maneuver and use the general Geth slowness* to your advantage.

* Geth Bombers can go gently caress themselves :mad:

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