I usually ran with Tali and Miranda, just cuz Liara wasn't available for most of ME2. Got to have a full tech and biotic around when you're running soldier. Also went with Mordin for a while, just cuz he's damn hilarious.
Miranda isn't full biotic; she's a sentinel, so she already has overload, whereas you have to get Tali's loyalty before she earns her overload-esque power and becomes less terrible. Mechanically, Grunt and Miranda were my go-to insanity team. I'd just leave Miranda behind a wall in the previous room and use her powers while Grunt and I basked in the +hp/damage buff. Having pull is a pretty awful compensation for all the ways Grunt is flat out better than Jacob, including having his own completely unique random charge attack that rips through husks like tissue.
I varied my teams up on all the other runs, though, to try everyone out, though I eventually started bringing Kasumi almost all the time because rapid shadow strike is hilarious.
Warp Bombs. It's all about the Warp Bombs.
If you're an Adept/Sentinel you don't need anybody for your own Warp bombs, and you can set up Miranda and Thanes by endgame without using nearly useless squadmates.
I usually ran with Tali and Miranda, just cuz Liara wasn't available for most of ME2. Got to have a full tech and biotic around when you're running soldier. Also went with Mordin for a while, just cuz he's damn hilarious.
Miranda isn't full biotic; she's a sentinel, so she already has overload, whereas you have to get Tali's loyalty before she earns her overload-esque power and becomes less terrible. Mechanically, Grunt and Miranda were my go-to insanity team. I'd just leave Miranda behind a wall in the previous room and use her powers while Grunt and I basked in the +hp/damage buff. Having pull is a pretty awful compensation for all the ways Grunt is flat out better than Jacob, including having his own completely unique random charge attack that rips through husks like tissue.
I varied my teams up on all the other runs, though, to try everyone out, though I eventually started bringing Kasumi almost all the time because rapid shadow strike is hilarious.
Warp Bombs. It's all about the Warp Bombs.
If you're an Adept/Sentinel you don't need anybody for your own Warp bombs, and you can set up Miranda and Thanes by endgame without using nearly useless squadmates.
How is Sentinel gonna set up his own Warp Bombs?
And having another squadmate with Pull (and then another one with Warp or Pull too) means you can set up way more Warp Bombs.
Having Cyro Blast and Neural Shock on the same character was pretty dumb.
Mordin was a Medic-spec Engineer, which totally fit his character.
Then they should have made less redundant powers that fit his character.
The powers never seemed to fit the characters much anyway. Why is Thane a biotic? Why is Miranda half-tech? Why do Tali and Legion have the same fucking powers!?!?!?
They just really need to sit down and design each squad member better so they make sense as a companion.
I usually ran with Tali and Miranda, just cuz Liara wasn't available for most of ME2. Got to have a full tech and biotic around when you're running soldier. Also went with Mordin for a while, just cuz he's damn hilarious.
If you're part of the PC Master Race, you can mod Liara in to substitute for one of the lesser Biotics.
I enjoyed my Adept run where I modded Jack out and Liara in.
Warp bombs all day every day.
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
Also, it never gets old to hear "Watch the Asari!" when Collectors start popping up.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
Well...I mean I can understand pretty much all the squadmates powers.
Of the one's you mentioned
Miranda is obsessed with being perfect. So it makes sense that should would have an answer for every defense and Slam just because.
Thane is an assassin so being able to throw people off ledges and stuff is cool. Shredder is thematical if not useless. Warp for destorying barriers, etc.
Tali is a tech head so it makes sense that she would have techie powers. Shield Drain also makes sense. Being a Quarian, Tali would probably be much more worried about maintaining her defenses than others to avoid contamination.
Geth are walking computers so again techies, not to mention he's pretty much fashioned after the Geth snipers in ME1 why he has the shield boost and such.
Overall, Squadmates powers are very thematic of their personality. It's just that some powers/characters just weren't made right.
You have some character's like Jacob whose powers are redundant with a generally better character.
Character's like Mordin who powers are just redundant.
And characters like Jack who have powers that suck at higher difficulties.
That why I want to see how these evolving powers work. I remember a tweet some time ago about armor-piercing throw so if other powers have stuff like that I feel it will be a much better balance.
And I typed way more than I wanted.
Excuse the typos...I'm playing Arkham City right now and I'm in a rush to get back to it.
I usually ran with Tali and Miranda, just cuz Liara wasn't available for most of ME2. Got to have a full tech and biotic around when you're running soldier. Also went with Mordin for a while, just cuz he's damn hilarious.
If you're part of the PC Master Race, you can mod Liara in to substitute for one of the lesser Biotics.
I enjoyed my Adept run where I modded Jack out and Liara in.
I usually ran with Tali and Miranda, just cuz Liara wasn't available for most of ME2. Got to have a full tech and biotic around when you're running soldier. Also went with Mordin for a while, just cuz he's damn hilarious.
If you're part of the PC Master Race, you can mod Liara in to substitute for one of the lesser Biotics.
I enjoyed my Adept run where I modded Jack out and Liara in.
His class skill gives him bonus HP/dmg % of 40/18 or 30/25. Grunt's gives 50/15/regen++ or 50/25/regen+. Also Grunt gets assault rifles instead of pistols.
So basically, "he's got pull" is his sole selling point, in addition to being super boring as opposed to hilariously badass.
Don't ask me why, but it seemed like Garrus was unconscious more often than Tali in ME1, and Tali's the frickin' engineer.
Tali had her shields boosted massively by her skills, Garrus got screwed in that he got neither the crazy shields of an Engineer or the crazy Health of a soldier. And he wasn't a biotic so he couldn't lock down everyone indefinitely or use Barrier.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
His class skill gives him bonus HP/dmg % of 40/18 or 30/25. Grunt's gives 50/15/regen++ or 50/25/regen+. Also Grunt gets assault rifles instead of pistols.
So basically, "he's got pull" is his sole selling point, in addition to being super boring as opposed to hilariously badass.
It is true that Grunt is the best squadmate ever for dialogue. But warp bombs!!
They did need to do something different with him and Grunt though. Maybe replace Incendiary Ammo with something else.
Also, I love Garrus. He brings the Overload and he brings the pain. And he usually doesn't die quite as fast as some of the other squad mates.
His class skill gives him bonus HP/dmg % of 40/18 or 30/25. Grunt's gives 50/15/regen++ or 50/25/regen+. Also Grunt gets assault rifles instead of pistols.
So basically, "he's got pull" is his sole selling point, in addition to being super boring as opposed to hilariously badass.
Hey, he also has ONE EXTRA SKILL POINT in comparison to everyone else but Miranda.
Z0re on
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited October 2011
I think Concussive Shot probably didn't get too much thought put into it.
I mean...12 second cooldown for one of the worse damage-based powers in the game.
I think Concussive Shot probably didn't get too much thought put into it.
I mean...12 second cooldown for one of the worse damage-based powers in the game.
Really?
It does a pretty decent chunk against Barriers but other then that it's completely useless. If it can CC an enemy, he's at the point where I'd rather kill/biotic him.
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chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
I never got into the strategy of it too much but Garrus handles Overload, Thane handles Warp, both of them can take enemies out from a distance, any that's left get's charged and shotgunned
worked pretty well for me
Grey Ghost on
0
AlectharAlan ShoreWe're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered Userregular
Oh, sure. Now you just want a little support for Jacob.
Next you'll be reinstating the divine right of kings.
I know how you Jacobites think.
What's wrong with a little love for Bonnie Prince Charlie, man?
Why does everything have to be "Oh, the King Over the Water's powers aren't different enough from Grunt's"?
Well, there was the incident with the Rutan.
You remember that one? Or maybe you don't, it is getting a bit... wibbly here.
Clearly one of us is a
Tesselecta
How fun was that finale, right? I really want to change my title/location to
A Doctor/In a Doctor Suit. But I don't want to spoil things.
On an actual Mass Effect note:
I'm about to finish my final playthrough of ME1, with all the max level goodness and optimal decision making/charming I need to feel like I was a galactic superhero. So moving on to ME2, how difficult is it to get/maintain the Paragon points/percentages necessary to resolve situations in a Paragony manner? I mean, unless you wanted to actually spend points on Charm/Intimidate in ME1, you had to go through like 2-3 playthroughs before you could Charm/Intimidate your way out of everything. What am I looking at for ME2?
Who the hell didn't max out Charm or Intimidate? Those points pay off constantly. That's, like, half the point of the damn game.
You can earn up to 4 free Charm/Intimidate points per playthrough. If you're an unrelenting min/maxer like myself, those are 8-12 points that can go to a different skill, so long as you're willing to go through multiple playthroughs to end up at your final save.
Although there's a skill that boosts charm and intimidate this time too, it's a good utility skill as well.
Well worth the points to get and max your bonus.
As long as you have a solid leaning one way or the other, you'll be fine with an import. Heck, even if you don't.
Seen both options for some of the toughest checks at once.
I just got to choosing that skill for my adept, and is it just me or is there literally no reason to pick Nemesis over Bastion?
Bastion
All your powers last longer and take less time to recharge. Paragon/Renegade scores increase.
Health: +20.00%
Power Recharge Time: -20.00%
Paragon/Renegade: +100.00%
Power Duration: +15.00%
Nemesis
Your biotic powers do more damage and take less time to recharge.
Health: +15.00%
Power Recharge Time: -20.00%
Paragon/Renegade: +70.00%
Power Damage: +15.00%
the +100% Persuasion option is pretty much always better
Yeah I always go with that anyway, but the same or better in every single way? It seems a stupid choice.
It increases duration instead of damage. With Nemesis there are a few cases where you can kill an enemy in one less Warp or Shockwave because even with Heavy Warp things tend to survive with a sliver on lower difficulties.
Of course this is outweighed by having your Singularity last forever and all the other bonuses.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
edited October 2011
Did someone already mention that they're selling this replica rifle in the Bioware store? (for 650 big ones, no less. Jeepers)
You couldn't even use that to enhance a Halloween or con costume - it weighs 20 lbs!
It's purty and all, but for that kind of money I'd be more likely to buy something from Abbyshot - I like items that are both nerdy & nominally useful.
Posts
If you're an Adept/Sentinel you don't need anybody for your own Warp bombs, and you can set up Miranda and Thanes by endgame without using nearly useless squadmates.
How is Sentinel gonna set up his own Warp Bombs?
And having another squadmate with Pull (and then another one with Warp or Pull too) means you can set up way more Warp Bombs.
The powers never seemed to fit the characters much anyway. Why is Thane a biotic? Why is Miranda half-tech? Why do Tali and Legion have the same fucking powers!?!?!?
They just really need to sit down and design each squad member better so they make sense as a companion.
If you're part of the PC Master Race, you can mod Liara in to substitute for one of the lesser Biotics.
I enjoyed my Adept run where I modded Jack out and Liara in.
Warp bombs all day every day.
Of the one's you mentioned
Miranda is obsessed with being perfect. So it makes sense that should would have an answer for every defense and Slam just because.
Thane is an assassin so being able to throw people off ledges and stuff is cool. Shredder is thematical if not useless. Warp for destorying barriers, etc.
Tali is a tech head so it makes sense that she would have techie powers. Shield Drain also makes sense. Being a Quarian, Tali would probably be much more worried about maintaining her defenses than others to avoid contamination.
Geth are walking computers so again techies, not to mention he's pretty much fashioned after the Geth snipers in ME1 why he has the shield boost and such.
Overall, Squadmates powers are very thematic of their personality. It's just that some powers/characters just weren't made right.
You have some character's like Jacob whose powers are redundant with a generally better character.
Character's like Mordin who powers are just redundant.
And characters like Jack who have powers that suck at higher difficulties.
That why I want to see how these evolving powers work. I remember a tweet some time ago about armor-piercing throw so if other powers have stuff like that I feel it will be a much better balance.
And I typed way more than I wanted.
Excuse the typos...I'm playing Arkham City right now and I'm in a rush to get back to it.
I am, but I don't use my powers for evil, lol.
we tear shit down
Trust me, it's so evil it's good.
He's got pull and good damage. Don't be hatin'!
I used Mordin for most of my Insanity Engineer run so I could hear his dialogue on all the missions. He spent most of the time knocked out.
Don't ask me why, but it seemed like Garrus was unconscious more often than Tali in ME1, and Tali's the frickin' engineer.
His class skill gives him bonus HP/dmg % of 40/18 or 30/25. Grunt's gives 50/15/regen++ or 50/25/regen+. Also Grunt gets assault rifles instead of pistols.
So basically, "he's got pull" is his sole selling point, in addition to being super boring as opposed to hilariously badass.
Tali had her shields boosted massively by her skills, Garrus got screwed in that he got neither the crazy shields of an Engineer or the crazy Health of a soldier. And he wasn't a biotic so he couldn't lock down everyone indefinitely or use Barrier.
I'm not anti-Jacob. Just think they should have differiated him from Grunt more.
I do wonder what 5th power sqauddies will get in ME3 though.
50% damage boost, throw field, warp, sniper rifles, dude fucking cleans up the last couple missions
also way too many dudes have concussive shot and it's always a pre-req for everything else
It is true that Grunt is the best squadmate ever for dialogue. But warp bombs!!
They did need to do something different with him and Grunt though. Maybe replace Incendiary Ammo with something else.
Also, I love Garrus. He brings the Overload and he brings the pain. And he usually doesn't die quite as fast as some of the other squad mates.
Hey, he also has ONE EXTRA SKILL POINT in comparison to everyone else but Miranda.
I mean...12 second cooldown for one of the worse damage-based powers in the game.
Really?
Wait, when did Jacob have sex with Garrus?
It does a pretty decent chunk against Barriers but other then that it's completely useless. If it can CC an enemy, he's at the point where I'd rather kill/biotic him.
Oh, sure. Now you just want a little support for Jacob.
Next you'll be reinstating the divine right of kings.
I know how you Jacobites think.
Why I fear the ocean.
worked pretty well for me
What's wrong with a little love for Bonnie Prince Charlie, man?
Why does everything have to be "Oh, the King Over the Water's powers aren't different enough from Grunt's"?
Battle.net
Well, there was the incident with the Rutan.
You remember that one? Or maybe you don't, it is getting a bit... wibbly here.
Why I fear the ocean.
Clearly one of us is a
How fun was that finale, right? I really want to change my title/location to
On an actual Mass Effect note:
I'm about to finish my final playthrough of ME1, with all the max level goodness and optimal decision making/charming I need to feel like I was a galactic superhero. So moving on to ME2, how difficult is it to get/maintain the Paragon points/percentages necessary to resolve situations in a Paragony manner? I mean, unless you wanted to actually spend points on Charm/Intimidate in ME1, you had to go through like 2-3 playthroughs before you could Charm/Intimidate your way out of everything. What am I looking at for ME2?
Battle.net
Well worth the points to get and max your bonus.
As long as you have a solid leaning one way or the other, you'll be fine with an import. Heck, even if you don't.
Seen both options for some of the toughest checks at once.
Why I fear the ocean.
You can earn up to 4 free Charm/Intimidate points per playthrough. If you're an unrelenting min/maxer like myself, those are 8-12 points that can go to a different skill, so long as you're willing to go through multiple playthroughs to end up at your final save.
Battle.net
I just got to choosing that skill for my adept, and is it just me or is there literally no reason to pick Nemesis over Bastion?
Bastion
All your powers last longer and take less time to recharge. Paragon/Renegade scores increase.
Health: +20.00%
Power Recharge Time: -20.00%
Paragon/Renegade: +100.00%
Power Duration: +15.00%
Nemesis
Your biotic powers do more damage and take less time to recharge.
Health: +15.00%
Power Recharge Time: -20.00%
Paragon/Renegade: +70.00%
Power Damage: +15.00%
tali was god-tier in ME1
i'd die to a rocket to the face and she could take 5 of em
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Yeah I always go with that anyway, but the same or better in every single way? It seems a stupid choice.
It increases duration instead of damage. With Nemesis there are a few cases where you can kill an enemy in one less Warp or Shockwave because even with Heavy Warp things tend to survive with a sliver on lower difficulties.
Of course this is outweighed by having your Singularity last forever and all the other bonuses.
http://biowarestore.com/mass-effect/mass-effect-accessories/m8-avenger-assault-rifle-replica
You couldn't even use that to enhance a Halloween or con costume - it weighs 20 lbs!
It's purty and all, but for that kind of money I'd be more likely to buy something from Abbyshot - I like items that are both nerdy & nominally useful.