Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Catch-All – Shepards with Jobs

Might not be a bad idea for a Vanguard to pack an assault rifle too, so they have an alternative for when charging isn't the best approach. Again I'd recommend the Avenger to keep their recharge time nice and short.

On Silver I've found Singularity to be not quite as useful. I recommend Stasis/Warp/Throw as being better for Silver.

The problem is that you seldom encounter only 1 lone mob in Silver and chances are you'll have a weapon that can take out even if Warp/Throw does not finish the easier targets. Also throw is very useful against the guys with shields, forces them to drop the shield for a few seconds and you can pump them with bullets.

But I agree that Stasis is King for an Adept.

Stele wrote:

We did really well on silver with two Vanguards last night. One would charge, nova, the other would charge, nova, then the first again. It was a slaughter. :lol:

Actually, it was just you using nova. I would just charge and shoot. I don't use nova because, well, it takes down my defenses too hard. Also because my first vanguard was an Asari, and they don't have it.

The biggest trick with Vanguards is managing your shields, really. No matter how you do things, vanguards are fragile without biotic charge. With biotic charge, you can fully occupy any single big bad and a few smaller friends. But if you miss that charge just one time because you accidentally stuck to cover, or lag stopped your skill from activating, or whatever... that's a death sentence.

One thing I suggest for going vanguard into silver is to take the "Radius" upgrade for your first choosable upgrade. This bumps it up to hit up to two additional targets in a 2m radius, and that makes charging into groups workable. Switching to that made it a lot easier to deal with pyros, since they tend to clump up. Without the radius upgrade, I'd frequently charge one and then have another two roast me before I realized they were there.

Along with that, I get Power Synergy (since you're going to be using charge a lot more often than once every 15 seconds, this means you've got a 25% boost to damage and force) and Barrier (so you get full shields after each charge instead of just half shields.)

With that loadout, I'll do charge -> roll away -> shoot until charge is ready, repeating every three seconds or so. If things start to get hot, charging a distant target or rolling further to get to cover generally works. I've taken on two ravagers simultaneously on silver with that and been okay.

Banshees are the most dangerous thing, because it's unclear (to me, anyway) when they're ready to do their instant grab-head-twist kill. With atlases and brutes, you'll almost always stagger them when you hit and have time to dodge back before they can grab you (unless they're going for someone else—sorry, Stele.) With phantoms, they don't always stagger and they attack fast but rolling away will keep you safe... unless you're in very tight quarters.

Hypatian wrote:

Banshees are the most dangerous thing, because it's unclear (to me, anyway) when they're ready to do their instant grab-head-twist kill. With atlases and brutes, you'll almost always stagger them when you hit and have time to dodge back before they can grab you (unless they're going for someone else—sorry, Stele.) With phantoms, they don't always stagger and they attack fast but rolling away will keep you safe... unless you're in very tight quarters.

On my Asari Vanguard (Which seems to have a simular spec to yours BTW), I ramed one once rolled away, but I was effectively dragged back by a mysterious force and she meleed me.

Thanks, Blacksabre. I had fun too! I died a little more than I would have liked, but all in all a good time was had. I have to say, I love how my engineer destroys Geth. I do not like Reapers or Cerberus nearly as much.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Might not be a bad idea for a Vanguard to pack an assault rifle too, so they have an alternative for when charging isn't the best approach. Again I'd recommend the Avenger to keep their recharge time nice and short.

Yeah I carried the Phaeston and still had +160% or so on powers. Nice to take down shields on some enemies before I charge in.

I tried carrying the Disciple shotgun when I first started, which supposedly does good shield damage. But up close and personal is too late to be worrying about shields.

Tenebrous wrote:
Hypatian wrote:

Banshees are the most dangerous thing, because it's unclear (to me, anyway) when they're ready to do their instant grab-head-twist kill. With atlases and brutes, you'll almost always stagger them when you hit and have time to dodge back before they can grab you (unless they're going for someone else—sorry, Stele.) With phantoms, they don't always stagger and they attack fast but rolling away will keep you safe... unless you're in very tight quarters.

On my Asari Vanguard (Which seems to have a simular spec to yours BTW), I ramed one once rolled away, but I was effectively dragged back by a mysterious force and she meleed me.

That's happened to me multiple times. Another reason I prefer just not playing Reapers. I roll away but because they started the animation somehow it insta-kills me even though I'm 10-15 feet away from them. BS.

Tenebrous wrote:
liquid wrote:

There was this Drell vanguard in one of my games that pretty much cleaned up 90% of all the mobs on the level. He had leveled some of the combo bonuses where there's a chance of not getting a cool down on some of the skills so he would charge-nova-charge or charge-charge-nova and everything would die. Only a few times he was down, his score was about ~70-80k at the end of the level.

Drell Vanguards do not have nova.

Then it must be the grenades that made that splash. Don't know how he skilled it but he was literally raping everything.
I wish respecing was free.
So far I am having most fun with the Salarian Engineer (the Quarian is nice too). Maybe i've leveled him wrong but it's a ton of fun:
Maxed out Energy Drain, Salarian Operative, Fitness. With a Mantis VI sniper and Phalanx II pistol for close range.

One thing I don't like very much is it seems that you need to spend a ton of points on fitness regardless of the class you're playing.

Also, if you want to unlock weapons I suggest you buy a lot of 5k/20k packs and not the spectre one.

Luggage wrote:
Rallick wrote:

Anyone else having problems with their friends list loading in Origin? I can play multiplayer just fine, provided I only want to play with pubbies. Boo!

Yup. Wanted to jump into a quick one before work, but F-list won't load and the waiting time for pubby games are way long.

Still seems to be down, 5 hours later.

I had this problem last night too, but a quick restart of Origin fixed it. Doesn't seem to work today though.

Ohhhh just found an Item Rarity List for Mass Effect 3 MP:

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/to...

Sigh... really really tempted to sink $10 and try for 5 Spectre packs hoping for a rare weapon and a chance to get Quarian Engineer or any Krogen.

emyln wrote:

Ohhhh just found an Item Rarity List for Mass Effect 3 MP:

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/to...

Neat, I got an ultra-rare last night: the Javelin. I'll have to try it out, but in SP, I preferred the Black Widow. Anyway, good to know where to target purchases.

emyln wrote:

Ohhhh just found an Item Rarity List for Mass Effect 3 MP:

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/to...

Sigh... really really tempted to sink $10 and try for 5 Spectre packs hoping for a rare weapon and a chance to get Quarian Engineer or any Krogen.

Just play silver with us. 2 rounds get you a spectre pack.

IMAGE(http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2012/03/me3dlc.png)

Interesting, but it could easily be a fake. Not sure what class the Asari Justicar would be -- a second Asari Adept loadout maybe, given that the images there account for one of every other class.

Woohoo, just got a gold item. Graal spike thrower (krogan shotgun)!

Drell with Reave = My ears are bleeding.

BNice wrote:

Drell with Reave = My ears are bleeding.

The devs have acknowledged that as being bugged. Expect it to be corrected in a future patch.

zeroKFE wrote:
BNice wrote:

Drell with Reave = My ears are bleeding.

The devs have acknowledged that as being bugged. Expect it to be corrected in a future patch.

Sweet! That damn buzzing sound over and over and over and over...

BNice wrote:
zeroKFE wrote:
BNice wrote:

Drell with Reave = My ears are bleeding.

The devs have acknowledged that as being bugged. Expect it to be corrected in a future patch.

Sweet! That damn buzzing sound over and over and over and over...

Ha! I didn't realize that was a bug. Thank goodness the noise will go away when the power does.

zeroKFE wrote:

Interesting, but it could easily be a fake.

Especially since there's already a 5th Soldier class (the Battlefield 3). Not that they couldn't make more room.

Speaking of Batarians, I'm hoping they add a fourth multiplayer enemy, comprised of the mercs. They could have vanguards, sentinels, YMIR and varren.

liquid wrote:

Woohoo, just got a gold item. Graal spike thrower (krogan shotgun)!

My personal favorite gun.

Stele wrote:

Just play silver with us. 2 rounds get you a spectre pack.

I will. Part of the problem is I really want to advance my single player storyline. finally completed the Krogen Quest line and last night I completed the event that happens to the Citidel.

Spoiler:

**Sob** So damn sad. I've seen Mordin and now Thane die, I really love the long cut scenes they had for them. Mordin was my favorite companion.

I spent a couple of hours Sunday morning and last night playing multiplayer. Missed an invite from Titanis (sorry!) since I was in the middle of a run with a pub group that was actually going well. I started MP with a human Soldier, but last night I played an Engineer and had a BLAST. I felt much more useful as an Engi. Also earned enough for a Spectre pack and picked up an Asari Vanguard.

I usually hate multiplayer FPS because I'm too old and slow to keep up with the kids and their fancy Mountain Dew fueled reflexes, but I have to say I felt useful and had a lot of fun. Co-op is far more enjoyable to me this way. Hope to get into some GWJ groups soon!

LobsterMobster wrote:

Speaking of Batarians, I'm hoping they add a fourth multiplayer enemy, comprised of the mercs. They could have vanguards, sentinels, YMIR and varren.

They'd have to implement single-player AI for them too, so I suspect if they do that the extra races/locations will be tied to SP DLC, and I can't see myself buying anything more for ME3 in a hurry.

Playing with random motleys, I've generally found geth to be the roughest, actually--so many damn Hunters, and I can only spot in one direction at a time.

zeroKFE wrote:

- Mattock buffed, Vindicater nerfed

Dammit. The damage nerf to the Vindicator isn't too bad, but the encumbrance is. Guess I won't be using that any more.

zeroKFE wrote:

New balance updates today:

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/to...

Short version:
- Several SMGs were buffed
- Mattock buffed, Vindicater nerfed
- Sabotage was buffed vs non-synthetics and nerfed vs synthetics
- Geth were generally buffed, although pyros will evade powers less

So yeah, don't expect Geth Silver farming to be nearly as easy going forward.

Huh so does Origin patch or is this some config that we get when we connect to multi? Haven't seen Origin do any auto-patching yet.

Stele wrote:

Huh so does Origin patch or is this some config that we get when we connect to multi? Haven't seen Origin do any auto-patching yet.

Not sure, but I'd guess they've worked out a way to do this kind of number tweaking balance changes server side despite the fact that games are hosted peer to peer. Not only does it make it harder to hack the balance of the game, but it also keeps them from having to do title updates for the Xbox and PS3 versions (which require a costly and time consuming certification processes).

zeroKFE wrote:

New balance updates today:

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/to...

Short version:
- Several SMGs were buffed
- Mattock buffed, Vindicater nerfed
- Sabotage was buffed vs non-synthetics and nerfed vs synthetics
- Geth were generally buffed, although pyros will evade powers less

So yeah, don't expect Geth Silver farming to be nearly as easy going forward.

Hurray! They didn't nerf the Raptor. I was afraid they would.

New balance updates today:

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/to...

Short version:
- Several SMGs were buffed
- Mattock buffed, Vindicator nerfed
- Sabotage was buffed vs non-synthetics and nerfed vs synthetics
- Geth were generally buffed, although pyros will evade powers less

So yeah, don't expect Geth Silver farming to be nearly as easy going forward.

I just got the game to update by forcing an update in Origin.

MannishBoy wrote:

I just got the game to update by forcing an update in Origin.

Yeah I tried that the other day (release) and it kept patching the same 40mb patch over and over, and all it did was reset the activation program. It even did that a day or two after release, I guess to make sure I wasn't in the EU? :p

Didn't really give me much confidence in Origin.