Mass Effect 3.5 Does this thread have a soul?

[Psyren]

EDIT: I'm a dope, mixed up Earth and Mars. You get the Vindicator near the end of the Mars mission, not the Earth mission.

[SiuiS]

I don't have a Carnifex as-is, but the Avenger X has proven quite reliable on my Turian Sentinel, so that'll probably do me fine with my Justicar. I'm sure I'll play her regardless of my teammates though - I like Adepts too much. Besides, with Biotic Sphere specced for the warp effect, I have another, better way of self-comboing, even if it's still not as good as the original Asari Adept's.

No advice on the last rank of Reave?

None. I prefer chewing through armor if only because non-armored units tend not to survive that long under suppressive fire and a single power. Shielded guys suffer the occasional detonation, too. This means the only targets that matter for the extra damage are heavy armored targets. The downside is everyone worries and focuses on them so...

Yeah, no actual advice.

I do not have the Phaeston at all, so that's not an option. Besides, with my Avenger at rank 10, won't I need the Phaeston at least a little higher than 2 to be the better choice of the two?

Zevox

Before revamping, the phaeston 1 was better than avenger V. Now the phaeston is stronger and lighter. Trouble is that the bars on screen are a terrible metric. I could be totally wrong.

[Zevox]

All right, I tried the Asari Justicar out (if you're curious, I went with the generic and defense boost for Reave 6, maxed out fitness, and left pull at 3). Sadly, I'm none too impressed. I like that Reave has no travel time, and the AoE seems good (although it's very hard to tell since the animation for the power is quick and almost impossible to see), but I dislike that it does all its damage over time rather than on hit, doesn't give its defensive benefit against the Geth, and that the instant travel time also means I can't arc it around walls or cover. That would be less of a problem with a power that I could do that with (Overload has the same thing, and I'm not bothered by it because Engineers have Incinerate and the Turian Sentinel has Warp), but Reave is your only real offensive power as the Justicar. And heck, the fact that it doesn't get Detonate even makes me question its usefulness for comboing with other biotic characters.

Pull was pretty much crap. It seems to travel slower than other powers, and Pull -> Reave combos couldn't one-shot a mook even on bronze (Reave would finish them a second later due to the damage over time thing, but that's an indication of just how weak it is due to Pull being left at rank 3). Biotic Sphere even disappointed me - I was expecting the area to be better given I grabbed the radius upgrade, and it was very hard to use offensively (longer casting time than I expected, cooldown time that's just too long for comfort). I only really got offensive use out of it against the Reapers, because Brutes and Banshees charge me anyway and have enough durability that they can actually get in on me. Defensively any group that didn't hunker down in one spot was a pain to use it with, which was almost every group I played with, especially the one with two Krogan Vanguards in it.

So, yeah, really not my style. I think I'll stick to the original recipe Asari Adept for the most part.

On a different note, I think I'm going to stop buying Recruit Packs. Ever since I maxed out the last of my common weapons the other day, I've gotten nothing but four expendables and a Human class card every time I buy one. No mods, in spite of a healthy number of my common mods still needing upgrades (most notably for me my Shotgun Blade Attachment is still at 1, and my High Caliber Barrels for both my Shotguns and Pistols are still at 2, but there are a number of others I have at rank 3 or less still). I actually haven't seen a mod out of those things in some time, as there was a point a while ago when they stopped giving me 3 expendables plus two common permanent items (mod, weapon upgrade, or Human class card) almost every time and started giving me four expendables and a weapon upgrade (or on rare occasion a class card) every time, so I'm beginning to suspect the developers tweaked the drop rates for items in those things.

Zevox

[Anarion]

All right, I tried the Asari Justicar out (if you're curious, I went with the generic and defense boost for Reave 6, maxed out fitness, and left pull at 3). Sadly, I'm none too impressed. I like that Reave has no travel time, and the AoE seems good (although it's very hard to tell since the animation for the power is quick and almost impossible to see), but I dislike that it does all its damage over time rather than on hit, doesn't give its defensive benefit against the Geth, and that the instant travel time also means I can't arc it around walls or cover. That would be less of a problem with a power that I could do that with (Overload has the same thing, and I'm not bothered by it because Engineers have Incinerate and the Turian Sentinel has Warp), but Reave is your only real offensive power as the Justicar. And heck, the fact that it doesn't get Detonate even makes me question its usefulness for comboing with other biotic characters.

Pull was pretty much crap. It seems to travel slower than other powers, and Pull -> Reave combos couldn't one-shot a mook even on bronze (Reave would finish them a second later due to the damage over time thing, but that's an indication of just how weak it is due to Pull being left at rank 3). Biotic Sphere even disappointed me - I was expecting the area to be better given I grabbed the radius upgrade, and it was very hard to use offensively (longer casting time than I expected, cooldown time that's just too long for comfort). I only really got offensive use out of it against the Reapers, because Brutes and Banshees charge me anyway and have enough durability that they can actually get in on me. Defensively any group that didn't hunker down in one spot was a pain to use it with, which was almost every group I played with, especially the one with two Krogan Vanguards in it.

So, yeah, really not my style. I think I'll stick to the original recipe Asari Adept for the most part.

On a different note, I think I'm going to stop buying Recruit Packs. Ever since I maxed out the last of my common weapons the other day, I've gotten nothing but four expendables and a Human class card every time I buy one. No mods, in spite of a healthy number of my common mods still needing upgrades (most notably for me my Shotgun Blade Attachment is still at 1, and my High Caliber Barrels for both my Shotguns and Pistols are still at 2, but there are a number of others I have at rank 3 or less still). I actually haven't seen a mod out of those things in some time, as there was a point a while ago when they stopped giving me 3 expendables plus two common permanent items (mod, weapon upgrade, or Human class card) almost every time and started giving me four expendables and a weapon upgrade (or on rare occasion a class card) every time, so I'm beginning to suspect the developers tweaked the drop rates for items in those things.

Zevox

Regrettably, biotic explosion damage is based on the rank of both the setup power and the detonator power. If you max out both pull and reave the explosions will kill all basic enemies and pretty much anything without shields. Sadly, pull is so useless otherwise that it feels wasteful. I think the Justicar is only good (and the Drell adept with the same skills) if you have an asari adept or human sentinal that you work with regularly. You can use reave to set up their throw combos so that between the two of you, biotic explosions are going off every second for tons of damage. Especially since throw has the buff that gives +50% damage and force to biotic explosions.

[Morty]

Goddammit. It has been impossible for me recently to play in multiplayer. I either can't connect at all or I get massive lag. I don't know whether it's the fault of my connection or EA servers.

[Psyren]

@ Zevox: I was similarly disappointed by Reave, though approaching it via the Drell Adept rather than the Justicar may have colored that. Taking the other evolution (Armor and Barrier damage) does help (you can chew through Banshees pretty quickly combined with sustained fire) but that makes it pretty underwhelming vs. shields and health, and should any other biotic detonate it you lose both that debuff and your buff.

Of course, the ease with which you can setup or detonate combined with other biotics is unparalleled - but if you're like me (and I think you are), you prefer to detonate your own combos. Asari Adept and Human Sentinel are infinitely better in that regard.

Personally, I wouldn't spec the Justicar for defense at all - I'd rather set the shield up for Warping, drop it over a chokepoint, and Reave anything that comes through. This can come in handy in narrow maps, like the cerberus lab, the reactor, and the turian moon. But all in all, I think the Asari Adept is better than her sister too.

[Corvus]

Well, this is fun. Not.

I did a thorough virus scan of my computer yesterday - and it reported Origin as a Trojan and promptly killed it. ME3 reported I needed to reinstall Origin to run.

Problem is that when I try to reinstall it, Origin just crashes halfway through, so I can't play 'cause I can't get Origin working.

Stupid buggy spyware.

[LordShotGun]

Well, this is fun. Not.

I did a thorough virus scan of my computer yesterday - and it reported Origin as a Trojan and promptly killed it. ME3 reported I needed to reinstall Origin to run.

Problem is that when I try to reinstall it, Origin just crashes halfway through, so I can't play 'cause I can't get Origin working.

Stupid buggy spyware.

Well in the defense of your virus scanner, Origin IS spyware under all uses of the word.

However, I will admit that EA is not totally evil when people stand up to them. They did back down when shown with hard information that Origin was accessing tax and banking information and removed some of Origin's inherent spyware.

Source

Spoiler

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_%28content_delivery%29

[Xondoure]

Seems to me for the Justicar you would want to spec reave for increased damage reduction and pile that on top of the bubble to shoot your DR through the roof. Thoughts?

On another note how should I spec Hunter Mode? Damage boost or enhanced x-rays?

[Corvus]

Has to resort to a system restore to fix Origin.

In other news, I've been playing the Krogan soldier and am having a lot of fun between carnage, melee and shotgunning. Been levelling up on silver - will try it out on gold after I hit 20, promote, then re-level with a new spec.

[Luzahn]

I'm curious, do other classes besides the Batarian Sentinel have the potential to set off tech explosions?

I've just started noticing them happening when I shockwave a netted enemy.

[SiuiS]

I'm curious, do other classes besides the Batarian Sentinel have the potential to set off tech explosions?

I've just started noticing them happening when I shockwave a netted enemy.

Yes, but the only tech bursts that occur without having to kill a target is the electric one. Human engineer and turian sentinel can both do it, first with overload, then with incinerate/warp. The shock from combat drone or decoy (possibly also the turret) can both set up, and set off tech bursts.

Fire or cryo bursts require killing the primary target. A human engineer lights an enemy with inconerate; if they are weak enough that overload will kill them, the target dies and sets off a fire explosion, damaging and igniting all nearby targets. If overload is not strong enough to kill them, then the tech detonation potential is wasted.

[Zevox]

So, on a whim today I decided to try out the Quarian Engineer. And it's surprisingly good. The Turret was far more useful than the Drone the Human gets, especially with the Flamethrower upgrade. It fired far more often, did more damage, and distracted enemies better than the Drone ever did - heck, I had multiple cases of it distracting Banshees in one match, which in one instance pretty much single-handedly enabled me to take that Banshee down solo (on silver).

Cryo Blast was also far more useful than I expected. I specced it to increase the damage done to enemies it affected as much as possible, and it actually was noticeable. Plus giving Incinerate the upgrade that doubled its damage to frozen or chilled targets proved effective in combination with it, particularly since Cryo Blast has a pretty quick cooldown. I noticed that I only got the actual tech burst out of fully frozen targets (i.e. ones that didn't have protection when I hit them with Cryo Blast), and only on their deaths, but once I noticed that I was actually able to use it nicely to turn mooks into ice bombs, since Cryo Blast's quick cooldown allowed me to fire it off, shoot the victim a bit during the cooldown, and finish it with Incinerate quite quickly. It's certainly not biotic combos in damage terms, but it's extra damage nonetheless, and extremely effective at clearing out groups of low-rank enemies quickly. And much more reliable than electric tech bursts (neither my Human Engineer nor my Turian Sentinel has ever managed to get those to work consistently).

The only real problem is that since Incinerate still sucks on shields even if the enemy is chilled the class has no real anti-shield ability, forcing it to rely on guns there. Ironically, I'd say this makes the preferred enemy for this one the Reapers, rather than the Geth as every other Engineer would prefer. Still, to be perfectly honest, this is probably my favorite Engineer class - I still don't have the Geth, but I do think I prefer it to the Human or Salarian.

I haven't had much luck with my packs of late though. Aside from a couple of upgrades to my Claymore (which will nonetheless still need several more before I consider using it on anyone but my Krogan Sentinel), my Resurgance Packs haven't really been giving me anything I care for, and the couple of Veteran Packs I grabbed today only really gave me one thing I liked, an upgrade to my Shotgun High Calibur Barrel mod (which is common rarity). One also unlocked the Quarian Infiltrator for me, but yeah, Infiltrator. I guess that does leave me with only two classes not unlocked though (Geth Engineer and Salarian Infiltrator).

Zevox

[Landis963]

Seems to me for the Justicar you would want to spec reave for increased damage reduction and pile that on top of the bubble to shoot your DR through the roof. Thoughts?

On another note how should I spec Hunter Mode? Damage boost or enhanced x-rays?

Of course, my first instinct is to go damage bonuses all the way, no matter the class or the race. So there's my answer to both questions. However, I will admit that in some cases it may not be the best answer.

[SiuiS]

Zevox: the flamethrower turret is your anti shield ability. And anti crowd ability. And choke point holder. Wingman on those occasions you need to hold a point where enemies can sneak up on you.

[Khosan]

I'm curious, do other classes besides the Batarian Sentinel have the potential to set off tech explosions?

I've just started noticing them happening when I shockwave a netted enemy.

I noticed an unusually high number of tech explosions earlier today. Might've just been luck though.

I'm not entirely sure why, but I've felt compelled to write about one of my MP characters. Beware, what follows is me messing around and writing when I should probably be doing other stuff.

Spoiler

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Varro Hao, Turian Sentinel

Waiting. Always waiting.

That was the worst of it. The sense of an impending something, something he couldn't quite see yet, but was ready to pounce at any moment. That was something most Turians are taught to expect from birth, especially soldiers.

Varro Hao was not, strictly speaking, a soldier. He was trained to use firearms and had fired them many times in the past. Hao was an engineer who built combat hard-suits and was responsible for a few key advancements in kinetic barrier technology. Every gun Hao had fired in the past decade had been to either test or demonstrate the properties of his own creations. He was offworld when Palaven was hit by the Reapers. Within a week, he'd been conscripted and was back in boot camp.

Now, not even a month later, he was in a shuttle with four...aliens, en route to a planet that was not his own with little but the clothes on his back and assurances that this 'hotspot' was crucial to the war effort. While he knew insubordination was out of the question, he couldn't help but feel anxious. Every day that KIA list grew just a little bit longer.

"Landing in five." The pilot was human this time; another human, a krogan and a salarian would be dropping with Hao. He still wasn't sure how to feel about things like that. He'd seen enough combat by now to know that race had little connection to success, but he couldn't help but feel uncomfortable around non-turians.

"Touchdown in thirty. Hold on to your butts, boys and girls, this is gonna get wild." Hao shot a look toward the cockpit and decided that, whatever that sentence meant, he was not a fan of this pilot. Within seconds, the shuttle was filled with the sound of gunfire peppering the hull.

The krogan chuckled, hoisting his shotgun and making a motion toward the door, "Bet you 25 credits I can scare them off our landing pad, turian." Hao could already see the blood lust starting to boil in the krogan's eyes. That was never a good sign.

"Betting is against regulations." The krogan snorted dismissively and waved Hao off.

"Shouldn't have expected anything else from a turian." He turned to the human and salarian, "So what about you, any tak-"

Before the krogan could finish his sentence, the door slid open and his voice was drowned out by the sound of gunfire. Hao, his amplified kinetic barriers running full bore but seemingly holding strong, stood in the doorway. Over the roar of the weapons, Hao managed to shout, "That was a challenge, right?"

The krogan, angry and bewildered, scrambled for the door as Hao flicked on his omni-tool and entered a command. A few Ceberus soldiers below erupted in a brilliant display of electricity, their on-board power supply suddenly finding it necessary to flood every system in the soldiers' hardsuits with electrical energy. The krogan shoved his way past Hao and leapt from the shuttle, landing directly on top of one of the paralyzed soldiers with an audible crunch, the human and the salarian scrambling after. Not missing a beat, Hao readied his rifle and hopped out after them.

The waiting was always the worst part. The action? He was getting used to that.

[Psyren]

So, on a whim today I decided to try out the Quarian Engineer. And it's surprisingly good. The Turret was far more useful than the Drone the Human gets, especially with the Flamethrower upgrade. It fired far more often, did more damage, and distracted enemies better than the Drone ever did - heck, I had multiple cases of it distracting Banshees in one match, which in one instance pretty much single-handedly enabled me to take that Banshee down solo (on silver).

Not sure why you had difficulty - my Drone distracts Banshees all the time, especially since you can spawn it behind them instantly, without the wind-up-throw lag time Turrets get, and thus distract them before they start jumping. Also, Neural Shock + Incinerate means you are just as good against Reapers as you are against every other enemy; Human Engineers, like Turian Sentinels, always feel useful.

The best part about the Drone is that you don't need it for damage at all; doing that meant I could go for a 3/6/6/5/6 build (max Incinerate, Overload, and Fitness - I still get 200% without the final evolution of Alliance Training by sticking to my Tempest/Phalanx) making my Engineer pretty damn sturdy for a caster and giving me that wonderful shield recharge delay boost from Fitness 5.

Of course, if you do decide to max the Drone, it becomes very good at harassing enemies, particularly Shock. I personally prefer Chain Lightning to the rockets but I've heard good things about them too.


You can also spawn the Drone behind cover (great for flushing out Marauders, Nemeses and Rocket Troopers) and of course use it to turn packs of advancing Guardians around, leaving them one NS away from spasming and dropping their riot shields.

[Erik Vale]

My favourite part about Cryo blast is that it doesn't have to be a tech burst, ordinary gunfire on death will set if of, allowing you to freeze nearby oponents. Combined with increased radius upgrade, when the lower level mooks spawn bunched up it's possible for me to kill them without them getting a shot off (It's also funny with cerberus, because they will keep blindly jumping into someone shooting and freezing them, only marginally better than bunch up.)

[GloatingSwine]

My favourite part about Cryo blast is that it doesn't have to be a tech burst, ordinary gunfire on death will set if of

Ammo powers will set it off, but ordinary bullet won't.

[Zevox]

Not sure why you had difficulty - my Drone distracts Banshees all the time, especially since you can spawn it behind them instantly, without the wind-up-throw lag time Turrets get, and thus distract them before they start jumping. Also, Neural Shock + Incinerate means you are just as good against Reapers as you are against every other enemy; Human Engineers, like Turian Sentinels, always feel useful.

The best part about the Drone is that you don't need it for damage at all; doing that meant I could go for a 3/6/6/5/6 build (max Incinerate, Overload, and Fitness - I still get 200% without the final evolution of Alliance Training by sticking to my Tempest/Phalanx) making my Engineer pretty damn sturdy for a caster and giving me that wonderful shield recharge delay boost from Fitness 5.

Of course, if you do decide to max the Drone, it becomes very good at harassing enemies, particularly Shock. I personally prefer Chain Lightning to the rockets but I've heard good things about them too.


You can also spawn the Drone behind cover (great for flushing out Marauders, Nemeses and Rocket Troopers) and of course use it to turn packs of advancing Guardians around, leaving them one NS away from spasming and dropping their riot shields.

My drone never fired frequently enough to be worth much. Enemies ignored it until it started shooting, and there was always a serious delay between me spawning one and it doing that. Even when it started shooting it wasn't always enough to get their attention. I picked the rocket upgrade as its final evolution simply because having a long-range option on it so it wasn't completely useless if enemies had wandered outside its short regular range by the time it fired was essential.

Zevox

[ShinyRocks]

I gave my drone the Stun, rather than the Rockets. It's super useful. If you spawn it with an enemy in the crosshairs, it spawns behind that enemy. I've had it stunlock Brutes and Banshees a load of times, drawn Nemeses out of cover, make Guardians turn around, and draw the attention of Atlases.

With Banshees, if she jumps as you spawn it, it appears where she lands, not where she left from. And then she just stands there looking at it while you unload Overloads and Incinerates into her.

It's not as potent as the Turrets, but it's a better distraction tool, to my mind.

I also went against Neural Shock on Overload because even normal Overload makes organic enemies fritz out for a couple of seconds, and has the advantage of not making them drop down, which often puts them behind cover.

Human Engineer = my favourite.

I was quite liking Human Sentinel, but I never got to set off my Warp-Throw combos because every. single. time. I warped something, the other guys killed it before I got a chance to throw. But then there was another time on Giant where I held a hack point single-handedly (the one in the corner behind the rubble) by just Warp-Throwing again and again as the Reapers appeared in the doorway.

Losing connection to the servers on Silver between Wave 10 and Extraction = RAGE. 'Okay, we'll remove your Ammo you used, and your Armor boost, and note that you used some Medigel and Op packs, but you don't get to have any money or any experience.' So. Much. Rage.

[Anarion]

Are we all just ignoring the Salarian engineer because decoy is overpowered and it wouldn't be fair to the others?

[Luzahn]

Are we all just ignoring the Salarian engineer because decoy is overpowered and it wouldn't be fair to the others?

Hmm...So making Salarian engineer my first engineer was a good choice?

[Sagonene]

Never got the hang of decoy, myself. It doesn't shoot and no one seems to want to melee for the shock to go off. If it absorbed some shots, I barely noticed. Maybe I'm just using it wrong.

I did unlock asari adept (proper) with a resurgence pack where I got another level of asari justicar. 200k exp and camo patterns for the blue millenarian. Still getting used to stasis and not sure if I like it as much as the human adepts. I know, not optimized but I seem to have good use of singularity.

Still no Krogan vanguard but hey, Geth shotgun 7...

Sago

[GloatingSwine]

Never got the hang of decoy, myself. It doesn't shoot and no one seems to want to melee for the shock to go off. If it absorbed some shots, I barely noticed. Maybe I'm just using it wrong.

You'll know it's working because enemies will walk over and gawp at it. They don't always seem to try and melee it.


Though it was nerfed in the last rebalance, only 2 enemies can gawp at a single decoy (or turret or drone) now.

[Zevox]

Are we all just ignoring the Salarian engineer because decoy is overpowered and it wouldn't be fair to the others?

More because it's not directly comparable. It's entirely there for distraction, while the Turret and Drone are also support fire units.

Though personally I didn't see it doing much in the brief time I spent as a Salarian Engineer either.

I did unlock asari adept (proper) with a resurgence pack where I got another level of asari justicar. 200k exp and camo patterns for the blue millenarian. Still getting used to stasis and not sure if I like it as much as the human adepts. I know, not optimized but I seem to have good use of singularity.

Just get it to rank 6 and take Bubble. You'll learn to appreciate it when you're locking down Phantoms, Guardians, Engineers, and Geth Hunters (all of which would laugh at your singularity) while leaving a field that freezes anyone else without armor in place if they happen to walk into it.

Zevox

[Krade]

I did unlock asari adept (proper) with a resurgence pack where I got another level of asari justicar. 200k exp and camo patterns for the blue millenarian. Still getting used to stasis and not sure if I like it as much as the human adepts. I know, not optimized but I seem to have good use of singularity.

I find that I enjoy the vanilla asari adept better when not coordinating with other biotics. I think mine is Stasis 3 (only used for Phantoms, really), Warp 6, Throw 5. Maxed out Justicar and fitness with power damage and health. Warp-Throw can take out most everything. For Guardians I just pull out the Carnifex 10 with the piercing mod 5. Mail slot? What mail slot? (Edit: of course, this would require such an awesome gun as the Carnifex 10)

[Sagonene]

Decoy = distract something
Drone/Turret = distract something and shoot back

Yeah, not seeing why Decoy is useful. if it distracts one thing and that thing is a banshee, it did it's job. Coating said banshee in flamethrower until she turns to ash is priceless.

I'll try the setup suggested above... seems better than I had planned.

Sago

[Zevox]

I find that I enjoy the vanilla asari adept better when not coordinating with other biotics. I think mine is Stasis 3 (only used for Phantoms, really), Warp 6, Throw 5. Maxed out Justicar and fitness with power damage and health. Warp-Throw can take out most everything.

...that kinda makes me sad. The Asari Adept with a 6/6/6/5/3 setup is just such a death machine with her powers, skimping on any of them can't help but leave you weaker. Especially Stasis without Bubble, but not maxing out Throw also means you're not dealing maximum damage with your biotic combos either (the power of those is based on the rank of the two powers that activate them, so two powers at rank 6 with the Detonate upgrade on each is how you max it out - plus as many boosts to your power damage from your class skill as possible of course). Plus without the force & damage upgrade from Throw 6 you must not be doing nearly as much damage too unprotected enemies with Throw either.

Anyway though, I decided to play the Salarian Engineer a bit more today, to get a better idea of where I rank him compared to the other Engineers. I begin to see why Decoy is considered so good - it does seem to draw enemy attention much faster than Drone or Turret, and holds it nicely. And Energy Drain is nice, though I knew that from using it as my bonus power in single player on my Adept. Still, I do prefer the Quarian - the offensive abilities of the Turret make me like it more than Decoy, and much as not having a shield-draining power can be annoying, I prefer what I can do with Cryo Blast + Incinerate to Energy Drain + Incinerate. I guess I may prefer the Salarian to the Human though. Overload vs Energy Drain is a bit of a toss-up (stun a bunch of enemies while dropping shields vs more damage to shields and restore my own shields), but I'll take Decoy over Drone for sure.

I have to say though, it's kind of sad that I'll play a greater variety of Engineers than Adepts. It just feels like all of the Adept builds except for the original Asari are plain weak to me. The Human getting stuck with Shockwave sucks, and the Drell and Justicar need something better than Pull to back up Reave (I'm also rather paranoid of the Drell's low shields to boot). Mostly I think they need to do something about how biotic powers other than Warp, Reave, and Stasis do nothing to enemies with shields, and powers other than Warp and Reave doing nothing to enemies with Armor (in both cases with the exception of setting off combos with Warp/Reave/Stasis, and even there only Throw and Shockwave can do that). It makes it feel like Stasis Bubble -> Throw and Warp/Reave -> Throw are the only things worth doing with (non-Vanguard) biotics, and as powerful as those are, biotics could use a little more variety than that.

Oh, and my crappy luck with packs continues too. My last three Resurgance packs have given me and upgrade to my Striker, appearance customizations for my Asari Justicar and Krogan Battlemaster, and some other rares that I don't recall caring about. Still no Geth Engineer, and I haven't seen an upgrade to my Geth Plasma SMG since the day the Resurgance packs came out. Even the few Veteran packs I got in between gave me appearance customizations for classes - twice for the Turian Soldier, which I don't play, and once for the Salarian Engineer. At least those gave me upgrades to some common mods though (finally my Shotgun high calibur barrel and blade attachment are going up).

Zevox

[SiuiS]

Are we all just ignoring the Salarian engineer because decoy is overpowered and it wouldn't be fair to the others?

Salarian engineer level 1. "dude, you're using the salarian? Bro, don't use decoy bro, it's garbage."

Hm. Sounds like a challenge, huh Xanatos?

Salarian engineer level 8, decoy with shock. Gold, reapers, fire base Giant. Me and one other salarian engineer (decoy had shock and detonate).

38 minutes to full extraction, no medigel used, silver survival medal (5 consecutive waves; 4-8).

"Starry?"
Yeah Xan?
"Decoy is broke, isn't it?"
Yeah, Xan.

Decoy = distract something
Drone/Turret = distract something and shoot back

Yeah, not seeing why Decoy is useful. if it distracts one thing and that thing is a banshee, it did it's job. Coating said banshee in flamethrower until she turns to ash is priceless.

I'll try the setup suggested above... seems better than I had planned.

Sago

Given that Decoy serves the same function as a shock!drnne but better (more shields, comparable damage, superior rate of fire, routinely sets up tech bursts via shock/energy drain), I think it's all a matter of giving the playstyle a chance and not just the power.

Kinda like shockwave can be useful, but on a vanguard it's like trying to pick pockets when you rolled a barbarian.