Mass Effect 3: A Guide to Challenges and How to Get the Awards Fast
So, I got my first challenge award today for “Biotic Mastery” – Complete 14 of the Biotic Mastery Challenges and I got the “Biotic God” banner for my game character :)
Anyway, it took quite a few matches to get the award, so for everyone else out there, here are few tips on how to get the awards faster:
1. Play on Gold/Platinum
The points/waves/extractions you earn on Gold/Platinum count toward Silver/Bronze challenges as well. For example, if you get a full extraction from Firebase White on Platinum, it will count for a full extraction on the same map on Gold/Silver/Bronze, too. The challenges this matters for are:
- Squad Elite
- Solo Mastery
- Map Mastery
2. Use Damage-based Gear and Equipment
For all the challenges that require you to use powers or weapons, it’s not the number of times you use them, but the amount of damage dealt that is factored in. Using gear and equipment that increases your damage can double the speed at which you complete challenges if you do it right – for example, use the Adaptive War Amp and a Power Amplifier Module with an Adept. The challenges this matters for are:
- Biotic Mastery
- Tech Mastery
- All the Alien and Weapon Challenges
3. Solo/Duo on Silver
The quickest way to level up damage-based challenges is to solo/duo on silver. That way, no one is stealing the damage you would do otherwise (think Biotic Charge and Nova) and you are less likely to die than on Gold/Platinum. You rack up the points fairly quickly doing this and you are able to use the powers/weapons necessary to complete your challenge.
Ok, so enough with the general tips – what are the easiest challenges to complete?
1. Combat Mastery
| Combat Mastery | #/Points Reqd |
| Melee Damage | |
| 1 | 250000 |
| 2 | 500000 |
| 3 | 1000000 |
| Over the Cover Grab | |
| 1 | 50 |
| 2 | 100 |
| 3 | 250 |
| Headshots | |
| 1 | 250 |
| 2 | 500 |
| 3 | 1000 |
| Grenade Damage | |
| 1 | 100000 |
| 2 | 200000 |
| 3 | 300000 |
Bioware just updated this so you have to complete all 12 tasks.
You only need to complete 9 out of 12 of these tasks – the easiest/fastest ones are the Grenade Damage, Headshots, and Melee Damage. Use your Demolisher Engineer with the Grenade Capacity upgrade and spam grenades for a few Gold/Platinum matches. For headshots, you actually have to kill enemies with headshots, not just shoot them, so you want to go for the Widow, Javelin, or any other one-shot-kill sniper rifle (depends on the level you play at). As for Melee Damage, using the Krogan is an easy way to do this – unfortunately, I don’t believe Shadow Strike counts towards this Melee challenge (judging by my point totals and how much I’ve played as the N7 Shadow).
2. Biotic Mastery
| Biotic Mastery | #/Points Reqd |
| Biotic Explosions | |
| 1 | 50 |
| 2 | 250 |
| 3 | 500 |
| Throw | 50000 |
| Pull | 50000 |
| Singularity | 50000 |
| Shockwave | 50000 |
| Warp | 50000 |
| Biotic Charge | 50000 |
| Reave | 50000 |
| Stasis | 50000 |
| Dark Channel | 50000 |
| Annihilation Field | 50000 |
| Biotic Slash | 50000 |
| Lash | 50000 |
| Nova | 50000 |
For this challenge, you only need to complete 14 of the 16 options. Do everything but Stasis and Lash – because the goal is damage-based, you want to spam powers that deal the most damage to enemies and you can use most frequently. It’s easy to multi-task here with characters – use the Human Adept for Singularity, Shockwave, and Warp, use the Drell Adept for Pull and Reave (it’s faster/does more damage than the Asari Justicar), use the N7 Fury for Annihilation Field, Dark Channel, and Throw, use the N7 Slayer for Biotic Slash. All it took for me was 2-3 Silver solo matches with these each of these 4 characters to complete the challenge.
3. Tech Mastery
| Tech Mastery | #/Points Reqd |
| Tech Explosions | |
| 1 | 50 |
| 2 | 250 |
| 3 | 500 |
| Incinerate | 50000 |
| Overload | 50000 |
| Cryo Blast | 25000 |
| Combat Drone | 50000 |
| Tech Armor | 25000 |
| Energy Drain | 50000 |
| Sentry Turret | 50000 |
| Submission Net | 50000 |
| Flamer | 50000 |
| Shadow Strike | 50000 |
| Electric Slash | 50000 |
| Snap Freeze | 50000 |
| Geth Turret | 50000 |
You only need to complete 13/16 of these tasks. The ones you should ignore are Tech Armor, Submission Net, and Geth Turret. I say this because the characters using Tech Armor and Submission Net don’t multitask and the Geth Turret actually does very little damage itself – the flamethrower option that most people attach to it does a lot of damage but when it does, it’s counted as Sentry Turret rather than Geth Turret damage. Geth Turret damage is only the little laser bullet it shoots at a distance. Use Geth Engineer for Overload and Sentry Turret (turn Hunter Mode on so you get a damage bonus). Use Quarian Female Engineer for Sentry Turret, Cryo Blast, and Incinerate. Use N7 Paladin for Energy Drain, Snap Freeze, and Incinerate. Use Vorcha for Flamer and N7 Shadow for Shadow Strike and Electric Slash – it should only take 1-2 solo Silver matches to complete their objectives.
Anyone else have any tips for completing the Challenges? Let me know in the comments!
Yay more stuff : )
Your the best me3 player I know of.
Bioware has said that the Shadow Strike does count towards Melee damage.
Yes, in the game your melee bonuses count toward Shadow Strike and it’s considered a melee attack, but for some reason, it doesn’t register toward the challenges
Good call on statis for “biotic god” challenge. Unfortunately I had to do with it. It took forever but I became a biotic god :)
i completed 14 biotic challenges and didnt get the biotic god banner. Did i miss something?
You have to manually activate the banner for it to show up in lobbies – you can do it through N7 HQ or through your game itself, just go to “challenges” and set as active challenge
Tech Armor can be done in a single bronze game, this was probably the easiest tech skill to complete (on a krogan without using any gun/melee).
Thanks, good to know! Were you solo?
Excellent guide, it has been a great help in making Biotic God much easier than Tech Mastery. Any chance for a similar guide for the other challenges such as the alien and weapon categories?
My experience with over the cover grab:
1-pick a character with strong shield/barrier ( I picked Batarain brawler) with max health and shield. Gear Geth Scanner or shield enhancing.
2- Map Giant with Cerebrus bronze , solo match
3- Use LZ area barricades to hunt and kill till wave three .. do not use gun .. Bbrawler return melee helps you to prevent getting melee’d
4- go to command center room , always occupy the inner bench and move to the first one one troops take shelter…
I 40 grabs in one match till wave 4 ( I did not do the challenge but just kept on grabbing)
repeat process after wave 4 since later enemies cannot be grabbed ( dragoons, etc)
I do same as you but with krogan batlemaster on London. Its the best map for this as it is full of low cover that you can overcover with. Full armor and the geth plasma shotgun just to get rid of the Atlas and stunt the phantoms, Dragoon, I finish them with melee. But all the others just overcover grab. I do over a hundred ovorcover grab kills per game. Final trick… the three mission wave I prolonged them as long as the clock permits it. Depending of what the misson is I use the maximum time I can to get more kills. Get the objectives near the end the fastest you can but dont complete them until the last seconds.