Mass Effect 3: Reckoning DLC Character Builds and Strategies
Well, now that I have all the new characters and have played some matches with them, I thought I’d share some builds and strategies with you! Note: These are just the builds I personally prefer – you may disagree! Please share your preferred build in the comments :)
Adept – Awakened Collector
Build:
Combos: Dark Channel + Seeker Swarm, Dark Sphere + Seeker Swarm
Strategy: Ok, so I skipped Dark Channel all together. I think Dark Sphere is overall the better power and since the this character has slow cool-down speeds, I didn’t think I needed both. You can detonate Dark Sphere manually or just let it float – you have to be careful to cast it correctly though. It doesn’t pass through walls or move over obstacles – it basically just floats in the general direction you point it in. Once an enemy is Dark Sphere’d, you can make a biotic explosion by hitting it with one of your Seeker Swarms.
BTW, I’m not at all convinced that the Ascension power does anything.
Soldier – Geth Juggernaut
Build:
Combos: Hex Shield w/Electrical Effect + Geth Turret w/Flamethrower
Strategy: This character is such a beast. I love not being able to get insta-killed! My favorite strategy is to go up to a boss, pop a turret right behind it, lay down the Hex Shield in front of it, and then use Melee to drain its shields and health. If you time it right, you can get a Fire Explosion from the turret’s Flamethrower and laying down the Hex Shield. The turret, even while spec’d for full damage, will restore your shields along with the Melee power. So, basically, you’re pretty tank-y. If you equip a Cyclonic Modulator IV, you’re pretty much unstoppable on Gold.
I know some people opt to skip the turret entirely, but I think that’s a mistake. The turret with Flamethrower is great for doing damage on enemies while you hold them with the Melee. Also, you can throw it all the way across the map if enemies spawn away from you, doing damage while you take your sweet, tank-y time to get over there. The super slow Juggernaut speed is another reason why I spec for additional ammo as well – I use the Harrier and I’m always running out of bullets and the Juggernaut takes forever to get to an ammo box!
Engineer – Talon Mercenary
Build:
Combos: None?
Strategy: This has been a tough one for me. I decided to skip Concussive Arrows and go for the Armor-Piercing instead. Because all your powers draw on a limited number of grenades, it’s kind of a waste to go spec out both Arrow powers. Besides, the Cain Trip Mine is where all the goodness is, anyway!
For me, the Omni-bow is just too slow to lock on target and misses all too often even if you do get a lock. So, I rely on the Cain Trip Mine. I like to place them at choke points – be sure to place them on WALLS and VERTICAL SURFACES so that the red laser light is HORIZONTAL – I saw some guy using them like proximity mines, shooting them at the floor. Since there is no radius detonation on the mines, that would require an enemy to step exactly on top of it if the light is pointing up. I tried a Sniper build for this character but it’s honestly not great. Anyone have any ideas?
Sentinel – Krogan Warlord
Build:
Combos: Electrical Hammer w/Fire Effect + Biotic Hammer
Strategy: I skipped Tech Armor all together and put spec’d out both hammers upon discovering that you can self-detonate Fire Explosions by switching from the Electrical to the Biotic Hammer. Also, Tech Armor slows down power use and I wanted to be able to switch hammer types quickly.
Use the Electrical Hammer for area effect and the Biotic Hammer one-on-one (like bosses). However, be warned that the Electrical Hammer doesn’t do any hammer damage to the enemies in its radius – it only does hammer damage to the one enemy it is locked on! Which totally defeats the purpose of radius, right? Well, up to 3 enemies in its radius can get hit with Fire Effect, which you can then detonate with Biotic Hammer to create an explosion. So that makes it worthwhile to spec into Electrical Hammer, IMHO.
The character isn’t nearly tank-y enough for how slow it moves. Be prepared to get instakilled frequently.
Infiltrator – Alliance Infiltration Unit
Build:
Combos: Incendiary Ammo + Snap Freeze
Strategy: I like to use short to medium range weapons for this character equipped with Incendiary Ammo. Unload a clip, then Cloak, then Snap Freeze = murder! The incendiary rounds and snap freeze will cause a fire or cryo explosion which is always handy.
I like to equip either Grenade Capacity or Warfighter Gear for the Fembot because the Repair Matrix is awesome! It immediately starts regen for shields and while it’s active, you can get up if you’re killed without using a Medi-Gel. I try to keep Repair Matrix active all the time if I can.
Vanguard – Cabal
Build:
Combos: ???
Strategy: ??? Don’t use this build. I still haven’t figured out how to use this character effectively! Anyone have any recommendations?
What are you favorite builds? Let me know in comments!
The Talon was the first of the new builds I got, and while I’m still figuring him out, I found one build I like pretty well. The powers are evolved basically the same way yours are, I think Concussive Arrows kinda suck. However, I give him the Crusader with the Omni-Blade attached, then use a Strength Enhancer and a Power Amplifier. These all stack together to make AP Arrows do a staggering amount of damage. Slap a Stronghold pack on him for extra survivability, and he’s a pretty effective all-round character. I’ve taken him on gold runs with no issues at all.
My Cabal build:
Poison Strike: 3
Nightshade Blades: 4a/5b/6(either, I go a)
Biotic Focus: 4a/5a/6a
Turian Veteran: 4a/5b/6b
Fitness: 4b/5b
Weapon: I find the Hurricane insanely good on her, as is the Lancer
Gear: Incendiary Ammo for fire explosions. Grenade Capacity too. The rest is whatever you want.
I run her as a mid-close range soldier. She has the fastest teleport dodge in the game. Get in, use those ridiculous damage and stability bonuses to turn everything into swiss cheese, and get out. Nightshade Blades do insane damage to everything. Poison strike for fire explosions and to zip behind bosses when in danger. Both are good ‘panic buttons’ if you get in trouble, NB staggers and PS teleports. And the Golden Rule: SPAM BIOTIC FOCUS. It doesn’t work like Adrenaline Rush, you can use other powers while it’s active. But instant 40% shields and half a second of invincibility (more than enough time to teleport to safety if you’re cornered) is amazing. If you aren’t on cooldown, use BF. If BF is running, use BF. If you’re shooting something, use BF. If something’s shooting you, use BF.
Used right, she is an amazing hit-and-run, high damage, insanely mobile character who’s incredibly effective on Gold/Platinum. A bit of a learning curve, but one of the best characters in the entire game once you figure her out. And a blast to play! :D
Thanks for the tips! Nightshade Blades are pretty killer – I’ll have to wait for another respec card to try this build :)
The talon is an amazing character! Been practicing with him alot. I agree with horizontal placement, but I have a tip that just devastates groups if used right. I have killed 2 banshees and 2 brutes with this, basicly after every 3 trip mines the 4 one will cause the first to explode. So fire 3 at the floor near a group and before they arm fire more so it causes a premature explosion hitting everything nearby for staggeringly high damage. Also I use the claymore with omni blade, juggernaut shield, strength enhancers and power amplifiers. Spec him for max power and charge regen. Take omnibow at rank 4 and 5, and health and shields at six. My armour piercing arrows can wipe 4 bars of armour from a gold brute in one shot. :D
Do you know if the trip mines have an enemy cap of 3 enemies hit? They do a lot of damage but I wonder if, like other powers, it caps at 3 enemies?
No I have destroyed atleast 5 at a time.
I like to use this Build for the Cabal Vanguard:
http://narida.pytalhost.com/me3/classes/#Vanguard/Cabal/FQMFK/NPiranha10BG5AM5//StrengthEnhancer3/AdrenalineModule4/HydraulicJoints5/
• The main idea is being a very mobile Melee character, with Biotic Focus active ALL the time.
• Poison Strike is completely useless for attacking, its mains usefulness is for movement, being able to phase between walls and travel long distances.
• With these mods, gear/equipment and evolutions, you’ll pretty much 1-2 hit K.O. any normal footsoldiers. Heavy Melee works similar to N7 Shadow`s Shadow Strike: you teleport behind the enemy and slash (however the range for the teleport is way more limited).
• Keep in mind that you have to be defensive and rely on weapon damage and Nightshade Blades against enemies such as Brutes, Ravagers, Banshees, etc. Anything that can sync-kill you (Ravagers are risky because their sacs explode and the poison good hurts you).
• With Biotic Focus being active all the time (make sure to always recast it) you`ll be faster, stronger and have a 3-4 sec cooldown that regen 40% of BASE SHIELDS, which is pretty awesome. And plus with the Biotic Shield Evolution you have a small window to negate any incoming damage (the timing is hard, specially if you’re not hosting – LAG).
The Cabal is very fun to use, but is also very squishy (as she lacks the damage protection of other melee-oriented classes), making her a high-risky, high-reward class.
Yeah the .5 seconds of invincibility hasn’t really helped me … I guess I just die too easily :)
Yeah the invincibility is pretty lacking, bio focus needs a serious buff. The barrier recharge though has saved my arse more timed than I can count.
Yeah, the true power of the Cabal lies in that, plus Biotic Focus doesn’t trigger animations: can be used while attacking and even running.
Spamming Biotic focus for the 40% shield regen works great when paired up with gear that decreases normal shield recharge time due to how it works. Biotic focus gives you a 40% shield boost while NOT counting against shield recharge effect.
So, say it takes three seconds for your shields to start recharging normally. Using Biotic focus gives you 40% shields, during which the 3 second countdown is still going.
For offense, Nightshade Blade is nigh unstoppable (when equipped with Grenade Capacity 5) but where the character truely shines is as a medic. She has NO EQUAL in this role due to her dodge, heavy melee and Poison Strike all allowing her to move through walls. This also makes her very useful for getting operations done. Stick with a team to draw the majority of the enemies away from your objective, then let her fly through the walls to reach it before they can double back.
My medic build uses max range+strike multiple targets for Poison Strike and Biotic focus geared towards increasing shields capped off with Medigel transmitter for good measure. She’s been the ace in the hole for my team quite a few times. Just make sure you keep her recharge at 180% or better for best results.
Exactly, that’s exactly how I play her, almost like an Infiltrator. However I don’t think the term “Medic” suits well, because she only heal herself, not the party. ^~ (but I understand you use that term to refer as constant shiled recharge)
Pretty much, but when I say ‘medic’ I mean that I use her to go around reviving my squad lol. I’m not the best person in my circle of friends, but I am the hardest to kill, so I stick back and support my team while they do most of the…well, hard work lol. Still her ability to go through walls so many different ways does make her play very much like an Infultrator speced Slayer or Fury now that you mention it.
I like how you think, Kenju. Not all players acknowledge their flaws and focus on supporting the team (most ragequit or keep failing by charging at Brutes with ranged oriented classes). It is this kind of thinking that keep teams together, and allow you to improve as a player.
When my aim was worse (still is bad) and didn’t have consistent gear/equipment to invest on my favourite classes (N7 Paladin, Geth Trooper Soldier), I played A LOT of Gold Matches using Volus Adept/Engineer for pure support, and I still do once in a while (Shield Boost ftw). Feels good keeping together with the team, acting as a single unbeatable force. From my experience I guess that’s how you feel too. =)
If you’re interested, add my gamertag (BINGBANGPOE) and we can play a few good matches (though idk if you play on XBOX).
Wish I could join you valhalen, but sadly I’m a PS3 player. Thanks for the compliment though, much appreciated. Not everyone is as good or as lucky as everyone else, but that doesnt mean you cant help your team out. Over 750 hours of farming and I STILL only have a Harrier II, but I dont need the Harrier to hold the line with my melee Juggernaut.
As for the Cabal, she caught my interest as a medic out of annoyance actually. For some reason people just dont want to use their Medi-gel, ever, for any reason. So, since I lack the ability (and gear) to solo pull a team through gold or plat I focused on finding a way to keep my squad alive. In that aspect she is very effective.
I do have a friend thats speced his for focus on Nightshade Blade, and its pretty good, only runs into trouble when you have to fight for grenades at the ammo crates…
hay just to let u all know the 6/6/6/6/6 build is still working even on these new Character
some of these builds are off, or afraid to do other things. Alot of people are speccing these things wrong.
Can you be more specific?
You could atleast back up your claims.
if you are comfortable with speccing it for the way you play i don’t see how its wrong. i would like to know how you are speccing them. would be an interesting comparison. i tried my AIU build but much prefer this one, especially when teamed with a character with a flame thrower
Um yeah because my build is actually very effective. Unless you can think of something I missed because I cant? I never run out of grenades, I control areas perfectly, I specced for decent melee and power damage. Im now using a graal and I have to say it works perfectly alongside armour piercing arrows. I have become pretty much untouchable with my talon, I died alot at first but since my new set up I hardly ever find myself in a bad situation. The sheer damage this guy can dish out is crazy, its no wonder they made his health that of a girl scout lol.
Anyone on here who not afraid to run platinum friend me on LIVE: paradoxiam10
I go 6/6/6/6/0 with the alliance infiltrator unit. repair matrix: 4=shield restore, 5=duration, 6=enhanced repair matrix. tactical cloak: 4/5/6 = damage/recharge speed/shotgun damage. snap freeze: 4/5/6 = reach/cyro explosion/damage and weakness. unshackled a.i: 4/5/6 = damage and capacity/power damage/ weapon damage. I use the wraith x with shotgun high velocity barrel and smart chock. equipment: grenade capacity. honestly i’ll go into gold and just add a disrupter 1 ammo buff and rip enemies apart. very simple yet very effect. just keep matrix up at all times, cloak then snapfreeze followed by shotgun blasts. the defense matrix refills your shields so quickly that you don’t have to worry about toughness, you can engage multiple bosses and remain engage (though moving around during cooldown is suggested) :p
I love the infiltrator and the warlord, but I think the cabal and the talon are two of the worst classes in the whole game, their powers feel very under powered and their pretty squishy to boot.
Haha I totally agree! I think the Talon is less useless than the Cabal, but I also don’t think I’ve fully figured out how to play with either character yet. I’m going to try respec-ing them according to everyone else’s advice and seeing if it goes any better!
Hey im Kiado valis x on your friends list, play with me tonight and I can help you with your talon problems. ;)
Thank you for the build info… Wicked awesome! Just finished a platinum solo with Juggy. Hex Shield + Scorpion Pistol equals death for Reapers.
Lol they are squishy for a reason and as for damage, well I think you may be using them wrong. The second time I used my cabal I got through a gold, it was so easy I actually thought it was a silver until one of my friends told me. The talon takes practice, I hate the cabal but if there is one thing I found out very quickly with her its dont stop moving.
I disagree on some builds
Warlord needs Tech Armor more than a heavy weapon or more points across. Tech Armor gives area damage when detonated, power damage boost and Damage resistance which combine with his rage damage resistance makes him very powerful. Also the cooldown penalty is less important if you carry pistols, which you can then mod for melee damage and even more power damage.
Collector needs Dark Channel. Sphere is great but it requires a lot of micro managing and carrying that cooldown is not optimal in all situations, that’s where even 3 points of Dark Channel are great because it works with Swarmer Orbs, makes consecutive detonations on weak characters, etc. It’s like the Fury with Throw and the reset ability. You can blow up an entire line without much aiming or cooldown of the Sphere.
Geth Juggernaut doesn’t need the turret that much, and I think it’s even less useful as a flame thrower, it can be destroyed very easily Gold+. It’s much more effective as a healer, spawning it behind the hex shield and helping to keep you alive.
For across the map damage the Indra is better than throwing the turret or the Harrier (lighter and more ammo too).
but for close up action I heavily prefer the Scorpion, you can lay down the explosives and go back to shield draining, without much aiming and better yet that it does area damage.
Also a wider and full electrical power on the hex shield is also much better than the turret you can keep casting it, doing damage, stunning whoever tries to cross it and covers more of your team all in one go.
On the Talon the trip mines are great, but they are not the only way to go. AP Arrows Evo 5 gives a buff to weapon damage against armor, and are easier to aim at big enemies. Concussive arrows work great with light melee cone spread, you can then do tech combos with chill or shock.
If you spec for melee damage the omni-bow can become a stagger good extra weapon on top of the two weapons you can carry without worry of cooldown.
On the AIU you went with Repair Matrix over health. I really prefer Health over RM, because you do not go down as much at all. In fact many platinum games if played carefully, RM became useless because her native speed and cloaking overcame whatever obstacle along the way. I prefer just to 3 points on it, as a panic button when reviving or near turrets, Pyros, etc.
but yeah anyone who played the Drell assassin with a shotgun prior to Reckoning, will feel right at home without Repair Matrix, and will stay alive longer with the Fitness Tree.
As for Cabal,
That melee build on the comments will not easily work on Platinum, and it neither for people who can’t play melee characters effectively. It requires a lot of map knowledge of knowing where to teleport effectively before getting killed.
Instead I prefer to play her like a tankier N7 Fury, but instead of biotic detonations, I just teleport in and drop the Night Shade Blades, melee then teleport out doing damage and heal.
You don’t need to stay in and do a lot of melee damage, because her main strength is Damage over time, so the ideal set up with her is to try and poison as many baddies as possible then teleport out of harms way and heal.
with a Carnifex, with power boosts and melee mods. You get a light ammo piercing good long range weapon that helps to poison everything.
Warfighter and Harrier, is a nice alternative, but quite frankly the weight of anything other than pistols diminishes your ability to teleport and heal, and if you aren’t really used to being CQC with vanguards, then this is probably not the best character, and you are waisting both the blades and Poisons strikes and you should be playing a Talon instead.
You sir are wrong.
Well at least you wrote one sentence to say I am wrong. I applaud that effort.
Well at least you wrote one sentence to say I am wrong. I applaud that effort.
I don’t see how anyone could be wrong on their own game?
I have to dissagree with some of your builds, especially the Juggernaut. My build has destroyed pretty much anything it comes against with little trouble mostly thanks to the turret.
Key difference with my build from others though is that its a PURE melee build. I maxed out everything excluding the Juggernaut skill tree because its the least important for a true tanker.
Hex Shield spec for pulse, shock, large shield
Siege Pulse I went for radius, damage protection, number of shots.
Turret I speced to shields/damage, restore range, restore frequency.
Juggernaut: IGNORED
Hardened Platform: Pure defense spec
Equip with Desciple X using Omni blade and shredder mods and Juggernaut Shield gear
This build is a melee monster and a true tank. It might not be able to complete every objective but it can hold back almost an entire waves worth of enemies by itself and give team mates a lot of breathing room.
Simply let the enemies come to you. Activate Siege pulse and toss your turret BEHIND YOU so its out of enemy sight, then cast hex shield ontop of enemies as they come into your melee range.
Hex shield will stagger enemies every time you cast it, while also shocking all enemies that come into contact with it. The damage is somewhat minor, but its constant, and since they will be trying to melee you its going to be hitting them every second. This does add up over time, especially if you have a team comprised of biotics that use Dark Channel, Warp, or Annilation Field. Juggernaut shield + Omni blade also give you a very nice boost to your already powerful melee.
Between the Hex Shield blocking long range attacks, Siege Pulse giving you a perminent 40% defense boost and the turret recharging your shields, you also have your melee keeping your shields going at full.
Its a BEAST, might not kill everything in its sight as quickly as the Warlord, but it will outlast everything coming your way.
Please note the ONE major weakness of the Juggernaut. Scions. Hex shield can block Pretorean eye beams as well as virtually every other attack in the game, but it doesnt do jack squat against Scion cannon blasts or grenades.
Talon = explosions, and that’s good enough for me.
I’ve got mine at 4/4/6/6/6, with the arrow abilities both set for Grenade Capacity; damage x3 on the trip mine, B/A/B on the Merc tree, and B/B/B on the Mastery tree.
I think the real key to maximizing the hushaboom technology is knowing the maps. Not just picking a corner and fortifying it for the whole game, but knowing which spots on the maps are narrow enough to work well with the mines as you’re going from room to room.
Also, I’ve read that the grenade regen is keyed to the cooldown weight, but who cares? There are enough ammo boxes, and with everyone in the world playing Geth Juggy and giant Krogan, there are enough grenades to go ’round. Which means I can go use Shock Trooper gear and take the Piranha/Carnifex; Claymore/Locust; Scimitar/Paladin, or whatever combo floats your boat. Pick away at range, and then when they get close enough, they’ll trip the mines and you can roll out and sweep up the rest with the shotgun du jour.
Stay agile enough to make up for the squishy factor, using the mines (horizontally!) a lot, and jumping in to blow away the stragglers once the mine goes off. Also – for all bosses that aren’t Banshees, you can use the mines on the ground, facing up. The bosses move in straight lines, and even though the radius blows, they’ll still trigger the mines as they come to try and tear your face off.
I really hope they buff the bow to make this guy more well-rounded, but setting traps and staying on the move is great, and I have more fun with him than with the new giant classes. Plus, he’s killing Reapers while wearing *pants*, which is badass.
-M
I give up its pretty obvious no one actually reads anything on here, I posted ^ most of this days ago.
the talon is great what you do is stat his Cain trip mines for all damage then spam at a enemy and you can place up to three a time so when a fourth is put down first explodes doing damage than get a power amp weapon mod on a gun so you do more damage and just look at this link (http://narida.pytalhost.com/me3/classes/#Engineer/TalonMercenary/KPROR/Executioner10AA1AA1/BloodPackPunisher10AA1AA1//PowerAmplifierModule4/GrenadeCapacity5/) the other weapon mod is up to you and so is weapon amp.
Did you read any of my posts above?
Ok so I just had a look at your build, thats the first set up I tried with him. Although its nice to have so many grenades the abilities and the bow itself is majorly lacking on power, and I feel like you have completely missed the point with this guy. :/ also why does every other guy keep copy and pasting my advice about firing the trip mines at the enemies feet to continuosly detonate? Seriously I wrote that days ago ffs…
Ok well here is my build, a build that actually works and plays off of his actual abilities. http://narida.pytalhost.com/me3/classes/?mobile I can kill a fully shielded geth pyro on gold with 1 yes 1 armour piercing arrow. I lock off an area with my trip mines, but I have found that im now svoring major points just using my arrows. Trust me when you teammates are all attacking a banshee or a prime on gold and all of a sudden it goes from half health to no health, well lets just say I have never had so many nice things said about me at once. Its the arrows people, cains are cool but after lots of practice I can honestly say that if you master the bow you will not regret it. Just so you know I top the boards every time is use this set up, he runs through bronze, silver and gold with ease.
Firing Mine at enemies feet works great, but actually the Talon Mercenary`s true power lies in using the player`s map knowledge in his favor: placing mines strategically at choke points and spawning points allows you to kill enemies efficiently without even needing to face them. And aside that the neat Omni-Bow spam. =)
(Btw the link you provided is not working, shows up the blank skill points.)
Ah dammit thanks val I cant figure out why my phone wont let me post my set up :s. I agree about the cain mines, I only use the floor spam if I find myself in a bad situation, otherwise I prefer to section of parts of the map, half the time im across the map and bang lol tripmine kills xD
can you try to glitch the talent points and tell us how you did it please and thx also can i add your gt idk what it is
I’ve had very good success with the AIU spec’d for melee. Snap freeze for armor debuff and slow, stealth and heavy-melee 1-shot a mook to start rolling the melee damage boost.
Then you can just run around and murder things. Her heavy melee has a chill effect that can detonate tech, and her regular melee comes out so fast you can just bully dragoons and phantoms to death with a near stunlock. Equip a reegar with the + 50% melee omni-blade and kick things to death.
I’m not totally satisfied with my Krogan Warlord yet, but I also don’t think you can skip tech armor. I think I’ll end up with 5/6/5/3/6 on him, but more experimentation is required,
The thing with the Warlord is that he’s most effective when you evolve fully only one of the Hammer Powers, so you have to make that tough choice: AoE Damage (Electrical Hammer) or Single Damage (Biotic Hammer). And no, you can`t skip Tech Armor or else he’ll be extremely squishy to what he gotta do, which is getting personal and smash things; and since he can`t use cover and vault, he can get exposed very quickly, which means you NEED to keep his Damage Reduction and Health sources high enough for him to survive AND destroy everything.
For the base Powers, these:
• Tech Armor: Durability (4), Power Damage (5), Durability (6)
• Krogan Warlord: Damage & Capacity (4), Power Damage (5)
• Warlord Rage: Melee Damage (4), Martial Artist (5), Fitness Expert (6)
And for the Hammer Powers, these:
• Biotic Hammer: Damage & Force (4), Armor Damage (5), Number of Charges (6)
• Electrical Hammer: Shields & Barrier (4), Fire Damage (5), Radius & Combo (6)
So it’s up to you to decide which path to follow, wether you go 6/6/3/5/6 (Biotic Hammer Specialist) or 6/3/6/5/6 (Electrical Hammer Specialist).
Well, the is true…unless, you know, you glitch him
It happened with me accidently, I took him out for a game before respec-ing him. Dear freaking god, if there is a broken character in this game, its a 6/6/6/6/6 Krogan Warlord. Spec for power damage, Electric hammer for fire/radius/comb and Biotic hammer for armor damage and power hammer. The results can two hit kill a Prime on Gold.
Too bad using that trick can result in getting you banned – _ –
There is a way to spec out the Warlord properly with the tech armor and that’s 4a, 5B, and 6B. Durability would be useful except it’s only 5% and if you run into a group of enemies you can detonate the armor and to be able to hit more than if you’d chosen Durability. I go with Melee damage over Power Damage because power damage seems to be more useful when in teams rather than soloing by yourself. Lastly I do durability for the 6th rank because 1. I skipped the first durability and 2. it’s more useful than the power recharge. If you like switching hammers in the middle of a fight for combo explosions, be my guest. That isn’t something I have much experience with right now sadly with this characters. Still this is what I use if (and I usually do) I spec this out.
Also as for the Talon Mercenary, if you spec out the concussion grenades you can get 3 more grenades to be a total of 6 which isn’t really a bad idea. You don’t have to use the concussion grenades though since they’re spec-ted out to just get you more grenades to use.
The Talon Mercenary Engineer might have tech bursts, if you evolve the concussive arrows to the correct 5th level evolution, giving the arrows a residual shock effect on the target. This is speculative however, for I have never tried it.
When it comes to the “slow” speed of locking on with arrows, i recommend using a Falcon assault rifle. I have a Falcon X, and i gain a new “grenade” ever 26 seconds. The Falcon is best served as a long range stun gun. Not spectacularly damaging, but staggers groups of enemies, giving you time to line up an effective volley from your omni-bow. Just alternate between the two (Falcon shot, heavy melee, repeat). I equip omni blade and and barrel, enhancing the damage of both methods of attack. I also evolved this character to balance melee damage and shields, with the rank 4 shield bonus and rank 6 melee damage bonus in row 5.
The Cabal Vanguard is a fast, and deadly character. It is very difficult to use at first, as you need to become acquainted with 3 very unique powers. ended up not really focusing on Poison Strike, and diverting points to Biotic focus and melee damage bonuses. I can’t remember my exact build, but at the rank 6 evolution of Biotic focus, you can choose to have 40% of your barrier regenerated immediately, along with substantial melee damage and damage resistance bonuses. This just adds to your durability. Biotic focus is a duration power, like marksman or adrenaline rush. However, unlike those two powers, you can use poison strike while active. But here’s the kicker: you can activate another Biotic focus while the previous ones are still active, as power cool down permits. I am not sure if the damage and damage resistance bonuses stack too, but I do know that duration will stack, and your screen will become more and more blindingly purple. So for me, every 3 seconds or so, i can get almost half of my barrier back. The cabal already sports impressive health and barrier stats.
The main strategy for this character is to employ guerrilla tactics. This character suffers against a large group of enemies, but excels greatly at taking down lone targets. My main attack will tend to be my heavy melee, and a M-6 Carnifex X for more distant targets. On gold, I recommend you focus on hit and run, and generous use of biotic focus. I use this character to flank groups of enemies and take down lone enemies further away. The key to all of these things is to take advantage of the teleportation abilities. The Cabal’s teleportation is the fastest and most agressive. It seems to completely ignore elevation differences. Biotic focus, Heavy melee attack target, teleport away, repeat. I score about 120,000 points each gold most the time. This character is best used against Geth.
nice builds!
i totally agree with your collector build, but (except that i’m still looking for talon mercenary and krogan warlord (and i agree with those builds)) i have differents idea for geth and EDI (?) build:
geth: 6/0/6/6/6 (no HEX shield, offensive turret, armor damange impulse siege, 1st powers then weps for that and finally totally tank)(works well enought, gold is good)
EDI: 6/6/3/5/6 (a little snap freeze, total damange for cloak, total melee fighter, and as i say “lazarus matrix”)
finally, i have to try your cabal build
Sadly there aren’t really any super-effective builds for the Cabal, she’s got some powers that sound cool but in practice are not competitive with other characters. Poison strike is a good way to travel around the map..but considering her dodge is the asari one and it can go through walls you don’t really need it that much andt he damage is very lackluster. Nightshade is ballastic blades with a limit (ugh) and biotic shield is a nice watered down version of adrenaline rush that doesn’t restore your gate.
But she’s got turian passives…so thats something…then again so does the ghost…and the soldier…and he’s got marksman.