I was replaying Mass Effect 1 on Insanity for my perfect playthrough and noticed that a lot of people are raving mad about Pinnacle Station being really tough to beat and is totally unbalanced for Insanity difficulty setting. Perhaps so, but what's better than a good fight?
(Scroll down to Challenges if you don't care about how to make things easier and tips, if you don't care about challenges either but yet still clicked on this thread - scroll down to CLOSURE)
*** Gameplay Spoilers Start Here *** View at your own discretion.
First of all - PROPER PREPARATION (I like to be prepared for hard things so that I would not have to rage out and be mad at the rest of the world, or BioWare, or Demiurge Studios for that matter):
I've done it on my 2nd playthrough as level 60 Soldier with a bonus power (in my case - Medicine, but I haven't spent a single skill point on it, so it's completely useless).
Skill point allocation:
Skill name - number of points
Shepard
Pistols - 4
Shotguns - 6
Assault Rifles - 12
Sniper Rifles - 12
Combat Armor - 12
First Aid - 0
Assault Training - 12
Fitness - 12
Medicine (bonus skill) - 0
Commando - 12
Charm - 12
Intimidate - 2
Spectre Training - 12
Ashley
Pistols - 4
Shotguns - 0
Assault Rifles - 12
Sniper Rifles - 12
Combat Armor - 12
First Aid - 12
Assault Training - 12
Fitness - 12
Soldier - 6
Wrex
Assault Rifles - 12
Shotguns - 3
Combat Armor - 12
Fitness - 12
Warp - 12
Throw - 12
Barrier - 12
Stasis - 1
Krogan Battlemaster - 6
Kaidan
Throw - 12
Lift - 12
Barrier - 4
Stasis - 0
Decryption - 12
Electronics - 12
First Aid - 12
Medicine - 12
Sentinel - 6
Liara
Throw - 12
Lift - 12
Warp - 12
Singularity - 12
Barrier - 4
Stasis - 0
First Aid - 12
Electronics - 12
Asari Scientist - 6
Garrus
Assault Rifles - 12
Sniper Rifles - 0
Tactical Armor - 12
Assault Training - 12
Decryption - 12
Damping - 4
First Aid - 12
Electronics - 12
Turian Agent - 6
Tali
Pistols - 6
Shotguns - 12
Basic Armor - 12
First Aid - 0
Electronics - 12
Damping - 10
Decryption - 12
Hacking - 12
Quarian Machinist - 6
All achievemnts are completed (except Insanity because I'm doing it through this very playthrough), thus, I get every single bonus to boost my Shep's performance.
Proper equipment:
Guns
Every squad member (including Shepard) is equiped with a full set of Spectre gear (Assault Rifle, ShotGun, Sniper Rifle, Pistol), every single gun is equiped with Scram Rail X and Frictionless Materials X. As for ammo, it's either Tungsten VII or Shredder VII (though I have only 1 Shredder VII mod so I'm forced to use Shredder IV on my squad's guns, I somehow managed not to find a lot of those as I was leveling up <_< ).
Armor
Well at least to me shields on insanity are useless, they tend to just vanish in firefights, so it's best to concentrate on damage reduction which means **Colossus armor > Predator armor**, as for Wrex's armor, Battlemaster/Berserker/Rage X armor vs Colossus X Heavy Krogan armor. There really is no big difference but Colossus tends to be a bit better for Pinnacle Station, because it's stats on damage reduction are better by somewaht 4% and biotic/tech damage reduction is not important since there are no biotic enemies on Pinnacle Station (notice the shield and health status in the videos).
Shep, Ash and Wrex - Colossus X heavy armor,
Garrus - Colossus X medium,
Liara, Kaidan, Tali - Colossus X light.
All armors are equiped with Energized Plating X (23% damage reduction bonus) and Medical Exoskeleton X (hp regeneration + 23% power cooldown bonus - very useful for biotics). Shield mods are useless, because on Pinnacle Station you are constantly being shot at and there is no way you can regenerate them fast enough (yet again, notice the shield and health status in the videos). Cover is not an option.
Liara, Garrus, Kaidan, Tali - Savant X Omni-tools which are very useful because of huge power cooldown bonus (one thing I noticed - if you want Savant X Omni-tool you can camp a Technician kit on Bring Down the Sky's asteroid which is near the shed in the lower left corner of the map, of course, you have to be level 56+ to get it as loot, just quick save before opening it and if you don't find it reload and try again. I wonder if the same applyes for other storage boxes that lay around).
The same applyes for Liara's, Kaidan's and Wrex's Bioamps (very important) - Savant X, again.
TIPS:
Tip nr. 1 - Use powers a lot, especially biotics. You just can't shoot your way through when all enemies tend to whip up Immunity (Time Trials). Biotics can save alot of time for you, that is where all those power cooldown bonuses come in handy.
Tip nr. 2 - Don't use shortcut keys unless you feel really comfortable with them, use that "action" screen when you press spacebar. Stop the game and observe situation, give specific orders through it to your squadmates, and most importantly aim with it. That's right, use it for aiming. It's one of the most efficient ways to save time during Hunt or Time trial.
Tip nr. 3 - Don't use cover (unless you are on Survival). Seriously, cover generally is a bad idea. For Hunt find a spot with a good view at enemy spawning points and just dish out the damage.
NOTE: Bear in mind that when you complete the assignments for Pinnacle station and leave, on your following visit, all rivals a bit improve their results and you can fall down in the rankings. My aim is for the solid 1st place in every challenge.
CHALLENGES:
Survival - survival is a joke, so let's just move on.
Capture - also very easy, just bring a couple of biotics (Liara, Kaidan) and spam Pull/Throw on enemies that are coming close to your checkpoint you are capturing.
Hunt:
Subterranean - Way too easy, easily racked up over a 100 kills ant still there was about 11mins of time left, it looked like that timer was countig time up instead of down. At that point I just stopped shooting and stood idle and let my squadmates do the killing. And what do you know? By the time the clock reached zero body count passed way over 200, good job Ash and Wrex, though only about 45 was needed.
Volcanic - Also not hard at all, just find a spot from which you can clearly see enemy spawning points. My aim is more than 53 kills. Here's the vid on youtube (sorry for laggy videos, apparently my laptop can't handle ME and fraps's massive video output alltogether).
Tropical - I've found this one to be the hardest challenge on pinnacle station. Took me quite a few tries to get to the result I wanted. The tricky part is to find a spot on the map which provides a good view on enemy spawning points and getting there without wasting too much time. For me to stay in the 1st place, more than 75 kills were required. Here's the vid.
A few notes on this challenge:
1st - I have to disagree with all those who say that Hunt is luck based. IT IS NOT LUCK BASED!!!. If you cannot figure out enemy spawning mechanics and make sense of it, you should pay more attention. That's what smart and skilled people do, they look for solutions, observe and try to understand their surroundings.
2nd - About the enemy spawning mechanics. There are a bunch of spawning points all over the map, they are always there and they doesn't change. Spawnpoints that are really close to Shepard are 'turned off' to prevent player from beeing overwhelmed and forced into melee combat.
3rd - A small but really useful thing to note. Geth Destroyers tend to charge at Shepard. When it charges and gets close to you there is a chance that the only thing you can do is to melee it or move away and then shoot it. Either way that eats into your time, therefore, the score suffers. The Solution - if there is something inbetween Shep and Geth Destroyer (in this case a rock) It doesn't charge. It just slowly walks towards you giving more time to kill it, thus making the player more comfortable in the situation. You can see this in the video at 2:59, 3:27, 5:13 and other segments.
4th - On this map transisioning from your starting poitnt to the 'sweet spot' is kind of problematic. You cannot waste too much time running around, and if you will rush for it there will be a few spawned enemies that will be left behind, therefore, when you will get there, there will not spawn any because some already are on the map and you will waste a considerable amount of time waiting for enemies to come to you. So, you need to find an optimal route there and kill some enemies on your way to the 'sweet spot'.
Time Trial:
What to say here? Biotics. Just spam Pull on enemy groups, throw on enemies on catwalks and that should do the trick.
Warehouse - Time to beat 1:10.14 THE VID.
Tropical - Time to beat 1:07.59 THE VID.
Volcanic - Time to beat 1:35.70 Way too easy, the other two were more of a challenge. Just use the same tactics as in other time trial challenges. THE VID.
Ahern's treat:
I'll leave this one for yourselves to bash through.
*** Gameplay Spoilers End Here ***
CLOSURE:
All in all, I have to say that Pinnacle Station is really not that bad. Really. When you come prepared, as I did, It becomes EASY PEASY (except tropical hunt, anyway). I admit that It's unfairly hard and frustrating if you are low level or have poor equipment and I think that's the reason why people hated it. Pinnacle Station was released after quite some time from ME1 release, that almost makes me think that it was supposed to be hard. Having in mind that most of the players should have finished the game already.
The reason why I posted this is that Mass Effect games (ME2 and most certainly 3 if it will keep the ME2's direction) need something like Pinnacle Station. Now, please, there is no need to go all "unnatural" on me. I'm not saying that ME2,3 necesserilly need another Pinnacle Station (which would be super awesomly cool and fun in ME2 if it could redeem itself in the eyes of ME fans, it's just such a shame PS got so screwed and worked over by poeple), I'm saying that it needs some place to just shoot and break things, especially because ME2 gets all these fancy DLCs (weapons, armors) and you can only try those out in combat. What if you are already finished all the missions? There is not much else of what you can do (apart from playing again, of course, which is not bad, but still).I'm not a fan of games like L4D but ME2 needs some place with endless hordes of enemies just waiting to be shot and turned into greasy pulp, a place where you can refine your skills at commanding your squadmates and learning what they can do, a place where you can test what your new DLC equipment is capable of, a place where you can just kill time while waiting for ME3 or some other DLC for ME, and ultimately a place where you can compete with other Mass Effect community members (not directly but through the scores or someting - like official scoreboards for every class). Mass Effect 1 didn't really need a Pinnacle Station (at least not that much) because it has an ending which doesn't allow to play further, but as that doesn't apply for ME2 it just leaves a player in a dull world with no one left to be shot and you cannot even draw your weapon out anymore (except in the Normandy's crash site). This is where Wrex's words come to my mind: "I need to start my blood pumping. Shepard, find me some more bugs to kill!", but I can't *sigh*.
*Puts a plate of cookies* Food for thought. Cookie?...
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