33 réponses à ce sujet

[Miss Yuna of Atlanta]

I've seen this discussion before, but I searched and couldn't find it. I'm told that unless you spec for melee damage or shield recharge rate, the choices you make as far as armor pieces are best left to what the player likes to see the most. What are everyone's thoughts on this? 

[Ares Caesar]

Well if you do the math on the actual benefits of some of the pieces, they dont seem to always provide as much as it sounds. You also have to take into affect how often you're using a specific power, or how often you're shooting.

The recon hood 5% weapon damage may not sound like much on the surface, but if you have 250 something damage per shot (shotgun), that 5% is an extra 12.5 damage per shot, which is one less bullet required every 20 shots, meaning faster DPS meaning likely less death overall. And if you have all the mods for a weapon, that extra 5% (pretend you have 50% shotgun upgrade) 375 damage, then becomes 18.75 more damage per shot.

For an adept/sentinel/engineer going caster heavy, the shoulder pieces that provide 5% power damage are likely to end up making a MUCH bigger difference in the long run when you are basically providing the bulk of your damage via powers.

I mean how do I say they make a difference if you're playing on a difficulty that does not FULLY test your abilities? Really thats about the only way to say they do or dont. I mean clearly they upgrade your character, but it really applies to what style of damage, how often you're expecting to be IN the fray (taking damage). Its very subjective.

Guys like Sinosleep that A) make FULL use of Shepards krogan health regen, probably would benefit heavily from armors that increase his health, and melee ALL THE TIME are also going have a significant increase in ability because they are generally exploiting a single aspect to its fullest.

I would say simply the rule for armor is "What actions is your character primarily taking part in?" and then base your armor values on that alone.

However, if you're only playing on a difficulty level (even insanity may not truly be high enough) that doesnt challenge you to your fullest, then sure it really makes no difference because you're not pushed enough to see the effects.

*EDIT ADD* To make a very longwinded post a bit more clear, your armors should be geared towards whatever attack method you intend to primarily exploit, as the more you do a single thing/have mods to support it, the more you're going to get out of it. However if you're shooting, casting powers, taking damage, micromanging other squadmates during battle and all of that, you're probably not doing a single thing enough that you'll likely ever truly notice the difference, more than you'll actually hate the way your shepard looks during cutscenes, lol 

Modifié par Ares Caesar, 27 septembre 2010 - 05:49 .

[Ares Caesar]

I'll also quickly mention it in this manner as well



Adept playing caster heavy (i.e. you only shoot occasionally to strip protections) = Blood dragon armor (if you've got it) or maximizing the pieces that increase power damage

Soldier or Infiltrator(primarily shooting 90% of the time not using incinerate or AI hack)= all pieces that increase weapon damage.



I know thats a very basic example and pretty vague, but I dont think it really gets much more complex than that. So YES you should specialize your armor pieces probably with almost 1 mod effect entirely, but it should be generally geared to whatever it is your character is doing 90% of the time.

[Miss Yuna of Atlanta]

That seems logical. That would leave the question of what my style is with every class.

Modifié par Miss Yuna of Atlanta, 27 septembre 2010 - 06:12 .

[Ares Caesar]

Miss Yuna of Atlanta wrote...

That seems logical. That would leave the question of what my style is with every class.

I think thats something you should also define before even choosing a class, as the powers you want to upgrade and IN WHAT ORDER, will make far more difference than the armor you equip.

I mean its easy to say the armor is negligable because there are so many things that come BEFORE the value of the armor upgrades, but its not as if they dont still have value at all. Just not as much as many of the other decisions you will make across your character, but if the armor PERFECTLY suits (heh, suits) your playstyle (build, powers, attack strategy) then you WILL get a good benefit from the right armor.

[sinosleep]

I think the only armor pieces that make any noticeable difference are the melee pieces, I think you can get 35% total without kestrel gear, and 45% with. Otherwise I usually don't notice. I know for a fact that the Kawashi 10% headshot damage visor doesn't make enough difference to matter. I used to run all my sniper infiltrators with that head piece, then I made a Kerrigan look alike and decided, "to hell with it, the +5% power damage goggles look more like the actual head piece than the Kawashi and made the switch. The mantis still required two shots if I was out of cloak, and it still required 1 shot if cloaked. So while it made a difference I could see (there was slightly less shield left) since it wasn't effectively much of a boost I've since stopped wearing it since I just think the goggles look cooler. Same goes for most damage pieces that aren't melee related.



Let it be known, I haven't done any thorough testing of any of this, I'm just going off of what I notice off hand. Ares Caesar has the right idea in principle that since the bonuses don't add up to much, you definitely should spec heavily in one direction so that they hopefully add up to something noticeable in total.

[Miss Yuna of Atlanta]

I just did some math and noticed that if you get every possible piece that adds to Shepard's shields, you get a thirty-five-percent shield buff. I'd say that's plenty noticeable, especially for my Sentinel who's usually bum-rushing into enemy territory.



I actually sacrificed a bit of melee damage on my Vanguard in favor of faster shield recharge rates with both Capacitor pieces, just in case I really get in the soup(which happens often). Twenty percent faster shield recharge is a big deal. The remaining pieces give me thirty-five percent melee damage and ten percent increased movement speed.



My Infiltrator, though, is a problem. If I'm going to play my caster/rushdown Infiltrator, I don't know if I want to spec for weapon damage(since Reave will mostly be used to strip defenses), shields(just in case), or power damage(to beef up that Reave).

[sinosleep]

I think the problem with adding to shields is that if you play on insanity they seem to get shredded in no time regardless. I mean, think about powers like barrier and geth shield boost. They aren't particularly powerful when cast pre-battle and they're adding 100% shields. They still get shot off in not time, where they make their money is going into a battle with full shields, letting your shields drop to zero, and THEN casting the ability. They aren't really much to bring home to mom just by virtue of 100% shields, they're worth talking about once you've already been taken down from 100% shields and they instantly bring it back up, most likely while your enemy is startin to reload and no longer firing at you.

It's why I tend not to think much of + shield armor. IF a 100% boost is only really useful when you shouldn't have any shields at all instead of as a pre-battle boost to shields in the first place, it makes me wonder just how useful 30% could possibly be. Again, I have no hard data as I've done no real testing of the effects, it just never feels like much.

Modifié par sinosleep, 27 septembre 2010 - 06:46 .

[Ares Caesar]

sinosleep wrote...

I think the only armor pieces that make any noticeable difference are the melee pieces, I think you can get 35% total without kestrel gear, and 45% with. Otherwise I usually don't notice.

You would say that

I think if you want to use the Kestral/Melee damage items or even understand what both Sino and I have said as far as value goes, simply watch a video of sinosleep playing and notice just HOW MUCH he uses the melee. That is what I call "exploiting/heavily employing" a single method of attack or at least a CLEARLY defined (or refined?) playstyle.

I think if Sinosleep was going through his videos and only occassionaly using his CQC shotgun+melee, then it wouldnt make a difference, but if you notice in his videos, what he intends to do (playstyle wise) is what he generally tends to employ 90% of the time... obviously certain bosses and level unreachabilities limit this sometimes, but its BECAUSE he understands EXACTLY what he is likely to be doing, that he gets true effect from his armors.

I think what we really should perhaps debate is perhaps the list you should run down in perfecting your character to THEN decide on proper armors.

1) class
2) How you will play that class - this is obviously a BIG issue and not exactly clear to define if you HAVENT played a class before or arent going into that class choice with a specific idea in mind of what you want it to do - this probably is best decided on knowing what powers and weapons a character has and the general benefits of them.
3) Near maxed out power structure (to understand what the general "exploit" your character will use is)
4) Squad you intend to bring mostly
5) Weapons you are comfortable using/can use
6) armor pieces? --- I mean I might have missed something to prioritize, but I'd say its probably not even until this far down the checklist that you should really even be concerned with deciding what armor pieces will maximize your previous 5 list answers.

I might be simplifying things, but I think too often people try to complicate things, rather than focusing on the basics and ensuring those things are perfectly executed, versus perhaps trying to come up with some insanely novel trick or tactic that will change/revolutionize everything you ever knew.

[swk3000]

Miss Yuna of Atlanta wrote...

I just did some math and noticed that if you get every possible piece that adds to Shepard's shields, you get a thirty-five-percent shield buff.

How did you get 35%? I can only get 31%, using the following setup:

Head - SENTRY Interface (5%)
Chest - Shield Harness (5%)
Shoulders - Kestrel Shoulder Pieces (8%)
Arms - Heavy Damping Gauntlets (5%)
Legs - Kestral Power Pack (8%)

Am I missing something? Because 5+5+5+8+8 = 15+16 = 31.

[Ares Caesar]

sinosleep wrote...

I think the problem with adding to shields is that if you play on insanity they seem to get shredded in no time regardless. I mean, think about powers like barrier and geth shield boost. They aren't particularly powerful when cast pre-battle and they're adding 100% shields. They still get shot off in not time, where they make their money is going into a battle with full shields, letting your shields drop to zero, and THEN casting the ability. They aren't really much to bring home to mom just by virtue of 100% shields, they're worth talking about once you've already been taken down from 100% shields and they instantly bring it back up, most likely while your enemy is startin to reload and no longer firing at you.

It's why I tend not to think much of + shield armor. IF a 100% boost is only really useful when you shouldn't have any shields at all instead of as a pre-battle boost to shields in the first place, it makes me wonder just how useful 30% could possibly be. Again, I have no hard data as I've done no real testing of the effects, it just never feels like much.

The way I've always viewed the shields/barriers thing is that given as you say they come down quickly when actually getting hit, I think we tend to forget that while sitting in cover and stuff you're really avoiding more bullets/damage than you think. Even on normal your shields wont take more than 10 bullets typically which in a group of enemies shooting at you only takes a couple seconds. Thus, you're better off prioritizing armor pieces that contribute to the enemy dying faster as dead enemies cant shoot back.

Like sinosleep also mentioned, things like barrier geth shield boost and such are actually better used to LENGTHEN the time you can TAKE damage (because typically you're not actually standing out in the open or taking fire the entire time) so its better to use it as a way to create a longer period of survivability than trying to use it as a way to simply "tank" into battle (unless its to get a little closer to another piece of cover)

Given that health AND shields are nonstop regenerators, I'd say time to regen is better than shield boost itself, but I still prefer weapon/power/melee damage as I already pointed out that dead enemies cant deal damage, meaning you need less shields in the first place.

[Miss Yuna of Atlanta]

swk3000 wrote...

How did you get 35%? I can only get 31%, using the following setup:

Head - SENTRY Interface (5%)
Chest - Shield Harness (5%)
Shoulders - Kestrel Shoulder Pieces (8%)
Arms - Heavy Damping Gauntlets (5%)
Legs - Kestral Power Pack (8%)

Am I missing something? Because 5+5+5+8+8 = 15+16 = 31.

Sorry about that. You're right. It's thirty-one, not thirty-five.
I just read that armor buffs to shields don't apply to Tech Armor. I really should read up on things before I jump into it headlong, shouldn't I.

That leaves my Sentinel and Infiltrator builds unplanned. I might just go with whatever I think looks pretty. In my Infiltrator's case, that may very well be the shield setup.

Modifié par Miss Yuna of Atlanta, 27 septembre 2010 - 07:02 .

[Leon Zweihander]

The Capacitor Chestplate for an Infiltrator seems to give a noticeable difference in shield regen. For a class that relies on shooting 90% of the time, the seconds saved adds up quite a bit, mileage may vary for other classes though.

[Ares Caesar]

Leon Zweihander wrote...

The Capacitor Chestplate for an Infiltrator seems to give a noticeable difference in shield regen. For a class that relies on shooting 90% of the time, the seconds saved adds up quite a bit, mileage may vary for other classes though.

In a related piece of questioning, does anyone happen to know the EXACT shield regen time (easy to then calculate the bonus for recharge time) --I'm too lazy/tired to play atm and get shot at and time it with a stopwatch--  and even more importantly, does anyone know if the difficulty also affects shield regen times or not? Very curious to know because it definitely would help in knowing how fast you can return to the action without having to actually even look at the shields (allowing you to focus on more important things, such as killing the b@st@rd who shot them off in the first place)

If no one knows, I guess I'll sit around and get blasted tomorrow and come back with some times.

Modifié par Ares Caesar, 27 septembre 2010 - 07:32 .

[Tempist fox3]

I found playing as a soldier, gearing for weapon damage and taking the Geth shield boost worked well for insanity. And going 'improved Geth shield boost' instead of heavy gives an additional 10% Weapon damage as well as instantly bringing your shield up to 175%. Worked like a charm, not sure i'd have been able to do insanity without it.

[JaegerBane]

I agree with the assertion that the shield boost pieces are debatable in terms of effectiveness - as sino points out, the shield booster powers get the ladies from the fact that they can effectively allow you to do crazy agressive things and still have an option to replenish defences on the hoof. And they're 100% boosts. A piece of armour giving +5% boost to shields sounds a bit academic under such a context.

I would just pick what you think looks cool - I tend to run with the headshot visor, kestrel shoulder and chestplate, storm speed booster greaves and the weapon damage gauntlets on my Adept. I've no idea whether they provide any greater performance than anything else but they do look badass - I tried out the power damage plates and all they did is make my shep look like he was wearing ladybirds on his shoulders, and I didn't notice any difference in my Warps and throws.

[Mister Mida]

Other than visual appearance nothing changes with different armour (pieces). Melee damage is the only thing that actually gets influenced by armour.

[Nooneyouknow13]

Ares Caesar wrote...


The recon hood 5% weapon damage may not sound like much on the surface, but if you have 250 something damage per shot (shotgun), that 5% is an extra 12.5 damage per shot, which is one less bullet required every 20 shots, meaning faster DPS meaning likely less death overall. And if you have all the mods for a weapon, that extra 5% (pretend you have 50% shotgun upgrade) 375 damage, then becomes 18.75 more damage per shot.

Percent increases from skills, gear and upgrades are additive, not multiplicative. So that 5% damage from the recon hood is always the same amount, regardless of upgrades. It's always going to be 5% of the weapons base damage.

The piece of gear that makes the single largest impact from what I've experienced is 10% additional heavy weapon ammo legs. Being able to have 2 Cain shots stocked instead of 1.95 can actually make a difference.

[Atmosfear3]

Ares Caesar wrote...

Leon Zweihander wrote...

The Capacitor Chestplate for an Infiltrator seems to give a noticeable difference in shield regen. For a class that relies on shooting 90% of the time, the seconds saved adds up quite a bit, mileage may vary for other classes though.

In a related piece of questioning, does anyone happen to know the EXACT shield regen time (easy to then calculate the bonus for recharge time) --I'm too lazy/tired to play atm and get shot at and time it with a stopwatch--  and even more importantly, does anyone know if the difficulty also affects shield regen times or not? Very curious to know because it definitely would help in knowing how fast you can return to the action without having to actually even look at the shields (allowing you to focus on more important things, such as killing the b@st@rd who shot them off in the first place)

If no one knows, I guess I'll sit around and get blasted tomorrow and come back with some times.

I've tried to time it myself on insanity and it seems to be around 8 seconds to regen shields. Don't quote me on that.

[Ares Caesar]

Nooneyouknow13 wrote...

Ares Caesar wrote...


The recon hood 5% weapon damage may not sound like much on the surface, but if you have 250 something damage per shot (shotgun), that 5% is an extra 12.5 damage per shot, which is one less bullet required every 20 shots, meaning faster DPS meaning likely less death overall. And if you have all the mods for a weapon, that extra 5% (pretend you have 50% shotgun upgrade) 375 damage, then becomes 18.75 more damage per shot.

Percent increases from skills, gear and upgrades are additive, not multiplicative. So that 5% damage from the recon hood is always the same amount, regardless of upgrades. It's always going to be 5% of the weapons base damage.

The piece of gear that makes the single largest impact from what I've experienced is 10% additional heavy weapon ammo legs. Being able to have 2 Cain shots stocked instead of 1.95 can actually make a difference.

*slaps forehead* D'oh! I ALWAYS forget that bonuses in this game are additive NOT multiplicative. Almost every game I've played before this (and the ones I've obsessed the most over) have always been multiplicative, so I've tended to forget that a lot when I'm thinking about Mass Effect. Thank you for reminding me.

Yeah in that case it does detract from the weight of each bonus since they dont "stack" as heavily as they would multiplicatively. Reduces value slightly, but definitely doesnt change the idea of heavily specing towards one bonus to maximize likely effectiveness.

From most of the videos I see people here, use of either the melee armors, or the weapon damage armors would provide the most benefit for the player, because everyone here is very shoot heavy and melee heavy, and even those who arent melee heavy seem to shoot a lot more than they use damage based powers.

I also like the heavy weapon ammo leg bonus piece(particularly the kestral one I believe), but you still have to ask yourself how often you're busting it out , and actually running low on ammo with it, and with the cain if you dont have the max research for 2 shots, I think it has far less value then as well. For some reason I still stick with this armor piece though simply because I feel better having it, than not having it, heh.

Like others have generally said, in truth, you're not likely to notice the EFFECTIVE VALUE of the armor pieces more than you are the APPEARANCE VALUE, and if you HATE the way your Shepard looks, you're probably going to be more distracted looking at your ugly Shepard and thinking how much you hate it, rather than how much you should be focusing on killing the enemies shooting at you.

Synopsis- APPEARANCE VALUE is = to EFFECTIVE VALUE (looking badass is its own reward)

[Ares Caesar]

Atmosfear3 >>> Wow 8 seconds really? That has got to be longer than the easier difficulties, or at least I didnt feel like it takes that long on normal-hardcore (I play more Hardcore and Vet than anything). If 8 seconds is really the case, stacking a few of those timer regens might have some actual merit, but I'm still probably of the philosophy "dead enemies cant deal damage" so anything to provide more damage still outweighs defense, but it does support those regen timers a lot more if it is that long (especially for players who dont feel skilled at shooting).



Really gonna have to bust out the stopwatch on this one.

[RGFrog]

If you have all the dlc, then the most applicable upgrades are a combination of Kestrel and Helmets.

You can achieve 29% shield upgrades by swapping out the helmet and arms for the extra 10% (after a loss of 6% over full kestrel).

However, as sinosleep pointed out especially on Insanity, that won't do you any good as the increased accuracy and damage the enemy has makes short work of shields.

You can get a 19% weapon damage boost by going recon hood and arms in combination with kestrel, however at insanity again, that doesn't really make much difference.

The upgrades to weapons (60% for all with LotSB bonuses) and the couple of bonuses for shep actually make up the majority of useful/noticeable bonuses in the game. That's why most players at insanity playthroughs note that the game gets easier the farther along. Same with biotic and tech.

The measly 10, 13, or 15% power damages aren't really noticeable. They don't typically equate to one (or more) less casts to complete an objective. They can, after all other upgrades boost shep's total bonus higher than Jack's (80%) and nearly a 100% bonus. But by this point in the game, the extra 15% max doesn't mean anything to the other 75% of bonuses to power damage. You're one casting everything by then.

This is why most armor bonuses don't really matter. They do make differences but the difference are so minute that you'd have to play the game at level 5 shep for weeks before the differences say in total ammo use actually begin to show.

Melee is a different but similar ball game. You can get as much as 45% with kestrel+melee shoulders. This is a noticeable boost early on as it can equate to one less melee to kill. Why is it more important than one less bullet? Because at the melee you're in a target's face and are likely to have your protections quickly stripped and the difference in having to do one more melee can directly affect your having time to recharge or having to restart from a recent save.

However, if you don't melee much/often/at all, these bonuses don't do squat.

I haven't checked the math, but I don't think armor bonuses on Insanity even get sheppard up to the same modifiers as he has at normal mode.

Personally, I always equip based on bonus just because it's there and I might as well use it. However, I've started moving away from the boosts of kestrel to a few percentage points less in bonuses because Kestrel makes my male sheppard look like husky troll rather than the sleek killer n7/original upgrades make him look. On fem shep it's good so I stick with a kestrel mix, though.

[JaegerBane]

RGFrog wrote...
However, I've started moving away from the boosts of kestrel to a few percentage points less in bonuses because Kestrel makes my male sheppard look like husky troll rather than the sleek killer n7/original upgrades make him look. On fem shep it's good so I stick with a kestrel mix, though.

I'd agree with the kestrel arms and legs... but what's so non-sleek about the kestrel chest/shoulder plates? Personally they reminded me of a combo of The Dark Knight batsuit and a Warhammer 40k Mk8 power armour. L33t.

[Nooneyouknow13]

I was pretty sure the shield recharge delay was 6 seconds. Which would save you .6 second per piece of capacitor gear, 1.2 seconds with both pieces.

[sinosleep]

I went ahead and recorded some footage and started counting the time at the point when shields break (the first frame during which the overlay transitions from barrier/shield color to red (it starts out very feint but you can catch the switch the frame it happens in virtual dub) and stopped it at the point where the overlay switches back. These are the times I got

no gear

5.017

5.234

helmet

4.817

4.867

armor

4.867

4.884

both

4.35

4.417

So clearly both pieces have an effect seperately, and work together as well, but the combined totals aren't as high as I expected them to be.

Modifié par sinosleep, 28 septembre 2010 - 06:01 .