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[HadesNexus]

My first ME2 playthrough on insanity was a shotgun infiltrator, using the sniper rifle to soften up foes before cloaking and rushing in for some murder-you-in-the-face action. My second was a painful playthrough with a gung-ho charge-everything psycho vanguard on insanity, dying more times than I could hope to forget, but thoroughly enjoying the experience.

So I recently decided to replay ME2 to prep myself for ME3.  I've toyed with the other classes before, but infiltrator and vanguard were my two favourites.  It had to be one of them - I only have so much time on my hands.  But which?  I enjoyed sniping away with my Infiltrator, hacking mechs to disrupt the enemy... but I also felt like I was missing a limb without my Charge button, and missed setting up warp bombs and mopping up the mess with my inferno shotgun.

So I decided to play both.  Simultaneously.

Stick a Viper and Enhanced Dominate on a vanguard, and what you have is a biotic infiltrator.  I know that a lot of vanguard players will call it blasphemy to stick an SR on a vanguard and many around here dislike dominate as it doesn't seem to fit as an ability on Shepard, but I devised a shaky backstory for the character to justify it and went on my way.  Having just completed the game 100% with all DLC with this build, I can say that it is probably the most fun I've had with ME2.

So here it is:

Heavy Charge - 4
Champion - 4
Improved (Wide) Shockwave - 4
Pull - 1
Inferno Ammo - 4
Cryo Ammo - 0
Enhanced Dominate - 4

Loadout was generally Viper, Eviscerator and Locust.

The idea with this build is to get into a tactically beneficial position with Charge, use shockwave to stagger enemies so you can poke your head out with the SR long enough to strip a useful (eg pyro, heavy, elite) enemy's defences, dominate them, thin the enemy's numbers while their ranks are disrupted, then charge in to clear out the last few dregs of resistance.  Pull is there to set up the occasional defence-stripping warp bomb to facilitate dominate.  It plays like a fun hybrid of the two classes.  If you decide to have a go at this, you'll find yourself using all of your powers and weapons based on what is the best option tactically.  Enhanced Dominate also has a base duration of 12 seconds, which means that they will stay dominated for at least 6-7 seconds after your first charge - which can make for some interesting tactical moves, like dominating an isolated enemy nearby, charging ahead into group to shotgun a few of them, and then charging back to the previously dominated enemy to escape back to your original position.

I play on Xbox so I'll need to buy a few cables before I'll be able to record anything, but please feel free to comment on the idea - or try it out for yourselves.

[CoffeeHolic93]

Well, you're in luck - this is the time where everyone's trying out unorthodox builds for giggles!

I've played around with a Claymore Only Soldier (which made me realize how amazing the shield-refill component of charge really is) and a Shockwave heavy vanguard which is just hilarious.

Shockwave's a fairly decent power. It's not the best power, but it does what it does fairly well.(though it's unpredictable and can in rare instances screw you over with the ragdoll) Most importantly, you get to play Mass Bowling 2


RedCaesar has been playing with a Dominate Engineer (with a shotgun) so he can go in depth with the CQC potential of dominate.

Other than that, you have heavy charge and a maxed passive which means your vanguard is already as potent as it'll ever be. Everything else is just flavor - might aswell have fun with it, right?

[Kronner]

This sounds good, but for getting into a strategic position, Cloak is better than Charge IMHO.

I do have some Infiltrators with Shotguns, and the playstyle is pretty close to what you described. It's been a lot of fun 

Modifié par Kronner, 20 janvier 2012 - 04:38 .

[capn233]

Charge does allow more mobility. But the flanking and positioning potential is dependent on enemy distribution. Fortunately there is usually a guy that wanders off from the rest... which is the worst thing you can do against a Vanguard.

Neat idea. I played Viper Vanguard and liked it... one of the best.

Modifié par capn233, 21 janvier 2012 - 02:05 .

[HadesNexus]

I agree that cloak is more versatile in many ways, but charge does have its tactical advantages. You can cover greater distances, as mentioned, can hold your own better than an infiltrator in close combat due to the shield boost, and as the effect is instant you don't have to worry about enemies moving around during your long invisible jog towards them - during which I also have the stupid habit of getting caught in crossfires. Also, the animation is awesome! :-P

You also find that when you dominate an enemy at the edge, rather than in the middle, of a group, that they take cover from their former friends - which you can instantly charge into when their barrier wears off. The effects aren't entirely predictable but the disruption in their ranks usually does present some interesting Charge / positioning opportunity.

To Mi-Chan: Shockwave is pretty much my favourite power in the game. On unprotected enemies it's mass bowling, but on protected enemies I find it really useful, too. You can stagger pretty much everyone on the screen with the Improved evolution, which gives you ample time to pop out and strip defences on a few mooks. Cast again to knock down defenceless mooks, strip down their friends, ad infinitum. Highly spammable on any difficulty. :-)

[mcsupersport]

LOL, sounds like fun, and by the way, my standard Vanguard is a Viper/Evisc Vanguard. Claymore is ok, but to me the Viper/Evis is better.

[capn233]

You can stagger most protected enemies with pull or throw... practically any power really. Shockwave can stagger more than one at a time I suppose, but cooldown is longer.

[RedCaesar97]

HadesNexus: I recorded some gameplay based on your build. Chances are I play nothing like you did with this build. It was actually pretty fun, although the Locust and Eviscerator would not be my choice of SMG and Shotgun if I played this all the way through. It will take some time to edit and then upload the video. I will post back here when it is uploaded.

Modifié par RedCaesar97, 21 janvier 2012 - 03:39 .

[RedCaesar97]

Okay, I did my best to try to replicate how I think HadesNexus plays according to his description. Odds are that I play totally different.

Dominate Vanguard part 1
Dominate Vanguard part 2

Personally, I dislike the Eviscerator unless I plan to pick up the Claymore later, and I would much prefer the Tempest instead of the Locust. In my opinion, the Locust is redundant if you have the Viper.

[HadesNexus]

Great stuff man, I enjoyed watching a few of your puppet master engineer vids too. You've pretty much got the gameplay down - you played that mission against the batarians pretty much identically to how I played it - although when I've first dominated someone I usually stay put with the sniper rifle until I've cooled down for charge, and often throw a shockwave before poking out with my sniper rifle so everyone's staggered and I take less fire.

As for the weapon choices... I take the Eviscerator for two reasons. One being that I'm often charging unprotected enemies because my 'pet' has stripped their defences, or I'm charging a former 'pet' myself, so the Evi's extra range helps me to finish them off when they're flying through the air. Secondly, I'm just really used to using that gun after my first vanguard run, and my attempts to switch to the Katana for this build didn't work.

It might actually be better to take the Tempest over the Locust to solve the problem of charging unprotected enemies, which would allow you to take a different shotgun, but again, I'm just used to the Locust.

Thanks for giving it a try, glad you had fun :-)

[HadesNexus]

iOnlySignIn wrote...

HadesNexus wrote...

I devised a shaky backstory for the character to justify it

Let's hear it!

Okay, so here's my shaky backstory for my 'biotic infiltrator', mind-controlling space-ghost Shep.  It's not flawless but it amuses me to play with the lore in this way.  Keep in mind I've never written this down before, it's all been stored on the faulty hard-drive in desperate need of defragmentation that is my brain, so some of the details might be fuzzy.

So Shep was born on Mindoir.  His parents were both Earth-born.  His father, Aden, was a former a Hahne-Kedar tech expert (explaining Shep's talent for hacking terminals etc), and his mother worked with the miners on Mars in some capacity - and was also involved in the smuggling of red sand back to Earth.  She became pregnant, and in order to escape her old crime bosses and give her son a fresh start in life, she and Shep's father volunteered to be among the first people to colonise Mindoir, with his father taking a job as the chief techie - maintaining equipment such as the Firestorms used for clearing vegetation, the early, crude mechs used for hard labour, and so on.

Shep began displaying biotic potential when he was young, telekinetically throwing objects or causing his home or schoolroom to shake when angered for instance.  Aden had seen newsfeeds from Earth about these strange occurances involving 'psychic' children, and had heard rumours from his former Hahne-Kedar colleagues about it being related to being exposed to Element Zero in the womb - which Shep certainly had, his mother being involved with red sand smuggling.  The newsfeeds were frightening - religious groups declaring these children to be hellspawn, old superstitions reawakened, witch-hunts... Salem all over again.  So Aden kept his son's abilities a secret, as best as he could.

Shep's teenage years were spent largely in isolation because of this, as he couldn't control the immense power he possessed.  He became antisocial as a means of distancing himself from others to keep his secret hidden.  Then, when he turned 16, the Batarians invaded, laying waste to the entire colony, enslaving their women and children and murdering their men.  Shep saw his own father burned alive for his feeble attempt at resistance - his last words to his son were 'Everything I told you about keeping your power a secret - forget it, kid.  Cut loose. Promise me you'll do everything you can to get out of here alive.'

When an Alliance patrol came across Shep's old pre-fab shanty town, they found a bizarre scene - Batarian soldiers, lying dead, slain by their own weapons.  The last had put the muzzle of his own rifle in his mouth.  A hundred metres away from the scene, in the woods, they found an unconscious teenage boy lying next to a dead space cow, eyes burned blind by a flashbang that went off too close to his face.

The Alliance took the boy in for medical treatment.  They discovered, however, that despite being utterly blind, he still moved and spoke as if he could see.  He was placed in isolation and observed by scientists for a time, until he eventually revealed to them that he was 'seeing' using their own eyes.

(This is where my own interpretation of lore kicks in.)

Like the asari, whose homeworld of Thessia is so permeated with Element Zero that most of their species have evolved to incorporate the substance into their biology, Shep's physiology was so saturated with Eezo that many of the abilities usually unique to Thessian creatures had made themselves apparant to him.  The shock of being blinded by a flashbang had awakened his ability to transmit energy-form information from his own eezo nodules to those of nearby organisms (all space-faring species, whether they have biotic potential or not, have had at least some Eezo exposure).  This is similar to the 'melding' ability of asari, who use their Eezo-rich physiology to 'meld' nervous systems with their mates.  His extreme will to survive had led to him 'controlling' the very nervous system of his Batarian aggressors and pitting them against each other, before the vast power contained within his body instinctively propelled him one hundred metres away from the source of danger to the nearest organic signature his nodules could detect in a fraction of a second.

The Alliance repaired his eyes with cybernetics.  While many Alliance scientists wanted to keep the boy in isolation and study his unique physiology, Admiral Hackett had other ideas and requested to meet him in person.  He convinced Shepard to have a bio-amp fitted and to train in the use of his powers to prevent anything like Mindoir ever happening again.

Over the years, Shepard became an expert in recon, disruption tactics and assassination, usually deployed alone in Alliance 'black-ops' to quickly gain entry to Batarian facilities, starships and compounds, achieve his objective and leave an incomprehensible mess in his wake - men shot dead by their comrades with not a trace of hostile forces in the vicinity.  Amongst the Batarians, he became known as the 'Ghost of Mindoir', as he often left a postcard from Mindoir in the middle of these gruesome scenes.

In 2176 on Elysium, they would meet the Ghost of Mindoir in person.  A Batarian raid on the prosperous colony was met by fierce resistance from an incensed Shepard, who used the enemy forces against themselves and used his ability to transport himself in millseconds to keep the enemy spooked, pinned down and completely unable to advance until the Alliance reinforcements arrived.  In the wake of Shepard's success, his identity became publicly known.  The man who had spent most of his life in the shadows, who the Alliance had denied all knowledge of for years, was now a hero.

And he didn't like it one bit.

FIN.

Haha.  Okay, so you're probably regretting having asked after reading that ridiculously long post but once I got going I couldn't stop.  Basically, in-game I RP him as a Dr House type personality - he's unfriendly, snarky and antisocial - but he's a good man underneath it all and when he's faced with a moral dilemma, he always does the right thing.  His LI is Liara because she helped him see the good in himself, but he had a fling with Jack in ME2 because he relates to her backstory.  He's close with Thane for obvious reasons.  Now here's for hoping that Dominate is in ME3 as a bonus power or all of my backstory is worth squat.  :-P  Thanks for asking, though.

I'm going to go out and get a cable so I can record some gameplay soon, just started a NG+ for this purpose.  This time I might experiment with using the Tempest instead of a shotgun, since it's more infiltrator-ish.