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[Annelos]

Hello there,

Being almost exclusively Gold player before the coming of Earth add on, like many other AJ players, I had to test my Gold build vs Platinum difficulty level and find out if it will pass the test.

The results were somewhat dissapointing.

Before Earth came out, discussion around AJ builds moved mostly around the usefulness of Pull, amount of points put into Fitness and the weapon-of-choice for AJ.

Asari Justicar Gold builds:
Proponents of defensive school opted for 0 points in Pull and going for AR weight decrease + some mix of offensive/defensive Reave& Biotic Shield, mid-position players opted for just 6 points put into Pull w/o AR weight decrease or final Fitness evolution, while offensive players (including me) went for builds that utilised Pull and biotic explosion combos to the max damage. Carnifex became almost canonical weapon for biotics and found his place in most of the AJ builds too.

You can find some of the excellent canonical builds for Gold in the following topics:
social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/343/index/11487029/1
social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/343/index/13098782
social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/343/index/12080839

Basically speaking, all those builds were (and still are!) valid on Gold difficulty level, but with Platinum thing is bit different.

Gold vs Platinum: Combat theory
While amount and HP of opponents increased, it's not the decisive factor that makes Platinum much more difficult than Gold - more important fact is that players are forced now to deal with combined force of Geth, Cerberus and Reapers units that bring different and more deadly synergy to the battlefield

Type of opponent chosen in the Gold games often determined the characters and often fixed the tactical approach.

This factor allows players in the Bronze, Silver and Gold games to reach better team play and achieve higher overal flexibility, so the following ratio:

Players Team Tactical Options : Enemy Tactical Options

... was always strongly in favour of the players side.

Unfortunately, things has changed on Platinum and combined AI force often (too often) outperforms players in almost every factor and packs even more punch then before, which consecutively raises a question mark for the most of the "flexible" characters builds, since most of them is often specced for personal flexiblity rather than team flexibility and those are 2 different things, even if you think differently at this moment.

Pull on Platinum:
Pull usefulness that was somewhat limited on Gold due to the sheer amount of opponents that used shields/barriers is now even more restricted on Platinum - while it still can save lonely AJ in some situations, using this ability puts whole team in disadvantage since most important factor on Platinum is to outperform AI units in pure firepower and hold your formation (even when you're forced to move back). With some exceptions to this rule, player that roams lonely through the battlefield will go down sooner or later - team play was never more important than it is on Platinum now, so even if you're still able to make some Phantoms fly with this ability, you don't want to use your time on using it and you don't want  to keep them or any other enemy unit alive longer than it's necessary .

You need ALL of those points elsewhere.

PULL BUFF and BE BUFF UPDATE: Pull+Reave combo has been buffed due to the BE damage increase. While it's more useful than it was before, buff did not affect the restriction coming from the amount of the armoured and boss enemy units on Gold and Platinum difficulty levels, thus this point generaly remains the same.

Double-bubble & other AJ biotic explosions combo on Platinum:
Double-bubble biotic combo (Reave+BS+Reave, repeat) lost most of it's usefulness on Platnium - amount of combined firepower that AI can put on the frontline now is sometimes overwhelming and even with Adrenaline Module III/Cyclonic Modulator III and shield boosting gear it's sometimes incredibly difficult to repeat this hit&run tactic, not to mention the fact that Double-bubble (as any other biotic combo) requires low-cooldown which limits AJ to lighter weapons and - trust me on this one - Carnifex X or Paladin is nowhere as effective on Platinum as it was on Gold. There's also a factor of BE effectivness and this drops on Platinum and mobility factor - most of the "biotic attacks" style requires very mobile and offensive approach which is hard to maintain, thus risky in Platinum games due to the overal higher difficulty level.

Assesment:
Considering all of the above, best thing that player can do is to decide that he will limit and commit his build to the Team flexibility rather than personal playstyle so he needs to concentrate on the strongest sides of the character, his core abilities and accept that Asari Justicar is first and foremost a tank.

You're not meant to hit the strongest, you're not meant to outscore other biotic team mates via BE's, you are meant to boost your team survivabilty, reave from time to time and still pack enough punch to not be carried around by the rest of the players, because this simply won't work. So the best thing you can do is to spec your abilities in the following manner:

Platinum build:
Biotic Shield: 4b (Radius), 5a (DamageReduction), 6 (Allied Protection)
Reave: 4b (Radius), 5a (Damage Reduction), 6b (Damage&Duration)
Pull: 0
Asari Justicar: 4b (Duration&Capacity), 5b (Headshots), 6a (Assault Rifles)
Fitness: 4b (Durability), 5b (Shield Recharge), 6b (Fitness Expert)

Build explained:
- Reave - you should be able to set off and prepare the BE's for the "pure biotics" and you should use it to boost your own damage resistance to hold on your feets as long as you can (longer you're on your feets, the chance that team formation will have to be broken decreases). There's no point to go for the Recharge since Reave is only an auxiliary source of damage for you, thus it's a secondary choice while your damage resistance is a priority to do your job as it should be done
- Biotic Shield - specced for damage resistance and range -  it's incredibly useful during "Hack" missions not only you can raise your own damage resistance to 80%, you can also raise any other team mate damage resistance by 40% and this will allow you all to withstand much more punishment than with the offensively specced shield used from time to time to boost your defence - either you're doing it right and you're going ALL to defence or don't bother, offensive shield defence fails to support the team in defence properly. It's also important to note that Radius>Shield Regeneration, mostly because shield range is too small to support defensive positions efficiently and Range evolution gives the minimal necessary place to manouver inside it once enemies will reach your positions. Warp and using shield offensively as a damage amplifier does not work as well as on Gold due to the higher enemy flexibility&firepower and the fact that retreating in order is VERY difficult manouver for the team to execute - trust your instict - you want to break your formation as rarely as possible. It's also important to stress that players often have enough firepower potential to deal with the incoming enemies, but they cannot hold it on the sufficient rate due to the damage they take - defensively specced shield allows everyone in your team often to rain death clip-after-clip which is usually impossible without damage reduction on this difficulty level.
- Asari Justicar evolution - go for headshots & weight drops for AR's which are the best source of firepower for this class
- Fitness - max health and shields, it will allow you to use offensive gear sets

Weapon for this build:
- Cerberus Harrier - Best choice vs Reapers. With the weight drops and levelled up Harrier you will remain somewhere around 130 - 150% cooldown, which is enough to maintain the steady reave use for defensive and offensive purposes, you will also be able to deal massive amounts of damage with this AR and deal with all types of the opponents.
- Saber - Best choice vs Geths. if your aim is good enough, you can take down a lot of geth units with headshots, you will probably want to use Extended Barrel and Stability mods with it. 

Best gear sets:
Depends on your approach, but best thing you can do is to go for even more firepower with Harrier & Saber (Assault Rifle Amp V) or for more defence (Shield Booster or Stronghold Package).

Top armour options are Cyclonic Modulator or Shield Power Cells.

Weapon Bonus is self-explanatory: save some Assault Rifle Amp III's for your Platinum runs

Ammo bonus: Go for Warp Rounds as it is good vs. everything and you will go vs every type of the opponent avaible on Platinum.

Have a good hunt and feel free to leave some comments.

Best regards,

Annelos

Modifié par Annelos, 20 août 2012 - 12:41 .

[rmccowen]

Annelos wrote...


Double-bubble & other AJ biotic explosions combo on Platinium:
Double-bubble biotic combo (Reave+BS+Reave, repeat) lost most of it's usefulness on Platnium - amount of combined firepower that AI can put on the frontline now is sometimes overwhelming and even with Adrenaline Module III/Cyclonic Modulator III and shield boosting gear it's sometimes incredibly difficult to repeat this hit&run tactic, not to mention the fact that Double-bubble (as any other biotic combo) requires low-cooldown which limits AJ to lighter weapons and - trust me on this one - Carnifex X or Paladin is nowhere as effective on Platinium as it was on Gold. There's also a factor of BE effectivness and this drops on Platinium and mobility factor - most of the "biotic attacks" style requires very mobile and offensive approach which is hard to maintain thus risky in Platinium games due to the overal higher difficulty level.

I've started noticing even on Gold that my offensive bubble varies widely in usefulness, based on the tactical situation. Sometimes--particularly if I can drop it at a corner and "ambush" slow enemies as they come around--it's a godsend. Most of the time, I end up dropping it over one or more squadmates anyway, and have been seriously considering a defensive bubble on that basis.

So I think your logic here is sound.

[Annelos]

Yes, that's what I've noticed about the Biotic Shield too.

Added in the fact that defensively specced biotic shield does miracles on Hack missions.

Modifié par Annelos, 29 juillet 2012 - 06:18 .

[TCGwasHERE]

pull is a life saver.

seriously

[Booshnickins]

TCGwasHERE wrote...

pull is a life saver.

seriously

Exactly. Too many dismiss it. Yet you can't shoot or Reave enemies that are behind cover. Even on Gold and Platinum, you can use it and be very successful. I set my Justicar up with 6/6/6/4/4. As long as you're in your bubble and casting Reave, you can handle any difficulty with only 4 points into Fitness.

[TCGwasHERE]

Booshnickins wrote...

TCGwasHERE wrote...

pull is a life saver.

seriously

Exactly. Too many dismiss it. Yet you can't shoot or Reave enemies that are behind cover. Even on Gold and Platinum, you can use it and be very successful. I set my Justicar up with 6/6/6/4/4. As long as you're in your bubble and casting Reave, you can handle any difficulty with only 4 points into Fitness.

I would use that setup too put I like the extra headshot damage

[Annelos]

I was using 6/6/6/4/4 build maxed for BE's in Gold games. I'm far from saying it's useless, I'm just saying it's better to spend your points on something else - if you will put 6 points in Pull, you won't take the final Fitness and if you won't take the fitness you are more likely to take something else than damage amplifier in your gear set and this will make your tank less "tanky".

In theory, Pull sounds great and is useful, in practice it isn't very useful on Platinum - you can reave instead for some more potent biotic player or just spray some bullets in the time spent on successful biotic-curving or def-pulling,

Modifié par Annelos, 20 août 2012 - 12:41 .

[Micah3sixty]

The few times I've taken my 6/6/0/6/6 Offensive Justicar into Platinum I've done just fine with her. The 20% damage reduction enemy debuff is even more useful on Platinum in my experience since you have so many more bosses to conquer and the bubble speeds up that process in choke holds very well. It still provides a 10% DR to squad mates and on top of your Reave DR still very surviveable. I recognize though that there's no wrong way to spec a Justicar. She's awesome with just about any build if it matches your play style and skill set well. I take either my Hurricane IV or Saber VI with my Justicar for both Gold and Platinum. Good stuff.

Modifié par Micah3sixty, 29 juillet 2012 - 08:19 .

[TCGwasHERE]

Annelos wrote...

I was using 6/6/6/4/4 build maxed for BE's in Gold games. I'm far from saying it's useless, I'm just saying it's better to spend your points on something else - if you will put 6 points in Pull, you won't take the final Fitness and if you won't take the fitness you are more likely to take something else than damage amplifier in your gear set and this will make your tank less "tanky".

In theory, Pull sounds great and is useful, in practice it isn't very useful on Platinium - you can reave instead for some more potent biotic player or just spray some bullets in the time spent on successful biotic-curving or def-pulling,

Pull isn't neccessarily used to alway kill and BE.  I use it to make phantoms flip and stop shooting me, to remove guardiands and get enemies out of cover.  the best use of pull is just putting 3 points on it.

[Annelos]

I find this discussion around pull too theoretical.

Phantoms tend to evade most of the Pull attacks launched from the distance unless you will catch them on doing some acrobatic moves and if you're forced to Pull them in the short distance, it's usually because you need to save your skin and retreat - Pull doesn't resolve anything else and Pull+Reave isn't even the strongest biotic combo around.

Pull can be used to save your skin, but it also delays the death of your opponent and you need to actually sacrifice some level 6 evolution to get 6 points in it. If you want to max BE's for the reave combo, you need to say "bye-bye" to the more useful weight drop and it only allows you to kill the weakest of mobs in biotic combo.

Please be aware that pull usually shouldn't be used vs single guardians unless you're out of ammo, because piercing mod on harrier or any other weapon in your team (that most likely has the piercing mod) will deal with them fast enough without all that flying-shield fuss.

Pull has also very limited use when your whole team is defending in some spot because instead of shooting, you're target-practing your powers on mostly easiest to kill mobs (troopers, cannibals, geth troopers, husks) that would be killed anyway, thus lowering your overall DPS level.

To put it in one sentence: from your team point of view, you shouldn't waste time on pull on Platinum because there's always somebody around that should eat your bullet instead of just chilling out in the air.

Modifié par Annelos, 20 août 2012 - 12:42 .

[Babbylonian]

The 66066 Justicar tank is my absolute favorite character to play and her only weakness is against Geth (I won't even play Condor/Geth with her unless there's another biotic around; hate the map and the enemy makes it too miserable). It takes little effort to stay alive and firing, and if there's any other biotic on the team you don't have to work hard at coordination - reave all the things and BEs will come. Against organics I don't worry much about throwing up bubbles unless I'm working a chokepoint or dealing with a boss. Oh, and I also toss bubbles up over objectives and fallen teammates.

I've started using the Piranha with her (I'm addicted to that gun). It gives her ridiculous short-range damage output and decent mid-range damage, and I find it complements my Justitank playstyle. With almost any other biotic on a team, platinum is a good option too; that difficulty level also seems like confirmation of my anti-pull bias given that it's bosses and lieutenants.

[Annelos]

I did some playtesting of this build on Gold with Saber II vs Cerberus, Geth and Reapers today/

1st and 2nd U/U/Gold were played on Firebase London + Geths: Scored 113k and 117k with it respectively.
3rd U/U/Gold ended as FBW + Cerberus: Scored 122k with it
4th U/U Gold vs FBG Reapers: Scored way below expectations - it seems that Reaper combo of Banshees, Brutes and Ravagers prove to be a hard nut to crack.for long-range saber and player is forced to use sidearm more often than in the other two factions.

Modifié par Annelos, 14 août 2012 - 01:33 .

[Biotic_Warlock]

I got a nice build:

Defensive reave (and health damage) and defensive sphere.
full defence fitness.
Equip multicapacitor and shield regen consumable and when in sphere she regenerates shields after 0.5 seconds.

Edit: OP chose synthesis ending: It's a trap!

Modifié par Biotic_Warlock, 14 août 2012 - 01:33 .

[Annelos]

This issue is connected with the team tactics and shooting technique rather than team play.

If you're decided to use a Harrier (which is the best weapon for AJ specced for AR's on Platinum) you need to use it properly and it comes to:
a)firing economy
b)knowledge about a map
c)proper team tactics

1.Firing economy:
- use short bursts (3-5 rounds) and aim for the torso when you shoot at mid-to-long distance - Harrier's recoil lifts the barrel and last bullets should go up to the head of the mooks this way and it's the best way to deal with most opponents
- there's no point to go for headshots against bosses
- use automatic fire only in the CQC and close distance when you're getting rushed by mooks and in close-to-mid distance vs boss units since they're obviously bigger and it's easier to hit them w/o wasting bullets
- Use Warp or AP high level ammunition for max damage per round shot as these two types work well with biotic explosions ; take Disruptor, Cryo etc. if you don't expect to have a synergy with BE's
- Use Assault Rifle Amp's for additional damage-per-round
- don't forget that Reave is a source of auxiliary damage and it can be quite powerful with Power Amplifier Module
2.Knowledge about a map
- when you're using Harrier, you NEED to know where are the ammo boxes. If you don't know that or you remember about one or two, you will often find yourself in disadvantage because:
a)you will waste time for searching
b)you might go for the more dangerous location rather than same safe ammo box in the friendly distance
3.Proper team tactics:
- you should not be forced to look for ammo box in some great distance that separates your from your team and creates danger for you and your team mates in case you will need to be revived by someone else due to unsuccessful trip for ammunition
- if you cannot reach ammo box, and it's wave X<6, use your side-arm weapon ; best option is Phalanx as ULM on SMG's are bugged. With Phalanx X with ULM and Piercing mod, you're losing only 12% cooldown and you've an emergency weapon that could be used to kill Guardians quickly (as using Piercing Mod on Harrier is a waste of mod-spot)
- if you cannot reach ammo box, and it's wave X>5 OR if you need a reload ASAP, use Thermal Clip Pack and then use your side-arm
- do not rely on friendly pylons - they're good for weapons like Saber, but can only be used for emergency reloads when it comes to Harrier
- try to Reave some organic enemy before running out of the cover for ammunition as it will give you additional damage resistance for several seconds
4.Why not X AR instead?
- Why not Typhoon? - it's too heavy and kills your power cooldown, as Asari Justicar lacks the rate-of-fire, weapon stability and bigger weapon damage bonus, this weapon is a poor choice for this class
- Why not Revenant? - because Harrier is better in almost every way on Justicar, UR>R
- Why does Harrier>Saber on Platinum? - because rate-of-fire is too low on Justicar with Saber, Saber is most effective when you go for headshots and this option is limited on Platinum

Personally, I prefer to run with Stronghold Package V or Assault Rifle Amp V gear - I don't have Thermal Clip gear, but I would find it inferior to the other possibilities anyway.

Now, look at the screenshot below. It's taken from the successfully played Platinum game on Firebase Goddess:


- as you can see, ammo box is in the friendly controlled area and there's no risk to reach it
- Biotic Bubble that I'm standing in is defensively specced as enemies that attack our positions using the corridor from the right can engage us (and vice versa) at mid-to-long range
- Biotic Bubble seen in the second plan is offensively specced as enemies that enter it's area there instantly tie us in close range combat or even CQC and we want to defeat them really fast

Considering that you're playing AJ, it's also a good idea to team up with some players that use characters that provide better synergy with yours as it's important on Platinum.

Check this thread: Asari Commandos Gold&Platinum runs group (PC) for some friendly asari players to trigger your BE's.

Modifié par Annelos, 20 août 2012 - 08:17 .

[dzero]

Thanks for this build, I can't wait to try it. I've always wanted to play a defensive justicar but found the full defense shield to just have limited use; I don't know why I never took the radius evolution, it makes so much more sense. Thanks dude.