The Turian Havoc melee build relies heavily on a trick called dual strike that was mentioned by players on this board soon after the release of the DLC. I am going to detail this technique later in this guide, how to do it and what are its pros and its cons. But basically it involves using havoc strike and meleeing at the same time.
First we’re going to have a look at the power specs and weapon/gear setups.
Powers:
Havoc strike: 6 ranks. This skill is essential for the build. It allows to charge in on enemies from afar just like the vanguard’s biotic charge. Provides invincibility or at least extremely high DR and stagger immunity while charging. Does not restore shields, but we have stimulant packs for that. Gives attack bonuses and puts enemies on fire. It is possible to move right after landing on the enemies, making dash escapes easy. It’s also possible to use it in the later frames of both forward and backward dash.Rank 4: Force and damage. As we will see later, the dual strike if done well doesn’t trigger a cooldown and as such the other evolution is not very interesting. It’s better to take more damage.
Rank 5: Melee damage. The other evolution is very good too but this build being a melee one, it’s quite obvious that we’re going to pick melee damage.
Rank 6: Incendiary Strike. While the other option can be very appealing to deal more damage, this build is fighting extremely close to the enemies and as such needs to hit as much of them as possible when fighting groups. That way you can use your havoc strike as a form of control, concentrating mainly on one target while stunning all the others and finishing them later. The fire effect is a nice bonus too.
Stimulant pack: 6 ranks. The cornerstone of the Turian Havoc’s survivability. Restores your shields instantly and gives you bonus shields and damage for a short duration at the cost of one mere grenade. It’s too good to pass up.Rank 4: Max shields. As we’re going to use packs mainly as a survival tool, we’ll be going for max shields here rather than damage.
Rank 5: Duration. Just one more grenade isn’t worth the increase in duration. You can still get more grenades with gear. Anyway proper use of packs is crucial for this build to be viable, so it’s better to make each pack used count and have its shields and damage bonuses last for as long as possible.
Rank 6: Survival. Gives a whooping 4000 max shields bonus and a nice 25% melee bonus, not even counting the small additional damage bonuses to everything. For our build, this is a no brainer.
Cryo blast: 0 ranks. This skill could be interesting for this build, unfortunately I don’t see the point in dropping the 6th rank of another skill to get a rank 3 debuff skill that won’t be fully reliable and also use your cooldowns that you will need for the dual strike. It’s your choice, you could drop Armiger Legion rank 6 to take it, but I prefer having 10% more weapon damage all the time instead and not having a skill that can potentially prevent me dual striking when I’m waiting for the cooldown to be back.
Armiger Legion: 6 ranks. For this passive, we’ll be getting mostly power damage boosts to make the dual strike more powerful. So the spec here is pretty simple. Rank 4: Damage and capacity, Rank 5: Power damage and finally Rank 6: Weapon damage as we don’t care that much about cooldowns and won’t be using an AR anyway.
Fitness: 6 ranks. Pretty obvious for a full melee spec, we’re going to put all the points on the top row. Rank 4: Melee Damage, Rank 5: Martial Artist, Rank 6: Melee synergy. Survivability isn’t an issue at all with this spec. We have over 900 base shields, the best dodge in the game and the option to restore all shields instantly AND get 4000 bonus shields.Weapon: Here we need a weapon that can give massive melee damage bonuses, is accurate enough to help taking enemies from afar when you can’t afford to melee, and enables us to get rid of accuracy and/or anti-armor mods.
The Graal Spike thrower is the perfect choice. With Omni-Blade and High caliber Barrel mods. Preferably with an ammo consumable that can set up tech explosions to detonate with Havoc Strike.
First, it is a shotgun, which allows you to carry the best melee mod in the game. Second, it is very accurate and has great damage especially with headshots. Third, it staggers enemies, which makes it a great CC tool at close range. And fourth, the charge mechanic allows it to shoot automatically at the targeted enemy when havoc striking or meleeing. We'll see the applications for this later.
Other viable options for this build include:
-The GPS with the same mods, but you’ll be losing the ability to deliver powerful headshots and will have to cope with a bit more weight.
-The Crusader with Omni-Blade + Shredder or High velocity barrel mod. But you lose the charge mechanic and have to deal with a very heavy beast, which limits the use of plain havoc strike severely.
Any other shotgun will not do the trick, as there is no way to combine your mods and ammo without giving up either the accuracy, the armor piercing, tech explosions set ups or the melee damage bonus. Plus you won’t benefit from the charge mechanic in any case.
Gear:
For the ammo equipment, as I said above it is better to have one that can set up tech explosions. Incendiary and Disruptor ammo are thus the best choices, followed by Cryo which is much more limited due to the requirement of having to wait for the enemy to freeze in order to do a cryo explosion. All the mods that can give plain damage bonuses against various defenses like AP, warp or phasic are interesting but not as much as the above. Drill is completely irrelevant on a weapon that can’t pierce anyway, and Explosive rounds won’t do much good to a weapon that already staggers well.
For the weapon equipment, a strengh enhancer will be perfect. There isn’t much to explain there.
On armor, the choice is up to you. Best choices IMO are those that boost your power damage to further boost havoc strike or adrenaline mods to help mobility. Shield mods are irrelevant with stimulant packs.
And finally for the permanent gear, the grenade capacity is the best choice. You’ll need as much stimulant packs as possible. Considering that they give +25% melee damage bonus (more in fact considering the additional damage), it’s better to have more packs than taking any melee boosting gear that won’t go any further than +15% anyway. If you’re confident that you can be reasonable with your pack use, you can also pick Shock Trooper upgrade to boost shotgun damage at the price of 3 less packs.
Dual Strike:
Now that we covered the basic build, let’s talk about the Dual Strike technique. To perform a dual strike, you need to input the heavy melee in the very early frames of the havoc strike startup. Basically, you hit the havoc strike key first, then rapidly slide to the heavy melee key. If done well, your character will perform an heavy melee while being surrounded by the havoc strike flames and will be hovering in the air in a strange way.
This technique has many advantages:
- If done correctly it doesn’t trigger a cooldown. So you can perform it again right after.
- You seemingly retain the invincibility or very high DR of the havoc strike during the motion, so you’re not vulnerable to damage during the attack.
- Just as the Havoc strike and the heavy melee, it can be done from the later frames of a forward or backward dash.
- It allows to apply both havoc strike and heavy melee damage at the same time and of course to benefit from havoc strike boosts. If you use the Graal with Disruptor or Incendiary ammo as I suggested, by charging up your gun while performing dual strike, you will be able to shoot, havoc strike, trigger a tech burst or fire explosion and then heavy melee, all that in rapid succession and in a mere second.
However it also has a few cons, mainly because it retains some of the properties of the heavy melee:
- Just as the heavy melee, you’re vulnerable to stagger during the technique. However you almost won’t take damage during the technique so you can still hit a pack and then do it right after.
- Contrary to plain havoc strike it doesn’t allow to move right after. So you have a small recovery animation to cope with.
- Its range is basically limited to heavy melee range. You can’t use it on enemies that are at the other end of the map, you have to close-in first.
Strategy:
Now that we’re done with the explanations, let’s go into the overall and faction-specific strategy.
Basic strategy:
On troopers, close in the distance while maintaining the shoot button and when in melee range, spam the hell out of dual strike. By always maintaining the shoot button, your character will always shoot at the moment you hit the havoc strike button. If there are many enemies, use a stim pack right after the first dual strike to protect yourself and boost the following damage you will inflict to the group of enemies.
Some enemies are so weak that doing a full dual strike with charged graal will often be overkill though. That’s particularly true if you’re playing on the easier difficulties. For those, just give up charging graal before dual strike, or just charge graal + heavy melee or even plain heavy melee once in a while to ensure that you can sustain your melee synergy by getting enough melee kills.
Against bigger foes, you won’t always be able to use dual strike, and will be sometimes forced to play at range. Be wary of sync kills, staggers and use the technique at the right moment when it’s possible. Otherwise aim for headshots and take bosses from afar when it’s too dangerous. See the faction specific tactics for more details.
Every time you feel in danger dodge to get out of the way. When shields are down or in last resort, use a pack and go back to the offensive right afterwards to make good use of the bonuses.
Cerberus: They are the easiest faction to use this build on IMO. Most units are very vulnerable to stagger and can’t resist to heavy damage. Some units definitely require some attention though.
- Troopers, Centurions, Nemesises, Engineers: basic cannon fodder. You can follow the basic general strategy of spamming dual strike against them. Just be careful if the engineer dropped a turret nearby. You can take the hit thanks to the packs but you’ll need to eliminate the turret quickly before continuing your havoc.
- Guardians: their shields prevent the use of dual strike on them. So just mail slot them or use havoc strike to lift their shields and then headshot. Don’t forget that the graal has better accuracy when NOT hip fired but aimed.
- Dragoons and Phantoms: Those two usually come together and are not that hard to destroy with rapid dual strike successions. The dragoons will sometimes stun you out of dual strike, but they will take the havoc strike damage in any case and you can still redo it again and kill them anyway. Pay attention to phantoms if they managed to land a melee hit on you while dual striking. If it is the case, dash back and engage at distance for some time to avoid the sync kill. They always try to perform it after doing a melee attack.
- Atlases: Probably the most difficult enemy in the faction to deal with as a melee build. Approach carefully at dual strike range when he isn’t shooting and perform dual strikes on him. If he melees, dash back to avoid the sync kill, engage him at a distance while waiting for a good time to approach again.
Geth: The absence of sync kills makes it a relatively easy faction to bring a melee build on, however you have to be careful of staggers as dual strike is vulnerable to them.
- Geth troopers, Rocket troopers, Pyros: They are mostly cannon fodder that you can dual strike to death. Just be careful of the damage and abuse your ability to soak it up with stim packs and the dual strike DR.
- Geth hunters: Much like the dragoons, they will probably stagger you out of your dual strike but you can just repeat again. Just be careful of what’s around when engaging them to not get killed when staggered, and abuse stim packs to soak up the potential damage.
- Geth bombers: They are easy to dual strike, just be careful of the timing when you perform it. You don’t want to land stupidly in the cluster of bombs after killing him.
- Geth Prime: His melee is powerful, so be sure to eliminate his pets before engaging him on melee. You don’t want to get killed by a turret when he or his drone staggers you. Once you’re in range, the AOE of havoc strike should make his summons harder. Here again a stim pack can help you a lot in tanking him.
Reapers: IMO this is the hardest faction to deal with for this build. Several units just deny you the opportunity to melee at times. So you’ll have to rely on ranged combat more often than usual.
- Husks: Just be careful to not dual strike them after they melee you. If you do, they can grab you out of it. If you’re the first to strike there should be no problem, but it’s safer to kill them with your shotgun.
- Marauders and Cannibals: the only two units in the faction you can stomp easily with dual strike. Nothing particular here.
- Ravagers: You can melee them but the swarmers + the acid might get you killed if you don’t use a stim pack right after. And they can deny your approach with their ranged attack. You can still soak up the rays and approach at the same time with a plain havoc strike, but you’ll have to wait for the cooldown after closing in, which prevents you from using dual strike. It’s better to take them away at range in most cases as otherwise the use of stim packs is pretty much mandatory.
- Brutes: I recommend to always fight at range against them. They can stagger you very easily with their attacks at close range, and they do them in rapid succession.
- Banshees: There is one simple rule to follow, never try to get too close to her when she’s teleporting or you’re in for a death hug. Just headshot her with your shotgun and when she stops to warp, you can finally close in and spam dual strike. Just remind to back off when she starts moving again.
Collectors: moderately hard faction for this build, maybe 2nd hardest after the Reapers. A few units are dangerous to melee, some require precautions.
- Swarms: You can melee if you’re certain to hit first. Don’t melee if they already are very close to you as they will explode on you during your dual strike. Start your dual strike from reasonable range. If you’re afraid to mess up, good shotgun shots are always good.
- Abominations: The normal ones are easy to dual strike, they will usually be blown back by the effect and explode further away. For the possessed ones it’s better to avoid dual striking and take them from a distance. In both cases, you can avoid them exploding by finishing them with a good headshot. And just like the husks be careful not to dual strike after they melee you because they can also grab you.
- Collector troopers and captains: they’re the easy targets to dual strike in this faction. Just be wary of swarms and don’t go into the possessed trooper’s webs.
- Scions: Tactic is pretty similar to the Atlas, except the scions are surprisingly slow to melee, and as such are a much safer melee target. Approach carefully while popping up one of their shoulder things if possible, spam dual strike when in range and back off if they melee.
- Praetorian: Never, ever try to melee these guys or you’re in for some serious trouble. They are very fast to melee if you approach them and they tend to follow-up immediately with a sync kill pretty often. However, they’re not that hard to deal with for this build. Just fight them from a distance while aiming at the groin to make the skulls appear and continue shooting there. They’re pretty easy to keep away as they will roll often if you consistently land strong hits on that spot. If they start doing their laser, don’t panic and do plain dual strike to soak up the damage and dash back immediately to go back to long range fighting.
And... here it is! I hope this guide will help you have fun with this build. Don’t hesitate to contribute or ask questions if you have any.
Modifié par Dream-Maker, 25 octobre 2012 - 09:36 .
Retour en haut
My Graal is only at III but I love it anyway, so I'm not shy to use it. Will be testing in silver for a bit since my soldiers arent leveled right now anyway. I'll put what points I have in HS first, fitness/melee and then SP and will fill in the passive as I go.
