DCC at Level 18 with the Warp 2 Throw 2 build. Thane and Miranda (Unstable Warp on both).
I think I should have bought another biotic upgrade before this mission. Was sitting at Biotic 3. The Warp into Pull combo doesn't seem to work correctly sometimes so either my squad isn't doing quite enough damage, or it is the lame glitch where targets sometimes aren't affected if they are in an animation / staggered.
Anyway I posted a run earlier, but wasn't happy with it and unlisted it and put up this one. I like this one a little better, but I wasn't going to redo mission order to get to DCC with a different squad. I could have probably swung by Tuchanka for a shotgun or biotic upgrade though if I had been thinking about it beforehand. Pertinent upgrades were:
Shotgun 2 + Shield Piercing
SMG 5 + Shield Piercing + Extra Rounds
Pistol 2 + AP
Biotic 3 + Duration + Cooldown
Skin Weave 4 + Bone + Muscle
Damage Protection 3 + Redundant Field + Hard Shields
It is a shame there aren't some of the in depth references to ME2 that there are for ME3 data. I don't know the best way to datamine enemy hp pools, for instance.
But anyway, if you really want to go with a DCC optimized build this probably isn't it. I don't usually tend to respec my characters for every mission, so I go with what I think works decently throughout most missions. Maybe tomorrow I will do a Blue Suns or Eclipse heavy one with this character.
Despite the time we've spend debating this, you and I are actually quite close in opinion about build progression of a pull field Adept. I think the ONLY thing I would change is here (at level 18): putting the extra points in rank 4 warp (instead of banking them in pull 3). Then after mission, respec to pull 4, throw 2, warp 3 (assuming level 19 after mission).
I don't think respeccing once in a playthrough is that unreasonable. With Vanguard, for example, I always initially take rank 1 slam (as a poor man's pull), then respec to rank 1 stasis and rank 1 pull (+ rank 2 shockwave) when I have enough points. (The unlock system is dumb, and I refuse to be beholden to it.)
Well bonus powers have to be flopped if you want Stasis since we can't get it right away on PC (well you can with Gibbed). I don't bother doing Retrain Powers much in the campaign though, it just depends on if you want to be as strong as possible for each individual mission, or avoid scanning a planet.
If you take Jacob on DCC instead of Thane or Miranda (don't have Thane or whatever), then Heavy Warp makes more sense. Or if you want to take Mordin (who is money against the husk swarm, and pretty good spamming Full Cryo Blast even against Barriers). I also didn't have the best case mission order before DCC, it might make some sense to finagle the order to sneak in Samara's LM (which does take some planning or avoidance of Zaeed and or Kasumi).
Singularity + Pull Field makes more sense against Blue Suns, where there are no barriers and a lack of armor, and is still pretty solid v Eclipse with the right party.
One of the things that is also pertinent and gets to my Warp trumping Pull squadmates comment from before is I don't have the GPS, so shotgun squadmates are less useful to me for weapon damage.
OK, I ran some comparisons of rank 1 pull vs. pull field on the Wyrloc Base mission with level 21 shotgun Adept (just so I could better understand where capn233 is coming from). Sure enough, with all the fast and heavy rushing units on the interior portion of this mission, crowd control is particularly important. Thus with Samara and Mordin (sporting dual AOE stripping powers), I admit Pull Field does make pretty light work of things. However, in that configuration I definitely found myself working from range more.
With Miranda and Mordin as squad mates (as capn233 had), I did not find AOE pull to make much of a difference one way or the other. I actually think this mostly illustrates the differences in our play styles: capn233 is much better than I am at run-and-gun tactics, working out of cover close to active (shooting) enemies. Thus being able to instantly disable a debuffed crowd is really important to him. In contrast, I work much more from cover, limiting advances to moments when enemies are not shooting at me as much (so this benefit is less critical). Meanwhile I find enemies tend to drift around a bit with AOE pull (unless I am warp bombing them), whereas Singularity tends to bunch them up, allowing them to be more easily stripped and then immobilized with AOE cryo. Of course this is armored enemies - without Mordin I might feel somewhat differently. But I'm still not sure I would sacrifice rank 3+ Throw or Warp for it.
Anyway, here's a vid of the Weyrloc Base with rank 1 Pull, using singularity and cryo for principle CC, and Pull for single-target manipulation and priming of warp bombs (I prefer not to detonate singularity unless it is fortuitous to do so):
p.s. FYI I found out that if you push your way all the way through the exit door in last room (such that the Krogan cannot get out and thus the door never closes), Guld never even spawns. It's repeatable - I did it three times.
Also, here's another relevant vid (maybe you guys knew about this one, I just discovered it). More evidence for pull field when using run & gun tactics. (And it's actually pretty funny.)
Yeah it comes down to mission and squad preference.
I might not be as bullish about Pull Field on either of the Tuchanka missions. It did seem to help me a fair amount on LOTSB and Justicar, which is around the time I made the post bumping this thread.
In those cases the mission is a little tighter, and it is not unusual for a fight to involve one elite units and some clumped standard shielded mooks. Also LOTSB has the bonus that on the ship exterior, some pulls will fling the targets off.
Last time I played an Adept I think my squad was Zaeed and Thane. Only had level 1 pull, but rushed singularity (heavy, not wide). If you use singularity properly you can pretty much do without a shield stripper completely.
Zaeed is, imo, a really undervalued squadmate. His bonus power staggers/panicks EVERYTHING in a fairly wide range, shields, armor, barriers, it's irrelevant, everything staggers/panicks opening them up for weapon attacks. His weapon bonus damage is insane.. only beaten by Thane's vs Organics. Husks and Collectors are organic btw.
Thane was used as a damage dealer/detonater, Zaeed as damage/dealer stagger. Level 1 pull to immediatly be detonated by Thane. Used heavy warp on Shep.
Btw, on the Broker ship you just hit those electricity rods constantly. You could do without powers completely.
I was making the case for getting Pull Field before Heavy Throw or Heavy Warp, ie rank 4 of either. What I am basically saying is that I think in most fights having Heavy Singularity to stick semi-elites or cluster at a choke, then on-demand multi target CC while your original singularity is still active trumps a bit more explosion or armor damage from Warp, or more force from Throw.
After playing around with Adept again, I decided to reboot this thread. Bottom line: I'm now 100% on board with capn233's comments on this.
Background: after making the last several vids comparing Sentinel vs. Vanguard (each with Stasis and Miranda & Samara as a squadmates), I realized that the Stasis Adept vids of the DCS mission that I recorded all have Jacob as a squadmate (for incendiary ammo), and were made at a time when I had much less experience with either Adept or the Collector Ship mission. So... to be fair, I decided to give Stasis Adept one more go through the DCS level, this time with Samara. I also went all-in on AOE, speccing Shep for Pull Field, Miranda for Unstable Warp, and of course Samara with Area Reave (who at level 20 can pull the barriers and armor off ordinary mooks within a 3m radius). I then ran through the DCS as fast as I could with the same restriction of little to no health damage, etc. Result:
Comments:
Shep's Pull Field is an amazing power on an Adept, with incredible synergy when paired with a squadmate with AOE stripping (like Samara) and a squadmate with Unstable Warp (Miranda or Thane). You can strip enemies, pull them all on into the air near each other, and then detonate any one of them to send the others flying with lots of extra ragdoll damage.
In the past I have argued that it is beneficial to have Heavy Warp on at least one squadmate to reliably inflict AOE damage from a Warp bomb on some enemies; but this assumes stripped enemies are standing. If ragdolled by Pull Field, enemies take a lot more damage, reducing the need for the extra damage from Heavy Warp. Thus I can no longer think of a solid reason to pick Heavy over Unstable Warp on a squadmate given the much larger damage radius and shorter cool down of Unstable.
As demonstrated in this video, Throw at rank 2 really does a great job of most things, including ejecting enemies from play, one-hit killing Abominations, and insta-killing husks. Shep's Warp at rank 2~3 is also adequate most of the time. That's 11~14 XP's that can be spent elsewhere, including on Pull Field.
The CC ability of Incendiary Ammo, while very good, has a more limited effect than active AOE powers. The benefit of immobilizing ammo powers is that they require less attention to cool down management. But for raw speed, I think AOE powers probably trump.
Full disclosure: Adept is definitely more squishy than Sentinel or Vanguard for this sort of thing. With Adept I had to do more runs to get health-damage-free footage than with Vanguard (which in turn required more footage than Sentinel). Perhaps another way to say this is to rank the difficulty of play at the same speed completing the level: Adept > Vanguard > Sentinel (at least for me).
Retour en haut
