I doubt any other class can clear a battlefield as fast as a vanguard.
In my experience this is a bit mission and build-dependent. When facing large open spaces with intermittent cover and large numbers of weaker enemies that can be ambushed in small clusters, then yes - Vanguard is hard to beat. Since many missions are like this, one could argue that Vanguard has an overall speed advantage in ME2 (Insanity). However, for missions with smaller numbers of heavier enemies, swarms in tight quarters, or enemies that are harder to isolate and ambush sequentially, I think other classes can be competitive (or even superior) on a speed basis (see post #71 for examples). Overall I think ME2 is actually pretty well balanced in terms of class efficacy (compared to SP ME3 for example...).
In my experience this is a bit mission and build-dependent. When facing large open spaces with intermittent cover and large numbers of weaker enemies that can be ambushed in small clusters, then yes - Vanguard is hard to beat. Since many missions are like this, one could argue that Vanguard has an overall speed advantage in ME2 (Insanity). However, for missions with smaller numbers of heavier enemies, swarms in tight quarters, or enemies that are harder to isolate and ambush sequentially, I think other classes can be competitive (or even superior) on a speed basis (see post #71 for examples). Overall I think ME2 is actually pretty well balanced in terms of class efficacy (compared to SP ME3 for example...).
Can you recommend a thread pertaining to the balance and class efficacy of SP ME3?
Can you recommend a thread pertaining to the balance and class efficacy of SP ME3?
Most of the class discussions were probably taking place in summer of 2012, which had a different metagame than ME3 did after patches that altered combos and then weapon balance.
This is probably one of the better ones, although more geared to personal rating. Some efficiency discussion.
The only situation I found it hard to manage was when I couldn't reach the target via charge. I could take on 3 krogan at the same time without issues. One of them being a mini boss for instance.
I went face to face with the colossus and made that whole part of the game last less the 2 minutes. It was one single enemy. The main advantage is not needing cover and being able to teleport.
Most of the class discussions were probably taking place in summer of 2012, which had a different metagame than ME3 did after patches that altered combos and then weapon balance.
This is probably one of the better ones, although more geared to personal rating. Some efficiency discussion.
Infiltrator and Vanguard are the best in terms of strength by a fairly wide margin in ME3, IMO.
I do not want to derail this ME2 thread, but I do appreciate it. I played this game years ago, but patches have a way of altering game play, sometimes significantly.
I do not want to derail this ME2 thread, but I do appreciate it. I played this game years ago, but patches have a way of altering game play, sometimes significantly.
For ME3, it wasn't quite as dramatic as things they did in DAI, but it did increase the power of tech characters and soldiers a bit. Didn't dethrone Infiltrator or Vanguard though. It did make Sentinel even more unkillable by buffing DR.
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Back to ME2, I have been working on a project that has been in the works a while, running a Claymore Soldier. In any case, I still stand by my comments for ME2 and the classes. What is somewhat funny is that my Shotgun Adept was probably a little better at some things than this Soldier, although obviously the Adept couldn't run the Claymore. Soldier doesn't have a fast on demand CC power available, outside of elbow of doom.
While I may have had fewer deaths in that adept run than my last adept run, I preferred the last one because there was less start-stop action. In my last run I did not use the power wheel as much but instead relied more on the d-pad for more seamless action. Unfortunately, that also resulted in a lot of accidental positioning orders for my squad mates. It was especially bad during the Platform fight when my squad kept dying over and over. I ended up dying once during that fight.
For not dying, however, my Engineer did the best. After Horizon I think I might have died all of once, maybe twice. At any rate, not much. (Except during the final fight of Overlord where I died two or three times.)
I do wonder what "best" means when I read this thread.
My number 1 complaint about many ME2 classes is they eventually become a 1 button class or become practically un-killable. Who needs cover when you can spam charge as a vanguard, practically perma-slow time as a soldier, or become a tech armor god who no longer needs to use cover?
My first play through was with an infiltrator and it didn't take long for me to feel like I was stuck in a rut. Same routine on every fight. Go into cover, stealth, head shot, stealth, head shot, stealth head shot, etc.
I'm currently trying out a vanguard. Vanguard started out feeling dynamic but after horizon I can practically perma-charge someone and never die. That's even more boring.
Before the vanguard I tinkered with a sentinel. Once again I find myself ignoring cover, running around, shooting things and being un-killable. No strategy required.
The soldier avoids this to some extent. Yes they spam adrenaline rush, but they choose their weapon load out. They can mimic the infiltrator, or run up and shoot someone with a shotgun. Or just pop around a corner and unload an assault rifle on something. Am I crazy? I must be crazy.
I believe Adept would probably feel similarly on low-difficulty settings, considering how singularity would be spammed. I'm guessing it would go singularity, warp, repeat.
The engineer was the last class I experimented with. I was completely put off by it (maybe because I AM an engineer IRL). It is quite dynamic. Sure you can spam drone, but what's the point. You want your drone out long enough to do what it is going to do. Off-tank, strip shields, or kill things. But the fact you can overload, incinerate, or cryo creates an interesting dynamic. Every fight I'm debating what to us, which is more optimal. I'm almost tempted to gibb my saved game and make them an engineer.
My primary issue with engineer is I feel like I lack kill power. Engineer is more about control. I like seeing things go boom. I just want to be more dynamic about it is all.
Infiltrator, Soldier, Vanguard and Sentinel do become quite static in their play styles, because three of them are weapon focused classes, so its gonna be use weapons + one or two key powers to facilitate your weapons. Engineer and Adept are kind of reverse where your weapons are the supportive tools to your powers. Dominate Adept and Reave Engineer are both really fun playstyles with lots of casting of abilities, and are shotgun friendly too which is my preferred style.
Infiltrator, Soldier, Vanguard and Sentinel do become quite static in their play styles, because three of them are weapon focused classes, so its gonna be use weapons + one or two key powers to facilitate your weapons. Engineer and Adept are kind of reverse where your weapons are the supportive tools to your powers. Dominate Adept and Reave Engineer are both really fun playstyles with lots of casting of abilities, and are shotgun friendly too which is my preferred style.
Doesn't reave pretty much dominate any class? What I mean is, don't you end up just spamming reave if you select it as your bonus power?
I tried a dominiate/hack engineer for a while too. Interesting, but boring to watch my minions kill things. I'd rather be the one killing them. The upside for drone in that view is it is great to keep enemies pre-occupied while you finish off one group and then can switch back to them.
Doesn't reave pretty much dominate any class? What I mean is, don't you end up just spamming reave if you select it as your bonus power?
For the most part yes, but Engineer slightly less so since you can cast a drone and have it float around while you use the next few cooldowns with Reave. I remember strive doing a couple demonstration runs with reave engineer several years ago, there probably are others.
I did a Reave soldier years ago, and it basically takes the place for Adrenaline Rush, and might actually mesh better with the Claymore than your trademark power. Of course I couldn't use the Claymore as well as I can now since I wasn't reload canceling it.
Getting back to "one trick pony" monikers for the vanilla classes, I think that is largely the case with all of them except Adept and Engineer. Their powers are a bit more specialized. Adept is a bit nuanced though since a couple at first glance appear to be the same (Singularity and Pull), but they are not. Infiltrator is the next up where you can in fact go through the game using only Cloak, but I doubt that is the best way. The other three are almost always best with trademark power spam, at least in vanilla incarnations.
... Adept is a bit nuanced though since a couple at first glance appear to be the same (Singularity and Pull), but they are not. ...
You have piqued my interest. I assumed they are both primarily used to setup warp combos. This is one of the primary reasons I do not like adepts. But perhaps there is more than meets the eye here.
You have piqued my interest. I assumed they are both primarily used to setup warp combos. This is one of the primary reasons I do not like adepts. But perhaps there is more than meets the eye here.
Singularity will hold protected enemies in place so they can't move. If there is a Krogan coming at you, then hitting him with a Singularity will stop him in his tracks while you work to take off his armor. Using Singularity on Harbinger will prevent him from using his powers until he breaks free of the Singularity.
Pull cannot be used on protected enemies except to very slightly stagger them.
Pull travels faster than Singularity.
Singularity can be used on choke points and if you use Throw instead of Warp will provide an effective combo without having the Singularity expire.
When doing Collector missions, especially, but not just those missions, having both Pull and Singularity is best: use Singularity on a boss unit, like Harbinger, which you wish to temporarily take out of the action, then use Pull on stripped mooks for combos.
The following is an example of using Singularity on Harbinger while using Pull on mooks.
Doesn't reave pretty much dominate any class? What I mean is, don't you end up just spamming reave if you select it as your bonus power?
I tried a dominiate/hack engineer for a while too. Interesting, but boring to watch my minions kill things. I'd rather be the one killing them. The upside for drone in that view is it is great to keep enemies pre-occupied while you finish off one group and then can switch back to them.
Drone, Reave, and Overload mostly, but drone is probably the most spammed ability. Its like a ghetto singularity by staggering enemies and somewhat functions as an aoe taunt. Reave and Overload for defense stripping. Reave buffs your hp and heals you as well IIRC. Another user took it a bit further and added Cryo Blast too, but I found it unnecessary, and I just elected for AI Hacking to help with Geth heavy missions. Three commonly used skills with one highly situational one.. 3.5/5 ability usage isn't bad compared to Soldier, Assault Sentinel, and Vanguard gameplay which is one or two power based usually.
A pure Engineer and Adept will probably get close to 5/5, but shockwave is subpar, and I've never really cared for Cryo Blast on Engineers.
Adept is my favorite if your're looking for varied power usage.. I'd go with this..
All five will get used on a standard mission. Pull and Throw are great for sending enemies off the map and detonating warp; they are low cooldown as well. Warp is well warp it blows stuff up. Singularity and Stasis are excellent CC the former being capable of detonations too. Here's a video of mine that kind of demonstrates the varied power usage. About as varied as ME can be tho, considering the global cooldown and 5-6 skill limit. Mr. Boz has excellent Adept videos too showing off lots of varied builds/ability usage. He/She is the original ME2 Adept pioneer, and did everything from Shockwave Adept to Dominate Adept.
Some pretty cool adept videos there. I will definitely consider it, but one thing did dawn on me. I did not realize there was such a discrepancy for hotkeys between console and PC. A controller gives me 3 hot keys for Shepard and 2 short cuts for squad. But I'm seeing a total of 8 here (3 more). That's pretty amazing. I'm not sure if 5 valuable skills is a good idea for a console player due to all the pausing that would be required.
It's pretty cool that there are builds and classes that use that diverse of a skill palette though.
^Yeah, I have never played any of the trilogy on console or with a controller. The guys Bioware got to port ME1 to PC introduced the 8 quick slots and went with the command HUD as opposed to the power wheel. ME2 gets the biggest benefit from quickslots since powers are a little more specialized than in the other two games.
Getting back to Adept, cap and gown pretty much covered it. Singularity is really best for sticking elite units or trying to control a choke. Pull is a better power for simply ragdolling targets or even priming for warp bombs or throw combos because it has a faster cooldown. This is of course from an efficiency perspective, you can (and probably will early game) use Singularity for simple ragdolling.
Anyway, that is part of why I said Adept is more nuanced. Engineer is near it in the spectrum, but it is a bit more obvious when you should use one power over another. See armor, use incinerate. See shields, use Overload. Of course Incinerate is a good choice for organic targets who are nearly shield stripped, and Cryo Blast can be used against defenses in a pinch, which makes the power choice a little more complicated if you want to get advanced.
Some pretty cool adept videos there. I will definitely consider it, but one thing did dawn on me. I did not realize there was such a discrepancy for hotkeys between console and PC. A controller gives me 3 hot keys for Shepard and 2 short cuts for squad. But I'm seeing a total of 8 here (3 more). That's pretty amazing. I'm not sure if 5 valuable skills is a good idea for a console player due to all the pausing that would be required.
It's pretty cool that there are builds and classes that use that diverse of a skill palette though.
Apparently another difference is that you can max out 5 powers plus the passive on the PC whereas on the Xbox you can only max out 4 powers plus the passive.
Apparently another difference is that you can max out 5 powers plus the passive on the PC whereas on the Xbox you can only max out 4 powers plus the passive.
How do you max out so many? I can gibb my Xbox saves more points but that's cheating.
I haven't played in ME2 in a while, but I thought it was 4 skills maxed, 5th skill was a one point wonder, and a maxed class passive. At least that's what I remember on PC.
Look at the tail end of that Mattock Adept vid. The player has 5 skills maxed plus the passive, plus one point in Stasis. A person can do wonders on the PC. Maybe you could do that for the xbox with gibbed, but I don't know how.
I think that was because of gibbed. I remember trying to make a shockwave build, but outside of Grunt's recruitment mission it never was really reliable. I was probably too lazy to take the points off after trying to figure out which skills it meshed best with.
I looked at my other videos and they are all 4 skills / passive maxed, with one point in a 5th ability, and a completely empty ability.
^Yeah, I have never played any of the trilogy on console or with a controller. The guys Bioware got to port ME1 to PC introduced the 8 quick slots and went with the command HUD as opposed to the power wheel. ME2 gets the biggest benefit from quickslots since powers are a little more specialized than in the other two games.
They should have implemented a way to Script the actions of your Teammates. Like, when Someone is facing an enemy with Shields, use Overload. With Armor, use Incinerate, If barrier, Warp, If has no shields use Cryo Blast, or Pull etc.
Then you would focus only in your gameplay and your teammates would be all the time doing the optimal thing for a given situation.
They should have implemented a way to Script the actions of your Teammates. Like, when Someone is facing an enemy with Shields, use Overload. With Armor, use Incinerate, If barrier, Warp, If has no shields use Cryo Blast, or Pull etc.
Then you would focus only in your gameplay and your teammates would be all the time doing the optimal thing for a given situation.
Yeah that would have been nice. Would have been something like DAO (at least with Advanced Tactics mod).
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