I have a lot of gripes with ME2, and will gear up for a bit rant sometime soon. However, in this particular thread, I want to defend biotics and the Adept a little bit.
Of course, biotics are not as powerful now as they were in ME1. They are not an Answer to All Questions - merely one of the available tools. But, they still provide for a unique and enjoyable playstyle.
First, there's
Warp. Awesome power, and straight away it sets the Adept apart from everyone else. Even though some squadmates also have Warp, theirs has a 12 second cooldown, as opposed to the Adept's 6 seconds; plus, Biotic Mastery reduces cooldowns by another 20%. The Adept can spam 2-3 Warps in the time a squadmate casts one. Compared to gunfire, Warp is fast to shoot off, self-guided, and can reach behind cover - minimising your exposure to enemy fire and reaching hidden enemies.
OFC, spamming Warp can get tedious; but so is spamming powers of other classes.
But, we all know Warp is cool; so let's get to the other powers.
Here's a list of situations I found biotics other than Warp to be useful in:
1. Singularity/Wide Singularity: With a 4,5 sec. cooldown, and stopping power affecting even shielded enemies so that they can't advance on your position, it's an excellent opener. While the enemies are pinned down, drop their shields/armor with Warp and gunfire. Plus, Warp Explosion is great. And, of course, Singularity is priceless when faced with a crowd of health-only mooks - allows to take care of the trash quickly & efficiently in order to focus on the big boys.
2. Throw/Throw field: 3 words: THREE SECOND COOLDOWN. With -20% Mastery and -20% upgrade, this gets down to 2 seconds. Perfect when you're being rushed by a crowd of Husks, Varren, & various other low-level mooks with no defenses but big numbers. Or, when you've just gotten that Krogan down to his health, but he's already charging, and there's no way you're gonna kill him with one Warp or a burst from the SMG. Don't know about you, but stuff like that happened to me pretty often during my Adept playthrough. Throw, SMG burst for 2 seconds, and Warp = 1 dead Krogan or Geth Hunter instead of 1 dead Shepard.
3. Domination/Heavy Domination: On higher levels, it cools off faster than the Domination effect runs out, so you or Morinth will always have a slave to soak up enemy fire. Just as importantly, it makes the enemies switch their tactics to focus on the new, closer foe - which more often than not makes them change cover, exposing themselves to your squad's fire. It's more tactical than most other powers, but I think it rocks: there are plenty of Domination-worthy powerful organic enemies (although it still doesn't compare to hacking a YMIR).
4. Pull/Pull Field, Shockwave - didn't use them myself, but they were somewhat decent on SuZe with her +20% biotic damage. Since I didn't use Suze all that much anyway, can't comment a lot here; Reave - killed Samara so don't know.
So, Biotics are not just cool finishing moves IMO. They range from awesome (Warp) to very useful CC (Singularity) to situational CC/panic button (Throw) to very original and tactical (Domination). And, of course, there are "meh" powers - but you won't have enough points to max them anyway, so why even talk about them.
Now to speak about the Adept as a whole. I, for one, was surprised at how this class played out, and not altogether unpleasantly. ME1 Adept was the quintessential D&D Wizard - weak defense (light armor only), intended-as-weak offense (the pistol power was broken, but that's a balance issue), but awesome offensive & defensive "spells" that could be unleashed in quick succession, followed by a long period of cooldown. Personally, although I adore the D&D Wizards, I prefer to play casters who are also warriors. Something about "squishiness" does not exactly appeal to me. I preferred the Vanguard over the Adept in ME1, but it feld kinda broken (Adrenaline Rush being so much better than all of the Adept's bonuses). In this respect, ME2 Adept's ability to wear cool heavy armor and wield weapons such as the Tempest SMG, Sniper or the AR, while at the same time being very biotic focused, was very welcome in my book.
Once you come to terms with the necessity to use your gun and to play much more tactically than ME1 ever demanded, ME2 becomes quite entertaining for an Adept. I used Warp Ammo as a bonus power, so as not to overstrain my cooldowns, and found Heavy Warp + Wide Singularity + Nemesis + Sniper to be an excellent build with varied powers suitable for different situations. I started to play on Veteran and then switched to Hardcore, and it was fun through and through. Having a good mouse with lots of assignable buttons helps a lot to use powers quickly and efficiently.
But,
OFC, I would prefer biotics to be useful more often/in more ways. From the lore perspective, the "mass effect" nature of biotics ought to affect targets regardless of shields/armor. Here's how I think it should have been made:
1. Shields not affected by biotics at all, but not stopping biotics from affecting target (maybe with a reduced effectiveness);
2. Armor makes targets more resistant to biotics - i.e. target is considered "heavier" when pulled/thrown/singed (ME1 had a similar thing with one of the exoskeleton armor uprgades), and Warp/Singularity do less damage. This makes sense because the target has much more mass and is much more dense on the outside;
3. Pure health highly affected by biotics - i.e. Heavy Warp killing them outright (completely messes up internal organs), and Throw smashing them so hard they lose consciousness for a time;
4. Barrier having a unique relationship with biotics - can completely stop some powers (pull/throw) but is totally destroyed by Warp (maybe even damaging target).
Sure, it would require some balancing, but overall would make the game much more fun. And it would be even more fun to be able to customise your own armor (and that of your squad) to specifically counter some biotic threats. I.e.: if you know you're going against biotics, putting on more armor at the expense of shields might be a good idea.
But, oh well. Gotta use what we've got.
Going back to the game, now. Have fun.
Modifié par Malcroix, 31 janvier 2010 - 06:08 .
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