1428 réponses à ce sujet

[Soruyao]

Roxlimn wrote...

Ah. There's the rub. I go for Area everything, from Energy Drain to Overload to Reave. The only reason I'm not going area for Warp is because the base warp already has a 5m radius.

I reccomend at some point you try a full single target heavy everything runthrough.   It's absolutely amazing how far you can throw people.   It's a spectacle to behold, and the thing that gets me killed the most is the fact that I tend to stop and watch people fly for a few seconds every time I throw someone.   :3    Sometimes I throw people straight up, and they don't come back down.  This makes me happy.

[kloggson]

Soruyao wrote...
Sometimes I throw people straight up, and they don't come back down.  This makes me happy.

I recently started an adept on insanity and was torn between area throw and heavy. You just made the decision for me!

[Ryouiki]

Having read through this entire thread, I really have to wonder... either some of the people here have not played through the higher level of difficulties (even if they claim otherwise), or perhaps there is some variation in the behavior of the PC version compared to the Xbox 360 version (beyond the inability to modify in the .ini files).  Who knows for sure... just giving my personal observations after multiple Adept play-throughs.

Adept scales very poorly as the difficulty is raised.  It seems to me the development process went from: Shooter/Cover Baseline -> Add Protections -> Vary Weapons for Protections -> Add Skills.  In this sense, any ability that assists in the baseline is far more valuable then anything else... i.e. Weapon Damage modifications have far greater effect then even fully evolved powers (with some exceptions).  classes appear to be some sort of bad afterthought.... "tacked on" as someone else put it.

At any rate, and as much as people argue it, I see much different behavior in Adept abilities:

Throw:  Useless.  Not particularly intended to provide any real level of damage, this "breathing-room" skill is rendered ineffective by both the excessive use of cover, along with increasing levels of protections.  Once protections have been removed there are better alternatives/more useful utilization of time out of cover.

Pull:  Partially Useless.  Works as intended in lower difficulties, but becomes increasingly ineffective as difficulty scales.  At highest levels of difficulty usage of this skill is actually detrimental (assuming you removed protections).. by Insanity, an Adept can only survive for a split-second outside of cover so closing the gap is not a good thing... nothing is worse then "pulling" someone, only to have them land behind you while 10 people are shooting at you from the front.

Singularity:  Mediocre at best.  Radius is small, even in "Wide" version (enemies other then Husks tend not to stand on top of each other)... by Insanity it is nearly nullified, as everything has one or more levels of protections (including Husks), meaning it is always single target, and in my experience has very inconsistent behavior.  Enemies *can* use powers and/or fire under its "hold" effect when protections are up (have seen this on many occasions), and moving enemies can sometimes completely ignore it (my guess is due to low radius paired with activation time).  Also... regardless of form, any damage to shields or otherwise is negligible.

Shockwave: Partially Useless.  Lower difficulties can supplant singularity for Husk crowd scenarios, but by Insanity is completely ineffective due to protections.

Warp:  Mediocre at best.  Only abilities other then Singularity that is available for more then the last 1/10th of fighting a specific enemy at higher difficulties.  Even in evolved form has poor damage/time compared to weapons.  Advantageous only  in the fact that it can be curved around cover.  Once difficulty is raised to insanity, requires multiple uses just to strip armor protection for humanoids, dozens for larger encounters.

This leads to the argument that having a "good" team is then the solution the vast majority of the above problems.  Unfortunately... computer controller characters are extremely unreliable (by Insanity they are just Medi-gel sponges), and that essentially you can provide them nearly no support.  If you can't contribute... then what is the point of even having the above abilities, since in the end Weapons always work.

[Kroniker81]

Finally someone who got the point.

Thanks for pointing out the 'you-need-correct-team-setup!' fallacy. Totally forgot to demolish that stupid argument.

[aquatine]

I am going to preface this post with "I only recently beat the game on veteran as an adept and am playing on Hardcore as an Engineer"



And now for the post. Everyone talks about how the game is scaled, given my experience on Vet and the posts I've read hear it seems to me that the games was designed around the Veteran difficulty level, which, honestly, makes sense as it is the middle difficulty. While I will admit that Warp is 96% of the time the ONLY relevant ability (throw is honestly just useful for laughs and getting the achievement) it does eat away at everything but shields. That being said, the problems mentioned with the insanity difficulty are (I don't have the ability list memorized) alleviated by the use of powers granted from previous plays. I feel that is a legitimate practice on BioWare's part because the difficulty says it is intended for play after playing hardcore, meaning you are SUPPOSED to use any and all bonuses from previous efforts at other difficulties.



Again, I'm working my way up from Adept on Veteran, to Engineer on Hardcore, the probably going to at least attempt Insanity as an Adept to see what all the fuss is about.

[GCreature]

There seems to be some confusion about pull. If you use it on an armoured enemy it'll make them stand up and give them a 2-3 second stun animation. Which is a perfect opportunity for an ally to hit it with a warp/overload, as it's much harder for an ally to hit an enemy in cover. That's with heavy pull btw, I've not tried it with area pull, no idea if it'll work over the full 3m.

[Roxlimn]

Ryouiki:



Rest assured, I am absolutely playing on Hardcore, and I can instruct you to acquire the same results that I am getting. In fact, many people playing on Insanity are already getting similar results.



Throw goes around cover, absolutely. This was demonstrated by the trailer on the Adept, and I can attest that it works as advertised. As long as you can strip enemy defenses, you can Throw them out from cover and then kill them while they recover without the hindrance of return fire for about 3 or 4 seconds (about the time it takes for an unmodifed Throw to cooldown). This is the main use I have for Throw, though I also combo it with Pull, use it to place enemies in better position (for my purposes, anyway) or auto-kill them when possible.



Pull is the preferred anti-cover power for many Adept players. It'll grab enemies more reliably and usually, your entire team can focus fire the Pulled enemy. Also, you can Warp the Pulled enemy for massive area damage - THE go-to use for Pull in my games. There is no excuse for having enemies land behind you whatsoever. Any enemy that gets Pulled should either be almost immediately dead as a result of focus fire, targeted with Warp for the Explosion, or Thrown for the insta-kill.



Singularity - well, I can't speak much for that since my use of it is limited, but I have seen videos of it in use and it is phenomenally useful as a lockdown power at close to medium range. As you notice, it can be hard to loop around cover, so I prefer Pull or Throw generally for that, but for lockdown purposes, Sing is longer lasting.



Warp - apart from Reave, the most generally damaging AoE-capable power that can kill every target in the game. Area Overload is comparable for Synthetics but does not kill organics. Incineration Blast works, too, albeit with a smaller area. Warp Explosion is absolutely the reason to get and advance Warp. Gets better as enemy numbers are larger as it can usually catch more enemies in the blast zone. On Hardcore, Warp Explosion is one of the most devastating weapons I can deploy against groups.



I have had no problems whatsoever with Comp AI allies dying on me early or not being able to use their powers. The argument you're trying to refute is something you did not fully understand, I think. Group dynamic is something you use to fill in the Adept's lack of Shield removal powers. You do the same for the Engineer. You don't have to. You can get Energy Drain as your bonus power and solo reasonably well as an Adept.



The Adept's arsenal of insta-kill or massive damage powers with low cooldowns means that it's usually the worst option for you to gun down your enemies yourself once they're down to Health. Generally, I've found it much more efficient to go for the Pull-Throw or Pull-Warp combo. These power combos allow you to kill any Health-only enemy anywhere in range, regardless of most cover. With cooldown bonuses in place, Pull-Throw will allow you to kill a krogan in 2 seconds from getting him down to Health, while in cover, without sacrificing your bonus slot for AP Ammo, with another 2 seconds on the cooldown. If you can get enough cooldown bonuses, you can do it in less than 2 seconds.



I'm not exaggerating. These are actual in-game values, to which I can refer you for confirmation. You can test it out yourself.



If he's got friends nearby - all the better. Pull him, then Warp him for massive AoE damage.



The point you are trying to make, and which many have, is that you need to get him down to Health to do this. Well, of course! That is only fair because this is an insta-kill combo. If you could insta-kill every target in the game even around cover every 3 or 4 seconds, you would be like an Infiltrator that can fire around cover, while in cover himself, without even having to be a good shot. I hope I don't need to tell you how unfair that is.



Them having defenses simply means that you have to use your SMG (you do have one right? It's upgraded to strip Shields, right?) or your Warp, or your Sing a few times before you insta-kill them. Why is that too much to ask?



I have no particular problems stripping defenses off of large numbers of enemies quickly on Hardcore. On Veteran or lower, many don't even HAVE defenses. That's insta-win for the Adept right there - just like in ME1. Do you have problems along these lines?



Note that no other class gets insta-kill powers or AoE damage of this magnitude at such a low level. Even before level 10, an Adept can deploy Warp Explosion for Warp damage to a 5m radius. A Sentinel does not get that. He can be absolutely fantastic against Synthetics with Area Overload, but no better than any other class that's got Overload, and certainly not significantly better with damage than an Adept with Energy Drain.



Against organics, he's got to use his gun for the kill. That's why many Sentinel players get AP Ammo - they need to use their guns to kill their targets after they strip the defenses. An Adept doesn't need to resort to that.

[Soruyao]

So, I just did the side mission where you take back a spaceship from some blue suns with jacob and grunt, without using warp.



Someone in the topic earlier suggested I try it, assuming that it would destroy my ability to use biotics consistently and varietously.



I will say that I did have to shoot a little more, since my geth pulse rifle was my main means of taking down defenses. I just threw the two of them at enemies and ran around pelting enemies with biotics and shooting them, lifting to pull people out of cover for the two of them to incendiary shotgun things to death. I was able to throw every other enemy, but it was indoors so I mostly just pulled things into melee range and beat them down.



My favorite part was when I walked up to a door that I knew there were enemies behind and positioned the two of them with shotguns right at the door. Jacob even kneeled down so that grunt has a LoS over him. It was kind of like the first scene in star wars EP.5 with darth vader and the stormtroopers. I opened the door an lobbed a singularity in there and the enemies got mercelessly shotgunned in the face. The first volley took out their shields and the singularity grabbed them. I threw a warp in for good measure and they caught on fire and dissolved into dust.



I am changing my earlier opinion: I don't think squad defense removing powers are necessary at all as long as you position your squad well and use your singularities to expose enemies so your team (and you if you feel like it) can shoot their armor off so that you can mash them into paste on a wall.



I saved right before the mission, and I think I'm gonna try and record a video of it so that people can see where I'm coming from and decide if what I'm doing looks fun or not.



-----

Random side note: on an earlier mission, a vanguard enemy with about half his shields left rushed me, and I spammed throw on him. We just stood there for about 5 seconds hitting each other in the face with biotic balls, and then I finally knocked him to the wall and then beat him to death, samara style. It was satisfying.



That's what the whole adept class is for me, satisfying. It's not all about efficiency and about safety, infiltrator and sentinel have that covered. (Though a well played adept is no slouch at efficiency or at safety, don't get me wrong.) No, adept is about brutal and sadistic style. It's about listening to your enemies horrified screams as you're about to drop them into a pit or throw them into space or smash them into paste on a wall or throw them so far into the air that they'll burn up on re-entry.



What could be more badass than taking a class that might struggle a little and play clunky for some people and then putting some creativity into it and turning your fights into a work of art?

[synergys2k]

This is a dumb argument. Infiltrators with upgraded sniper rifles (Widow + Upgrades) / Level 4 Combat Mastery (Assassin) / Assassination Cloak / Shredder Ammo can run through any difficulty pretty easily.



I'm doing a quick run through right now as an Infiltrator/Assassin on Veteran, (I don't even want to know how easy Casual and Normal are...) and I can one shot nearly any enemy at level 13 with the base sniper rifle.



For example, turn on cloak, zoom in, fire and terminate any enemy with full shields/health, armor/health (minus Krogan), or barrier/health, or what I like to call double deck enemies. Triple deck enemies (shield, armor, health) take a bit longer, but they can be two shotted.



On Insanity difficulty, it took me 24 hours to do nearly all dialog options, all missions including secondaries, loyalties, etc., as an Infiltrator. As an Adept....minus restarts (lol)....I've played probably 20 hours and I'm barely halfway...That's a bit of a discrepancy.



Biotic powers, not including warp/reave, are totally useless. My normal squad as an Infiltrator is myself, Garrus/Zaeed and Miranda/Samara depending on enemies using a majority of shields/barriers/armor. After level 7, I may have died twice the rest of the game.



If you like to spend the whole game in cover and trying not to die then maybe Adept is for you. If you like dominate your enemies then Infiltrator/Soldier are for you. Hell, you can even throw Reave or Warp on your Infiltrator/Soldier, but I recommend Shredder Ammo for the Infiltrator and Geth Shield Boost for the Soldier.



Happy gaming!

[Amioran]

Roxlimn wrote...

Nonsense. You don't like how biotics perform at the higher levels simply because you have a preconceived notion of what they ought to be like, not because they're functionally ineffective. I can't speak for Insanity, of course, but certainly, on every other difficulty level, they retain potency and power.

The only nonsense here is that you clearly don't understand the difference in role between a CC skill and a damaging one. Without this prior knowledge there is no way you can get what we are talking about. I'm sorry but missing this simple preamble I don't either know why you insist on discussing the issue. It would be as for an individual that know nothing about engines to discuss with engineers why some things works differently than they should.

Just not the way you'd like.

It is not the way _I_ would like. It is the way a CC skill _should_ work. Naturally you don't understand how a CC skill should work so how can you get the difference?

Don't deny what I say. SHOW me. Tell me the numbers. Show me the money. I can tell you the power count and instances in which I used the powers and the guns and so on because I'm playing the game and I'm paying attention. I could probably upload videos, I suppose, but there's no need. Biotics aren't hard to use since the auto-targeting is significant. Just do what I said and you'll find that what I said is perfectly so - just as I said it.

What numbers? What there is to SHOW? Really you are missing the point as always. Do biotics works everytime you want to use them? No. Is the imposition within the boundaries of the role and scope of the skills? No. Do the skills works without using proper anticipating measures to make them behave as they should? No. What there's more to prove? Nothing.

I will repeat it for the now 100th time since you clearly don't seem to get it: the fact that you insist on telling that you use biotics effectively on insanity or hardcore don't have ANYTHING to do with what we are talking about whatsoever. You use the skills only because you adopt some way to make them work. This is the difference. The measures "in-between", the proper squad, etc. are all things that should not be necessary. The fact that you insist on telling that using proper squad members and/or proper skills you can then use biotics it's another thing altogheter. You should not be forced to do so. The skills should work without these steps on the users part because their true role should not warrant their introduction. A CC skill should work always to fulfill its role, without external imposition of sort.

You continue listing ways to circumvent the imposition, but this last is always there, no matter if you overcome it or not. The fact that you can overcome an obstacle doesn't prove that it is removed, on the contrary it proves just the opposite.

Firstly, I tracked and followed that line of argument from its inception. Soruyao makes the point that stripping defenses on Insanity is easily manageable - particularly dealing with Shields, which Adepts are weak against. You present the counterpoint that this limits the kind of squads an Adept can move around with. That is not a valid counterpoint because Adepts were never advertised to be flexible or capable of going solo. If that was not your point, then please explain further.

No. I present the point that the fact that defenses are easily removed or not should not be a concern at all. You should not need to do so and that's enough. Really it's so easy to understand, I don't get what's so difficult for you to recognize. A CC skill to work should not have an imposition requiring for it to work externally from its role and scope. In this case the imposition of stripping defenses (easy or not) is an external imposition that changes the role of the skill, making its use different from its role.

As for the squad members what Soruyao (and others as you) insisted on telling is that Adepts require a better use of squad members. Yet I showed him that this is clearly not true because it would be only if you had the freedom to choose whatever squad members you wanted and rely on their capabilities. This doesn't happen becase if you choose squad members that cannot strip defenses and you have not a mean to do so for yourself you will not be able to use almost all your skills. This in turns proves that the Adept doesn't require you to rely more on other squad members, but only that it requires you to use certain skills all the time to use the CC skills you should instead be able to use everytime without imposition.

So, you see, no, I never talked about playing the game solo, nor I talked of the fact that you can (or not) use the skills. You always miss the point.

Secondly, Adepts were never advertised as being able to control the battlefield "without restriction" at all levels of difficulty. Requiring the player to strip defenses is simply a binary form of resistance, as opposed to a probability-driven resistance model. All enemies become more resistant to gunfire the higher level you go. It only seems fair that they should also gain resistances against non-damage powers. And it's not like it's all that hard to strip resistances anyway.

This is another example of the fact that you clearly don't understand the difference between a restriction that pertains to the role and scope of a skill/gun/role and a restriction that don't pertain to it. I already told you that until you don't get this simple difference there's not much point on continuing the discussion.

Re-read what I told to Surayo about the difference between an "individual" imposition opposed to an "absolute" one without a balance thereof, maybe you will start getting the difference. You continue quoting restrictions that are always in the boundaries of the scope and role of the skill (or gun in this example) as justification for an external imposition, and this is nonsense. That damage becomes less on higher difficulties, in fact, is within the scope and role of a gun. An imposition that makes all CC skills not work against armored enemies is, instead, an external imposition to the role and scope of CC skills. Firstly because it's absolute (there's no other CC skill that works on _that_ restriction), secondly because it breaks the primary role of a CC skill (as I've already explained), and thirdly because it forces Adepts to play differently and being absolutely much less free on higher difficulties only.

On lower difficulties an Adept can choose the squad members he/she wants to, s/he can choose to use the skills s/he wants to and also s/he can choose when and how to use them. On higher difficulties the same it's not true anymore. Or s/he takes a proper squad or s/he have to use some skills all the time and anyway s/he is forced to use the primary skills that defines his/her role only when certain conditions are met, and this completely destroy the fundamental aspect of the CC role.

The fact that in the trailer it is not said "without restrictions" doesn't mean anything at all. The role of a "Wizard" is to control the battlefield. The known restrictions are within that role, every restriction that is without it becomes an external one that changes that role, and it's not expected. That "unexpected" part is what changes the role in a way not advertised. The fact that the experience changes from lower to higher difficulties and that the roles changes is enough evidence that there's something that is wrong, no matter if you can make the "new" role work or not.

Seriously, what's the problem? I've been using Biotics other than Warp to good effect and I'm having fun with it.

OMG. Let's see if this time you will understand it. I don't care at all if you _can_ use Biotics and if you use them. Their role is changed. The Adept role is changed. You can use them only when certain conditions are met and this changes the way a CC skill should be used. Either inform yourself on the role of a CC skill and how it should behave or learn to understand of what others are talking about.

You continue to repeat the same things over and over without caring at all of my replies. I told you already four times that I never said that you cannout use Biotics in higher difficulties, that this is not the point. Please try to re-read my messages and understand something about them before continuing repeating the same things as if I didn't say anything about them already. At last reply to my answer instead of resetting the discussion from the start every time.

Could it be that you can't figure out how to use non-Warp biotic powers on Insanity effectively, and don't want to believe that others can?

Could it be that this has NOTHING to do with the discussion and yet (also if I told you already 10 times) you really cannot understand it?

You say: I can use Pull _because_ I have Miranda using Warp on the enemy _then_ I can easily use it. All these "because" and "then" should not be there. You should not have to use Miranda (or another squad member) or yourself with Warp/Reave to remove something to then use a skill that should be always be usuable GIVEN HIS CC ROLE. The problem is that now to use CC skills you have to insert an "IF". That "IFs" should not be necessary.

If then you are more able then others (I doubt it, but whatever) on using Warp doesn't change the fact that the "IF" it's still there.

[Amioran]

Roxlimn wrote...

The point you are trying to make, and which many have, is that you need to get him down to Health to do this. Well, of course! That is only fair because this is an insta-kill combo. If you could insta-kill every target in the game even around cover every 3 or 4 seconds, you would be like an Infiltrator that can fire around cover, while in cover himself, without even having to be a good shot. I hope I don't need to tell you how unfair that is.

Have you tried played the game with the modded .ini before telling this? No, you have not. What you say it's only speculation. The "insta-kill combo" you talk about happens ONLY because enemies are at red-health, it doesn't happen when they have protections on. The combo doesn't either strip all defenses, at most half.

If you enable the modifications to have powers works also on shielded enemies the only thing that changes is the role of the Adept, difficulty is unaltered. Instead of a "finisher" (as your explanations on powers and their use clearly evidences) it reassumes the CC role that should have.

I always told you that the role is changed and you always insist that it's not so, but yet evidence speaks for itself. Read well how you use the powers and you will see that there's no CC _at all_ there, only way to do damage. Control is used only as a brief mean to do damage, nothing more.

Modifié par Amioran, 09 février 2010 - 02:54 .

[Sledgehammer44mm]

I find this to be not correct at all.

To be honest I use Miranda through all my playthroughs so far and she is the most useful biotic of all and she is damn helpful on the hardest difficulty.

Samara is great to once I can use her throw ability in game after killing off an enemy shields etc....

[Balek-Vriege]

Even though I believe that Adepts are fuctional with any party member (not every build but still doable) on insanity with enough trial and error until your playstyle adapts to the situation, I think the point of critism about biotics is well placed.



ME2 biotics are suffering from over balancing that so many biotic-like powers suffer from in Sci-Fi games. They're all powerful against unprotected or lower level foes but end up being near obsolete against higher level foes because of insane immunities or huge defenses that need to be overcome. The biotic-like powers that always suffer are the crowd control ones. This applies to ME2 as well because the most useful biotic skills are all damage related (Warp, Reave and Warp Ammo) while the ones that aren't are all crowd control. It's just that higher difficulty governs the effectiveness in ME2 rather than level/story advancement.



My experience has been that the lower tier effect vs. protected enemies is always way too nerfed. For example in Anarchy online almost every bureaucrat skill was useless originally because of immunities. Then after about 2 years they allowed domination powers etc. a % chance to effect high level enemies but only stun them for like 1-3 seconds (very similar to ME2). Now that was a move forward, but why not allow the spells to stun enemies every other second for the full duration or something along those lines?



Singularity, Throw, Pull and Shockwave all have the evil temperary stun which seems to only effect enemies now and then (maybe based off % of shields/armor left?). Singularity is the closest to having a useful stun because it can stun some enemies for about 4 seconds. In my opinion, crowd control biotics should have worked like this vs. protected enemies:



Pull=Paralyze or slow effected enemies instead. They can shoot back but can't move around or fire/move more slowly.

Throw=Throws enemies at half the force and half to no impact damage.

Shockwave=Uproots enemies at half the force and half to no impact damage.

Singularity=Stuns the number of targets effected for half the duration and paralyses them for the other half. Same damage it does now vs. shields and armor.



I tried to think of what would happen realistically in each case if a biotic was struggling to use their powers against defenses. In each case the powers still fullfill their intended purposes while not making an Adept overpowered.

[Amioran]

Sledgehammer44mm wrote...

I find this to be not correct at all.
To be honest I use Miranda through all my playthroughs so far and she is the most useful biotic of all and she is damn helpful on the hardest difficulty.
Samara is great to once I can use her throw ability in game after killing off an enemy shields etc....

OMG. Really, people, if you really _have_ to reply, at last KNOW to what you reply to, _please_, or the thread becomes a mess (more than it already is).

Which Biotic powers Miranda has? Let me guess... Warp! Is Warp the most useful Biotic of all the others and it's one of the only that is not addressed by the issue (since it is NOT a CC skill)? Is pherhaps Warp the only Biotic that is not altered (or very low so) on higher difficulties, differently from the others?

So, for Christ's sake, what the hell does Miranda usefulness have to do with the discussion? NOTHING. On the contrary it just _proves_ the point more (if it was not enough).

The fact that you "can" use Samara's Throw effectively changes pherhaps the fact that you need to strip defenses BEFORE using it? No. So, apart reiterating that you can use Throw as a finisher instead of a CC skill, what this has to do with proving the issue wrong? Nothing, on the contrary just proves the change of role of the skill.

I repeat: PLEASE inform yourself on what the thread is discussing about BEFORE posting, or in the lesser case you just reply to something that was never said (as in the part of Miranda), while in worst you just prove the opposite point that you wanted to make (as in the case of the Samara's part).

Modifié par Amioran, 09 février 2010 - 05:31 .

[imemoria]

on the other thread ( social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/128/index/1004785/1  )  about adept insanity/hardcore issues, the OP talks about Bioware reaction to this problem, but do we have any information about what they plan to do ?

Modifié par imemoria, 09 février 2010 - 06:10 .

[Roxlimn]

Amioran:



I understand your main premise. I simply don't agree with it. As mentioned, your personal belief of what an Adept should do does not mean that the class is not effective [i]while using powers other than Warp or Reave or Singularity[/b], and that is the point of this thread, is it not?



If players can use Throw and Pull to advantage, and have fun doing it on all difficulty levels, then Biotics are NOT useless. Is that not the case?

[baller7345]

I still see the adept as a crowd control class.

Singularity-still works on everything it just doesn't launch everything into the air.

Pull-This is the one that got the most taken from it but still is great at taking people out of cover. Lift in the first game was unfair so they had to do something.

Shockwave-While yes you may have to lower them to just health (which in my experiences on insanity the majority of enemies have more health than defenses in the first place) it allows you to stop onrushes of melee attackers.

Throw-Was I the only one who never saw this as a crowd control attack in the first game. For me it was more or less a finisher/damager that could combo with lift for hilarious results in ME1.

Warp-Still as useful as always just in a different way

I see the adept class as far less powerful than they were in the first game which is a good thing but they are by no way useless. They are less about controlling entire rooms and more about controlling a few strong enemies. In fact every crowd control ability effects a much smaller area than ME 1 but the adept is still probably the best at it. The engineer is probably only the other class (that comes to my mind) that has a true crowd control ability in cryo freeze but it isn't as big as singularity and is held to the same constraits as pull/throw/shockwave.

Modifié par baller7345, 09 février 2010 - 08:00 .

[imemoria]

baller7345 wrote...

I still see the adept as a crowd control class.

Singularity-still works on everything it just doesn't launch everything into the air.

Pull-This is the one that got the most taken from it but still is great at taking people out of cover. Lift in the first game was unfair so they had to do something.

Shockwave-While yes you may have to lower them to just health (which in my experiences on insanity the majority of enemies have more health than defenses in the first place) it allows you to stop onrushes of melee attackers.

Throw-Was I the only one who never saw this as a crowd control attack in the first game. For me it was more or less a finisher/damager that could combo with lift for hilarious results in ME1.

Warp-Still as useful as always just in a different way

I see the adept class as far less powerful than they were in the first game which is a good thing but they are by no way useless. They are less about controlling entire rooms and more about controlling a few strong enemies. In fact every crowd control ability effects a much smaller area than ME 1 but the adept is still probably the best at it. The engineer is probably only the other class (that comes to my mind) that has a true crowd control ability in cryo freeze but it isn't as big as singularity and is held to the same constraits as pull/throw/shockwave.

please people read the whole thread and not just the title before posting, as the point is that 80% of adept abilities are usable on only 20% of foes lifespan. not useless, just 80% useless. wow. class broken-> Bioware has to do something.

Modifié par imemoria, 09 février 2010 - 08:16 .

[baller7345]

imemoria wrote...

baller7345 wrote...

I still see the adept as a crowd control class.

Singularity-still works on everything it just doesn't launch everything into the air.

Pull-This is the one that got the most taken from it but still is great at taking people out of cover. Lift in the first game was unfair so they had to do something.

Shockwave-While yes you may have to lower them to just health (which in my experiences on insanity the majority of enemies have more health than defenses in the first place) it allows you to stop onrushes of melee attackers.

Throw-Was I the only one who never saw this as a crowd control attack in the first game. For me it was more or less a finisher/damager that could combo with lift for hilarious results in ME1.

Warp-Still as useful as always just in a different way

I see the adept class as far less powerful than they were in the first game which is a good thing but they are by no way useless. They are less about controlling entire rooms and more about controlling a few strong enemies. In fact every crowd control ability effects a much smaller area than ME 1 but the adept is still probably the best at it. The engineer is probably only the other class (that comes to my mind) that has a true crowd control ability in cryo freeze but it isn't as big as singularity and is held to the same constraits as pull/throw/shockwave.

please people read the whole thread and not just the title before posting, as the point is that 80% of adept abilities are usable on only 20% of foes lifespan. not useless, just 80% useless. wow. class broken-> Bioware has to do something.

...I have read the entire thread...I've been reading this for two days.  Now for a little example:  The average Blue Suns Trooper takes one overload (200 shield damage) to take out his shields and 2 incinerates (420 health damage) to take out his health on insanity.  That means he has double or close to double health than shields.  All the common mercanies were like that, I was able to one shot their defense but unable to one shot their health and I wasn't using incinerate against shields or barrier.  I was also just vocing my opinion that I think they aren't a useless class.  The original post stated that the majority of the ablities don't work on any armor which is true but I've been able to have someone use overload while I use throw and by the time throw gets there the overload has taken out the shields allowing me to kill the enemy much faster than I would if I had to aim.

Ok I apology if that sounds a bit like I'm overly agressive I'm just annoyed that everyone assumes I haven't read the thread and that this thread is still sticking to the original post even though its 54 pages long and has brought many other things into the discussion.

[Flash_in_the_flesh]

Roxlimn wrote...

Amioran:

I understand your main premise. I simply don't agree with it. As mentioned, your personal belief of what an Adept should do does not mean that the class is not effective [i]while using powers other than Warp or Reave or Singularity[/b], and that is the point of this thread, is it not?

If players can use Throw and Pull to advantage, and have fun doing it on all difficulty levels, then Biotics are NOT useless. Is that not the case?

Is it all that matters? That the class is NOT completely useless? Is that enough? Are you satisfied with adept because the class is not useless? Nobody said he is, he just doesn't play the role he used to.

Many players are disappointed by new unnecessary and groundless restricions to biotics. Why anyone thought that adept need such a nerf is beyond me. In ME2 biotics work the same as in ME1. Are biotics overpowered in ME1? Is adept more powerful than other classes? No. Soldiers and infiltrators rule insanity in ME1. Commando + marksman + sniper rifle, immunity. For adepts we get the same skills + curve - protections. Curving around cover doesn't justify new protection. Every class in ME2 get some nice bonus like time dilation, cloak etc. Biotics got power curving and huge unnecessary nerf. What a bonus

[Soruyao]

[quote]Flash_in_the_flesh wrote...

Is it all that matters? That the class is NOT completely useless? Is that enough? Are you satisfied with adept because the class is not useless? Nobody said he is, he just doesn't play the role he used to.  [/quote]

It's not the easiest class to play, but that's not a bad thing because it allows players to improve their tactics and gameplay even further.  If you're struggling that much, then you can either lower the difficulty or power through it and be proud of yourself.

I do think that an adept can be played in a role that is very similar to what they did in ME1.    In ME1, I threw a singularity and sucked everything in the room up and then popped marksman and shot them all to death. 

(Remember the fight in noveria where you're going into that turian dudess office to get some of his data?  You get the data and this officer chick menaces you with two snipers and a bunch of other guys.      I just throw a singularity and it sucks every single guy in the area up into it along with every table in the room and then I pop marksman and shoot them all to death before the singularity wears out.   They rarely even get a shot off on me, and difficulty doesnt change anything.)

In ME2, I throw a singularity at a group of enemies and then either use a squad ability or shoot them until their armor comes off, and then I finish them in a variety of entertaining ways.  (Usually that involve pull and throw and melee depending on the situation and my mood.   Or I just shoot them more, if I'm feeling lazy.  The only difference is that they get a chance to shoot at me a little bit before I kill them.  It's more fair and I feel more skilled when I succeed.

I've been doing missions with jacob and grunt and they shoot people's shields off fast enough that I almost always have someone naked who I can biotically brutalize.

[quote]
Many players are disappointed by new unnecessary and groundless restricions to biotics. Why anyone thought that adept need such a nerf is beyond me. In ME2 biotics work the same as in ME1. Are biotics overpowered in ME1? Is adept more powerful than other classes? No. Soldiers and infiltrators rule insanity in ME1. Commando + marksman + sniper rifle, immunity. For adepts we get the same skills + curve - protections. Curving around cover doesn't justify new protection. Every class in ME2 get some nice bonus like time dilation, cloak etc. Biotics got power curving and huge unnecessary nerf. What a bonus
[/quote]

It did need a nerf in the harder difficulties, especially insanity.   In ME, difficulty for an adept did not change as difficulty settings increased, except that you were more likely to get killed by a random sniper or rocket.   Now difficulty does increase as difficulty settings go up.   Can you think of a better way to make the game more difficult for an adept on insanity than normal mode without simply increasing the amount of time we have to cower behind cover and the chances we can get oneshotted?

Making enemies simply have more health doesn't help against an adept because on most levels the adept is just going to bypass health completely by throwing people off of things and over mountains and into the stratosphere.

Just so we're on the same page, I am of the opinion that infiltrators need to be nerfed down to where adepts are right now, because the game doesn't really get harder at all for them when they crank up the difficulty.   Insanity mode is supposed to be hard.  People play an infiltrator and think they're awesome, and then complain when they play an adept and it's actually hard.

I also think warp needs to be heavily nerfed against health.   Spamming nothing but warp should never even seem like a good idea.  Nobody finds it fun, but people think they have to do it because they have no creativity, and they dont put the effort into learning how to use the rest of an adept's toolkit.

-edit-   Now for the guy I was arguing with first:

[quote]Amioran wrote...

On lower difficulties an Adept can choose the squad members he/she wants to, s/he can choose to use the skills s/he wants to and also s/he can choose when and how to use them.  On higher difficulties the same it's not true anymore. Or s/he takes a proper squad or s/he have to use some skills all the time and anyway s/he is forced to use the primary skills that defines his/her role only when certain conditions are met, and this completely destroy the fundamental aspect of the CC role.[/quote]

Actually, the primary skill that defines an adept is singularity, the same way the primary skill of a vanguard is charged and the primary skill of a soldier is adrenaline rush.

Singularity works as CC against 95% of the enemies in the game.  (Only things it doesn't work on through defenses are certain varren/robot dogs, and bosses like ymir mechs.)

Singularity is my bread and butter skill.  It stops advances, pins people down, makes people stand up behind their cover.  It does a decent dot, it explodes warps, and once armor gets taken down it lifts every enemy who walks near it, which leaves them prime for throwing into space without having to use lift.  It even works on high tier boss level humanoids with two sets of defenses, allowing you to barrage them with crossfire and take those defenses down quickly without fear of return fire.

Singularity is CC through defenses and it's useful almost all the time.    Lift and throw are more situational but are often insta kills.  They have fast cooldowns, do a little damage to defenses, and when shields are down allow you to lock down multiple enemies at a time and just mop them up.

Shockwave is the only skill I genuinely haven't been using much, but it is very useful in that it's the only skill that ignores cover and terrain completely.    If an enemy is so entrenched that you can't hit them with anything else, shockwave will get them.

(In my next playthrough, I'm going to start by maxing out shockwave and play around with it and see if I can make some more use out of it.)

[/quote] The fact that in the trailer it is not said "without restrictions" doesn't mean anything at all. The role of a "Wizard" is to control the battlefield. The known restrictions are within that role, every restriction that is without it becomes an external one that changes that role, and it's not expected. That "unexpected" part is what changes the role in a way not advertised. The fact that the experience changes from lower to higher difficulties and that the roles changes is enough evidence that there's something that is wrong, no matter if you can make the "new" role work or not.  [/quote]

Actually, the most classic image of a wizard I can think of is an old guy with a beard and a robe throwing fireballs.   Warp spam definitely does fill that image of a direct damage dealing magic user.   The archetypical wizard is squishy dps that stands in the back.   For a lot of people, CC is not necessarily part of that.   Nevermind the fact that I spend most of my time CCing people on insanity mode anyway, even though people seem to think I can't do that.

I will give you that they didn't give people a lot of advertising pointing out exactly the ways the game would change as difficulty goes up.   I would say the problem lies more with the advertising than with the gameplay.  (There is an in game tutorial that explains how defenses work with powers, so there's no excuse for cranking the difficulty up to insanity and then going "OMG WTF WAI I CANT LIFT DIS.")

I will also give you that this change doesn't make sense with the lore.   But it makes harder difficulty modes actually harder without resorting to giving enemies a million hp and letting you get one shot if you so much as stick your head out at the wrong time.   Can you think of a better way to do this?

Modifié par Soruyao, 10 février 2010 - 04:04 .

[mawmaw17]

Man is this thread still going on.

Oh well I will give the long and short of it to people who still don't get it. The majority of adepts powers are ineffective against armor and shields which every almost enemy has in insanity difficulty, and in order to strip them you have to rely on your squad or your weapons to do so.

Relying on your squad on insanity difficulty is a losing proposition as they have to be well-placed each time in order not to die and the reliance on said weapons brings to question why not invest into a class that can do decent damage against all mediums (shields, armor, barriers and health) instead of a part of it (warp for armor and barriers; the rest of the powers for hp).

Other people are upset that the biotics in ME 2 are not to canon of the ME universe where as a biotic you can lift and throw just about anyone with enough investment of the power and proof of this belief is the preview video where it is said that they can "control the battlefield," mind you they only thought the majority of people only play on casual or normal, so this statement is technically true if you place it in that context.

The basic gist of it is that adepts have a harder time on higher difficulties then other classes like the soldier or infiltrator because of their reliance on weapons and squad powers to be able to use the "majority of their powers" for any effectiveness.



P.S. The reason why people want more HP on enemies is that it nerfs all the other class abilities and weapon effectiveness while giving biotics the same amount of potency over enemies

[Soruyao]

mawmaw17 wrote...

Man is this thread still going on.
Oh well I will give the long and short of it to people who still don't get it. The majority of adepts powers are ineffective against armor and shields which every almost enemy has in insanity difficulty, and in order to strip them you have to rely on your squad or your weapons to do so. 

Don't patronize us.  We get it.  You don't want to strip defenses to use powers.   It's not rocket surgery.   You want to be able to ignore your team and let them die and solo everything while never firing a shot and CC everything from the start of a fight.

Am I right?   Then I understand your position and disagree with it.  I don't think that setup would be challenging at all.  I don't think it deserves to be called insanity at all.

Don't assume that just because people disagree with your point that they must not understand it.

Relying on your squad on insanity difficulty is a losing proposition as they have to be well-placed each time in order not to die and the reliance on said weapons brings to question why not invest into a class that can do decent damage against all mediums (shields, armor, barriers and health) instead of a part of it (warp for armor and barriers; the rest of the powers for hp). 

I have never run out of medi gel.  Ever.  I'm finishing my second insanity run, and my first as an adept.  Whenever one of my allies die, I can rez them and put them somewhere safer.

It's not a losing proposition at all if you're at all tactically minded and you take the time to think about what you're doing and have the care to watch what your allies are doing.   You're a squad leader, a commander.    It's your job to actually use your squad and keep them alive, that's part of what the challlenge is supposed to be!

Other people are upset that the biotics in ME 2 are not to canon of the ME universe where as a biotic you can lift and throw just about anyone with enough investment of the power and proof of this belief is the preview video where it is said that they can "control the battlefield," mind you they only thought the majority of people only play on casual or normal, so this statement is technically true if you place it in that context.

This is the one argument I agree with.  The change doesn't make sense with lore, especially with armor.  But it does make sense from a gameplay standpoint.    Difficulty changes tend not to fit well with lore in games though.   (Did shoving someone off a 500 foot cliff and having them not take any damage due to immunity make sense with the lore?)   Can you use the lore to explain casual difficulty and being able to soak up a million bullets and melee fragile enemies made of wet cardboard to death as if they weren't shooting at you?   Is that canon with the lore, or is normal mode canon with the lore?

The basic gist of it is that adepts have a harder time on higher difficulties then other classes like the soldier or infiltrator because of their reliance on weapons and squad powers to be able to use the "majority of their powers" for any effectiveness.

Yeah, which is why I think they should be nerfed so they actually have to think and use their squad on insanity.  It's not insanity for them right now, it's just veteran+.

P.S. The reason why people want more HP on enemies is that it nerfs all the other class abilities and weapon effectiveness while giving biotics the same amount of potency over enemies

It also makes the game tedious and slow unnecessarily.   The worst thing about insanity mode in ME1 was having enemies take forever to kill.   Adding HP to enemies doesn't make the game harder, it just makes the game take much longer.   Defenses don't make the game much longer because they can usually be oneshotted through squad powers and guns.

We had the "higher difficulties make enemies have more HP" aspect before, and it was removed because the devs and most of the player base thought it was boring.  We aren't likely going back to that, so I suggest you think of something else.

Modifié par Soruyao, 10 février 2010 - 04:28 .

[mawmaw17]

The only reason I mention the "length" of the thread because its been argued to death. An appropriate metaphor would be continuing to beat the once resurrected and now zombified horse that is trying to consume your flesh. In this thread, people often use zingers like "L2P" or act like internet tough guys to perpetuate its length, where people have formed their opinions already and are unwilling to change them no matter rhyme or reason.

The dependence on the cpu squad really hurts when you are fighting a scion + anything else with it on insanity as there is very little cover that can stand up to shockwaves.

The description of "It also makes the game tedious and slow unnecessarily" might be used to describe how biotic abilities have little to no effect against enemies with defenses and makes the game longer for those dependent on biotic powers.

All this argument on this thread means very little because Bioware is not going to change the balancing of a "single player" game because the viability of a few classes becomes significantly less than the other classes on a higher difficulty setting. The thought being that Bioware does not significantly playtest on these difficulties because use of immunity spam on enemies in ME 1 and the discrepancy of class viability in ME 2 with any irritants dismissed as being part of playing on the higher difficulty.

Modifié par mawmaw17, 10 février 2010 - 05:03 .

[mawmaw17]

double post

Modifié par mawmaw17, 10 février 2010 - 05:03 .