Hi Jack. Amazingly, your question has such compelled me to create an account on this forum just to provide an answer. Platinum IMO is what truly distinguishes this game from the field: Adversity is inevitable at this difficulty (i.e. mistakes will be made), and as such, it truly requires the individual player and the team as a whole to deal with it. That is the draw for me, and that is what will likely keep me playing this game far into the foreseeable future. Completing a platinum mission, smoothly or otherwise, brings me a sense of accomplishment, and even some sense of camaraderie among the other players. In fact, my only friends on PSN are random ME3 platinum players. Moreover, I feel that there is a mutual respect among those that routinely play platinum, and a common understanding that the players in the game will do everything in their power to succeed.
On all of the other difficulties, team synergy (amenable character/build combos) and collaborative tactics (collectively selecting offensive/defensive positions w/ fallback points) are not required. On Silver/Bronze, individual tactical proficiency (right hand advantage, power/weapon synergy, hard/soft cover, managing aggro) and decision making/execution (when to revive teammates, approach enemies, run to objectives) are not required. In other words, on Gold and below you can "Rambo" it without regard for teammates as long as you are individually proficient, and on Silver/Bronze you don't even need the individual proficiency to succeed.
But platinum... ****ing platinum, lol - if either you are not individually proficient, or you do not put the team first, then you (and everyone else on your team for that matter), will pay the consequences in the form of consumables, longer clear time, or mission failure. That is why platinum is amazing. God I ****ing love it.
As for PUG advice, well, you just need to keep an eye on the team/map/faction combo as it develops in the lobby and make a determination if there are any shortfalls that will cause problems during the mission. Platinum basically reduces down to a few fundamental considerations: 1.) Stopping Banshees, 2.) Dealing with phantoms, 3.) DPS required of the map. The geth trooper (Flamer/Acolyte) effectively addresses all of these things, so I tend to use that if the PUG lobby looks sketchy, meaning that any of the following are true of some players in the lobby: a.) low level or no consumables equipped, b.) really low challenge points, c.) squishy non-infiltrator class without cyclonic or adrenaline mod, d.) class with weak weapons and weak powers, e.) otherwise poor team synergy.
And for 3.) just keep in mind that smaller maps (white, glacier) require short range burst/aoe DPS, thus favoring biotic/tech/fire explosions, which really requires the team to be synergized properly (i.e. four infiltrators with SRs is probably a bad idea), as opposed to larger maps (rio, dagger, hydra, vancouver, london) that are amenable to long range attack.
The best is when those three conditions are satisfied by other players in the lobby, leaving you free to choose the best fit character with respect to the rest of the team. I think the most fun I ever had in a plat PUG was Firebase White / Cerberus with an all biotic team consisting of Collector Adept (Powers/Acolyte), ExCerb Male Adept (Singularity), Asari Justicar (Damage Bubble), and myself as the Batarian Slasher(Lash-Warp-Grenade Build). I chose the Slasher for three reasons: 1.) Synergy with other biotics, 2.) Great CC with cluster grenades on small map + no other grenade users, and 3.) Lash destroys phantoms and combat engineers with ease. Not surprisingly, we cleared that map in 28:00 and only used a few missiles for objective waves.
I have yet to find a more fun and difficult challenge than playing me3 platinum, but if you find one, please let me know!
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