I am getting ready for the final battle. My Shepard is an Level 60 Adept. I am in the final preparation steps: that is armor selection, best bonus power, weapons upgrades and squad selection. I was planning on using:
Armor: Inferno Armor
Bonus Power: Slam (right now it is Energy Drain)
Weapons: ?
Squad: Liara (My LI), and Tali or Javik
I would like to know what the community thinks. I know that some of this is subjective.
Energy drain won't be of much use to you, nor will Tali, as you'll be facing reaper forces who will have armor for the most part (except the occasional marauder), so I'd recommend party members that complement your main character. I'd take Javik over Liara, as he has better unique powers (Liara is almost the same as an adept) and an other, more durable party member like Vega, Ashley or Garrus. You'll get to change your party once during the final mission, where the second part is the more critical for a good party setup, as you'll be facing a lot of lengthy battles.
As for weapons, go light on your character as being an effective biotic requires fast cooldown times, so one assault rifle (something with a good magazine capacity) or a pistol and an SMG.
For armor, take the pieces that help power damage and cooldown times, like Inferno, Blood Dragon, Cerberus Shade, Cerberus Spirit or an N7 armor with mixed Serrice Council and Rosenkov armor parts.
Unfortunately I chose not to add Ashley because I wanted her war assets. She is with Hackett. But, as I have over 4K effective war assets I wish I had added her. So as between Vega and Garrus which do you prefer? May use Vega at first and then switch to Garrus? This is really sentiment in letting old friends in on the action.
If you want to take both of them, then take Garrus on the first part, and Vega on the second. Vega's powers really help with crowd control, has better powers against armor and can withstand a lot of punishment so he'll be useful in the big battle near the end. Just give him the biggest, meanest gun you can find, max out his durability and he's good to go.
As in shotgun? What would you recommend?
Since party members are not affected by weight, and Vega can carry shotguns and ARs, give him somehting like Eviscerator, Wraith, Raider - equipping shotguns with the bayonet blade makes Vega brutally effective in close quarters combat, as he has unique bonuses to weapon damage and melee. Avoid giving single shot weapons to party members as they are not very effective with it, but they are quite decent with full auto or semi auto guns, so give Vega a Mattock, Revenant or something similar for his AR slot. As for attachments, just put on everyting that increases raw damage and cover/armor penetration.
why not Reave? great for combo against banshees, brutes and harvester
Unfortunately I don't have Reave. I do have carnage. Would that be good? I could also do defense matrix or dark channel.
I am getting ready for the final battle. My Shepard is an Level 60 Adept. I am in the final preparation steps: that is armor selection, best bonus power, weapons upgrades and squad selection. I was planning on using:
Armor: Inferno Armor
Bonus Power: Slam (right now it is Energy Drain)
Weapons: ?
Squad: Liara (My LI), and Tali or Javik
I would like to know what the community thinks. I know that some of this is subjective.
You are set.
As far as Energy Drain, there are two enemies in Priority Earth you can use it against. Whether or not it will be worth it will depend. Marauders are fairly common, Banshees not quite as much. But for the most part shields / barriers aren't as common in any of the missions in ME3 as they would be on ME2 Insanity to begin with. How often did you end up using it in other missions? You could save it for strictly defense.
Personally I like pure characters, so I don't run tech on biotics. Slam is a fine power on an Adept, the main knock would be that it has a bit of overlap with Pull. Honestly by Level 60 the vanilla Adept powers cover practically any situation so you could consider something like Warp Ammo for extra damage, or go defensive with Barrier or Fortification (the latter is actually slightly better after the last patch). The recharge penalty from either is small by late game, especially if you are taking an optimized weapon loadout.
As far as squad is concerned, Liara is probably overall the most powerful squadmate in the game given that her cooldowns are so low when appropriately leveled, and her Singularity is hitscan and hits instantly, unlike Shepard's. Javik is also good, and the Liara - Javik squad is one of the most powerful combinations in the game for any class, and of course works well with Adept.
Tali, on the other hand, is one of the least useful squadmembers. She peaks in usefulness during the Rannoch arc and is really best against synthetics. The small caveat would be if Shepard is tech and you want to use Tali to spam Sabatage and apply "Tech Vulnerability" debuff before Shepard and the other squad member hit them with tech powers.
If you want to chain combo types you could consider EDI. Then you could combo larger targets, like Brutes, in the following manner:
EDI Incinerate -> Liara Warp -> Shep Throw.
That will give you a fire explosion and then a biotic explosion. Against Barrier, EDI would use Overload. Garrus can also help with chains, but only via tech bursts. If you brought him it would make sense to have Proximity Mine leveled to at least Rank 5 for Damage Taken debuff to help damage the high hp enemies more rapidly.
Weapon choice is completely subjective as there are a lot of very good weapons, so what you take will depend on which ones you have acquired and leveled up, which in turn depends on DLC. The most powerful per weight overall are Arc Pistol, Suppressor, Wraith, Venom, Harrier, Punisher, and Lancer.
I just want to echo Capn233's comment: Liara is simply awesome when combined with a biotic Shepard. Here is a sample of the Hades Cannon section with a Sentinel Shepard using Reave as a bonus power. (insanity difficulty) At 17:45 I even comment on just how good Liara is to have as squad mate. (I brought James along for role playing reasons, not because he is any good.)
There's nothing particularly difficult about the Priority Earth combat sections anyway because Reaper enemies are a joke. Grissom Academy Atrium or Rannoch triple Primes provide more of a challenge IMO (provided you don't use the easy methods to cheese them). You can bring whoever or whatever you like and succeed quite easily regardless.
I'm not really a fan of the Inferno Armor. Direct power damage doesn't actually help an Adept all that much anyway (apart from the Cluster Grenades) due to most damage coming from combos (which aren't affected by power damage bonuses). The cooldown bonus really isn't that great either unless you're using some suboptimal build with 3 weapons or something, due to diminishing returns. I just run the N7 Armor with all Hahne Kedar or Armax Arsenal pieces everywhere because weapon/headshot damage is useful almost no matter the build.
Bonus power I'd go with Warp Ammo if you don't have Liara's squad spec, or Reave if you do. Energy drain isn't really needed vs Reapers, especially if you already brought a tech squadmate like Tali, Garrus or EDI to deal with the few shielded enemies they have.
Weapons is entirely personal preference. Arc Pistol with damage barrel and piercing mod is all around the best gun for an Adept if you just want to Min/Max and kill everything. Wraith and Talon are almost as effective.
Squadmates are again personal preference. Of the ones you suggested A Liara-Adept-Javik biotic death squad would trivialize Priority Earth easily. Liara's broken hitscan singularity in general trivializes everything with any biotic detonator, but especially all the unshielded and armored stuff that Reapers throw at you. Just hotkey it and spam throws (or really any biotic power) at it when it cools down every 2 seconds. Javik,s there as another source of splosions, but note he will take some of your grenades if you use them frequently as part of your build, though.
Tali in place of Javik could be nice for shield stripping and nuking groups of shielded mooks (Marauders) with tech bursts primed by ED (has a fast cooldown) or Sabotage(does mega damage with 6b Tech vulnerability spec, killing most if not all humanoids in a single detonation), and detonated by your throw or preferably Liara's warp, which you can follow with your own detonator for a Tech Burst>Biotic Explosion chain (wreaks havoc on Banshees). She brings decent weapon damage with a good shotgun like Wraith and is pretty survivable as long as there are shields to drain/get DR from, but aside from synthetics, generally works best with other tech squadmates to combo off of her, and doesn't do much in a biotic squad vs Reapers apart from helping with Marauders.
I always bring squadmates for banter, though, and I'd suggest if this is your first playthrough of this that you bring whoever you like most for narrative reasons rather than getting hung up on gameplay.
I would have recommended Kaidan but... oh well, not available in your squad. I just played this mission on my Vanguard and had an absolute blast with Kaidan and Liara. Biotic explosions everywhere. My Shep had Dark Channel as a bonus power which kept jumping from one enemy to another after they died so I just Biotic charged all over the place setting off explosions on my way. Kaidan could deal with both armored and shielded enemies while Liara did some nice crowd control.... and, of course, both had handy detonation powers creating some more explosions. It was glorious.
Unfortunately I don't have Reave. I do have carnage. Would that be good? I could also do defense matrix or dark channel.
You don't have reave? Naughty, naughty. That is the best power in the game. I did a playthrough using that power only on insanity. It was easy. Watching all the uglies fall over dead. hahahaha.
If you didn't know, reave can be obtained from Kaidan. Get that, then do a pluthrough using only that power. It will glorious.
For what you have now, use singularity and warp. If you're taking Tali, have her use her power to take down the shields, and then use your warp/singularity combo.
When I play as an adept, I take Ashley and James with me when on Earth.
I kind of like flare. Makes for nice explosions. =)
Unfortunately, Flare took a lot of CD which isn't that much useful for either an adept or vanguard. I only find its useful during the mission with Grunt and the Aralakh Company.
Regardless of your feelings about him, you should unlock Kaidan's Reave if you're playing as biotics. Kaidan is the best Insanity squadmate since he can act as a Tank, Primer and Detonator. He could prime with Reave and it can heal his HP and he have Barrier which he could detonate at close range, (usually when surrounded by Banshees). Then his Cryo Blast can freeze enemies instantly and you can detonate it with his Overload. Basically, a one-man army except for an actual Sentinel Shepard. For me, Liara's Wrap was her only useful power in Insanity since AOEs like Singularity and Dark Channel didn't affect higher level enemies.
Since its the final battle, you're fighting Cannibal, Marauders and several swarms of Brutes, Banshees and a couple Harvester. Neither Liara and Javik are equipped with a lot of defensive (Barrier, Fortification, Defense Matrix) which really make them really vulnerable when armored/barrier enemies came at close range which they will. Being an Adept already put you at a disadvantage and its a bloodbath since you're considering bringing the most squishiest companions along... its possible to survive everything but I find its a hassle to wait for the CD just to spam biotic combos.
Thanks for all your input. Yes in ME I decided to save Ash. Woman power don't you know. Maybe I will save Kaidan on my second go around. I don't want it to be an exact repeat of my first run. I was fairly happy with my choice to go the paragon route although some of the options that amounted to letting the bad guy draw first were strained. In combat you don't let the bad guy shoot first if you have an option. In fact getting in the first shot or gaining a tactical advantage should be considered paragon actions because you are protecting your squad.
I also need to consider a different Shepard for my third run through as my second is taking my first level 50 to level 60 and then on. Any thoughts on a fun Shepard for that one?
Since you didn't save Kaidan in ME1, why not do an ME3 default playthrough having Kaidan in the game? Do a quick playthrough talking to him every chance you can. The reave power will eventually unlock. All future playthroughs will give that bonus power for you to use.
Thanks for all your input. Yes in ME I decided to save Ash. Woman power don't you know. Maybe I will save Kaidan on my second go around. I don't want it to be an exact repeat of my first run. I was fairly happy with my choice to go the paragon route although some of the options that amounted to letting the bad guy draw first were strained. In combat you don't let the bad guy shoot first if you have an option. In fact getting in the first shot or gaining a tactical advantage should be considered paragon actions because you are protecting your squad.
I also need to consider a different Shepard for my third run through as my second is taking my first level 50 to level 60 and then on. Any thoughts on a fun Shepard for that one?
Stop thinking of Shepard as yourself. Make a Shepard with a certain background and outlook on life and play that Shepard where ever it may take you. As I say in my channel trailer: "Do you say to yourself: I could never shoot Mordin? Then don't; let Shepard do it. Make and play a Shepard that would shoot Mordin."
To try out some different options, try a Colonist-Ruthless background. Batarians slavers killed Shepard's family on the colony of Mindoir when she was 16. How would that make Shepard feel about Batarians? How would it make Shepard feel about aliens in general? How would Shepard feel about human colonies? How did this background fit into her desire to join the Alliance? During the raid on Torfan where Shepard got most of her unit killed she shot surrendering Batarians. Why? What does that say about Shepard? Most of her unit died. How did she react to that? Anderson says "She gets the job done no matter what the cost" in the opening scene. How does that relate to the various actions Shepard must take throughout the trilogy?
Your answers to these questions can help you flesh out a Shepard that is not merely an extension of yourself but a character with his/her own separate identity. It will allow you to create a story about someone else and not you.
Since you didn't save Kaidan in ME1, why not do an ME3 default playthrough having Kaidan in the game? Do a quick playthrough talking to him every chance you can. The reave power will eventually unlock. All future playthroughs will give that bonus power for you to use.
Yeah, that's what I did. It was like the mirror universe basically, especially because ME3 non import has a lot of situations you can't actually resolve.
I would have been happy if they were just unoriginal and copied the Suicide Mission, more or less.
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