20 réponses à ce sujet

[Jaekahn]

I've opened a couple threads regarding this, simply looking for some feedback. I've just completed Hardcore as an Engineer. I enjoy the playstyle, the tactics, the powers and just about everything relating to the class. I'm debating about whether or not I should carry it over to Insanity, or if I should just recreate an imported ME1 character and play it as a Sentinel.

I tested a Sentinel earlier and although they are fascinating with how much damage they're able to absorb, I am not sure if I actually understand the playstyle regarding builds and squad composition, so I would like to know more about that. Also, if someone could provide me feedback regarding Engineer specializing in crowd control via Cryo, AI Hacking, and Dominate, that would be greatly appreciated as well. I've spent the entire hardcore run specializing in Overload, Incinerate, Explosive Drone and AP ammo.

[YooperLaw]

I just completed Insanity with a Sentinel a few days ago. It starts off hard and you tend to die a lot. Freedom's Progress was a pain in the ass for me resulting in many restarts. However, once I started putting squad points into Tech Armor (a lifesaver) things started getting easier. Tech Armor boosts your shields' power in addition to unleashing a knockdown wave of energy when they become depleted. Keep in mind that on Insanity your shields will get instantly destroyed if you expose yourself for more than two or three seconds, and that's after you upgrade them a little bit. Tech Armor gives a decent boost to shields and has the nice effect of stunning nearby enemies. Since your shields will get destroyed all the time the defensive energy pulse is a great thing to have.

For Insanity I, along with probably most people, would heavily recommend taking along Miranda as a constant squadmate because of (1) her passive squad bonuses to damage and health, and (2) she has both 'Overload' and 'Warp' abillties which are very useful to take down enemy defenses. If you're playing as a Sentinel you'll have the same abilities and thus no enemy's defenses (i.e. barriers, shields, and armor) will last long at all.

As a bonus talent I personally chose "Armor Piercing Ammo" although a lot of others will suggest "Warp Ammo." While you can switch them out in the Normandy's lab, keep in mind that AP ammo's damage is up to 70% of your weapon damage while Warp Ammo caps at 50% ... the only enemies that will have barriers are Collectors and some elite bosses.

It gets much easier the more you level up, especially when you start researching weapon and armor upgrades.

I really don't know much about Engineers to give a valid opinion. From what I've seen the majority of players who are successful at Insanity difficulty either play as a Soldier or Sentinel. Infiltrators can get the job done as well due to Assassination Cloak coupled with the Widow Anti-Materiel Sniper Rifle.

Modifié par YooperLaw, 10 février 2010 - 04:25 .

[Jaekahn]

YooperLaw wrote...

I just completed Insanity with a Sentinel a few days ago. It starts off hard and you tend to die a lot. Freedom's Progress was a pain in the ass for me resulting in many restarts. However, once I started putting squad points into Tech Armor (a lifesaver) things started getting easier. Tech Armor boosts your shields' power in addition to unleashing a knockdown wave of energy when they become depleted. Keep in mind that on Insanity your shields will get instantly destroyed if you expose yourself for more than two or three seconds, and that's after you upgrade them a little bit. Tech Armor gives a decent boost to shields and has the nice effect of stunning nearby enemies. Since your shields will get destroyed all the time the defensive energy pulse is a great thing to have.

For Insanity I, along with probably most people, would heavily recommend taking along Miranda as a constant squadmate because of (1) her passive squad bonuses to damage and health, and (2) she has both 'Overload' and 'Warp' abillties which are very useful to take down enemy defenses. If you're playing as a Sentinel you'll have the same abilities and thus no enemy's defenses (i.e. barriers, shields, and armor) will last long at all.

As a bonus talent I personally chose "Armor Piercing Ammo" although a lot of others will suggest "Warp Ammo." While you can switch them out in the Normandy's lab, keep in mind that AP ammo's damage is up to 70% of your weapon damage while Warp Ammo caps at 50% ... the only enemies that will have barriers are Collectors and some elite bosses.

It gets much easier the more you level up, especially when you start researching weapon and armor upgrades.

I really don't know much about Engineers to give a valid opinion. From what I've seen the majority of players who are successful at Insanity difficulty either play as a Soldier or Sentinel. Infiltrators can get the job done as well due to Assassination Cloak coupled with the Widow Anti-Materiel Sniper Rifle.

I appreciate your feedback about Sentinels. The classes interests me and I am well aware that they are more easier to play throughout the course of the game on insanity. I'm just not sure if I enjoy the playstyle well enough to consider starting from scratch, opposing importing my ME2 Engineer. I would appreciate it if I could get some feedback from anyone who has played Engineer on Insanity as well.

[Jaekahn]

No one else cares to reply?

[Bron Avery]

I will say Sentient because you can take a hell of a lot more shots, but make sure to bring Legion or Tali if you want a combat drone with you, cause they are very useful.

Modifié par Bron Avery, 10 février 2010 - 05:51 .

[Awesome Helmet]

ive played a sentinel once on vet or HC. im playing it again on insanity and i die alot. most of it has to do with me thinking tech armor = immunity. i love power armor. remember it boosts weapons damage 15% too. i just mapped power armor, throw, and warp, and somewhat overuse warp. its a pretty simple build. i dont have cryo freeze, but i dont need it because field throw is better. im trying AP ammo right now and i think thats what im sticking with. ive tried warp, but it only seems effective as an adept, having pull and singularity. biotics suck tho. you wont be that CC freak that you were in ME1. more so on higher difficulties with enemies having 75% armor/shields/barrier and only 25% health. so you rarely use biotics.



i havent tried an engineer yet, but i have an infiltrator with slam right now and its equally, if not more effective then the sentinel. slam is a great single enemy CC. incinerate is narly. assassin cloak and assasin infiltrator are beastly even on insanity, and i havent even brought up the widow maker yet. even one point in AI hacking is effective.



as you can tell im having alot of fun with "my" version of the sentinel. biotics just arent as awesome as they were in ME1. its a shame.

[Jaekahn]

Well I had little to no problems as an Engineer in Hardcore. However, I'm not sure how distract the difficulty changes between Hardcore and Insanity.

[PatchWorks]

I've completed Insanity with engineer, and personally I thought it was much easier than Sentinel. Ease has more to do with personal playstyle than anything else, though. [Disclosure I went from my first playthrough of Normal mode sentinel --------> second playthrough Insanity Engineer; as such, I have no real knowledge of Hardcore, though I just assume it's easier than Insanity]



Assuming you really have beaten the game with an engineer on hardcore, you're probably already familiar with how to properly utilize the combat drone (how to use it to draw enemy fire, move people out of cover, tie up large enemies like ymir mechs or krogans, etc.). If so, Insanity isn't going to be too much of a different experience. The enemy A.I. is just as susceptible to drone/A.I. hack/dominate spawned chaos on Insanity as it is on lower difficulties. Drone, will in fact, tie up every enemy in the game besides Praetorians. You'll have just as many opportunities for shooting people in the back (courtesy of the drone or hacked/dominated enemies) on Insanity as you would in hardcore.



Having experience with engineers, you should probably know that the point of their style is to avoid taking the brunt of enemy surpressing fire in the first place. So, really, it boils down to preference, and again, personal playstyle. If you enjoy being able to eat more damage under fire and shooting warp/overload between cooldowns, go with Sentinel (and the reactive defense of tech armor). If you prefer to avoid damage and be more open about shooting out of cover, though with less room for error if you make mistakes, go with engineer (and the proactive "defense" of combat drone). As long as you're objective about how skillful you are with usage of combat drone, you should be able to make an informed choice. If you had trouble with using combat drone (i.e. when to spawn it behind an enemy or when to spawn it behind cover and allow it to drift towards enemies on its own, when to respawn it, how to tie up major baddies like scions, etc.) then stick to sentinel, as the learning curve for that class is much easier.

[lazorexplosion]

I thought sentinels were a little overrated. Tech armor is nice but I found in battle I spent too much time refreshing it and not enough time actually using offensive abilities, so I ended up not using it that much. Because it takes damage first, you lose it almost straight away, even in circumstances where you wouldn't have taken a dangerous amount of damage anyway and if you then refresh it, you're stuck on a 12s cooldown when you could have just taken the damage with your regular shields and used offensive abilities. It was occasionally useful as a panic button when I was on really low health, but I could have just used a medigel in those circumstances.



I think I would basically prefer to have the explosive combat drone for distraction + explosion on with that snappy 3s cooldown.

I've spent the entire hardcore run specializing in Overload, Incinerate, Explosive Drone and AP ammo.

Sounds perfect.

[Looy]

Go with energy drain as a bonus power. Its overload, but it recharges your shields, when fighting Mercs of Geth you are indestructible.

[ReplicantZero]

Awesome Helmet wrote...

i love power armor. remember it boosts weapons damage 15% too.

You sure? I thought it just boosted power damage (haven't 'evolved' my Sentinel's tech armour yet so can't check myself, but that's what it seems to say on the wiki: masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Tech_Armor - though the description says 'and weapons' there is actually only a damage bonus listed for powers).

Modifié par ReplicantZero, 10 février 2010 - 09:41 .

[rumination888]

ReplicantZero wrote...

Awesome Helmet wrote...

i love power armor. remember it boosts weapons damage 15% too.

You sure? I thought it just boosted power damage (haven't 'evolved' my Sentinel's tech armour yet so can't check myself, but that's what it seems to say on the wiki: masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Tech_Armor - though the description says 'and weapons' there is actually only a damage bonus listed for powers).

I tested this a couple days ago hoping the description was correct. Sadly, its not.

[Mr. Chaim]

Sentinels are defitnely pretty damm awesome if you build them right, although as people noted up thread, they tend to have a bit of a hard time at earlier levels (Which is why i'd recommend a NG+ Sentinel, for insanity, personally).

First off, my sentinels build -

Heavy Overload
Heavy Throw
Cyro-Blast (1 pt, could be switched with throw. your choice.)
Power Armor
Guardian
Heavy Reave.

Now an explention of what and why:

First off, this is a build going for Maxium Killy with your powers. Armor Recomendations would be anything that boosts your power damage, followed by anything that boosts your shields. If you have it, Blood Dragon armor is basically perfect for this (So long as you dont mind the total inability to see your character's face, of course).

Heavy Overload's obvious as a shield-breaker. Heavy's taken over Area as the radius increase is iffy, and because the increase in damage stacks better with the power damage modifiers.

Heavy Throw: Basicaly spare points. Throw Field's a perfeclty valid choice, or you could switch this out for one of the Evolved forms of Cyro Blast. It's really up to you. Still, i like Heavy Throw as with a less than 3 second cooldown with all upgrades + Guardian, it's incredibly easy to spam for dealing with undefended enamies. Or just because yer bored and want to engage in a little Merc-Juggling

Cyroblast: Single point, mainly for smacking undefended husks or the ilk with for easy instant kills. Not really notable, otherwise.

Power Armor: Excellent choice with the biggest bonus to your shields. See also the commentary about going for maxium damage with your attacks. Still, if you feel like the instant shield boost Assault Armor gives, that's equally valid.

Guardian: Faster Cooldowns = Better ability to kill things. Pretty much a no-brainer. The other bonuses it gives are nice too.

Heavy Reave: Why this and not Warp? Couple of reasons. One, if you run all the math, it does more damage - espeially if you take the Heavy eveloution. Two, it "Stuns" unshield enamies. Three: It interacts better with the squadmates i'm going to get into below. And Why Heavy over Area: Once again, it's a case of the extra damage winning out over the AoE.

For a bonus weapon skill, i recommend Assault Rifles. They're nice and flexabile in there useage, and they compliment your existing weaponset nicely. Also, this lets you get the spectaurly awesome Geth Pulse Rifle, which again meshes very well with things to do with teamates...

So, onto your Team. I recommend Miranda and Jack (SuZe). Why?

Miranda brings Warp, Overload, and the tasty buff to Squad Health and Weapon Damage. I'd take Unstable Warp (For detonating biotics), Heavy Overload and Cerebus Leader, personally.

Second off, Jack.

Well, Jack brings one biiiig bonus. Squad Warp Ammo. This is a HUGE aid to your sentinel. And, hopefully, the reason for Reave makes sense now - Reave a target, then unleash with a Warp Ammo-boosted Geth Pulse rifle. Snicker as target turns into something resembling swiss cheese.

For Jack's other abilites... Primal Adept's a no brainer for the cooldown bonus. the next bit is a little tricky, and depends on your morals about cheating. If your not that worried, i'd recommend firing up a save editor or the ilk, and giving jack a single extra talent point, so that she can get Pull Field. (Which combos incredibly well with Unstable Warp). Otherwise, i'd pick up Heavy Shockwave.

How does any of this compare to an Engineer? No idea, havent played one *chuckle*

Still, hopefully this is useful.

[Wuxia]

I just started my first Insanity run with a Sentinel yesterday and I highly recommend it. I'm not sure about the Engineer as I haven't tried that class yet. The Sentinel on Insanity is challenging but the awesome versatility plus Tech Armor makes sure that Insanity doesn't become REALLY frustrating.



I haven't had many problems yet, maybe because I started at level 5, but I did die quite a few times recruiting Archangel.



I took Warp Ammo as a bonus talent which is great. APA is another good bonus skill as you don't really need another activated skill (although that isn't out of the question).

[pelhikano]

Played Sentinel with AP Ammo bonus on Insanity. It works very well, and you can take pretty much any combination of companions since you got the basics of "debuffing" (Warp+Overload) covered anyway. I picked up the advanced SMG on Tali's mission as soon as I could, which is a very good weapon.

[themaxzero]

For me its Engineer. Harbringer, Triple defense Merc Bosses, YMIR Mechs, Scions are all complete jokes to an Engineer.

[SonsofNorthWind]

Engineer.



I find that Tech Armor doesn't actually add that much to my defenses (doubled shields still <<<<< cover) unless I'm caught out of cover and am over-advancing, in which case a. I'm doing it wrong and b. if I had had an active Combat Drone it would have found the hidden enemies and jacked them up for me. Furthermore, raising Tech Armor again in a fight murders your cooldowns - all else being equal the Engineer can Combat Drone, Incinerate/Overload, Combat Drone again, and come off cooldown at the same time that a Sentinel using Tech armor would.



The combat drone also lets you choose which enemy you want to cripple, while Tech Armor makes you tougher but still will fall rapidly to Scion/Ymir/Heavy shots. Combat Droning a Heavy, in particular, is one of the games real pleasures, and you're missing out if you haven't had a Heavy kill himself with his own splash damage.

[Jaekahn]

PatchWorks wrote...

I've completed Insanity with engineer, and personally I thought it was much easier than Sentinel. Ease has more to do with personal playstyle than anything else, though. [Disclosure I went from my first playthrough of Normal mode sentinel --------> second playthrough Insanity Engineer; as such, I have no real knowledge of Hardcore, though I just assume it's easier than Insanity]

Assuming you really have beaten the game with an engineer on hardcore, you're probably already familiar with how to properly utilize the combat drone (how to use it to draw enemy fire, move people out of cover, tie up large enemies like ymir mechs or krogans, etc.). If so, Insanity isn't going to be too much of a different experience. The enemy A.I. is just as susceptible to drone/A.I. hack/dominate spawned chaos on Insanity as it is on lower difficulties. Drone, will in fact, tie up every enemy in the game besides Praetorians. You'll have just as many opportunities for shooting people in the back (courtesy of the drone or hacked/dominated enemies) on Insanity as you would in hardcore.

Having experience with engineers, you should probably know that the point of their style is to avoid taking the brunt of enemy surpressing fire in the first place. So, really, it boils down to preference, and again, personal playstyle. If you enjoy being able to eat more damage under fire and shooting warp/overload between cooldowns, go with Sentinel (and the reactive defense of tech armor). If you prefer to avoid damage and be more open about shooting out of cover, though with less room for error if you make mistakes, go with engineer (and the proactive "defense" of combat drone). As long as you're objective about how skillful you are with usage of combat drone, you should be able to make an informed choice. If you had trouble with using combat drone (i.e. when to spawn it behind an enemy or when to spawn it behind cover and allow it to drift towards enemies on its own, when to respawn it, how to tie up major baddies like scions, etc.) then stick to sentinel, as the learning curve for that class is much easier.

Just to give you guys an update, I decided to go with the Engineer class oppose to using a Sentinel and I have encountered little to no problems with the run thus far (only about 4-5 hours and I just reached Horizon). I noticed that the fights are a little longer than on Hardcore, but the strategy is roughly the same.

Engineers, to me, are very challenging yet very rewarding. For example, I spent majority of Grunt's mission fighting off the mercs solo, considering that my partners died due to bad placement or AI error / glitches. I often rose from cover, set my drone off to one target in order to distract it, thus taking some off the pressure off of me. During this time, I turned my attention to the other targets, using heavy overload / heavy incinerate and slowly picked them off one by one. I am particularly amused with the Drone's influence over the Krogan. As long as you keep spamming it and keep it up, you are given all the time in the world to destroy the Krogan's armor. Once this is done, all you need to do is freeze it with Cryo and then burst it into little shards.

I would have to say that the most challenging part of the game for me thus far would have to be the last fight on Grunt's recruitment mission, mainly because you had little room to find cover. I had to find a way to draw aggro from the Heavy mech, then seek shelter in a way that would glitch him. Once this was done, I slowly but surely picked off each Krogan after they were released. Much like the other fights in this map, I did majority of it alone. Probably took me 10 minutes before I was finally able to kill the chick.

In summary, I would have to say that the Engineer is by far the most fun class I have played so far. It requires strategy, precision and a lot of micro managing in order to be successful. I found myself pausing the game for 1-2 minutes just to analyze the battlefield before I put my squadmates in position.

[Roxlimn]

Mr. Chaim:



Heavy Reave + Warp Ammo probably doesn't work like you think it does. Until the defenses go down, Reave does instant damage. After the defenses go down, then it stuns and does damage over time. Of course, you could always just Pull with SuZe then detonate with Unstable Warp - that tends to do a number on the target just as well as or better than Warp Ammo, without the additional point expenditure.

[themaxzero]

SonsofNorthWind wrote...

Engineer.

I find that Tech Armor doesn't actually add that much to my defenses (doubled shields still

The combat drone also lets you choose which enemy you want to cripple, while Tech Armor makes you tougher but still will fall rapidly to Scion/Ymir/Heavy shots. Combat Droning a Heavy, in particular, is one of the games real pleasures, and you're missing out if you haven't had a Heavy kill himself with his own splash damage.

Heh, I thought I was the only one.

[lessthanjake9]

Engineer is a really great option for Insanity. This is simply because an engineer has the only means of crowd control on enemies that still have defenses, which is the Combat Drone.