101 réponses à ce sujet

[RamsenC]

Reave is powerful because its so versatile and its the best barrier stripper, but since you have access to so many powers from you and your squad versatility is not as important as specialization. It is not the be all end all move people think it is, just for the fact that its outclassed by other abilities in these non-barrier situations.

It is stupid that you can just spam it over and over against collectors and blood pack, but thats hardly the best way to play. 

Modifié par RamsenC, 09 mars 2010 - 12:35 .

[qq151069]

RamsenC wrote...

Reave is powerful because its so versatile and its the best barrier stripper, but since you have access to so many powers from you and your squad versatility is not as important as specialization. It is not the be all end all move people think it is, just for the fact that its outclassed by other abilities in these non-barrier situations.

It is stupid that you can just spam it over and over against collectors and blood pack, but thats hardly the best way to play. 

That's an interesting point.  (And to derail thread!) But I guess one nice thing that reave does give you is increased flexibility with picking squadmates.  From the discussion, it seems like reave can be used in many different situations, so now I can pick more sub-par squadmates to take on different battles.  (IE: Tali + Legion + Engineer against Collectors). 

Then again, spamming powers doesn't seem like much fun (sans charging around as a vanguard). 

[baller7345]

qq151069 wrote...

RamsenC wrote...

Reave is powerful because its so versatile and its the best barrier stripper, but since you have access to so many powers from you and your squad versatility is not as important as specialization. It is not the be all end all move people think it is, just for the fact that its outclassed by other abilities in these non-barrier situations.

It is stupid that you can just spam it over and over against collectors and blood pack, but thats hardly the best way to play. 

That's an interesting point.  (And to derail thread!) But I guess one nice thing that reave does give you is increased flexibility with picking squadmates.  From the discussion, it seems like reave can be used in many different situations, so now I can pick more sub-par squadmates to take on different battles.  (IE: Tali + Legion + Engineer against Collectors). 

Then again, spamming powers doesn't seem like much fun (sans charging around as a vanguard). 

Reave will help you get by with Tali and Legion with an Engineer but you don't have to have it.

I went through the sucide mission with Garrus and Tali with an Engineer and honestly flew through it because of the two drones.  ...Wait dang i've become part of the derail.

Anyway I don't think any class actually needs a bonus power.  Most classes don't really benefit from them but they don't have any downsides to using them either so if you want to use one then go ahead.

[cxensign]

All 6 of the unique class powers are stronger than Reave, and all but the Sentinel's compete with it for cooldown.  Spamming Reave on recharge is a servicable high floor, low ceiling play, but it's not optimal for any character.

If this was a competitive game, I would have a lot of trouble calling a skill that dominated the lower tiers, but was marginal in high level play 'broken'.  Not that balance doesn't matter in all tiers, but if you're going to talk about something being broken, without qualifiers, it by default means in the hands of a top-tier player - and Reave does not belong in that conversation.

m14567 wrote...

Yeah but all over this forum you see
countless post about how OP reave is. It's getting a bit silly when
clearly there are better options for about 90% of the game.

Reave spam is almost certainly the best way to play a lot of classes if you're not particularly good at this sort of game.  It's a very easy skill to use at a minimal level, and it will outperform Shockwave spam on Hardcore or Insanity.  Minimal aiming required, minimal time out of cover, useful in enough situations that it'll do something every time it's pressed.

Insanity feels like a difficulty that'll only be attractive to 10, 20% of the player base at best; that's a pretty good target.  Any more than that and you're wasting your time.  It's a mass market game, accessibility is king, and for a story-driven RPG there isn't a lot of value to really kicking the difficulty through the roof for 1+sigma players.

Modifié par cxensign, 09 mars 2010 - 03:28 .

[Frosty Ananth]

Well Shockwave is pretty ****. Most things outpreform Shockwave spam.



I find Reave really boring. Doesn't have that nice physicality in either sound or curve. Can't speak to it's effectiveness.

[DragoonKain3]

@RamensC

So many things wrong with that it makes my head want to explode (for example Freedom's Progress is heavily blue shields)

As someone has said, its 9 armor mechs vs 12 shield mechs, not counting the Ymir which has both. And to be quite frank, the first wave of armor mechs is much more of a problem, as all the shield drones you can indefinitely hide yourself in cover if you know where to hide.

Not to mention its easier to take down those shield drones as well, Shuriken is comparable to Tempest already, while Predator just plain sucks for those who don't have access to AR/SR/Shotguns. Plus the fact that armored mechs in this mission you still have health to worry about, while shield mechs die once you remove their shields, so technically those shield drones should be counted as half a mech.

Heres what you need to do; play through the entire game and count how many shielded enemies there are and how many armor/barrier enemies there are. I don't feel like going through a lot of work to prove you wrong so we will just have to agree to disagree.

No, that's because you know you're wrong. I don't need to count EXACTLY how much armor/barrier protected enemies are against shields because...
1) the enemy type list has armor/barrier being more common than shields
2) the mission AND assingment types still has armor/barrier being more common
3) just the fact you're comparing the number of enemies who has Armor OR Barrier against those who has shields means you're comparing 2 protections versus 1, which all else equal would mean there are less of the latter type

And I can tell you, it's not even close comparing the two, as every way you can estimate the numbers, the numbers favour Armor/Barrier. You can tell by estimates that one is larger than the other without resorting to exact measurements, just like you can tell that a house is smaller than a skyscraper without even using a measuring stick.

Also energy drain is better on synthetics as far as I can tell, so saying Reave>Overload on mechs is silly. 

Since when did I say that Reave > Overload on mechs? All I said was that Reave is still useful on armor protected mechs, which are pretty much all non-Geth synthetics. You can strip them off instantly while you use a teammate to disable with Area Overload (which surprise surprise, has the same AoE as Reave). Meaning you only need 2 activated powers to deal with an area, CC'ing them to allow you to easily kill them. Compare that with setting up Warp Explosion, in where you have to strip the armor of one target, have someone pull, someone else explode, and enemies are still alive in god knows where you blew them away to. (assuming no ledge kills of course)

BTW incinerate is better on armor than reave, with your logic engineer w/incinerate spam would have the fastest speed run time for any mission with armored enemies.

Uhh... I didn't say anything of that sort of logic.

All I said time and time again is that I mostly use Reave against Organic Health, which is superior than exploding them with warp. The health gain (400+ health over the same CD as the shield powers) + CC goes a long way to keeping your 'downtimes' to a minimum assuming you're caster classes, which WE does not do.

Lets not forget the point of this discussion, I'm telling you reave spam will not get you the best speed runs.

I don't see anyone clearing the first part of Collector Base as an Adept in under 6 minutes using Warp Explosion, and that stage is ALREADY in favour of Warp Explosion because of instakills. Best one I see is around 8 mins.

Engineers I can see taking around the same time, as I can use Drone instead of Singularity to distract Harbinger while I reave spam his minions.  I can see Caster Sentinels taking maybe a minute or two longer, mainly because they can't ignore Harbinger like the Adept/Engineer can.

So yeah, prove me wrong in Insanity. Find/Make a video in which an Adept/Engineer can clear the 'save the tech guy' stage in under six minutes using mainly Warp Explosion, or as a Caster Sentinel in under seven, and I'd concede the point. Which shouldn't be that hard if its really possible, as I said before, I SUCK at twitch skills and I pause a whole damn lot (I blame Baldur's Gate + Dragon Age).

Reave is powerful because its so versatile and its the best barrier stripper, but since you have access to so many powers from you and your squad versatility is not as important as specialization. It is not the be all end all move people think it is, just for the fact that its outclassed by other abilities in these non-barrier situations.

Fact of the matter is, Area Reave strips armor/barriers in one shot for the general mook just like warp or incinerate blast against armor, but does so in an AoE fashion without any need to setup a combo (unlike explosion). Once you hit organic health (which are most of the targets), it recharges more health than Barrier/GSB recharges shields for the same total CD time, it CC's for 1 second more than Incinerate Blast, and it STILL does almost as much total damage as Incinerate Blast.

In a game where your powers are governed by the global cooldown, the ability to do multiple things for the same amount of cooldown time makes a power superior to others. And Reave does exactly that. Why bother warping to strip enemy armor/barrier when you can area reave and possibly catch his friend? Why bother using Incinerate Blast to CC/DoT the organic enemy when you can do the same with Reave and gain health back? Why bother using Barrier/GSB when you can gain more health back using Reave on organic health plus do some AoE damage as well?

Sure Warp/Incinerate has a damage advantage, but its so slight its only noticeable against Scions/Ymir mechs. But that's the reason why, for powergaming purposes, you take Area Reave against the vast majority of general mooks in the game (and the reason why you max it first), while you get Heavy Warp or Heavy Incinerate for use against the rare times you go against these targets. And its not as if Area Reave is useless against these two targets; while it does less damage, its still respectable enough damage to be useful.

It is stupid that you can just spam it over and over against collectors and blood pack, but thats hardly the best way to play.

As opposed to what, Warp Explosions? I can see WE is better with certain classes and/or certain stages, but not with the caster classes where reave spam results in better speed runs for them, as it helps in keeping them alive to keep toting their gun nonstop.

Modifié par DragoonKain3, 09 mars 2010 - 08:02 .

[RamsenC]

Sweet mother that's a lot of text.

You are correct about armored enemies on Freedom's Progress, my mistake, but overload/energy drain is still a better ability for that entire mission either way and theres still more blue shield enemies. You need to play again if you think blue shields are not common. Let's say they are in the game half the time, either way thats a lot of the time.

Back to you thinking reave spam = fastest speed run. I don't play adept, so I can't beat your 6 minute time using one, but I'm sure a decent Adept could. If you check out my Vanguard vs Suicide video I beat the mission much faster than 6 minutes and I didn't exactly play it as fast as I possibly could. As I said reave is good at many things, but if you have an enemy at health you have much better options. Also about Incinerate, one of the very few Blood Pack mission late enough in the game to have area reave has you bringing Mordin without your consent. Mordin comes with incinerate blast, thus making your reave less interesting for that mission.

A warp explosion will do double the damage of a reave not counting the force damage it does, has a bigger aoe, and it's instant. Plus it leaves enemies on the ground taking 100% more damage. I'm not saying you have to use this tactic with every class, especially the combat classes, but its always a powerful option. Reave is a great AoE defense stripper, but so is energy drain. Again using your logic I should have the best Geth speed runs spamming overload. You don't actually think that do you?

edit: I'd like to add you implied reave spam is the best for speed runs period, there was no "only with adept/engineer" qualifier, so my vanguard video should be enough. Funny thing is there's an even faster vanguard video using warp explosions to dispatch groups, with reave for stripping. 

Modifié par RamsenC, 09 mars 2010 - 10:19 .

[cxensign]

Frosty Ananth wrote...

Well Shockwave is pretty ****. Most things outpreform Shockwave spam.

On Casual, Normal, and Veteran difficulty, no power, used indiscriminantly on recharge, will outperform Shockwave.

Used intelligently and aimed appropriately, almost every other power will outperform Shockwave; with some combination of powers, Shockwave can be made entirely redundant.  However, if you aren't using your powers intelligently, if you aren't aiming them at appropriate targets, those other powers fail, while Shockwave still performs.

It's a skill for casual players to dominate lower difficulties, that doesn't require much skill.  It's a pretty well designed power with that in mind.

[thisisme8]

cxensign wrote...

Frosty Ananth wrote...

Well Shockwave is pretty ****. Most things outpreform Shockwave spam.

On Casual, Normal, and Veteran difficulty, no power, used indiscriminantly on recharge, will outperform Shockwave.

Used intelligently and aimed appropriately, almost every other power will outperform Shockwave; with some combination of powers, Shockwave can be made entirely redundant.  However, if you aren't using your powers intelligently, if you aren't aiming them at appropriate targets, those other powers fail, while Shockwave still performs.

It's a skill for casual players to dominate lower difficulties, that doesn't require much skill.  It's a pretty well designed power with that in mind.

I use Jack's Shockwave all the time.  I think used intellingently on Insanity it can be a devastating power.  As a matter of fact, I love Shockwave, Concussive Blast, Area Throw, and Inferno Grenade so much on my Squadmates that I find defense stripping powers to limited for me.

You should note that I said on my Squadmates.  Only have an active Vanguard, Soldier, and Infiltrator right now and I use Pull Field more often than Shockwave on my Vanguard simply because of the cooldown time.  Bonus powers?  Useless for me.  I can't think of a single one that would benefit me more than the powers I already have.

[Besetment]

 

RamsenC wrote...You are correct about armored enemies on Freedom's Progress, my mistake, but overload/energy drain is still a better ability for that entire mission either way and theres still more blue shield enemies. You need to play again if you think blue shields are not common. Let's say they are in the game half the time, either way thats a lot of the time.

Nobody said Energy Drain isn't more effective than Reave versus blue shields. Nobody said blue shields are not common (I thought we had already established that roughly half the missions in the entire game are blue shield heavy). So what if theres a couple more shield rocket drones on Freedom's Progress? Half of the drones you can bug out anyway so they do completely nothing whilst you shoot them down.

You are repeatedly making a logical fallacy called strawman arguement which makes it difficult to reason with you. This is because half of your arguement is based on things nobody actually said. On the issue of logical fallacy you should also google: False Dilemma, Red Herring and Reductio Ad Absurdum because you are doing them.

Also about Incinerate, the one Blood Pack mission late enough in the game to have area reave has you bringing Mordin without your consent. Mordin comes with incinerate blast, thus making your reave less interesting for that mission.

You can have Area Reave right from the start of the game as long as you trained it pre Suicide Mission before you import into NG+. You can change your bonus power once you get to the Normandy so yeah. For Insanity+ its a good idea to import your Shep with Energy Drain as a bonus power. Do Freedom's Progress. Then change it to something else thats useful for your next mission. It costs 5000 eezo, you start with 50,000 and at that point in the game you should take whatever you can get. By Horizon I had over 100,000 eezo and I wasn't even trying to stockpile it. You can buy all the upgrades and retrain before every mission if you want to. 

edit: I'd like to add you implied reave spam is the best for speed runs period, there was no "only with adept/engineer" qualifier, so my vanguard video should be enough. Funny thing is there's an even faster vanguard video using warp explosions to dispatch groups, with reave for stripping.

Yes. Reave spam will only get you so far. At which point you are better off doing something else other than trying to force the proverbial square peg into the round hole.

I think Suicide Mission speedruns are kind of a unique thing though in terms of being an exhibition of the power of Reave. I just did Collector Ship with an Infiltrator with Reave and Improved Cryo Ammo on SMG + Jack (Squad Warp Ammo and Pull) + Miranda (the indomitable Warp). Reave doesn't completely strip barriers for me yet. Need the last 2x biotic damage upgrades maybe?

Modifié par Besetment, 09 mars 2010 - 10:42 .

[rumination888]

DragoonKain3 wrote...

I don't see anyone clearing the first part of Collector Base as an Adept in under 6 minutes using Warp Explosion, and that stage is ALREADY in favour of Warp Explosion because of instakills. Best one I see is around 8 mins.

Engineers I can see taking around the same time, as I can use Drone instead of Singularity to distract Harbinger while I reave spam his minions.  I can see Caster Sentinels taking maybe a minute or two longer, mainly because they can't ignore Harbinger like the Adept/Engineer can.

So yeah, prove me wrong in Insanity. Find/Make a video in which an Adept/Engineer can clear the 'save the tech guy' stage in under six minutes using mainly Warp Explosion, or as a Caster Sentinel in under seven, and I'd concede the point. Which shouldn't be that hard if its really possible, as I said before, I SUCK at twitch skills and I pause a whole damn lot (I blame Baldur's Gate + Dragon Age).

Did ya hear that, AverageGatsby? He's callin' you out!

[Average Gatsby]

rumination888 wrote...

DragoonKain3 wrote...

I don't see anyone clearing the first part of Collector Base as an Adept in under 6 minutes using Warp Explosion, and that stage is ALREADY in favour of Warp Explosion because of instakills. Best one I see is around 8 mins.

Engineers I can see taking around the same time, as I can use Drone instead of Singularity to distract Harbinger while I reave spam his minions.  I can see Caster Sentinels taking maybe a minute or two longer, mainly because they can't ignore Harbinger like the Adept/Engineer can.

So yeah, prove me wrong in Insanity. Find/Make a video in which an Adept/Engineer can clear the 'save the tech guy' stage in under six minutes using mainly Warp Explosion, or as a Caster Sentinel in under seven, and I'd concede the point. Which shouldn't be that hard if its really possible, as I said before, I SUCK at twitch skills and I pause a whole damn lot (I blame Baldur's Gate + Dragon Age).

Did ya hear that, AverageGatsby? He's callin' you out!

I have an under 4 minutes video uploading now. I'll link it when I can. Now, I wasn't sure, but were you saying shepard had to be doing the warp explosions or you just wanted a lot of warp explosions, because I took Thane/Miranda for the maximum number of warps. If you mean shepard doing it, I can do this with Jack and I can guarantee having 2 people be able to set up detonations I could probably clear this in under 3:30.

EDIT: Here it is.

Modifié par Average Gatsby, 09 mars 2010 - 08:24 .

[Mossa_missa]

Wonder if it wuld be possible to play it trough only using your team mates on insane. Ok, you may use melee attacks to... Glance at Gatsby.

[Besetment]

I'll break out fraps and try to run the suicide mission with a soldier using only fists. Christ, why do I do it...

[qq151069]

Besetment wrote...

I'll break out fraps and try to run the suicide mission with a soldier using only fists. Christ, why do I do it...

Good luck trying to kill the Reaper!

[Besetment]

Its only the first part. And yeah I'd like to report that this really SUCKS.

[qq151069]

Besetment wrote...

Its only the first part. And yeah I'd like to report that this really SUCKS.

How about using only CC/squad powers?  That might make it a bit more playable.

Edit: Although if you manage a pure melee only run, I think you'd win the unofficial ME king award.

Modifié par qq151069, 09 mars 2010 - 07:52 .

[Average Gatsby]

Mossa_missa wrote...

Wonder if it wuld be possible to play it trough only using your team mates on insane. Ok, you may use melee attacks to... Glance at Gatsby.

For the suicide mission part 1, absolutely. The enemy never flanks you. I think its actually kind of humorous that we keep using this section for speedruns, as it really isn't indicative of what the rest of the game is like. It so linear its impossible to get flanked and therefore once your in cover, you cant really die unless harbinger hits you with the black ball. I don't know.

I did this whole mission awhile back without shooting once as the adept. Part 2 was quite a bit harder.

Oh and if you wanted to see the warp explosion speed run I mentioned earlier: Here it is.

Modifié par Average Gatsby, 09 mars 2010 - 08:12 .

[Besetment]

qq151069 wrote...
How about using only CC/squad powers?  That might make it a bit more playable.

Thats what I've been doing. <_< Its not fun at all. Sooo many Harbingers oh my god.

[Average Gatsby]

I can see virtually no instance where taking reave would result in substantially increased speed run times for any level. Every class is already well equipped for dealing with a variety of situations, even if they don't have a specific anti-(Blank) protection. Stripping protection is way overrated: If your afraid of barriers, you have the tempest or avenger or collector AR. Armor? Snipers or the hp. You can 2 shot the armor off a varren with the hp. No need to strip with reave, 2 shot and then hit em with cryo blast or pull + warp or cryo ammo.

This game is far more "twitch" skill based than even ME1. Any bonus power is ultimately going to get trumped by a player with greater skill using the core abilities. Reave is attractive, sure, but all those effects it can do are honestly not that great. Think about it:

Why, when an enemy is down to health, would the adept not hit that enemy with Pull or throw or sing? Only bad adepts keep hitting health enemies with warp. So the cc effect would be better off using a pull.

When up against collectors or bloodpack, why would the infiltrator or soldier choose a reave over an Cloak or AR? For an AOE effect? Both of those classes can either strip defenses rapidly with weapons. Even if they don't have the ammo type, defenses are not that large. And both have a fantastic CC in squad cryo ammo. And they have the best CC too, One-shotting enemies.

Why should a vanguard waste cooldowns casting reave when he can either charge or have a squadmate strip and follow it up with a much quicker pull to warp detonation. Yes, I've seen the one video. It's hardly a case for reave. Miranda, Thane, or Samara could've done the same work letting the Vanguard use his 3 second pull instead.

Sentinel's needing reave? With warp detonation, and throw and cryo for cc, plus a massive AOE bomb known as Tech Armor, they've got it covered.

Finally the engineer. Oh no, barriers! What will the engineer do? Fire a couple viper shots or tempest bursts and then freeze or burn them, while letting drone rack up the bonus damage. Incinerate is far better anti-armor so no need to talk about the blood pack.

Reave is a crutch ability with so many of its effects that looks good on paper and cool in game. But there are almost always better options than using a reave instead of using a core class ability. Gun classes need to use guns, casters already have better spells. A specific ability for a specific instance, like cryo on an enemy with health, is better than a jack of all trades ability like reave.

Oh and about health regen: Medi-gel. 3 second cooldown. Full health and shields instantly, and shields restore even while your getting shot.

Modifié par Average Gatsby, 09 mars 2010 - 09:11 .

[Sabresandiego]

No bonus powers are necessary but if you are trying to make the most powerful character you can than area reave is probably your best bet. Some of the ammo powers are also very good for certain classes. I find the other bonus powers too specialized to use throughout the game, but they are great if you like to respec for certain missions.

Modifié par Sabresandiego, 09 mars 2010 - 09:21 .

[RamsenC]

Besetment wrote...

Nobody said Energy Drain isn't more effective than Reave versus blue shields. Nobody said blue shields are not common (I thought we had already established that roughly half the missions in the entire game are blue shield heavy). So what if theres a couple more shield rocket drones on Freedom's Progress? Half of the drones you can bug out anyway so they do completely nothing whilst you shoot them down.

You are repeatedly making a logical fallacy called strawman arguement which makes it difficult to reason with you. This is because half of your arguement is based on things nobody actually said. On the issue of logical fallacy you should also google: False Dilemma, Red Herring and Reductio Ad Absurdum because you are doing them.

I'm trying to make the point that reave is great to use only as a defense stripper, which makes me wonder why no one thinks energy drain is great when it strips defense of the other half of the enemies in the game. Against health you are better off not using reave, although its an easy, lazier option that will get you by. Sorry if you misunderstood me, but that wasn't even the main point of the discussion. 

My main point was reave spam = not win speed runs (which was something that was said), even with Adept. Thanks Gatsby, for ending this stupid discussion. I wish I could argue my points as well as you, next time I see something stupid I'll just let you know and not post anything.

Modifié par RamsenC, 09 mars 2010 - 09:46 .

[thisisme8]

RamsenC wrote...

My main point was reave spam = not win speed runs (which was something that was said), even with Adept. Thanks Gatsby, for ending this stupid discussion. I wish I could argue my points as well as you, next time I see something stupid I'll just let you know and not post anything.

Have them take one look at the braids in your beard and /thread.

[RamsenC]

Gatsby can talk, while I *flaunt beard* in the background. No one would be able to resist. There should be a beard emote on this forum. 

If you squint this one kinda looks like a beard