Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Discussion

[Sturmhaubitze]

Vanguards can solo a brute, it comes down to timing your attacks. When you see the Brute wind up to take a swing or charge, that's your cue to biotic charge. You'll be immune to their attack, and then you just roll away in the appropriate direction. Unless you start your charge too late, the brute's recovery time will be longer than your time needed to roll away. Shoot at the brute in between charges, and always pay attention to your surroundings and watch out for other enemies trying to interrupt your brute beat-down. The biggest danger is a ravager or marauder joining the fight.

I think the half-barrier nova is pretty much a necessity. Losing your complete barrier is a bad idea, UNLESS you start with a Nova and then biotic charge immediately afterwards. Or biotic charge, follow up with weapon fire for a second or two, then nova, then immediately biotic charge (since the cooldown is complete); as you mentioned.

Also picking the correct target to biotic charge is super important. It's not always about what you're hitting; often it's more about where you end up after the charge. It's usually better to aim for someone who is in the back of the pack, or off to the side, especially if they're near cover. Ideally the enemies are already shooting at your teammates, so many of them will still be shooting away from you after the charge. If not, duck into cover, wait for the cooldown, and charge at someone else that takes you out of harm's way.

Also if your teammates are shooting at a Banshee, and there's a Ravager and Marauder a short distance away... target the Ravager or Marauder. Your teammates are probably so focused on the Banshee that they'll not notice they're exposed to enemy fire. Even a bunch of Cannibals, Geth Troopers, and Assault Troops can do serious damage if left unchecked. Knock out those ranged enemies, so your teammates are free to obliterate the heavies.

[Logic_Bomb]

And this is why Asari Vanguards have more trouble than the others I find - no Nova. Stasis is useful but I don't find it synergizes as well with Charge. Charge-Nova, rinse-repeat, all on a short cooldown with shields replenishing is what allows Vanguards to survive and thrive in close quarters on silver and gold. Asari ones have to play it differently.

[Starblade]

You are talking about one Phantom though, in most points on Gold it's four at a time. Or eight if your unlucky.

It doesn't matter. Up close they can't do much of anything to a vanguard if you're using proper timing (again, unless you lag out a little, then you're screwed). The guns will tear through you from a distance if you can't find a target to charge, but up close you can do the charge/nova combo nonstop if you upgraded charge to hit 2 additional targets. Charge hits three, nova staggers the rest, repeat.

Though, eight sounds fun to try against. The most I've seen is five, though I've taken on three or four simultaneously on Silver (I promoted so I need to get back up to strength to go again on Gold).

I think the half-barrier nova is pretty much a necessity. Losing your complete barrier is a bad idea, UNLESS you start with a Nova and then biotic charge immediately afterwards.

Not rolling with half charge is doable (I went with the other option on my main vanguard), but it makes you a whole lot more of a glass cannon. If you don't know what you're doing you'll die quickly. Also not a lot of people realize but you can adjust your trajectory in mid-air when you use Nova. Use it to get some distance or to hit an enemy just out of range.

It's generally always a bad idea to get near a Banshee though.

[Sturmhaubitze]

And this is why Asari Vanguards have more trouble than the others I find - no Nova. Stasis is useful but I don't find it synergizes as well with Charge. Charge-Nova, rinse-repeat, all on a short cooldown with shields replenishing is what allows Vanguards to survive and thrive in close quarters on silver and gold. Asari ones have to play it differently.

Asari Vanguard heavy melee is a mini-version of Nova, minus the barrier loss, so there's that option. I've used it to good effect on Bronze, though on Silver I haven't played it enough to get a feel for it.

Stasis doesn't synergize with Biotic Charge anymore than Shockwave does. It's in the same category as 'Something you do when not charging'. It's good for locking down enemies for gun fire, or stopping a Phantom, but useless in close combat.

[Starblade]

Asari Vanguards should be using their unique dodge whenever they're not charging to get in position, use stasis and get headshots, and charge again when all the dodging has worn down their shields (they have a better dodge at the cost of losing shield strength every time you use it).

Basically for them its Always Be Charging Unless You Feel Like Getting A Headshot but it's not as snappy as ABC.

e: \/\/\/ The wrongest opinion.

[Caeltos]

Vanguard is terrible in comparison to other classes.

[Sturmhaubitze]

There's no terrible class, only classes that are terrible with your play style.

Like some people love Sentinel, but I just don't enjoy playing one.

[DoomKnights]

Hey guys a heads up. ONE good thing about the reset skill card? If you have a class and you DONT want that one first skill knotch for the class? The reset skill card takes all of them so it's 100% blank. Just a nice heads up. ^^

[Sturmhaubitze]

Very interesting. In most cases it's not useful, since the first skill point is in something that's core to the class (i.e. Biotic Charge). But considering how I play my BF3 Soldier, I'd rather not have that point in Adrenaline Rush; Carnage and Frag Grenade are what I prefer.

Also with a total of 84 points at level 20, there's only so many combinations that result in every point being spent.
1. 4 skills at 6
2. 3 skills at 6, 1 skill at 5, 1 skill at 3
3. ... ?

[Master Chief]

Just had the funnest game ever with a friend, so glitchy. Game was going fine, I was my sniper and my friend was Graknourk the Mighty (krogan soldier) and there was some adept and some vanguard. Vanguard went down in a tough spot so it took some time to get him. Right when I was about to finish picking him up, he gets curb stomped by Cerberus trooper. The revive goes through, he stands up arms wide with a skull over his head and starts gliding. Poor vanguard starts flipping shit and flying everywhere, flickering in and out of existence before flying out of the map and then warping above the ramp near the extraction zone, flickering the whole time. All enemies beeline for him and ignore us, just bunching up under the floating ghost vanguard who's just running and nova-ing trying to get out of purgatory. The few that shoot us we kill, three Atlases spawn, Graknourk solos all three without taking any damage, because as it turns out our shields are instantly recharging. The second we get hurt the shields go back up so we can never be downed. We prance to the exfil zone and wave goodbye to the vanguard.

Also got Mantis X wooo

[Sturmhaubitze]

I haven't seen that level of craziness, but reviving someone just as they die will cause bugs. First they'll pop back up, but be stuck in the default T-pose that an unanimated model uses. Eventually they start moving again, but usually jittery movement without proper animations. A friend told me how he floated out of the world when it happened to him.

I've also seen someone die so forcefully their ragdoll was jammed partially into the ground, and their limbs were stretched to twice normal length due to the physics trying to eject the body out of the floor's collision but failing. It's not an uncommon issue with Unreal's ragdoll physics. With the red glow of their corpse adding to it, it looked like a reaper octopus having a seizure on the floor.

[Starblade]

Wow the Eagle is...not good. It tears through armor but that's about it. Way too much recoil on that thing, and each shot from the Eagle I is weaker than my Predator X, so since I'm probably not ever getting another, I can't see why I'd use it.

[Sturmhaubitze]

I got the Hurricane, and my initial impressions are positive. It's awful beyond short range, but the rate of fire is absolutely incredible. It's a nice alternative to a shotgun when using a Vanguard.

[Hirmetrium]

I got the valiant. It's god damn brutal. I'm wiping the floor in bronze/silver, and its good enough that I feel like I can walk into gold and come out smiling.

[Logic_Bomb]

I got the Crusader (?think it's called) shotgun - it's got surprisingly good accuracy at range too.

[Hirmetrium]

I'd also argue that the Geth Plasma shotgun is surprisingly good accuracy at range too, as I can just one shot kill enemies at a distance a sniper can.

[Gorb]

The multiplayer for this game is HILARIOUS. Amazing fun, fast-paced.

The only thing I hate is the damn cover locking. I hate it so much.

[Master Chief]

Play a Turian or Krogan, no rolling means less accidental cover snaps.

[Ewokz]

but it does mean you occasionally get some idiot with a microphone shouting at you to dodge things when you physically can't. Man that was a slow wave

[Akranadas]

People talk?

[Logic_Bomb]

"WAZZUP BITCHES?!"
*looks for mute mic button*
*finds none in existence*

[Codex]

I'd also argue that the Geth Plasma shotgun is surprisingly good accuracy at range too, as I can just one shot kill enemies at a distance a sniper can.

It's accurate at range by design, and its projectiles have some tracking capability up to medium range.

[Gorb]

My flatmates had trouble getting the voice chat to work, so we just use Steam (voice) chat. With Origin running at the same time. Whee, convoluted circles of madness.

Vanguard is hella fun. I am growing to love the Tech Armour on the Sentinel as well. BOOMZ.

[Sturmhaubitze]

Interesting new bug.

Store was failing on a premium veteran pack purchase (as usual), so I reconnected to Origin and loaded up the game. The game had went ahead and bought the pack, as my money was now gone, and I had to go searching through all my characters to see what I got (Turian Sentinel, extra appearance).

I also noticed that a few of my characters were now wiped clean, but I still had the option to make a new one of the same type. So basically I could respec those characters as I saw fit, so I lost nothing. Still, kind of weird that it was a random selection of my characters (both human infilitrators, and salarian engineer).

[Goobers]

So I unlocked the Asari Vanguard and the Disciple in my starter and victory packs respectively, and decided I wanted a shotgun focused vanguard for completely unrelated reasons.

The theory was sound, tag an enemy with stasis, charge stasised enemy for a biotic explosion and mop up with a shotgun. It just so happens that Stasis has a really bloody long cooldown so I can never get the charge off, and when I do get a charge off it doesn't seem to make any biotic explosion at all. Naturally enough the whole thing was a bit of a fizzer, at least until I unlocked the Claymore.


With my new blunderbuss my Asari Vanguard has topped every single silver game she's been in. See a basic trooper? BLAM! See something tougher? Vulnerability stasis and BLAM! Too far away? Change and BLAM!
The whole thing is rather effective.

[Mantaray]

krogan soldiers with claymores are fun. KILL IT WITH YOUR HEAD! unless your fighting reapers.

is it just me or is reapers just hands-down the hardest opponent set?

[Goobers]

Pretty much, they have big guns and plenty of stuff to chase you out of cover with. In direct contrast with Geth who don't have big guns and sod all to chase you out of cover with. Cerberus is the happy middle with lots of little guns, grenades and phantoms.

Of course Reaper troops as also a lot bigger than the other two factions so you can open up with the powerful yet inaccurate things like Claymores and Revenants' more easily.

[Pocktio]

Considering I cannot find my ME3 disc 2 I am rolling out into MP a bit, so far I've tried a human engineer. I am using a claymore and dumping points into my class bonuses and combat drone. Distractifying enemies with the drone so I can sneak up and one shot people it fun. Especially when it atomises their heads in a spray of gore. It does like atomising heads, oh yes.

[MadCatChiken]

I just unlocked the Black Widow from my Spectre pack, I have to say it's now my favourite gun. It makes a great kill stealer especially with pretty much one shot kill on headshots on unarmoured/unshielded enemies.

[Tregelen]

I don't know what happened to the Falcon, but I feel violated. Krogan sentinel specced for melee damage is hilariously good fun though.

[Sturmhaubitze]

One build for Krogan Sentinels is to just max out Tech Armour and Lift Grenades, take every defensive boost in Tech Armour, Fitness and Rage, and ignore Incinerate. Since Tech Armour ruins your power cooldowns anyways, there's no penalty to loading up on heavy weapons if you don't also take Incinerate. End result? A very tough Krogan that gets even tougher when in Rage mode, demolishes most enemies in melee, and can still pack two heavy weapons for when you need to do ranged combat. In my case that's the Widow and Claymore. In Bronze it's ridiculously strong.

[Tregelen]

Pretty much what I do, I was using Geth Plasma+Falcon but I've got a rank 2 revenant with max accuracy mod which works nicely. Once I ended up In a silver game I thought was bronze, didn't realise until the end still played reckeless melee, still won with only a couple of downs, against reapers It kinda works since you can get the rage+heavy melee kill buffs on husks running at you and then 1-shot cannibals and marauders, helps to have a bayonet on the shotgun of course.

[Codex]

How did you not realise that it was Silver till the end? The enemy force composition is completely different :P

[Misiok]

With interest: this is how Mass Effect 3 multiplayer was suppossed to look, but got cancelled and turned into today's co-op.

With sadness: I would've really liked it to be this way instead.

[Akranadas]

Basically, it was Battlefield 2143

[Saberdark]

Yeah, that actually looks pretty awesome. Who knows though, they might actually be saving that for a game of it's own.

[Goobers]

Looks pretty epic.

Although an FPS in my third person RPG? Probably for the best that it was scrapped. Especially since that 'prototype UI' didn't have any area for any of the abilities like biotics and tech powers, so I'm assuming it would have just been a standard Battlefield game with a Mass Effect skin.


Not to say I wouldn't buy it if it was a full release on it's own though...

[Sturmhaubitze]

I'm glad they went with the multiplayer we have now; that prototype is too different from the single-player game, and lacks what sets Mass Effect 2/3 combat aside from other games. Also Vanguard plays best in 3rd person, as you can see the animations and impacts of what you're doing. In 1st person that would all be lost, and instead you'd just see your camera zooming around and jumping about when doing the moves. Melee combat is also easier in 3rd person, especially if you want to do moves like the Drell.

[DoomKnights]

Still seeing loads of Vanguards killing themselves on silver and gold. Biojump into enemy group, shock them once and then instant killed by brute or banshee in group. Or instant downed by fire from eight geth troopers... lol I wonder what the weekend bonus we will have next they promised. I maxed all my guys at 20 now.

[Codex]

I didn't realise that Cobras OHKs anything in a large radius with no friendly fire. See, that would've been good to know.

[Starblade]

Biojump into enemy group, shock them once and then instant killed by brute or banshee in group.

I've been instant killed by Brutes like twice ever (Vanguards make short work of them, just nova and aim to their weak side), but Banshees are giant warning flags to Vanguards to stay the fuck away. Their instant kill can kill you from any direction at any time (they will even interrupt an ongoing attack they are doing to do it), and in single player they can do it from any range, including physically dragging Shepard's model through level geometry to do it. You should only ever charge a banshee if there's nothing left to charge and you've been hit by warp to the point where your shields are out and its slowly draining your health. Then roll backwards and run as soon as possible. A good vanguard should be killing everything else around the banshee so that the rest of the squad can focus fire to bring it down. It doesn't matter how many points one gets anyway, since experience is shared among everyone according to the total score.

[DoomKnights]

Yea too many times I have seen them assault a Banshee. Now the times I have seen them Assault a brute there was two of them there. So one got hit, the other just instant killed him. Normally you have alot more leway with brutes, but two at a time? Not worth it, attack from range hehe.

[Starblade]

If you're attacking them head on while both are staring you might have issues, but not due to the instant kill. Brutes rarely ever do the grab. You need to be more worried about when they stagger you in between charge and nova, that leaves you vulnerable to gunfire.

[Sturmhaubitze]

Actually, biotic charge will interrupt a Banshee's instant-kill grab on another teammate. I've since this happen twice, when a teammate got grabbed and I charged; Banshee let go, teammate survived.

Other attacks might also have the same effect. Not sure if it's a damage threshold or a force threshold, but my money is on the latter, so might be worth experimenting with biotic explosions and other high force effects.

[Starblade]

I've been saved from a Banshee grab by an infiltrator, so I think it's enough damage before your shields and health drop to zero (she drains your health before the kill animation). I've never seen it happen past Bronze though.

[Master Chief]

it was me i saved him me

[Proripper]

I once stopped a banshee's kill animation by killing it, the guy got away alive; other than that I once saw a glitch on one of the maps where a banshee managed to flash onto a balcony and couldn't back down again...

[Ewokz]

Could someone point me to Misiok's video? I'm interested but it appears to be blocked and I cant find any similar online.

[Afoxi]

I hope you guys have multiple level 20s to promote this weekend. I have 4 ready to promote and 2 more at 18 and 19.

----------

By the way, seriously. Fuck the ingame voice.
Better ---->

[Fish Of Doom]

LAG KILLS

*trembles nervously in the corner, rocking back and forth*

also i still suck.