[Megathread] Mass Effect 3

[Nerraw]

Some interesting thoughts on why the endings work, and why they don't work, from Allan Shumacher on the DA team: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/to.../11146046&lf=8

Remember that he has no part in the development of the ME franchise and thus has no idea what they're cooking up.

[Notos]

Now here's the theory that solves all the problems and answers all questions:

[Spaceshaman]

Ok we can all stop with this indoctrination theory. The Reapers are ... I mean the DLC is coming.

[Notos]

Ok we can all stop with this indoctrination theory. The Reapers are ... I mean the DLC is coming.

That's not the indoctrination theory, it's the intoxication theory. Totally different things.

[Windry]

So anyone find an effective strategy for gold yet? I got to wave 8 and we just got gibbed by phantoms. In an unrelated note I want to cause bodily harm to the guy who gave phantoms a ranged attack.

Gold is not that hard once you learn the knacks of multiplayer.
1) Use the right weapons. Mobs clearly get more armor in higher difficulties, which make fast shooting/low damage guns worthless. You should only be using hard hitting guns.
The following guns are the ones to use:
Sniper - Javelin/Black Widow > Widow/Mantis (which you can quickly get to level x by buying the cheapest packs)
Assault Riffle - Falcon (very hard to use though... as it's a bouncing shot)
Shotgun - Geth Shotgun/Claymore > Evicerator
Pistol - Carniflex... (there's one more I don't remember atm)
Unless you're an Adept, no one should use a SMG's.

2) Have a good team comp (ie - pick OP classes only)
Adept - Asari/Drell - Probably the most powerful, most important class to have in your group. AoE CC that goes through shields/barriers... enough said. Single pistol or single SMG for cd reduction.
Infiltrator - Salarian > Quarian - The best solo class in the game. Very useful to sneak those research nodes, or stealth rez. Single sniper, preferably Black Widow.
Engineer - Salarian > all else - All engineers are serviceable, but Decoy is the one move in this game that seriously tanks mobs like a boss. Weapon is really player choice here.
Soldier/Sentinel - Krogan only - These guys should be walking around with permanant 40% damage reduction and like 1800 combined health/shields. You can stack as many heavy guns as you want here, they're not going to be casting spells.
Vanguard - THE WORSE CLASS to play on Gold. Asari is a maybe cause they still have stasis, but Biotic charge is worthless in Gold, and it seems very likely that the vanguard always gets stuck in a wall or stuck in the ground. Vanguards are the class that always tops the score in the first 3 waves, and end up being worthless in the last 4-5 waves.

3) Control the enemy spawn points - Basically if your team is standing in certain spots, the enemy will always spawn in certain spots. It takes a little time to figure it out for each map. If you can get the mobs to always come at you from the same direction, it makes the game a lot easier.

4) Do not face check the corners once you're past wave 3. If you don't have stealth, and you hear the mobs around the corner... do not just run to them, run to cover and then peak out the corner. If you're playing against geth, instead, run a wide arching angle to see if they have flamethrowers.

5) Don't be stingy with items! ESPECIALLY rocket launchers! On waves 6 and 10, they're usually the only way you will survive if the challenge is hack.

6) Level up fitness and get 15% shield regen speed... every gold player I know gets this on every one of their characters, it's just too important.

7) Know how to rez. If you're an infiltrator, you can stealth and rez sometimes. Most the time in gold in later waves, 1 or 2 allies will die and just have an army of mobs around them. The worse thing you can do is try to run in there and get the rez off while they all kill you. Either use a rocket launcher to clear and then rez, or you need to run them away from the dead allies, and make a large circle back to the allies.

8) Know how to lead astray. Mobs in this game have an aggro table. On a lot of the hectic waves, it's important that the 2 banshees, or all the geth pyros, are chasing someone, and that person is running them in circles while the rest of the team focuses on killing off weaker mobs first.

[inboundpaper]

Got it we just need to get someone to l2 engineer and get a lot more supplies than we had when were running gold today. A second question, do higher level weapons make a huge difference, most of us are running mark 1 rares :/.

[Toccs]

Gold is not that hard once you learn the knacks of multiplayer.
1) Use the right weapons. Mobs clearly get more armor in higher difficulties, which make fast shooting/low damage guns worthless. You should only be using hard hitting guns.
The following guns are the ones to use:
Sniper - Javelin/Black Widow > Widow/Mantis (which you can quickly get to level x by buying the cheapest packs)
Assault Riffle - Falcon (very hard to use though... as it's a bouncing shot)
Shotgun - Geth Shotgun/Claymore > Evicerator
Pistol - Carniflex... (there's one more I don't remember atm)Unless you're an Adept, no one should use a SMG's.

The Paladin

[Scorage]

Dammit why don't I have 2 more friends so I can go in with everyone on Skype.... Communication does wonders in the game.

Though I dare say Turian Soldier can be quite useful rather than a Krogan on Gold. Proximity Mine + cooldown reduction does wonders if you ask me. Or perhaps it is because I'm good at it. (Mines don't go directly to you cursor, for example.) Proximity mines clears unprotected mobs way too fast, and staggers everything else. With cooldown reduction, Geth pyros don't have any chance to move, and mines also take away a good chunk from armor. Concussive Shot isn't as great, but can be reduced to 1.5 sec CD and then becomes a threat to banshees, and keeps phantoms away permanently. (Watch for their dodge though.) (Mine spam on Atlas Mechs clears the troopers and centurions around them quite nicely while killing them. Since everyone will be staggered meanwhile, it is also a way to save up on your missiles.)

Ofcourse, if that Salarian Engineer also has mines.... WHAAAAAAAAAA I don't have my Salarian Engineer yet!

I agree Vanguards are less useful on gold and silver. But you can tank and kite many mobs if you can use your charge as a shield recovery tool. But that's about it, Nova becomes a burden after 3rd wave. Stasis is always good, and Drell might be useful with pull and grenade spam. (Given that your team dug in near an ammo bucket.)

---------- Post added 2012-04-08 at 02:32 PM ----------

OH a quick question!

You can't get extra rank and levels for something already maxed, right? I mean you can't get XP + Appearance level for a class when you unlocked lights, right?

I've bought a whole lotta recruit packs so I can get higher version things cheaper as everything can be found in a recruit pack as well. (My last few purchases opened up Asari Vanguard for example but she is an uncommon anyway.)

What I mean is, I got 2 ranks left on Avenger, 1 left on Mantis, and about 8 total appearance unlocks for human classes. I should stick to recruit packs as I will get the max outta everything they can offer, right? Or should I save up for spectre-veteran packs?

[Deleted]

You can't get extra rank and levels for something already maxed, right? I mean you can't get XP + Appearance level for a class when you unlocked lights, right?

You can get appearance packs one you unlock lights, had Salarian Engineer plenty of times :s

Don't think you can get higher than uncommon from Recruit packs, if you can it's almost impossible :d

[Scorage]

You can get appearance packs one you unlock lights, had Salarian Engineer plenty of times :s

Don't think you can get higher than uncommon from Recruit packs, if you can it's almost impossible :d

Yup, just got appearance for my maxed female human adept. While XP is nice and handy right now, rest is not.

Well, I'll try to get the rest of my humans fully customizable, then save up for spectre packs I guess.

Though I'll say that Premium pack is priced a bit too high.

[OhpUldum]

I find myself playing through the story again. First time I went through as a female Shep vanguard. Now it's time for a male Shep technician. I can't talk about this game enough with friends, can't wait for whatever comes next for the Mass Effect IP.

[Nerraw]

https://twitter.com/#!/BioEvilChris/...78725637992448

[Spaceshaman]

I find myself playing through the story again. First time I went through as a female Shep vanguard. Now it's time for a male Shep technician. I can't talk about this game enough with friends, can't wait for whatever comes next for the Mass Effect IP.

Tru dat. I use ME3 as a cure to my WOW addiction. And it works lol...

[rhorle]

Joker is loyal to shepard IF they think hes alive. He ate a reaper beam to the face. Why would anything think he was alive? As for the reapers not being stupid it isn't a question of stupidity it's a question of arrogance. They think they've stopped shepard and his forces when harbinger lands and beams shep in the face. They've underestimated him which they have a history of doing. If you wait to long the reapers intercept hackets communication, realize shep is still alive and the threat is still real and they come back and destroy it. Yes they all thought shep was dead.

Not everything is a spoiler but I'm to lazy to to multiple spoiler tags so I'm just doing the whole thing in case someone would find the stuff a spoiler. Though at this point in this thread it shouldn't matter anymore.


Except your whole theory is debunked with the video I linked. The reapers do consider the crucible to be a threat, and the fleets don't just "retreat". The reapers would never let the crucible go under any circumstances. They go for the threats and ignore the rest. When they hit earth they destroyed the industrial and military centers first. They don't simply just intercept the message and then destroy it because at that point the crucible has docked with the citadel. They wouldn't have left in the first place because the Crucible and the Fleet couldn't have left if it can dock with the Citadel.

The reapers don't just take the Citadel off to dark space because it is part of their culling process. It never is explained but it does have a part in it. From what happens in the game it sounds like a mass version of the processors referenced at [url]http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex/The_Reapers#Reaper_Variants[/url]. Arrogance would show when the reapers didn't turn the beam off when the fleets arrived, or they might not have been able to stop the process once started.

These aren't just normal battles. It is a fight to the death. There is a reason why they assembled the fleets that they did and it wasn't just to turn and run. [url]http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex/The_Reaper_War#The_Miracle_at_Palaven[/url] shows that the reapers go after possible threats in full force. As they were lured away by the "crippled" dreadnought and the fleet deployed around it as protection. The battle with the Asari shows that the reapers ignore some losses and fleets in order to go for their goal.

They just wouldn't have pursued the fleets, while leaving the Crucible alone. Because the Fleets don't matter, eventually the Reapers will destroy them. The crucible is the thing that can lead to their ultimate defeat not decimated fleets. Reapers don't decide things with cold hard logic. They wouldn't just charge off after the fleet while leaving the Crucible floating next to the citadel (nor would the fleet leave the crucible exposed for that matter). If the fleet did start to retreat that means they would have had to fight all the way to the Citadel again. But we can still see the Fleet fully engaged around the Citadel only a "little bit" after the charge on the beam.

Not to mention [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Svj5TmZP0xs#t=605s[/url] shows the battle still going on the moment the arms are opened. And the citadel there waiting. As the whole process of it docking takes like a minute if even that since they reference a 10 second countdown. The only communication hackett has with Shepard is after the arms are opened as well. So the reapers had no signal to intercept. The Cataclyst, the AI that controls the reapers and creates their Galaxy Destruction plans would still have been actively trying to stop the crucible. It even still has the Reapers trying to destroy the Crucible while it is talking to you, as the video I linked earlier shows.

---------- Post added 2012-04-08 at 12:02 PM ----------

Ofcourse, if that Salarian Engineer also has mines.... WHAAAAAAAAAA I don't have my Salarian Engineer yet!

Salarian Engineers only have Decoy, Energy Drain, and Incinerate. Salarian Infiltrators are the ones with the Proximity mine. A salarian engineer with a sniper rifle, decoy, and energy drain can easily take out all but the heavy mobs. And the Atlas/banshee/primes will often just sit on your decoy allowing you to take them out slower. The Salarian engineer is all the power of an Infiltrator but without the cloak. And decoy makes it so you don't really need a cloak.

Or should I save up for spectre-veteran packs?

You should save up for the higher packs. Recruit is good for getting weapon mods but the higher packs get the better weapons. And right now you get a pretty high chance at N7 grade weapons (not the CE ones though) from the Premium spectre pack for 99k credits. I just unlocked the pistol the Cerberus Guardians use and its a pistol shotgun. Pretty nice. I just wish I had more time to farm 99k credits but I don't do gold (even though I'm skilled enough) so even at silver it takes more time then I can do this weekend.

Once you unlock mods and basic classes you like its best to save up for equipment packs or other "special" packs they offer after a weekend event. As it will provide the best stuff.

[Deleted]

Did someone say saving up? :3

That was only today, with a load of bronze/silver in to level up adept on the (impossible) chance I actually manage to unlock the Justicar on the 10th

[Scorage]

Did someone say saving up? :3

That was only today, with a load of bronze/silver in to level up adept on the (impossible) chance I actually manage to unlock the Justicar on the 10th

So you'll just get 6-8 Premium packs or just spectre packs?

I don't think all of the characters will be Ultra Rares to be honest.

[Deleted]

Huh, here's something I didn't see for the new dlc...

Strength Enhancer – Applies a melee damage boost for one mission
Targeting VI – Applies a headshot damage bonus for one mission
Stabilization Module – Stabilizes weapons while firing and moving for one mission
Shield Power Cells – Shortens the length of time shields take to begin recharging for one mission

And probably going to spam either Veteran or Spectre packs... wish I knew what rarity they're going to be

[Nerraw]

Huh, here's something I didn't see for the new dlc...



And probably going to spam either Veteran or Spectre packs... wish I knew what rarity they're going to be

Dat Targeting VI for my Infiltrator on Silver and up... Om nom nom.

---------- Post added 2012-04-08 at 10:17 PM ----------

Found this on Twitter: http://estlachesis0.deviantart.com/a...ding-293761030

That is some impressive artwork. O.o

[Nerraw]

Shit amazing work, love the Quarian one.

I hadn't noticed the other two. Freaking hell, that's some amazing work.

[Deleted]

1.08mil creds, time for a few hours sleep