**Official Mass Effect 2 Thread** - The Thread of Unique Planets, New Species and Amazing Scores

[maziwanka]

game was definitely better than the first, but still suffered from pointless side missions. the only ones that developed the stories more were the loyalty missions. i had no desire to try to explore other planets to exhaust the anomalies, etc. part of what i did like about the game was continuing the story - i basically played me1 right before i got me2 and it was neat to see follow up. me3 should be interesting too. i think maybe there should be less party characters and more worthwhile story.

 

[Qbah]

I kill stuff fast with my Sentinel on Insanity. I took Reave (-> Heavy Reave) as extra power. Heavy Overload, Power Armor and the lower recharge spec. Overload for shields, Reave for armor (does double damage to it...) and then Reave again... The enemies are "paralyzed" for like 2-3s when hit with Reave on health and it's enough to finish them off usually. Not to mention I get a huge hp regen boost and can often survive a critical situation

Spoiler

On the dead Reaper

I respecced into "AoE" - Throw Field, Area Warp, Area Cryo and Area Reave and it was soooo much fun with all the

Spoiler

husks

Just round them up and spam shit

I enjoyed most of the side missions. The only weak one was

Spoiler

the mining one, with that YMIR.

imo. The rest was pretty cool.

 

[Gooberlx2]

i think maybe there should be less party characters and more worthwhile story.

I would prefer fewer party characters as well. I'd rather develop individual stories to a deeper extent. Instead of one loyalty mission per character, it would have been nice if there had been longer, intertwining story arcs for multiple characters. Something more involved in the

Spoiler

relationships/rivalrys between Tali and Legion or Jack and Miranda. Or other characters trying to romance or steal your interest (say Chambers and Jacob...or Garrus, for example)

. Perhaps stuff like that is all planned for ME3.

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed story as it was. I'm playing my Vanguard on hardcore, and it's fucking hard for me without the armor upgrades throughout the game. You guys must just play better/smarter than I do. Charge is awesome, but goddamn risky.

 

[Drako]

I enjoyed most of the side missions. The only weak one was

Spoiler

the mining one, with that YMIR.

imo. The rest was pretty cool.

It's funny you mention

Spoiler

the mining one, with that YMIR.

My wife was watching me play through that particular quest, and her basic response was "That has to be one of the dumbest missions I've seen in a game" .

 

[Drako]

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed story as it was. I'm playing my Vanguard on hardcore, and it's fucking hard for me without the armor upgrades throughout the game. You guys must just play better/smarter than I do. Charge is awesome, but goddamn risky.

You are right about Charge. I started playing Insanity with my Vanguard, and gave up pretty early. You can't really use Charge at all unless there are 1 or 2 enimies left or you will die very quickly. At least that's what I found.

 

[Gooberlx2]

You are right about Charge. I started playing Insanity with my Vanguard, and gave up pretty early. You can't really use Charge at all unless there are 1 or 2 enimies left or you will die very quickly. At least that's what I found.

What I've found is that Charge is basically lame without the claymore shotgun (and its 1-shot has become a severe limitation). Without using Charge (say you chose a rifle as the special weapon), Vanguard is a fairly crippled class with weak armor/barrier and moderate crowd control skills (assuming the enemies have no armor/barrier).

I'll see how it goes when I start accruing the various upgrades...but right now I'm pretty sure attempting Insanity would just be a frustrating waste of time.

Vanguard is damn fun on Normal though. My original character was an Adept anyway. I'm thinking bastion + reave + pull or singularity + sniper would be a pretty lethal class.

edit: Now looking the the weapon stats on wikia, maybe the Eviscerator is the better shotgun due to clip and range. Wish I could re-specialize my weapon (eviscerator hadn't yet been released).

edit2: After playing with the Eviscerator last night...the Claymore is definitely much more powerful. I just gotta work the enemies down with reave, overload, warp, incinerate, etc...then I can charge in and blow 'em away. It'll get better as I get more upgrades, but damn some parts are frustrating as fuck.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

In before the lock!


hahahah Just kidding guys, wanted to drop in and say hello to my fellow ME fans. I'm finishing up ME1 now and ME2 is burning a hole in it's case waiting to be played. Once I do play it through I will come back and join in, but I cannot read or participate in this thread for fear of spoilers....heheh

Out before the lock!

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

but still suffered from pointless side missions

Um...the side missions are done way better than ME1. In ME2, at least they had a cutscene and some small point for you being there. In ME1, it was literally drive the Mako around on a random planet, hitting up each marker on the map until you found a random installation to enter, shoot some bad guys, loot some random crates, zzz...

The only weak one

Spoiler

was the mining one, with that YMIR.

Funny, I just discovered that mission last night. Guess I'm in for a "surprise" when I start it today.

 

[warcrow]

In regards to the Charge ability and its usage--I used it for the opposite of what I think it was intended for and that's to get out of trouble. I would set my two cohorts up to attack from a specific area while I tried to flank, once my health began to reach critical levels I would charge out. It worked really well, especially considering you can "phase" through some environmental objects.

 

[fatpat268]

I pretty much never used charge on my vanguard.

Charging just seems useless to me, especially when there's a group of enemies (which is most of the time). I mean sure, if I have my shotgun out, I can charge and kill the guy in one or two blasts, but I still have two more around me.

 

[brblx]

i finished my soldier playthrough, am now doing adept on hardcore.

...this may be difficult. hopefully i'll become less useless once i level my biotics up.

i'm missing adrenaline rush something fierce.

 

[Drako]

In regards to the Charge ability and its usage--I used it for the opposite of what I think it was intended for and that's to get out of trouble. I would set my two cohorts up to attack from a specific area while I tried to flank, once my health began to reach critical levels I would charge out. It worked really well, especially considering you can "phase" through some environmental objects.

That type of strategy worked OK for me on Veteran and Hardcore, not so effective on Insanity.

 

[Qbah]

i finished my soldier playthrough, am now doing adept on hardcore.

...this may be difficult. hopefully i'll become less useless once i level my biotics up.

i'm missing adrenaline rush something fierce.

If you want my advice, grab Reave (it's instant even for your character and doesn't need to "fly" - it's like Overload) and drop Warp You will tear stuff to pieces. With a bit of help from your squad mates

What I don't like about my Incinerate now (playing an Infiltrator) is that it needs to get to the target first... And it flies soooo slow... My teammate's powers are instant, why can't mine be? Mordin's Incinerate is awesome, I used it all the time. And mine ain't so great...

The Sentinel was a lot of fun, because both Overload (for shields) and Reave (for armor and HP) were instant.

As for adrenaline rush, I was missing it at first too (my first playthrough was with a Soldier too), however you get used to the other classes fast. My second was an Adept with Reave and she was a lot of fun Best fun was Sentinel on Insanity so far... The Infiltrator is "meh" I took an ammo power as extra, Armor Piercing.

 

[R Nilla]

HAHAHAHA

 

[Qbah]

HAHAHAHA

That poor Blue Sun merc is really scared of you! LOL!

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Beat it on Insanity the other night with my Soldier. Hardened Adrenaline Rush + Revenant AR = win

Tried an Engineer run on Insanity, and it just doesn't work for me. I don't want to hide behind cover and launch powers at people...I want to run and gun!

I'm tempted to try a Vanguard Insanity run, but their style of play is far different than anything else in the game. It's all about Heavy Charging around and using the shotty and melee attacks to take enemies down quickly. I've been reading strats on the official forums and watching some YouTubes. Vanguard on Insanity looks extremely fun, but very frenetic and requires a lot of skill and timing. I think I'll give it a shot just to see how crazy it really is.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Vanguard on Insanity looks extremely fun, but very frenetic and requires a lot of skill and timing. I think I'll give it a shot just to see how crazy it really is.

Just remember this line I read on a guide somewhere.

Paraphrased:
"The path to success with the Vanguard on hardcore and insanity is through the resume (A) button."

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Just remember this line I read on a guide somewhere.

Paraphrased:
"The path to success with the Vanguard on hardcore and insanity is the resume (A) button."

Heh...

Apparently, people are having great success with it on the official forums, and it looks like just too much fun to pass up. I'll give it a shot, at the very least!

Charge! :awe:

 

[Qbah]

They just tweeted it:

http://masseffect.bioware.com/info/cerberus

The Hammerhead DLC with 5 new missions for free late March Can't wait!!

 

[nycxandy]

They just tweeted it:

http://masseffect.bioware.com/info/cerberus

The Hammerhead DLC with 5 new missions for free late March Can't wait!!

Awesome.

 

[Pheran]

They just tweeted it:

http://masseffect.bioware.com/info/cerberus

The Hammerhead DLC with 5 new missions for free late March Can't wait!!

Nice. This will give me an excuse to start an Insanity playthrough.

 

[brblx]

my adept/hardcore playthrough is not going well. my teammates are ineffective and dumb.

hopefully it will get better with weapon upgrades (upgraded pistol plus garrus and thane with upgraded rifles will help), but damn, i don't know how anyone could beat insanity on anything other than soldier. your teammates suck ass with weapons and don't know how to not stand up and get plowed with rockets. i need my powerful weapons and adrenaline rush to compensate.

i already had to cheat my way through the okeer end mission fight- no way to stop a bumrushing mech an krogan by myself after my damn teammates have been killed by rockets, like frigging fools.

 

[brblx]

welp, i think i'm done with this, adept is effing impossible. i thought i had discovered the key- rather filling in for my weaknesses, just go all biotic. me with miranda and jacob were kicking ass- lots of warp to weaken them and pull, throw, and singularity to finish them off. warp ammo for me, inferno for jacob.

however, i'm still getting the fucking shit kicked out of me on horizon. god i wish my teammates knew how to use cover. and shoot things.

 

[R Nilla]

I completed my Insanity playthrough this afternoon using a Sentinel--did things a lot differently than the first time around

Spoiler

(I intentionally only had three team members survive and chose to keep Morinth which is pretty interesting)

. All that's left is to get to level 30 which I think I'll save for the Hammerhead DLC.

The teammate AI is less than stellar and mostly death prone, but I did find them to be quite useful and deadly when I had the right combination with me and wisely micromanaged their abilities. I mostly rolled with Mordin for his Incinerate against armor and Miranda for her Heavy Warp and sometimes Overload. If only they wouldn't bum rush and get killed so often...

 

[R Nilla]

WTF? Do Thane and Jack encounter the Matrix?

Link

New ME2 DLC announced. New appearances for Thane, Jack and Garrus as an appearance pack. Coming March 23. http://tweetphoto.com/14995984