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On March 25 2010 02:11 XaI)CyRiC wrote:I just picked the game back up for my 2nd run-through with my Vanguard. I read some guides and watched some videos and realized that I had played the Vanguard totally wrong, i.e. way too passive and not enough Charge. It's actually a lot more challenging, tactical and fun to charge, shotgun, melee, cover, and repeat all over the battlefield. I had tried playing an Infiltrator but I have to admit that sitting back and sniping doesn't hold the same appeal for me as being in the thick of things with a Vanguard. I also just learned about warp explosions. That second run-through can be pretty fun when you miss out on so much the first time 
Vanguard is my favorite class by far. Charge, shotty, shockwave, punch punch punch! Melee Krogan to death! That'll teach 'em!
Get barrier as your bonus skill though imho. You seriously need the shield boost if you're going to be charging into the fray constantly. (which you should be doing, cause it's awesome).
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On March 25 2010 02:11 XaI)CyRiC wrote:
A dumb question: How do you pause the game and bring up the tactical screen and still be able to move the cursor around? I just realized this morning that I've seen videos and the in-game demonstration where the player can pause the game and go around targeting different enemies to set up different attacks for each enemy, but I'm unable to move my cursor around whenever I do the same thing. I suspect that I'm missing something REALLY basic which I could probably figure out while playing after I get off work, but am itching to know now.
You hold down the right mouse button and move around accordingly. You will automaticly pick the target closest to your cursor at that time (even if you might not see it) but you can always let go and check where it is. Also, the game puts small boxes around the characters currently targeted for spells / skills so it's not hard to get used to. Happy gaming!
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The best way to play vanguard is just spam improved shockwave (or whatever the larger spread one is called). Easy win on any difficulty. However, charging can be more fun.
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Ohhhh man so I'm playing around on insane mode as an adept. Crazy hard... I feel like a glass pea-shooter, and everyone and their mother has shields.
Varren with armor, LOL WHY!?!?
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United States4471 Posts
Shockwave loses a lot of its effectiveness once you hit hardcore and insanity difficulties because all enemies have some form of armor, shield and/or barrier. I think it'll still cause a bit of a stagger, but it's no longer the awesome CC/damage-dealer it is in the lower difficulties. Most guides advise maxing out incendiary ammo for the CC effect the burning gives you plus the improved DoT damage with armor, maxing out charge, maxing out the passive, and maxing out reave as a long-range damage dealer that also wipes out armor and heals you a bit. Your cooldown should be dedicated solely to charging and reave. For those reasons, abilities like fortification and barrier are not recommended because the boosts don't help that much in the higher difficulties, they cause your character to pause, and eat up a cooldown.
Guides:
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/128/index/1061080
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/128/index/1457282/1
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On March 25 2010 02:36 Haemonculus wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2010 02:11 XaI)CyRiC wrote:I just picked the game back up for my 2nd run-through with my Vanguard. I read some guides and watched some videos and realized that I had played the Vanguard totally wrong, i.e. way too passive and not enough Charge. It's actually a lot more challenging, tactical and fun to charge, shotgun, melee, cover, and repeat all over the battlefield. I had tried playing an Infiltrator but I have to admit that sitting back and sniping doesn't hold the same appeal for me as being in the thick of things with a Vanguard. I also just learned about warp explosions. That second run-through can be pretty fun when you miss out on so much the first time Vanguard is my favorite class by far. Charge, shotty, shockwave, punch punch punch! Melee Krogan to death! That'll teach 'em! Get barrier as your bonus skill though imho. You seriously need the shield boost if you're going to be charging into the fray constantly. (which you should be doing, cause it's awesome).
You do not need barier and if you want extra shield Tali's energy transfer is better, it also has an offensive capability and is on half the cooldown. Shockwave also sucks on higher difficulties.
Since charging restores your shields you simply get Heavy Charge and charge the opponent that's furthest from the rest or close to cover. You charge, fire your shotgun, melee, take cover and repeat. Even on insanity in the smaller fights you don't even need to take cover.
You can also reload faster by using a melee attack around 60% into the reload with the claymore shotgun.
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I used exclusively shockwave+smg on the second hardest difficulty and beat it easy. Not sure why everyone is saying it sucks.
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because no one with armor / barrier / shield up will actually bounce from shockwave
it may be easy, but that's more because the game isn't that hard
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The easy solution to use your teammates. You can use your SMG to break shields+barriers and have two teammates use abilities to break their armor (+shields if needed). Abilities are so spammable in ME2, especially if you're abusing cover.
You're right, it's a factor of the game being easy, but that's not really relevant in a discussion of different tactics to be used.
Edit: Obviously this is based on my personal playthrough of the second hardest difficulty (whatever it was called, hardcore?). The only challenging parts to the "cover system invincibility" are being swarmed. A quick recharge, splash damage attack completely destroys any flanking+swarming options.
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On March 25 2010 07:22 XaI)CyRiC wrote:
Most guides advise maxing out incendiary ammo for the CC effect the burning gives you plus the improved DoT damage with armor, maxing out charge, maxing out the passive, and maxing out reave as a long-range damage dealer that also wipes out armor and heals you a bit. Your cooldown should be dedicated solely to charging and reave. For those reasons, abilities like fortification and barrier are not recommended because the boosts don't help that much in the higher difficulties, they cause your character to pause, and eat up a cooldown.
Incendiary ammo doesn't do DoT against armor. In fact, nothing does. Only health can take DoT. Against armor, barrier, and shields any DoT powers will do all of their damage instantaneously.
But yeah, I agree. There are very few situations in the game where a vanguard would want to use barrier/fortification/geth shield boost. If a vanguard is caught in the open without shields, he's better off just charging again. And Reave will wtfpwn the places in the game where charging isn't awesome.
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Hmmm... so I'm playing around with an adept on insane mode.
What bonus power do you think I should take? I'm torn between the energy drain skill, or reave. Both seem like they'd be useful in different situations o.o;
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I think you should get warp ammo
On March 25 2010 11:58 Durak wrote:
The easy solution to use your teammates. You can use your SMG to break shields+barriers and have two teammates use abilities to break their armor (+shields if needed). Abilities are so spammable in ME2, especially if you're abusing cover.
You're right, it's a factor of the game being easy, but that's not really relevant in a discussion of different tactics to be used.
Edit: Obviously this is based on my personal playthrough of the second hardest difficulty (whatever it was called, hardcore?). The only challenging parts to the "cover system invincibility" are being swarmed. A quick recharge, splash damage attack completely destroys any flanking+swarming options.
so what're you supposed to do with your abilities while waiting for their shields to go down? Just spam something else more useful against shields/biotics/armor rather than wait for those all to go down and then use shockwave
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On March 25 2010 22:48 KOFgokuon wrote:I think you should get warp ammo Show nested quote +On March 25 2010 11:58 Durak wrote:
The easy solution to use your teammates. You can use your SMG to break shields+barriers and have two teammates use abilities to break their armor (+shields if needed). Abilities are so spammable in ME2, especially if you're abusing cover.
You're right, it's a factor of the game being easy, but that's not really relevant in a discussion of different tactics to be used.
Edit: Obviously this is based on my personal playthrough of the second hardest difficulty (whatever it was called, hardcore?). The only challenging parts to the "cover system invincibility" are being swarmed. A quick recharge, splash damage attack completely destroys any flanking+swarming options. so what're you supposed to do with your abilities while waiting for their shields to go down? Just spam something else more useful against shields/biotics/armor rather than wait for those all to go down and then use shockwave
You don't have to do any waiting. You can shoot their shoots off fairly instantly with your SMG or if you're lazy, use Miranda to nuke it. Miranda+Mordin also strip off armor instantly with double nukes. The point is to use your teams abilities to complement your own.
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On March 25 2010 13:34 Haemonculus wrote:
Hmmm... so I'm playing around with an adept on insane mode.
What bonus power do you think I should take? I'm torn between the energy drain skill, or reave. Both seem like they'd be useful in different situations o.o;
Reave. It is great at taking down barriers and does massive dmg to health. A very very good ability which I now always put on my main.
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United States4471 Posts
I love Reave as well. It's an instant cast and does double damage against barriers and armor. Sometimes it'll even cause your target to double over for a nice CC effect.
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United States4991 Posts
(sorry, I just skimmed through the topic, but I was afraid of spoilers so I didn't want to read too closely just in case  )
I just got the first Mass Effect last week :D I played through it twice (once paragon once renegade), and downloaded Mass Effect 2 through steam last night when I went to bed.
I've heard conflicting stories about whether it makes a big difference coming from ME1 or just starting a new game in ME2. If I want to play another character that I haven't played through ME1 yet, is it worthwhile going back to ME1 and playing through that first, or would it be fine to start directly in ME2 and I wouldn't miss too much? (I could probably play through ME1 in one day no problem, but it would leave me underlevelled probably... don't know if that would be bad in ME2?)
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* Don't rely on this, not entirely sure *
I think you can change class from your ME1 save at the start of ME2. The only things that have an effect are your plot choices.
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If you want to get the maximum benefits from importing a game, you can download save files from masseffectsaves.com or something, you could download save files that makes all sorts of arrays (romance any of the cars, save council or not, kill wrex or not, etc.) and if you want you can also rename the characters using the editor.
If you don't import a character, then the computer automatically makes choices for you, and they kind of suck if I recall right (kill kaidan, kill wrex, save the council). You start out as lvl 5 and with a decent amount of money/resources in ME2 if you import a lvl 60 rich character, but you repick your class when you restart ME2 so that doesn't matter. Even importing a lvl 40 (I can't imagine you were less than than that after your first playthrough) will give you a decent amount of bonuses (couple of levels, some cash, and you got to make your own decisions)
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On March 26 2010 00:13 Durak wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2010 22:48 KOFgokuon wrote:I think you should get warp ammo On March 25 2010 11:58 Durak wrote:
The easy solution to use your teammates. You can use your SMG to break shields+barriers and have two teammates use abilities to break their armor (+shields if needed). Abilities are so spammable in ME2, especially if you're abusing cover.
You're right, it's a factor of the game being easy, but that's not really relevant in a discussion of different tactics to be used.
Edit: Obviously this is based on my personal playthrough of the second hardest difficulty (whatever it was called, hardcore?). The only challenging parts to the "cover system invincibility" are being swarmed. A quick recharge, splash damage attack completely destroys any flanking+swarming options. so what're you supposed to do with your abilities while waiting for their shields to go down? Just spam something else more useful against shields/biotics/armor rather than wait for those all to go down and then use shockwave You don't have to do any waiting. You can shoot their shoots off fairly instantly with your SMG or if you're lazy, use Miranda to nuke it. Miranda+Mordin also strip off armor instantly with double nukes. The point is to use your teams abilities to complement your own.
whatever, everyone has a different way to play. i'd rather have an ability that i can use to do damage regardless of armor/biotic/shield level of my enemy that i can use in conjunction with my weapon and my teammates all of the time like reave/warp
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United States4471 Posts
On March 26 2010 00:13 Durak wrote:You don't have to do any waiting. You can shoot their shoots off fairly instantly with your SMG or if you're lazy, use Miranda to nuke it. Miranda+Mordin also strip off armor instantly with double nukes. The point is to use your teams abilities to complement your own.
If I understand you correctly, you're basically saying that Shockwave is still good in Hardcore/Insanity because the SMG/teammates' abilities can strip off their shield/barrier/armor pretty quickly. That's a perfectly fair assessment, but I think many players prefer to have an ability that works even when enemies have barriers/shields/armor still on so there can be constant usage. Reave is very popular for this reason, as it can be used to take down barriers and armor very quickly, which can supplement your teammates' abilities, or allow you to not have to depend on a teammate to do so, allowing for more flexibility in picking teammates.
Also, personally, I prefer Pull Field to Shockwave for enemies who have had their shields/barriers/armor stripped away. It's great CC, leaves enemies in a very vulnerable/easy-to-target state in which they take additional damage from attacks, and allows for synergy with warp for warp explosions. I love using Area Overload on clumps of enemies to first strip away their shields and overheat their weapons, using Pull Field to put them all in the air, and then using Unstable Warp to blow them all up. It's a beautiful thing I tell you
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EPT
