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Mar. 24th, 2017 09:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
geebsME:A blather- So I just picked up the last squad member and unlocked the next two storyline missions. I wish I knew how far along I was so I'd have a better gauge on how much more xp/money/materials etc I should hope to get over the course of the game. Heh, maybe its because I'm used to having so much money and being max level in ME3 that I feel so behind. I'm only level 12-13 I think, but it seems like there's so much available that I can't afford to buy or have enough material to craft.
I also wish I had a better handle on this heleus and remnant technology for development purposes. I haven't really spent a lot of those points, mainly because I don't know what's good. Like I know Milky Way Weapons, so the Valiant is a safe, reliable choice. But I have no idea if the Andromeda races have better snipers. I guess there is a compare button that lets you compare a gun to the ones you currently have equipped.
Which I guess that's a decent way to match measure my equipment vs my level, since development for certain equipment level is locked until you reach a certain character level. So right now, lvl 3 stuffs seem good. Though like I said, I'm kinda lacking in the fundage and materials department. Well, certain materials. Its like a lot of stuff, I have a crap load of 3/4 of the elements needed, but not enough on the last.
So yeah, it was a struggle crafting my current valiant 3. I was 10 nickel short. Luckily, I found a site that says what certain elements are used for. So I saw it was used in omni-blade construction, so I bought one of those from the store. I'm currently using a remnant cryo gauntlet I found- at lvl 2 it does less than a lvl 1 biotic amp or omni blade, but its apparently on the list of "best weapons in the game" since it has a freeze effect associated with its hits. But I digress. I hoped deconstructing it would give me enough nickel, and thankfully it did.
So I built my Valiant 3, with a two extra mod slots, so I can equip an SR barrel, scope, receiver, and increased mag all together, which is great- in ME3, if I wanted power AND penetration, I'd have to equip the SR high velocity barrel, which increased weapon weight. But now I don't! But since the level 3 has four development slots, I used the other three slots for something that increased overall damage, as well as damage vs armor, and damage vs shields.
Thankfully you can get those augmentations back when you deconstruct the weapon (which is good, so you don't have to worry about "wasting" them on lower level gear). Heh, one of the side missions on Eos was some random guy telling you to construct a pathfinder chestplate. So I did, I also happened to have randomly picked up augmentations that increase health, shields, regeneration, and biotics, so I cooked those in as well.
So that's a good segue into skills. Heh, since I maxed out tactical cloak, that did unlock engineer-2 for me. Like I said in a previous post, I had to spend more points in combat to unlock the infiltrator-2 profile. Which again shouldn't be a big deal, because there's the sniper rifle passive, but also combat fitness. I had stalled on it because the next level I can get is 5, which didn't seem like a big deal at first, its a choice between heavy lifting (which increases clip size, spare mag capacity, and number of power cells you can carry), or extra holster. Which I paid no mind to because I already have 3 slots and I was all, I don't need to carry another weapon. But, in addition to the extra slot, it also increases your weapon carry weight capacity, which is actually very useful for reducing my cooldowns.
Heh, I also started finally putting more points into biotics- want to unlock annihilation. So I bought a smattering of powers, pull, charge, and nova. Though I'm kicking myself for not putting it into barrier. That's one of the things that's changed in the game. Barrier is now a passive, and its what you spend points in to increase your shielding. Which isn't obvious from the get-go.
And looking it up, I just noticed the ranks increase shield strength/shield regeneration and decrease shield regeneration delay scaled along the amount of points spent on the biotic skills group. ARGH! So those points I spent would've been better spent on barrier, since that would increase the aforementioned, as well as add upon itself since those are more points invested in the biotics group. On the plus side, I guess when I finally do get those levels in barrier, its an even bigger benefit since I had spent those other points in biotics.
But I guess I know what my next points 11 points are going to- barrier 1-3, and combat fitness 5. I mean since combat fitness does the same thing as barrier, but with health, in addition to increasing my weight capacity, it'll increase my overall heath.
That is totally screwy though, because that seems like combat fitness, barrier, and team support are pretty damn important passives that aren't obvious at first. And since they scale based on the amount of points spend in that particular group, it behooves you to buy stuff in that group just to increase the benefit. Which I guess means you always get a benefit for spending skill points on something. What's even more screwy is to get health increases beyond the normal leveling up, you need to spend points in combat, even if you don't really use it.
Its less of an issue with barrier and team support, since at least if you skew towards those power sets, you at least get an increase in shielding. What's interesting though is this also means pure tech folks are the "most fragile" (well, relatively)- while the shield benefits in the first three evolutions are the same, going further in barrier gives more direct increases to shielding or shield regeneration/reduced delay at 4, increased shields if you have a bitoic effect active or increased carrying capacity/movement speed/reduced "shield" cost for powers that are paid for with shielding at 5, and at 6, shield restore from biotic kills (applies to nearby allies to) or automatically fill shields to full every 10 seconds at low health. I'm prolly doing 4a (min-maxing it would be best to get this at a, combined with 5a of team support, since barrier will increase the overall shielding, and team support will decrease regen delay/increase regen rate)/5b/6b.
Team support on the other hand will increase your team's shield stuff in addition to your own, but the higher levels only affect shield regeneration. Though on the other hand it does increase the amount of restore you get and the defense effect you get from powers. I will prolly get this eventually as well, since I'm so heavily invested in the tech track, this would benefit my shields, and make my teammates more durable to boot.
EDIT: looking more into this, the description is still kinda confusing- so I guess with nothing spent in the "path" the particular skill is in, that base is 2%. But once you start spending in those trees, the percentage will update to say what actually increase is with the points you currently have spent. I guess that does make it easier to know the exact benefit.
Anyways, I'd like to go to the message boards to find tips and tricks for some of the things I wondered above, but right now its just full of people arguing. All, this game is the worst, and anyone who likes it is just a fan boy, or "OMG, the reviews were so bad!" because it wasn't 9 or 10. Which I don't hold too much stock in reviews anymore, unless they're really, really bad. I mean, I can see their argument- for a big AAA game like this to get 7s from the "paid" media is troublesome, because usually its an auto-9 all around.
But at the same time, I think the internet has made the whole, "looking to other people for advice on whether something is good or not" very toxic. Its like bad reviews feed upon each other, and then you have people who haven't even played the game because the reviews were not good telling people its the worst even though their information is second hand.
Also, there was an inevitably a post where someone had a question about difficulty and some responder randomly dropped, "Oh, I always start on Insanity!" cbv('Oh, good for you!') I really hate those guys, its like, they think they're so great that anything below the hardest difficulty is "too boring" for them because it gives them no challenge. Though I guess I can't fault them too much, because they're prolly huge losers in real life and this is their way of feeling big. Of course, if I said that to their face, they're prolly the same type to get angry and start trying to start saying how cool and successful they are to try and prove me wrong. Which, I'm sorry, people who are actually cool and successful are too busy living cool and successful lives to brag about it on the internet.
I also wish I had a better handle on this heleus and remnant technology for development purposes. I haven't really spent a lot of those points, mainly because I don't know what's good. Like I know Milky Way Weapons, so the Valiant is a safe, reliable choice. But I have no idea if the Andromeda races have better snipers. I guess there is a compare button that lets you compare a gun to the ones you currently have equipped.
Which I guess that's a decent way to match measure my equipment vs my level, since development for certain equipment level is locked until you reach a certain character level. So right now, lvl 3 stuffs seem good. Though like I said, I'm kinda lacking in the fundage and materials department. Well, certain materials. Its like a lot of stuff, I have a crap load of 3/4 of the elements needed, but not enough on the last.
So yeah, it was a struggle crafting my current valiant 3. I was 10 nickel short. Luckily, I found a site that says what certain elements are used for. So I saw it was used in omni-blade construction, so I bought one of those from the store. I'm currently using a remnant cryo gauntlet I found- at lvl 2 it does less than a lvl 1 biotic amp or omni blade, but its apparently on the list of "best weapons in the game" since it has a freeze effect associated with its hits. But I digress. I hoped deconstructing it would give me enough nickel, and thankfully it did.
So I built my Valiant 3, with a two extra mod slots, so I can equip an SR barrel, scope, receiver, and increased mag all together, which is great- in ME3, if I wanted power AND penetration, I'd have to equip the SR high velocity barrel, which increased weapon weight. But now I don't! But since the level 3 has four development slots, I used the other three slots for something that increased overall damage, as well as damage vs armor, and damage vs shields.
Thankfully you can get those augmentations back when you deconstruct the weapon (which is good, so you don't have to worry about "wasting" them on lower level gear). Heh, one of the side missions on Eos was some random guy telling you to construct a pathfinder chestplate. So I did, I also happened to have randomly picked up augmentations that increase health, shields, regeneration, and biotics, so I cooked those in as well.
So that's a good segue into skills. Heh, since I maxed out tactical cloak, that did unlock engineer-2 for me. Like I said in a previous post, I had to spend more points in combat to unlock the infiltrator-2 profile. Which again shouldn't be a big deal, because there's the sniper rifle passive, but also combat fitness. I had stalled on it because the next level I can get is 5, which didn't seem like a big deal at first, its a choice between heavy lifting (which increases clip size, spare mag capacity, and number of power cells you can carry), or extra holster. Which I paid no mind to because I already have 3 slots and I was all, I don't need to carry another weapon. But, in addition to the extra slot, it also increases your weapon carry weight capacity, which is actually very useful for reducing my cooldowns.
Heh, I also started finally putting more points into biotics- want to unlock annihilation. So I bought a smattering of powers, pull, charge, and nova. Though I'm kicking myself for not putting it into barrier. That's one of the things that's changed in the game. Barrier is now a passive, and its what you spend points in to increase your shielding. Which isn't obvious from the get-go.
And looking it up, I just noticed the ranks increase shield strength/shield regeneration and decrease shield regeneration delay scaled along the amount of points spent on the biotic skills group. ARGH! So those points I spent would've been better spent on barrier, since that would increase the aforementioned, as well as add upon itself since those are more points invested in the biotics group. On the plus side, I guess when I finally do get those levels in barrier, its an even bigger benefit since I had spent those other points in biotics.
But I guess I know what my next points 11 points are going to- barrier 1-3, and combat fitness 5. I mean since combat fitness does the same thing as barrier, but with health, in addition to increasing my weight capacity, it'll increase my overall heath.
That is totally screwy though, because that seems like combat fitness, barrier, and team support are pretty damn important passives that aren't obvious at first. And since they scale based on the amount of points spend in that particular group, it behooves you to buy stuff in that group just to increase the benefit. Which I guess means you always get a benefit for spending skill points on something. What's even more screwy is to get health increases beyond the normal leveling up, you need to spend points in combat, even if you don't really use it.
Its less of an issue with barrier and team support, since at least if you skew towards those power sets, you at least get an increase in shielding. What's interesting though is this also means pure tech folks are the "most fragile" (well, relatively)- while the shield benefits in the first three evolutions are the same, going further in barrier gives more direct increases to shielding or shield regeneration/reduced delay at 4, increased shields if you have a bitoic effect active or increased carrying capacity/movement speed/reduced "shield" cost for powers that are paid for with shielding at 5, and at 6, shield restore from biotic kills (applies to nearby allies to) or automatically fill shields to full every 10 seconds at low health. I'm prolly doing 4a (min-maxing it would be best to get this at a, combined with 5a of team support, since barrier will increase the overall shielding, and team support will decrease regen delay/increase regen rate)/5b/6b.
Team support on the other hand will increase your team's shield stuff in addition to your own, but the higher levels only affect shield regeneration. Though on the other hand it does increase the amount of restore you get and the defense effect you get from powers. I will prolly get this eventually as well, since I'm so heavily invested in the tech track, this would benefit my shields, and make my teammates more durable to boot.
EDIT: looking more into this, the description is still kinda confusing- so I guess with nothing spent in the "path" the particular skill is in, that base is 2%. But once you start spending in those trees, the percentage will update to say what actually increase is with the points you currently have spent. I guess that does make it easier to know the exact benefit.
Anyways, I'd like to go to the message boards to find tips and tricks for some of the things I wondered above, but right now its just full of people arguing. All, this game is the worst, and anyone who likes it is just a fan boy, or "OMG, the reviews were so bad!" because it wasn't 9 or 10. Which I don't hold too much stock in reviews anymore, unless they're really, really bad. I mean, I can see their argument- for a big AAA game like this to get 7s from the "paid" media is troublesome, because usually its an auto-9 all around.
But at the same time, I think the internet has made the whole, "looking to other people for advice on whether something is good or not" very toxic. Its like bad reviews feed upon each other, and then you have people who haven't even played the game because the reviews were not good telling people its the worst even though their information is second hand.
Also, there was an inevitably a post where someone had a question about difficulty and some responder randomly dropped, "Oh, I always start on Insanity!" cbv('Oh, good for you!') I really hate those guys, its like, they think they're so great that anything below the hardest difficulty is "too boring" for them because it gives them no challenge. Though I guess I can't fault them too much, because they're prolly huge losers in real life and this is their way of feeling big. Of course, if I said that to their face, they're prolly the same type to get angry and start trying to start saying how cool and successful they are to try and prove me wrong. Which, I'm sorry, people who are actually cool and successful are too busy living cool and successful lives to brag about it on the internet.
