(no subject)

ME blather- Since one of my obsessions in RPG-type games is making sure things are spec-ed right, I actually spend a lot of time going over how my characters are built. Like I was looking through old forum posts the other day for opinions on how to spec certain squadmates, I saw someone post "auto-level, Shepard's good enough on his own." I'm sorry, but that is G-D friggin insane. Its like if you're not even bothering with your squadmates, why the eff are you playing this game?

In any case, since I hadn't played for a long while before picking the game back up again a few weeks ago, it was like having fresh eyes. So just putting my notes down for future reference: (I think I'll spread this out over multiple posts rather than having one ridiculously long post)

Javik- Let's start with him because you need to get him right the first time around, since unlike the rest of the regular squadmates, you can't reset his powers in the med bay:

Weapons:
Assault rifle- PPR, the best AR for squadmates, bar none. Since its being used by the computer, it knows how to manage the cooldown just fine. And because of the continuous beam, it works incredibly well for ammo powers, especially incendiary and cryo ammo. I still prefer the Typhoon for the Alliance folks (Ashley, Kaiden, Vega) but Javik and Garrus always get the PPR. Don't forget, the AR extended clip is a MUST. While squadmates have infinite ammo, the more capacity they have, the longer they can fire it before having to reload, giving you a higher DPS. (I mean, the PPR already has infinite ammo anyways, but again the purpose is to let them fire longer)
Pistol- Carnifex. You'll never use it because the PPR is his best weapon, but I guess if you had to the Carnifex has a good damage and fire rate. The only reason to use this is if you for some reason wanted more power damage from the pistol power magnifier.

Powers:
Vengeful Ancient- Yeah, he gets 40% power damage bonuses at 4 and 5, like I'm not going to take that? Go big or go home! As for the squad bonus at 6, the power/force/damage one. I'm not sure if that actually affects him (thus giving him 150% power damage), but even if it doesn't, its still better than increase shield recharge rate. The best defense is a good offense!

Dark Channel- His most important power. Duration for the evolution at 4, no question. I mean, you end up with more DoT (24 for 42 seconds vs 30 for 30 seconds you get with the damage evolution), plus you want it going as long as possible since 1) it will jump to other enemies after it kills the one its currently on (making it great against Ravagers, since it will just jump to the swarmers that pop out when you kill them and work its way through the swarm) and 2) on "big" enemies like Brutes and Banshees, that leaves them open for biotic explosions for a good while. Slow over Recharge at 5. Pierce at 6, as whenever you get bonuses against defenses like armor and barriers, you take it.

Lift Grenade- Normally I'm not too keen on grenades because they're a limited resource, but since its his best detonator. Radius at 4 and Damage/Radius at 6 to get as large a radius as possible to detonate primed as many enemies you can. Max grenades so you can have as many as possible- I mean, since you're using them more to detonate, duration is not as important.

Pull- Radius at 4, again so you can prime as many enemies as possible. Expose at 5, because whenever you get evolutions that increase damage from other sources, its always better than the damage it itself causes. Double pull at 6 again, because you want to prime as many enemies as possible.

Slam- this doesn't have as much utility as his other powers (or at the very least his other powers work in better concert together), hence its the one that gets left at 3.

Vega-

Weapons:
Assault rifle- N7 Typhoon (if you have it, otherwise the Revenant). It already has inherent piercing, it gets a 2x damage multiplier once it cycles up to its full firing rate, and does an additional 50% damage against any sort of protection (shields, armor, barriers). Since squadmates don't have to worry about weight, you can throw the high velocity barrel on there for the combo of increased damage and penetration. They're also perfectly accurate with it and are unaffected by recoil, so no need to waste a slot on a stability damper. Again, the extended capacity is a must, as that will allow them to fire longer between reloads. The Typhoon is especially good on Vega, as it works well with his incendiary ammo.
Shotgun- Wraith. Prolly the best shotgun in terms of damage and fire rate? Besides, the explosive burst chance from incendiary ammo is off of each individual pellet of a shot, so you want one of the normal shotguns as opposed to things that fire a single projectile like the Graal/Crusader/GPS.

Powers:
Arms Master- Durability at 4, because his whole purpose is to be a tank. Even though he has less offensive powers than other squadmates, power damage at 5, since the power damage increase from a character's passive ability actually does affect ammo powers. And since incendiary ammo is so great, you'll want that. (more on incendiary ammo later. Fortification at 6, because the other evolution is bugged so it doesn't affect your squad anyways. So if you took the other one, you'd be increasing Vega's health and shields by 20%, but not his squadmates, while fortification increases his health and shields by 40% plus gives him a melee bonus to boot. So basically it boils down to increase his health/shields by 20% or 40%. The choice is obvious.

Fortification- Durability at 4 for the tankiness. Power synergy at 5. Again, even though he's not really a powers guy, since its one of the few power damage bonuses that actually affects incendiary ammo, its prolly better than the increased shield charge rate. Durability at 6. Again, tank.

Incendiary Ammo- His bread and butter. Incendiary ammo is bugged, but in a good way. Fire based DoT is normally combined additively. That is definitely not the case here, where it interacts with itself for way higher damage. Even better is its interactions with warp. Shooting a warped enemy, or warping an enemy lit aflame by incendiary ammo will also cause this crazy damage boost. Plus, for some reason incendiary ammo will also take up warp's properties. Normally fire damage won't work on barriers, but if an enemy with barriers is under the effect of warp, it will. So yeah, damage at 4.

Capacity at 5. I don't think your squadmates can purposely make headshots so I'm not sure increasing headshot damage is all that effective. I mean, they may randomly hit an enemy in the head, but your best bet is capacity, since like the extended clip it will allow him to fire longer.

Explosive burst at 6. Explosive burst has a 50% of going off per shot, so obviously its good for a high rate of fire weapon like the Typhoon or Revenant. And it definitely goes off when penetrating cover, which the Typhoon can do inherently. But yeah, that explosive damage is much higher than the normal damage of each individual shot. So again, with high fire rate weapons, that increases the DPS by a lot.

Carnage- Its not the greatest power in the game, but its his best detonator. Especially on all those guys he's set ablaze with his incendiary firing typhoon. Damage at 4, as the increase in radius doesn't seem as significant. Incapacitate at 5, as the decrease in recharge time doesn't seem as significant either, so the knockdown effect is prolly more useful. Though that's also kinda moot since again you're using it as a detonator, whatever you hit is toast anyways, and the things that would survive (Brutes, Banshees, Atlases) aren't the kinda things you can knock down anyways. For the sixth evolution, armor damage. Again, if you increase damage vs a defense, its better than a straight damage increase.

Frag Grenades- Sorry, but you're the lousiest of the grenades, so its the obvious choice to leave at 3.

(no subject)

ME blather- Up next on my squad builds, the Virmire survivors.

Ashley- I saved Ash the first time through because I was banging her. But as an ME3 squadmate, she sucks. Vega and Garrus are objectively better than her in every way. Vega is has more durable, and while Ash should be spec-ed for AR damage, with his incendiary ammo he just literally melts opponents way quicker than she can with the Typhoon. Garrus has the same weapon set up (ARs and Snipers), but gets better bonuses on them from his passive (150% with ARs and 160% with SRs vs her 135% with ARs and 120% with SRs) Plus, he gets overload, and overall his ability set is just better than hers. Do yourself a favor and save Kaidan!

Weapons:
Assault rifle- Again, for the Alliance folks, the N7 Typhoon is the best choice, followed by the Revenant. (See my Vega comments on why if you didn't already)
Sniper rifle- Since her bonuses are with ARs, you shouldn't really be using these, but the Black Widow is the best for her in terms of DPS.

Powers:
Alliance Officer- Ash is a gunner, so weapon damage at 4, sniper rifle damage at 5 and assault rifle damage at 6. Maxing out her damage potential is more important than resiliency, as that should allow her to shred enemies before they have a chance to hit her.

Marksman- On paper this sounds like an amazing power. And it is... for a soldier Shepard. Since squadmates do only 30% of the base weapon damage Shep does, they don't get as big a benefit. That 10 second burst of higher damage isn't that much in the scheme of things. Better to keep her free to pop off a concussive shot or something. The fact that Markman is bugged now and will cause her to just stand there trying to activate it over and over if squadmates are set to auto-use powers is the final nail in the coffin for this power. So if you have to put points in it, definitely leave it at 3.

Inferno Grenades- One of the better grenades. Or rather, more fun grenades since it can set people ablaze and prime fire explosions. Go for radius at 4 and 6 to hit as many targets as once, and 5 for capacity, because if this is something you're going to bother using, you might as well have as many as you can.

Concussive Shot- Its useful for detonating all those folks she just immolated with her inferno grenades. And it does a whole lot of physics damage on enemies suspended in the air from biotics. Plus, its her main weapon vs barriers, as it does 400% damage to barriers. So radius at 4, the damage isn't great on concussive shot to begin with, and the boost doesn't make it all that better. Radius will let you tag more folks for the level 6 evolution. Shatter at 5 (presuming you have a way to freeze folks), and Amplification at 6 to give it the handy little properties of whatever ammo power she's currently using.

Disruptor Ammo- Since you shouldn't be putting any points into marksman, you can jack this up to max. Stun effect notwithstanding, its not as interesting as the other ammo types, and chances are Shep has a better ammo type to make available to the entire squad, so no reason to take the squad evolution at 4. Damage is the obvious choice. Capacity so she'll fire longer, and if you're going to bother with disruptor ammo, get the improved stun chance. Since you should have her with an AR, the improved stun chance works well with the higher fire rate.

Kaidan- He's clearly the superior squadmate choice in 3, with a much more useful and versatile set of abilities.

Weapons:
Assault Rifle- Typhoon or Revenant
Pistol- Again, you should not ever be switching to this, but if you must, the Carnifex will work fine. Just be sure to throw the pistol power magnifier to make it worth it.

Powers:
Alliance Officer- Kaidan is actually a tank because of barrier, so might as well increase that resiliency by going with durability at 4. I normally go with biotic damage at 5. I mean, reave and overload are both great powers, but overload is REALLY great, so it doesn't really need more boosting. For the squad bonus evolution at 6, again I'm not sure if it applies to himself, but a damage increase to both tech and biotic powers has more utlity than the shield charge bonus.

Barrier- Honestly, you should only be detonating barrier if its on Shepard. The micro-managing involved in using barrier detonation offensively is only worth it for yourself. Pick barrier strength at 4 to keep Kaidan tanky. Since he should be slinging around powers, power synergy is the pick for his 5th evolution. Which in turn means you should pick the power charge reduction penalty at 6. Technically, with those two picked, you have a much better DoT.

Reave- Duration at 4. I mean, radius makes it a better detonator, but tagging multiple enemies doesn't increase the amount of damage reduction you get. The DR lasts the entire duration of the power, even if the enemy you used it on died long before the duration ended. Damage reduction at 5 to increase his tankiness. But, barriers and armor at 6 to give him a more effective tool against those defenses.

Overload- Always pick chain overload at 4. Neural shock at 5 to incapacitate weaker enemies. But shield damage at 6- you'll get more utility out of that evolution. Making sure you strip a target's shields is more valuable than hitting a third target.

Cryo-blast- This sucks, there's better ways to freeze people or weaken armor. This is the obvious choice to keep at 3.

(no subject)

ME blather- Now onto the two Dextro squadmates, Garrus and Tali.

Garrus- Garrus is the man, you won't ever go wrong with having him on your team.

Weapons:
Assault Rifle- PPR, as if there was any doubt! With his weapon/AR damage bonuses and an ammo power activated, the particle rifle is quite deadly in his hands.
Sniper Rifle- The Krysae. I mean, a turian weapon for a turian! Of course, its less a sniper rifle and more a air-burst grenade launcher. Again, with Garrus' sniper rifle damage bonuses, give him cryo ammo and he'll be snap-freeze and blowing up enemies like crazy. If you don't have this (it is a DLC weapon), go with the Black Widow.

Powers:
Turian Rebel- Damage, damage, damage! Like Ash, he's a gunner, so you want to pick the 40% weapon damage bonus at 4, the 50% damage bonus at 5 and 60% damage at 6.

Overload- As usual, chain, neural shock, and shield damage is the most utilitarian setup.

Concussive Shot- radius, shatter, amplification. This is especially useful if he's using cryo ammo, as I often have him do. Shatter to do extra damage to the guys he's frozen with the PPR or Krysae, and radius/amplification to freeze even more people.

Armor Piercing Ammo- Since I play an Infiltrator, I usually do squad cryo ammo, so armor piercing ammo is of limited used to me. As such, I usually leave this at 3 so I can play with proximity mines.

Proximity Mines- Ida know, proximity mines are great in multiplayer on the Geth and Salarian Infiltrators, but they just don't have the same feel here. Or at least coming from Garrus since they don't have the same touch. In MP, it goes where you need it immediately- cloak, toss prox mine at their feet, it immediately blows up in their face. As that happens, fire off a sniper shot from cloak (which is in the middle of breaking from firing the proximity mine) So between the multiplier from cloak and the increase in damage taken from the proximity mine blowing up in their face, those sniper shots are doing a hell of a lot of damage per bullet. EDIT: I forgot the other reason its not the same coming from Garrus- if you're the one shooting out a proximity mine, it gets the cloak damage bonus. If Garrus does it, it does not. You still get the weakening effect, but the explosion doesn't get the damage multiplier.

But yeah, radius at 4 to hit multiple enemies. At 5, damage taken, as weakening the enemy to all forms of damage is way more useful than slowing them. Damage at 6.

Tali- As Kaiden says, she's a good egg. In terms of interactions and romance at least. As a squadmate, she's not great. If you spec her well, she'll be fine, but she easily the weakest squadmate. Again, its not that she's bad, its unless you're fighting geth, there are better choices.

Weapons:
Shotgun- If you have it, the N7 Crusader. One of the bad things about Tali is her main weapon is a shotgun, which means the AI will have her get into close range to utilize it even though she's not meant to be a front line person. That's what her drones are for! The N7 Crusader gets around this because its basically a sniper rifle disguised as a shotgun, firing slugs rather than buckshot. But since that's only available in the N7 Collector's Edition, if you don't have that (unless you were willing to modify the files, but while I'm perfectly willing to modify decisions, I think using it to get DLC or Collector's Edition weapons seems like theft) then the Graal or GPS. Its funny that those two shotguns are also ones you can charge, which the squadmates can never do. So that feature is lost on them.
Pistol- Again, you shouldn't be using this, but if you did, Carnifex with Power Magnifier.

Powers
Quarian Machinist- Although Tali is one of the more fragile squadmates, I say power recharge at 4th so she can use her powers more often. Tech upgrade at 5th, obviously. If you take weapon damage on her you're doing it wrong. For 6, even though drones are her thing, the drone recharge rate isn't all that useful. I mean, she can only spit out one combat and defense drone each (and honestly, she should only pick one or the other) and the cooldowns are already short enough that the benefits are miniscule. Again, I'm not sure if the squad evolution affects herself, but even if it doesn't, recharge speed of everyone else's tech powers has more utility.

Energy Drain- Great as a bonus power for any kind of Shepard, because not only is it something to use against shields/barriers, it restores your shields as well. But yeah, radius at 4 to tag more people, drain at 5 to get more shield restore, and armor boost at 6 for the resiliency.

Sabotage- You know, since I play an infiltrator, I take this for granted. It doesn't occur to me that Tali may be the only way for some folks to have access to his power. Which is crazy, because its incredibly useful against Cerberus and Geth! I mean, because I have sabotage, turrets and atlases are practically meaningless to me. Its like, thanks for giving me something I can use against you!

But yeah, for the evolutions, you may be tempted to go for duration/explosive hack/berserk. Which is one way to go, but that's really specialized towards fighting synthetics. The more utilitarian choice is to go for backfire at 4. Even though the description says causes weapons to overheat, it works on enemies who aren't even carrying guns. So it will cause even husks to pause as their non-existent guns backfire. I do still go with explosive hack at 5, so hacked geth will serve as living bombs if they get destroyed while still sabotaged. As for 6, again, berserk is useful against Geth, but Tech Vulnerability is better overall. I mean, not only will they take more damage on the backfire, since that backfire is considered tech power damage, but making the target take more damage from tech powers is not bad at all.

Combat Drone- I prefer this over Defense Drone because at least it will go out there and seek enemies. Unfortunately, even though I loath drones, you can't skimp on it, you have to max it out to get it to really shine. Shields and Damage at 4 so it will actually last out there. Then shock at 5th to give it some teeth and the chance to stun. Rockets at 6th because those rockets actually do do damage.

Defense Drone- Everything else is more useful, so it gets the short end of the stick. Did she really need two types of drones? The turrets Quarian and Geth characters get in multiplayer would be way more interesting and useful.

(no subject)

ME blather- Now onto the last two of the regular squadmates, Liara and Edi.

Liara- Your go to girl for biotics.

Weapons:
SMG- The N7 Hurricane is THE best SMG (which is not surprising since its only available in the Collector's Edition, or by hook or by crook). Otherwise, the Tempest. Don't forget to equip a power magnifier!
Pistol- Carnifex w/ a power magnifier.

Powers:
Pure Biotic- She's a little too fragile not to go with durability at 4. Duration and Force at 5. I mean, be serious, if you pick weapon damage, you're out of your gourd! You brought her along for her biotics. At 6, singularity recharge, so she can spam singularity more. Maybe if the biotic power squad recharge bonus for the other evolution was higher it would be worth it, but 10% is just not significant. Especially if you're not a biotic Shep.

Warp- The gold standard of biotic powers. Detonate at 4, obviously since that's one of the main things you're using it for. Expose and Pierce at 5 and 6, as weakening opponents and attacking armor/barriers are the other things you use it for.

Singularity- Duration, lift damage, expand.

Stasis- Stasis Strength, Recharge Speed, Bubble. Singularity is better offensively, but Stasis is better for locking an area down, especially with the bubble evolution.

Warp Ammo- It is one of the better ammo powers, though since I normally use squad cryo ammo, its of limited use to me. So I keep at 3. If you're a biotic Shep, you're probably better off shuffling points around to at least get squad ammo at 4.

EDI- I hardly use her, but she's actually not bad.

Weapons-
SMG- Hurricane or Tempest w/ power magnifier
Pistol- Carnifex w/ power magnifier

Powers
Unshackled AI- Power damage at 4th, Tech Power damage at 5th, Squad Bonus at 6th.

Overload- You know the drill, chain, neural shock, shield damage.

Incinerate- I normally use incinerate as a focused attack against armor rather than a way to set multiple folks ablaze, so I normally do damage and burning damage for 4 and 5. Freeze combo at 6 since I'm normally using squad cryo ammo. Obviously, if you don't have a way to freeze targets, you'll want to just go for armor damage.

Defense Matrix- Evolve much the same way you would barrier and fortification. Durability at 4th, then Power Synergy at 5 and Power Recharge at 6.

Decoy- Another bugged power. Husks, brutes, and banshees ignore it. So why waste points on something that doesn't work right?

(no subject)

TV commentary:

TVD- Heh, really? What a waste! ( spoiler cut )