Nov. 1st, 2016

geebs: (vain)
ME blather- Continuing my squad mate build notes, the biotic chyx, Jack and Samara.

Jack- The Psychotic Biotic! She will destroy you! Alas, in Jack the actual squadmate never actually lives up to her reputation or the imagery presented in cutscenes. She's a little better in ME3, mostly because of her passive, Subject Zero, which jacks up the recharge rate of her cooldowns. She may not hit as hard as she's supposed to, be she can definitely put the powers (and biotic explosions!) out at a steady stream.

Powers:
Subject Zero- The most important power to max- recharge speed at 4, force and duration at 5, and recharge speed at 6. That increases her recharge speed to 160%, which is actually noticeably significant. It gives her a 5 second warp and a 3 second pull (on par with Shepard and half the recharge time of other squadmates). With such low cool down times, she can create biotic explosions on her own with pull/warp.

Warp- Detonate at 4 of course, as warp is a universal detonator, and since she can put them out pretty fast, you want to boost detonations. Expose at 5 and Pierce at 6, as usual. With the recharge bonuses from her passive, it pretty much makes the recharge evolutions on her powers moot. The improvement they can provide are less than a second.

Pull- Radius/Expose/Double Pull as usual.

Warp- Since you can't take this to 6, no reason to take it to 5. Pick what you want.

Shockwave- This power kinda sucks, but shockwaving a warped enemy creates the most powerful biotic explosion of any combo. force/damage at 4, and detonation at 5.

Samara- She has a solid set of powers- throw, pull, warp, and reave. However, there's a lot of overlap there, so it can be confusing as to which to pick. Like Javik, her passive can give her 150% power damage specced correctly, though due to her power set, she doesn't benefit as much as Javik does. Dark channel is a better DPS power than warp or reave, and lift grenade hits harder. Samara is the only squadmate who gets throw though, which even with Jack's power recharge bonuses, makes Samara an even faster universal detonator.

Powers
Asari Justicar- Power Damage, Power Damage, and Squad Power Damage/Duration/Force. I mean, a 150% power damage boost is hard to turn down.

Throw- As I said, Throw is a universal detonator, so you should evolve it as such. Radius at 4 to tag more people, detonation at 5 as that's what you're using it for, and recharge at 6. This gets the recharge time to around 4 seconds, which is still twice that of Shepard, but it still makes her a faster universal detonator than any other squadmate.

As for the rest of her powers, its up to personal preference:

Warp- Reave has a better DPS and is better against armor, and Throw is a quicker detonator, so this gets the short end of the stick. Leave this at 4, going for the detonation evolution, not that you'll ever use this.

Reave- Duration at 4, as said before, not only does that make the DR last longer, you end up with more damage overall. Recharge speed at 5, barrier/armor at 6, as this is Samara's main power against such defenses.

Pull- Radius and Expose at 4 and 5.
geebs: (vain)
TV commentary:

The Flash- Heh, could Julian be any more like Draco? spoiler cut )
geebs: (vain)
ME blather- Onto the remaining Armax Arsenal only squadmates, Zaaed, Jacob, and Miranda.

Zaeed- Zaeed is basically an improved version of Ashley, being more durable and replacing her bugged Marksmanship power with Carnage. Accordingly, I evolve her mostly the same way, with slight changes since he has one less point.

Powers
Mercenary Veteran- Like Ash and Garrus, go for pure offense, weapon damage, sniper damage, AR damage.

Inferno Grenades- Radius at 4 and 6. However, since you can only use him in the arena, where grenade refills are plentiful, you can take damage at 5.

Concussive Shot- Radius at 4, Shatter at 5 (presuming you have a way to freeze folks), Amplification at 6. Though that last evolution is only really useful if you do squad cryo or incendiary ammo, as his own disruptor ammo doesn't really work well with amplification.

Carnage- Damage and Incapacitate at 4 and 5, since that's all you can take it to if you max the previous powers.

Disruptor Ammo- Damage at 4, since hopefully you have a better squad ammo choice.

Jacob- If Zaeed is improved Ashley, Jacob is (debatably) less useful Kaidan. I mean, he's a little tankier, since he starts with more health/shields and his passive gives a bigger bonus to boot. But, he uses shotguns, meaning he doesn't provide as good covering fire as Kaidan. On the plus side, he gets incendiary ammo. And with his lift grenades he can detonate anything (and since he's an arena only character, you don't have to really worry about running out). He also gets pull, which is his only offensive power on cooldown, but is only useful in particular situations.

Of course, some people feel his wheelhouse is closer to Vega/Grunt, as again, he is certainly tanky. And to be fair, in this regard, he's more useful than the other two to a biotic party since his power actually mesh with biotic folks.

Powers:
Cerberus Operative- Durability and Fortification at 4 and 6 to increase his tankiness. Power damage at 5, mainly to beef up his inferno ammo and lift grenades.

Barrier- Barrier Strength at 4 and 6, and Power synergy at 5, just like his passive. Since he only has one power on cooldown, pull, which is already one of the faster recharging powers, power recharge is a waste. Again, this does make him tankier than Kaidan since he's doubling up on the barrier strength evolution whereas its in Kaidan's best interest to do power recharge at 6.

Incendiary Ammo- Damage, Capacity, and Explosive burst, per usual.

Lift Grenade- Radius at 4, and Capacity at 5. While the arena is well stocked with grenades, he will use them more, to detonate the people he sets ablaze with his incendiary ammo or folks he's pulled.

Pull- Useless against armored enemies, and since he has no native way to strip barriers or shields, nor passive evolutions to drop his cooldown (which is already longer than usual because he should have barrier up) this is of limited use to him. If he is able to affect an enemy, it does provide a quick way for him to set off a biotic explosion since he can immediately detonate the pulled enemies with a lift grenade. You can only take it to 4 after spending the points in other powers anyways, so take radius to have a better chance of tagging folks.

Miranda- Little Miss Perfect, the Cerberus cheerleader bitch, as Tali and Jack would say (who knew they were so catty!) She has all the good stuff- warp, reave, overload, and incinerate, something for every occasion! You can't go wrong with her in your party.

I suppose one can also compare her to Kaidan. She actually starts with more health and shields, but his barrier makes him more resilient. He also gets assault rifles, which are way better than her SMGs. So Kaidan is the better fighter, but she has the better powerset.

Powers:
Cerberus Officer- Durability at 4, as she gets a bigger bonus to health and shields than she would to her weapons. Which are SMGs and Pistols anyways, so the benefit is already limited. Biotic power damage at 5. I think her biotics benefit more from the increase than her tech powers would. And squad tech/biotic power at 6.

Overload- Chain, Neural Shock, Shield Damage, as always.

Incinerate- Damage and Burning Damage.

Warp- Heh, its funny how characters can have the same powers yet have to evolve them differently. Like Samara, she has Warp and Reave, but the priorities are flipped. Warp and Reave can both prime biotic explosions, but only warp is a universal detonator, Reave only detonates biotic explosions. As such, warp is the one that has more utility. Detonation at 4, of course. Expose at 5, and Pierce at 6 to better deal with barriers.

Reave- Because she has so many useful powers and not enough points to spend on them, you have to make some hard choices. Overload and Incinerate detonate all the tech explosion types, while warp detonates everything. As such Reave ends up being the least useful of the three. Duration at 4, as said many times before to get the most out of the DR and because you end up with more overall damage.

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