ME1 - Basic Soldier Leveling Guide
Nov 19, 2016 1:10:43 GMT
MarilynRobert, RedCaesar97, and 1 more like this
Post by capn233 on Nov 19, 2016 1:10:43 GMT
Aka “Legendary Mass Effect Soldier Synopsis” - This is a repost of a thread I made Dec 23, 2014.
Objective: Outline a path for leveling a relatively balanced vanilla soldier through Mass Effect, geared towards completing Insanity starting at Level 1. The secondary objective is to condense some of the information I covered a year ago in a soldier run "let's play" series. This is part of why I did Soldier second instead of Engineer, which I might do next.
Bonus Power: As far as bonus powers, if this is your first character, you won’t have any unlocked (or if you have only played Soldiers before this you won’t have any available ones unlocked). In my humbly entitled guide I took decryption but didn’t invest in it. You can if you want. Otherwise Electronics is ok for extra shields (which you don’t actually need), and both can be good for debuff, some damage, and crate unlocking by yourself. Medicine is also good for Neural Shock. Otherwise you could go Lift or Singularity, but those don’t fit with a combat character, IMO. Most of the time I don’t bother with a bonus on soldier in this game.
Persuasion: I invest in Intimidate or Charm just for more dialogue options. The minimum investment to give you all of one option is 6 in Intimidate, which when added to the 4 freebies will give you 10. That passes all checks. For charm you need 8 investment to get to 12, but technically there is only one charm check that is always 12 (a certain exec on Feros). Otherwise it is just 10 for a couple UNC missions, each of which is actually a lower intimidate check so can be done earlier. It is all up to you. If you don’t want to invest in those because you just want to max via NG+, just invest those points in talents I mention in the next level.
Assumptions: In the Basic Adept Leveling Guide I wrote a little while ago the assumption was that you were starting an Adept on Insanity at Level 1 and you had unlocked XP bonuses as well as Assault Rifles. This essentially implied that you had first played the game as a Soldier to unlock the higher difficulties, picked up enough Assault Rifle achievements to unlock that as a bonus power, and beaten the game 3 times (first run, NG+ hardcore, NG+ insanity) to get all the XP bonuses. Those are namely Long Service Medal (complete twice on any difficulty), Completionist (do 15 missions and 35 assignments), Power Gamer (hit level 50), and Extreme Power Gamer (hit Level 60).
It is possible to get to Level 60 in your very first two games if you hit 50 and get Completionist in the first run and have BDtS and Pinnacle Station. It shouldn’t be too difficult to get it in three. That said, when I first got the game it took me four. I didn’t have any DLC, didn’t realize you lost XP from killing in the Mako, and I don’t think I got Completionist in my first whirlwind run either. So I hit something like 42 and I was sabotaged such that I hit 59 in my third game and had to do a fourth to get a character with 60. Also I didn’t even know the value of Immunity and had some oddball build where I just used Shield Boost mainly.
Miscellaneous: The point of all this introduction is to say that typically I would recommend your first character you carry forward to unlock these achievements be a Soldier, since it is the simplest to grasp and it is hard to mess it up so much that you can’t get through Veteran and a NG+ Hardcore run and then NG+ Insanity. It also doesn’t really need a bonus power and it unlocks the weapon talents for the other classes.
If for whatever reason you didn’t play soldier, or just want to start at level 1 on Insanity for the challenge, then this might be the thread for you. Or if you are just starting out and want to know about worthwhile power investment for the first three runs this thread can work, although you will be leveling slower (less XP bonus). This thread technically won’t be new information since I am going to basically crib the leveling I did in the soldier run I recorded.
This will have some minor plot spoilers associated with the levels since this is mainly for those who have already beaten the game at least once.
Objective: Outline a path for leveling a relatively balanced vanilla soldier through Mass Effect, geared towards completing Insanity starting at Level 1. The secondary objective is to condense some of the information I covered a year ago in a soldier run "let's play" series. This is part of why I did Soldier second instead of Engineer, which I might do next.
Bonus Power: As far as bonus powers, if this is your first character, you won’t have any unlocked (or if you have only played Soldiers before this you won’t have any available ones unlocked). In my humbly entitled guide I took decryption but didn’t invest in it. You can if you want. Otherwise Electronics is ok for extra shields (which you don’t actually need), and both can be good for debuff, some damage, and crate unlocking by yourself. Medicine is also good for Neural Shock. Otherwise you could go Lift or Singularity, but those don’t fit with a combat character, IMO. Most of the time I don’t bother with a bonus on soldier in this game.
Persuasion: I invest in Intimidate or Charm just for more dialogue options. The minimum investment to give you all of one option is 6 in Intimidate, which when added to the 4 freebies will give you 10. That passes all checks. For charm you need 8 investment to get to 12, but technically there is only one charm check that is always 12 (a certain exec on Feros). Otherwise it is just 10 for a couple UNC missions, each of which is actually a lower intimidate check so can be done earlier. It is all up to you. If you don’t want to invest in those because you just want to max via NG+, just invest those points in talents I mention in the next level.
Assumptions: In the Basic Adept Leveling Guide I wrote a little while ago the assumption was that you were starting an Adept on Insanity at Level 1 and you had unlocked XP bonuses as well as Assault Rifles. This essentially implied that you had first played the game as a Soldier to unlock the higher difficulties, picked up enough Assault Rifle achievements to unlock that as a bonus power, and beaten the game 3 times (first run, NG+ hardcore, NG+ insanity) to get all the XP bonuses. Those are namely Long Service Medal (complete twice on any difficulty), Completionist (do 15 missions and 35 assignments), Power Gamer (hit level 50), and Extreme Power Gamer (hit Level 60).
It is possible to get to Level 60 in your very first two games if you hit 50 and get Completionist in the first run and have BDtS and Pinnacle Station. It shouldn’t be too difficult to get it in three. That said, when I first got the game it took me four. I didn’t have any DLC, didn’t realize you lost XP from killing in the Mako, and I don’t think I got Completionist in my first whirlwind run either. So I hit something like 42 and I was sabotaged such that I hit 59 in my third game and had to do a fourth to get a character with 60. Also I didn’t even know the value of Immunity and had some oddball build where I just used Shield Boost mainly.
Miscellaneous: The point of all this introduction is to say that typically I would recommend your first character you carry forward to unlock these achievements be a Soldier, since it is the simplest to grasp and it is hard to mess it up so much that you can’t get through Veteran and a NG+ Hardcore run and then NG+ Insanity. It also doesn’t really need a bonus power and it unlocks the weapon talents for the other classes.
If for whatever reason you didn’t play soldier, or just want to start at level 1 on Insanity for the challenge, then this might be the thread for you. Or if you are just starting out and want to know about worthwhile power investment for the first three runs this thread can work, although you will be leveling slower (less XP bonus). This thread technically won’t be new information since I am going to basically crib the leveling I did in the soldier run I recorded.
This will have some minor plot spoilers associated with the levels since this is mainly for those who have already beaten the game at least once.