Powers, Skill Trees and Active Abilities (Official Thread)

* NOW UPDATED post-Feb 17 combat trailer *

We now have a full list of all vanilla SP skills in MEA (hooray!), which unfortunately makes this thread a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle bit redundant (boo!).  But I might update it again once we learn more about each of the profiles in the next trailer.

The full skill lists:

Combat:

Actives
- Omni grenade
- Concussive shot
- Barricade
- Turbocharge
- Trip mine
- Flak cannon
Passives
- Pistols
- Assault rifles
- Shotguns
- Sniper rifles
- Combat fitness
- Combat tools

Tech:

Actives
- Overload
- Incinerate
- Assault turret
- Cryo beam
- Energy drain
- Tactical cloak
- Flamethrower
- Remnant VI
- Invasion
Passives
- Team support
- Offensive tech
- Auxiliary systems

Biotics:

Actives
- Pull
- Throw
- Charge
- Nova
- Shockwave
- Annihilation
- Backlash (formerly referred to as 'biotic aegis')
- Singularity
- Lance
Passives
- Barrier
- Offensive biotics
- Containment

Here are images of the full lists (with thanks to DayusMakhina ):


There are a few notable absences, such as warp (seems like invasion in the tech tree is a similar type of skill), adrenaline rush (time dilation has been killed by MP, turbocharge could be intended as a replacement for AR), reave, stasis, sabotage, tech shield (potentially the sentinel profile skill) and hacking. A few of these could potentially be available as bonus or DLC skills later.

DayusMakhina has also created an imgur album of all the power descriptions shown in the trailer: imgur.com/a/6OTix

EDIT: lastpawn brought to my attention a great compilation of images from the Feb 17 trailer by reddit user Tavarish: https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/5unp3t/went_through_gameplay_series_1_combat_trailer_and/


Old info


December 1

Here is an image of all the icons for skills (formerly called powers or talents) that are shown in the December 1 gameplay trailer, in order of appearance and numbered for reference:


Best guesses as to what these are (EDIT: now based on all known SP skill names):

1 - Backlash
2 - Charge
3 - Concussive shot
4 - Flak cannon
5 - Trip mine
6 - Assault turret
7 - Flamethrower
8 - Barricade
9 - Shockwave
10 - Overload
11 - Incinerate
12 - Pull
13 - Throw
14 - Invasion
15 - Cryo beam
16 - Tactical cloak
17 - Omni grenade
18 - Singularity
19 - Lance
20 - Turbocharge

There are also some other symbols/markings in these images: a round dot at the top left of some skill icons, indicating that the skill is a primer; a small explosion at the top right, indicating that the skill is a detonator and a green background, which seems to indicate that a skill is currently in use (in this case, the assault turret).


January 4:

Here are shots of the further skills info from the January 4 Nvidia trailer:



There was also some information revealed about skill ‘profiles’ in that same footage:



A few interesting bits and pieces:

1. Some active skills have a secondary function activated by holding the relevant button/key.

2. Peebee’s skills loadout in the footage is a tech/biotics hybrid, suggesting she has the sentinel profile available to her.

3. Active skills (and possibly passives too) have a similar tree structure to ME3, with three set ranks and a further three ranks with two options each, totalling six ranks.

4. The explorer profile (combat + tech + biotics) appears to be unlocked for Ryder, but none of the other biotic or part-biotic profiles are. This suggests that more points need to be invested in biotic skills to unlock these profiles – e.g. one biotic skill for explorer, two for vanguard or sentinel and three for adept.

5. ‘Marksman’s focus’ is a bonus skill granted by unlocking rank 1 of the soldier profile, while ‘combat drone’ is a bonus skill granted by unlocking rank 1 of the engineer profile. This might explain why we have seen the drone in footage but it isn’t listed in the tech skill tree. Perhaps these skills are activated by a separate button/key to the loadout skills (dpad-down?) or perhaps they are always active when using the relevant profile.

6. Taking flamethrower from rank 3 to rank 6 raised the engineer profile to rank 4 (apparently directly from rank 1???) and also unlocked something called ‘technical overseer’. This might be an alternative to the ‘recon specialist’ and ‘rogue academic’ titles Ryder and Peebee have, respectively. No idea whether it changes any player stats.


PS4 preorder trailer (February 3):

Here are a few shots from the PS4 preorder trailer (credit to @vella for the images):


This trailer is MP only but it shows a couple of powers that are likely to be in SP too.

The biotic skill in the first image looks like a new one.  It could be the animation for 'lance' because the second image seems to show the same female character with that skill in her loadout, although it doesn't seem to fit with the lance description.

The third image shows a Krogan vanguard using nova.  There is also a power with a helmet symbol, which could be a headbutt, but this is presumably restricted to MP (and maybe Drack).

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[SofaJockey said:] ProbeAway , I'm adding some additional information to the OP, please feel free to move it around if you prefer: [SofaJockey - all good!]

*Note: Adding these thumbnailed but spoilered at full size:

Root menu


Squadmate screen


Skills screen


Power tree

SPOILER: Click to show

Picture dump of skills for reference:

Skills


Class profiles


Minius ' videos on the subject: