ME:A MP Build Suggestions & Discussion Thread

Human Adept (61666) - link

Updated: 01/04/17. Human Adept is pretty amazing. Frustrating at first as there's huge learning curve. It has taken me about a week's worth of experimentation with builds and play-styles to suss it out and after trying pretty much every combination you can image i'm convinced now that this is the optimal build for this character for a number of reasons. In my opinion the human adept if spec'd this way can go toe to toe with the Asari Adept. I've been hitting 20k+ score in gold pretty regularly and while it may not be as powerful as the ME3MP human adept in terms of raw damage it many ways, particularly durability it surpasses it.


Singularity  (Duration, Anti-Shield, Expanding Singularity)

Biotic Combos aren't as powerful as before so think of them like Reave's biotic combos - you need to do more of them at once which is where duration/expanding singularity comes in. Leave it active in the middle of a crowded room draining shields and priming for explosions. Spec it this way and you'll be priming more combos than ever before in ME3MP.

Pull (Rank 1)

Don't let the lack of points fool you into thinking pull is not important. You use it about every 3 seconds or so against unshielded single targets. First of all biotic explosions are no more powerful with level 6 primers and detonators then then rank 1 ones. At first I thought this was a horrible change but i've grown to appreciate it as it frees up a lot of skill points to be used elsewhere without effecting the quality of your biotic explosions.

Shockwave (Radius, Recharge Speed, Anti-Armor)

Radius is essential to hit as many targets as possible effected by singularity. I tried Reach but it's just not far enough to justify the extra recharge speed cost which is essential for detonating pull quickly and moving on to your next round of singularity combos. If you detonate quickly enough making use of recharge speed and duration singularity you can pull off two combo detonation chains with 1 singularity + 2 shockwaves. Armor damage is not for Berserkers - it's for agents, turians and asari, etc.

Offensive Biotics (Power Efficiency, Combo Detonation, Biotic Expert)

Recharge Speed is primarily to speed up singularity recharge in exchange for extra shield damage. Combo Detonation is worthwhile for you and other biotic players if you are detonating chains of biotic combos preferably with other adepts. Biotic expert is there to enhance singularity's shield damage and shockwave armor damage. If you have decent gold weapons you might want the 20% debuff and level 6 weapon damage perks instead in order to turn every biotic power into warp. In any case level 6 Offensive Biotics is essential imo.

Barrier (Unyielding Barrier, Active Link, Saving Barrier)

Barrier is back better than ever. Do not neglect your Barrier it is essential on gold. Active Link and Saving Barrier will make you substantially more durable and will make you much more of a run and gun character. Without Active Link and Saving Barrier you're a lot less mobile so I would definitely recommend taking Barrier to 6 if for nothing else than just to experience the majesty of Saving Barrier at least once before they nerf it.

Suggested Weapons:

Hurricane, Charger, Equalizer, Scorpion, Talon

Build Strategy:

1. Singularity Rank 5
2. Shockwave Rank 5
3. Barrier Rank 6
4. Singularity Rank 6
5. Offensive Biotics Rank 6
6. Shockwave Rank 6

Human Vanguard (66616) - link

Updated: 01/04/17. My favorite human character. After playing around with both the human and krogan vanguard extensively I actually think I prefer the Human (I know, strange) - If you go with a powers build rather than a boring weapon build it's sort of vanguard and adept hybrid. You can prime  biotic combos with both shockwave (rank 6) and nova (rank 6) so you have two primers and two detonator (Charge, Shockwave) which gives you a lot of versatility and it makes it excelent for casting. If you take power damage on charge you can skip the passive tree without much sacrifice and max out everything else.

The gameplay strategy is fairly simple the most part: charge, followed by nova to prime, followed by lifting shockwave (biotic combo), finish with charge (biotic combo) and biotic punch if it's still not dead. Rinse & repeat the cycle for a new biotic combo chain starting again with nova, etc.


Charge (Radius, Power Synergy, Bastion)

Pretty standard, I prefer radius in general for better synergy with other powers - both yours and other players.

Nova (Radius, Anti-Shield, Seismic Nova)

If you take Anti-Shield if you do enough damage to strip the shields the effected targets will be primed for biotic combos (Armored targets are always primed for combo detonations with nova regardless).

Shockwave (Radius, Recharge Speed, Lifting Shockwave)

Some people don't like lifting shockwave. It's excellent for crowd control because dangling targets can't shoot at you. I prefer it on vanguards with radius because reaching and detonating the floaters is never a problem with charge and it makes life difficult for camping vanquishers. Win Win.

Apex Training (Rank 1)

I'd suggest using the Krogan for a traditional weapon based vanguard instead.

Barrier (Unyielding Barrier, Barrier Drain, Saving Barrier)

Very tank-y build. Punch to get 10% barrier back between charges, failing that your barrier will act like defense matrix when you health falls below 20% every 10 seconds.

Suggested Weapons:

Disciple, Venom, Pirahna, Katana if you have nothing else.

How are people speccing their engineers? Namely the Krogan or the human?

Is assault turret worth investing in or is it better to just use overload and incinerate / cryo beam?

Krogan Mercenary X link
At card I (fresh unlock): damage link soloing link

Asari Sentinel II link

For Gold

I'm surprised I don't see more of the human sentinel. I go 1/6/6/6/6 link 

Barricade let's me chase enemies around anywhere and create my own cover when I need it. It gives me a 15% weapon damage boost and stuns melee enemies along with priming them. Great for devices, hacks and uploads. This is easily my favorite power in the game so far.

Energy drain specced for max damage to complement incendiary ammo (kett and outlaw gold build). 1 point in throw to clear out grabby dogs clustered around my barricade.

The passive gives a surprisingly good weapon damage boost with all 4/5/6a evolutions and tech armor grants damage resistance which makes me tanky considering I can refill my shields every few seconds.

I know it's weird how no one is using this build. Barricade is very noob-friendly. I'm not a huge fan of backlash because it breaks so quickly. Anecdotally, barricade never breaks from damage, it's duration just runs out and it gives you a very clear visual cue when this is happening. Survivability is high because of tech armor and energy drain and barricade full stops melee units (even Krogans) and primes them for tech combos. You have two separate human sentinels so it can't hurt to try a full barricade spec on one of them.

Definitely recommend a weapons build. Like I said, the passive gives a huge weapon damage boost*. I like the revenant (accuracy buffs from passive and barricade) and multi-shot semi-auto snipers (for me this is the viper and vanquisher so far). I've also had success with the charger, phalanx and talon. Pretty much anything you like would fit nicely. Cooldowns aren't a huge concern because barricade is power-cell based.

*+28% if maxed; better than soldier and infiltrator although they have other useful bonuses. With barricade it can total +43% and applies for more than one shot (vs cloak) while providing defensive bonus (as opposed to turbocharge).

It actually is.  Combined with Falcon it wrecks spawns

Backlash goes to rank 5 or more

Remember that the bonus scales with the amount of damage absorbed, so it might not be much, plus weapons aren't much, and the bonus may be additive & not multiplicative.  I needn't mention that both enemy damage and health are higher on Gold, and therefore that bit might not be enough to put the damage over the top.

With the shield boost even if only a little bit regens that is ever more cushion against health damage, and native shield regen is faster if there are shields left.

That said some people may like defending a fixed position, and though dubious in the face of Kett and developer's stated intentions, maybe they can make damage work if supported by the team.  Need math and breakpoints to be sure.  Maybe, perhaps with maxed or DLC manifest, the right weapon and skillful maneuver, someone can flit in and out wrecking enemies in a timely manner because of the damage boost.

PS Decided on a Damage Aftermath build no matter what instead of the Recharge Speed  EDIT: just kidding

^ With one +40% evo & Biotic Boosters you can Berserker Flak too.  Unfortunately, doesn't seem to reflect them

EDIT:  Was patched to not need the booster