Insanity: Tactical Cloak Required?

What level are you? Companions get much tankier with levels on Insanity. Besides passives for themselves they can also boost party max shields, damage reduction, health regen. Or restore shields with abilities. Until you unlock all that the best way to help them survive is to either kill enemies quickly or to CC them with stuff like Singularity, distract with turrets, etc. But yeah, they tend to die a lot early on. If you're getting swarmed and have space to run away, they will teleport to you in open world environments so you can use that to reposition.

I am still on my first run, but I am on Insanity. I was planning to play a "soldier," so no Tactical Cloak for me. And to answer the question in the title, TC is not required.


They seemed pretty likely to die early game when I started, and were slightly less crappy after getting to about level 6. I actually replayed nearly every encounter if a squadmate died. It was pretty tedious, especially considering who your two starting squadmates are and their powers. More in a minute...


Squadmate AI in this game does not seem to be particularly good, which is then magnified by the fact that you don't have much control over them and can't properly micro their powers.

Specifically, they are largely too dumb to dodge grenades, their pathing is pretty poor even though they should theoretically have the same mobility as Ryder, and don't really use their powers appropriately.

To keep them alive, largely I had to try and order them behind some cover somewhere so they could be relatively protected. If I wanted suicidal Cora to Charge something, I would attempt to order an attack, then immediately order her to move behind cover. It helps if you can grab some aggro onto your own character, but you will have to watch the fire since low level Ryder is pretty fragile early game. Cora actually gets moderately tanky once she gets some powers leveled.

Prioritization of targets in whatever encounter also helps. For instance, early against the Kett the machinegun guys are probably the biggest problem since once they are spooled up they do so much damage. If you can drop them relatively quickly, it helps. Alternatively, I would sometimes try and grab their attention and let them attempt to spool their gun, then dodge behind cover... all in the hopes of keeping it from dropping the squaddie.

Since this game has a lot of large areas, the alternative is to just take out most everything at long range, especially given that most enemies seem to be inaccurate enough that they aren't a great threat at range.

The only thing you really need on Insanity, in my opinion, is Overload or Energy Drain. Preferably ED, as it can be both a primer and a detonater.

As for your squadmates: they get better. They hardly die anymore for me after like level 15 or so.

Yours and a lot of the other posts are suggesting exactly what I've been doing already.  I even said in my op that I "always choose defensive abilities when the powers split".  I'm clueless as to why I'm having such a different experience from everyone else.

Guess I'll mess around more with sending them to cover but it kind of sucks that my tankier squadmates (Drack and Cora) get cut down so quickly on Insanity.  I prefer them to be in the thick of things tanking instead of sitting back in cover.

Wouldn't say that it is required, I personally have 2 points specced into it and I only use it in rare cases where I need to get distance from a Destroyer in corridors.

I can only agree with Psychevore, Overload and Energy drain is 100% on my skill bar with the third one changed depending on situation (Cryo, Flamer, ). Vetra is my permanent squaddie, Survival+power armour was my priority, left 1 point in concussive shot for the random bumrusher. My second spot changes at times, Drack is great when it comes to distraction, Peebee if I want more explosions and free invasion.

Black Widow () and Falcon lets me control a lot of situations, of course I die here and there.

I am playing at Hardcore and I lost count already on how many times Cora and Liam died. Not only nce I saw they even stand cozily next to a thrown grenade or Cora shoot her Shotgun as if it was a sniper rifle, LOL.

Heck, I got the Medic trophy in Eos before I even activated the dungeon for the first required mission there.

I don't want to even begin to imagine how much pain I am going to suffer when trying Insanity later down the road.

Is Tactical Cloak Required... no. Squadmates dying... well that is their job   

Sorry I cant give you tips on keeping them alive because I either leave them alone or send them to their death on purpose. 

I notice that Vetra and Jaal manage to stay alive better than most, mainly because they keep their distance. Drack... well he is Krogan... nuff said.

What abilities do you use as an Explorer? Just out of curiosity.

Tactical cloak is not required. I did a test drive and fought some Kett camps at Eos on Insanity and was doing fine without using TC and didn't die the entire time.