Mortiel's Guides: A New Way To Look At Builds

Added Turian Shocktrooper build.

I'm guessing that these are dieliberately different to the "usual" builds, as there's no point reviewing characters the same way that's been done before.

Guy posts some builds and we go straight to the festering dark side*...my god, I do love ya, BSN...

Stay classy now, y'hear?


*BSN: the Blackest Swedish Metal of Forums (now across TWO galaxies!)

Why did I just envision you as a classical looking magician in a show doing magic tricks.

Don't think I would max it before putting points elsewhere, but barricade has many uses outside of objectives. Outside of the obvious, I'll often deploy it without even using it as cover. Getting flanked? Throw it in a choke point to delay an enemy advance. Pushing forward while enemies are coming up behind you? Toss it in a doorway and keep moving forward. Not ready to deal with the pair of krogans that are about to jump up to your level? Toss it down at their jump point. Sure, you can use it while defending an objective, but you could also deploy it in a choke point leading to the objective, forcing the enemies to either wait, or go around the long way. You can trap enraged krogans with it, making them harmless.

If you are using it as cover, many of those cover-flushing enemies will be stunned by the barricade giving you plenty of time to deal with them. It also gives you cover from different angles unlike simply hiding behind a box. Boxes also aren't known for giving you buffs.

Use it a bit more. 

Your guides have great potential. You have interesting builds you've clearly put some though into, and you're an excellent speaker that's easy to listen to.

However, your guides suffer from two major problems:

1) As our resident Antarctic seabird lover said, there's way too much going on at once. It should be enough that I listen while you explain what I see on the screen, but apparently I'm supposed to read some other text at the same time, and also look at some gameplay on top of that. Sorry, but I want to focus on one thing at a time. The visual look in general is too busy with all those double borders, titles, text areas, video areas and social media links. Everything on screen is fighting for my attention, so I've no idea what I'm supposed to look at any given moment. This tends to lower my level of interest significantly.

2) You don't really explain anything when going over a build, you just show it. It's cool that you have some clear design philosophy for each build, but you should spend a bit more time in explaining the reasoning behind that philosophy. (Why does a Turian Soldier make a good shocktrooper? Are other characters capable of the same? Are there other equally viable builds, and if so, why did you choose this?) While you tell us that for Power X you take evolution 4A - and maybe summarize the effects of that evolution - you don't spend any time clarifying why that evolution is a better choice than the other one. You tell us which weapons you chose, and maybe even explain why you chose them, but you don't give any alternatives to those who might not have unlocked them yet, and you don't explain which weapons should be avoided. And so on.

Luckily both of these problems can be easily corrected. You really should consider doing that.

I do agree that the banners up at the top and bottom (name and social media links) need to go. They take up useless space and clutter things unnecessarily. I've already been working on a way to change the overlay to remove those.



If I'm being honest, I really feel like you are stretching to criticise here, since what you are saying here is actually in the video, with the exceptions or telling people what not to do (which is needless clutter info).

I pick a design, explain what that design is, explain the build choices to make it to this build (and what those choices do), explain a selection of weapons to take that fit the design (what I am using + alternatives), then I highlight how to implement the strategy for this design. I do explain what each evolution does... I do not, however, cover why *not* to select other things because it's unnecessary info.

When it makes sense, I also explain pertinent tertiary information such as (in the Shocktrooper guide) how Damage Resistance works.

See, when you make a build guide for people that are not enthusiasts like the vocal minority here, you have to make the info concise, brief, and to the point. That is why my newest guide is almost half the length of the first two. Attention spans are short with many guides, and you will almost certainly lose the viewer the moment you start going on on a tangent of what evolutions not to take or what other characters can be a shocktrooper. If people want to hear me theorycrafting, they tune into my live streams to hear me doing it live.

Absolutely true! The vanguard or most soldier kits as a concept can be very functionally similar depending on how you play (albeit the Turian soldier is more tanky than the other soldiers). With vanguards specifically, the ability for them to Charge in order to close the gap makes a concussive weapon (Falcon) is not as necessary, an SMG like the Hurricane can still be extremely deadly.

Honestly, that's a damn good idea. I had planned honestly to revisit kits after I had gotten through them all and try completely new builds. A vortex build for the Asari Adept would be a prime example, and I have definitely noted it. Thanks!

Good stuff, but VORTEX

How DARE you insinuate that I, the all-knowing Dras... er... I mean Mortiel... am too serious!