Spoiler Alert: Architects.

I always just parked the mako just outside the nest area and walked in towards the center.  9/10 the maw would surface a distance in front of Shepard and I'd just start moving sideways in a circle left or right while maintaining fire.  My squad would go down quite often, but Shepard was seldom hit by acid at all... even on insanity.  How long it took was just a matter of what weapon I decided to use and whether or not I hit the maw with a warp to lower it's resistance.  Pretty much all of them would go down before Shep completed one circle around the maw.

The XP is no different than if you soften the maw with the mako and then jump out to finish it off... but I usually just found it easier to take the mako out of the picture entirely.  Whenever I tried the soften first technique, I usually got hit with acid just as I jumped out of the mako.

If you don't have warp yourself, take Wrex and hit the maw right away with a warp.  That makes it a lot more vulnerable to the weapons fire.  Liara and, as I recall, Kaidan also have warp, but Wrex does have the advantage of using an assault rifle.  He's kind of a slow runner though, so he was often the first of the two squad mates to go down.  It's also kind of funny after taking down the maw, to see your squad running towards you across the flat with their weapons drawn... confused looking... like, what just happened?

(I also get a special kick out of the line in ME2 where he tells Shepard that no one has killed a maw on foot since he did the rite... I'd like to be able to actually say - little did you realize what all I did while you were sleeping on the job.

Its not a problem exclusive to Architects, though you have far fewer chances with them.

I'm not against the quest, in theory.

Yes, that's a better comparison.

All this biotic charging is so foreign to me. I'm going to play Ryder as a biotic. I can make that headcanon work. It's such a vast reversal of what I know best: cover, deploy drones or stealth up, look down the scope for a head shot. Fire. Wait a second for the bounce. Fire. Wait a second for the bounce. Fire. Cover. Overload or Incinerate. Cover.

I got bored with my tactics. Biotic charge here I come. PC.

Too much of a predictable series of attacks from them. They could've done with not being a set of obviously distinct repetitive phases linked together. Same attacks but without knowing what it was going to do next. And the "occasionally reveal a weak point just so you can shoot it" mechanic was old years ago.

That's the case with all boss level enemies though on any game. There's only so many ways you can do those sorts of fights to be fair.

I think there is so much cut content for MEA. It shouldn't be all that difficult or expensive to repurpose it into DLC. Damn you EA.

might happen as possible 3rd DLC but thereaer moer important questions that need answering first though like the quarians and the Benefactor/cur for mum but learning moer about the Remnant and that would make for an interesting 3rd DLC I think.

I'm actually hoping that revealing the Benefactor and curing Mum are be part of a sequel game (that I'm hoping was being somewhat developed right along with this game... in much the way movie studios these days film sequels together that are being set for release back to back).  I know that it is a very slim hope given that they appear to have just thrown away much of their work (with the procedural generation thing)... but I can dream, can't I?  If the VA strike is somehow holding up voice work for a quarian ark DLC (because they want to add in a bunch of new voices), then an Abyssal DLC could be done with very few new voices and would, most likely, be able to be recorded in spite of an ongoing strike.

Anyway, I'm totally engaging in wild speculations here... so I'll quit for now. ... and just go back to waiting to see what eventually happens.

Still, I think the abyssal was a really cool addition to the game.  Too back we just didn't get to interact with it more.