Confused about Singularity and the Expand evolution

Singularity has two durations: the active duration and the lift duration.

The lift duration controls how long enemies will remain lifted/affected by singularity. Singularity and passive talents can improve the lift duration. This is the value you see at 8 seconds.

The active duration controls how long Singularity will remain active until you re-cast it. This duration is fixed; you cannot increase the active duration. The Expand duration occurs during the active duration. for the record, I do not know long Singularity will remain active. I think it will remain active for about 30 seconds until it is re-cast? Typically, you will re-cast singularity before it ever disappears on its own.

When I use it, it doesn't even feel 15 seconds long. But at least I know know the duration refers to the lift duration and not the powers max duration.

By the way, I've seen your YouTube channel, you've done a lot of tests. I'm wondering if you could answer a question I have about the Sentinel class in ME1?

Kaidan's class passive at max gives him 12% power cool down, Shepard's gives him Marksman, but does that actually replace the 12% cool down or does Shepard get that too? Thanks.

Okay, final word on ME3 Single Player Singularity duration and expand. I just finished recording some video, then viewed the footage to determine the duration and how expand works.

Duration:
As mentioned previously, Singularity has two durations: an 'active' duration and a 'lift' duration.

The 'active' duration controls how long Singularity remains active before disappearing on its own, or is re-cast by the player. The active duration is fixed at 15 seconds. Duration bonuses provided by Singularity power ranks or evolutions DO NOT affect the active duration. It is always 15 seconds.

The 'lift' duration controls how long an enemy can be be lifted by the singularity. While lifted, the enemy is primed for a biotic detonation. Duration bonuses provided by Singularity power ranks or evolutions will affect the lift duration. As of patch 4 or 5, Singularity will stay active after a biotic detonation. (At launch, singularity disappeared after a biotic detonation.)

Expand evolution:
The Expand evolution will expand Singularity's radius for 10 seconds. This 10 second value is fixed; it is always 10 seconds. Power duration bonuses to do not affect the expand duration.

Expand will expand the radius during the first 10 seconds of Singularity's 'active' duration. It is unclear if the expansion radius is based off the base radius, or if rank 4's Radius evolution can affect the radius. I did not test this.


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In practical terms, you will not likely have Singularity active for all 15 seconds. Chances are you will be re-casting it before its duration ends. You may find yourself using Pull instead.

If you have Liara and Javik in your squad, you may even use their Singularity and Pull more often then you use your own Singularity and Pull.