Maxing out UR weapons?

If you maxed out all below UR, I suggest to save up to at least 2 millions and buy Jumbo Premiums; you can get up to 5 URs in one pack.
I maxed my manifest before variants came out, so my grind wasn't that painful.
I had luck to get multiple JPs with 5 URs inside.

What platform are you on? PC Gold runs has slightly dwindled a bit, but still common enough (unless it's a Silver or Bronze Daily Mission day). Can I assume you are on one of the consoles instead? That would explain a lot in terms of player availability and runs.

Spend Mission Funds exclusively on URs. Don’t buy Expert Packs. They help the booster situation a bit, but the UR drop rate I observed over 60 Expert packs was 8%. The UR drop rate I’ve observed out of hundreds of Premium Packs is very close to 25%, and Premium (including Jumbo) have a pity timer (guaranteed a UR pet million credits), while Expert Packs do not. You won’t hit the pity timer often, but it’s good to have it.

A good strategy is to save to 1 million credits (buy Ammo Priming and Supply packs as needed, but nothing else), then buy Premiums (regular, Arsenal, or Reserves, consistently per buying session) until you hit a UR, then start saving again. You can also do this with Jumbo Premiums, but I have less experience with that.

As for getting games, learn to Solo, and keep the party open. Vanelsa has a host of YouTube videos (poke around in this forum for links) showing exactly how to Solo Gold and Platinum. Successfully Soloing requires luck in objectives, but if you keep the party open, you should pretty frequently (although not always) pick up a team as you go to help through tough Wave 6 objectives.

Start with his videos, and learn how to Solo, for example, Sandstorm. He has a technique (I call it “the Algorithm”) for that nap. Most maps actually have one, but Sandstorm’s is the most obvious. What I mean is a strategy for rotating through the map, from one defensive position to another, hitting ammo boxes on the way (they refill every few minutes). Start with Bronze to get acclimated, but you can quickly move to Silver and Gold. Once you’ve Solo’d some Gold, you’ll know if Platinum is a good idea. A lot of maps also feature a “Stronghold” position - a spot a reasonably tanky character can just hold without having to leave. This can also be a good Solo strategy (although I find it dry).

Anyway, Soloing is enormous fun. It sounds sort of scary at first, but you will learn so much about the game. Plus, some stuff is easier. For example, sniping is a lot easier in a Solo. You’re on host, by definition, and enemies tend to come straight at you (they hop around some, of course, but I find them harder to hit in a chaotic multiplayer game). And quite often, you pick up a team anyway.

I have thoughts on characters for Solos, but this post is already too long. Open up a convo in the solo’s thread. It is a good, fun, credit production strategy.

I know at least one australian dude who is almost every day of the week online, and usually plays gold/platinum, on PC. I've played with him and he's a good player, played in his lobby, had a bit of a lag but not too bad if one kept more careful playstyle (I'm from Finland, so another side of the planet) :

This is true IF you have a good team of 4. But only if. Even then, on Platinum, I like to have one Avenger in the team. Also, if you need Stealth to survive on Plat, it is better than not playing at all. I know I needed my safety blanket for quite a while. (And if you don’t have a good team, by all means, grab a stealth kit.)

Another good YouTube channel for team of 4 speedruns is ZeusFuryOmega’s. They do lots of Plat runs with no stealth.

Well... It costs same and you get same amount of cards, but chance to get UR card in five PPs is a row is slim to none, but you can get more than one UR cards in JPs quite often.

Regarding things others said... Just to add...
Use Infiltrator's Cloak to boost your weapons and powers damage and for objectives and revives, leave Stealth Grid at 1 point because both Avenger and Huntress benefit more from other two powers, use SG same way as Cloak.
If you rely just on stealth during hacks/uploads you will loose more than you will win.

This, here ^



And this is why I usually run as Huntress on PUG games, I like her more than Avenger and Infiltrators.

I also agree with the sentiments about the grind. It is intense. If you’re just playing to max out a manifest, there are better, healthier things to do with your time. You have to be always aware in modern games that they exploit addictive technologies and they build the game around making money in micro transactions with “whales” that can’t help themselves and overspend like crazy. That’s just gaming in the modern world.

I try to be really cognizant of this and make sure I’m playing for fun and not responding to an addiction mechanism. Personally, I really enjoy the combat and building characters and futzing with builds and setups. I’ve always loved that about Mass Effect. I never played MP until MEA, and I really like it because it lets me avoid having to sit through endless dialogue and cutscenes and resource gathering in the single player. I just get to jump straight to combat and I love that. I just wish there were more MP characters (at the uncommon level, LOL) and that they had brought even more of the single player build and crafting system to the MP.

Off topic, sort of, but if you go to six in Stealth Grid it isn’t hard to spec and build for high-damage weapons (e.g. Dhan, Black Widow) to one-shot grunts in Gold when firing out of cloak, and I *really* like doing that...

I'd recommend the Angara Avenger normally too, but I've been in a few Platinum runs where another Stealther would decide to do something really poor for the team; Like continue to aggro a boss mob (Destroyer that's charging, etc) and then they decide to stealth before they fire (instead of just hiding behind cover without stealth). And the Boss unit decides to snipe me from the other side of the map because I'm the next one visible to it. In cases like that, having Barrier saving you is much better I feel. But the Huntress of course also lacks direct skills to handle heavy armor units. So it's a toss up between the two depending on circumstances that are normally outside your control.

If you are the only stealth unit. Avenger or Huntress is great.
If there's another and they're not familiar with dealing with Boss unit charge attacks yet (like above), Huntress is better. Especially on One Life to Live.
If it's a friend or someone experienced with Stealth play, Avenger is better for more skills to deal with groups or armored units.
If it's One Life to Live, Huntress. You can slowly whittle down regenerating enemies even like Berserkers with weapons fire, but you can't do anything if you were hit from the other side of the map with 0 reaction time to do anything about it.
If it's all friends, go as Ronnie said: pick up a debuffer someone else hasn't chosen yet. (Unless of course if it's One Life to Live again, in which case, it's back to the Huntress )

You have that with only 1 point anyways and IIRC SG damage bonus is bugged so you don't benefit from that.