Favorite Characters?

A couple of thoughts. First, after getting all my characters (rare and below) to 20/XX (my URs are now there too, but much later in my timeline), I started to swap out characters to level up my bonus stats on a fairly even basis. This forced me to swap characters regularly, but also helped me compare and contrast the various characters and how they seemed to work, what weapons worked best, what play styles worked best … also, what subtleties I'd missed in playing them to get to level 20. I learned a lot. Eventually using some of my many respec cards to change their builds. This also included looking at mod variants for various weapons and what worked best for those weapons. Some characters are viable long before they are fully leveled up, other kits really don't work until you've got them at level 20, rank X … so you won't see the possibilities of a character until late in the leveling process.

Bottom line, the play style for each of my characters is based on the character and not "my" playstyle.

That said …

The Asari Adept is my favorite character (Aria McSpeedyPants). A lot of the key to her survivability is using dash instead of run … speed is life. If she runs everywhere, she will die … a lot. So use dash. As you said, she is awesome with her melee (punch all the things … folks I play with just laugh when I say that), plus all her biotic booms. I run her with a shotgun as primary, using the short barrel and heavy melee mod … plus typically the Rozerad (long barrel and receiver) for hacks/uploads or any other objective, where she's not going to get up close and personal. My obvious choice for the biotic challenge, when it pops up in the dailies.

Krogan Gladiator (Morda) is a close second. Again, a shotgun (actually two), with a short barrel and heavy melee for the primary, short barrel and receiver for backup. Max everything not named nova. Pound all the things. Remnant are her bane, but I respecced her pull, sixth evolution to damage shields. On gold, shoot an observer to weaken the shield, then grab (holding the pull button) and pound the observer with her hammer. If the observer's shields are weakened, even on gold, that evolution will work. Also comes in handy with Anointed and snipers. Still doesn't do anything for armored critters, but that's what you have the hammer for. I freakin' love breaking the Ascendant's orb with the shotgun, then grabbing the Ascendant and pounding it with the hammer.

Krogan Engineer (Kesh) is up there. She's not a melee character, she's a power broker, so with her, I used ranged weapons (sniper rifles, the PAW or maybe two Crusaders), stick somewhat close to the turret (except for objectives), combos on unshielded characters, overload/incinerate for the shielded ones, shoot everything. She's a bit squishy, but if you kill stuff fast enough, her rage keeps her viable. She is my go-to for the tech challenge, when it pops up for the dailies.

Turian Havoc. Maybe my favorite "gun bunny" … shoot all the things, incinerate as mostly a defensive move, flak cannon mostly on the big stuff or clusters of small stuff.

Human commando. Singularity to capture crowds, debuff, double warp for all the boom. But mostly hit stuff with warp and shoot them, since warp is available much more often (evolution 5 expose is bugged and doesn't work, so use duration). With turbo boost, a PAW running heavy magazine mod and long barrel, she can break the Ascendant's orb and then take down the ascendant with extended head shots … assuming weakpoint VI or AR booster.

Asari sentinel. Quick, like the Adept, lots of booms, not the same melee character and the booms are less frequent since energy drain is the primer and throw the detonator. But she is fast … which along with backlash can keep her alive. Since she's not a melee character, I usually run her with a couple of pistols, though sometimes put the PAW on her.

Angara Exemplar (Kitt Katt). He makes all the things go boom. Usually outfit him with either an assault rifle or a Crusader, power efficiency mod and run around tag teaming overload and energy drain for all the booms. I don't put many points into barricade, it comes in handy for enable objectives, reviving teammates, controlling access points … so both overload and energy drain are fully evolved.

Batarian scrapper. I preferred a different build than the one I currently run with, but it was not optimized for the combat challenge, when it pops for the dailies. So I did a respec to optimize the scrapper for the combat challenge … can complete the challenge in a team environment in three or four matches. Since he's optimized for the combat challenge, I don't take him out that much in regular matches … otherwise, I'd probably overplay him.

All the characters are gold viable, the way I have them currently specced. I'm not a platinum player, playing at that level might make me respec some of my characters, also would probably limit which characters I play. As it currently stands, I rotate all the characters in my play and except for the bronze/silver APEX missions and bronze/silver-specific daily challenges, I mostly play on gold. Some characters have similar play styles, but each character seems to have a playstyle that works better than others. Some characters I struggled with, to make them viable, then a lightbulb came on, I changed my playstyle for that character and things started working. The Angara Avenger (Allie Katt) and the Batarian Vanguard are two examples … my initial take on them was met with failure, modifying their playing style (in the vanguard's case, quite radically) turned that initial failure into success and both are now gold viable.

As far as maps and weapons … yeah, there are certainly kits that are less than optimum, depending on the map. For example, the Turian agent (Surfer Dude), with a Crusader is probably not optimum on Sandstorm. On the other hand, if I've got him equipped with a sniper rifle, he's a lot more effective. My Artificer is typically running with pistols, so Sandstorm isn't great for her, so you just hit all the things with invasion and shoot their asses. Cryo beam on the armored mid-critters, then shoot their asses. Cryo beam and invasion on the big critters, then shoot their asses … it works. Basically, take whatever the map gives you and adapt your character to the map. I pug a lot and there is a host that prefers Sandstorm over all other maps. Everything that person does is optimized for that … which is fine, but I'd get bored running a single map.

tl;dr: imo, all the characters are gold viable, as long as you spec them to match a playstyle that fits their attributes and while I have favorites, I've found I pretty much like all of them.

Asari Huntress
Human Commando
Human Artificer

my most used ones

Wish the stupid packs would give me the angaran exemplar. Looking at his skills, it's the perfect character for my playstyle, tech combos for days and lots of electricity and shield focus. I have terrible luck with these packs though lol.

1cm is less than half an inch.

Speaking of variety, my top 3 is Juggernaut, Juggernaut and Juggernaut...

I've spent tons of credits and points on packs and still haven't gotten the exemplar, really starting to piss me off.

Lately my best characters have been the turian agent, havoc trooper, and juggernaut.

Nothing bad in leveling those what you already have.

For Berserkers, Barrier 5b Shield Drain is vital and important. I always choose this spec over the other as whilst against Berserkers, if you move too far away from them, they will proceed to Flak Cannon you, and this causes full damage and lots of damage too (especially on higher difficulties).

But if they melee you, you will only take 25% of their melee damage (as your shields are up, and a further reduction of damage from your Ascension DR100, with more if Bulwark weapon on hand and others around you or efficient Ascension, etc), and not get staggered since you are immune to Stagger in Ascension. Because of the stagger immunity, you can simply stay in melee range yourself to them, and proceed to punch them for damage (to them) and Shields (restored to yourself). Without any dodging and just standing there, you will basically have time between each hit from a Berserker to deal two punches at least. (Just like how it was before any patch to melee attacks happened all the way back during release).

These two punches restores 30% of your shields, damage dealt (+80% on top for both hits from Barrier choices), and because you are taking reduced damage from the Berserker melee, you gain more shields than you lose. If there is more than one Krogan, simply perform a dash every so often to evade an attack and then go back in to punch them down. Works all the way up to 3 Krogran on Gold, and if you're super lucky, on Platinum as well. (So long as it's not Glass Jaw modifier, RUN in that case )

But that's the slow way to kill Krogan Berserkers (just punching only, but it does look awesome! ), especially in Plat runs. Switch to a weapon that has a cooldown, like PAW, Equalizer, etc. And simply spray the weapon to their face (weakpoint) as required (when less than 100% shields) as you'll do a tiny bit more damage with the weapon going at the weakpoint (depending on weapon), and will restore any Shield lost from a melee attack from them with a quick punch anyway. (I'm going to upload the Plat video up sometime today hopefully, hopefully that helps show some of what I'm talking about).

As for the tanking itself. That involves Ascension, Pull (6b, Shield Drain, and 4b Radius as well), and one or two Red Bars. By grabbing an enemy, you recharge 10% shields every second. Not only that, but held enemies can physically block weapons fire (except for the bolt from the Remnant Nullifier). Once held, angle the... er... "hostages"? No, er... Living Biotic Shield? Yeah, lets stick with that name instead of "hostages", Living Biotic Shield (LBS) . Angle your LBS towards your enemy to deflect weapons fire, any grazing damage that it did not block and hit you, you will quickly find that the Shield Drain from pull will have restored it in a second. So long as you remember to move in a slight zig-zag pattern towards and away your opponents, they will either not fire, fire away from you, or fire and it impacts the LBS. In all cases, you take little to no damage.

Assuming the rest of the team is all stealthed up during a hack or upload, you can move towards any mobs (and bosses) and draw their aggro and lead them somewhere else on the map. All the while never taking any meaningful damage despite everyone shooting at you (or at least, trying to in most cases).



I don't intentionally try to glitch into Ascension via a grabbing Adhi, but it's something I merely noticed and tried out and got it working. Getting it working correctly in any PuG run is either a fluke, or you'd need to spend a LOT of time trying to get it correctly going. And I don't think there are many groups that will be happy just waiting for you to get a glitch going.

Have I mentioned that I like seeing veterans try new stuff instead of being stuck in their ways?

Very nice. I tried this last night but kept getting killed while holding an enemy. Need to practice!

Tech Daily - Krogan Engineer or Human Eng (Cryo ammo Thokin)
Combat Daily - Human Soldier (1pt turbocharge build)
Biotic Daily - Asari Adept (either 1 pt lance or throw)
Icebreaker on Gold or less - Batarian Vanguard (mobility)
Sandstorm on Gold or less - Krogan Engineer (dropping them doub incin's)
Getting Health Prestige Points - Helicopter or Kineticist
Soloing Gold until someone joins - Human Infiltrator
Two manning Platinum until someone joins (usually wave 5) with the easiest classes possible - Operator and Avenger (between me and my buddy)

Don't have one (yet, going to look into it soon).

Was originally just thinking of putting up that one video on Kineticist play as it covered most of what I wanted to show anyway (hence why I just put it as unlisted), but I may form a proper channel and extend it further as I get specific videos done up. Will see as time permits.