Mass Effect trilogy: Game mechanics and character build compilation thread

Same. It's interesting that they objectively added a *lot* more variety to the weapons in ME1. And it's cool. Trying weapons and figuring out their deal was a lot of fun. There are actually reasons to use guns other than "this one's number is 15% bigger than that one's number". And yet despite that, I probably use fewer weapons than ever before. I'm on my third run and now I just give all of my squaddies the highest-DPS AR I can find, save the best Banshee for myself until I get Spectre gear, then run a Spectre AR the rest of the way. I'll keep a sniper with High Explosive rounds on switch for when my gun gets sabotaged or when I want to blow up a bunch of Rachni babies at once.

I appreciate giving every character full access to every gun. The way they did the restrictions in the first place never made any sense. (You can carry it, you just can't... look in the scope?) But now that anyone can use any gun, and marksman isn't so OP, and guns in general don't need the accuracy boost anymore, there's much less reason to invest in the weapon skills or use different guns for different characters.

Overkill and Assassination are still strong and if I have the skill already I'll spend to get them, but otherwise untrained ARs are just too good and (for non-Soldiers) skill points are just too scarce.

Have been reading through a lot of the build threads. Most of them are (understandably) about finding builds that are specifically great for gameplay. I was wondering if anyone has ever done a compilation of bizarre builds; that is, the most odd, niche builds for each class, regardless of how well they actually play.

I guess with the MET's class system, this would be a bit hard to do. A system like Andromeda's offers a bit more flexibility, but you're limited to three powers, if I remember correctly.

I guess a good follow-up question would be: what would you (or anyone in general) would consider a build to be "niche"?

In my opinion and observation:

1. In ME1, each class has about two builds that revolve around the class specialization; bonus talent can differentiate it a bit. Outside of these 'main' builds, I have not really seen anything that deviates from it. You generally have enough points that most builds will not deviate a lot from the 'main' class builds.

NOTE: In the Legendary Edition, the huge duration nerf to Immunity really affects the Soldier and Infiltrator builds, and the weapon-gameplay changes mean you do not have to spend any points in the weapon talents for the caster classes and you can still do decent weapon damage, so that changes class builds somewhat as well.


2. In ME2, each class has 1 or 2 builds that are used a lot, bonus weapon included. I suppose everything outside of these most-used builds could be considered niche? If you are min-maxing -- 51 points: max 4 powers (40 points), max passive (10 points), plus 1 bonus point -- then each class essentially has the following build structures:



I suppose any build in ME2 that is not a min-max build (with leftover points that cannot be spent) can be considered niche. But I only know of one such build and it was for an Engineer build/playstyle that was really for the lulz more than for anything actually considered "good" (it was good but certainly not optimal). I could argue that a Shockwave Adept in ME2 (which I have played) can be considered niche on Insanity since Shockwave is considered bad on Insanity and rarely used on the Adept. I have played this build and have a guide for it. Beyond that, can a build that uses a bad bonus power be considered niche, or is that just a bad/suboptimal build at that point?


3. In ME3, since you have so many points, a niche build is more about what powers you do not use (or spend points on), than about what powers you do use. For Soldiers, Infiltrators, and Vanguards specifically, builds that do not incorporate their signature bonus power (Adrenaline Rush, Tactical Cloak, and Biotic Charge) can be considered niche. I have done niche builds with these classes, and some posters including myself have some guides for some of them:
- "Bulletless Soldier", a Soldier turned into a caster class
- Soldier using Marksman instead of Adrenaline Rush
- various cloak-less Infiltrator builds
- Chargless Vanguard variants, including some built around still using Nova

Engineer built around using drones (since they are very suboptimal in ME3) can be considered niche I suppose? I never saw a lot of players talk about using the Engineer in ME3.
Sentinel with or without Tech Armor is pretty much the same caster with slight changes to cooldowns. Niche builds would be weapon-focused, or built around detonating tech armor.
Adepts are mostly the same with just different biotic primers and detonators. Most do not use Shockwave since it is very suboptimal. I used the Claymore for a whole playthrough once; I suppose that could be considered niche.

Sorry if I have a hard time answering your question. It just comes back to the question of what you consider niche? It is kind of a hard question to answer. I think ME3 might have the most potential for niche builds. But no one ever compiled a list since most people want to know what is "good" or "best". Niche builds can be good, but they are niche for a reason as they are typically hard or suboptimal despite being potentially fun.

I love the Claymore with every class, simply because it's one of my favorite weapons in the series. It's an obvious good choice on Vanguard, Infiltrator, Sentinel, and Soldier. Taking Barrier or Carnage as a bonus power and ignoring Shockwave and Cluster Grenades on an Adept partially recreates the feel of the classic Vanguard if you use shotguns.

RedCaesar97 bsn.boards.net/thread/1854/effect-single-player-prothean-soldier

This is the best example I can find of what would qualify.

Looks good. I wonder if Power Armor is all that necessary (like giving Throw enough force to shatter, for instance). I loaded up my post-Suicide Mission Sentinel to try this out, with only a bit of success. I only have a few N7 missions left, most of which haven't been good for play-testing. Will have to try this on NG+. Too bad you can't skip over Overload; I want to try a Sentinel with Heavy Throw, Unstable Warp, Deep/Full Cryo Blast, and Heavy Energy Drain (one of those would have to be phased out or one-pointed at any given time).

I was wondering why Cryo was even necessary with Pull in larger open areas (where you'd be trying to launch enemies out of the map or a large enough distance to kill regardless, which only requires Pull + Throw,) but looking at more of the video it seems you can sometimes get a shatter effect just from Throw making contact. A bit random.

CB + Throw is still useful in environments with walls/other props, which is most of them. I played more with this build on my NG+ Sentinel. Mordin is invaluable; his CB has a short cooldown already, and Tech Armor at ranks 3 and 4 automatically resets squad cooldowns when it's reset. This way you can focus on casting Throw. Power Armor kind of sucks. I'm not really seeing much benefit, so I'm gonna switch back to Assault Armor.

That makes sense since I guess the question is, how much does the 15% power damage bonus change the likelihood of a throw + shatter kill? And it looks like the answer may be not much. The Assault Armor is just so much fun, I'll have to go back and re-specc.

It also sounds like Mordin and Samara might be the optimal squad for this playstyle with 2 Cryo Blasts and 2 Throws in the arensal, all with extremely low recharge times.

Curious if you or anyone else have any Sentinel builds for ME3. This guide has 2, the biotic bomber and the stasis sentinel, but I'm looking for something different to mix it up. I've been trying to re-create the Assault Armor Commando style from ME2, but ME3 tech armor seriously lacks punch and range (only 4m and no knockdown effect). 

I've been messing around with playstyles centered around Stasis, Cyro Blast, Lash and Dominate but so far I find it lacking in oomph and fun factor.