Kasumi's mission [was] super hard - Adept tips for ME2 Insanity

I think, in a way, tech classes gained a noticeable advantage in that some abilities were more versatile than biotic abilities because the enemies were often more heavily tech based. Sure, there were Collectors and husks in ME2, but facing off against a YMIR, mechs, mercenaries, rocket launchers, pyros and frequently convenient placed explosives made it seem like tech was favored more heavily. Everything biotics could do could be done just a little better with tech abilities. ME3 made it feel more balanced in that biotics didn't have to rely on tech squadmates as heavily to strip shields or armor down for efficiency. It wasn't that biotics were useless, they just took a lot longer than tech could.

Just my opinion though.

Do you think we get about an equal amount of encounters with Collectors and Blood Pack? Could be just me then when it comes to shields vs barriers.

I should also point out that shields, armor, and barriers have hard counters and soft counters:
- Hard counters are powers like Overload, Warp, and Incinerate, which have high base damage and multipliers against certain protections, to the point that they can strip them off completely. These powers also have the highest cooldowns in the game; base 6 seconds for Shepard, base 12 seconds for squadmates.
- Soft counters are weapons, which have damage multipliers against specific defenses. SMGs and shotguns for shields/barriers, Pistols and Sniper Rifles for armor, and assault rifles which can deal extra damage to all defenses.

There are no hard counters versus health. Several biotic powers are excellent crowd-control against health, and the Adept has a lot of them. Mix in biotic combos (force combos and warp bombs), and the Adept is deadly. It just takes more work and a working understanding of the game mechanics, and the Adept can be an absolute beast.

A lot of the classes kill in intervals. Sniper infiltrators for instance, kill once per cloak cycle, about once every 4-6 seconds or so.

The Adept tends to kill exponentially, but it takes longer for the first kill. For example, you spend some time setting up Singularity, and then shooting another enemy's shields off -- or using a squadmate Overload -- for a Pull opportunity. That takes time. But then you can have Miranda warp-bomb the Pulled target, which may kill the pulled enemy, but then it staggers the rest of the enemies in a cluster while dealing shield damage. You then have to spend a little more time removing more shields. But then you can pull and warp-bomb yourself, or maybe warp the guy in singularity who now has his shields removed. Now a bunch more enemies have their shields gone. Now you can pull+throw or pull+warp a group of enemies killing a bunch of them at once.

Man that would be hard.

I do not have the Collector Assault Rifle, so I cannot comment on it. From what I have seen of it in someone else's video, the Avenger, Collector Assault Rifles, and Geth Pulse Rifle seem to perform all about the same.

My opinion: as a non-Soldier, the only assault rifles that matter are the Vindicator and Mattock.

Only the first platforms on the Disabled Collector Ship are fairly hard. My recommendations:
- Take the Avalanche heavy weapon. It is really good for controlling the mobs of enemies on the platforms. Fire 2-3 shots and all or most of them will be frozen.
- If you have Stasis as a bonus power, use it on the first Scion. Since he is on a moving platform, if you put him in stasis before the platform moves, he will stay in stasis in that same spot when the platform moves out from under him, causing him to fall to his death when stasis wears off.

I hate linking to my own videos, but here is something I put together about playing the Disabled Collector Ship platforms as an Adept:


It just occurred to me that you may be asking about the Collector Beam Rifle heavy weapon, not the Collector Assault Rifle. Short answer: I don't know since I have only used it a handful of times and am not too keen on it myself. I rarely use heavy weapons though out of a handful of situations, and I never use the Collector Beam Rifle in those situations.

(I actually think the Collector Beam Rifle would have made for a better Soldier-exclusive assault rifle than the Revenant.)

I assume you mean the collector beam that is a heavy weapon. That gun is GREAT against shields and barriers but is crap against armor. The way to use it against that praetorian is to use the collector beam for it's barrier then switch to a heavy pistol for armor. Or an assault rifle if you have one but if your an adept you won't have one yet.

1. Lair of the Shadow Broker: In my opinion, I think you are gimping yourself (but maybe not too much) if you save it for later. Completing Lair of the Shadow Broker gives you access to the squadmate respec terminal. It allows you to re-assign the talent points of your squadmates. This is really good for removing those pesky points out of terrible squadmate bonus powers.

Completing the loyalty mission of squadmates automatically assigns them 1 point into their bonus power. Some of them have terrible bonus powers. For example, Jacob, Grunt, and Legion get assigned 1 point into the shield-boosting power (Barrier, Fortification, Geth Shield Boost) which they use constantly, locking them out of their better powers.

2. Grunt is probably the worst squadmate in the game, in my opinion. I even hate taking him on his own loyalty mission. Jacob also has Incendiary Ammo, and also Pull which is better than Grunt's Concussive Shot. Grunt's passive talent should allow him to stay alive longer than all other squadmates, but on higher difficulties he seems to go down just as easily as everyone else.

I like Miranda and Thane with the Adept for dual warp bombs. Failing that, I prefer Jack or Samara (or even Jacob) for Pull. Other players like to take Garrus for his good Overload to deal with shields, and/or Mordin with Incinerate for Armor.

Squadmates tend to no be really that good with their weapons, since they start with a -50% weapon damage penalty. Tempest, Vindicator, and Incisor are best weapons on squadmates, but you will generally be dealing most of the weapon damage on enemies regardless of your class.