3 achievements left, and a plan.

That's correct.

I would suggest playing From Ashes early to get the most from it since Javik has a lot to offer.

I found Omega tough no matter when you play it even with new game+.

For the fight against the clone, focus on Brooks. She goes down a lot easier than he does and when he revives her, it wastes one of his medigels.

I think the main thing is to hit reload so that you get the Predator reload animation and confuse viewers.

But seriously, I thought it was actually more than two shots, I can't remember exactly. I tried to hit him in the head, if body shots work then my whole ME3 life has been a lie.

Haha. I see if I have a save around there as well. I was sure you could stun-lock him though.

Wow, so maybe Marauder Shields will be an issue? I took him out on hardcore pretty easily, barely noticed any increase in difficulty; on insanity, I'm not there yet, just did Priority:citadel, than the Jacob side mission.

It would really suck to go all the way, and than get stuck on him. But I can see it; I use the executioner hand cannon, and in the Mars mission, I had it equipped when I ran after the EVA robot; so when I had to shoot it, and a headshot didn't take it down, I thought I was stuck because she killed me before I could reload.

Tried several times to reload faster, or use powers, to no avail, until I realized I had time to equip my assault rifle, and down she fell...

By the way, what is your chosen class and accompanying ordinance? I always play as a soldier, to the point that if I decide to platinum mass effect one, not only I have two difficulty playthroughs ahead, I also will have to play with an untested class, because I don't have the achievements of power usage for either biotic or engineer.

Anyway, here are my chosen weapons, allowing for a good mix of range, stopping power and weight:

M13-raptor sniper rifle; I know it's like a scoped assault rifle rather than a proper sniper, but I don't use it much; it's there to handle the few occasions when I get pinned down, or to handle foes behind fog.

M96-mattock assault rifle: on ME2 I exchange it for the revenant, but on ME3 I feel there is no better mix of reliability and stopping power.

M12-Locust submachine gun: my anti shield option. All upgraded, weights almost nothing, fires fast, and is pretty accurate.

Executioner pistol: my anti-armor instakill, and the option against any heavy enemy.

I take no shotguns with me. They are very heavy, and I feel they are redundant with the heavy pistol; in fact, to my amazement, I feel no shotgun ever matchs the power of the heavy pistol slugs. My game improved much when I dropped them in order to get faster power reload times, and trusted that my heavy pistols would be enough; they are actually better.

So, what weapons do you like to use (specially you jarheads like me)? Any suggestions of changes I should try?

Regards .

Marauder Shields on Insanity:
- 2-3 shots to take down his shields
- minimum 3-4 shots to take down his health

Damage for health is location based. Headshots do more damage obviously. Occasionally it seems like I wing his arm and it takes down 1 pip of health?
The weapon you are using seems to have a chance to stagger, or maybe it is location-based. (Kind of like how some chest shots on the final three husks in that sequence will blow a hole in their chest and stagger them.)

Ok. I just did it. I figured out that you actually can overload the heavy's energy shields. Funny, because it shows as a blocked power in the interface...

Anyways, that was the edge I needed; it was still tough, and took a few attempts - the clone powers do a ton of damage and stun-lock you in the middle of loads of enemies; but once you get through the first half of the fight, it gets a lot easier...

Eh; just finished it.

Five attempts to get marauder shields down. Four shots, only one of them a headshot.

So, they nerfed marauder shields! I would never know if you didn't tell me. As I used to play lower difficulties, he was always an afterthought. These 4 deaths today are the only times I ever died for him...

And you are right with the ambush sequence - particularly the area just before you enter the car store. The issue there is ammo conservation; it is very scarce. Maybe a fully biotic Shepard can do it in a whim, but for a dedicated soldier that needs his ammo a lot, it is brutal. Save the clone sequence, it is the place I died most in the whole game. Now that I think about it, I might have died more in the ambush sequence.!

Oh yeah, if you've got the aim for it the M11 is absurd. 

Now that Mass effect 2 and 3 are both out of the way, I have only ME1 to platinum so I can be done with the trilogy. I have eight achievements left.

1 - finish the game on hardcore
2 - finish the game on insanity.

I wished to beat both at throphies same time with an insanity playthrough, but apparently ME1 will only let you raise difficulty one level at a time. Go figure...

3 - lift mastery
4 - warp mastery
5 - singularity mastery
6 - stasis mastery
7 - AI hacking specialist
8 - neural shock specialist

So most of the achievements left are due to the fact that I always play as soldier. So, they are not much of a challenge, most people get them without much work; but from where I am standing, it's just busy work, what is a shame.

I could combine much of the effort by playing the hardcore and insanity playthroughs with new classes. But sound kinda risky doing that exactly when I'm ramping up the difficulty. I know I can do it as a soldier, with my high level fully equipped character. Not so sure if I have to be, I dunno, a vanguard, or an adept, for the first time.

Safe path will be very boring, because it will entail at least 2 more playthroughs with the soldier, and than some more gameplay - not necessarily all the way - to get the extra powers.

So I have two questions:

Is there a minimum percentage completion of the game for unlocking the difficulty achievements, or can I just ignore most content, and shoot straight for the main missions to unlock them (what would actually be interesting to do once, feel an extra sense of urgency with all filler removed).

And do you guys have build suggestions for characthers, or strategies that I can use to grab those throphies with the minimum amount of playtime required?

Thanks In avance!

Yup, pretty much my plan of attack. So no way around it. Several plays left to get all throphies... at least with no completion requirements, right?

If at least they let me skip the hardcore and go straight to insanity...