Replaying trilogy to prep for ME:A - a question

Depends on your difficulty level and how many sidequests you do, how much you talk to NPCs and if you skip any dialogue.

A typical trilogy run for me with no skipped dialogue, talking to everyone I can, doing all story DLC/sidequests but minimal fetch quests on runs about 33-38 hours per game; so a reasonable ballpark estimate for a thorough run through the trilogy on Casual is around 99-114 hours on the high end.

I play an Infiltrator or Vanguard, the Infiltrator tends to run on the higher end of the average.

Here's a website I found that has collected some data from polling and come up with an average for each segment of lots of different games:

howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=5698

It gives an idea what the difference might be between a quick, average, and completionist type playthrough. Another way to collect data would be to add up the total hours from some of the Let's Plays on YouTube. That way you can find someone who you think plays much the way you do and use their time for the Let's Play as a guide.

I habitually play as Sentinel, but the one time I played ME2 as a Vanguard it was super fun. Just hilarious.

Speaking of replays... has anyone gone for a no import ME3 playthrough? I want to do it one of these days just to see the world state and NPCs. I can never force myself to set it up that way when I play ME1 and ME2 as I would have to skip the loyalty missions and kill a bunch of people.

yeah not that long ago finished a engineer run started one last night as a soldier. I enjoy playing all 6 classes and I'm looking forward to using them all again in MEA. Personally I love playing engineer for the combat drone and using it to distract enemies and getting them off me. Although I do use Tali for that sometimes there's no substitute for having that power yourself as an option.

I dislike summoner classes, so no Engineer for me!

Though I must admit I never played Vanguard as well. One day I'll have to rectify this particular issue.

yeah was thinking of playing some Ryder's who only specialize in one and some that do branch out and are good at a variety of things depending on their characters. Not suer yet how I'm going to do it though will wait til I have the game in my hands first I think. I was planning my first Ryder to be an Adept but depending on how I feel I might sneak a little Infiltrator in there as well not sure yet.

I'm playing the trilogy again in preparation for Andromeda too just started a new run last night of ME1 as a soldier.

Trilogy related- moved to proper section.

While playing ME3 Vanguard I'm also starting up ME1 Engineer.  

To answer your first question, a lot depends on difficulty, whether you skip through dialogue, and how much of each game you intend to play (DLC, main missions versus side missions, and so on).

Generally, each game takes me about 20-40 hours (60 - 120 hours total) if I try to do everything, and I tend to skip most of the dialogue nowadays. I play on Insanity. My quickest trilogy playthrough was about 21 hours, playing as few missions as possible to beat the game while skipping a lot of dialogue.



My personal opinion:
- The ME1 Engineer is kind of garbage. I think it is outclassed by the Infiltrator. Electronics (Overload) and Decryption (Sabotage) are essential for unlocking crates and terminals for credits, equipment, and whatnot. Overload itself is kind of useless and Sabotage -- like the rest of the ME1 Engineer's powers -- are situational or nearly useless. I would pretty much take Infiltrator (who has Electronics and Decryption) and access to Medium Armor and Immunity and a second weapon (Sniper rifles), then give it either another tech power or a third weapon as a bonus power.

- The ME2 Engineer is my favorite class. It is a very flexible class and the Combat Drone in ME2 is freaking awesome.

- The ME3 Engineer is good, but so is every other class. Combat Drone and Sentry Turret erratic and situational in ME3, because the power combo game mechanics make most of its other powers even better. I would just run Sabotage, Overload, and Incinerate the entire game. You rarely even have to fire your gun (but all other classes can say that as well). I think the ME3 Engineer is better than the ME3 Adept since it has no inherent weakness, although the Engineer has no squadmates like Liara and Javik are to the Adept and Sentinel (and Vanguard) classes.