First Insanity trilogy playthrough advice

It depends on what you're really wanting to do overall with the playthrough. The fight with Benezia on Noveria is the far tougher fight... probably one of the toughest in the game overall.

If you can get up to 12 Charm or 10 Intimidate before you're on your way back to the Exo-Geni Weigh Station on Feros, you can get 24 paragon points or 25 intimidate points for talking Ethan Jeong down. Otherwise, you wind up with no choice but to shoot him for no paragon or renegade points. If your goal is to unlock both the paragon and the renegade morality quests in one playthrough, those extra points can make all the difference. However, if you're OK with just unlocking the one morality quest that suits your allignment, it's not a big deal to miss out on Jeong's points and he doesn't make any appearance in ME3 (if alive) that I'm aware of.

You need 243 paragon points to unlock that 11th and 12th charm slots.  I wouldn't be able to tell you for certain without knowing how many points you've actually collected so far, but I think it's highly unlikely that you would be able to accumulate enough without doing Noveria first.  Personally, I usually do Noveria first and don't find the Benezia fight that bad... but given the difficulty you had with Privateers... well, I'd hate to see you get stuck there.  Noveria's a long mission and you don't have any opportunity to switch out your squad once you leave Port Hanshan to go to Peak 15.  It's really got to be your choice. 

You could take a peak at the Morality Guide to see if you can figure out how many paragon points you have thus far... and that might help you to decide.  Here's the link to that guide:

masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Morality_Guide

For me the key to the Benezia fight is good CC, proper positioning, and allowing enemies that hide from me to keep hiding until all my powers recharge.

The point of no return for Noveria is the first Benezia cutscene, so it is possible to swap out squadmates before then, but you'll have to re-trace your steps all the way to the ship, and then come all the way back, with no new experience opportunities either way.

For visual reference, the final charm unlock occurs when the paragon meter is about 3/4 full. It's relatively easy to intimidate Jeong early in the game, but impossible to charm.

Thumbs up!   I'm sure we'll all help you through it if you need it.  As Gourmetrix says below your post, how you position yourself is really the key with that fight.  I'm going to link you to a new vid of the fight on insanity.  This guy is still actually working through his playthrough.   What I'm really enjoying about watching this is that he is really great about describing exactly what he's doing with each fight:



This guy is using Liara and Tali, but you can also try taking on some of the other harder side mission planets so that you get a good feel for your prefered squad.  From what you've said about Privateers, I'm going to suggest you'll possibly want to stick with Liara and Kaidan.

(Note:  I was going to link you to his vid on Privateers... but opted against it.  While I agree totally with his positioning advice for the Noveria fight, with Privateers he stays further back in the lobby room and also fires at the door needlessly to "activate" the enemies.  All this does is pretty much ensure that the enemies will all storm right through the door all at once right off the bat.  With just parking your squad quietly right beside the door frame on either side and putting yourself on the other, the enemies come forward to the door in smaller numbers (as some will stay hang back near the back of their room) and, as I said before, it's rare that any will actually cross the thresh-hold of the door with you standing right behind it.)

Eek now I'm more afraid of this Benezia fight than ever before, lol. So I've got 10 in charm at level 19. About to do UNC: Cerberus (if its not too hard.) My Paragon meter is just about half way.

I'd rather do Feros first but I want to get the 12 charm check to work on it - so I assume that means I have to do Noveria first?

ty Gourmetrix - a lot of options then! I've done a few of those UNC missions but not all - also missed a couple on the Citadel.

What is my background assignment? I'm still waiting for Garrus to talk about his quest too.

Is the Benezia fight seen as the hardest fight on Insanity then?

ok I'm 25 now and think I'm gonna try to tackle Noveria. Which two squadmates would you suggest? I'm used to Kaidan/Liara or Tali but not sure how useful Tali is for Noveria.

I beat the Matriarch on the first try   I kept CC'ing with Singularity, Lift, Neural Shock - Liara died a couple of times but Unity'd her back.  Huzzah!!! Went with Kaidan and Liara.

edit: also just got through Feros

Well done.  It's usually the Commando's that'll give you the most trouble, especially if they knock you down.


If you want an easy way to finish the fight, once you've killed most of her minions and you take on the Matriarch (after that atrocious voice acting job , seriously, Marina Sirtis must've phoned it in that day), if you have enough points in Lift hit her with that (yours Liara's or Kaidans) and once she reaches a certain height, about the top of the Rachni enclosure, it's all over for old 'Nezzie.

Update: just finished Virmire so you know where I'm headed next. I assume Tali is the best, with Liara?, for the last two big missions since they are so geth heavy?

Then ME2 is next. For Insanity on ME2, which classes are best? I might be tired of the Soldier. Considering: Vanguard, Engineer, Infiltrator. I've beaten ME2 w/ Adept and Sent on Hardcore before.

thanks for any advice Also, I may change Shep's face. The Sheploo just doesn't feel like me (since I didn't create it.)

Ok I wasn't sure if Soldier in ME2 was somehow awesome compared to ME1.  Yeah, I found i bland.  I maxxed out Pistol and been using that forever (w/ some Assault Rifle when I get overloaded.)

I haven't tried the Infiltrator - is it mainly cloak and snipe?  Or can you get up close and shank also?  And, do people think ME2 is easier or harder than ME1 on Insanity?  Are there some classes that are tougher on Insanity in ME2 or is it about even for all?

Lastly, have you done a ShepLoo playthrough before? He seems like he has more a 'renegade' looking face