LF: the "trial" vets advice for newbs starting on the 21st

Yeah, it grabs you too. Missed an extraction at the last second by being grabbed by one. I was alive, too! What kind of strike team leaves a man behind right there if front of them?!?

Be in the air when you melee, it'll do the drop

Help complete objectives.

Trying not to repeat too much. There is a lot of sound advice already.

As far as progressing goes, the passives vary greatly from character to character even within the same archetypes. Don't overlook them.

Until unlocking better gear, consider building for bronze. focus on mobility and survivability and AoE, as opposed to stacking something like headshot damage which ends up being overkill. Fast fast bronze games are very productive and especially if you're PUGing, less risky. You can buy a respec token pretty cheap and not randomly.

The team aspect is much more important, as well as being mobile. The AI isn't just mindless marching from a fixed starting point.

Snipers are awesome early game on bronze. And if you need a punch, the human infiltrators get great passives to up the damage, and you get 2 of them.

Comboing is easier to notice and it tells you when you've done it. Take advantage.

Start with the teamwork pre-game. compliment eachother. 4 biotics = awesome. 4 snipers = awesome on some maps.

Annihilation field is fantastic and you prime everything. it can be built to restore your shields and cover a pretty large area. and if you're trying to milk the scoreboards, you still get good points for priming, you don't have to be greedy and try to detonate all your own primes.

A lot of the bigger enemies can be shot in the back many times before they turn to you.

there is a 3 node hack objective, do them one at a time if you have to. IMO, this one is harder than the single hack objective.

as far as I can tell, automatic weapons are no longer better against shields and hard hitting no longer better against armor. that mechanic seems to be gone.

Don't mess with Silver before level 8, be nice to your PUG mates. Progression is very slow, be patient. I cleared a few silvers with everyone level 7 or 8, but they took forever.

if you have a krogan teammate, they are bullet sponges. let them rush in, support them. they actually border on fulfilling a traditional tank role.

If you have an active power that has consumable charges, the first box adds a charge. take it early.

The cards from the packs that rank up your characters not only give you aesthetic customization, I'm pretty sure they give you talent points as well.

oh, and do the objectives and revive your teammates. don't be a jerk.