Annihilation field + charge = ?

Assuming you mean activating annihilation field first and then charging, then yeah, it won't result in an explosion. Charge doesn't prime. It only detonates. You would need to activate AF, prime someone with it and then charge in to them.

I was wondering about this too. The way it should be is: when you charge an enemy, annihilation field primes them once they are inside the annihilation field, then charge detonates. Hopefully Bioware will fix it so annihilation field + charge = biotic explosion every time.

Reposting this from another thread:

In the Helios cluster, in the 7th decade, when the Scourge shadows lengthened, one stood.
Marred by the starless Void, his body blistered by the Remnant and tainted beyond exaltation, he chose the path of perpetual torment. In his ravenous hatred he found no peace; and with boiling blood he scoured the stars, seeking vengeance against the Archon who had wronged him. He wore the crown of the N7, and those who faced him in battle named him… the Doom Rider.


I really loved the vanguard class in ME trilogy, so you can imagine my surprise when I discovered how… underwhelming the very same abilities are in Andromeda (at least by comparison). Especially on Insanity (that thrice damned Kett base on Eos!).

Charge doesn’t throw unshielded enemies around?
Nova isn’t a detonator anymore and doesn’t throw people around by default?
Melee has only 2 animations (short weapon, long weapon) and it doesn’t necessarily stagger?
HERESY!

At first, I admit I raged and felt a little betrayed: it seemed a unjustified nerf to a pace I really enjoyed. BUT, after a while, I took it as an opportunity to re-learn the grim role of the vanguard archetype in Andromeda. I think I succeeded, and I hope my discoveries can be useful to others.
First, and make no mistake, the vanguard role in Andromeda imo is one of undivided chaos and I strived to be as hard hitting and as fast as possible on the battlefield, while keeping the pace of an adrenaline junkie with a bad attitude.
The best way to achieve all of the above is the following set up for me:

Profile: Adept
Abilities: Charge / Throw / Annihilation
Amour: N7 (best shield and power damage bonuses overall, afaik)
Weapon: Crusader (best compromise imo between reach, damage and accuracy) +
SR or HP or SMG (these threes to be used eventually only vs Architects)

Hows and whys:
The adept profile serves to 2 purposes: stronger biotic explosions and, way more important, secondary biotic explosions (why blow up the enemy once, when you can blow him up multiple times?). I think the force of these secondary explosions scale only with the “profile level” not with passive power damage bonuses. Never the less, these explosions CAN blow unshielded mobs up, thrashing them all over the place. Which is Fracking Bueno!
Charge: the main difference from the trilogy for charge lays in the way it can be used. Because charge doesn’t send mobs flying anymore, it is meant (I suppose) to be used as a panic button to recharge your shield and to initiate an attack, not to really contribute to the overall damage dealt. Abuse dodge or jump between attacks chains, and wait for the CD to refresh, so to begin again: remember though, charge isn’t your second best DPS ability anymore, but the best possible defense (like a second wind with short recharge).
Throw & Annihilation: the bread and butter of any berserker. Personally, I’ve focused both to maximize damage against a single target in the smallest area possible. This because with biotic passive the area interested by annihilation becomes quite wide never the less: also, keeping it as small as possible doesn’t cause any overlap of priming. This way, dodging and charging again prime the target anew. Evolve annihilation to recharge shields for every enemy that dies inside your field, and you will have a biotic primer which sustains too (great on higher difficulties).
As for throw, I picked it (instead of lance) because it can be evolved to maximize explosion damage, which on paper should be better than raw damage and synergize quite well with the adept profile. It also has a shorter CD than lance.

How to:
Deploy annihilation. Pick the shielded enemy with more mobs near it. Charge him, then throw for the first biotic explosion. You have time enough to finish the shields of your target with a couple of fast shotgun’s slugs.
Dodge, dodge: cool guys don’t look at explosions, but immediately search for other victims! In the meantime, the secondary biotic detonations should lay waste of your first target. Go at it again and again: you shall be a plague for your enemies, an untouchable wraith, a cruel blue star created only to scatter them to the winds. Act like one, without fear, pity or remorse! Rip and tear!

The only two enemies who should makes you falter are Architects and Destroyers: more in particular, pay attention to the Architects’ gatling gun attack. If you want to charge the 30 meters metal octopus, do it after it has already emptied half of its bullets. Otherwise, at higher difficulties, you will be killed before reaching the nearest cover by the sheer damage of it. Everything else is game though: charge it even in the mouth while it is shooting its wave motion gun, and punch the monster in the throat. Take its skull as trophy! Choke it with your shotgun!
Something similar holds true for destroyers too: as much as it pains me, the best way to kill them as a vanguard is to destroy both of their turrets first, to level up the field. Their fire rate is simply too high to tank, even with charge (a secondary profile with both singularity and throw is quite useful here). Only after the destroyer is armless (literally), charge it, throw, dodge its area attack and shoot until it’s dead: it will not take much at that point.

While charge no longer primes for detonation,
you can go Adept profile + Shockwave (prime & detonate build) + Charge + Annihilation field
so activate AF + Charge + Shockwave (detonate AF & priming them again) + Charge, 2 biotic combos + 2 biotic echos from profile bonus.
Cleans out enemies really fast & deals tons of damage.

Except it doesn't. If it's a killing blow (either from Lance straight up, or from the explosion) you get more shields back than you spent.

I agree, I wish we could have an ability that restores 100% of our shield and gives 75 damage resistance...oh wait, we do!

And that's beside the fact that you can have 4 loadout for a reason. Not all of them have to be top tier for every encounter. Nevermind that bosses and minibosses are a small portion of combat, mooks are hilariously more common.

But please continue being condescending, I'm sure every opinion you have is an unassailable fact.

Only bullshit here is your rationalization, and insecurity.



Never said it's the best. I said it doesn't have longer CD with the proper spec. And yeah it's better against mobs. Sorry it hurts your feelings.



You'd have a point, if what I said would be retarded. But it's not, just for some reason you got super butthurt and defensive when I just tried to chat about your build. Insecure much?


Except with Lance you can clear up mobs way quicker, and what is dead can't hurt you. As for bosses, they are less than 30% of encounters (made up statistic). So congrats, you preference is better in the minority of the cases.



And that is your prerogative. I didn't say your build sucks, or isn't viable or don't use it or whatever. I just pointed out an alternative. Don't take it so personally, okay?

Annihilation does prime. It says so in the description and you can test it yourself with any of the target detonator spells like Throw or Lance. It just doesn't work with Charge because Charge disables the field momentarily

This wouldn't be a fix. It would be breaking the game, just as the ME3 Vanguard was broken. The current setup is balanced, and working as intended.

Exactly so.

As was explained above, the Annihilation AoE drops momentarily when you charge. If it didn't, you'd have a completely broken combo.

Charge is definitely a detonator. If you're ever in doubt, the skills are labeled in the list. Detonators and primers each have their own descriptive indicator. They'll also be called out in the text.

One thing I have been doing with a build that sounds similar is keeping a Cryo Gauntlet as my melee weapon so I can freeze enemies and get the Cryo Combo.