Seismic Nova is apparently priming BEs on normal-sized armored enemies

Overload also primes things for tech detonation but it is only displayed as tech detonator

You never know what they tested the users for...

Wow that's actually pretty awesome.
I wonder if Shockwave's rank six priming evo is also bugged?

Probably however on a Human Vanguard its not worth maxing Shockwave over Nova because Shockwave will then only be able to be detonated by a Charge or a teammates detonator. Where as Nova primer can be detonated by both Shockwave and Charge.

I'm not sure about duration, but I'd say a handful of seconds. At one point I primed a Berserker but he dropped two stories below, I followed and by the time I managed to line up a Shockwave (between 5 and 10 secs) he wasn't anymore.

As for multiple detonations, I know they were possible in theory in ME3 but the list of conditions was pretty damn long and complex. IIRC, one single area-primer followed by another single area-detonator (e.g. Area Reave > Shockwave) didn't work, but I can be wrong and of course it might have changed in MEA.
In any case that's something that would need some in-depth-testing, probably once the game goes through some patching first.



3-4 seconds sounds about right.
I didn't notice any BE on Sharpshooters but with hindsight I might have meleed them to death instead of using shockwave. Woops



No idea for this one, I don't have any character with more than one point in it or plans to have one shortly. Well, unless Hatesurfing makes a comeback (Biower plz).

Just play a Gladiator then.

Edit: A Human Adept also works.

Yeah, I just want to punch things in the face sometimes too.

Huh. I just assumed I misread the ability.

Yeah of course it primes everything. The description doesn't say anything about it not...why wouldn't it?

This must be what going mad feels like
Not saying you're wrong because I have an history of understanding Bioware's descriptions wrongly (I mean for a while I thought AP/Shredder mods damage penalty applied to every shot in ME3) but I thought that description was pretty clear.
Well, I'll just blame English being my third language, I must have forgotten something about sentence structures or punctuation working differently.

Yeah, it is a bit awkwardly worded. But you are essentially right. The funny thing is I don't recall seeing (or at least reading it this way) that only unprotected/normal sized enemies are affected. I just understood it that it adds a warp-like primer to them.

I come to this understanding follow this logic:

For shockwave 6B evolution it says that affected enemies are briefly suspended midair and primed. But following the laws of ME combat mechanics, enemies protected by shields, barrier, armor or giant sized enemies cannot be affected by cc or be ragdolled (those are usually armored anyway) except for a stun if sufficient force is applied. This stands true since ME2. 

But for Nova it says that it knocks and primes. And then it adds a second sentence which is completely confusing and unneeded. It is already known that protected/giant enemies cannot be ragdolled as a general rule of ME mechanics, so why would they write this?

---

Ah, I got it! The key word Bioware dev is using is affected!

Affected enemies by lifting shockwave get ragdolled and primed because they got affected by the shockwave CC.

Seismic Nova, however, primes first and CC affects regular enemies by knocking them away.

I think this makes sense now? This way it's understandable that Nova always primes, because it doesn't have a cc-affected prerequisite to prime. It only gives a cc effect additionally, if the enemy is unprotected. The key logic is understanding what affected means for the dev - it simply means that they got CCed! 

Read these two again carefully and focus how the words affected and primed are used: