Friday, July 20, 2012

ME3: Second Opinions on the Earth DLC

Given some time to analyze the new content, some of my initial opinions have changed. I will address those and offer a more comprehensive analysis of the new weapons, characters, and Platinum.

The Piranha shotgun, with the right class/spec combination and mods, is appropriately named. This thing shreds. With the increased rate of fire and accuracy offered by a few classes, the Piranha is essentially an auto-shotty. Obviously, it's not the most powerful shotgun, but the DPS is incredible. Characters such as the N7 Destroyer, Turian soldier, or Geth will greatly magnify the strengths of this weapon, whereas less weapon-centric classes are probably better off with a different weapon. For some perspective, there's a Youtube video of a GI with the Piranha vs. a Banshee (of course, GI makes any weapon 10x better than it usually is, but still).

I stand by the Acolyte as the best shield-draining weapon in the game, Reager's DPS notwithstanding, and its capabilities should not be ignored, especially on Platinum. It can one-shot a Phantom's barriers even on Platinum, and takes a few bars off Atlas shields. Akin to Halo's Plasma Pistol on Legendary.

Continuing on the Typhoon, which everybody asks about: it shreds. I don't know what the DPS is, since the ME3 weapons spreadsheet with that information is not up-to-date yet, but I would guess that its somewhat less than the Harrier. Of course, this is offset by the 100 round mag (without specs or gear) and warm-up rate of fire. It's a minigun, basically. It's obviously made for the N7 Destroyer, who becomes a human turret with this thing. I don't know if I'd be more scared of a Cerberus turret or an N7 Destroyer with a Typhoon lumbering towards me. Probably the latter.

I'm also appreciating the new gear and weapon mods. I've read that much of the new mods were bugged, so they were not released, which is unfortunate. The ones that I have now are the assault rifle omni-blade attachment, SMG stability and high-velocity barrel mods, and pistol light-weight materials and "cranial trauma" mods. People are gonna have a hey-day with that last one. Asari-->stasis Phantom-->headshot with Talon-->headless Phantom. The really notable one in my opinion is the high-velocity barrel mod, which ignores a greater portion of enemy armor than AP mod if I'm correct. I have it at level II or III and it ignores something like 70% of armor, which is ridiculous. It appears as if it could ignore up to 80% or more of armor by level V. Obviously you can't have high-caliber barrel with your high-velocity barrel. That would be great though. I also hope to level up the new Barrage gear, which offers mag size and weapon stability bonuses. I can already imagine it with the Hurricane or Typhoon. *drools*

Then there's Platinum. It's pretty cool and I'm glad that Bioware listened to the fans on this one. The difficult, multi-faction nature in conjunction with the synergy offered by some of the new classes creates a sense of teamwork that the other difficulties lack. On Gold, you can run around by yourself because bosses are less frequent. On Platinum, most of the enemies are bosses, and you need to work together to eliminate them efficiently. When you can use up your ammo a quarter of the way through a round, you need that supply pylon. When running around the map for the hack objective means certain death, you need that Infiltrator spec'd for duration. There are always exceptions of course. RedJohn of Bioware forums fame has a video in which he soloed Platinum, which I think deserves some congratulations. Overall, the potential for teamwork is refreshing.

Of course, as was the case with Gold, there are farmers and cheaters who are only out for the credits.  I entered a PuG in which the host had an N7 rank under 100 with an Avenger. It makes me wonder what those people are thinking, but more likely they aren't thinking at all. I entered another PuG with three people of N7 ~ 100, all with explosive projectile weapons--the telltale sign of missile glitchers. One invited me to their party chat, and I had to tell him that I don't play with missile glitchers. For every good aspect of this game, there is a problem that goes with it, unfortunately.

Finally, some general impressions on the new characters. They all have potential, but for now, some are obviously better than others, namely the Destroyer and Demolisher. But from what I've seen, the others have some good powers as well. The Fury's Annihilation Field is incredible against Phantoms. I wish the Paladin was tankier, but it's still a well-rounded class in terms of powers. Snap Freeze is superior to Cryo Blast (since Bioware can't seem to fix the 100% chilled bonus on Incinerate, they gave Snap Freeze a 100% tech burst bonus as one evolution). The Shadow has the potential to be the best pure melee build. And the Slayer? I've read that Phase Disruptor is bugged, so for now the best part is that he looks like Kai Leng. I'm not a big fan of Vanguards in general, anyway.

I hope that this review will encourage people to take a second look at a weapon or class that they might have dismissed after the first try. I know I will be taking the Fury and Paladin for another spin since I've been using the Destroyer and Demolisher a lot more. So thanks for reading. Questions? Comment. Maybe subscribe if you feel like it. I'm not one of those sociopaths that gets high off of my subscriber number, but as of now I don't know if anyone is reading this and it would encourage me to keep writing when people appreciate this stuff. So that's all for now. I'll try to get some builds up later. As always, I'm open to requests. Peace.


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