Operation: DETONATOR

http://blog.bioware.com/2012/11/29/operation-detonator/

Event Description: Recent setbacks have prompted changes in unit composition. Turian cabal theory is now dominant training paradigm. N7 units will now be deployed with pairs or higher percentages of biotics wherever available to maximize effectiveness.

Individual Goal: Earn 20,000 Biotic Explosion points on any map at any difficulty. You will need to kill the enemy with the explosion for the points to count. Points are cumulative across matches. Extraction not required.

Reward: Commendation Pack

Looks interesting. I wonder if this means they're adding a Turian Cabal character?

-MACave11i

Asari Huntress: 200 Waves Edition

What's going on, everyone? I've noticed that a lot of people are wondering how to play the Asari Huntress. It's been my second most viewed post for quite a while now, so I thought I'd take the time to update the old guide (if you could call it that). My first impressions were totally flawed at the time, but now that I've learned the tricks of the trade, well... as our Volus friends say, *kssshhh* "Let's get paid!"

Asari Huntress (melee)
Tactical Cloak: 4-damage, 5-melee damage, 6-power damage
Dark Channel: 4-damage, 5-slow, 6-pierce
Warp: 4-detonate, 5-expose, 6-pierce
Asari Adept: N/A
Fitness: 4-melee damage, 5-martial artist, 6-power synergy

As this is a melee build, I recommend bringing a shotgun with an omni-blade attachment. This will greatly increase your melee damage. As cooldown isn't too much of an issue with this build, feel free to bring any shotgun you desire. *cough* Claymore *cough*. Ahem. And Warp ammo.

The most important thing that you need to know about the Huntress is that her version of Tactical Cloak does not give a damage bonus to weapons, only powers and melee. Initially, this was a bug, and Bioware has confirmed this. However, some members of the BSN community saw this as an opportunity to create a truly unique infiltrator. Apparently, the balance team at Bioware concurred, and they buffed the TC damage evolutions to compensate for the lack of a weapon damage bonus. Now it is a 'feature'.

You're still going to want the damage evolutions for TC. Even though they don't boost your weapon, they provide massive bonuses to your power and melee attacks. All in all, you're getting a 170% melee damage bonus and 160% power damage bonus. In terms of damage per melee, area of effect, etc. I think that the Huntress may be the most powerful. She deals over 5000 (!!!) damage to shields, barriers, and armor with her heavy melee. And she is certainly one of the most powerful DPS casters.

Another important thing that people often ask about: does the entire duration of Dark Channel benefit from the TC bonus? The answer is yes. With the above build, DC does hundreds of damage per second to most defense types, except for its penalty against shields. Let's do some rough math (because it's more interesting than regular math). A gold Banshee has approximately 16875 armor and 10125 barriers. If you were to max out power damage and use the appropriate power amps, you could kill a gold Banshee in a single cloaked Dark Channel cast. Although this build sacrifices some power damage for some melee damage, you can still leave a Banshee severely crippled after one cast, easy to finish off with a weapon, melee, or a biotic explosion. Phantoms? Not even an issue.

DC also persists even after a Banshee, Phantom or Praetorian raise their biotic shields, and also after a biotic explosion. You can use this as a slow but reliable fire-and-forget boss killer while you concentrate on lesser enemies. It's also great for staggering/killing mooks and priming biotic explosions.

I max out Warp because the passive power/weapon damage bonuses are negligible on this build. Warp weakens enemy armor and debuffs them, making it just as useful as the the weapon damage bonuses. Next to that, you can trigger biotic explosions off of DC. It's just the standard Warp, nothing to explain besides that, really.

As this is a melee build, maxing Fitness for melee damage is obvious. In addition, the melee synergy evolution gives you a 25% power damage bonus after you kill an enemy with a heavy melee. This somewhat compensates for skipping the passive. I intended this build to be the best of both worlds, power and melee damage. At the end of the day, it's not the best for power damage and it definitely lacks weapon damage, but it's still reasonably good at all three types of combat.

Watch as Annomander demonstrates the power of the melee Asari Huntress.  

Asari Huntress (caster)
Tactical Cloak: 4-damage, 5-recharge speed, 6-power damage
Dark Channel: 4-damage, 5-slow, 6-pierce
Warp: 4-detonate, 5-expose, 6-pierce
Asari Adept: 4-damage & capacity, 5-power damage, 6-weapon damage
Fitness: N/A

This is another build I have tried during my 200 waves, and it is extremely effective and a more reliable build for higher difficulties. It's more or less the same as the melee build except taking power & weapon damage over melee damage. This build works especially well with Warp ammo, which will dramatically increase your weapon damage. If you have the guns, focus less on biotic explosions and more on sheer weapon damage.

For example, Phantoms will fall quickly to your cloaked Dark Channel followed by a blast from a Warp ammo Claymore. Brutes and Ravagers are trivialized with your cloaked debuff Warp and a Hurricane equipped with Warp rounds. Gold Banshees slowly bleed to death from a single cloaked Dark Channel cast. Even Praetorians will be crippled by a cloaked Dark Channel.

Biotics are not as effective against shields, so I recommend using an Acolyte as a sidearm for Atlas and Prime shields. Debuff with Warp first. After their shields are dealt with, use Dark Channel or another Warp and finish them with Warp rounds.

So that's about it for the build. Hope this helps and thanks for reading.

-Grun7mas7er

Omega DLC Trailer

Looks pretty cool. I wonder if and how this will affect the multiplayer side.

Check it out.

ME3 Character Guide: Vorcha Hunter Engineer

What's up everyone. Crunch week is winding down for me, so I thought I'd get around to this guide. I don't really know why Bioware made the new Vorcha with this skill set. It's not an utterly terrible kit as some people say, but I'm not prepared to call it a good kit either. It works well enough, but I'm probably not going to use this on Platinum as Bloodlust relies heavily on quick, consecutive kills. If you can maintain your momentum as a Vorcha, you're good to go.

Other than that, I don't think there's a big secret to this character. I imagine that a lot of players won't know how to play this kit effectively when the simple fact is that this character just wasn't that effective to begin with. Unfortunately, it doesn't stand out relative to other new characters like the Ghost, Valkyrie or Geth Trooper. However, don't let this discourage you from using the Hunter. He's a fun character, just don't expect a major departure from the other Vorcha kits.

Vorcha Hunter
Submission Net: 4-incapacitate, 5-damage & slow, 6-electric field
Incinerate: 4-damage, 5-burning damage, 6-armor damage
Bloodlust: 4-health regeneration, 5-weapon damage, 6-health regeneration
Vorcha Resilience: 4-damage & capacity
Fitness: 4-durability

Recommended Inferno rounds, or Cryo rounds to a lesser extent.

I wasn't sure how to make this build at first. Should I go with massive power damage bonuses? Should I skip Submission Net? Or Incinerate? Do I dare skip Bloodlust? Ha ha ha NO... I'm going to take them all. The genius of Bloodlust is that it more than compensates for your deficiencies in the Passive and Fitness branches if you can maintain your stacks.

Let's talk about Submission Net (SN). It is no Stasis, and that's something that our technologically crude Vorcha "Engineer" will have to live with. Fifty percent of the enemies in the game will evade SN ninety percent of the time. Long story short: it kinda sucks. Unless you can trick the system by staggering enemies with your weapon. Whether you choose the GPS, Graal, Falcon, or even the Scorpion, attempt to stagger evade-happy enemies first before ensnaring them. This works most consistently at close range. Once they are trapped in the net, if you're a Blood Pack enthusiast, feel free to slow roast them over a fire and feast on their flesh (or metal alloy if you're facing Geth). The rest of you who aren't bloodthirsty freaks, go for the easy headshot or an Incinerate tech burst. I do recommend the Graal since it has a 3x headshot multiplier, making it pretty lethal to enemies with... heads, which I think includes everything but Atlases and maybe Pretorians (?). I do say 'pretty lethal' because sometimes enemies will take about five 6-inch spikes to the face and manage to walk away. Probably will need an eyepatch or two, though. Anyway...

Incinerate is a nice power to have on higher difficulties. Peep Lord Narida's class builder and see how much damage Incinerate can do with all the bonuses. And you don't even have to aim! Those of you having trouble with Dragoons: problem solved. Oh, and Incendiary ammo --> Incinerate fire explosions are nice.

The Vorcha's signature power, Bloodlust, is your gin and juice bread and butter (sorry, I was listening to Snoop Dogg earlier today). We mostly care about the health regeneration and the weapon damage stacks. Once you get the hang of the character, you'll be running around on a killing spree like a rabid schizophrenic wolf with a shotgun. If that didn't make sense, well, it won't make sense when you outscore your Geth Infiltrator teammates. But if you do top the scoreboard with the Vorcha Hunter, then congratulations, you must understand the key to Bloodlust. But in all seriousness, you need to focus on low-to-mid tier enemies in order to keep your Bloodlust stacks at a maximum. This will increase your damage output and survivability.

For passive, I go with the extra capacity and power damage just to give a small boost to Incinerate and to mitigate the recharge penalties a little. Bloodlust gives you up to 15% weapon damage bonus, which should be sufficient for most enemies.

Finally for Fitness, I go for the extra health and shields. The health is what really matters since it actually regenerates faster than your shields. Don't play this character like the Flamer Vorcha, since you probably don't have as large of a health pool to tank enemies. The strategy is hit-and-run.

That's about it, I think. Enjoy the build guys. Thanks for reading.

-MACave11i

ME3 Character Guide: Geth Trooper Soldier

Hello everyone. Well I've been playing around with the Geth Trooper for Operation Blast Furnace, and I have to say, this platform is awesome. I can see why it was such a highly requested character. What strikes me the most is the flexibility of this build. I have heard of two popular builds: the Weapons Platform and the Flamer build. I will be covering the latter, and even then there are many possible sub-builds. For example, you can prioritize Flamer damage, melee damage, durability, speed, or a combination of all of those. As a result, I would recommend tailoring the build to suit your play style.

Geth Pyro (what I used for the challenge)
Flamer: 4-damage, 5-damage, 6-armor damage
Fortification: 4-durability, 5-power synergy, 6-durability
Hunter Mode: 4-power recharge, 5-power damage, 6-damage
Network AI: 4-damage & capacity, 5-power damage
Advanced Hardware: 3

I want to note that this is not the Flamer build, this is a Flamer build. I focused primarily on damage for my evolutions and used equipment to compensate for durability. Typically I would go over why I chose each evolution, but the Flamer build is very versatile. I believe that the only way that you can go wrong with this build is by neglecting durability. I tried a Gold PuG where I had nothing but Fortification in terms of durability (I was a level 16 or something and I didn't have all my evolutions filled out) and I was constantly getting dropped like a fly. Eventually I had to turn off Hunter Mode for the rest of the game. So don't do what I did. It's not fun.

Let's take a look at Flamer. You have a choice between damage and reach for evolution 4. Both are good, but I'm leaning towards reach for the simple fact that it increases your range to 15m, which is incredible. It lets you stay back a little more while you toast your enemies, indirectly improving your survivability. For evolution 5, I always take damage because I rarely exhaust Flamer's default duration. There's really no need to increase the duration unless you want to make an Ironman-esque tank that shoots flames everywhere for no reason other than for the spectacle. Finally, evolution 6 is a choice between shield and armor damage. This is also subject to preference. I like to carry a Reegar or Acolyte with this build, so I always go for armor damage, which results in extremely good reduction of all enemy defenses. However, Flamer already has an inherent 50% damage bonus against armor, so taking shield damage evens it out, making Flamer effective against all types of defenses. I would take shield damage if you want to carry a weapon without a shield damage multiplier or Disruptor rounds.

Fortification is fairly straightforward in terms of evolutions. For the Flamer build, you want to go with all durability and power synergy. One thing that you may want to consider, depending on your build, is evolution 6 of Fortification vs. 3 ranks of Advanced Hardware. Fortification 6b gives you an additional 10% damage reduction (effectively about 10% bonus health and shields), while 3 ranks in Advanced Hardware gives you 25% bonus to health and shields. The difference is that Advanced Hardware is derived from your base health and shields (250/1000), while Fortification is derived from your max shields and health -- including any gear and equipment you might have. Thus, a Geth with maxed Fortification and a Cyclonic Modulator is a walking tank. Without a Cyclonic Modulator... not so much.

I think Hunter Mode is entirely optional for this build. For example, depending on your play style, you might opt for maxed Advanced Hardware and a Power Amp rather than Hunter Mode and a Cyclonic Modulator. This also depends on your weapon of choice. If your weapon gets reasonable benefits from Hunter Mode then take it. If you want to use just a Reegar, though, then don't bother with the accuracy and rate of fire bonuses. There's also the movement speed bonus to consider. I find it pretty useful since you have to be able to get in close as well as make a quick getaway.

Networked AI is a simple choice between weapon damage and power damage, which will be completely up to you and your play style. Also, you might want to consider choosing between rank 6 weapon damage or 3 ranks of Advanced Hardware. Again, this depends on what equipment you will be using. A Cyclonic Modulator can more than compensate for lack of durability, so weapon-dependent classes can take weapon damage instead of fitness. I like to use my stockpile of Power Amps, so I take the three ranks of Advanced Hardware and shield-boosting gear to compensate for lack of durability.

In general, I recommend having at least 1500 shields so you'll have 1000 to spare when using Hunter Mode. Along with maxed Fortification, you'll have 1667 effective shields.
An approximate damage reduction formula (not the real formula):
Max Shields x 1/(1-damage reduction)
ex. 1000 x 1/(1-0.40) = 1000/0.60 = 1666.6
On Platinum though, I recommend using a Cyclonic Modulator IV, which gives you incredible durability. For example, if you have a build like this you'll have just over 2000 shields with HM on, along with 40% damage reduction, effectively boosting your shield strength to 3417 (2050/0.60 = 3416.6). With most characters, damage output trumps durability. However, since the Flamer forces you to move slowly and be at relatively close range, durability is a requirement for effective use of this build.

So I hope that this guide was helpful to your understanding of the Geth Trooper. Thanks for reading, everyone, and have fun with the build. Take care.

-Grun7mas7er

Here is a video guide to the Geth Trooper by Lord Stardusk. Enjoy.

Happy N7 Day!

Welcome, esteemed readers. As you know, today is November 7th, hence N7 day. There are a couple points that I would like to make in this post.

First, a link to November 7th balance changes.

Second, make sure you log onto ME3 for the free N7 Loyalty Pack, which must be collected today! I believe it includes a guaranteed Ultra-rare. I got a Collector SMG II. I'm not complaining because it was free, but alas the random number gods troll me even on the sacred N7 day.

Third, the Geth Trooper, which is possibly the most highly requested Retaliation character, is now available for unlock. Sweet. I do plan on making a guide for this guy (or "platform", rather) by the end of the weekend.

Which brings me to my final point. As I am the sole administrator of this blog, it is highly subject to my personal time constraints in real life. Not only that, but I have acquired a copy of Halo 4 and I plan on maintaining a separate blog for it. As of now, I have not posted anything, but if you are interested I will leave the link for future reference: My (currently under construction) Halo 4 blog. Don't worry, I do plan on maintaining this blog, probably for as long as Bioware continues to support the ME3 community.

Oh, and a final final note: we're now over 15,000 page views! I just want to thank all the readers, and especially the regular readers and subscribers, for all the support. Special thanks to those on XBL who friended me, as well. Couldn't have done it without all of you. I really appreciate your readership and I look forward to your continued support. Peace.

-MACave11i

ME3 Character Guide: Batarian Brawler Vanguard

Hello much-appreciated readers. I thought I'd finally get around to posting a Batarian Brawler build although it's a somewhat obvious and unadventurous one. I suppose I should have known that it would be the next character after the Asari Valkyrie since we had gotten new characters in every class but the Vanguard, and it was a rather highly-requested character as well. I have to say that while I like Batarians, the Batguard just isn't my cup of tea, even though it is a well-made character for the purpose of melee combat. I haven't used it as extensively as I have the Asari Valkyrie, whom I am currently having a love affair with whom I am using quite often for Platinum games. If only she had Liara's face different features than the other Asari. Anyway...

Batarian Brawler
Biotic Charge: 4-radius, 5-weapon synergy, 6-barrier
Lash: N/A
Blade Armor: 4-melee damage, 5-damage returned*, 6-durability
Batarian Enforcer: 4-damage & capacity, 5-power damage, 6-damage & ammo*
Fitness: 4-melee damage, 5-martial artist, 6-melee synergy

I think that the build and gameplay is fairly obvious, but I have seen some builds on BSN that I am doubtful of. I do welcome new play styles and builds generally but my build in particular makes use of the Batarian's strengths, which just seems like common sense to me, and this is probably the case with other players as well. Nevertheless, I will go over everything, at least to some extent.

Biotic Charge is fairly straightforward as always. It is recommended that you have at least 1000N of force to stagger Phantoms. Since I take power damage bonuses in the passive tree, I still meet this recommendation even with the radius evolution, allowing me greater crowd control. Very useful. I recommend weapon synergy as opposed to power synergy. Unlike most Vanguards, you will not be using grenades or other powers as your primary weapon -- you will be using your fiery fists of fury against human-sized opponents and your Reegar (or other weapon) against large bosses. Therefore, weapon synergy is there to make up for the Batguard's relatively low passive bonus. I have to wonder why Bioware didn't give the Batguard melee synergy instead of power synergy, but no matter. Weapon synergy will do. Finally, I take barrier as a general rule. Recharging your shields to full capacity is a lifesaver.

Lash is an all or nothing power. If you don't have the points to get the shield penetration evolution, it's pretty much useless. And if you look at your other powers, well, they're just more useful.

Blade Armor is very nice for a couple of reasons. First off, you get the 40% melee damage bonus. Second, it damages anything dumb enough to get into a fistfight with a Batarian. Finally, it gives you some nice damage protection, which is great for when things get up close and personal. Along with 50% damage reduction after Biotic charge you get another 50% DR during your heavy melee (for the full damage reduction formula, check the Links sidebar). Now, Blade Armor is reported to be bugged, doing greater damage return than it is supposed to on bronze and silver, and doing less damage return than it is supposed to on gold and platinum. For the purposes of the build, I will assume that the bug has been fixed.

For the passive bonuses, I take all power damage bonuses that I can. They increase the force on Biotic Charge and increase weight capacity, which is essential with the relatively heavy Reegar (with omni-blade) and Blade Armor. Evolution 6 I leave up to you. The weight reduction is certainly nice, but it only takes off just under half a second of recharge time from Biotic Charge. Weapon damage and ammo capacity are definitely useful, especially since the Reegar is capacity-challenged, but you'll have to live with a pretty hefty recharge time.

Finally for Fitness, I take all melee damage bonuses. The Batarian is a sturdy fellow, especially with Biotic Charge and Blade Armor, so he can take a few hits without maxed shields and health. You can opt to take durability for evolution 4, but I would not recommend skipping Martial Artist and Melee Synergy. These greatly increase your melee damage and weapon damage respectively. Melee Synergy in particular is useful for giving you a much-needed weapon damage boost. You can easily charge, falcon punch a mook, and then proceed to melt a Banshee with your brief 25% + 25% weapon damage boosts.

That just about covers everything. Hopefully this guide covers some not-so-obvious stuff, but then again, there are many ways to build every character and I suppose that the Batguard is no exception. Enjoy the new character, have fun, peace.

-Grun7mas7er

Video guide by INVADERONE