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