ME3 Character Guide: Talon Mercenary Engineer

Hello readers. Been a while since I put up a real guide, so let's take a second look at the Talon Mercenary. While not my favorite, he is easily a contender for best engineer when you're talking about sheer damage output. A lot of people will even argue that he's overpowered because of Cain Trip Mines. Fair enough, but look. The two engineers that preceded him were the Vorcha Hunter and Turian Saboteur. I don't care what anyone says, they're nothing special, and it's time we got an engineer that does damage.

So the Talon was a nice "farewell engineer" from Bioware. Would've been nice to see a Salarian, but whatever. I'll give you a rundown of my general-purpose (non-speedrun) build.

Talon Mercenary
Cain Trip Mine: 4-radius, 5-armor damage, 6-radius
Concussive Arrows: N/A
Armor-Piercing Arrows: 4-damage, 5-shred, 6-arrow count
Elite Mercenary: 4-power damage, 5-power damage, 6-charge generation
Omni-Bow Mastery: 4-omni-bow damage, 5-killing spree, 6-omni-bow damage

For your weapon, I highly recommend the Geth Plasma Shotgun with the omni-blade attachment. Not only does the GPS have amazing synergy with your omni-bow, but the omni-blade increases your melee damage.

I like to use Disruptor ammo for this build. It gives you an edge against enemy shields. Also, it can stun human-sized enemies, which is great for two reasons: they can't shoot you or dodge your arrows while stunned. Cryo ammo can slow, but not stun, so it is not as useful in this case.

Finally, I recommend taking the Grenade Capacity mod. At level V, you'll be able to carry a total of 10 grenades. Since Thermal Clip packs restore up to 10 grenades, this works out perfectly. You will likely burn through Cain Mines, so using Thermal Clips to refill your grenades is a must.

Cain Trip Mine: In general terms, it's the most powerful grenade out there (that's not the same as saying it's the best, however). It gets an inherent 50% damage bonus to shields, barriers, and armor. Add the armor damage evolution and it does 225% damage against armor, upwards of 5000 damage a pop. If you've seen any Cain Mine speedrun videos, you already know what it does. If not, try spamming them at an enemy spawn and see what happens.

I take radius because it already does a lot of damage, but you want it to hit as many enemies as possible so you can wipe out spawns faster. But on Platinum, especially when doing speed runs, it doesn't hurt to take one or more of the damage evolutions.

Concussive Arrows: they knock small enemies down and not much else. So they're the obvious choice to skip over.

Armor-Piercing Arrows: This is your bread-and-butter power, since you won't always be spamming Cain Mines. They do very reliable damage, especially against armor. In conjunction with your Geth Plasma Shotgun, you will be able to "one-shot" virtually any human-sized enemy on Gold. I'll explain the strategy further along.

For the passive bonus, you want all grenade-related evolutions for obvious reasons. Additionally, you want all melee damage bonuses in your Fitness tree.

Strategy: This is a melee build, and you will be using your charged omni-bow against most enemies. Omni-bow has the unique feature of snapping your camera to the target while charging it up. Aimbot? Sort of. Keep your GPS charged up, find a target, charge your omni-bow, then release the bow and the GPS at the same time. Both attacks usually hit right on target. The GPS should take care of shields and your AP arrows take care of the rest. Sometimes you have to release the shotgun as you charge the bow in order to stagger the enemy first (Phantoms, Nemeses).

Against unprotected mooks, one GPS/bow combo will usually do the trick, and the same for most shielded mooks.

Against armor block - I'll call them "bricks" - like Dragoons, Brutes, Scions, and Ravagers, simply use your AP arrows. On Gold and below, you should be able to kill a Brute with one grenade, which is three shots from your bow. So these brick enemies are very much trivialized, except for Dragoon swarms, but that's where Trip Mines come into play. Have a fallback point protected by trip mines in case you need to retreat.

Shield/armor enemies like Pyros and Bombers can be taken down in one or two GPS/bow combos. I don't find it necessary to shoot before launching the AP arrows, but maybe I'm being lazy.

Any enemies that can block your powers -- Phantoms, Banshees, and Praetorians -- require you to be more tactical with your omni-bow. When facing Phantoms, as I said above, release your GPS before your arrows. Hopefully they will stagger and will be unable to block your arrows.

Aside from your arrows, you can spam your Cain Mines. This is very effective against spawns, but also allows you to quickly take down bosses that don't block powers (Atlases and Primes), as well as the brick enemies listed above. Considering the massive damage that your mines do to armor, taking them out is merely a question of resources, not a question of capability. If you're having trouble soloing a Geth Prime on Gold, try using the Talon Merc.  BSN reference. Reported.

I feel like I'm forgetting something...  but isn't there always more to be said. I'll leave it at that. Thanks for reading. Stay classy, folks. Grunt out.

-Grun7mas7er