MASS EFFECT: ANDROMEDA (Here be Spoilers)

[J.T.]

22 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

There is literally one person who thinks that facility needs to be destroyed that very second - the Moshae

I have fixed the vault on Havarl and I still have a record number of Angarans annoyed with me.

I am not sure if I want to add the Chief Scientist of the entire race to that list:  sequel or no sequel.

[RIPPA]

The Moshae gets pissy at you even when you help her.

You need to accept that like 30% of the time there is no pleasing her

[J.T.]

27 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

There is literally one person who thinks that facility needs to be destroyed that very second - the Moshae

Plus - since they game clearly isn't getting a sequel - worrying about long term ramifications is folly

Also if you choose to save you get ANOTHER choice you can make... though I think you will choose the same route as your first playthrough

If this involves freeing the Angarans and still getting the opportunity to give the Cardinal a dirt nap by taking a hasty action to kill the Cardinal myself or not stopping Cora from shooting the Cardinal, this may be my happy medium.

I have played too many Bioware games not to realize that there is a wimp option in there somewhere.

[J.T.]

6 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

The Moshae gets pissy at you even when you help her.

You need to accept that like 30% of the time there is no pleasing her.

This does not fill me with confidence about the decision not to turn the tower into toothpicks.

I am leaning towards keeping the status quo: keep the Moeshae happy and pray for the dearly departed.

[RIPPA]

Hope you are good at RT quick time actions...

[J.T.]

4 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

Hope you are good at RT quick time actions...

So there is a sissy option where you can free the captives and still kill the Cardinal.

I knew it.

I have played far too many Bioware RPGs.

[Eivion]

The Moshae was kind in a panic/stress/anger mode. She wasn't really being reasonable. She is a scientist, not a military leader. You can lighten her mood later. Evfra is harder to please.

[odessasteps]

5 hours ago, RIPPA said:

Hope you are good at RT quick time actions...

!

[J.T.]

So the Exaltation Do-Over is now in the books.

Spoiler

Chose to free the prisoners, got Jaal's respect, shot the Cardinal in the back of the head in a not quite so heroic moment of justifiable dishonor.

Love the footnote in the Codes that in effect says, "However, the Cardinal did not make it out alive."

The Moshae is still a bit chippy with me, but that diluted with Jaal's bro thump of approval on my shoulder when we got back to the Tempest.

Back to Aya now to meet with Evfra and grab snacks for movie night.

Remember when I hated the Krogan Gladiator?  Those days are done now that I have found the formula to turn her into a supermassive black hole.

She's 14th now and has Radius and Crushing Grip for Pull 4 and 5 and I took Radius for Annihilation 4 rather than the Recharge Penalty Negation. 

Nova will stay gimped at Level 1 but that will be slightly enhanced by Power Enhancement, my Offensive Passive 4 skill.

Now she can Pull two or three redbars at a time and can either Nova them, smash them all with her hammer, or DoT them to death with Pull (Crushing Grip) / Annihilation (Radius).

The Ruzad is nice for killing things at close range while Pull and Nova recharge and otherwise debuffing shields on bluebars.  Shoguns are far better primary weapons for most Krogans now that any kill at point blank or extremely short range triggers Rage.

The exception would be the KroMerc.  I use the Revenant or the Soned with him to whittle down shields and debuff armor and then move in close for shotgun kills, headbutt murder, or a Flak Cannon blast.

I think I goofed on speccing her Rage, though.  Naturally I took Melee at 4 since she's a Krogan, but I find her to be a little too squishy out in the open because duh while she may be a Krogan, she's still a Pure Biotic. 

I will probably purchase another respec for her and take Resilience at Rage 4 to make her a bit tougher and take Martial Arts at Rage 5 to buff her hammer skills after she levels up.

[RIPPA]

Are you constantly respecing or are you just unlucky in your packs? (Or maybe lucky depending your perspective)

I have gotten at least a 1/2 dozen respecs in random packs

[J.T.]

4 hours ago, RIPPA said:

Are you constantly respecing or are you just unlucky in your packs? (Or maybe lucky depending your perspective)

There are some characters you can't mess up no matter how hard you try, but there are a couple that require a lot of fine tuning.

The KG is one of them. 

I haven't gotten very many free CRs in my packs but I usually have a shit ton of Mission Funds to spend, so burning 15 every now to pay for a tinker session usually turns out well for me.  You can make your 15 MFs back easily, so no biggie.

My Krogard is a beast because I followed a build similar to the one in ME3 and it still worked in this game.  I didn't have to re-think him at all.

I must be doing something right because I got a random PM from some German player I was in the Bronze APEX match this morning asking me what my build was for my Gladiator.  Those fuckers love to power level.

After one Bronze match, I was 23% through the Biotic Damage daily challenge (7/14 Waves for the Firebase Paradox daily challenge).and my point total was nearly 19K.

We'll see how she does in Silver.  Once I'm done with DCs this evening, it's back to Campaign Mode.

[RIPPA]

Yeah - I built my Krogard in my sleep. I need one more point to hit that last increase to power damage then Katie really bar the door

I have started fiddling with the Asari Adept - I forgot how much fun it is just running past people and priming them with Annihilation to have someone detonate them

[J.T.]

32 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

I have started fiddling with the Asari Adept - I forgot how much fun it is just running past people and priming them with Annihilation to have someone detonate them

One you find the sweet spot between recharge speed and combo damage, the Adept is really fun to play. 

I had her Annihilation 4 set at Radius at first as a defensive measure (Pure Biotics in general are really squishy), but I am shit with pure Biotic builds and forgot that the key to Asari Adepts is constantly being able to generate blue explosions.

The Recharge Penalty Removal is a better choice for them.  Annihilation is there for Asari Adepts solely for the purpose of priming enemies for detonation and weakening enemies so that they do not survive Biotic Combos..

Radius for Annihilation 4 works better for the KG because you want to debuff all of the redbar enemies you have snatched into your Purple Circle of Floaty Doom so that you can generate close range kills and trigger her Rage.

[J.T.]

You know your squad mate has never touched Campaign Mode when you notice that the guy playing the Angaran Insurgent has so much map familiarity that he places Trip Mines on the enemy spawn points..

[J.T.]

I think it was Dan that said that he hated the Venom, but I have had relative success using it with my newly unlocked Salarian Operator.

It can wipe out entire groups of redbars if you give it time for the micro-grenade mode to charge up (if you aim a little high, you can also damage or kill enemies that are behind cover) and the short blasts are decent enough to kill yellows when used in conjunction with Overload.

Not the greatest shotgun you could use, but not as worthless of a weapon in MP as the Thokin.

[Robert C]

Biotic daily challenge was ridiculously easy compared to the combat powers one, at least with an overpowered XX-20 Kroguard.  Ran two bronze outlaw matches solo, and that was more than enough to do it.  I didn't have to bother shooting or using melee till I got hack on wave 6.  An actual competent player could probably do it using just biotics.

[RIPPA]

It would be nice if any of these Strike Team missions matched up with my daily

[RIPPA]

So apparently the whole no permadeath instakill think has been changed and they are back

I was on extraction and while saving my squadmate and taking out an Ascendant - a 2nd one came up behind me and spiked me and I was instantly dead dead. No ability to be revived nor one to pop a pack

[Robert C]

35 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

So apparently the whole no permadeath instakill think has been changed and they are back

I was on extraction and while saving my squadmate and taking out an Ascendant - a 2nd one came up behind me and spiked me and I was instantly dead dead. No ability to be revived nor one to pop a pack

It never went away for Ascendants.  It is gone for Hydras.  Dunno about Fiends.

[J.T.]

20 minutes ago, Robert C said:

It never went away for Ascendants.  It is gone for Hydras.  Dunno about Fiends.

It is also gone for Fiends.  I got barshed yesterday and was able to self revive.

2 hours ago, Robert C said:

Biotic daily challenge was ridiculously easy compared to the combat powers one, at least with an overpowered XX-20 Kroguard.  Ran two bronze outlaw matches solo, and that was more than enough to do it.

I used to horde creds for future Premium Packs to pay for the chance of unlocking my remaining Very Rares, but now I'm spending the balance on the lesser packs to boost the ranks of my Common, Uncommon, and Rare characters and weapons.  Most of my Common weapons are now IX or X..

[RIPPA]

It was gone for Ascendants because the very first match I played after the patch I got grabbed twice by them and was able to come back (which was helpful since I was the only one alive because the rest of my team was full of bitches)

[Robert C]

18 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

It was gone for Ascendants because the very first match I played after the patch I got grabbed twice by them and was able to come back (which was helpful since I was the only one alive because the rest of my team was full of bitches)

Weird.  I got grabbed by one right after the patch, and got the usual insta-death/no revive deal.

[RIPPA]

I will say I remember there being a 2nd stealth patch within 24 hours of the last one - that could have corrected it

[J.T.]

Old school ME3 had two instakill enemies per faction..

Cerberus (Phantoms, Atlas mechs)

Collectors (Scions, Praetorians)

Reapers (Banshees, Brutes)

Kids these days are fucking spoiled.

[J.T.]

Urgh.  I've brought the Moshae back to Aya, purchased the Angaran herb for Suvi's snack recipe, purchased another ship model for my trophy wall on the Tempest, and I have somehow managed not to anger any of the merchants.

This Angaran prefect and her "Hey, gaijin!  Come and learn of Angaran law, lest you accidentally insult our culture!" nonsense is really pissing me off.  The Moshae didn't get her by boat, homegirl.  My tech is probably more advanced than yours.

The walking and talking parts of this game seem more tedious than any of the ""Hey, you're in a new city so chat with the locals," parts of any previous Mass Effect title, but at least I haven't run into an NPC in Andromeda as annoying as mother fucking Conrad Verner.

On the MP front, there are no new mods at the Item Store yet.

It took four matches (2 with my KG and 2 with my underloved Asari Adept) to knock out the Biotic Challenge.  I like my AA much better now that I have improved her Recharge Rate and Combo Damage.. 

My KG is still a bit squishy, but not as much as she used to be.

I finished up the Bronze APEX mission this morning along with the Firebase Sandstorm and Kett Mastery challenges.  I had to play two matches on Sandstorm for the waves, but the Bronze APEX mission on Firebase Magma got me quite a few Kett Mastery points.

I will be working my Asari Sentinel and Asari Duelist overtime because I only need to complete the Backlash challenge to unlock Biotic Mastery (Gold). 

I'm not surprised that I'll complete the Biotic Mastery tree before Combat Mastery or Tech Mastery since my Kineticist was my go-to Gold character for a while.