MASS EFFECT: ANDROMEDA (Here be Spoilers)

[Gonzo]

37 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

You might have one little thing to do first before the final mission

Did you do the scans for Suvi yet?

And everything else you mentioned you can do after the final mission though it does makes sense story wise to at least do all the memory triggers before

I did. She was my romance option, so I totally did that. I'm currently sitting at Meridian and if I go to start the mission it tells me that I can continue exploring Heleus either before or after the mission.

And got Movie Night taken care of, too.

[AxB]

10 hours ago, J.T. said:

I got a Sidwinder I (Siphon) yesterday and a Sidewinder I (Bulwark) this morning.. 

The game refuses to give me the baseline Carnifax.

Seriously? I've got a Carnifex X and a Carnifex Bulwark 2. But I don't have a Kineticist or a Salarian with Invasion, or either Batarian.

[jstout]

Hard to believe you don't have the first Batarian. Are you buying Reserves packs? Try those, if not.

[AxB]

I'm buying Advanced Packs, because I've only got one Rare character up to XX so far. The rest are all XIV-ish.

[J.T.]

15 hours ago, AxB said:

Seriously? I've got a Carnifex X and a Carnifex Bulwark 2. But I don't have a Kineticist or a Salarian with Invasion, or either Batarian.

I've got the entire APEX roster save the new Batarian Vanguard.  It's the only character I haven't unlocked.

There is also something else about the new Batarian Vanguard that will make Rippa shit himself.  I am dumb for not remembering that the new Batarian Gauntlet melee attack also detonates primers and Annihilation is a fucking primer.

Whatever you punch while your purple death field is active, you will also blue splode.  The new BV will have a Charge / Melee sequence that is even more ridiculous than the ME3 version.

I need this new character like I need oxygen right now.

I got home late and played a lot of campaign mode since I had to sack another Strike Team for getting a Negative Trait and was pretty pissed off about it.  I have no idea how my Level 20 Salarian STG Team armed with Black Widows had a 82% success rate for a Gold mission and failed two times in a row.  

I played just enough multiplayer yesterday to knock out the APEX missions and my APEX rating is finally above 16K.

So, Kadara has cannibals and faux Shadow Brokers and toxic water.

I knocked out a few fetchits (rescue kid from cannibals, solved the Roekkar murder dealie, searched the death caves for a lost surveyor) and now I have to retrieve this vaccination formula for this medical doctor whom I hope is smart enough to bounce to my settlement once I cozy up with whatever power faction I decide to make a deal with after I get Kadara's viablilty above 40%.

I got the prompts for the vault activation task and the establish an outpost task, so I will deal with that after building some goodwill with the locals and clearing a few Blue !'s off of my map.  I am very appreciative of Kadara not having any environmental hazards that keep me from exploring most of the map.

I'm now a little puzzled as to why there was so much controversy about Kadara in the earlier part of this thread.  There seemed to be a bit of confusion as to where all of the buildings came from.  Maybe it's me, but it seemed pretty clear that Kadara is a former Angaran colony that the Exiles have overrun and control by virtue of their eviction of the Kett.  The buildings were not constructed by the Exiles.  The architecture is Angaran.  The building that the Warden has repurposed for use as an office is the entry gate for the undercity.

Since today is Weekend Mission / New item day, I'll be playing multiplayer fairly early this afternoon.  I will be on the lookout for dudes that are online.  The mission for the weekend should be a Gold one, so bring out your best shit.

[Robert C]

1 hour ago, J.T. said:

I've got the entire APEX roster save the new Batarian Vanguard.  It's the only character I haven't unlocked.

There is also something else about the new Batarian Vanguard that will make Rippa shit himself.  I am dumb for not remembering that the new Batarian Gauntlet melee attack also detonates primers and Annihilation is a fucking primer.

Whatever you punch while your purple death field is active, you will also blue splode.  The new BV will have a Charge / Melee sequence that is even more ridiculous than the ME3 version.

I need this new character like I need oxygen right now.

 

That Vanguard is a lot of fun.  Punching Hydra's/Fiends/Ascendants/Destroyers is a perfectly viable strategy with that guy, at least at lower difficulties.

Only character I don't have is the Angaran Insurgent.  I've got at least one drop of everybody else.  All my commons and uncommons are at XX, and I need about 25 more drops to get every rare up to XX.  None of my ultra-rares are higher than III, though. 

Level-wise, the march to getting everybody to 20 continues.  Got 8 left to go, including the Insurgent.  The other 7 range between 10 and 16.  Melraz is gonna beat me there, though.  He only has two or three left to go.  Stout's never gonna get there, since he's found true love with the Avenger.

[RIPPA]

I only JUST finished needing to buy Basic packs

Of course - I was stubborn and kept doing it after the patch. I really should have moved up just to acquire more characters already

[RUkered]

Yeah J.T. - I know I just said the other day that I was mad about getting the new Batarian instead of good guns, but I have to eat crow.

After Melraz explained the combo detonator aspect of him, I switched to him, and I'm in love. I like him even better than the KroGuard.

I haven't played a character yet that felt that powerful right out of the gate.

The night shift were dragging my ass through a silver at like level 5 and I was holding my own, relatively speaking. 

Except for the times when I was doing my usual dumb shit of trying to take on two Berserkers at once in a boxing match. 

[RIPPA]

The special APEX mission is going be Remnant on Paradox

Not sure what the modifiers are yet

[jstout]

Bunch of them. Pistol skirmish, go for the eyes and a new one that takes 50 percent off health and shields. It also has "activity" waves at 1, 2, 4 and 5. It's a silver mission. It was fine.

They've taken that APEX pack out of the store, so either it was a mistake or they're saving it for later.

New equipment in the store (for me) was something that ups shotgun and melee damage by 15 percent each, and another that ups gun damage 10 percent and biotic power damage 20 percent.

[J.T.]

12 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

The special APEX mission is going be Remnant on Paradox

Not sure what the modifiers are yet.

Paradox is not such a bad map to pull Gold on vs. Remnant.  The Kett habitat on the Eastern side of the map has an area that is pretty defensible and is located very close to an ammo box.

Not that you'll get to visit the ammo box.  The last two Weekend APEX Missions have all had Empty Resupply as one of the modifiers.

4 minutes ago, jstout said:

New equipment in the store (for me) was something that ups shotgun and melee damage by 15 percent each, and another that ups gun damage 10 percent and biotic power damage 20 percent.

The Shotty / Melee mod sounds like the Shock Trooper mod.  I don't have that one so I need to buy it.

The Biotic Damage / Gun Damage mod sounds like the Commando (Asari Commando, that is) mod.  I already own that one.

[jstout]

5 hours ago, AxB said:

I'm buying Advanced Packs, because I've only got one Rare character up to XX so far. The rest are all XIV-ish.

So you have one rare character up to XX, all the rest of them to XIV and you don't have the Batarian Scrapper at all? What's the chances of that? As a matter of fact, you should get him because of the newish stip that you have to have all of the characters in a class up to X before you start getting XI and above. Hmmm.

[jstout]

Actually, the shotgun/melee one is called the Berzerker Package. The other one is indeed the Commando Package. I probably passed on it first time around, like I'm doing this time, so it reoffered it to me. Bought the Berzerker Package, but as usual, I'm unsure if I''ll ever use it.

[J.T.]

9 minutes ago, jstout said:

Actually, the shotgun/melee one is called the Berzerker Package. The other one is indeed the Commando Package. I probably passed on it first time around, like I'm doing this time, so it reoffered it to me. Bought the Berzerker Package, but as usual, I'm unsure if I''ll ever use it.

You use the Angaran Avenger and the Ruzad almost exclusively now.  The Berzerker package is almost tailor made for that character and load out.

That mod would boost the damage output for your normal melee attack as well as Avenger Strike (which is considered to be a melee strike) and of course the shotty damage would be a bonus.

[RIPPA]

Yeah - since I already bought the Commando Package it is only offering me the Berserker Package

[jstout]

1 minute ago, J.T. said:

You use the Angaran Avenger and the Ruzad almost exclusively now.  The Berzerker package is almost tailor made for that character and load out.

That mod would boost the damage output for your normal melee as well as Avenger Strike and of course the shotty damage would be a bonus.

For now, the character's build is to basically only melee, so I'm better off using the juggernaut shield (20 percent shield boost, 15 percent melee damage boost). The shotgun is window dressing. I only use it for the 33 percent melee boost that comes with the melee mod. If I do need to boost the shotgun's damage, for some reason, I can use a rail amp. But for now, the only thing I consistently shoot a shotgun at is the Ascendant's Orb.

Oh yeah, forgot - this APEX mission may be a two-parter, because they talked about two different maps in the description of the first one. I wondered if it was gonna be 11 waves and change maps, but it turned out to be seven waves on one map. This makes me think there may be a part 2 later.

[RIPPA]

BTW - if anyone else needed more proof that Bioware has decided to kill Mass Effect

Quote

During Bioware’s earnings call Mass Effect: Andromeda was mentioned just three times. Compare that to 20 mentions for Battlefield 1, 36 for Madden, and 41 for FIFA. During that call, there wasn’t a single mention of Mass Effect: Andromeda DLC or expansion packs. The only team that is currently working on the game are focused on patches and Apex missions for multiplayer.

And then they proceeded to basically say they are going to do two more Dragon Age games

[J.T.]

Anthem had better be worth it.

[Robert C]

Maybe I'm an idiot optimist, but I don't think Mass Effect is dead.  Andromeda is dead, dead, dead, though.  Anthem can go fuck itself.

[Robert C]

33 minutes ago, jstout said:

For now, the character's build is to basically only melee, so I'm better off using the juggernaut shield (20 percent shield boost, 15 percent melee damage boost). The shotgun is window dressing. I only use it for the 33 percent melee boost that comes with the melee mod. If I do need to boost the shotgun's damage, for some reason, I can use a rail amp. But for now, the only thing I consistently shoot a shotgun at is the Ascendant's Orb.

 

I still think the way to go there is the grenade increase mod.  I get 7 grenades and 6 cloaks, without putting points into the cloak yet.

[jstout]

Dammit, I keep meaning to try that on bronze and silver strike teams to see how much I miss the 20 percent shield boost (the 15 percent melee boost isn't all that big of a deal), but I forget about it.

Lately, I've been forgetting to use stickys in some really good situations for them, so I gotta get better at using those.

[J.T.]

18 minutes ago, Robert C said:

I still think the way to go there is the grenade increase mod.  I get 7 grenades and 6 cloaks, without putting points into the cloak yet.

That's the mod I tend to use when I run the AA.

[jstout]

Soundtrack of a typical gold game with me and my random teammates:

Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down. Teammate down.  

[Robert C]

As opposed to the soundtrack you get when the night shift is on, which consists mainly of me and melraz getting killed because we wandered into a mess of shit again. 

[jstout]

Yeah, but y'all are family.