MASS EFFECT: ANDROMEDA (Here be Spoilers)

[odessasteps]

I only logged in this week to do strike teams, get mission funds and buy the new stuff in the store.

[Robert C]

Ran that melee Apex mission again today with the dirt worst group of randoms ever.  Granted none of em had an Apex rating of 1000, and one of em's rating was 0.  Even taking that into consideration, they were turrible.  Results as far as I can remember.

Wave 1 - 3 deaths

Wave 2 - 0 deaths.  Woohoo!

Wave 3 - 3 deaths.  From here on out, nobody except me ever revives anybody, or uses a revive pack.

Wave 4 - too many deaths to count.  Revive a bunch of em and get 3 of the 4 devices.  All 3 are dead dead before the wave ends.

Wave 5 - bunch of deaths again.  I revive a few and recover all the objects.  All 3 are dead before I finish the recoveries.

Wave 6 - not as many deaths, because I only bother to do one revive.  I do all 3 uploads by myself.  All 3 are dead before I finish the second upload.  I finally have to use a couple revive packs on the third upload, since it's in a terrible spot - intersection with minimal cover and 4 entrances.

Wave 7 - No deaths, somehow.  It's a miracle.  I finish with more points than everybody else combined.

 

I guess that makes up for me joining that same match in progress earlier and loading into the game just as it announced 3 left on round 6.

[RIPPA]

Am I the only one who had no problems with that mission?

The first time I ran we only had one guy who died and I am fairly positive that's because an Ascendant spawned behind him doing one of the Uploads.

Oh wait - I did die once since I panic rocketed a Fiend from WAY too close.

[RUkered]

I just did a gold with 3 randoms and I'm about to track down their personal addresses to send a handwritten apology. 

It damn near felt like a platinum. I don't think I have ever died so often. But the worst part...

I thought I was in the LZ, but apparently I was just outside the circle. Partial extraction. I didn't know who it was until the scores loaded. I was definitely no Bob in that match.

Roberto - I think I was possessed by the spirit of your aforementioned brethren.

[jstout]

I had one guy who died in wave 6 of that bronze APEX. We came pretty close to finishing it in 10 minutes.

The gold with more shields and less health was a different story. I think my teammates died a combined 500 times.

Edit: Bored reading through Reddit and picked up these two pieces of info:

1. The chances of getting an ultra-rare is the same in all three $100,000 packs.

2. People tracking the rate of UR drops put the chances of getting one at 25 percent. I think that's a bit high.

[J.T.]

Logged on long enough on Sunday to get strike teams deployed and knock out a couple of APEX missions. 

I should be online this afternoon after 6PM or so.

If no one else is doing MP, I'll go and see about these missing scientists on Voeld and then finally set foot on Kadara.

[RIPPA]

Did an APEX tonight with two guys whose rating was 0 and the other guy wasn't over 100

[RUkered]

Started a silver with a level 13 Human Vanguard. Suddenly realize I have no health packs. This ought to be interesting....

Wave 6, everybody gets - as Stout says - "Damn! We're in a tight spot!" and they're dying repeatedly. I see that one is perma-dead and the other two are down. Heeeeeere I come to saaave the daaaaaaaay, except I died twice in the process of spamming the charge button and reviving one. The other bled out.

Then the two of us left die again. I revive myself and bolt ass to cover. Other dude bleeds out. So there I am - solo, wave 6 with no health packs, only one revive pack, and five yellow barred motherfuckers running around.

Then I heard the glass break and JR yelling BAH GAWD HE'S TALKING. (Stone Cold showing up to whoop Invasion ass is one of my favorite moments despite that god awful storyline).

Anyway, it wasn't quite that badass. I just stayed in cover  (with a Vanguard no less....hurt my heart) and shot shit with my little pea shooter Hornet until I got down to the last sumbitch, then I got him with a charge/shockwave/punch combo.

Everyone got back up for wave 7 and we got a full extraction. Pretty damn proud moment given how reckless and stupid I usually am in this game.

[jstout]

I had to finish a wave off by myself earlier today. It's amazing how much more careful I got.

Y'all, don't ever play a character with cloak or it'll spoil you to the point where everything else is unplayable. The new Batarian Vanguard is fun, but no cloak, don't care.

[J.T.]

Mutliplayer was laggy AF yesterday.  Barely played two matches before giving in to reality that co-op was unplayable.  Deployed my strike teams and had to retire my Krogan death squad after they failed a mission and got the Cowardly negative trait.  Having a team of cowardly Krogan just didn't feel right.

Played a little Campaign Mode so that I could at least fire one or two more shots in anger and finish up my last mission on Voeld.  Discovered to my not surprise that the missing Voeld scientists were dead.  The game not so subtly hinted that this was going to be an Architect fight.

Defeated the Architect in a relatively stress free run, unlocked the Friendly Fire rare achievement, Fast Traveled back to the outpost to complete the mission.....

.... and forgot all about the treasure drop....  Fuck....

Was so pissed that I rage quit and started watching Game of Thrones on HBO Go because I was pretty sure that Fast Travel makes the drop go away.

When I get home from work this afternoon, I'll revert back to the manual save I made before the Architect fight, blow it up again, and then fly off to Kadara to get shit started.

[J.T.]

11 hours ago, RIPPA said:

Did an APEX tonight with two guys whose rating was 0 and the other guy wasn't over 100

I did the hella Bronze APEX mission last Thursday with a girl whose APEX rating was 0.  She played with a Human Female Soldier with shitty Rank I guns.

I'm not sure who told her that doing the super duper Bronze APEX mission as the first one of your career was a good idea.

She tapped out in Wave 3.

I felt badly for her.  She even bothered to color her armor pink and white so that it looked like Ashley's default armor in ME1.

[jstout]

Got the Avenger up to X, finally. That means I've got to draw 16 ultra-rare characters (getting them all up to X) before I can even think about getting the Avenger up to XI. I would've been at 7 characters until they added the BatVan to the ultra-rare pile, and I only have him at I.

Let's say I get an ultra-rare every five reserves packs. Let's say the ultra-rare I get is always a character (highly unlikely). That means I've got 90 reserve packs to go, which means I'll have to play roughly 180 games of gold to get them. 

 

[J.T.]

So, Voeld Architect Battle Part 2 went even better than the first once since I actually remembered to use Consumables other than Disruptor Ammo. 

I think that Architect fight on Voeld was easier than the Eos one since you only have to deal with Observers and Breachers and there is a shit ton of hard cover where your Life Support can recharge, as well as keep you out of the Observers' line of sight so that you are not constantly pummeled by lasers.

The toughest part about the Eos Architect fight was having to cope with Nullifiers, Breachers, and Observers fucking working together to destroy your shields (even though hard cover) while avoiding the Nanobot Death Cloud from the Architect.

Flew back to Aya to give Avela the statue from the Angaran ruins.  She was pleased.  Then I hung out with Drunk Peebee in the museum.  Easiest XP of the game so far.

Scott's relationship with Peebee now includes causal sex.

I like how Bioware pulls the Big Van Vader you can't get the moonsault unless you buy the PPV bullshit on you.  Sure, Scott gets to have sex with Peebee in zero grav with no strings attached but if you want to see her boobs, you have to romance her.

Traveled back to Eos and cracked the code on the Long Distance Jump rare achievment thing.

I went to the spot where this guy was.

It's the ledge overlooking the water treatment plant at Site 1.

Tried the Jump / Cloak Evade technique several times as an Infiltrator with no luck.  No Rare Achievement unlock ding even when I survived the jump and didn't teleport back to the top of the ledge..

Switched profile to Soldier, jumped, used Jet Boost Evasion, injured myself on the rocks when I landed, and the achievement unlocked after I teleported back to the top of the ledge just like in the video. 

Confirms the internet suspicion that you either have to use a profile that jumps / evades with either jump jets or with a Biotic field.  The Cloak Evade does not seem to work.  Most people use either the Vanguard, Adept, Engineer, or Soldier to unlock the Long Distance Jump achievement and they usually chose either the ledge in the vid above or one of the ledges overlooking Prodromos.

I will probably do some autosave / respec tomfoolery and knock out the Vanguard Surprise rare achievement on Eos before I get lost in the weeds running around on Kadara.

MP continues to anger me.  Two 100K disappointment packs and no Batarian Vanguard.  I'm closing in on a 15K APEX rating and my Challenge Rating is above 11K now.  Onward and Upward.

[RUkered]

21 minutes ago, J.T. said:

MP continues to anger me.  Two 100K disappointment packs and no Batarian Vanguard.  I'm closing in on a 15K APEX rating and my Challenge Rating is above 11K now.  Onward and Upward.

It seems the game just screws with you no matter what your goals are.

I have been playing golds in order to afford Arsenal packs because my guns are terrible and really limiting my abilities in tough matches.

I have bought three in the last two days and so far I have gotten weapon mods, a sniper rifle which sucks.......and the Batarian Vanguard.

Sumbitch just came out, a lot of you want him, and I get his ass with no plans to play him for a long time. All I want is a couple decent guns before I drop back to the scrub packs, but nooooooooo.

[J.T.]

28 minutes ago, RUkered said:

It seems the game just screws with you no matter what your goals are.

I have been playing golds in order to afford Arsenal packs because my guns are terrible and really limiting my abilities in tough matches.

I have bought three in the last two days and so far I have gotten weapon mods, a sniper rifle which sucks.......and the Batarian Vanguard.

Sumbitch just came out, a lot of you want him, and I get his ass with no plans to play him for a long time. All I want is a couple decent guns before I drop back to the scrub packs, but nooooooooo.

I just want a full roster again.  I have enough go to guns to survive most Gold matches.  I could probably do Platinum on a fairly regular basis, but that's too much headache.

I'm closing in on having all of my Bonus Skills at Rank 3.

[RIPPA]

You made the EOS Architect fight harder than it needed to be.

Park the Nomad in the middle of the fight. You can literally fight and have constant shields

[J.T.]

40 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

You made the EOS Architect fight harder than it needed to be.

Park the Nomad in the middle of the fight. You can literally fight and have constant shields

I parked the Nomad near the fight and it nearly got blown up in the crossfire because I was dumb enough to use it for cover a lot rather than simply evading and relying on my squaddies to watch my back.

When the shit hit the fan in the Eos Architect fight, I just hightailed it up the hill to where the Architect first spawned to grab ammo and replenish my health.  Easy.

There were a couple of tense moments in that battle, but I was never in danger of getting killed.  I didn't even have to revive anybody.

Ultimately, this fight was easier than the last one because I know what I'm doing and I know what to expect..  One of the main reasons I had so much trouble with the Eos Architect is because the game wants you to fight the damn thing at medium range. 

The hit boxes are disabled if you aren't in fairly close.

I found that out when I tried to snipe at the Eos Architect from extreme range with a Black Widow.  Hey, if I can see it, I should be able to shoot it, right?

[RUkered]

5 hours ago, J.T. said:

I just want a full roster again.  I have enough go to guns to survive most Gold matches.  I could probably do Platinum on a fairly regular basis, but that's too much headache.

I'm closing in on having all of my Bonus Skills at Rank 3.

Any recommendations on guns? Melraz mentioned a good pistol, but I forget the name.

On most of my characters now, I'm using the Hornet and the PAW, and they're not even ranked up fully.

Those are honestly about the best in my arsenal, sadly. The Hornet feels really weak on Gold and not much better on Silver. I actually like the PAW - it just doesn't last long before overheating.

[J.T.]

31 minutes ago, RUkered said:

Any recommendations on guns? Melraz mentioned a good pistol, but I forget the name.

On most of my characters now, I'm using the Hornet and the PAW, and they're not even ranked up fully.

Those are honestly about the best in my arsenal, sadly. The Hornet feels really weak on Gold and not much better on Silver. I actually like the PAW - it just doesn't last long before overheating.

As far as guns go, most weapons kill fairly well, but the Zalkin is universally hated.  Ultimately it will boil down to your personal preference.

There are a few things I do on the regular like equip Krogan with shotguns to take advantage them being able to Rage after a few kills at short range or trying to keep weapon weight low for Biotics and Engineers, but you can make just about any combination of class and weapon work if you are determined.

No one class is better than any other when it comes to weapon proficiency so use what you like with who you like to play most.

If you really like using the PAW or most Remnant weapons in general, the spare ammo clips will allow you to sustain fire longer before your weapon overheats.

[Robert C]

55 minutes ago, RUkered said:

Any recommendations on guns? Melraz mentioned a good pistol, but I forget the name.

On most of my characters now, I'm using the Hornet and the PAW, and they're not even ranked up fully.

Those are honestly about the best in my arsenal, sadly. The Hornet feels really weak on Gold and not much better on Silver. I actually like the PAW - it just doesn't last long before overheating.

I like the Hornet as a medium range gun.  It doesn't have the punch I want up close, though.  The Charger, which you should have leveled some, is a decent pistol till you get the good stuff (Rozerad and Hurricane).  It's not that accurate, but it fires a shit ton of bullets, which is what I need since I can't shoot for shit.  The Disciple isn't a bad shotgun.  Dhan and Hesh are pretty good as well if you have those.  Stout loves him some Ruzad, but I can't use the damn thing, since it only holds 2-3 shots and takes a week to reload.  I hardly ever use ARs or sniper rifles.  I'll usually use the Revenant if I absolutely have to use an AR.  Same deal as the Charger - inaccurate, but sends an awful lot of lead downrange.

9 times out of 10, I'll be using either the Hurricane of the Piranha.  Both if I can handle the weight.  

[jstout]

Since I use shotguns in so few applications now, I got tired of the Ruzad's time between shots and the time it takes to reload. Now I use the Scattershot Siphon - 12 shots, shoots pretty rapidly, and does about as much damage as the Piranha while just being a uncommon weapon instead of an ultra-rare. It's also lighter and more accurate. It never runs out of ammo, but has to cool down after 12 shots. The cooldown doesn't take long at all.

As for pistols, I like the Hurricane. As for the rest of them, they can kiss my ass because you can't put a melee booster on them like you can pistols and shotguns.

[RUkered]

Robert, I'm loving that Charger. It's level 10. I'm right there with you about not being able to shoot for shit. I'm constantly yelling STOP MOVING DALM IT.

Noticed I had a platinum level shotgun that I must have overlooked. It kicks a little bit of ass. Crusader is the name, I think.

[jstout]

Yeah, I noticed you were on, but I wound up hashing out some bullshit on Facebook and not playing. I did fail the One Life to Live silver mission when I found I had somehow used all five of my band-aids without knowing I had used one. Probably should pay more attention to what I'm doing.

[melraz09]

Tired and trying to find ways to stay awake. 2 enegegy drinks and dalm near a full can of red seal aint cuttin it. 

Got a couple more characters to 20 have 5 to go. I think they are 10, 10, 11, 12, those being the human infiltrators and human sentinels. The human female solier is at 19 i think.

Still havent finished the campaign Id say JT will cross the finish line before I do, if I ever. 

Was gonna play some today but will probably end up sleeping my off day away if I can ever get off of this damn train! 

Gonna go count some more crossties. 

[RIPPA]

I am not taking it as a good sign that the MP Live Stream is just them playing Platinum this week