Mass Effect 3 (Seriously, Use Spoilers People!)

[skeptical scientist]

I've beaten reapers several times on silver. I think my success rate is more than a third, but less than a half, but I haven't really been keeping track. It really helps to save missiles for banshees at key times.

I haven't tried reapers on gold yet, and probably won't until my equipment is a lot better. One problem I've been having is that I live in New Zealand, so I generally get a lot of lag problems when I'm not the host (if I am host, then presumably the other players have lag issues).

Banshees dodge rockets though. I played a few games on Saturday and used up all my rockets on banshees but they dodged all four.
...
So is there some special trick to hit banshees with a rocket? The only reliable way I have found so far is during the fatality animation but that's incredibly risky and likely to get your teammate killed even if you bring the banshee down in time.

Most enemy monsters seem to move with a specific target in mind. I'm not sure what determines who this target is, but you can tell if you're the banshee's target because all of her dashes will be directly towards you (if there is a direct path between you). In this case, you can just shoot, and even if she dashes towards you, the rocket will still hit.

Otherwise, you pretty much have to wait until she uses some attack, either the fatality attack that you mention, or her other attacks (aoe scream, energy ball). All of her attack animations are fairly slow, so you should have time to line up and shoot a rocket.

Also, it's worth noting that as rockets are AoE, you don't have to get a direct hit to kill a banshee. I've killed two banshees with one rocket before.

I've definitely been grabbed and survived. My squadmate stunned it somehow(Charge or Heavy Melee?).

As others have said, if the banshee gets stunned/killed before the animation finishes, you will live. Also, if you get taken down by damage from other enemies at the beginning of the animation (yes, this is possible, it's happened to me twice), the banshee will finish the instakill animation, but afterwards, you can be revived by a teammate/medpack. (This is presumably a bug and will be fixed at some point.)

Geth would be difficult, except the sabotage power can make geth primes and pyros fight on your side which kind of evens the score. Also useful to just make a geth stop shooting you while you murder it.

Okay, Geth are easier than reapers when you have a Quarian infiltrator. Since only one of 18 character classes has sabotage, and it's locked at first, I don't think that's enough to change my rankings in general. (Granted, my rankings are based on bronze/silver difficulties as that's what I have most experience with, not on gold.)

I think I'll buy this for the MP. I wasn't aware you could play as an alien.

You can play as an alien in MP, but only as Shepard in SP. That's what you meant, right?

The MP is definitely fun, but I don't think it justifies the price tag by itself. Maybe if you really like coop multiplayer shooters. Are/were you a big Left-4-Dead fan?

I doubt they have the models in the code now to let people who don't have the dlc to play it with those that do. I guess they could patch the game so everyone has the dlc, but only unlock the new stuff once you pay for it. But I am not sure fans will take kindly, they are not in a particularly forgiving mood after the day one dlc and the ending.

It's pretty standard that to play a multiplayer game, you need to patch to the same version as everyone else. Which do you think people would be more pissed at: forcing people to patch their game to play multiplayer any time a new DLC comes out, or forcing people to buy the DLC if they want to play with friends who did?

Also, it's entirely possible that they could make money through add-on multiplayer content without forcing anyone to pay for it, using the same item pack mechanic that's already in the game. People who don't spend cash are happy as they get the new content eventually, people who do spend cash are happy as they get the new content right away, and bioware is happy as they get paid.

[Weeks]

I think I'll buy this for the MP. I wasn't aware you could play as an alien.

You can play as an alien in MP, but only as Shepard in SP. That's what you meant, right?

The MP is definitely fun, but I don't think it justifies the price tag by itself. Maybe if you really like coop multiplayer shooters. Are/were you a big Left-4-Dead fan?

Never played L4D. In fact ME was my first shooter ever, and I loved it.

I like TF2 too, though not as much and I only played with bots.

[Telchar]

If you want to finish Gold mission Cerberus is the obvious choice, but the number of phantoms they throw at you sucks hard. Stasis is the best defense. Either that, or a team full of overloads. The Atlas is almost the easiest thing they throw at you because all the moves are telegraphed and they can just be avoided on most maps. Nemesis didn't instantly kill me, and my Sentinel doesn't have that much health.

[Chen]

So just finished the game again as renegade femshep romancing Garrus. Played an adept on insanity. Biotic combos are pretty damn broken. Fighting brutes and banshees the strategy was command Liara to warp it, then I use Throw for an explosion, then I warp followed by my own throw for another explosion and by then Liara's warp is back up so I can repeat. Depending on how many shots Garrus gets off with the Widow, it takes maybe 3 explosions for a brute and a few more for a banshee. Made the last missile defense pretty simple.

Also, Jennifer Hale pus a TON more emotion into her lines than whoever voices the male shep. The "goodbye" conversation with Garrus in london is pretty powerful when its a male shepard talking, but damn its tear jerking when femshep's voice sounds like its about to crack when she tells Garrus he'll never be alone.

Ending spoilers

Spoiler:

I managed to get about 5000 EMS for the ending this time and there are some differences. The space child saying "wake up" instead of "why are you here?" is interesting. I tried the Control ending first, and didnt realize the citadel doesnt blow up in that one. Everything else is similar though. I did watch some other endings on youtube and its also interesting that the "Destroy" red wave actually kills people (and destroys all life on earth) if your EMS is not sufficient which really doesnt make sense considering it doesnt do that if your EMS is high. Why would EMS have anythng to do with what the beam did? I then did the destroy ending and got the extra Shepard breathing scene. Looking at it again, I'm not sure he's actually in London. Some of the rubble looks like regular concrete but theres a part that does look like the floor of the citadel. So I wanted to believe the whole "bioware has this all planned" theory but I'm starting to feel maybe they just REALLY wrote the ending badly, which is unfortunate.

[Yakk]

Krogan Sentinal.
Tech armor 6: 45% damage reduction
Rage 6: 30% damage reduction
Result: 75% damage reduction (!)

Does that mean you take 1/4 damage? Who knows, but that might make you even able to survive silver level enemy damage output without blinking...

[Belial]

Also, Jennifer Hale pus a TON more emotion into her lines than whoever voices the male shep.

Her model is more expressive too. I noticed it watching the "Take Earth Back" trailer with maleshep and femshep back to back. She does "I am going to murder the shit out of you with bullets" much better.

[Dark567]

Her model is more expressive too. I noticed it watching the "Take Earth Back" trailer with maleshep and femshep back to back. She does "I am going to murder the shit out of you with bullets" much better.

Yeah, I just started my second play through with an imported male shep, and the divergence is even worse between femshep and male shep in me3 than it was in me2.

[Sytri]

BBC adds to the annoyance by claiming gamers are "upset by the bleak ending" and not that it's completly inconsistent and badly written.

[Belial]

It's easy to see how folks on the other end of the exchange get confused. A looot of the complaints on the twitter feed are about the lack of a "and then I solve everything forever" ending. The fact that there do exist much bigger "you wrote this while high" issues doesn't mean that's necessarily what the vast majority of fans are pissed about.

[Dark567]

It's easy to see how folks on the other end of the exchange get confused. A looot of the complaints on the twitter feed are about the lack of a "and then I solve everything forever" ending. The fact that there do exist much bigger "you wrote this while high" issues doesn't mean that's necessarily what the vast majority of fans are pissed about.

Yeah, I have seen that a little bit. Just reinforces my idea that people are stupid. I never expected a "and then I solve everything forever" ending and actually glad the BioWare didn't stoop to that.

It's just the "being high" while writing my ending thing that pisses me the fuck off.

[Dauric]

BBC Isn't a gaming-industry media outlet. That they get the details of the fan's complaint wrong is about as surprising as "Science" reporting getting details and implications wrong about any particular scientific study, especially given that BBC is reliant on the publications that -are- gaming-media centered and those have been by in large getting the source of the outrage wrong (with a few notable exceptions I believe have already been linked in this thread).

About the only thing that can be said about the BBC is covering the fan-outrage is that BBC is covering it -at all-, which speaks to the scale of the issue, but I wouldn't set expectations very high that they'd be able to be accurate about the details.

[Dark567]

So this has been making its way as a solution on reddit

Spoiler:

I like the multiplayer though... so I am torn.

[skeptical scientist]

Krogan Sentinal.
Tech armor 6: 45% damage reduction
Rage 6: 30% damage reduction
Result: 75% damage reduction (!)

Does that mean you take 1/4 damage? Who knows, but that might make you even able to survive silver level enemy damage output without blinking...

If it works the way cooldown reduction works, you take 100/175 = 4/7 damage. I have no idea whether it actually works this way.

[Xeio]

So apparently there are more differences in the cutscene depending on readiness.

Spoiler:

http://www.ign.com/wikis/mass-effect-3/Endings

So earth can actually be destroyed? Interesting.

[Gelsamel]

Under the assumption that the last part of the game is supposed to be Shepard fighting the indoctrination... then why does low EMS force you to choose Destroy? Wouldn't doing worse correspond with doing what the reapers want you to do? I doubt they want to destroy themselves.

Of course that is just one of the many questions that need answering if the indoctrination theory is true.

[Belial]

If you have low EMS you aren't forced to choose destroy, you're forced to choose whatever the game decides is consistent with you. If you destroyed the collector base, you choose destroy. If you kept the base, you choose control. Either way, the effect is indiscriminate and ineffective: it just fucks everything.

Going with the indoctrination theory, one can assume that, until you actually have choices, you're not actually making a choice, and therefore your choice doesn't mean anything at all.

[Gelsamel]

If you have low EMS you aren't forced to choose destroy, you're forced to choose whatever the game decides is consistent with you. If you destroyed the collector base, you choose destroy. If you kept the base, you choose control. Either way, the effect is indiscriminate and ineffective: it just fucks everything.

Going with the indoctrination theory, one can assume that, until you actually have choices, you're not actually making a choice, and therefore your choice doesn't mean anything at all.

Wait that link that was just linked and everything else I'm reading say that at 0-1749 EMS you -have- to destroy them, not it's based on your collector base status, is that wrong?

[Belial]

According to the wiki, yes. I don't have any saves where I kept the collector base, so I can't be sure.

However, if Shepard's "Effective Military Strength" score is low enough that the player is on track to the worst ending, the Catalyst will not offer a choice; the Catalyst will automatically assume that Shepard either wants to destroy the Reapers (if Shepard destroyed the Collector Base during the suicide mission) or wants to control the Reapers (if Shepard preserved the Collector Base during the suicide mission). No "merge" option is provided.

In Multiplayer news, from the commendation pack this weekend, I received....the sniper rifle. This is amusing, since I almost exclusively play a shotgun-surgeon vanguard. However, this makes me want to put together something sniper-y. What works well with rifles? Infiltrator, I'm thinking?

[Yakk]

Yes. Infiltrators have a number of sniper-rifle boosting abilities.

Another choice would be a asari, if your aim sucks. Stasis enemies, then headshot them. (Asari do have better things to do than this, but it would work!)

[skeptical scientist]

In Multiplayer news, from the commendation pack this weekend, I received....the sniper rifle. This is amusing, since I almost exclusively play a shotgun-surgeon vanguard. However, this makes me want to put together something sniper-y. What works well with rifles? Infiltrator, I'm thinking?

How is it? How are the other commendation pack weapons? They all look fairly nice from the stats. I got the heavy pistol, which will likely be replacing my phalanx IV on all my heavy-pistol-using characters (which is basically everyone). It doesn't do as much damage, but the automatic fire is pretty nice. I don't have a paladin/carnifex yet though, so I suspect the N7 eagle will get put aside when I do.

The downside to these weapons, of course, is that they will likely be hard or impossible to upgrade.

Btw, the premium veteran pack seems like a pretty good deal, if you're paying with credits. (If you're paying cash, you're probably better off with the Spectre pack as it's only 33% more, seems usually to contain an uncommon along with the rare, and probably has a much better chance for an ultra-rare.)

Does anyone know the exact stats on likelihoods of getting items of various rarities in various item packs? That would be really nice info to have.

[An Enraged Platypus]

According to the wiki, yes. I don't have any saves where I kept the collector base, so I can't be sure.

However, if Shepard's "Effective Military Strength" score is low enough that the player is on track to the worst ending, the Catalyst will not offer a choice; the Catalyst will automatically assume that Shepard either wants to destroy the Reapers (if Shepard destroyed the Collector Base during the suicide mission) or wants to control the Reapers (if Shepard preserved the Collector Base during the suicide mission). No "merge" option is provided.

In Multiplayer news, from the commendation pack this weekend, I received....the sniper rifle. This is amusing, since I almost exclusively play a shotgun-surgeon vanguard. However, this makes me want to put together something sniper-y. What works well with rifles? Infiltrator, I'm thinking?

I got the sniper too. Good classes for it include the Infiltrator and the Asari Adept. Infiltrator for straightforward reasons, Asari Adept because you can stasis anything halfway across the map and heashot it. Shame the Valiant is worse than my Mantis X.

[skeptical scientist]

I got the sniper too. Good classes for it include the Infiltrator and the Asari Adept. Infiltrator for straightforward reasons, Asari Adept because you can stasis anything halfway across the map and heashot it. Shame the Valiant is worse than my Mantis X.

Well, it does get three shots per magazine instead of one.

[Chen]

Under the assumption that the last part of the game is supposed to be Shepard fighting the indoctrination... then why does low EMS force you to choose Destroy? Wouldn't doing worse correspond with doing what the reapers want you to do? I doubt they want to destroy themselves.

Of course that is just one of the many questions that need answering if the indoctrination theory is true.

The indoctrination theory that I've seen implies nothing that happens on the citadel is real. The "destroy" option is just the one that breaks the indoctrination. If your fleet strength is weak enough maybe they don't care if you break it at that point because you're going to lose anyway. That said, it doesn't REALLY make sense. Along those lines using the destroy option with low fleet strength kills all life on earth too yet that beam DOESN'T do that if you have high fleet strength. It all being make believe is one way to reconcile that. The other, of course, is just that the writers are terrible in their consistency. Much as I want to believe Bioware had a plan and all in place from the start, I've seen a lot of sci fi/fantasy fiction in my time. And a very large amount of it has a TON of consistency errors. So the simplest solution rather than some far reaching Bioware PR campaign is probably the writers just fucked up.

[Belial]

How is it?

Noooot sure yet. I've literally only played two characters in MP at this point: Human Sentinel (Assault Rifle and Pistol) and Asari Vanguard (Shotgun and Pistol or SMG). I'll probably make up an infiltrator to try the rifle out later tonight.

The indoctrination theory that I've seen implies nothing that happens on the citadel is real. The "destroy" option is just the one that breaks the indoctrination. If your fleet strength is weak enough maybe they don't care if you break it at that point because you're going to lose anyway.

Huh. That's a possibility. My guess was that nothing that happens at low EMS actually means anything. You're not actually fighting the indoctrination until the point where you're given two or more options. I also kindof suspect (under the indoctrination interpretation) that under 4 or 5k EMS, you're not choosing to shake off the indoctrination and wake up so much as you're choosing to fully die instead.

Much as I want to believe Bioware had a plan and all in place from the start, I've seen a lot of sci fi/fantasy fiction in my time. And a very large amount of it has a TON of consistency errors.

While that's true, ME has always been weirdly good about that. There's someone on the team who is obsessive about consistency, which is why the codex is the most weirdly fleshed out chunk of sci-fi awesomeness I've seen outside of a book.

[Chen]

While that's true, ME has always been weirdly good about that. There's someone on the team who is obsessive about consistency, which is why the codex is the most weirdly fleshed out chunk of sci-fi awesomeness I've seen outside of a book.

Prior to this game I do agree that things were fairly consistent. Thing is even before any possible indoctrination scenarios we have some pretty inconsistent (or at worst unexplained) issues:

1) Why didn't the reapers just use the Citadel to turn off all the Mass Relays when they somehow captured it? Wasn't that their original plan anyway?

2) Why didn't they turn off their giant teleporter beam when there was the possibility that humans were getting close to it? And why didn't they put one of their 2 KM Sovereign class reapers on planet to defend it to begin with (this kind of applies to all the important positions on various planets)?

3) Why did they even bring the citadel to earth to begin with? They weren't moving it around when they conquered other planets. Even if they wanted to defend it there since that's where the bulk of their forces are, why the hell turn on a magic teleporter that leads directly inside. I seem to recall from previous games, if the arms are closed the citadel is essentially impregnable.

4) More generally I don't understand how they expected to protect the crucible during its slow ass move to earth. At that point the reapers knew about it, so I don't really care how good "shield" fleet is. Unless the alliance engineers built a whole bunch of extra parts onto it for some reason, I have to assume all those spinning pieces and the like are important. As such, it seems like it would be trivial to ram a couple of occuluses (occuli?) or just use your reaper beam to blow pieces of the thing until it stopped working.

[Belial]

1) Why didn't the reapers just use the Citadel to turn off all the Mass Relays when they somehow captured it? Wasn't that their original plan anyway?

Is it ever actually confirmed that there's a relay cut-off at the citadel? I mean, the citadel is important to the reapers' plans for a lot of reasons that don't have to do with shutting off the relay network (it sits at the junction of a ton of relays, is a relay to dark space itself, is the seat of galactic government), but it sounds like Javik and the protheans were able to move around okay after the reapers showed up.

2) Why didn't they turn off their giant teleporter beam when there was the possibility that humans were getting close to it? And why didn't they put one of their 2 KM Sovereign class reapers on planet to defend it to begin with (this kind of applies to all the important positions on various planets)?

Yeah, actually, I got nothing here.

3) Why did they even bring the citadel to earth to begin with? They weren't moving it around when they conquered other planets.

Because the illusive man warned them of its importance to the superweapon. Suddenly it became important that they keep it safe. Two ways to do that: keep a fleet on it at all times, or bring it to the fleet.

Even if they wanted to defend it there since that's where the bulk of their forces are, why the hell turn on a magic teleporter that leads directly inside. I seem to recall from previous games, if the arms are closed the citadel is essentially impregnable.

This is one of the answers they're going to have to write their way around if they do another ending. If I had to take a wild shot, I'd say it has something to do with luring targets. Remember, if the indoctrination ending is correct, the alliance committed a huge portion of their forces to reaching that beam, and all they really did was line themselves up to be wiped out by a Sovereign-class.

Now, I mean, why would the reapers do that if they could just win the slugfest? Well, regardless of whether the "we're here to save you from the synthetics!eleventy-one!!" explanation of the reapers is accurate, reapers are no doubt difficult and costly to replace. To truly "win", they need to not only snuff out organic life, but do it without losing many, if any reapers. That's why they go to such great lengths to avoid exactly what's happening in the last battle: a full out shooting battle with the entire force of organic life in the galaxy. Not because they'd necessarily lose, but because they'd take losses that were frankly unacceptable to them. A trap is a good way to minimize those losses.

Huh, actually, this would also explain some things under the indoctrination theory: the reason the ending changes depending on EMS is that the reapers are less numerous and more desperate by that point in the story, because they're getting the shit hammered out of them by your giant gorram fleet.

4) More generally I don't understand how they expected to protect the crucible during its slow ass move to earth.

Yeah, got nothing. Presumably they were nailing the reapers down pretty hard (remember, it's stated in the codex that 4 or so dreadnoughts can put a sovereign class in a lot of danger. There were definitely a ton of dreadnoughts there) but snapping a shot or two off should've been relatively trivial.

[Ghostbear]

Is it ever actually confirmed that there's a relay cut-off at the citadel?

I haven't looked to find direct quotes, but they state several times (I believe mostly in the first game -- probably dialog with Vigil) that the citadel controls the relay network, and that it can be used to disable specific relays. We also know that relays can be disabled, as per the codex entries on the rachni and the first contact war (which involved inactive relays being made active.. they would have been used in past cycles at the minimum, so the reapers would have had to disable them), so it doesn't seem a far stretch to assume that those statements are fact. Javik's statements don't preclude that from being accurate; he could have only used traditional FTL for his ship, or the reapers might not have been able to rapidly switch the states for relays, and left enough enabled (for their own purposes) for him to make use of.

I think the bigger question here though, is why didn't they just take the citadel right from the very start? Even without the relay network, they could have killed any chances for galactic cooperation right from the get-go, destroyed the (presumably) strongest fleet in sentient space, very likely have destroyed intragalactic trade, and gotten all the records that they need for their plan to work anyway, ensuring that they knew where every colony was before people had months to tamper with them (potentially causing a repeat of Ilos.. you'd think they'd be rather embarrassed about that one).

Even from a strategic position, their focus on hitting planet surfaces right off the bat seems unbelievably foolish. If they had spent those first few months going from system to system, exclusively destroying fleets and orbital facilities, they could have easily put a small vanguard at each individual relay, or even just important hub relays, (to cover anything they missed), and then proceeded to reap planetary populations completely unhindered, as they would have attained complete supremacy over space travel.

[Chen]

Is it ever actually confirmed that there's a relay cut-off at the citadel? I mean, the citadel is important to the reapers' plans for a lot of reasons that don't have to do with shutting off the relay network (it sits at the junction of a ton of relays, is a relay to dark space itself, is the seat of galactic government), but it sounds like Javik and the protheans were able to move around okay after the reapers showed up.

Didn't play "From the Ashes" yet so I don't know about Javik. Wasn't this cutting off the relays a main plot point in ME 1 though? I can't access the wiki from work so its possible I'm not recalling this correctly.

This is one of the answers they're going to have to write their way around if they do another ending. If I had to take a wild shot, I'd say it has something to do with luring targets. Remember, if the indoctrination ending is correct, the alliance committed a huge portion of their forces to reaching that beam, and all they really did was line themselves up to be wiped out by a Sovereign-class.

Now, I mean, why would the reapers do that if they could just win the slugfest? Well, regardless of whether the "we're here to save you from the synthetics!eleventy-one!!" explanation of the reapers is accurate, reapers are no doubt difficult and costly to replace. To truly "win", they need to not only snuff out organic life, but do it without losing many, if any reapers. That's why they go to such great lengths to avoid exactly what's happening in the last battle: a full out shooting battle with the entire force of organic life in the galaxy. Not because they'd necessarily lose, but because they'd take losses that were frankly unacceptable to them. A trap is a good way to minimize those losses.

Huh, actually, this would also explain some things under the indoctrination theory: the reason the ending changes depending on EMS is that the reapers are less numerous and more desperate by that point in the story, because they're getting the shit hammered out of them by your giant gorram fleet.

Well that's true a trap is more efficient. Of course making the beam of light a big disintegration beam would probably have been simpler. Its hard to tell the difference between disintegration and teleportation and I'm sure the "interference" from the beam could explain a lack of communications. Now if the indoctrination/hallucination thing is true, Shepard never got to the beam anyways so maybe that is what it does. Or maybe the reapers vented all the air from the citadel. Frankly taking a magic beam into the citadel without your space helmet on would have been a bad idea to begin with...

I think the bigger question here though, is why didn't they just take the citadel right from the very start? Even without the relay network, they could have killed any chances for galactic cooperation right from the get-go, destroyed the (presumably) strongest fleet in sentient space, very likely have destroyed intragalactic trade, and gotten all the records that they need for their plan to work anyway, ensuring that they knew where every colony was before people had months to tamper with them (potentially causing a repeat of Ilos.. you'd think they'd be rather embarrassed about that one).

I think Belial's point of them not wanting a stand up fight comes into play here. Attacking the Citadel WOULD get everyone to gang up on them. Attacking one world at a time, they probably thought each race would just defend their own interests and die out like in previous cycles. They didn't really figure Shepard would be able to get everyone to cooperate and fight back as a unified front.

[Belial]

We also know that relays can be disabled, as per the codex entries on the rachni and the first contact war (which involved inactive relays being made active.. they would have been used in past cycles at the minimum, so the reapers would have had to disable them)

It's never been totally clear what "inactive" means in this context. The Charon relay was stated to be "Dormant" too, but just sending a signal to it or travelling through it seems to reactivate it. I think it just refers to a "sleep mode" sort of thing. Press spacebar to re-enable interstellar travel.

I think the bigger question here though, is why didn't they just take the citadel right from the very start?

That goes back to the stuff I edited into the post above. The Reapers don't just act to "win" the war in this cycle, they act to minimize losses and keep their numbers up for next cycle. Every time they come back, they're facing a freshly rebuilt entire-sum-of-organic life, a new pile of armies, and they're still bringing the same one to the battle every cycle (and are perhaps losing entire civilizations in the process). If they beat galactic civilization to a paste but lose too many reapers, that's still a "loss" from their perspective. As such, mounting a frontal assault on the center of galactic civilization isn't necessarily strategy number 1.

Well, in honesty, strategy number 1 is to teleport into the middle of said center and kill it before it knows what's happening, but that's off the table. As such, they seem to be working their way slowly in from the outside. Earth, Kharshan, Palaven. Build an army of husks, move that army on to the next world, take it all in small bites.

Didn't play "From the Ashes" yet so I don't know about Javik. Wasn't this cutting off the relays a main plot point in ME 1 though? I can't access the wiki from work so its possible I'm not recalling this correctly.

The big reason sovereign wanted to get the citadel running in ME1 was because it is, itself, a relay. If he'd turned it on, he could've brought the entire reaper fleet in from dark space instantly, killed the entire galactic government, killed central communication, garrisoned the central hub of the relay network, and cut off travel through it by sheer force of arms, and then spread out slowly into the disconnected "branches" of galactic civilization and eaten them up bit by bit.

None of that really requires a big off switch, thought it would certainly be handy. I'm just wondering if they actually had one.

[Ghostbear]

It's never been totally clear what "inactive" means in this context. The Charon relay was stated to be "Dormant" too, but just sending a signal to it or travelling through it seems to reactivate it. I think it just refers to a "sleep mode" sort of thing. Press spacebar to re-enable interstellar travel.

True, but that was just meant to be a reinforcing point. Anyway, I did some looking, and Vigil's statements say that, yes, the Citadel does control the relay network.

That goes back to the stuff I edited into the post above. The Reapers don't just act to "win" the war in this cycle, they act to minimize losses and keep their numbers up for next cycle. Every time they come back, they're facing a freshly rebuilt entire-sum-of-organic life, a new pile of armies, and they're still bringing the same one to the battle every cycle (and are perhaps losing entire civilizations in the process). If they beat galactic civilization to a paste but lose too many reapers, that's still a "loss" from their perspective. As such, mounting a frontal assault on the center of galactic civilization isn't necessarily strategy number 1.

Well, in honesty, strategy number 1 is to teleport into the middle of said center and kill it before it knows what's happening, but that's off the table. As such, they seem to be working their way slowly in from the outside. Earth, Kharshan, Palaven. Build an army of husks, move that army on to the next world, take it all in small bites.

Right, but what I was pointing out is that their strategy didn't minimize their casualties. They split up into weaker groups, despite one of their principle advantages (no supply lines or points they need to defend) enabling them to maintain a single super fleet, going around killing everything that threatens them. The land forces of organic species aren't a material or significant threat to them, and if they do become such, the control of space will allow them to bombard any cases of that threat out of existence. By flying through space, systematically destroying the fleets and orbital facilities of everyone else, they remove the only unavoidable threat to them: large capital space ships. It's mentioned in game that they face off against the turian fleet (and suffer some not insignificant casualties as a consequence) while they're busy "reaping" the human and batarian worlds. If they had instead moved on after they destroyed their fleets, they could have brought exceedingly overwhelming (instead of just "overwhelming") force against the turians, and as such, significantly reduced their losses.

Taking out the citadel first would still have (if we're assuming that it doesn't control the relays, but, see above for that) allowed them to hinder or remove the abilities of the various races to communicate with each other, to destroy the economic hub, remove the most important leaders, etc. This would have reduced their losses from the war as it progressed, even if it had some up-front costs. The fleet is something they would have had to deal with eventually anyway, so strategically, their best route is to annihilate it with overwhelming force right from the get-go, before the fleet has time to prepare.

[An Enraged Platypus]

So Geth on Gold are actually fairly easy now. Firebase White seems to make them farmable, two long-range teammates out on the portico by the main entrance and the ladder, two shotgun surgeons downstairs covering the little hall by the ammo dump at the foot. With a little care, it's not such a threat.

[Obby]

My understanding of the giant teleporter beam:

From what I gathered from the game, they mention that the beam was being used to teleport the humans to be harvested up to the citadel. I don't know why they are going to the citadel to be harvested, nor do I have a guess as to why the beam remained open once it became clear that the resistance was making a push to the beam... But we do know that humans need to be liquefied in order to be processed into reapers, so I guess it's possible they just didn't have the DNA-soup-making machines on the planet?

Edit: As for multiplayer, I'm having TONS of fun running around as an engineer with just a pistol. I've maxed out my Combat Drone, Incinerate, and Overload, and running around with only a pistol means I have pretty quick recharge times. It's only 2 or 3 seconds between Incinerates, which is enough to keep hordes of enemies at bay by myself. At level 16, I'm usually top scorer in most games I've played so far by a decent margin, unless there's a really quick vanguard in the game as well. It's pretty satisfying destroying a brute and 3 ravagers by myself (assuming I can find proper cover from the ravager cannons, those things hurt).

I'm surprised more people don't know the ravager's weak spot, though. Shoot the sack on its stomach area, and once it pops (2-3 shots from my pistol) I can usually take one down in a clip from my pistol and the extra burn damage from Incinerate. I used to be terrified of these things, now I just eat through them. My biggest problem now is actually the Cerberus guys with the riot shields, I need to either be lucky enough to be behind them, or have a biotic rip the shield away with Pull or something.

[ArgonV]

Yeah, just be careful of the little spider things (swarmers?) that come out of the Ravager sacks. And you know you can headshot the Guardians through the slots in their shields right? I usually carry a heavy pistol and an assault rifle (since I haven't got a proper sniper rifle yet, you know, one with more than 1 shot/clip) and with a scoped pistol it's pretty easy. Easier still to throw a grenade behind them, I regularly finish of up to 3 at once that way.

As for Vanguards; properly played they're a hell of an asset to a team and probably top scorer, badly played they become a liability you need to revive in the middle of a group of enemies. Which I usually don't do, because they're too damn stupid to realise that charging into a pack of 2 rocket troops and a pyro/2 guardians and a phantom/assorted Reaper troops is a very bad idea.

[Obby]

I know you can shoot through the slots and regularly do with my sniper rifle on my infiltrator, but that becomes pretty difficult when you have other teammates just shooting the shields directly (because it's fun? I guess?) and making it wiggle all over the place. I usually don't even bother with them on any character I play with unless no one else is shooting at them.

[An Enraged Platypus]

I know you can shoot through the slots and regularly do with my sniper rifle on my infiltrator, but that becomes pretty difficult when you have other teammates just shooting the shields directly (because it's fun? I guess?) and making it wiggle all over the place. I usually don't even bother with them on any character I play with unless no one else is shooting at them.

Oh man, this gets my goat. Half your team shooting at a shield with an AR or Shotgun, bullets pinging off the middle, one bullet in 20 going in the slot, when if you had one second with the shield held level it'd be watermelon time.

Another jimmy-rustler: people being blatantly carried (unaovidable with a PUG). Last night I had a clear of Geth on Gold with this scoreboard:

Engineer: 79k
Me: 77k
Infiltrator: 76k
Adept: 17k

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

[Belial]

True, but that was just meant to be a reinforcing point. Anyway, I did some looking, and Vigil's statements say that, yes, the Citadel does control the relay network.

Hmm. Can't youtube from work, will have to watch later.

The land forces of organic species aren't a material or significant threat to them, and if they do become such, the control of space will allow them to bombard any cases of that threat out of existence. By flying through space, systematically destroying the fleets and orbital facilities of everyone else, they remove the only unavoidable threat to them: large capital space ships.

They're still playing the long game, though, which works to their advantage in most cycles but works against them here. See, the crews of those starships (and the ones that get built after them) come from those forces on the ground, and the massive civilian populations that fuel them. By locking down, for example, Kharshan, and totally fucking it up before they move on to Earth, they ensure that not only is the Batarian navy screwed, but that Kharshan won't be producing any new surprises once the main force of the fleet moves on. Rinse and repeat for earth. Then Palaven. Then Thessia.

Rocking the entire planet into the stone age with relativistic orbital bombardment solves the "Not gonna be biting us in the back now, are you?" issue handily, you're right, but since they're also viewing organic species as raw materials for MOAR REAPERS, and they're already expecting to take heavier losses in this cycle than they have in any cycle previous, they're pretty loathe to just start vaporizing giant stores of reaper building resources.

In other words, they played it safe and got burnt.

As for Vanguards; properly played they're a hell of an asset to a team and probably top scorer, badly played they become a liability you need to revive in the middle of a group of enemies.

I've definitely been this for my group a few times. The vanguard is tricky because it requires a willingness to just hurl yourself at your enemy without necessarily knowing what's around that corner over there. And sometimes what's around that corner over there is like four marauders and a brute.

Another jimmy-rustler: people being blatantly carried (unaovidable with a PUG). Last night I had a clear of Geth on Gold with this scoreboard:

On the flipside, I am sick to death of people who maximize their score to the detriment of their team. "Oh sorry, too busy racking up kills to revive you/re-enable comms/hack the whatever/provide cover"

[Yakk]

Charge. In the split second, you see if there is lots nearby. If not, heavy melee -> possible nova. If so, nova, and roll out of range and RUN.

Hopefully the nova knocks the nearby enemies on their backs/pushes them back and gives you time to find cover.

Always try to attack enemies who are near "safe" cover.

Ideally, team up with another vanguard. A double-charge double-nova does a ridiculous amount of destruction.

A phantom and 2 guardians is a great thing to bio charge, esp with the 3 target charge. Charge the phantom, heavy melee, nova, charge a guardian to refresh barrier, then roll the hell out of there. The phantom is dead, and the guardian damage output is pretty low. The first charge will have stunned the guardians (without doing damage) long enough for the heavy melee to occur.

If you managed to flank the 3 of them (so the shield isn't aimed at you), you could charge, nova, heavy melee and kill all 3.

(Note that the above is on bronze. I have no idea how anyone could survive as a vanguard on silver/gold without lots of combo support. Ie, 3 enemies all with warps on them, biotic charge, set off 3 biotic combos... everything is dead)

Another jimmy-rustler: people being blatantly carried (unaovidable with a PUG). Last night I had a clear of Geth on Gold with this scoreboard:

To be fair, an Adept who does nothing but set up biotic combos and/or do crowd control will get a really low score.

Ie, an adept who does nothing but stasis all the things.

They'll still be ridiculously useful, but won't get much credit for it.

[Belial]

Can't actually nova as the asari vanguard doesn't have it. Her heavy melee is pretty similar, though.

I'm starting to find the charge itself really frustrating multiplayer, as it seems to hang or stick sometimes. The number of times I pick an enemy, press charge, and...nothing bloody happens...is pretty frustrating.

[maybeagnostic]

Didn't play "From the Ashes" yet so I don't know about Javik. Wasn't this cutting off the relays a main plot point in ME 1 though? I can't access the wiki from work so its possible I'm not recalling this correctly.

The big reason sovereign wanted to get the citadel running in ME1 was because it is, itself, a relay. If he'd turned it on, he could've brought the entire reaper fleet in from dark space instantly, killed the entire galactic government, killed central communication, garrisoned the central hub of the relay network, and cut off travel through it by sheer force of arms, and then spread out slowly into the disconnected "branches" of galactic civilization and eaten them up bit by bit.

None of that really requires a big off switch, thought it would certainly be handy. I'm just wondering if they actually had one.

I don't remember any specific quotes from ME3 but I thought Javik himself talks about the Reapers disabling the relay network and cutting off communication. He never mentioned fighting on more than his home planet and centuries is more than enough time to place the beacons by 'normal' FTL. When I was talking to him I assumed the protheans had developed their own technology for relay-speed communication but not transportation and that's how he knew what happened to the other planets.

Well, in honesty, strategy number 1 is to teleport into the middle of said center and kill it before it knows what's happening, but that's off the table. As such, they seem to be working their way slowly in from the outside. Earth, Kharshan, Palaven. Build an army of husks, move that army on to the next world, take it all in small bites.

Why is it off the table? We are explicitly told that the Council is still denying the existance of Reapers, their fleet is increased in size but not dramatically (presumably enough to take on another Sovereign but that is clearly not enough to oppose the reapers), and the Reapers manage surprise attacks on Earth and Palaven despite the human and turian militaries being the most powerful and only ones actually expecting the invasion. They even manage to reap and destroy the Batarians on the way almost as an afterthought.

They split up into weaker groups, despite one of their principle advantages (no supply lines or points they need to defend) enabling them to maintain a single super fleet, going around killing everything that threatens them. The land forces of organic species aren't a material or significant threat to them, and if they do become such, the control of space will allow them to bombard any cases of that threat out of existence.

The Reapers make so many illogical decisions in this invasion that I can't help but think of them as stupid brutes relying solely on strength to win this fight. Do they want to capture organics alive for some reason? If yes, then I hardly see how having brutes ripping people apart is helping. We never see anyone being dragged away, there are only dead bodies on the Citadel and their best weapon for capturing people- seeker swarms, has mysteriously disappeared even though it would be incredibly effective on Earth. If not, then bombarding the planet from orbit is by far the simplest, quickest and surest way to kill the inhabitants. Over the three games Shepard explores dozens of planets that have had their civilizations wiped out this way by the Reapers. Did they forget they have accelerator weapons all of a sudden? I think we are just running into the problem of critically examining the setup of a space opera that relies on massive suspension of disbelief to be enjoyed. No part of this series is meant to stand up to scrutiny- we might as well ask what use Sovereign had for the relay on Ilos when it had already indoctrinated the Council's top Spectre who had full access to the Citadel and the Council chamber.

About the mp- it seems to be getting harder and harder to play a decent game. Last night I kept joining games only to have the host leave or refuse to start the game (happened 6-7 times in a row). I finally joined a silver game only to have two people quit by wave 4. Next game I got a good team that easily made it to wave 8 only to have some kind of connection problem that ended with me as the new host and only one other player left. I decided to just host the next game but started a silver game against Reapers with three level 1 characters; I was utterly enjoying exploding the Reapers with my vanguard and the newly acquired Paladin, survived the first six waves and had twice as many points as the rest of the team combined but then my connection to the server got dropped and I was kicked out of the game. I think mp is a very nice bonus but some serious updates are necessary if it is to become really good. Falling through the floor/into the ceiling and getting my connection dropped are the two most annoying bugs so far and they happen relatively often.

[Dark567]

I'm starting to find the charge itself really frustrating multiplayer, as it seems to hang or stick sometimes. The number of times I pick an enemy, press charge, and...nothing bloody happens...is pretty frustrating.

Yeah, I don't know if its lag or what. But I can't count the number of times I have died due to charge not working.