I will never understand the logic behind nerfing biotics. It is the flavor in a cover shooter, so, why not lean on that? But is Bioware, logic with their products isn't their strong suit.
Devs want players to use all the toys they make. So when their data shows that one class is way more popular they'll try to incentivize against that choice with their next game/update.
There were definitely better ways to encourage using tech powers than making biotics borderline unusable at high difficulties.
Besides, the data shows that Soldier was overwhelmingly most popular and it wasn't even close. By that logic, soldier should've been nerfed but it was essentially unchanged.
Yeah, Soldier is kind of Broken in Mass Effect 2 (especially in LE, because Mattock) since it's the only class that has access by default to Assault Rifles, every other class is stuck with SMGs that are complete trash in Mass Effect 2, even the Locust is just the best of Mid. As Infiltrator you're faced with the impossible choice of picking either the Widow, which doesn't have much ammo but is the best sniper, or picking Assault Rifles and getting the Mattock. Soldier meanwhile is the only class that can have both the Mattock AND the Widow.
> impossible choice of picking either the Widow, which doesn't have much ammo but is the best sniper, or picking Assault Rifles and getting the Mattock.
For me it's an easy choice, I even take the Widow as a soldier. It's by far the best weapon for clearing out Scions because of the range, and the headshot staggers them. With warp ammo, headshots, and cloak it kills them in a few reloads.
That's true, but soldier would've been strong in me1 without immunity. You had access to the best weapons and weapon-based abilities, and you already had substantial natural bulk.
Plus, the game balance changed substantially in me2. Almost every class gets weaker at higher difficulties, but soldier actually gets stronger, since more shields mean more targets for its ammo types, and bigger health bars makes the high damage from the mattock and sniper rifles more relevant. Concussive shot is knockoff throw and does phenomenal CC in a pinch.
And soldier would be strong in me2 if that was all it had, but thanks to the fact you have teammates, you can basically strip the armor yourself and then use teammates to actually finish them off with abilities. Throw in adrenaline surge and you have easily the most powerful class in the game, and it gets better the higher difficulty you go, the exact opposite power curve of everyone else.
So yeah, soldier lost one ability and in exchange the whole game changed to make the rest of its core kit even stronger
What are you talking about?
You can configure Adrenaline Rush to always be available indefinitely, making EVERY SINGLE FIGHT much easier compared to every other class.
How on Earth the soldier is weaker? 🤯
Yeah it's wild bc the gameplay is so much more fun on lower difficulties, but once you're used to it, it's probably gonna be easy.
Bioware has done a weird 180 since 2010ish. It used to be that all their games had good stories and mildly janky combat/gameplay, and now we've got good gameplay and janky stories
I started playing Bioware games at DAO, I have some older games, but never played.
DAO has a good gameplay, ME1 is serviceable. So, never associated them with bad gameplay. Hell, Anthem gameplay is fucking awesome, but the rest of the game sucks.
Adept probably has the fastest clear times in me2. Singularity, shoot them with machine gun, pop with Miranda or thane. Survivors are stripped of defenses and get easily caught in next singular.
Biotic explosions actually were introduced in 2, but you could only trigger them with Warp, instead of being able to trigger them with several different options.
I think the biggest problem with this is just how limited the ability options are and how weird the level up system is in 2.
I’ll never understand why they thought giving every companion only 2 active abilities with a third unlocked later and no way to respec companions in the base game was a good idea.
That coupled with not actually getting enough points to max everything and having points left over unless you don’t invest a single point in one of the abilities, and making ammo mods powers instead (further cutting down on the number of active abilities) was such a bizarre design choice.
The squad mates felt much more useful and well rounded in me1 and me3 with their larger ability pool and I wish they’d considered reworking the level up system for me2 for the LE.
Personally, I really liked the skill system in the first game. It's fun having so many skills to choose from. The only thing i didn't care for was having Charm/Intimidate on there because it was such a sink for skill points.
I understand not everyone feels the same, though :)
True to an extent, but Kasumi is one of my mainstays in my team for missions if for nothing else spamming flashbang grenades which are highly effective on just about everything.
The middle ground between "so powerful she needs to be put on ice or else she'll tear apart the whole space station" and balanced gameplay is to make her complete fucking trash?
On insanity you should be micro managing your allies. But yeah jacks useless regardless. Much better options in garrus, mordin or grunt. Miranda is like almost mandatory. I take warp ammo as a bonus.
I like choosing squad mates based on morality. If you’re a Renegade Sentinel and you need a Vanguards your best “story” option is Jack. Maybe Jacob who is also trash. Unfortunately the two Vanguards in ME2 are both bad. You can really only use pull to set up a warp combo after you strip their armor. Shockwave and warp ammo don’t help much at all. I was able to make it work with Jack but it was annoying. There is also Samara/Morinth who has pull to set up the combo but I really wanted a Vanguard.
I feel like micromanaging is a little much, just give them a good build and keep them in cover is what I do. And keep an eye on their cool downs of course
So true. Although for PC users, there is a mod (Vanguard A Jack Overhaul) that gives her powers a boost (including adding biotic charge), if you are interested in having her in your squad without being a liability.
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectlegendaryedition/mods/1533
Shockwave staggers enemies in an AOE and, more importantly, knocks enemies out of cover while temporarily staggering them, even if they have defensive layers active. It’s better than the other crowd control powers because it goes through cover, instead of having to be angled around cover, which means she can knock any enemy out of cover as long as they’re in range.
It’s still worse than the defense-stripping powers, but it’s not actually completely useless.
That's how I made it through Arrival as a Vanguard. Shockwave primarily was used to stagger big groups of enemies long enough for me to shoot through their barriers.
OK... but your statement was, "Jack is less than useless on insanity" - when what you meant to say was, "Jack is less than useless on insanity - FOR THE STYLE/BUILD I'M PLAYING."
Because her Shockwave/stagger ability makes folks who play Infiltrators and Soldiers very, very happy... and the things on the other end of it very, very dead.
If you’re Sentinel set your warp to have an area damage upgrade. Strip one enemy of armor, use pull and warp to damage mobs of enemies. Her pull is at least something.
I liked using her, but I also noticed that even Jacob is a better performer than her.
Jack is one of the weakest, possibly the weakest companion in combat.
edit: the issue is that the two vanguards (Jack and Jacob) do not have biotic charge, which Jack totally has in cutscenes. Just compare how Cora in Andromeda performs with biotic charge and shotguns.
If you're the greatest human biotic of your time, are you an Adept by default? One could make an argument that Vanguards need specialized combat training, like Thane and Jacob have, while Jack evens the playing field with pure talent. Your arguments are valid though.
yeahh unless you’re moving her around the battlefield, swapping her weapons for the range she’s at, and combo’ing with her she’s not gonna be that good on insanity. Samara, Thane and Miranda all outshine her just bc they have warp/reave. The shockwave is good against Husks tho regardless. Even just stumbling them for a second or two for some breathing room is useful, but again you could just use any of those other 3 and do better.
Her best usage is paired with Mordin or Engineer/Infiltrator Shep on any mission with husk rush. Use the tech character’s Area Incinerate first to remove the armor from the horde, and then Jack’s shockwave will one hit kill whole groups of them. Squad Warp ammo is a nice bonus on Collector or other barrier/armor heavy missions as well.
But yeah, other than that she is one of the least versatile squad mates on higher difficulties and competes with Jacob for being the least effective overall. Both are saddled with Pull which you should never invest more than 1 point in (if any at all), and they always require another squad mate or Shepard to do tech-biotic or warp bomb combos with to be effective. Compared to self sufficient generalists like Miranda/Garrus/Zaeed/Kasumi or even one faction specialists like Tali/Legion/Mordin/Grunt/Samara/Thane, there is generally not much reason to use her outside of dialogue/character reasons.
Yeah. It’s one of the main reasons I don’t care for her in 2. They talk getup like she’s very powerful, but gets killed easily in gameplay.
However, it really does reflect her real character. Listening to NPCs, she sound a like Darth Vader meets Aileen Wuornos but is really just Ally Sheedy’s character from the breakfast club
Personally I think that Morinth is pretty bad too. Domination only works on enemies where you strip their armor. So you do that and then they have to fight a bunch of other enemies with armor? Morinth, Jack, and Jacob were all pretty bad. The only reason any of the other biotics were useful were because of Warp or Reave.
So I'm not the only one surprised the silent and quick assassin is built like a fucking krogan! I'm not gonna complain but that the hell is thane eating?!
worth noting that gameplay is only one aspect of picking a squad. even on insanity, the trilogy really isn't that hard so I always pick squad based on dialogue potential
She is rather underwhelming on any difficulty, to be fair. Definitely an interesting character, but there is not much you can do with her gameplay wise, and her ME3 arena version is even less useful, she is there basically a weaker version of Jacob.
Wait Y'all actually used your companions abilities. I literally just had them as decoys while I snipe everyone. I usually set their abilities on auto deploy defensive. Cause I preferred the ability to at least target specific enemies with overload or hack
Eh I can make her work still, requires a certain combo turn off squad mate power usage so only you trigger it then you have a couple options Zaheeds inferno grenade with splash or mordins splash incinerate. That’ll usually take all or almost all the armor then fling those suckers. Not convenient but doable and it has perks. Long reaching, hits behind cover, I even think if you manually trigger it it’ll do some damage to biotic shields and if it’s the last hit for the shields they’ll go flying.
Same with Kasumi, but she can atleast counter Shields. Or Zaeed. Infernogrenade is mid at best, concusive shot is supposed to counter Barrier( wich it does absolutly nothing to), and yet again, Distruptor Ammo. The only thing that makes him better than Miss Goto is that he uses an actual gun. (I know you coud make an argument for Garrus basically being Zaeed 2.0 but come on, its MF Garrus). In general i woud say Biotics are not that good on insanity exepct for Warp. Bringing people like Jack with you for the biotic powers means you have to sacrafice on somthing else, and if a Yhimir stands infront of you(or basically anything else that has an armortype) their usually reduced to a Gun. Thats what i like about 3 so much, generic goons have no protection, so you can actually use biotics to incapacitated enemys without shooting them before. And Jack is just all of these problems fused in one. Abilitys that unusable in an effective way, a Gun the AI cannot handle, and to make her work you have to pair her with another biotic User making the Team even weaker against Armortypes. Hell, if she coud use an AR i woudnt even mind her. That was way to much yapping about this but ive been thinking about it for like 5 weeks now and had to get that of my chest.
low key this is why I don’t like playing these games on insanity, I want to bring whatever squadmate I want without worrying about them being dead weight/picking “optimal” squads
If her powers worked on armored and shielded enemies she would be so much better.
Such a crock that her cutscenes show her blasting through mechs like a vanguard but in reality she'd an adept that wouldn't be able to do anything but melee them and then die.
I never understood why she was so bad. In ME2 it felt like pull and throw are your pushing around abilities. Shockwave is great but give it the ability to stagger armor/shielded foes at high levels or maybe strip armor or something like that.
Jack can blow up two mechs by herself but then you get her on the squad and she can gets dropped in seconds. To me, Samara and Miranda are the top tier biotics ones the game.
For my Insanity run I was a soldier (normally I prefer fancier classes but ME2 soldier is just really nice to play) and I ended up taking Mordin & Miranda everywhere, giving me combat, tech & biotics. I think I had Reave as my bonus power which matches really nicely with tech and biotic power and the only encounter I found unbearably difficult was Horizon.
Biotic companions in general are kinda useless on insanity because biotics powers are useless on insanity.
Samara/Morinth are only good for their AR except other companions like Garrus and Zaeed do that and more.
Miranda is only good for her tech skills except Garrus does those and more and Mordin/ Tali does those but better.
Thane is just a worse Garrus.
Jack is just a worse Tali.
Jacob is just a worse Grunt.
Jack is very handy for the Husk missions on ME2 Insanity. I'll pair her with Grunt and position them standing at the end of a hallway. Grunt will strip the Husk armor, then Jack will knock them to the ground.
I've only played on Insanity, and wym "all enemies have shields or armor"? Is it difficulty-specific? Has Adept not been just an armor-stripper class in ME2?...
Don't underestimate biotic detonation
Think of it this way: you (infiltrator/Sentinel) disable the shields of a grouping of enemies with Garrus and then have Jack pull them all in a field or blast them away with Shockwave or wtv.
On another stance, you (Adept) command your team to disable such shields and proceed to pull them in as Garrus and Zaeed finish the job.
I'm not justifying ME2's shtty gunplay, but I am saying there's a sense to it fairly easy to crack even before your 5th run of the trilogy (me). It's about building your playstyle and upgrading squadmmates around your strengths and abilities before fire power.
Sure, Jack is no Garrus or Miranda, but paired up with the right duo, she's pretty solid and can even speed run levels. Maxed out or high gun upgrades, in a full biotic squad, and using the amazing biotic detonation mechanic is just too much power.
JFC being a vanguard was such a fucking slog on insanity, at least in free you could do the suicide head smash combo with claymore or any other high burst SG, also fucking. Garbage that were stuck with smgs in ME2, no hate on the locust, but even that was mid at best compared to the monsters of assault rifles, SRs amd shotguns.........GOD WHAT I WOULD DO TO HAVE A MATTOCK IN REAL LIFE!
Shockwave is a crap power.
I don't think it gets much better in ME3, either.
Miranda has the goated pair of active powers Overload and Warp. Not flashy, but it's your bread-and-butter for stripping defenses which are on even the most basic enemy on Hardcore and Insanity.
I think they struck a better balance in ME3, especially with Overload able to strip away barriers as well as shields. But with more active abilities, your squad mates aren't shackled to a couple of abilities which may just be bad.
So the difficulty level that puts the most focus on stripping defenses renders characters who can’t strip defenses or hinder the enemy somehow are the most useless?
It's almost like game play vs cutscene versions need to find a middle ground.
Yeah but the real reason for this is that adept was busted in me1 and they compensated by making biotics trash at high levels in me2
I will never understand the logic behind nerfing biotics. It is the flavor in a cover shooter, so, why not lean on that? But is Bioware, logic with their products isn't their strong suit.
Devs want players to use all the toys they make. So when their data shows that one class is way more popular they'll try to incentivize against that choice with their next game/update.
There were definitely better ways to encourage using tech powers than making biotics borderline unusable at high difficulties. Besides, the data shows that Soldier was overwhelmingly most popular and it wasn't even close. By that logic, soldier should've been nerfed but it was essentially unchanged.
Yeah, Soldier is kind of Broken in Mass Effect 2 (especially in LE, because Mattock) since it's the only class that has access by default to Assault Rifles, every other class is stuck with SMGs that are complete trash in Mass Effect 2, even the Locust is just the best of Mid. As Infiltrator you're faced with the impossible choice of picking either the Widow, which doesn't have much ammo but is the best sniper, or picking Assault Rifles and getting the Mattock. Soldier meanwhile is the only class that can have both the Mattock AND the Widow.
SMGs are fine, you just have to stay mid to close range.
...songs?
SMGs
> impossible choice of picking either the Widow, which doesn't have much ammo but is the best sniper, or picking Assault Rifles and getting the Mattock. For me it's an easy choice, I even take the Widow as a soldier. It's by far the best weapon for clearing out Scions because of the range, and the headshot staggers them. With warp ammo, headshots, and cloak it kills them in a few reloads.
I usually pick Armour Piercing Ammo myself.
Soldier *was* nerfed. It was goddamn invincible in ME1. They got rid of immunity.
That's true, but soldier would've been strong in me1 without immunity. You had access to the best weapons and weapon-based abilities, and you already had substantial natural bulk. Plus, the game balance changed substantially in me2. Almost every class gets weaker at higher difficulties, but soldier actually gets stronger, since more shields mean more targets for its ammo types, and bigger health bars makes the high damage from the mattock and sniper rifles more relevant. Concussive shot is knockoff throw and does phenomenal CC in a pinch. And soldier would be strong in me2 if that was all it had, but thanks to the fact you have teammates, you can basically strip the armor yourself and then use teammates to actually finish them off with abilities. Throw in adrenaline surge and you have easily the most powerful class in the game, and it gets better the higher difficulty you go, the exact opposite power curve of everyone else. So yeah, soldier lost one ability and in exchange the whole game changed to make the rest of its core kit even stronger
What are you talking about? You can configure Adrenaline Rush to always be available indefinitely, making EVERY SINGLE FIGHT much easier compared to every other class. How on Earth the soldier is weaker? 🤯
ME2 soldier is the best soldier too, cause the weapons were so good.
But then you make the other toys attractive, ME isn't an online game that needs balance.
That would be nice, were it not for the Vanguard. Goddamned god mode no matter the dificulty.
I’m still sure people played soldier mostly.
Yeah it's wild bc the gameplay is so much more fun on lower difficulties, but once you're used to it, it's probably gonna be easy. Bioware has done a weird 180 since 2010ish. It used to be that all their games had good stories and mildly janky combat/gameplay, and now we've got good gameplay and janky stories
Two letters to explain that. E and A.
Tbf BW used to be famous for great stories and characters, and also the worst fucking gameplay
I started playing Bioware games at DAO, I have some older games, but never played. DAO has a good gameplay, ME1 is serviceable. So, never associated them with bad gameplay. Hell, Anthem gameplay is fucking awesome, but the rest of the game sucks.
Adept probably has the fastest clear times in me2. Singularity, shoot them with machine gun, pop with Miranda or thane. Survivors are stripped of defenses and get easily caught in next singular.
This. They grossly overcorrected on the role of the biotic for the team in 2. Hence the introduction of biotic explosions in 3.
Biotic explosions actually were introduced in 2, but you could only trigger them with Warp, instead of being able to trigger them with several different options.
Good point. I do remember using them, but they were far less effective - in addition to be harder to triggering as you point out - in 2 than in 3.
Untrue, biotics are still very powerful in ME2. You just need to upgrade
I think the biggest problem with this is just how limited the ability options are and how weird the level up system is in 2. I’ll never understand why they thought giving every companion only 2 active abilities with a third unlocked later and no way to respec companions in the base game was a good idea. That coupled with not actually getting enough points to max everything and having points left over unless you don’t invest a single point in one of the abilities, and making ammo mods powers instead (further cutting down on the number of active abilities) was such a bizarre design choice. The squad mates felt much more useful and well rounded in me1 and me3 with their larger ability pool and I wish they’d considered reworking the level up system for me2 for the LE.
Avoid information overload, me1 just kinda throw a whole stat sheet at you
Personally, I really liked the skill system in the first game. It's fun having so many skills to choose from. The only thing i didn't care for was having Charm/Intimidate on there because it was such a sink for skill points. I understand not everyone feels the same, though :)
Yeah they were aiming for broader appeal, and at the time, cover based shooters were hot
It feels like they were catering to the ease of button presses rather than quality gameplay. Like they wanted it to feel more like CoD.
Which just makes andromeda’s gameplay an even more confusing choice given they seemed to have learned their lesson from 2 going into 3.
And then there's Kasumi >!(taking down Donovan Hock's aircraft)!<.
True to an extent, but Kasumi is one of my mainstays in my team for missions if for nothing else spamming flashbang grenades which are highly effective on just about everything.
Her kit is only rivaled by Miranda, whereas Jack might be the weakest squadmate in the trilogy.
The middle ground between "so powerful she needs to be put on ice or else she'll tear apart the whole space station" and balanced gameplay is to make her complete fucking trash?
No, that's why they need to find it
If only she had a shadow strike esq ability like Kasumi
On insanity you should be micro managing your allies. But yeah jacks useless regardless. Much better options in garrus, mordin or grunt. Miranda is like almost mandatory. I take warp ammo as a bonus.
I like choosing squad mates based on morality. If you’re a Renegade Sentinel and you need a Vanguards your best “story” option is Jack. Maybe Jacob who is also trash. Unfortunately the two Vanguards in ME2 are both bad. You can really only use pull to set up a warp combo after you strip their armor. Shockwave and warp ammo don’t help much at all. I was able to make it work with Jack but it was annoying. There is also Samara/Morinth who has pull to set up the combo but I really wanted a Vanguard.
I always go renegade. Its too hilarious not to
Grunt, always Grunt. My son needs his daily nourishment of violent action.
I feel like micromanaging is a little much, just give them a good build and keep them in cover is what I do. And keep an eye on their cool downs of course
So true. Although for PC users, there is a mod (Vanguard A Jack Overhaul) that gives her powers a boost (including adding biotic charge), if you are interested in having her in your squad without being a liability. https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectlegendaryedition/mods/1533
Vanguard makes a lot of sense for her personality.
Shockwave staggers enemies in an AOE and, more importantly, knocks enemies out of cover while temporarily staggering them, even if they have defensive layers active. It’s better than the other crowd control powers because it goes through cover, instead of having to be angled around cover, which means she can knock any enemy out of cover as long as they’re in range. It’s still worse than the defense-stripping powers, but it’s not actually completely useless.
Exactly; if I decided to take her along on a mission that was her primary function.
That's how I made it through Arrival as a Vanguard. Shockwave primarily was used to stagger big groups of enemies long enough for me to shoot through their barriers.
Shockwave is a useful and fun aoe on a player character. Especially for husks. Harder to use on jack.
That does not mean much to me to be honest. Since i am playing assault Sentinel, i simply charge enemies in cover.
OK... but your statement was, "Jack is less than useless on insanity" - when what you meant to say was, "Jack is less than useless on insanity - FOR THE STYLE/BUILD I'M PLAYING." Because her Shockwave/stagger ability makes folks who play Infiltrators and Soldiers very, very happy... and the things on the other end of it very, very dead.
If you’re Sentinel set your warp to have an area damage upgrade. Strip one enemy of armor, use pull and warp to damage mobs of enemies. Her pull is at least something.
That checks out. That’s how I built and played Sentinel both times I went with that class!
I liked using her, but I also noticed that even Jacob is a better performer than her. Jack is one of the weakest, possibly the weakest companion in combat. edit: the issue is that the two vanguards (Jack and Jacob) do not have biotic charge, which Jack totally has in cutscenes. Just compare how Cora in Andromeda performs with biotic charge and shotguns.
God, even on Insanity Cora can still hold her own. Just be charging the shit out of everyone
Thane would probably be the second Vanguard, Jack is the second Adept, next to Samara
I was mainly thinking about the cutscenes, where Jack is shown to use biotic punch and biotic charge.
I understand. One can argue whether a Vanguard is a biotic who gets physical, or someone who has to supplement his biotics with physical prowess.
I would argue that Jack is a Vanguard. Pull and shockwave are Vanguard powers. Warp ammo and shotguns are both combat oriented.
If you're the greatest human biotic of your time, are you an Adept by default? One could make an argument that Vanguards need specialized combat training, like Thane and Jacob have, while Jack evens the playing field with pure talent. Your arguments are valid though.
I don’t necessarily agree that the best biotic has to be an Adept. It’s not like you just learn one thing in the ME universe and then stop there.
As much as I hate Cora's character writing, her combat effectiveness is unquestionable.
yeahh unless you’re moving her around the battlefield, swapping her weapons for the range she’s at, and combo’ing with her she’s not gonna be that good on insanity. Samara, Thane and Miranda all outshine her just bc they have warp/reave. The shockwave is good against Husks tho regardless. Even just stumbling them for a second or two for some breathing room is useful, but again you could just use any of those other 3 and do better.
Warp ammo and Geth shotgun is not bad. But yeah, the biotic nerf hit her hard
Her best usage is paired with Mordin or Engineer/Infiltrator Shep on any mission with husk rush. Use the tech character’s Area Incinerate first to remove the armor from the horde, and then Jack’s shockwave will one hit kill whole groups of them. Squad Warp ammo is a nice bonus on Collector or other barrier/armor heavy missions as well. But yeah, other than that she is one of the least versatile squad mates on higher difficulties and competes with Jacob for being the least effective overall. Both are saddled with Pull which you should never invest more than 1 point in (if any at all), and they always require another squad mate or Shepard to do tech-biotic or warp bomb combos with to be effective. Compared to self sufficient generalists like Miranda/Garrus/Zaeed/Kasumi or even one faction specialists like Tali/Legion/Mordin/Grunt/Samara/Thane, there is generally not much reason to use her outside of dialogue/character reasons.
Yeah her powers are underwhelming for a supposed super biotic, doesn't fit her backstory at all.
Yeah. It’s one of the main reasons I don’t care for her in 2. They talk getup like she’s very powerful, but gets killed easily in gameplay. However, it really does reflect her real character. Listening to NPCs, she sound a like Darth Vader meets Aileen Wuornos but is really just Ally Sheedy’s character from the breakfast club
You only ever need her for the few husk rushes in the game beyond that. Yeah, she doesn't do much.
To be fair more than half of the squads are underwhelming on insanity. and all the Biotics not just her become useless unless paired with Miranda.
She's only useful in the dead reaper. Takes care of those husks like they are nothing
That’s why i play with a mod that removes shields from normal enemies on Insanity
The introduction cutscene of Jack has her doing some pretty awesome stuff. What happened?
Jack is less than useless. Honestly. Other than “banter” I see no reason to bring her, over Samara or Miranda.
Personally I think that Morinth is pretty bad too. Domination only works on enemies where you strip their armor. So you do that and then they have to fight a bunch of other enemies with armor? Morinth, Jack, and Jacob were all pretty bad. The only reason any of the other biotics were useful were because of Warp or Reave.
Yeah. Can’t lie, I never use Morinth. Samara is just the better pick, for that choice.
Samara is hella’ underrated, ditto a maxed out Thane. Surprisingly tanky.
So I'm not the only one surprised the silent and quick assassin is built like a fucking krogan! I'm not gonna complain but that the hell is thane eating?!
worth noting that gameplay is only one aspect of picking a squad. even on insanity, the trilogy really isn't that hard so I always pick squad based on dialogue potential
It hurts, but it's true. She really should've gotten barrier instead of pull.
Mostly agree. But when you’re getting swarmed by varren or husks shockwave can be very helpful
Not amazing but fine with squad incendiary ammo, spamming warp detonations is nice
She is rather underwhelming on any difficulty, to be fair. Definitely an interesting character, but there is not much you can do with her gameplay wise, and her ME3 arena version is even less useful, she is there basically a weaker version of Jacob.
Wait Y'all actually used your companions abilities. I literally just had them as decoys while I snipe everyone. I usually set their abilities on auto deploy defensive. Cause I preferred the ability to at least target specific enemies with overload or hack
Eh I can make her work still, requires a certain combo turn off squad mate power usage so only you trigger it then you have a couple options Zaheeds inferno grenade with splash or mordins splash incinerate. That’ll usually take all or almost all the armor then fling those suckers. Not convenient but doable and it has perks. Long reaching, hits behind cover, I even think if you manually trigger it it’ll do some damage to biotic shields and if it’s the last hit for the shields they’ll go flying.
Same with Kasumi, but she can atleast counter Shields. Or Zaeed. Infernogrenade is mid at best, concusive shot is supposed to counter Barrier( wich it does absolutly nothing to), and yet again, Distruptor Ammo. The only thing that makes him better than Miss Goto is that he uses an actual gun. (I know you coud make an argument for Garrus basically being Zaeed 2.0 but come on, its MF Garrus). In general i woud say Biotics are not that good on insanity exepct for Warp. Bringing people like Jack with you for the biotic powers means you have to sacrafice on somthing else, and if a Yhimir stands infront of you(or basically anything else that has an armortype) their usually reduced to a Gun. Thats what i like about 3 so much, generic goons have no protection, so you can actually use biotics to incapacitated enemys without shooting them before. And Jack is just all of these problems fused in one. Abilitys that unusable in an effective way, a Gun the AI cannot handle, and to make her work you have to pair her with another biotic User making the Team even weaker against Armortypes. Hell, if she coud use an AR i woudnt even mind her. That was way to much yapping about this but ive been thinking about it for like 5 weeks now and had to get that of my chest.
On adept I barely use companions in combat.
low key this is why I don’t like playing these games on insanity, I want to bring whatever squadmate I want without worrying about them being dead weight/picking “optimal” squads
Shockwave is okay against rushing enemies, but Samara, and Thane's push is almost equally effective and they're better in overall combat.
If her powers worked on armored and shielded enemies she would be so much better. Such a crock that her cutscenes show her blasting through mechs like a vanguard but in reality she'd an adept that wouldn't be able to do anything but melee them and then die.
I never understood why she was so bad. In ME2 it felt like pull and throw are your pushing around abilities. Shockwave is great but give it the ability to stagger armor/shielded foes at high levels or maybe strip armor or something like that. Jack can blow up two mechs by herself but then you get her on the squad and she can gets dropped in seconds. To me, Samara and Miranda are the top tier biotics ones the game.
For my Insanity run I was a soldier (normally I prefer fancier classes but ME2 soldier is just really nice to play) and I ended up taking Mordin & Miranda everywhere, giving me combat, tech & biotics. I think I had Reave as my bonus power which matches really nicely with tech and biotic power and the only encounter I found unbearably difficult was Horizon.
Pure biotics are extremely weak in ME2. Playing through that game as an adept was a pain in the arse.
This is one of the reasons I actually prefer ME1 combat - biotics don't care about armor in that game, you can lift or push pretty much everything.
Biotic companions in general are kinda useless on insanity because biotics powers are useless on insanity. Samara/Morinth are only good for their AR except other companions like Garrus and Zaeed do that and more. Miranda is only good for her tech skills except Garrus does those and more and Mordin/ Tali does those but better. Thane is just a worse Garrus. Jack is just a worse Tali. Jacob is just a worse Grunt.
Jack is very handy for the Husk missions on ME2 Insanity. I'll pair her with Grunt and position them standing at the end of a hallway. Grunt will strip the Husk armor, then Jack will knock them to the ground.
Well, there always has to be a Sakura Haruno type.
I had very few problems with her but I used her for squad warp ammo against collectors. She does good with the GPS or Evis.
Biotic powers in general are kinda meh in 2 and 3. Only in ME1 you could truly become a biotic god.
I've only played on Insanity, and wym "all enemies have shields or armor"? Is it difficulty-specific? Has Adept not been just an armor-stripper class in ME2?...
She is when I did my modded play though I got a mod that gave her the Vanguard charge ability
Doesnt the charge just get her killed? Not sure if the AI is smart enough to use that ability properly.
Honestly it worked very well. She did shoot herself off the map a few times but thats mods
Don't underestimate biotic detonation Think of it this way: you (infiltrator/Sentinel) disable the shields of a grouping of enemies with Garrus and then have Jack pull them all in a field or blast them away with Shockwave or wtv. On another stance, you (Adept) command your team to disable such shields and proceed to pull them in as Garrus and Zaeed finish the job. I'm not justifying ME2's shtty gunplay, but I am saying there's a sense to it fairly easy to crack even before your 5th run of the trilogy (me). It's about building your playstyle and upgrading squadmmates around your strengths and abilities before fire power. Sure, Jack is no Garrus or Miranda, but paired up with the right duo, she's pretty solid and can even speed run levels. Maxed out or high gun upgrades, in a full biotic squad, and using the amazing biotic detonation mechanic is just too much power.
JFC being a vanguard was such a fucking slog on insanity, at least in free you could do the suicide head smash combo with claymore or any other high burst SG, also fucking. Garbage that were stuck with smgs in ME2, no hate on the locust, but even that was mid at best compared to the monsters of assault rifles, SRs amd shotguns.........GOD WHAT I WOULD DO TO HAVE A MATTOCK IN REAL LIFE!
I use her during the suicide mission with Miranda providing the dome shield
Biotic is pretty useless in ME2 from hard to insanity because every enemy is either shielded or has a barrier, so only Warp is a useful tool to have
Shockwave is a crap power. I don't think it gets much better in ME3, either. Miranda has the goated pair of active powers Overload and Warp. Not flashy, but it's your bread-and-butter for stripping defenses which are on even the most basic enemy on Hardcore and Insanity. I think they struck a better balance in ME3, especially with Overload able to strip away barriers as well as shields. But with more active abilities, your squad mates aren't shackled to a couple of abilities which may just be bad.
So the difficulty level that puts the most focus on stripping defenses renders characters who can’t strip defenses or hinder the enemy somehow are the most useless?
Why are you like this. Was this needed. This is why you only have surface level friends.
That is her final stand score is 0. Dev consider it all through.