I call it "The Commando"
I maxed Overload damage/shield removal, Tech Armor for more buff, Fitness for more buff and Turian Agent for weapon damage/stability and put only 3 points in Warp so I can combo on Phantom Barriers. The Mattock is the second lightest AR so I have 166% recharge speed which is enough to remove all the shields on an incoming wave in Silver without falling behind.

Edit: Your build? Looking for something different and might try the SMG/sentiwizard build.

Max out overload and warp for the lowest recharge time/fastest power damage possible, make sure to get chain overload and neural shock overload, and then spec your tech armor to boost the damage of your power and reduce the recharge penalty. Leave fitness and agent alone.

__________________

On this subject, do you guys know any good Vanguard builds? I'm stuck with a human female for the time being and I'm not entirely sure what I should be focusing on.

__________________
"Belief can change worlds and change lives but it can also make us blind."

Ignore shockwave. Max out charge first and then spec for melee damage from Alliance Training. Put remaining points into nova.

__________________

Drell are pretty bad anyway, at least for the IN YOUR FACE Vanguard playstyle.
Max Charge (choose for 4 whatever you want, EDIT: Power Synergy for 5 Barrier for 6), Fitness (always pick shields) and Nova, use a Pistol for max recharge (and never use it ), dash around and Nova the fuck out of everything.

Don't use pistols, use a shotgun. There's a bit more recharge but it's really negligible.

I once saw a vanguard with a sniper rifle. I wanted to slap his shit. But he was speaking Russian so he couldn't understand me telling him how bad a player he was.

__________________

Thanks both of you. One other thing, should I only be using shotguns and no other weapons? I know less weapons = more recharge but I wasn't sure how much this mattered for vanguards.

I almost became of those people. It's hard for me because I'm a sniper at heart. In every other shooting game I've played since I started playing them, I've always been content finding a cozy spot and picking people off. But I know it's completely counter productive to the playing style so I must resist the urge.

__________________
"Belief can change worlds and change lives but it can also make us blind."

Don't remind me. I had a match with 4 biotics (me Sentinel, Drell Manguard, Human Adept and Human Sentinel) and they ALL had sniper rifles an AR and barely ever used any of their powers.
Seeing the Drell going full auto on a Guardian's shield made me lose faith in humanity.

Use only the shotgun. I prefer the Scimitar, the Claymore is a powerhose but unforgiving if you miss.
I still prefer pistols because they more accurate, so you can deliver a headshot (shotguns are pretty OP though) when in need and, yeah, as much reduction as possible. Since Nova damage depends on your shield and Charge refills your shield, max reduction means more Charges which means more Novas.

Only a shotgun. If you have it right you should only have a 1 or so second recharge for charge and you should ALWAYS BE CHARGING.

__________________

__________________

Always a classic. Personally, I prefer Sovereign being wildly inappropriate.

On an unrelated, off-topic note, I'm honored to finally have been quoted in someone's signature.

__________________

O jessie how I miss thee


Also ME2 gets CSI`d

__________________

SURPRISE!

I haven't seen that before, but I lol'd.

Reminded me of this:

__________________

You know Mark, I only just realised that's Zaeed Massani in your avatar.

__________________

It's a cunning disguise that puts Sailor Moon to shame.

__________________

I don't know why that made me laugh so hard.

__________________
"Belief can change worlds and change lives but it can also make us blind."

Team rocket taught us all!

__________________

BACK THE FUCK UP, PEOPLE, NEW INFO ABOUT THE ENDINGS:

http://pastebin.com/dUiLznSD

The author of this went on to clarify that "no matter what, the Normandy is pulled through the Charon Relay as it is destroyed and is stranded, along with your squadmates, on a moon somewhere that can conveniently support life, where it appears they create a new colony. This implies Tali and Garrus starve to death unless you take the merger ending, who knows, BW sure didn't think this through. Or it's all lies, but there are people in the SA thread who also talk about this happening."

All mass effect technology is destroyed, no matter what ending.

Proof: http://i.imgur.com/PFWFR.jpg

>implying that merging with the reapers doesn't give you their knowledge and the ability to make new relays


NICE TRY B-DUBS



But seriously, I think that's... not a bad ending. The amount of people bitching about the BSN because they don't get a happy ending with their waifu can suck it.

__________________

Besides the fact that Liara is basically the "default" ME romance, it sort of makes sense for her to be in the flashback if you don't romance Ashley or Kaidan because she is the one responsible for bringing Shepard back to life.

Only thing I would argue is that Anderson was just as important in Shepard's life as Hackett but eh.

__________________
"Belief can change worlds and change lives but it can also make us blind."

How is Liara the "default"?

She's xeno scum.



I mean even in my paragon playthrough where my shep has no problem with aliens, he draws the line at fucking them.

__________________

It kind of sucks how the ME2 and 3 LI's don't get reference at the end of the game, but well, Liara is mine, so it doesn't really matter to me.

I'm going to see how the end game plays out before making my choice. Ideally I want the Reapers destroyed, but I don't want to do it if it results in that technological apocalypse bullshit. The merger ending seems kind of 'meh' since no-one seems to get a choice.

I mean don't get me wrong, it's great moral ambiguity. It's just...yeah, it's morally ambiguous.

Plus it's going to fuck up the canon royally when they decide to continue the series.

__________________

The only part I'm really mad about is the Mass Relays is the mass relays exploding NO MATTER WHAT. The price of saving galactic civilization is... destroying galactic civilization. The fuck?
Yeah, I'd definitely agree that if you played a romanceless Shepard Liara makes the most sense. But not having a flashback for people who ramanced ME2 characters, or Traynor or Cortez, is really shitty on Bioware's part.

Apparently the guy went back and said he actually meant Anderson - which makes a lot more sense than Hackett, considering he was your mentor. Though there's a lot of confusion about this, I dunno wth is going on.

That makes much more sense.

Joker makes sense too.

But yeah, it still sucks about the romances.

There must be some kind of catch or silver lining to this. Mainly because as I said about the canon, from a narrative standpoint not only are they destroying the most iconic sci-fi element of Mass Effect itself, they're shutting themselves off from future installments.

Unless said installments involve galactic civilization trying to rebuild the Mass Relays and restore galactic travel routes.

__________________