Fun fact, The Vakarsh burn damage triggers the Shield regeneration from the Vanguard Profile, resulting in a Healing per second effect when attacking unshielded targets with it while the Vanguard profile is set. since fire works on armored targets, it also works on them. I learned about this on a random forum search, and have since tried it myself and been making occasional use of it for roughly a week. unknown if its developer intended behavior currently. but the effect is roughly as strong as the duration restoration from energy drain. its enough to trigger infinite use of "shield cost" morphed skills. it makes it very very good with vanguard particularly since it also primes, using charge as a detonator. since its Ultra-Rare, a max of 5 augments, its almost a direct upgrade on the Gold version for vanguards. i tried a build with 5 Combo damage boosters on a melee weapon and a AR. +50% on Biotic Combos with various builds and skills to combo constantly in succession results in massive damage to groups..
Another thing of note; Cryo Beam's Snap Freeze augmentation works passively on all frozen targets. Meaning, if you use other methods besides Cryo Beam to freeze enemies, you still benefit from Snap Freeze's effect. Popsicle's everywhere!
I prefer the Biotic Amplifier on my Vanguard simply for style points. You're melees already restore shields. The high speed of the Amplifier is also quite nice as you do more hits which means you restore more shields.
Imagine if they made a true melee class. Envision having a surging omniblade in each hand and melee attacks had fast combos sort of like mass effect 3 chained melee attacks.
Thank you, Xaine! Yours are the best MEA weapon and armour guides out there. Exhaustive, sincere and with loads of visual demonstrations. I was planning on testing out many combinations myself but many of the weapon fire mods disappointed me greatly and I gave up before even starting. You are saving us so much time and trouble with these. Not to mention that your views on the pros and cons of all items are 100% spot on. Here's hoping that someone from BioWare's dev team comes across your analyses and gets inspired to improve and expand what we already have in game.
I should just let you know, I'm workshopping a really cool build. I don't know when it will be complete, but you've made it much easier to decide which melee weapon the build will use.
This has been may favorite, I love the way you broke it down to how they could help various build and you've given me quite a bit to think on for my Insanity playthrough build...something tells me the oh shit button is gonna get a little worn out...
Thanks for the video. Learnt a couple of vital new info which I have not discovered about of melee weapons even after re-playing the nth time. For instance, I never knew the unique abilities of the biotic amplifier and that electric (angaran) dagger.
I ran with a rank 2 cryo gauntlet for the longest time personally, Its SPRINT attack is infact incredibly fast vs its stand still punch. These 4/5 augment slots also allow you to stat a spec a profile which would otherwise lack any buff at all (Tech users can easily obtain massive recharge speed, but almost never damage bonus, biotic users ever worse, one profile giving recharge speed on a melee build, the pure biotic gets NO direct damage bonuses, and the explorer having the biggest biotic damage bonus but nothing else)
I play VG and use the Asari Sword. I prefer to have more alpha than sustained DPS. And those invuln frames have saved me so many times. Plus TP to enemy for when charge is on CD, 5 augments and badass looks.
Also, not confirmed and I need to do some testing to check but I believe that jump melee damage is calculated from normal melee damage, in which case having a high alpha damage over high DPS is a distinct advantage which, due to the speed of jump melee, negates the DPS advantage of something like the Angaran Firaan except against single targets.
Yeah, I see what you're saying. I prefer straight impact damage over DPS too. I originally used the sword simply because I loved the animation for it. It felt more VG than even the krogan hammer to me. Now I'm inseparable with it. I mean you can practically just teleport to even the floor above/ below you and hit an unsuspecting enemy. How much more ninja can it get? tbh, playing as a CG in ME:A makes me feel more like a jedi than any other game I've played...
wayne Jacobs IKR, I use charge, backlash and throw as my active skills and specced full melee. When it comes to a game that makes you feel like a Jedi, I'm so excited for Respawn's Star Wars game. I'm hoping for Titanfall mixed with For Honour with lightsabers but that'll never happen.
Yeah that would be an amazing game, I'd eat all of that up! lol Unfortunately I believe you're right and it won't ever happen. I'm currently trying to get literally ANY info on the upcoming Star Wars games, and here's hoping they do a lot better of a job at lightsaber combat than EA SW Battlefront. They were too focused to blaster combat which is nice, but usually the point of playing Star Wars is for the lightsaber and force combat.
Thank you so much for doing these! After watching this, it feels like the melee weapons are the only things that feel truly unique... I think I might have nostalgia goggles but there are so many weapons I miss from ME:3... Punisher & Saber being my favorites. Really hope whatever DLC comes out brings new weapons and augments.
+Le Draq Glad they're helping and we still don't have all that were aimed for launch not all augs anyway, we were supposed to have automatic and semi auto augs and such but they're bugged so not appearing in game
I'm so happy to know that the Fextralife wiki wasn't lying, I've been searching for those mods wondering where they were because I think that'll add tremendous variety to crafting and weapons and more incentive to experiment with what's already been provided. Happy to know they should be coming... I also remember the punisher being shown as a placeholder much like the X-5 Ghost in the original augmentation video so it had gotten my hopes up initially.
2 things, of coarse the melee weapon is dependent upon your build and play style. I personally use the charge Biotic Ability that teleports me stright to an enemy and I combo that with a shot gun. I complete regenerate my shield due to the charge final talent. To add to that I also have Can heal myself with the shield drain Tech ability. Teleport, Shotgun enemy in the face until shield is gone, cryo gauntlet to knock them down, Drain to detonate and recover. Very powerful combo and makes it amazing to use with the Piranha Shotgun. Even on Insanity difficulty. The other thing I wanted to mention is the special attachments Augmentations you can give to the leg armor that alter your melee effect. For me I use the Cryo Gauntlet. I also have a special augmentation on my legs that allow my jump melee to also cause an AOE Cryo Blast. There are other Effects that can combo with some other melees to make their talents better as well. Just something to consider with your play style.
+Dark Saint I did actually watch some of you livestream the other day, you were talking about the cryo gauntlet etc, I was in bed about the go to sleep at the time so I still need to finish it hehe
Xaine's World i gave you a shout out at the end of it. I hate doing live stream videos. not the best quality and I feel like crap doing them because I know i miss things, studder, and carry on to much. If I had more time, I would do quality videos... Maybe in the future
+Dark Saint I definitely need to finish it then hehe :) and thank you :) And I feel the same when trying to explain things etc in livestream, its more difficult to keep thoughts collected than it looks. Assume you have a capture card for the PS4 then?
Xaine's World Negative. I only ever used Share Factory. I've become pretty good with it. I know I could do more with a graphics card and a video editing software, but 1: I don't know how to set it up. and 2: I wouldn't know where to start. and 3, don't have the time or resources to invest into it... yet.
+Dark Saint aaah , I don't know what I'm doing with PS4, I have one, just never play it haha, Can be quite an investment to if you not even sure things will be worth doing etc.
i had to laugh on the "Oh shit!" classification. that really fits for that two weapons ^^ But if you want to play on insanity meelee, than the only weapon is the Firaan. Because the Rank 6 passive in combat tools that gives you a stacking dmg bonus on meelee hits. A huge boost and build up quick by its short animation. With that i charge a hydra and than just meelee it down with a few slashes. if you build everything around this weapon its DPS is insane.
am running Asari Sword on insanity with no issues. feels more like normal than insanity in fact. charge plus one sword swing kills all unshielded targets so far. to remove shields, I have a Hurricane with electrical conduits.
Asari sword makes you pretty much invulnerable. I had a sniper build but noticed that there is a melee kill achievement so I went to Kett camps northwest of Eos and I could slaughter them with pretty much no damage received. (Although my Cora and PeeBee did probably most of the damage there 😂)
I wish I'd seen this sooner. I switched back to Omni-blade from Krogan hammer because I didn't like how slow it was (since I was using melee between shotgun shots to get benefit from the rank 6 shotgun perk), but I really should have been using the Knife.
you can use bio converter with the kett sword that heal you combine with a high dps shot gun, and perk/biotic that boost gun+ melee there is a combat perk that if you switch between shot gun and melee you get boost 30% total damage on those weapons.
The bio amp also sends an enemy flying when they die (at higher levels) turning them into a projectile weapon. Also being as fast as it is for as damaging as it is it makes the Vanguard heal on hit so good that it essentially makes you unkillable
I've found that, for a lance vanguard build, on which lance removes sheald and you're charging into enemies every other second. also anahilation id active do there are slready combos detonating left and right. the ket karfalon is the eay to go.
You definitely answered my question, I didn't know the biotic amplifier employed a stagger, does it do that if I take down a shield? If so that means it would be pretty useful for me against the destined, annointed etc. Also def will switch to the angarann firan for that speed that I asked you about, will up my already crazy survivability, hardcore has gotten pretty easy at this point might switch the difficulty to insane with this.
excellent! and I believe it stagger red bars yes, so once the shield is gone, it should take effect, though I'm uncertain if it's 100% chance. I wanted to find your comment and link the vid for the speed query but couldn't find it, I couldn't remember your avatar and there's a few hundred comments since then :(, glad you saw the notification though :)
I tried using the biotic amplifier on hardcore, and they just shot me while I repeatedly punched them in the face. They won. Personally I wouldn't recommend it lol
I definitely don't reccomend Asari sword for Vanguard. When you're on top of enemies all the time, when they move and you lose target you'll end up blinking and swinging at nothing. At higher levels, you have to watch out about weapon force. I used the bio amplifier and found that after I'd Charge and punch, I'd often punch enemies out of melee range. I was wary about the Firaans because of their low damage number, but I may have to give them a shot after seeing your DPS calcs. Thanks!
Melee damage buffs have a set duration, so having a fast weapon that can get in lots of attacks is just as valid as a slow weapon with high damage so long as the overall dps is similar.
My current Insanity build is a Sentinel with Incinerate, Charge, and Cloak. What melee weapon do you recommend? I like to whack enemies with my melee weapon alot, I use the humble Omni Blade because it has pretty decent DPS, much more comfortable to use than the Krogan Hammer for example.
I like stacking five Reaction Optimizers for an extra 25% combo damage. As long as you're working combos, it doesn't matter which power types you're using.
I've just been using the cryo gauntlet - slow AF. pretty low damage too. freezing melee ranged enemies for 5-10 sec is useful as - though I haven't tried out the other elemental melee weaps. tech powers / combo build so elemental primers are my go. The Asari blade looks amazing for a close quarters combat build! would love to have it in multiplayer >< comps been dead so haven't been on in a while, can't recall the names of powers that I haven't yet played around with. Good work on the augment tips - can't have fellow Pathfinders missing out on those passive buffs.
nice, just what i needed :D (i plan on doing an assasin, melee only (will still use powers) build in my next playthrough) i think the asari sword would be best for that
I have only gotten Vakarsh to prime a target for a fire combo once. I can't figure out the circumstances that allow it to successfully prime (all my tests were done with the Auxiliary Powers Priming evolution, too). Do you have to strike your targets 2-3 times to prime them? Or do you need to wait a certain amount of time after the first strike? The prime rate is so low that it seems completely unreliable for detonations. Mooks are dead before you can detonate for repeated strikes, and tough armored foes require too many hits for it to be safe. Honestly, it feels broken.
+TheAnalystTherapist I believe it's not 100% unless you have the tech skill Priming in auxillary systems (increases rate of priming for consumables and weapons). Was a viewer who confirmed that the Vakarsh primes, will have to try and find for more info
I definitely tried it with the Priming evolution and I can confirm that it definitely does not prime on single strikes. If it does, it appears to do it so very infrequently (less than 10% I'd say). The only time I ever noticed a Fire Explosion after a Varkash strike was after multiple strikes on an armored target, but I can't be certain what caused it.
Thanks for this; certainly one area I have overlooked myself. Augment slots were mentioned for one weapon, but perhaps not the others. As one that simply uses a basic Omni-tool for the extra slots, which weapons offer more? And Thanks again for this series :)
aah, during the showcase the augment slots were on the bottom of the screen so thought was covered :) it's the usual as far as weapons go, angaran firaan 2, asari sword 4, biotic amplifier 2, electric firaan 3, kett carfalon 3, kett vakarsh 4, krogan hammer 3, Omni-blade 2, remnant cryo-gauntlet 4. It shows an extra for each in the video, that's because I have the cryo perk, which is why there's a blue 'C' in it, to denote it's existence.
ooh btw, have you ever noticed anything off with the subs? I write them all, then go through grammarly etc, but the automatic transcriber on youtube is what times it all to my speech, and with the vids being so long as the amount of checking I already do, I no longer double check the timing. I expect it's fine, but if you've ever noticed anything it would be good to know.
Weapons offer a number of slots based on the 'rarity' of their specs, with Ultra Rare being the highest. From a quick look, that's the Kett Vakash, Asari Sword, and Remnant Cryogauntlet, each with 4 slots. There's also a Cryo Pod Perk that grants +1 Augment slots deep in the research tree.
Lol, seems like melee has the highest number of viable weapons as a class. Judging by the comments under the video it really is so. Isn't the special ability of omni-blade increase of damage from drop attack as no matter what melee weapon you use, your character will use omni-blade for this attack? Meaning that either they use damage stat of default version or damage of current weapon and I'm wrong then(but it's not using special effects either, right?)
not completely usre on this. My logic was that as it's a weapon you just start off with (similar to the M-3 Predator Pistol) they just made it kinda useless in comparison to give a reason to make other weapons.
A-sword (rating) 1: Weapon Damage 2: All Combo Damage (combo damage has a higher ceiling) 3: Tree Power Damage 4: Power Recharge No other option is really necessary. Also if only using as a buff stick, only get rank 2.
useful for definite, it's lower damage is just a balance for the stun and potential prime, but invulnerable to a degree, it's only against that one you are fighting, I always find I only get in trouble when I have more than I expect firing on me at once. But I don't play Vanguard so I have no idea what it's like as far as defense etc there
aaah, so the stun prevent the closest from hitting you which would stagger you preventing you from regening as you can't hit for x amount of time? aaah ok, thank you for explaining :)
I was thinking of melee as more of a status effect application device. With that in mind, is the electric firaan worth it for just its unique ability to apply its status effect through shields, or does the cryo gauntlet really just pull ahead because of its aug slots?
Between the Electric Firaan and Cryo-Gauntlet it's mainly speed, if you prefer a very quick wep go for the E Firaan, but I think the Cryo has a slight edge on red bars and it primes on all targets. Using the cryo to quickly take a red bar out of action on insanity could prove useful, hitting upto 3 while they are all still frozen and primed could then bet detonated at once with a powerful aoe. The augment thing comes down to use, if you use your melee weapon a fair amount then the unique ability it has is more useful, but otherwise the augments can give a constant flat increase and 3-5% is better than it sounds
I was thinking of a case like Charge + melee to prime + detonator/Charge again for combo detonation. are there cases where the E Firaan cannot prime an enemy for tech combos?
Not that I know of, the weapons should prime everything if they have that function, the E firaan just has shielded folk as an extra damage thing I believe.
Okay, thanks! The reason I'm asking is because I'm deciding where to best sink my research points into. Given that the cryo-gauntlet and E Firaan deal the lowest damage out of the bunch, I figured one could just research them up to their rank 2 versions just to open up aug slots, and just use them as primers for close-range detonator builds.
Not sure if it's just me, but the asari sword animation is kind of glitchy: it'll sometime miss an enemy at point blank because it jumps you back then forward, at which point, they moved!
+MrPetoria33 yes it can be a bit annoying with its teleport at point blank, why I'd advise mainly for non-vanguard types, though at least you still get the slight invulnerability so it's not too damaging, just ruin the flow a bit
+Dragonic Dude if you pay close attention you can make very good use of you companions priming and such. Need to build them specifically for that ofc, a companion guide is in the works, don't have enough info to fully explain atm
Nice since this information isn't really easy to find or grasp. Gonna go with the Firaan probably, and the Krogan hammer sounds interesting aswell. But I didn't like the Asari Sword at all.
If I find my Infiltrator in melee range and no ammo in the gun, or if the enemy is just stupidly low health then why waste a power or bullet. Instead use the super quick melee Firaan. That's my thinking.
Maybe, but, tbh, there's not much to say on them, the nexus has all you need, the kadara better prices one doesn't give much now and the only other one of note is the weapon merchant in kadara port offering the halberd which becomes a bad weapon past a certain level.
Wouldn't the Electric Firaan be ideal for a Vanguard as well? It's fast and it stuns, allowing you to basically teleport around the battlefield hard-CC'ing everything you smack. The low dps doesn't matter so much when you're stunning everything. Might be better on a tanky sentinel build as an emergency weapon too.
hey guys, i could use some help on this game, and this place feels like right place to ask. So: im soon starting my second playthrough and feeling like going for specific build, but cant pick one. one build im thinking is maximized damage soldier build that abuses the shit out of bio-converter shotgun. another one is pure engineer build with pistol that is purely for entertainment(maybe carnifex because mass effect or scorpion because lulz) and focus on team support. the last one that im thinking is super tanky sentinel build with high survivability and equipped pistol for covering power usage. The soldier im hesitating because i dont know how to get intresting powers in combat build. Engineer could be nicebut i dont know if i can bother hanging back and letting other people and constructs do my fighting. sentinel would be nice but im afraid it'll turn out just another minmaxed biotic user and someday i need to do something else than be vanguard/biotic in ME. mainly i want a build optimized to do one strategy, and that uses lightweight high damage cqb-guns. I'd really appreciate any comment or suggestion that helps me decide ^^
If you've already gone down the min/max biotic route, go for soldier or tech to guarantee that you'll try different abilities. My personal favorite is Cloak from Tech. It made the last mission a cakewalk on normal difficulty - it lets you nope your way out of any situation even if their is no cover at all. The only soldier ability I'd recommend is Turbocharge since it doesn't rely on charges, stacks with Cloak, and works on many guns. My next character will go the Soldier route because having 4 OP weapons at once sounds awesome :) Pure ability builds get a little spammy, so I want to tech a break from those - not to mention repeatedly trying out a new skill set is a LOT more expensive than trying out a new gun!
I dont mind spammy builds, as it would be intresting to try to fight with mainly abilities. I have never been fan of cloak. There isnt that much stealth aspect in ME and having it as plain damage buff for one shot is quite meh.
You can do so much more with Tactical Cloak than just single shot damage buff, especially with cqc builds. The ability to move around the battlefield unseen is just so invaluable. You can use it to flank, escape, reposition, gap close, even confuse AI... Cloak has to be one of my favorite Mass Effect powers, along with Biotic Charge. It's just so...versatile.
+Val agreed, Not certain if I did at the time of the above comments, but my main skirmish build involves tactical cloak but to use for shield and health regeneration on a wildly bio-converter based build. Makes architects a breeze to.
+timeforsuchaword I've had confirmation they do from other viewers but it's a very low chance, you can raise the chance with certain skill a little but never 100%
I stand corrected. After an hour of nothing but melee with the priming skill and the electric firaan I finally managed to get one proc (on an armored raptor of all things). So it does prime, but the chance is either absurdly low (on insanity, could scale with difficulty) or there's some condition to it that I just happened to finally trigger.
Nah what i mean is that weapons do not get equal upgrades each tier. This was mentioned to other people providing guides. I doubt it really effect your rating that much. it's just more of a factor. The endpoint of the weapon could vastly differ.
Fun fact, The Vakarsh burn damage triggers the Shield regeneration from the Vanguard Profile, resulting in a Healing per second effect when attacking unshielded targets with it while the Vanguard profile is set. since fire works on armored targets, it also works on them.
I learned about this on a random forum search, and have since tried it myself and been making occasional use of it for roughly a week. unknown if its developer intended behavior currently. but the effect is roughly as strong as the duration restoration from energy drain. its enough to trigger infinite use of "shield cost" morphed skills.
it makes it very very good with vanguard particularly since it also primes, using charge as a detonator. since its Ultra-Rare, a max of 5 augments, its almost a direct upgrade on the Gold version for vanguards.
i tried a build with 5 Combo damage boosters on a melee weapon and a AR. +50% on Biotic Combos with various builds and skills to combo constantly in succession results in massive damage to groups..
Very nice info dude thank you.
And happy to see you in the stream earlier :)
I like keeping this and putting shock damage on my jump attack. Let's my Vanguard cover all bases in melee.
Another thing of note; Cryo Beam's Snap Freeze augmentation works passively on all frozen targets. Meaning, if you use other methods besides Cryo Beam to freeze enemies, you still benefit from Snap Freeze's effect. Popsicle's everywhere!
Excellent video. Covered a specific question perfectly. Thanks
The Asari Sword lock on and reach can't be oversestimated...
I prefer the Biotic Amplifier on my Vanguard simply for style points. You're melees already restore shields. The high speed of the Amplifier is also quite nice as you do more hits which means you restore more shields.
Imagine if they made a true melee class. Envision having a surging omniblade in each hand and melee attacks had fast combos sort of like mass effect 3 chained melee attacks.
Thank you, Xaine!
Yours are the best MEA weapon and armour guides out there. Exhaustive, sincere and with loads of visual demonstrations.
I was planning on testing out many combinations myself but many of the weapon fire mods disappointed me greatly and I gave up before even starting.
You are saving us so much time and trouble with these. Not to mention that your views on the pros and cons of all items are 100% spot on.
Here's hoping that someone from BioWare's dev team comes across your analyses and gets inspired to improve and expand what we already have in game.
Awesome video as usual. Thanks for making all these informative MEA vids!
+N7 Amazin nws my good man :)
I should just let you know, I'm workshopping a really cool build. I don't know when it will be complete, but you've made it much easier to decide which melee weapon the build will use.
+Captain Lackwit awesome! Glad I could be of service, let me know how it goes :)
This has been may favorite, I love the way you broke it down to how they could help various build and you've given me quite a bit to think on for my Insanity playthrough build...something tells me the oh shit button is gonna get a little worn out...
haha :) great to hear!
Thanks for the video. Learnt a couple of vital new info which I have not discovered about of melee weapons even after re-playing the nth time. For instance, I never knew the unique abilities of the biotic amplifier and that electric (angaran) dagger.
I ran with a rank 2 cryo gauntlet for the longest time personally, Its SPRINT attack is infact incredibly fast vs its stand still punch.
These 4/5 augment slots also allow you to stat a spec a profile which would otherwise lack any buff at all (Tech users can easily obtain massive recharge speed, but almost never damage bonus, biotic users ever worse, one profile giving recharge speed on a melee build, the pure biotic gets NO direct damage bonuses, and the explorer having the biggest biotic damage bonus but nothing else)
I play VG and use the Asari Sword. I prefer to have more alpha than sustained DPS. And those invuln frames have saved me so many times. Plus TP to enemy for when charge is on CD, 5 augments and badass looks.
Agreed! Plus the ability to teleport through an enemies' cover and stab them from behind never gets old!
Also, not confirmed and I need to do some testing to check but I believe that jump melee damage is calculated from normal melee damage, in which case having a high alpha damage over high DPS is a distinct advantage which, due to the speed of jump melee, negates the DPS advantage of something like the Angaran Firaan except against single targets.
Yeah, I see what you're saying. I prefer straight impact damage over DPS too. I originally used the sword simply because I loved the animation for it. It felt more VG than even the krogan hammer to me. Now I'm inseparable with it. I mean you can practically just teleport to even the floor above/ below you and hit an unsuspecting enemy. How much more ninja can it get? tbh, playing as a CG in ME:A makes me feel more like a jedi than any other game I've played...
wayne Jacobs IKR, I use charge, backlash and throw as my active skills and specced full melee. When it comes to a game that makes you feel like a Jedi, I'm so excited for Respawn's Star Wars game. I'm hoping for Titanfall mixed with For Honour with lightsabers but that'll never happen.
Yeah that would be an amazing game, I'd eat all of that up! lol Unfortunately I believe you're right and it won't ever happen. I'm currently trying to get literally ANY info on the upcoming Star Wars games, and here's hoping they do a lot better of a job at lightsaber combat than EA SW Battlefront. They were too focused to blaster combat which is nice, but usually the point of playing Star Wars is for the lightsaber and force combat.
they did a geat job at balancing melee ! thank you for the video , it helps alot
Another great video/review!
Great work as always.
+gnperdue Why thank you very much :)
Thank you so much for doing these! After watching this, it feels like the melee weapons are the only things that feel truly unique... I think I might have nostalgia goggles but there are so many weapons I miss from ME:3... Punisher & Saber being my favorites. Really hope whatever DLC comes out brings new weapons and augments.
+Le Draq Glad they're helping and we still don't have all that were aimed for launch not all augs anyway, we were supposed to have automatic and semi auto augs and such but they're bugged so not appearing in game
I'm so happy to know that the Fextralife wiki wasn't lying, I've been searching for those mods wondering where they were because I think that'll add tremendous variety to crafting and weapons and more incentive to experiment with what's already been provided. Happy to know they should be coming... I also remember the punisher being shown as a placeholder much like the X-5 Ghost in the original augmentation video so it had gotten my hopes up initially.
+Le Draq it will never surprise me just how much they will add to this game, I think most folk expect far less than they'll get
What are your honest speculations because you seem fairly spot on about most of your info?
+Le Draq Speculation regarding what specifically?
2 things, of coarse the melee weapon is dependent upon your build and play style. I personally use the charge Biotic Ability that teleports me stright to an enemy and I combo that with a shot gun. I complete regenerate my shield due to the charge final talent. To add to that I also have Can heal myself with the shield drain Tech ability. Teleport, Shotgun enemy in the face until shield is gone, cryo gauntlet to knock them down, Drain to detonate and recover. Very powerful combo and makes it amazing to use with the Piranha Shotgun. Even on Insanity difficulty.
The other thing I wanted to mention is the special attachments Augmentations you can give to the leg armor that alter your melee effect. For me I use the Cryo Gauntlet. I also have a special augmentation on my legs that allow my jump melee to also cause an AOE Cryo Blast. There are other Effects that can combo with some other melees to make their talents better as well. Just something to consider with your play style.
+Dark Saint I did actually watch some of you livestream the other day, you were talking about the cryo gauntlet etc, I was in bed about the go to sleep at the time so I still need to finish it hehe
Xaine's World
i gave you a shout out at the end of it.
I hate doing live stream videos. not the best quality and I feel like crap doing them because I know i miss things, studder, and carry on to much. If I had more time, I would do quality videos... Maybe in the future
+Dark Saint I definitely need to finish it then hehe :) and thank you :)
And I feel the same when trying to explain things etc in livestream, its more difficult to keep thoughts collected than it looks.
Assume you have a capture card for the PS4 then?
Xaine's World Negative. I only ever used Share Factory. I've become pretty good with it. I know I could do more with a graphics card and a video editing software, but 1: I don't know how to set it up. and 2: I wouldn't know where to start. and 3, don't have the time or resources to invest into it... yet.
+Dark Saint aaah , I don't know what I'm doing with PS4, I have one, just never play it haha,
Can be quite an investment to if you not even sure things will be worth doing etc.
i had to laugh on the "Oh shit!" classification. that really fits for that two weapons ^^
But if you want to play on insanity meelee, than the only weapon is the Firaan. Because the Rank 6 passive in combat tools that gives you a stacking dmg bonus on meelee hits. A huge boost and build up quick by its short animation. With that i charge a hydra and than just meelee it down with a few slashes. if you build everything around this weapon its DPS is insane.
am running Asari Sword on insanity with no issues. feels more like normal than insanity in fact. charge plus one sword swing kills all unshielded targets so far. to remove shields, I have a Hurricane with electrical conduits.
Asari sword makes you pretty much invulnerable. I had a sniper build but noticed that there is a melee kill achievement so I went to Kett camps northwest of Eos and I could slaughter them with pretty much no damage received. (Although my Cora and PeeBee did probably most of the damage there 😂)
I wish I'd seen this sooner. I switched back to Omni-blade from Krogan hammer because I didn't like how slow it was (since I was using melee between shotgun shots to get benefit from the rank 6 shotgun perk), but I really should have been using the Knife.
you can use bio converter with the kett sword that heal you combine with a high dps shot gun, and perk/biotic that boost gun+ melee there is a combat perk that if you switch between shot gun and melee you get boost 30% total damage on those weapons.
great video and good analysis 👍
why tyvm :)
Don't forget the cryo gauntlet benefits from snap freeze creating AoE damage and crowd crontrol + priming for multiple combos
The bio amp also sends an enemy flying when they die (at higher levels) turning them into a projectile weapon. Also being as fast as it is for as damaging as it is it makes the Vanguard heal on hit so good that it essentially makes you unkillable
You say projectile, does the enemy you fling off actually do damage to mobs it hits?
If so, I really wish i'd included that in the vid lol
My favorites are the Krogan Hammer and Cryo Gauntlet. But I think I'll try out the Asari Sword for my melee infiltrator. :)
I've found that, for a lance vanguard build, on which lance removes sheald and you're charging into enemies every other second. also anahilation id active do there are slready combos detonating left and right. the ket karfalon is the eay to go.
for certain, the health it gives you is surprisingly high
it totally is!! the level 10 katlefold raises it about 1/4 health
You definitely answered my question, I didn't know the biotic amplifier employed a stagger, does it do that if I take down a shield? If so that means it would be pretty useful for me against the destined, annointed etc. Also def will switch to the angarann firan for that speed that I asked you about, will up my already crazy survivability, hardcore has gotten pretty easy at this point might switch the difficulty to insane with this.
excellent! and I believe it stagger red bars yes, so once the shield is gone, it should take effect, though I'm uncertain if it's 100% chance.
I wanted to find your comment and link the vid for the speed query but couldn't find it, I couldn't remember your avatar and there's a few hundred comments since then :(, glad you saw the notification though :)
I tried using the biotic amplifier on hardcore, and they just shot me while I repeatedly punched them in the face. They won. Personally I wouldn't recommend it lol
I definitely don't reccomend Asari sword for Vanguard. When you're on top of enemies all the time, when they move and you lose target you'll end up blinking and swinging at nothing.
At higher levels, you have to watch out about weapon force. I used the bio amplifier and found that after I'd Charge and punch, I'd often punch enemies out of melee range.
I was wary about the Firaans because of their low damage number, but I may have to give them a shot after seeing your DPS calcs. Thanks!
Melee damage buffs have a set duration, so having a fast weapon that can get in lots of attacks is just as valid as a slow weapon with high damage so long as the overall dps is similar.
*** Jump Melee *** Cloak .. Run .. Jump melee .. in enemies crowd = Too much fun.
i am soldier type player so i will be useing the asari sword and thanks for a another awesome guide
good shout, most likely be sticking with that myself
Im biotic all the way
My current Insanity build is a Sentinel with Incinerate, Charge, and Cloak. What melee weapon do you recommend? I like to whack enemies with my melee weapon alot, I use the humble Omni Blade because it has pretty decent DPS, much more comfortable to use than the Krogan Hammer for example.
I hear the Vakarsh is good for that setup as it primes for fire aswell as giving decent damage and is also ultra-rare for those 4 aug slots
I like stacking five Reaction Optimizers for an extra 25% combo damage. As long as you're working combos, it doesn't matter which power types you're using.
I've just been using the cryo gauntlet - slow AF. pretty low damage too. freezing melee ranged enemies for 5-10 sec is useful as - though I haven't tried out the other elemental melee weaps.
tech powers / combo build so elemental primers are my go. The Asari blade looks amazing for a close quarters combat build! would love to have it in multiplayer >< comps been dead so haven't been on in a while, can't recall the names of powers that I haven't yet played around with.
Good work on the augment tips - can't have fellow Pathfinders missing out on those passive buffs.
+K Fuji ouch, what happened to yer PC?
ah, it's old and shitty, and the motherboard has decided to...die?
aaah that sucks :(
yeea - no worries though, will have the new rig set up by the end of the week!
+K Fuji awesome! What you gone with?
nice, just what i needed :D (i plan on doing an assasin, melee only (will still use powers) build in my next playthrough) i think the asari sword would be best for that
definitely, it's ability to dart from one to another while taking a bit of heat off is super useful, perfect for an Assassin/Ninja
you could really send them all to the Cemetery Gates early...
Sorry had to...
lol xD
I have only gotten Vakarsh to prime a target for a fire combo once. I can't figure out the circumstances that allow it to successfully prime (all my tests were done with the Auxiliary Powers Priming evolution, too). Do you have to strike your targets 2-3 times to prime them? Or do you need to wait a certain amount of time after the first strike? The prime rate is so low that it seems completely unreliable for detonations. Mooks are dead before you can detonate for repeated strikes, and tough armored foes require too many hits for it to be safe. Honestly, it feels broken.
+TheAnalystTherapist I believe it's not 100% unless you have the tech skill Priming in auxillary systems (increases rate of priming for consumables and weapons).
Was a viewer who confirmed that the Vakarsh primes, will have to try and find for more info
I definitely tried it with the Priming evolution and I can confirm that it definitely does not prime on single strikes. If it does, it appears to do it so very infrequently (less than 10% I'd say). The only time I ever noticed a Fire Explosion after a Varkash strike was after multiple strikes on an armored target, but I can't be certain what caused it.
+TheAnalystTherapist that's disappointing. Thank you for testing that out :)
Thanks for this; certainly one area I have overlooked myself. Augment slots were mentioned for one weapon, but perhaps not the others. As one that simply uses a basic Omni-tool for the extra slots, which weapons offer more? And Thanks again for this series :)
aah, during the showcase the augment slots were on the bottom of the screen so thought was covered :)
it's the usual as far as weapons go, angaran firaan 2, asari sword 4, biotic amplifier 2, electric firaan 3, kett carfalon 3, kett vakarsh 4, krogan hammer 3, Omni-blade 2, remnant cryo-gauntlet 4.
It shows an extra for each in the video, that's because I have the cryo perk, which is why there's a blue 'C' in it, to denote it's existence.
Thanks! This info will help with my next build. (The Closed Caption setting I use covers the Augments slots, so I feel less silly now) :D
aaaah that makes sense :D
ooh btw, have you ever noticed anything off with the subs?
I write them all, then go through grammarly etc, but the automatic transcriber on youtube is what times it all to my speech, and with the vids being so long as the amount of checking I already do, I no longer double check the timing.
I expect it's fine, but if you've ever noticed anything it would be good to know.
Weapons offer a number of slots based on the 'rarity' of their specs, with Ultra Rare being the highest. From a quick look, that's the Kett Vakash, Asari Sword, and Remnant Cryogauntlet, each with 4 slots. There's also a Cryo Pod Perk that grants +1 Augment slots deep in the research tree.
Lol, seems like melee has the highest number of viable weapons as a class. Judging by the comments under the video it really is so.
Isn't the special ability of omni-blade increase of damage from drop attack as no matter what melee weapon you use, your character will use omni-blade for this attack? Meaning that either they use damage stat of default version or damage of current weapon and I'm wrong then(but it's not using special effects either, right?)
not completely usre on this.
My logic was that as it's a weapon you just start off with (similar to the M-3 Predator Pistol) they just made it kinda useless in comparison to give a reason to make other weapons.
A-sword (rating)
1: Weapon Damage
2: All Combo Damage (combo damage has a higher ceiling)
3: Tree Power Damage
4: Power Recharge
No other option is really necessary. Also if only using as a buff stick, only get rank 2.
Thought I mentioned the rank 2 thing?
Been a while since I made it so can't remember for sure but if I didn't I definitely meant to lol
electric firaan with vanguard build still my favorite
you are essentially invulnerable because of the stun and movement is no issue because of charge
useful for definite, it's lower damage is just a balance for the stun and potential prime, but invulnerable to a degree, it's only against that one you are fighting, I always find I only get in trouble when I have more than I expect firing on me at once.
But I don't play Vanguard so I have no idea what it's like as far as defense etc there
the shield regeneration with melee on vanguard is the last piece that really makes it work
you can shrug off a lot of punishment while you melee
aaah, so the stun prevent the closest from hitting you which would stagger you preventing you from regening as you can't hit for x amount of time?
aaah ok, thank you for explaining :)
wait isnt that austin from shoddycast when he said SCIENCE!!
+some random guy Its me doing an impersonation of Austin yes :)
Xaine's World KNEW IT...wait...u know austin from shoddy?
+some random guy I'm a huge fan of his science of video games series, gutted he's not doing them atm :(
Xaine's World i know...i miss his live stremes...i feel so empty without a guy swearing at game developers all day
never caught any of the live streams, did you hear anything about him coming back at all or?
Jesus christ, amazing video
+Marcelo Abbiati Prado thank you, appreciate it bud :)
I would have liked to see melee weapons in the main series.
I was thinking of melee as more of a status effect application device. With that in mind, is the electric firaan worth it for just its unique ability to apply its status effect through shields, or does the cryo gauntlet really just pull ahead because of its aug slots?
Between the Electric Firaan and Cryo-Gauntlet it's mainly speed, if you prefer a very quick wep go for the E Firaan, but I think the Cryo has a slight edge on red bars and it primes on all targets.
Using the cryo to quickly take a red bar out of action on insanity could prove useful, hitting upto 3 while they are all still frozen and primed could then bet detonated at once with a powerful aoe.
The augment thing comes down to use, if you use your melee weapon a fair amount then the unique ability it has is more useful, but otherwise the augments can give a constant flat increase and 3-5% is better than it sounds
I was thinking of a case like Charge + melee to prime + detonator/Charge again for combo detonation. are there cases where the E Firaan cannot prime an enemy for tech combos?
Not that I know of, the weapons should prime everything if they have that function, the E firaan just has shielded folk as an extra damage thing I believe.
Okay, thanks! The reason I'm asking is because I'm deciding where to best sink my research points into. Given that the cryo-gauntlet and E Firaan deal the lowest damage out of the bunch, I figured one could just research them up to their rank 2 versions just to open up aug slots, and just use them as primers for close-range detonator builds.
yeah that's a good shout.
For a while at least ill just have a level 2 asari almost entirely for the augments
Not sure if it's just me, but the asari sword animation is kind of glitchy: it'll sometime miss an enemy at point blank because it jumps you back then forward, at which point, they moved!
+MrPetoria33 yes it can be a bit annoying with its teleport at point blank, why I'd advise mainly for non-vanguard types, though at least you still get the slight invulnerability so it's not too damaging, just ruin the flow a bit
another great video.
Nice video
nice vid! :D
do companions: good primers slash detonators, tanks, supports. really a guide for who is good for what builds.
+Dragonic Dude if you pay close attention you can make very good use of you companions priming and such.
Need to build them specifically for that ofc, a companion guide is in the works, don't have enough info to fully explain atm
I use the asari sword bc of the increased melee range
Nice since this information isn't really easy to find or grasp. Gonna go with the Firaan probably, and the Krogan hammer sounds interesting aswell. But I didn't like the Asari Sword at all.
The speed of the firaan just makes it so useful for running and gunning or just those crazy situations
If I find my Infiltrator in melee range and no ammo in the gun, or if the enemy is just stupidly low health then why waste a power or bullet. Instead use the super quick melee Firaan. That's my thinking.
aah perfect for that :)
OMG! It's HIM! AUSTIN!
+Echo Yin oh hey echo... It's me... AUSTIN! Haha
Yeah, I like his videos. Too bad he doesn't have time for it now.
+Echo Yin I wondered why he's stopped, just after joining game theorists to, what happened?
Can you please do a video on merchants
Maybe, but, tbh, there's not much to say on them, the nexus has all you need, the kadara better prices one doesn't give much now and the only other one of note is the weapon merchant in kadara port offering the halberd which becomes a bad weapon past a certain level.
Wouldn't the Electric Firaan be ideal for a Vanguard as well? It's fast and it stuns, allowing you to basically teleport around the battlefield hard-CC'ing everything you smack. The low dps doesn't matter so much when you're stunning everything. Might be better on a tanky sentinel build as an emergency weapon too.
I'm not certain but the stun may not be 100%
hey guys, i could use some help on this game, and this place feels like right place to ask. So: im soon starting my second playthrough and feeling like going for specific build, but cant pick one. one build im thinking is maximized damage soldier build that abuses the shit out of bio-converter shotgun. another one is pure engineer build with pistol that is purely for entertainment(maybe carnifex because mass effect or scorpion because lulz) and focus on team support. the last one that im thinking is super tanky sentinel build with high survivability and equipped pistol for covering power usage.
The soldier im hesitating because i dont know how to get intresting powers in combat build. Engineer could be nicebut i dont know if i can bother hanging back and letting other people and constructs do my fighting.
sentinel would be nice but im afraid it'll turn out just another minmaxed biotic user and someday i need to do something else than be vanguard/biotic in ME.
mainly i want a build optimized to do one strategy, and that uses lightweight high damage cqb-guns. I'd really appreciate any comment or suggestion that helps me decide ^^
If you've already gone down the min/max biotic route, go for soldier or tech to guarantee that you'll try different abilities. My personal favorite is Cloak from Tech. It made the last mission a cakewalk on normal difficulty - it lets you nope your way out of any situation even if their is no cover at all.
The only soldier ability I'd recommend is Turbocharge since it doesn't rely on charges, stacks with Cloak, and works on many guns. My next character will go the Soldier route because having 4 OP weapons at once sounds awesome :) Pure ability builds get a little spammy, so I want to tech a break from those - not to mention repeatedly trying out a new skill set is a LOT more expensive than trying out a new gun!
I dont mind spammy builds, as it would be intresting to try to fight with mainly abilities.
I have never been fan of cloak. There isnt that much stealth aspect in ME and having it as plain damage buff for one shot is quite meh.
You can do so much more with Tactical Cloak than just single shot damage buff, especially with cqc builds. The ability to move around the battlefield unseen is just so invaluable. You can use it to flank, escape, reposition, gap close, even confuse AI... Cloak has to be one of my favorite Mass Effect powers, along with Biotic Charge. It's just so...versatile.
+Val agreed,
Not certain if I did at the time of the above comments, but my main skirmish build involves tactical cloak but to use for shield and health regeneration on a wildly bio-converter based build. Makes architects a breeze to.
You should start a video out on how do you equip Mellett hammers in swords versus just the omi tool to
Asari sword is the best. It wins entirely on style
great information here! fantastic game also. biotic charge the haters!
+ioannisdenton thx man and hells yeah!
İ liked omni blade
I hope the next ME refines the melee system even further! Bit by bit ME will turn into Warframe lmao
As far as I can tell, the varkash and electric firaan don't actually prime.
+timeforsuchaword I've had confirmation they do from other viewers but it's a very low chance, you can raise the chance with certain skill a little but never 100%
I stand corrected. After an hour of nothing but melee with the priming skill and the electric firaan I finally managed to get one proc (on an armored raptor of all things). So it does prime, but the chance is either absurdly low (on insanity, could scale with difficulty) or there's some condition to it that I just happened to finally trigger.
Azari sword best...
The biggest mistake this vid makes i that A-Sword gets massive DPH each upgrade.
sure as it's percentage based the harder hitting ones would gain more but as a base guide it's acceptable i'da thought
Nah what i mean is that weapons do not get equal upgrades each tier.
This was mentioned to other people providing guides.
I doubt it really effect your rating that much. it's just more of a factor. The endpoint of the weapon could vastly differ.
math
+Bob Bobington only if you're American :)