ME3 multiplayer, tips and tricks

[Cyael]

I play on xbox 360, boag. My name is my username which is also my gamertag.

If you're a Vanguard & you've spent your points wisely (none into shockwave) as I've specified turrrets have nothing on you. Strafe in a clockwise or counter clockwise motion around the turrent while targeting it and half the time it won't even keep up.

I come out of most every match with at least 4x my teammates scores & it made me feel the Vanguard will be patched but if so many people don't know how to use it I feel safe

 

[TheKruzdawg]

For anyone wanting to snipe (mostly Infiltrators):

THE WIDOW IS GOD. YOU WILL KILL ALL THE THINGS WITH THAT GUN.

Especially if you were fortunate to find Widow II or III, and some of the clip upgrades. Add into that the stealth bonuses and the headshot damage bonus you can level up, you can kill pretty much anything with 1 well placed shot.

If you have the time to line up the shot while cloaked, you can kill anything (except an Atlas) with 1 headshot (even shielded/barriers) definitely on Bronze and I'm pretty sure on Silver as well. Haven't tried Gold yet myself though.

I recommend using a Pistol in addition to the Widow, as it will be light (and the Widow is heavy as hell) so you can use Cloak more & Cryo Blast more often (as a human).

As others have stated, that Cloak ability allows you more wiggle room to chase down some objectives/help up downed teammates. But don't stray too far. I've gotten caught on my own before and the Widow isn't a great "up-close-and-personal" weapon.

 

[rcs619]

For anyone wanting to snipe (mostly Infiltrators):

THE WIDOW IS GOD. YOU WILL KILL ALL THE THINGS WITH THAT GUN.

Especially if you were fortunate to find Widow II or III, and some of the clip upgrades. Add into that the stealth bonuses and the headshot damage bonus you can level up, you can kill pretty much anything with 1 well placed shot.

If you have the time to line up the shot while cloaked, you can kill anything (except an Atlas) with 1 headshot (even shielded/barriers) definitely on Bronze and I'm pretty sure on Silver as well. Haven't tried Gold yet myself though.

I recommend using a Pistol in addition to the Widow, as it will be light (and the Widow is heavy as hell) so you can use Cloak more & Cryo Blast more often (as a human).

As others have stated, that Cloak ability allows you more wiggle room to chase down some objectives/help up downed teammates. But don't stray too far. I've gotten caught on my own before and the Widow isn't a great "up-close-and-personal" weapon.

Honestly, the widow is somewhat overkill if you are going for headshots. A cloaked widow body-shot will one-shot most unshielded/armored/barriered units, at least on bronze and silver. With centurions and phantoms it will completely wipe their shields and barriers and eat into their health.

I do love the widow, don't get me wrong. It is one of the most satisfying weapons around. It also makes guardians useless since it can one-shot them through their shield. The widow is a bit like a sledgehammer though. It is big, heavy and only does one thing really well. I mean, you only get around a +11% recharge speed with no other guns.

I only use the widow when I feel like one-shotting everything now. Personally, I have come to like the viper better. It does roughly half the damage, but being semi-automatic with a magazine, it is a bit more forgiving and versatile than the widow. It takes more than one body-shot, but enemies still stagger when you hit them, so it isn't too hard to kill them that way. Headshots will still instakill most things on bronze and silver, especially while cloaked. Plus, it is so much lighter, that you can carry a viper, an SMG and still get a slightly higher recharge speed than the widow. The viper is also much more forgiving to no-scope, should you wind up in a tight spot. Or you could switch to your SMG.

Both guns are a lot of fun, and I do use both, but I dunno. The viper winds up being more satisfying. It just feels a little more skillful to me when you one-shot someone with the viper, since only a headshot will do it. Just depends on your preference really. KILL EVERYTHING MODE!!!, or be a bit more versatile. I tend to alternate, myself.

 

[TheKruzdawg]

Honestly, the widow is somewhat overkill if you are going for headshots. A cloaked widow body-shot will one-shot most unshielded/armored/barriered units, at least on bronze and silver. With centurions and phantoms it will completely wipe their shields and barriers and eat into their health.

I do love the widow, don't get me wrong. It is one of the most satisfying weapons around. It also makes guardians useless since it can one-shot them through their shield. The widow is a bit like a sledgehammer though. It is big, heavy and only does one thing really well. I mean, you only get around a +11% recharge speed with no other guns.

I only use the widow when I feel like one-shotting everything now. Personally, I have come to like the viper better. It does roughly half the damage, but being semi-automatic with a magazine, it is a bit more forgiving and versatile than the widow. It takes more than one body-shot, but enemies still stagger when you hit them, so it isn't too hard to kill them that way. Headshots will still instakill most things on bronze and silver, especially while cloaked. Plus, it is so much lighter, that you can carry a viper, an SMG and still get a slightly higher recharge speed than the widow. The viper is also much more forgiving to no-scope, should you wind up in a tight spot. Or you could switch to your SMG.

Both guns are a lot of fun, and I do use both, but I dunno. The viper winds up being more satisfying. It just feels a little more skillful to me when you one-shot someone with the viper, since only a headshot will do it. Just depends on your preference really. KILL EVERYTHING MODE!!!, or be a bit more versatile. I tend to alternate, myself.

I do get what you mean about "KILL EVERYTHING" mode. As I've described the Widow to other people, it's like using an anti-aircraft gun to go skeet shooting. Yes, the target will be destroyed, but it is overkill. I guess that's kind of why I like it so much. Big bang + exploding heads/everything =

I honestly haven't tried the Viper that much, since I was lucky to unlock the Widow pretty early and stuck with that since then. I may have to go back and try the Viper, especially since I aim for headshots most of the time anyway, even when I didn't need them with the Widow. And being able to fire more than 1 shot before reloading would be kind of nice, especially since the Widow does take a considerable time to reload for 1 bullet.

 

[Setrus]

Tech attacks can also be combined to cause "Tech Bursts". Just like Biotic explosions. (Combo attacks can be set off by combining all sorts of different attacks. I've set off tech bursts by using a biotic attack on an enemy affected by a tech debuff, and also by hitting them with concussive shots.)

Hitting an enemy with incinerate, followed by an overload, will "detonate" the fire effect similar to overloading the Pyro enemies in ME2.

Conversely, stunning an enemy with overload followed by an incinerate will cause a Fire explosion. (I might have this backwards though...) This can also be done with Krogan soldiers by combining Carnage with Fire grenades.

Lastly, it is possible to set of Cryo explosions as well. These are the hardest to do, because in order for a Cryo explosion to take effect, the attack used on them MUST kill them. (If you, for example, overload a frozen target at full health. It won't do anything. But if your overload kills a frozen target, it will cause an Ice explosion that will freeze/chill everything around it.)

You know, I've seen this "tech burst" attack kill and I figured it was just as with biotic explosion, but I never knew there were specific examples like that, thank you for sharing.

Warp supposedly damages biotic shields, but i've never seen it really be effective. Then again, the only enemies currently who have them are Phantoms, who are fuckall annoying and always dodge or block. Overload is far more effective on Phantoms, as it cannot be dodged or blocked.

I know what you mean, warp is almost better at staggering unshielded enemies and make Atlases and turrets more suspectible for our fire. Concussive shot works really well against her though, primarily because you can fire it off so often, she can't dodge them all!'

I honestly haven't tried the Viper that much, since I was lucky to unlock the Widow pretty early and stuck with that since then. I may have to go back and try the Viper, especially since I aim for headshots most of the time anyway, even when I didn't need them with the Widow. And being able to fire more than 1 shot before reloading would be kind of nice, especially since the Widow does take a considerable time to reload for 1 bullet.

It's a very good weapon, especially for culling the horde of enemies appearing in the beginning. (if they jump up at the landingplatform at the white base you basically have a shooting gallery, can get 4-5 kills with one clip if you're lucky. )
The viper doesn't do as much damage though, so it really benefits from your character having a weapon damage bonus, so as rcs619 says, know your race, Turians and humans get some nice damage bonuses, a Quarian does not.

 

[Kataskopo]

A good rule of thumb is that most abilities will either not affect, or have their effect severely weakened if an enemy has a shield, armor or barrier up. Like, if you use throw on a shielded centurion,he might just flinch, but without his shield he can be tossed around like a normal assault trooper.

There are some exceptions. Stasis works on an enemy whether they have shields, armor or barriers up or not. That is what makes it such a useful ability.

In general, you want warp AND overload on your team at all times (stasis too, if any friends like being asari). Warp can weaken armor and overload is traditionally good against shields (and apparently barriers this time too. I guess they changed that). Overload is especially useful since it has a chance to momentarily paralyze enemies in power-armor (which is pretty much all of Cerberus). Warp is has a cool added effect too, if an enemy is being influenced by a biotic effect (pull, singularity, etc), warp will detonate it, doing extra damage to the enemy and those around it.

Any abilities or other such things you had specific questions about?

I remember know, Singularity. Sometimes the enemies are not affected by it, and I have it maxed out! I wasn't sure if it was a glitch or what, sometimes enemies would pass right through it.
Maybe they are very powerful or have a shield, but I found myself using my human adept less and less because of that.

 

[boag]

A good rule of thumb is that most abilities will either not affect, or have their effect severely weakened if an enemy has a shield, armor or barrier up. Like, if you use throw on a shielded centurion,he might just flinch, but without his shield he can be tossed around like a normal assault trooper.

There are some exceptions. Stasis works on an enemy whether they have shields, armor or barriers up or not. That is what makes it such a useful ability.

In general, you want warp AND overload on your team at all times (stasis too, if any friends like being asari). Warp can weaken armor and overload is traditionally good against shields (and apparently barriers this time too. I guess they changed that). Overload is especially useful since it has a chance to momentarily paralyze enemies in power-armor (which is pretty much all of Cerberus). Warp is has a cool added effect too, if an enemy is being influenced by a biotic effect (pull, singularity, etc), warp will detonate it, doing extra damage to the enemy and those around it.

Any abilities or other such things you had specific questions about?

I remember know, Singularity. Sometimes the enemies are not affected by it, and I have it maxed out! I wasn't sure if it was a glitch or what, sometimes enemies would pass right through it.
Maybe they are very powerful or have a shield, but I found myself using my human adept less and less because of that.

Singularity requires you to take down the first layer of protection from an enemy before dealing its full effect.

so you need to take out armor, shields, or biotic barriers before singularity will lift targets.

 

[Setrus]

Singularity requires you to take down the first layer of protection from an enemy before dealing its full effect.

so you need to take out armor, shields, or biotic barriers before singularity will lift targets.

Also, if the guardians are walking into a singularity they will constantly stagger backwards, but suffer no other ill effect of it, so singularity is not so good against them...UNLESS you get it behind them, it will drag them into the air then and make them drop their shield. (I think, don't remember if the second part is true, was so long since I've seen it.)

 

[boag]

Singularity requires you to take down the first layer of protection from an enemy before dealing its full effect.

so you need to take out armor, shields, or biotic barriers before singularity will lift targets.

Also, if the guardians are walking into a singularity they will constantly stagger backwards, but suffer no other ill effect of it, so singularity is not so good against them...UNLESS you get it behind them, it will drag them into the air then and make them drop their shield. (I think, don't remember if the second part is true, was so long since I've seen it.)

yes, it does lift them if you get it behind them.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Well, actually, my best character is a drell sniper vanguard, becuase pull is incredibly invaluable to me, because:
-It robs the guardians of their shields
-Good for crowd control if you've invested in it's recharge time a fair bit(I can get a chain of 3 soldiers in the air before any of the effects are dispelled)

Cluster Grenade is very effective against Atlas' shields(if you're near a supply cache, you can pretty much take it out by yourself), and sniping with an M-98 Widow can take out those pesky turrets with haste, and the rifle takes off and 1/4 of an Atlas' shields/armour.

I use biotic charge very rarely, as I am more of a support player, as I can take out phantoms relatively quickly, & since Drell are very acrobatic & good runners, I can get out of trouble almost instantenously.

So...yeah.

 

[toomuchnothing]

Singularity requires you to take down the first layer of protection from an enemy before dealing its full effect.

so you need to take out armor, shields, or biotic barriers before singularity will lift targets.

Also, if the guardians are walking into a singularity they will constantly stagger backwards, but suffer no other ill effect of it, so singularity is not so good against them...UNLESS you get it behind them, it will drag them into the air then and make them drop their shield. (I think, don't remember if the second part is true, was so long since I've seen it.)

The "from behind" condition applies to other abilties in reference to guardians as well. For example the AOE Statis ability can stun Guardians once they pass the half way point of the bubble where they will be stunned and drop the shield.

I currently have been working on my "Chain Lightning" Human Engineer and a bouncing overload can also cause them to drop the shield or go into a shock spaz animation. The build makes the overload bounce three times (can bounce between 2 ppl for its 3 charges)and stun unprotected enemies so a good strategy for taking out swarms off guardians is to hit a non guardian (even atlas mechs) behind them. I usually just roll with the Phalanx and rely on chain overload spam to hold off large groups while also tying them up with my chain shock Drone. Of course this type of playstyle could be completely useless against whatever other opponents we face in the MP so needless to say I look forward to the "Reset points" button becoming available in the retail (and also shocking the living hell out of swarms of geth).

 

[GameChanger]

For turrets, I'd suggest using the Salarian infiltrator with one point in the Tactical Cloak ability that lets you fire one power staying undetected, then put a lot of points in Energy Drain. Takes me one power and two shots before de-cloaking to bring down the fuckers, you'll get a free shield recharge with it as well!

Salarians are hard to get though, so use your credits for a lot of Veteran Packs. In any case, use the Cloak and spam it!

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

For Infiltrators:

Early on, just shoot everything that moves. However, once more dangerous enemies show up, IGNORE the standard troopers! You beefy pals can handle them. You focus on special enemies.

If you have the Widow, even more so. Also, focus on the Atlases. 4 - 5 cloaked Widow shots will kill them.

If you are playing as a human, use Freeze now and then. It may seem useless, but consider this:
1) If you fire it off before you uncloak, you will not have any increase in recharge, so there is no reason not to spam it at the end of every cloak.
2)GREAT against Phantoms. As someone else said, they cloak and run when their shields go down, and this stops them in their tracks before they can get away. Doesn't always work, but when it does, it's beautiful.
3) Useful against Guardians. If you don't have the One-Shot-Widow, get behind a Guardian and freeze them. Often times, just shooting them takes too long and they turn to you.

SPAM YOUR STICKIES!!! There are ammo crates all over the map, so toss away. If a Phantom comes at you, toss all of them at the floor near you and start firing. You will probably get the kill. Hit turrets. A bit of damage and a sticky will usually kill those bastards.

As another said, play medic. Run up to an incapped team mate, cloak and revive. Works perfect.

 

[boag]

For Infiltrators:

Early on, just shoot everything that moves. However, once more dangerous enemies show up, IGNORE the standard troopers! You beefy pals can handle them. You focus on special enemies.

If you have the Widow, even more so. Also, focus on the Atlases. 4 - 5 cloaked Widow shots will kill them.

If you are playing as a human, use Freeze now and then. It may seem useless, but consider this:
1) If you fire it off before you uncloak, you will not have any increase in recharge, so there is no reason not to spam it at the end of every cloak.
2)GREAT against Phantoms. As someone else said, they cloak and run when their shields go down, and this stops them in their tracks before they can get away. Doesn't always work, but when it does, it's beautiful.
3) Useful against Guardians. If you don't have the One-Shot-Widow, get behind a Guardian and freeze them. Often times, just shooting them takes too long and they turn to you.

SPAM YOUR STICKIES!!! There are ammo crates all over the map, so toss away. If a Phantom comes at you, toss all of them at the floor near you and start firing. You will probably get the kill. Hit turrets. A bit of damage and a sticky will usually kill those bastards.

As another said, play medic. Run up to an incapped team mate, cloak and revive. Works perfect.

Indeed, Freeze is a great skill, I know its not as powerful as other skills, but the chilling debuffs and slow down are really great, specially since it works on all units regardless of their protection.


Anyways, I am looking forward to the Full Game Multi, and the eventual pants shitting when the banshees show up.

from the looks of them, the Phantom will be a pleasant memory compared to them.

 

[Setrus]

I think it is important for people to understand the differences between the different races too, and work their character build accordingly.

Now, the Salarian (and Quarian by the looks of it) play a little different. They get a lower damage bonus, but their abilities are much more useful and varied. I kind of look at it this way. Humans are dedicated snipers, Salarians and Quarians are basically James Bond-style secret agents, loaded down with gadgets. You can still build them for pure sniper damage, but they will always do a little less than the human. Their strengths seem to be in being tricky, and using their toys.

Lots of ways to do each race and each class though, but I just think some people forget that there are differences. On the bright side, every class is fun to play (except soldier =P ), which I think is a good thing in class-based multiplayer. I know I play infiltrator, engineer, adept and sentinel.

I agree, I've always felt my Turian to act like a mobile weapon's platform, while the human is a more agile race doing better up close. (with Krogan REALLY up close) which is all due to different bonuses and how they move...it's worth thinking about how those passive abilities affect your character just as much which active once you get while picking class and species.

Hmm, a good comparison of the infiltrators, I agree. The human is kind of offensive while the Salarian is a survivor and ambusher with his energy drain and proximity mine. I for one can't wait to test the Quarian infiltrator in the real game! Oh hello turret, why yes, I'd like you to turn that gun around and put your engineer and a couple of his friends on the floor... :-D

I resent that! I love my soldier... *sniffs* ;-)

 

[modernRecluse]

You know, as much as the Leeroy Jenkins strategy is frowned upon, it is quite effective. Large crowds, small crowds, Phantoms, Atlases... Especially Atlases. Gotta love being a Vanguard.

 

[Setrus]

Tech attacks can also be combined to cause "Tech Bursts". Just like Biotic explosions. (Combo attacks can be set off by combining all sorts of different attacks. I've set off tech bursts by using a biotic attack on an enemy affected by a tech debuff, and also by hitting them with concussive shots.)

I'm sure you've already found this out, but I feel I should mention it when I found this out last night.
Disruptor ammo causes tech burst on those affected by a tech power, and I'll hazard a guess that warp ammo does the same to those targets affected by a biotic power.
I didn't know this until last night...and lets just say that I had some fun with that.

 

[Swyftstar]

With the game proper out we should probably revisit this thread. So what tactics have you guys put together concerning the new enemies... and by new enemies I mean Banshees, somebody please tell me the most effective way to put these hellbeasts down.