ME3 multiplayer, tips and tricks

[Tohuvabohu]

Something about Combat Engineers I haven't seen anyone mention yet. They can repair Atlas mechs.

It's a very rare occurance, only seen it happen myself once. When I was fighting a mech and had it down to around 20% armor. I looked away to kill some enemies that were flanking me, and when I turned back. The atlas was at 100% armor.

I was confused as fuck, but started laying into it again. Had it back down to 30% armor before I had to reposition myself, and when I did: Bam. 100% armor, AGAIN.

That's when I saw a Combat Engineer following closely behind the mech constantly repairing it. He was literally following it step by step and repairing it every time it took damage.
So please, for the love of all things holy, DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN!

Not totally sure about this one, but enemies might be able to at least partially track cloaked Infiltrators if you disappear within their line of sight or move into their line of sight before you vanish completely. That's why you can't always sneak up on Guardians. You have to completely vanish where nobody can see you before you leave cover. I'm pretty sure they call it out to each other too. "Enemy cloaked" or something like that.

I can confirm that, it's very annoying...but quite realistic.

I've seen this happen before too.

 

[rcs619]

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

For example, human infiltrators get larger damage bonuses than the salarian as they level up... but cryo blast is basically useless, so your only useful abilities as a human are cloak and stickies. For the human infiltrator, I focus on making them almost a pure sniper. Max damage bonuses when possible and lots of upgrades to the sticky grenades.

Even if they are your only useful ability, sticky grenades are very nice. Throwing them does not break your cloak, and they can do great damage to atlases when they are upgraded. As a human infiltrator, you can literally cloak up, walk up to an atlas, stick all three grenades to it and run away before your cloak breaks.

For weapons, I tend to prefer the viper or widow personally. The viper does a lot less damage, but with the human's larger damage bonuses, it is still quite lethal, especially headshots. It also weighs less, and being semi-auto, it is much more forgiving and versatile in emergencies. You can actually carry a viper and SMG and get a slightly quicker recharge than with the widow. If you choose the widow, you basically can't carry any other gun, however, it will one or two-shot most any enemy short of an atlas. It can even shoot through guardian shields, making that entire enemy type totally harmless.

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.

 

[Erttheking]

That little eye slit that the Guardians have? Shoot through that with a sniper rifle.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Anyone know how to grab enemies on the otherside of your cover, pull them over and stab them? I've seen it done a couple times, but have no idea how to do it.

 

[Kataskopo]

Wow, amazing tips! It would be great to have some concepts explained.
Yeah, I can confirm that if you cloak in front of enemies, they will be able to guess your location, which is quite realistic and I like it.

Also the engineers repairing the Atlases. I think it's pretty cool, if I was an engineer and I see my mechas going down, I would repair them!

 

[Setrus]

Anyone know how to grab enemies on the otherside of your cover, pull them over and stab them? I've seen it done a couple times, but have no idea how to do it.

When in cover and they're in front of it, press the close combat attack...or at least that's the advice I've been given, I've yet to have the opportunity to test it myself.

Wow, amazing tips! It would be great to have some concepts explained.

Ohh...now I'm curious, concepts like...crossfire or something?

 

[Kataskopo]

Anyone know how to grab enemies on the otherside of your cover, pull them over and stab them? I've seen it done a couple times, but have no idea how to do it.

When in cover and they're in front of it, press the close combat attack...or at least that's the advice I've been given, I've yet to have the opportunity to test it myself.

Wow, amazing tips! It would be great to have some concepts explained.

Ohh...now I'm curious, concepts like...crossfire or something?

Things like the abilities, sometimes I don't understand them well (I just played half of the first mass effect) and their effects on the types of enemies (what if they are shielded? or if they have a barrier or whatever?)
And sometimes the upgrades too, i'm not sure of their effect.

 

[rcs619]

Anyone know how to grab enemies on the otherside of your cover, pull them over and stab them? I've seen it done a couple times, but have no idea how to do it.

When in cover and they're in front of it, press the close combat attack...or at least that's the advice I've been given, I've yet to have the opportunity to test it myself.

Wow, amazing tips! It would be great to have some concepts explained.

Ohh...now I'm curious, concepts like...crossfire or something?

Things like the abilities, sometimes I don't understand them well (I just played half of the first mass effect) and their effects on the types of enemies (what if they are shielded? or if they have a barrier or whatever?)
And sometimes the upgrades too, i'm not sure of their effect.

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?

 

[Tohuvabohu]

Anyone know how to grab enemies on the otherside of your cover, pull them over and stab them? I've seen it done a couple times, but have no idea how to do it.

When in cover and they're in front of it, press the close combat attack...or at least that's the advice I've been given, I've yet to have the opportunity to test it myself.

Pretty much this. Has to be in while in a chest-high wall cover, with the enemy directly on the other side. You'll know when you can do this because the "Jump over" signal on your screen will turn into a fist.

Some additional tips I can think of:

-Since Phantoms can block attacks from the front, Flanking Phantoms is vital. If you find yourself behind a phantom, blast her with whatever you got. Hitting them with cryo blast to slow them is very helpful.
Staggering phantoms is also a big advantage. Tech armor bursts, novas, Biotic charges (Not recommended due to bullshit instakills) and grenades are reliable ways to stagger her. While staggered, she is much less likely to defend against any attacks.

^Of course if you have an asari adept, they're much easier to manage.

-A point blank shotgun blast to Guardians have a good chance of blowing their shields aside making them vulnerable to attack. (Similar to hitting them with throw)

-The Combat Drone generates more "threat" than the Quarian sentry does. Although the sentry might be a deadlier tool, it does not gather as much attention as the drone does. Remember this when trying to take out Guardians, because they might not turn around to engage the turret that's tearing their butts apart or shooting flames at them.

-Biotic explosions work on Atlas mechs, and are a handy way to stun them.

hmmm I'm sure I can come up with more, but this is all I can think of for now.

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.

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.)

 

[boag]

Anyone know how to grab enemies on the otherside of your cover, pull them over and stab them? I've seen it done a couple times, but have no idea how to do it.

When you are in cover and enemy gets very close, the Arrow icon that appears will change to a fist, when that happens use the melee attack and you will do an instant kill attack.

Anyone know how to grab enemies on the otherside of your cover, pull them over and stab them? I've seen it done a couple times, but have no idea how to do it.

When in cover and they're in front of it, press the close combat attack...or at least that's the advice I've been given, I've yet to have the opportunity to test it myself.

Wow, amazing tips! It would be great to have some concepts explained.

Ohh...now I'm curious, concepts like...crossfire or something?

Things like the abilities, sometimes I don't understand them well (I just played half of the first mass effect) and their effects on the types of enemies (what if they are shielded? or if they have a barrier or whatever?)
And sometimes the upgrades too, i'm not sure of their effect.

All shielded enemies will stagger when you use a skill on them, this includes barrier(purple), shield (blue) and armor(orange), when they have a red life bar, the normal ability skill will apply. With the Exception of Stasis, which circumvents all protections except against machinery, all other skills need you to take out the protection before applying their proper effect.

 

[tmande2nd]

Three tricks to win:

1) Use Overload, Stasis, or other effects to stun someone and kill them. Or stun one guy and kill his friends first.
2) STAY TOGETHER AT ALL COSTS
3) CONCENTRATE YOUR FIRE AND NEVER LEAVE YOURSELF EXPOSED.

Honestly three is the most important.
I would tier the enemies as: Phantom, Atlas, Nemesis, then Centurion, Guardian, and Trooper at the same level there.

No enemy, at any level can long survive 4 players concentrating fire on them, short of an Atlas.

Also if someone goes down, DONT CHARGE IN UNLESS ITS SAFE. I cant count how many times people have wandered into a perfect crossfire or a Phantom, or an Atlas. It saves your ass, and their med kits greatly to do this.

Dont play the hero ever, and always keep in mind that any foe can kill you if you dont focus.
I have gotten mobbed my Troopers, and trapped by Guardians and it aint funny.

Just always play as a team and you are 4 times as good as you would be if you dont.

 

[Fredvdp]

If you have unlocked the Widow sniper rifle you will have a very easy time killing Guardians. Your bullets will fly right through their shields and result in an instakill, even on gold if you're a cloaked infiltrator.

2) STAY TOGETHER AT ALL COSTS

Vanguards and infiltrators are allowed to leave the group.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

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.

 

[boag]

If you have unlocked the Widow sniper rifle you will have a very easy time killing Guardians. Your bullets will fly right through their shields and result in an instakill, even on gold if you're a cloaked infiltrator.

2) STAY TOGETHER AT ALL COSTS

Vanguards and infiltrators are allowed to leave the group.

as long as it isnt gold.

 

[tmande2nd]

Even Vanguards and Inf. should not do that.
I have seen on Silver them getting caught to far away to be helped far to often.

On Gold its just suicidal to even think of leaving the group.
LFD2 shows us that.

 

[Cyael]

Vanguard. All Points Toward Boosting Biotics. No Points In Shockwave. Phalanx only for fastest recharge.

I've beaten silver alone.

Got through gold with friends multiple times without getting downed once.
Charge. Nova. Charge. Nova.

As long as you have a target, you cannot die. (adjust sensitivity to the max to spin and find targets before you've even started the nova animation and prepare to charge again. Turrets, Phantoms, & even Atlas if you hit and run stand. no. chance)

 

[Cyael]

Vanguard
Dont play Vanguard in Gold unless you are a god damn Jedi with Future Sight and Snake like reflexes, you will get your ass killed - Play Defensively, killing anything that gets too close to your group.

People talk about Vanguard but clearly haven't used it. For a class significant for its Biotic abilities it would make sense the points to be put to boost those abilities specifically. Do that.

Running Lightweight (only one of the least heavy weapon) allows for recharge obscene enough to have Charge ready as soon as its used. I've played gold alone on vanguard and made it to 4 alone. The few times I do get downed, its because of multiple turrets shooting at me alone.

Actually try using a vanguard. You'll see bronze is a joke with just you & so is silver...

 

[boag]

Vanguard
Dont play Vanguard in Gold unless you are a god damn Jedi with Future Sight and Snake like reflexes, you will get your ass killed - Play Defensively, killing anything that gets too close to your group.

People talk about Vanguard but clearly haven't used it. For a class significant for its Biotic abilities it would make sense the points to be put to boost those abilities specifically. Do that.

Running Lightweight (only one of the least heavy weapon) allows for recharge obscene enough to have Charge ready as soon as its used. I've played gold alone on vanguard and made it to 4 alone. The few times I do get downed, its because of multiple turrets shooting at me alone.

Actually try using a vanguard. You'll see bronze is a joke with just you & so is silver...

I have play vanguard, I do run light so I can spam charge nova, unless you are a really experience Vanguard, which I admit I am not, you will get killed very fast in Gold if you charge alone. most of the enemies need 3 shots or less to kill you in gold.

Also Atlas and Phantoms are more prone to doing their instakill move on charging vanguards in Gold, ive seen it happen to myself and to people I Play with.

yes I agree Bronze is joke with a well built Vanguard, and Silver is pretty fun, you actually have to screw up to get killed, but Gold is a different matter.

If you are as skilled as you say you are, then i would enjoy playing with you, do you play on Xbox or PC?

Nevermind, saw your gamertag will be sending you a Friend request soon enough.

 

[Bebus]

My tip?

As a Vanguard, do not charge a deployed turret without support.

Even on Bronze, you will most likely die before being able to bring it down on your own.

Plus your team will hate you for dying at the foot of a turret.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

A well written and informative topic! You're the type of player i like to be teamed up with, a team-player who understands how it's supposed to be played.
I found what's been written here really helpful as I'm usually the last ranked person on the team (with the most assists mind you); it's a bit embarrassing actually. Usually the person who's ranked first is the Krogan Soldier who just goes in and rapes everyone, as they seem to be a damage sponge. I play as a human Sentinel just because I chose that in a hurry and now I've levelled her a decent amount.

I've noticed that Warp does wonders on turrents. I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this.