The Mass Effect 2 Insanity difficulty thread

[MiracleOfSound]

I'm about to begin the game on Insanity difficulty, having done hardcore.

I'll probably pick a sentinel, and will be sharing any tips I can on this thread for those who also want to give it a try.

If anyone else has done it/is doing it, feel free to share tips or strategies you found worked during your playthrough, particularly on the very hard bits like Horizon and the

Spoiler

Collector Ship

.

EDIT:

The following sections/enemies keep popping up, so anyone who has beaten them it would be great if you could share your tactics for them:

The Two Scions and husks on horizon

The Paetorian battle on the Collector ship

Geth Colossus



Share what class you found worked, and which squad-mates you found the most helpful.

And feel free to vent about the bits that drove you nuts (Geth Colossus, anyone?)

 

[IrrelevantTangent]

Oh good Lord was the Horizon battle hard. For reference, I was playing a imported ME 1 character with the class changed to Infiltrator, and my teammates were Grunt and Miranda like a bunch of other guides recommended. What really got under my skin was the final battle.

Not only did we have to fight off a swarm of Collectors and Harbinger drones, but after that two Scions come out to play. And once they're dead, a frakking Praetorian makes its appearance!

One time when I was trying to beat the Praetorian, I was down to zero functional teammates and I was frantically running from one cover to the next, sniping and whittling down the health of the creature before getting back behind cover again. It was almost dead, then I popped out of cover to slice it apart with my Collector Particle Beam, and it tore apart my shields. I wasn't able to get back in cover at the time, and I died. To say it was frustrating was a hilarious understatement.

I finally was able to beat the Praetorian and everything else- mostly I just hid in the 'sniper box' near the far left of the area and let them come to me; for some reason the Scions didn't show up, maybe because of where we were and I was able to beat the Praetorian.

For now I'm just taking a break from Insanity difficulty, but I'll dive back in sometime. I've gotten this far, so I might as well keep it up.

 

[CmdrGoob]

I'm doing it with an Engineer.

I've actually tried every class a bit on Insanity, usually up to about Horizon, and the Engineer was the best combination of strength and fun (although the Infiltrator is basically almost as good IMO).

Explosive drone is so excellent, you can keep tough enemies completely distracted with it and never be attacked by them because they are always trying to kill the drone and the explosive AoE is really nice too.

Then you have incinerate to burn armor and panic organic enemies and overload to destroy shields and stun mechanical enemies for AoE attacks that do crowd control AND damage.

Finally, I have a few points in cryoblast, which has saved me a few times against charging krogans and the like, and I'm rounding out the class with AP ammo. Very fun class to play because of the multiple versitile and tactical abilities, especially the drone.

I'm also loving the Avalanche as a heavy weapon, it does good damage to protections and the freeze effect is so good.

Edit: I'm a few missions past Horizon, which was suprisingly easy for this class. Drones FTW! I could totally take Harbinger out of the battles by distracting him with a drone. Plus husks often cluster around the drone, which leads to them all getting hit by the same incinerate.

 

[Connor Lonske]

Hust don't deserve sniper rifles, no matter how bad ass they look.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

For now I'm just taking a break from Insanity difficulty, but I'll dive back in sometime. I've gotten this far, so I might as well keep it up.

From what I hear you're past the hardest bit. That was the toughest part for me on hardcore for sure.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

I'm doing it with an Engineer.

I've actually tried every class a bit on Insanity, usually up to about Horizon, and the Engineer was the best combination of strength and fun (although the Infiltrator is basically almost as good IMO).

Explosive drone is so excellent, you can keep tough enemies completely distracted with it and never be attacked by them because they are always trying to kill the drone and the explosive AoE is really nice too.

Then you have incinerate to burn armor and panic organic enemies and overload to destroy shields and stun mechanical enemies for AoE attacks that do crowd control AND damage.

Finally, I have a few points in cryoblast, which has saved me a few times against charging krogans and the like, and I'm rounding out the class with AP ammo. Very fun class to play because of the multiple versitile and tactical abilities, especially the drone.

I'm also loving the Avalanche as a heavy weapon, it does good damage to protections and the freeze effect is so good.

Edit: I'm a few missions past Horizon, which was suprisingly easy for this class. Drones FTW! I could totally take Harbinger out of the battles by distracting him with a drone. Plus husks often cluster around the drone, which leads to them all getting hit by the same incinerate.

Hmm now I'm undecided between engineer and sentinel...

 

[tetron]

I'm doing it with an Engineer.

I've actually tried every class a bit on Insanity, usually up to about Horizon, and the Engineer was the best combination of strength and fun (although the Infiltrator is basically almost as good IMO).

Explosive drone is so excellent, you can keep tough enemies completely distracted with it and never be attacked by them because they are always trying to kill the drone and the explosive AoE is really nice too.

Then you have incinerate to burn armor and panic organic enemies and overload to destroy shields and stun mechanical enemies for AoE attacks that do crowd control AND damage.

Finally, I have a few points in cryoblast, which has saved me a few times against charging krogans and the like, and I'm rounding out the class with AP ammo. Very fun class to play because of the multiple versitile and tactical abilities, especially the drone.

I'm also loving the Avalanche as a heavy weapon, it does good damage to protections and the freeze effect is so good.

Edit: I'm a few missions past Horizon, which was suprisingly easy for this class. Drones FTW! I could totally take Harbinger out of the battles by distracting him with a drone. Plus husks often cluster around the drone, which leads to them all getting hit by the same incinerate.

Engineer's ftw ! My first character on this was an engineer. I haven't played on any difficulty but insanity but in games like this the way it gets harder with harder difficulty is basically that you have a lot less room for error and the battles last longer. And longer battles = more opportunities to mess up. So stay in cover and stay frosty cause one mistake can be fatal.


Edit: As for your teammates I'd say get who you think will be usefull. If you're fighting blood pack get people with anti-armor and warp/incinerate/incendiary stuff, Blue sun = Anti-shield, Eclipse = Anti shield/mech, Geth = Anti mech, collectors = all around. As far as actual teammates just pick w/e. You can't go wrong with miranda though since her class skill "cerberus officer" buffs the whole team.

 

[Amnestic]

Soldier, Sentinel or Engineer are probably your best bet. Vanguard requires you to learn a new playstyle which will make the beginning bits more difficult than perhaps they should be. Adept is...difficult to adapt to, since most of your powers are less useful until you've picked away at the enemies shields/armour/barriers. Not useless (Singularity still holds them in place at 30% duration and the others will still do a modicum of damage) but less useful. Infiltrator is good, no doubt, and having a Widow makes it all the easier - but Soldiers with Adrenaline Rush are superior for pure efficiency.

Not that I prefer Soldiers mind. I'm an Infiltrator through and through, but AR is just broken.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Not only did we have to fight off a swarm of Collectors and Harbinger drones, but after that two Scions come out to play. And once they're dead, a frakking Praetorian makes its appearance!

If you're an Infiltrator, those should be the easy bit. Once you're rid of the swarm of Husks, usually by running around the arena backwards shooting at them with your SMG whilst Yackety Sax plays in the background, you can just pop in cover and snipe them with AP ammo. (You did take AP ammo as your bonus skill, right?)

And when you get the Widow, nothing else should be much of a problem. The only real annoyance left is Geth Hunters, because they love to come stand next to you with shotguns and they have an annoying amount of health, and they're tall enough to hit you when you're in cover.

 

[Amnestic]

If you're an Infiltrator, those should be the easy bit. Once you're rid of the swarm of Husks, usually by running around the arena backwards shooting at them with your SMG whilst Yackety Sax plays in the background, you can just pop in cover and snipe them with AP ammo. (You did take AP ammo as your bonus skill, right?)

A good way to take down the Husks on Horizon is to note that they can't jump over walls. At the back of the area, there is a long wall. Jump over it, shoot them a bit, jump over it, shoot them, repeat until they're all dead.

Watch out if you didn't kill those Scions though! Word is that you can snipe them from outside the door you bypassed without spawning the Husks, though I've yet to try that myself.

 

[Baconmonster723]

I'm about 75% through with my soldier on my first insanity run. I'm about to hit

Spoiler

the derelict reaper

. The Collector ship, Horizon, and the "boss fight" to retrieve Grunt have been my hardest fights yet. Anything with the Collectors is murder because of the damn scions and praetorians. Oh and Harbinger loves to possess enemies you are about to kill, so if you have an enemy almost down put him down for good, or Harbinger will piss you off, a lot.

As the soldier I wipe the enemies out without needing much help from my squadmates, if you feel you need the help of squadmates it's really up to you balancing out the abilities of your teammates (I'm an old school guy so I choose Garrus and Tali).

Really I can't decide on Heavy Weapons. I like the Collector beam, missle launcher and avalanche. On insanity the Cain and the Blackstorm are kind of meh. The Collector beam is a little weak, but the launcher and avalanche have to ammo to be useful throughout a run. The avalanche is great because it increases damage taken by your enemies.

If you are having issues with the sentinel the soldier just hammers people with the revenant machine gun if you can wait to pick it up. Obviously any class is capable of doing it. All I can say is don't rush, don't get greedy, and pick your shots wisely. Enemies on Insanity just don't care, if I have more than two people shooting at me I am unable to pop out of cover without my shields dropping. Watch out for Krogan, Destroyers, Blood Pack Flamers, Blue Suns Shot Gunners, and Eclipse Mechs. These are high priority targets. Don't let them get close, or you most likely will die. If you find you are having issues taking damage, invest in Barrier or Geth Shield Boost, if any of those mentioned enemies round a corner, you should survive if you are able to pop one of those.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

I'm about 75% through with my soldier on my first insanity run. I'm about to hit

Spoiler

the derelict reaper

. The Collector ship, Horizon, and the "boss fight" to retrieve Grunt have been my hardest fights yet. Anything with the Collectors is murder because of the damn scions and praetorians. Oh and Harbinger loves to possess enemies you are about to kill, so if you have an enemy almost down put him down for good, or Harbinger will piss you off, a lot.

As the soldier I wipe the enemies out without needing much help from my squadmates, if you feel you need the help of squadmates it's really up to you balancing out the abilities of your teammates (I'm an old school guy so I choose Garrus and Tali).

Really I can't decide on Heavy Weapons. I like the Collector beam, missle launcher and avalanche. On insanity the Cain and the Blackstorm are kind of meh. The Collector beam is a little weak, but the launcher and avalanche have to ammo to be useful throughout a run. The avalanche is great because it increases damage taken by your enemies.

If you are having issues with the sentinel the soldier just hammers people with the revenant machine gun if you can wait to pick it up. Obviously any class is capable of doing it. All I can say is don't rush, don't get greedy, and pick your shots wisely. Enemies on Insanity just don't care, if I have more than two people shooting at me I am unable to pop out of cover without my shields dropping. Watch out for Krogan, Destroyers, Blood Pack Flamers, Blue Suns Shot Gunners, and Eclipse Mechs. These are high priority targets. Don't let them get close, or you most likely will die. If you find you are having issues taking damage, invest in Barrier or Geth Shield Boost, if any of those mentioned enemies round a corner, you should survive if you are able to pop one of those.

Great advice there, nice and thorough.

I just got killed by a Loki Mech... oh dear.

 

[Dirand]

Doing insanity with an infilitrator, have to say the hardest part is def the collector ship. I got to that point and basically gave up, the part where you fight the praetorian along with 2 collectors and 2 husks at the same time is pretty much impossible minus some sort of incredible luck. Not to mention the flying platforms part which took me about 50 tries before that.

 

[IrrelevantTangent]

For now I'm just taking a break from Insanity difficulty, but I'll dive back in sometime. I've gotten this far, so I might as well keep it up.

From what I hear you're past the hardest bit. That was the toughest part for me on hardcore for sure.

That's great news. Right now I'm at the stage of the game where you have to decide which teammates to pick up first- Tali, Thane, or Samara. Which would you recommend I go after first? Last time I picked up the controller I was just running around on the Citadel and Omega gaining Renegade points, buying stuff, and doing sidequests, so it's not like I've committed myself to anything right at the moment.

Not only did we have to fight off a swarm of Collectors and Harbinger drones, but after that two Scions come out to play. And once they're dead, a frakking Praetorian makes its appearance!

If you're an Infiltrator, those should be the easy bit. Once you're rid of the swarm of Husks, usually by running around the arena backwards shooting at them with your SMG whilst Yackety Sax plays in the background, you can just pop in cover and snipe them with AP ammo. (You did take AP ammo as your bonus skill, right?)

And when you get the Widow, nothing else should be much of a problem. The only real annoyance left is Geth Hunters, because they love to come stand next to you with shotguns and they have an annoying amount of health, and they're tall enough to hit you when you're in cover.

Well, I did manage to finally beat the Horizon battle, like I said. For some reason, when I popped into the 'sniper box' (It's hard to describe it by any other means- it's like a wall that you can take cover behind, and it's on the edge of the scenery) and let the enemies come to me, the Scions didn't make their appearance.

As for my bonus talent, right now it's Barrier to keep me alive. I'm an Infiltrator, like I said, and I put 3 bars' worth of points into Disruptor Ammo too. Barrier helps keep me from dying and Disruptor Ammo helps take out enemies.

And as for the Widow- how exactly do you get to wield that weapon personally again? I thought it was only for Legion or something, but my memory isn't perfect.

 

[Amnestic]

That's great news. Right now I'm at the stage of the game where you have to decide which teammates to pick up first- Tali, Thane, or Samara. Which would you recommend I go after first? Last time I picked up the controller I was just running around on the Citadel and Omega gaining Renegade points, buying stuff, and doing sidequests, so it's not like I've committed myself to anything right at the moment.

Tali if you have access to the Cain, Thane or Samara if you don't.

Okay, the Cain's not a requirement to beat Tali's recruitment but it's a good way of easy-moding the Colossus.

And as for the Widow- how exactly do you get to wield that weapon personally again? I thought it was only for Legion or something, but my memory isn't perfect.

If you have the Sniper Rifle skill to begin with (only Soldiers and Infiltrators as memory serves) you can choose it as your weapon upgrade on the Collector Ship.

Note: You don't get to pick an extra/new one on repeated playthroughs, so if you chose Shotguns or Assault Rifles as an Infiltrator instead of the Widow...well, you're a fool.

Although you can modify the Coalesced.ini if you're on the PC.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

OK, a few basic tips form stuff I've been finding:

1. Turn off squad power usage.

Believe me, you're better at the game than the AI, so control their powers yourself.

Too many times I caught Miranda using Warp on a half dead Vorcha when there was a fully armoured Krogan charging us down...


2. Use powers in the right way

For example, using Overload on a Blood Pack Pyro is an explosive one hit kill after his shields are down, and it can be used to explode canisters without having to pop out and aim.

3. Backtrack

If a room is getting crowded with enemies rushing you, run back to the previous area if possible, this way you can pick them off one at a time. Easy peasy, I learned this one from playing Gears of War.

4. Run away!

If you're feeling really cheap, you can run past certain checkpoints and the enemies will unspawn, and your team will spawn alive next to you.

This worked for me in the large red room on Mordin's recruitment mission, I got rid of the ground troops and ran past the missile firing Vorcha on the high platfrom... hey presto my dead team are back and I hit a checkpoint.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Doing insanity with an infilitrator, have to say the hardest part is def the collector ship. I got to that point and basically gave up, the part where you fight the praetorian along with 2 collectors and 2 husks at the same time is pretty much impossible minus some sort of incredible luck. Not to mention the flying platforms part which took me about 50 tries before that.

That part was horrible even on hardcore, made doubly infuriating some really stupid friendly AI.

And welcome to the Escapist, may you enjoy your stay

 

[reg42]

I've just started my insanity playthrough (I WILL get you, you tastey little achievement!) and the difficulty change is pretty vast (my last play through was on hard). I'm quite sure I'm going to be making quite a few rage-quits before i'm done.
EDIT: Oh yeah, I'm playing as an engineer, to be a bit different than the vanguard I usually play as.

 

[Poomanchu745]

For now I'm just taking a break from Insanity difficulty, but I'll dive back in sometime. I've gotten this far, so I might as well keep it up.

From what I hear you're past the hardest bit. That was the toughest part for me on hardcore for sure.

By far the hardest fight in the game. I found the first part of the fight the hardest on hardcore. I first tried to hunker down by the entrance but died a lot doing that. So finally I decided I would burn all my teams abilities killing husks while sprinting past everything. It put a lot of room between me and everything else and could kill everything pretty easily.

 

[Amnestic]

This worked for me in the large red room on Mordin's recruitment mission, I got rid of the ground troops and ran past the missile firing Vorcha on the high platfrom... hey presto my dead team are back and I hit a checkpoint.

Another place this works is on the Derelict Reaper, just before you reach the place you pick up the IFF. With Tac Cloak, sprinting and a modicum of luck you can make it past a bunch of husks and one or two scions without having to fight them all.