So, this game seems to have died in time with Diablo III, and yeah, I'm enjoing D3, but I'm feeling like blasting some aliens right now. Anyway, I'm going to backtrack from my claim that the Paladin is only a modest improvement over the Carnifax in single player. I don't actually know if that's the case. That's the case in multiplayer from what I gather, but the powers of guns in SP is not the same as it is in MP. Bioware is updating the power of guns in MP every week, and I don't think those changes are reflected in SP. For example, Bioware just updated the power of the Hurricane again, taking it from being "awesome" to being one of the best guns in the game, and almost certainly the best fully automatic gun in the game, esp. in the hands of a turian soldier and/or with a stability mod consumable. Like, I cracked open a Valiant I in my second-ever commendation pack yesterday, and I was almost disappointed, as I kinda wanted a Hurricane II. I'm still running pretty damn good when it comes to commendation packs, however.

Yeah, I read something like this somewhere else. I'm still learning what guns work best with what classes. For example, the Javelin with Geth Infiltrator is absolutely beast but it's not so great with say, an Asari Adept (lol).

Although, if memory serves, I believe they were talking about a turian sentinel and not a solider. I could be wrong.

Both turians have the increased weapon stability passive skill. Turian soldier gets proximity mine and increased rate of fire from Marksman, though, which is an awesome combo. You can take down a geth prime in just a clip or two single handedly, at least if you're decent at stabilizing the weapon, getting the head shots, and are using AP ammo.

I got a valiant as well in that pack, I don't have the hurricane yet so me sad face.

I got the Valiant in my Commendation pack too. It took a little getting used to, but it's an awesome weapon. Similar to the Black Widow except it shoots faster, has no recoil, and reloads almost instantly (lower damage, but it's not significant). I think it might be lighter too, but I can't confirm right now. Either way it's a godsend on my Salarian Infiltrator. Cloak -> Energy Drain -> Bullet to the head. Excellent combo on Gold against Geth and Cerberus.

Take another look at proximity mine for that combo. Prox mine is seriously awesome, and pretty much any character that has it should max it out, or at least get it to level 5 for enemies taking 20% more damage. It packs a wallop from cloak just by itself, too, and the radius is great. When I play with it on my geth infiltrator, I don't always get the most kills on the team, but I'll usually top the score board thanks to the assists. Spamming the mine will hit a ton of ****, and it'll help your whole team kill everything it touched. Score doesn't matter, but it's a testament to the utility of the skill.

Also, like, I don't have a javelin, but infiltrators with shotguns seem to be all the rage now, and for the geth in particular, it seems like a great idea. Geth heavy melee is awesome, so staying to the back of the battle sniping is dampening your effectiveness. And, if you're going to get close, you might as well pack a claymore or geth plasma shotgun. Maybe Graal. From what I've seen, shotgun infiltrators are effective and popular with human and salarian infiltrators, too.

I keep getting the Graal but looking at the numbers in the spreadsheet you posted earlier it doesn't look nearly as effective as the geth plasma, even though it's at II and the Graal is like a VI. Although the disparity might be less than I imagine; what's the difference between stat damage and damage level?

I think the "damage" is damage per particle in the spread, and stat damage is damage per burst. I also think the GPS numbers are for a charged up shot, not ordinary shots. Same for the arc pistol.

Just finished my first run through as a sentinal on insanity. I'm going to leave the ending alone as I'm assuming that's been well and truely beaten to death by now?

Overall I thought the game was very good. Character wise Tali's drunk conversation with the Prothean was a highlight. However, I have a couple of complaints. 1st of all the sentinal's unique power didn't seem to do anything. In ME2 it turns him into a walking tank. Secondly it isn't hard enough. I lost count of the amount of times I had to do some of the collector battles in ME2. I had to repeat the hardest battles 4 or 5 times at the most this time round. An overload character with Javik and Liara (slam + warp combo) was capable of ripping through all of the normal enemies very quickly.

Yeah, tech armor was nerfed significantly. It was pretty beastly in ME2, well worthy of being a class-specific skill. In ME3, it's an afterthought, perhaps not even as good as barrier, which anyone can get as a bonus power. I don't think it's as bad in multiplayer as it is in SP (it's worth maxing in MP as a human sentinel), but it's still a shell of its former self.

But geez, if you're a sentinel, I think you completely squandered Javik if your main purpose for him was slam+warp with Liara. You should be rocking one of the most broken systems in the game, where you hit fools with dark channel, then detonate it with throw, and then, when the dark channel moves to some other mook, detonate it again with throw. You can detonate multiple biotic explosions in spans of less than 2 seconds! Slam+warp is doing it wrong. Both powers are wrong. Dark channel is conspicuously absent from multiplayer because, in its current state, it's just too amazing.

I agree that ME3 is easier than ME2, though. I got like 5 battles in ME3 that were hard: the battle on Rannoch with the three geth primes, the battle with Kai Leng at Cerberus HQ, the battle with the full brunt of Cerberus in the courtyard at the biotic school, the last battle with the banshees defending the missile truck, and finally, the rather stupid "final boss" named Marauder Shields, but the Scions and Praetorians in ME2 generally put up better and more-epic-feeling fights.

Didn't even think of trying that...

Didn't need to

If it makes it that much easier then I'm glad I didn't. Having said that I'll probably use it on my next playthrough.

N7 weekend promote 50k as the allied goal, promote 3 as a squad. but...

Due to the failure of Operation SILENCER, more banshees will spawn with Reaper enemies and might also spawn with other enemies.

worst sentence ever.

wat

bad time to gold/geth farm!

So just finished my second playthrough as a renegade on hardcore. Had a lot of fun with it! So I've now played all three twice. Not sure there's much value in new game +ing it on insanity, so guess I'll just have to wait for the DLC!

I might play around with some more multiplayer (have only played enough to get the proper galactic readiness so far) but I think its time to break and play some other games!