Favorite char/special

[Wildeyn]

The end of this post contains a slight spoiler regarding powers gained mid game.

I did my first playthrough on veteran, and it seems pretty clear that a Sentinel with Reave is the best way to go, although I'm sure there are some other nifty choices.

Overload and Reave, combined, can do massive damage using just your powers, to anything. Plus Reave pumps your health up to around 800 for a little while, in case that matters, and does double dam to armor and barriers. Dominate and AI Hacking are too cute, in my opinion, and only work on red enemies. The shield/barrier/fort abilities are probably best for the other classes, but are superfluous with a Sentinel.

And the fact that you can get ammo from companions makes up for lacking that. I took Garrus and then Samara, because I like squad members with assault rifles, and Garrus has the ammo and overload (and concussive shot), and Samara has Reave. Morlan's incinerate would be a crowd favorite, but he doesn't have assault rifles. Jack would probably be quite cool if the computer controlled her really well, but she is a bit complicated to control optimally as a squad member.

*slight spoiler*

The fact that Sentinels (or anybody else) can even get assault rifles pretty much makes up for any weaknesses they have. And once you get Reave, or if you start with Reave after your first playthrough, you don't need points into warp, and maybe 1 into throw.

[Salidin54]

I was an Infiltrator and I chose Garrus and Thane as my party members as often as possible and Garrus when on the loyal missions. I had everyone using snipers rifles and while that might seem like a bad decision, the only time my team took a noticeable amount of damage was *spoiler*

Spoiler

on the Reaper corpse when there were two of those things that can freeze your team and both Thane and Garrus got frozen and Garrus fell off a ledge.

My favorite skills so far have got to be Slam and disruptor ammo. The disruptor ammo blows away enemy shields and then Slam finished them off.

[Wildeyn]

That sounds like quite a cool strategy, Salidin.

My only problems came when dealing with the Praetorians, I think those ships are called. Perhaps your strategy of staying as far away as possible helped you with them. Now I am curious to try that route of all sniping. I know that I liked sniping a bit in Mass Effect 1, although assault rifles are so accurate that they are often surprisingly good substitutes for them. But... the zoom that you can get in Mass Effect 2 with sniper rifles will be interesting to play around with. I haven't actually used one yet, except once just to test the sighting with a soldier briefly.

[Salidin54]

Well you should probably also keep in mind that I am a huge fan of shooters and have every achievement for the new Call of Duty, thus the sniping in ME2 to me is "piss easy." If you choose the Infiltrator class and put your points into that then when you aim with the sniper sights for a sort time everything goes into slow-mo. And yes I have to admit whenever I was just walking around with my gun out and someone would say something I would look down the sights just to hear what it did to people's voice.

[Wildeyn]

Ah, Saladin, that explains things a bit =)

I don't play shooters at all, except when an rpg sort of forces it on me. I can only think of Fallout 3 and the first Mass Effect where I have done shooting. I'm a strategy/rpg guy.

[Salidin54]

lol I actually started off in RTS then went to RPG then shooter and shooters are what I play the most, though they aren't what I would describe as the best.