Talk:Gold Standard Class Builds

I'm not quite sure what to do with this page. Granted, it's useful info, but would it be more useful merged into various class guides? Either way it needs links and categories once we decide what to do with it. Thoughts? --Tullis 21:09, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * If we went the route of putting the different "best builds" on separate pages, we'd probably end up without many comparisons between builds, which would be both good and bad... good, because any comparisons (and hell, even what the "best build" is) would be POV, but bad because it would be very helpful to know what's better than other combinations. I'm inclined to say leave it as a single page; I based my current character off the suggested Vanguard build, and part of my decision was the stats about how it compared to other builds. Having all the info on one page made it easy to see what those builds were like.
 * And very Off-Topic: garr, I accidentally reset all the settings to defaults, and didn't realize it puts difficulty back at Normal; guess I've gotta do yet another playthrough then (was going for Hardcore completion). Oh well. Hezekiah957 04:35, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * OK. *rolls up sleeves* In that case this page needs cleanup and links. Actually this highlights the need for redirect pages for ammo/armour/weapon upgrades, rather than everyone typing out the long versions all the time... --Tullis 06:50, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I deleted the Infiltrator/Operative/Assault rifle build and wrote a new one. The old build there was pathetically suboptimal. Specifically, the author of the build advocated assault rifles as a bonus talent. This was kind of pointless considering there were 6 in AR's, 5 in pistols. Considering the pistols can get better damage anyway, this was a fairly stupid idea. I wrote a new build, putting those points into pistol, thus having one good weapon instead of two mediocre ones. Also I used the bonus talent for AI Hacking, which gives a marked improvement in the tech abilities, and gives the infiltrator tech mastery comparable to an engineer. 75.2.44.245 02:47, 14 November 2008 (UTC)Slothen

Cleanup
I've gone through and overhauled this page, added links and images, fixed a few tiny bits of spelling, reorganised and whatnot. (And now my sanity hurts.) I'm going to turn those redlinks into redirects later, so it's easier to link to weapon and armour upgrades. --Tullis 17:03, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I removed Prince's vanguard/shock trooper guide for a couple reasons. First of all, it was terrible. The low level biotics would be clearly ineffective on insanity, furthermore, the build didn't even list assault training(adrenaline burst) as a skill. Considering Shock trooper gets barrier and adrenaline burst specialization, the result would be a character with less offensive and defensive capabilities than a soldier, and severely underpowered biotics, at least for an insanity playthrough, which is the purpose of this article. 134.68.136.191 22:11, 13 November 2008 (UTC)Slothen

Adept/Bastion/AR alteration
I was just debating whether or not to post my variation on the adept "mk IV" build, I've yet to complete my insanity play-through but was considering dropping 5 points of warp and adding it to spectre training (or possibly 4 in spectre and 1 in AR). Maxing warp feels pointless to me when I can have my team focus fire on the tough enemy I use advanced warp on and get practically the same effect. (Ashley works quite well as a damage sponge in this case also.) So I guess what I'm asking is should I post this very slight, variation (or make a note beneath the original build) or just leave it alone.

to clarify it's the same as the Adept/Bastion/Assault Rifle (Mk IV) with:

Assault Rifle   11 (or 12) Spectre Training 12 (or 11) Warp             7 (just enough to unlock singularity)

I'd like to point a few things about an adept/bastion/AR build: -I don't think basic Shield Boost is useful. It only reload the puny shields of your armor, so that you will better recast Barrier instead. I don't think it can be use as an "emergency boost" either, due to its slow speed of charge. Compare with Master Barrier that instantaneously give 1250 shields for a bastion. - +8% DR and hardening really don't make one hell of a difference. Playing an adept, there is really only two kind of attack on insanity: one will bounce off harmelessly of your barrier, the others(rockets, melee, acid spit) will kill you in one shoot no matter what kind of armor training you have. For this reason and the one above, I suggest forgetting entirely about basic armor training, and putting the points somewhere else. - As a continuation of the previous points, I suggest using Predator L from armax arsenal instead of Colossus Light. Its incredibly high Tech/biotic defence will greatly reduce the time during which you will be powerless because of Damping.

--24.23.86.67 21:48, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Finish testing it on Insanity first, then add it as a variation call-out to the old build if it works OK. --Tullis 00:32, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Alternative Infiltrator/operative/hacking
I think your Infiltrator/operative/hacking build could use a bit of tweaking or at least the presentation of an alternative possibility. My preferred build is similar but with 8 on combat armor, 4 on damping and 12 on spectre training. I find this build is more than survivable even without the increased shield boost. In my opinion, any build with master immunity really doesn't need master shield boost. A couple of Medical Exoskeleton armour upgrades can take care of all the skill cooldowns and give you good regeneration. Immunity can then be kept on at ALL times and sabotage can be used often enough that the enemy barely has any opportunity to shoot at you.

Damping isn't such a crucial skill but you still get plenty of bang for your skill-point buck with four points. After the first four points in damping the radius increase per point reduces to 2% from 4% (4th point gives you 18% up from 14%, the 5th gives you 20% up from 18%). This build also doesn't have those 2 wasted left-over points. It squeezes the absolute most out of every skill point gained. I also find it very hard to believe that anyone would advocate the use of sniper rifles without spectre training. Spectre training is the only way to increase the rate at which your weapons steady and it really is an absolute must for sniper rifles. Steadying the barrel takes noticeably longer without spectre training and timing is everything with snipers. A split second makes a big difference to the battle when you're waiting to take your shot. I find that this build is just as survivable as yours but has VASTLY improved sniper use. The only disadvantage of this build compared to yours is that it doesn't have advanced damping. However, overall i think it extracts more from each skill point used. And let us also not forget the usefulness of master unity which my build has.

Some Cleanup
I've taken the liberty of conflating the 4 different Adept builds into one; SonsofNorthWind himself improved upon the first build, and Psykotyrant's further changes can also be considered an objective improvement. His second build, however, neglecting Armor entirely and being undecided wether to invest in Assault Rifles or Spectre Training, wasn't a convincing further improvement. I'd suggest putting new builds under the scrutiny of the Mass Effect forum's regulars, before adding them here.

Further changes I intend to make: Consolidating the soldier builds into one, based on Iseo Tiakan's and INMWME's soldiers, while keeping most of the useful advice; removing the rather uninspiring Operative Infiltrator build; and adding the orthodox Engineer and Sentinel builds from the forum.

March 23rd Face-lift
First of all, this wasn't a content change. I didn't add any new builds, and hadn't originally removed any of the old builds. This was amended because I did include the changes made by 217.116.182.14 (and so some of the removals made by him or her included the consolidation of the Adept builds).

Primarily, the changes I made were with regards to grammar, punctuation, spelling, formatting, and consistency; all for the sake of the user's readability and convenience. With things such as alphabetization (of both classes and individual talents), it is easier for the user to find and/or compare things.

Another major change made was the removal of excessive links. Each build was left with one link per topic. This removes unnecessary clutter, while still allowing readers the convenience of not having to scroll to a different build.

Most abbreviations have been removed for the sake of clarity, however, AI (i.e. Artificial Intelligence) and DPS (i.e. damage per second) are fairly ubiquitous and have intentionally been left unchanged.

Some of the original phrases, and wording of authors have been made, however, regardless of my own opinions I made every effort to maintain the author's original intent. Again, such changes were made for the sake of readability.

I did leave some sections with things that I did not necessarily like, but was hesitant to change.

1) *ADEPT / Bastion / Assault Rifle* build

The ">" sign could easily be changed to words, and this would be my preference, however I do not wish to change what it was the author intended, and left it be.

2) *SOLDIER / Commando / Warp*

a) I have no idea what the phrase, “The same is also true of damage protection as granted by Combat Armor, Immunity and Spectre Training," means. It really doesn't read very well, but since I didn't understand it, I didn't change it.

b) The original author mentions that “Wrex or Liara” would be good squad-mates, but makes no explanation or justification of this. It would be nice to include a little more detail.
 * I've been away for some time from this wiki, but coming back and reading the notes, I went in and tidied up my portion of the article to address the outstanding issues. I rewrote the sentence listed in item A to be more easily read, but I was basically just trying to say the added damage protection from shock trooper is in the same way unecessary as the added health, and that the combat armor/immunity/spectre training was ample for damage protection. For item B, I went back and expanded the sentence referencing Wrex and Liara, although I felt that it was explained well already. If you take it in the context of the previous sentence, I was saying that Warp redundancy could be achieved by Adrenaline Rush and/or using squad mates (Liara and Wrex in this case) who could cast Warp. I felt that it was implied, but added it anyways. T0rin 15:35, September 29, 2009 (UTC)

Thanks.

Andaryn 22:01, 23 March 2009 (UTC)


 * There may be a 'wikification' pass done on this too, for elegance of links etc. Also, the images are now over-sized for some reason; they need correcting or they look huge and pixelated. Other than that, good editing. :) --Tullis 22:11, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean by 'wikification,' Tullis, but I did try to resolve the image issue. And thanks!  Andaryn 22:18, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually 'wikification' is incorrect, as that refers to putting an article into wiki-correct language and this is fine. I'd just be checking the links and fixing one or two things (for example, some alien race names and words like 'biotics' are capitalised when they should not be, etc). Little fixes like that. --Tullis 22:22, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Excellent. I'll keep an eye on the changes, so I can (try to) avoid those same mistakes next time! Andaryn 22:26, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * They're not mistakes, just changes. :) --Tullis 22:32, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Hehe... shall we agree on improvements, then? Andaryn 19:30, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Note On Adversary Capitalisation
--Tullis 14:40, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Geth units are capitalised (as they are the title of a unit) but the word 'geth' is not.
 * Asari commandos and krogan battlemasters -- some debate about this. For now I've been leaving them in lower case until we decide.

I was under the impression that Battlemaster is a title, not just a class. None of the other characters are referred to as their class (Mechanist, Agent, Scientist), but Wrex is referred to as a Battlemaster. Redlaceparasol 05:30, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Face-lift Improvement Revist
Better to ask, before I continue doing the wrong thing.

So...
 * 1) I'm noticing you changed the | to topics .  Was that just your stylistic preference or was there a rule regarding this?
 * 2) Regarding capitalization, are mobs capitalized?
 * 3) If the answer to the above is yes, then is the species capitalized?
 * 4) Regarding mob links again, did you prefer full names always (e.g. geth fodder and geth morefodder versus geth fodder and morefodder)? I was under the impression that grammatically, repeating "geth," for example, is unnecessary if it is previously listed, and all the other parts of the list include it, as well.
 * 5) Regarding species links, I again noted you've removed them from mob links. Was this intentional?

I'll probably have a lot more questions as I go through the improvements. But for now if my changes are unnecessary, feel free to undo my revisit.

Thanks!

Regards, Andaryn 14:52, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Heh... always one step ahead of me, huh, Tullis? Andaryn 14:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Eh, we've had a lot of vandalism lately so my response time is up a bit :) ).
 * It's a stylistic preference for elegance. It also makes it a hell of a lot easier to write articles if I just have to type asari commandos rather than asari commandos . It cuts down on punctuation errors too, as it's very easy to forget to put in a comma after using lots of brackets.
 * , 3., 4.: See above comments about adversary capitalisation.
 * 5. Species links are removed from mobs because that title does not refer to the species, but the unit concerned. A link to its species is pretty much the first thing on that unit's page anyway.
 * Any other questions, lemme know. --Tullis 15:05, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Removed Build
I removed the "ENGINEER / Medic / Barrier" build by "some random guest who thinks he's all that" as from what I understand this is supposed to be for the best builds in the game. The build was labeled as Gold Standard because, quite frankly, the person creating it thought that Gold Standard was speaking more about making people think rather than building a very effective character (glance at article history and read creator's comments if you need confirmation of that). If there is disagreement concerning the removal, I'm very sorry however quite frankly this is a bad build. I do not think anyone wants to play this game focusing on command class members with no fighting of their own and if so they can simply start a new character and not invest any talents. We do not need to be told how to build a weak character.

--69.14.214.231 18:49, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That's reasonable. If people rise up as one and demand it back, I'll roll it back, but until then I don't think we'll miss it that much. --Tullis 19:29, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Adept/bastion+assault rifle
Could I add a bit to this stating that the sniper as a bonus talent may not be the worst of choices? My reasoning is that the assault rifle while balanced may be one of its drawbacks. It takes 3 seconds of exposure to enemy fire(bad) to achieve the same amount of damage that a single sniper shot(maybe 1 second if you're at ~75m+ for aiming) can deliver, not counting the fact that assassination is +225% damage + instant shot steady vs overkill's nothing. It also, if outfitted with the correct weapon mods and ammunition has the ability to not only knock down, but knock back enemies with quite some force.

Yay or nays? 68.102.228.59 20:06, 30 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Sure, add it to the 'Variants' section underneath. --Tullis 20:11, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I've got a build that I'd like to add to this list. I was inspired to create it because of the lack of a Sentinel build here. I've played with it extensively now, and would like to post the build, I also ended up doing quite a bit of math on cooldown reductions, duration increases, actual damage values for various skills after ingame buffs, that I wouldn't mind posting, where would be a good place to put that page in?

(TomBeraha 21:03, 22 June 2009 (UTC)) Tom


 * Hrrrrrrrrrrm. Something like that might be suited to the Combat page. Why don't you knock it together as a guide for now, and we'll see how it goes?
 * As for your Sentinel build--go ahead and pop it in. --Tullis 21:35, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

SENTINEL build
It's posted now, let me know if I messed up anything, first time doing an edit to a wiki. I think I'll try to place the cooldown guide I've transformed a bunch of the math I did into into the guide section named as such. If you think of a better place for it let me know :)

TomBeraha 00:01, 23 June 2009 (UTC)Tom


 * This build won't work well on the Xbox 360 version of the game because of the power wheel glitch. --Daitenzin 22:24, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I hadn't read a lot about the bug for the console version of the game before. It looks nasty. You can eliminate one of your skills from the skill wheel by going Medic instead of bastion. Your cooldowns will be about 1.5sec slower on average, you can take Throw 12 instead of Spectre Training too, because the medic specialty will give you a much more powerful resurrection ability with first aid than unity will provide even at lvl12. I'm not sure when the bug exactly comes into effect, Is it a hard limit on number of abilities that you can have? If so then I think this will help somewhat to achieve the primary goal of the build (lots of options). I've made the trade before, the slightly weaker barrier can be tough on insanity, but is still manageable.

TomBeraha 11:38, 25 June 2009 (UTC)Tom


 * The bug causes you to loose a bonus tech or biotic off the wheel. I think it's triggered by having seven non gun abilities other without the bonus talent (so not having unity would prevent it) but it may be 6 tech or biotic powers. Gun abilities have a special slot so they don't get lost. If the power is mapped to the bumper before it's lost it can be used that way but it's kind of awkward. I'd suggest looking at the official forums as there are fairly standard builds for sentinels, particularly bastion, taking the bug into account. --Daitenzin 20:22, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure there are other Sentinel Builds that are viable and focus on fewer active skills, it just seemed to me to be kind of contrary to what a Sentinel should be. In my mind, the hybrids of any game / world are jacks of all trades, I'd rather have as many options as are possible available when playing as one and never be as good at any of them as a true specialist would. Sentinels are the Bard of the Mass Effect universe to me :) Do you think it would be worth adding to the Notes at the bottom a 'Console Friendly' variant?

TomBeraha 00:17, 26 June 2009 (UTC)Tom


 * I don't want to get into a discussion about optimisation of the build here. The best place to get it critiqued is the official forum. A Sentinel which allows for the bug is a different build, I think you should add a note that this build will be subject to the bug. --Daitenzin 00:46, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

ExpiredRascals 03:18, October 4, 2009 (UTC) I tried editing the sentinel build to attribute it to the original creator, ExpiredRascals, yesterday. It has since reverted to its original form. The original postings proposing this build can be found here with some auxiliary informal debate here. I think it necessary that it be attributed to the original creator just as the other builds are. I understand the possible perceived conflict of interests given my own role as creator, but I know that I was the first to pioneer and propose it, and at the point that I left the forums it was not yet generally accepted as the best. Upon my return to the forums I saw the general respect for the once-underdog bud and decided to check if it had been added here.

On a side note, it would be worthwhile to incorporate some of the points from those threads into the reasoning and purpose of the build--ExpiredRascals 03:17, October 4, 2009 (UTC)

ExpiredRascals 09:13, October 4, 2009 (UTC) I removed the variant suggestion for an AI hacking Medic Sentinel from the notes category as such a build is far from gold standard for a plethora of reasons. Some such reasons include the pitiful benefit gained from medic specialization when when compared to bastion, that AI hacking will initiate the power-wheel glitch, that most crowd-control is non-target-specific and therefore removes the utility of AI hacking by neutralizing your hacked opponent, that medic would suggest the investment of points into shock which is an inferior version of throw. This has been established on the forums and so the "variant" listed in the notes felt like someone personal sub-optimal build