Adept Guide

Adept is the most support-oriented class in Mass Effect. Its available talents focus more on debuffing and controlling enemies as opposed to killing them outright. Despite the lack of weapon talents and direct damage abilities, the powerful biotic talents can make some otherwise challenging encounters downright trivial.

On a less positive note, the sheer number of available active-usage powers can make developing an Adept quite difficult. You'll want to unlock most if not all of them, so you don't run into tough combat situations where you've got no powers off cooldown. Another downside is that you'll need to rely on your teammates to both absorb and dish out a significant portion of the damage, meaning that you'll be restricted to combat-oriented party members for the most part. Garrus and Ashley pair very well with an Adept.

Class Abilities
Basic Armor: Develop it long enough to unlock pistols. Your biotic Barrier will end up being far more valuable as a defensive power than Shield Boost would be, and you can never wear anything heavier than Light Armor, so don't spend more point here than you need to.

Pistols: Your only weapon talent, it's worth investing some points here. I recommend developing it up to Advanced Marksman, to give you a little extra firepower for tough fights.

Throw: A key early crowd control power, you'll need the spend points here to unlock Lift. Once you've got Lift and Singularity, however, Throw becomes very secondary, so don't spend more than you need to open up Lift.

Lift: This power sees a lot of usage when there's an enemy or group of enemies you need to control, and Singularity is on cooldown. It can also lift enemies out from behind cover, letting you and your teammates pick them off. I recommend investing enough points here for the second rank of Lift.

Warp: It can be easy to overlook this power, since it doesn't act as crowd control, and its effects are subtle. The damage vulnerability debuff of Warp can make otherwise tough enemies become paper-thin, however. More importantly, investing in Warp unlocks Singularity. You probably won't need to spend more points than are necessary to get the unlock.

Singularity: This is the pinnacle of your biotic talents. It can completely remove an entire pack of enemies from the fight for a significant amount of time, while still leaving them vulnerable to damage. I recommend maxing out this power.

Barrier: This talent is vital to your survival. You'll have no bonus shields or health from talents, and no heavy armor to keep you safe from harm, so you'll need Barrier in order to keep you up and fighting. I recommend investing enough points for the second rank of Barrier.

Stasis: This is an odd talent. While it completely removes an enemy from the fight, it also prevent you from dealing damage. In many cases you'll find yourself waiting for Stasis to wear off so you can kill that last target. More often than not you'd be better off using Singularity, Lift, or even Throw instead. I you don't plan on selecting and maxing out the Bastion specialization class (more on that later), I recommend skipping this power, or just getting Rank 1 if you need the Stasis achievement.

Adept/Bastion or Nemesis: Regardless of which specialization you pick, it's worth getting all 12 ranks of this line. You should probably prioritize Pistol, Barrier, and at least one or two biotic powers ahead of this, however.

Charm or Intimidate: Max out whichever one corresponds to the morality of your choice, Paragon or Renegade. Leave the other one empty.

Spectre Training: While it would be nice to max this out, you may find you're a little short on points to be able to do that. Since the Adept focuses more on crowd control than damage, the extra damage and accuracy from this talent are not worth as much as they would be to another class. I recommend investing enough points for the second rank of Unity.

A note regarding Stasis and the Bastion specialization class. If you plan on selecting Bastion as your specialization, and you're willing to max it out, Stasis goes from being a so-so power to being an absolutely kick-ass power. You'll be able to do damage to targets affected by Stasis, although unfortunately your teammates won't help. Combined with Advanced Marksman, you can freeze and then gun down really annoying enemies (e.g. Krogan mercenaries that just refuse to die) long before the Stasis wears off. If you do plan on going for full Bastion spec, shoot for the second rank of Stasis, for the reduced cooldown.

A note regarding bonus talents. If you've got the Sniper Expert achievement, you should have the option of selecting Sniper Rifle as your bonus talent. This could be an excellent alternative to Pistol, since it would let you avoid spending any points in Basic Armor altogether, and the nature of the Sniper Rifle meshes very well with the ranged support role of the Adept class.

Here is an example talent build: Basic Armor 5, Pistol 8, Throw 6, Lift 7, Warp 7, Singularity 12, Barrier 7, Stasis 7, Adept/Bastion 12, Charm or Intimidate 12, Spectre Training 8

How to use the Adept Class in combat
The key to succeeding in combat with the Adept is managing your cooldowns so you can lock up targets at will. You want to make sure you've always got a biotic power available to deal with whatever enemies you encounter. To that end, spreading your points around the biotic talents will give you more tools to work with, which will likely be more effective than concentrating on maxing out a smaller number of biotic powers. This is also why I greatly prefer the Bastion specialization over Nemesis. The true value of the Adept power set is its ability to provide debuffing and crowd control. The Bastion specialization reduces cooldowns, allowing you to lock up and debuff more frequently. With a full 12 points invested, Bastion also allows you to get better use out of Stasis, effectively expanding your arsenal of crowd control powers. Note that you can also gear for cooldown reduction via some armor upgrades. In the early going, watch for Stimulant Packs, which reduce cooldowns. Later on, Kinetic Buffers provide a similar bonus, while adding some additional benefits such as extra shields.

You would do well to pick beefy combat-oriented party members, so you can send them into harm's way. You'll want these teammates to have good short- to medium-range firepower as well. Garrus with an Assault Rifle, Ashley with an Assault Rifle or Shotgun, or Wrex with an Assault Rifle or Shotgun are your best bets. Garrus will need lots of points in Tactical Armor and Electronics (for extra shields), Ashley and Wrex will need lots of points in Combat Armor and Fitness. The enemy AI definitely prefers to target the player character where possible, so don't be afraid to take cover and let your teammates take some fire if your biotic powers are on cooldown.

Where possible, try to lure multiple enemies into choke points. Throw, Warp, Lift and Singularity are all area of effect, so try to get as many targets as possible inside their radius. In many cases, you can draw groups of enemies into hallways and doorways, pin them there with Lift or Singularity, debuff them with Warp, and send in your grunt teammates to mop up in short order.

For run of the mill groups of enemies, you'll rarely need more than Lift and/or Singularity. For tougher enemies, such as Krogan mercenaries or the larger Geth, Warp is your best friend. It will make the target more vulnerable to damage, allowing you and your teammates to drop them much faster, so make a priority of afflicting those key opponents with Warp as soon as possible. Throw is useful against many of these tougher enemies as well, since they can't shoot back if they're picking themselves up off the ground. Also, you can use Throw to keep Krogan mercs out of melee range, which is absolutely vital. If a Krogan successfully charges into melee range with you, your goose is cooked, because he will smash you dead in short order.