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Disambiguous This article is about the enemy in Mass Effect 3: Retaliation. For information about Seeker Swarms in general, see Seeker Swarm. For the multiplayer power, see Seeker Swarm (power).

The Seeker Swarm is a Collector unit encountered in Mass Effect 3. Collector Captains deploy Swarms to disable the players' abilities. Possessed Captains can deploy an enhanced variant.

Capabilities[]

Offensive

Once launched, a Seeker Swarms targets players in order to explode near them. This blast has a fairly small radius, but penetrates terrain. If a player is caught in the Seeker Swarm, they will take a small amount of damage and their cooldown-based powers will be disabled for a short length of time. The explosion will also significantly decrease the accuracy of any and all players caught within the blast. NPC squadmates are immune to the disabling effects.

Powers that have no cooldowns, such as Nova, Phase Disruptor and all grenade-type powers are unnaffected by the Seeker Swarm debuff.

Defensive

Seeker Swarms move fast and can be hard to target due to their shape and erratic movement. They can also ascend or descend short vertical drops as well as traverse ladders. They only have a small amount of health, but it's much higher than their size would suggest. They cannot be frozen or placed into Stasis.

Tactics[]

  • A Captain can only have one Seeker Swarm active at a time.
  • The duration of the Seeker Swarm disabling effect varies with difficulty level. In multiplayer, the duration of the effect starts at 6 seconds on Bronze difficulty, up to 12 seconds on Platinum. The same numbers apply to Seeker Plagues.[1]
    • If the player is hit by a swarm while already disabled by another, the effect is applied again for a full duration.
  • Area of affect powers such as Shockwave, Electric Slash, and Inferno Grenade are one of the quickest and easiest ways to eliminate a Seeker Swarm.
  • The Adas Anti-Synthetic Rifle, M-37 Falcon, and Striker Assault Rifle are effective at eliminating swarms with their explosive damage and the ease of landing hits. Their area damage is also useful for still dealing damage to Captains or any other enemies in the blast.
  • Singularity can be used to immobilize and eventually destroy a Seeker Swarm.
  • As a swarm is about to explode, it will momentarily stop and vibrate even more frantically. Running or combat dodging away while it is immobile will cause the swarm to dissipate while keeping power use intact. Classes with average or higher movement speed can usually get out of the detonation radius by simply walking away.
  • Powers that utilize a "charge" system, such as Biotic Orbs, Siege Pulse, and the hammer powers of the Krogan Warlord Sentinel, are not affected by Seeker Swarm detonations insofar as the already readied charges are concerned.
  • Seeker Swarms are not visible through terrain when using enhanced vision-granting equipment or powers. Also, while they make a constant buzzing sound, this sound is almost ubiquitous when fighting the Collectors and doesn't really hint at their approach. All in all, it's very difficult to tell when swarms are getting close to you, and the best way to avoid getting hit is to keeping moving at a fast pace and to just assume they are always approaching your position. Powers that automatically attack anything that approaches you such as Sentry Turret or Hawk Missile Launcher can be useful bug zappers.
  • The Marksman power when active renders the user immune to the disabling effects of Seeker Swarm explosions. Even though none of the multiplayer classes with Marksman can use any other powers while Marksman is active anyway, once Marksman ends, powers go back on their normal cooldown without any interference from swarm effects.
  • Seeker Swarm explosions can affect a player that is in the process of reviving in multiplayer. There is no real way to avoid this especially if self-reviving using medi-gel.
  • Seeker Swarms last until they are killed or they detonate.
  • Being a "summoned" unit, Seeker Swarm kills don't count as enemy kills in certain situations.
    • Eliminating all active swarms is not required to complete a current multiplayer wave. Because of this you should always stay vigilant even after a wave is completed.
    • Swarms do not count as enemies killed towards activating Rage for krogan classes or Bloodlust for vorcha classes in multiplayer.
    • Killing swarms with heavy melee attacks does appear to grant the on-kill bonuses of the Rank 5 and Rank 6 melee damage-centric evolutions of the other various Fitness-type powers.

References[]

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