Tag Archives: proximity mine

Geth Playmore – by Forceuser7000

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Build Title: Geth Playmore

 

Class: Geth Infiltrator

Power Evolutions:
Tactical Cloak: (4) Damage, (5) Recharge Speed, (6) Bonus Power
Proximity Mine: (4) Damage, (5) Damage Taken
Hunter Mode: (4) Power Recharge, (5) Power Damage, (6) Damage
Networked AI: (4) Weapon Damage, (5) Headshots, (6) Weapon Damage
Advanced Hardware (1), (2), (3)

 

Weapons:
High level M-300 Claymore with Smart Choke and High Caliber Barrel/Shredder Mod

 

Gear:
Shotgun Amp or Vulnerability VI for gear. Shotgun Rail Amps or Targetting VIs for weapon, Armor-Piercing for ammo (don’t use Shredder if you use this) and Cyclonic for armor.

 

Strategy:
This build is designed for maximum damage on Gold runs. It has the advantage of being effective against any enemy.
I see a lot of Geth Infiltrator builds taking the melee route, but on Gold you just end up dying a lot. This build focuses on weapon damage – hence the Claymore. A high level Claymore and high level Smart Choke mod are important here. With these, the Claymore can be used effectively at medium range. I go for the Shredder mod when fighting Cerberus (for those pesky Guardian shields), otherwise the Barrel mod. If you don’t know how to already, learn to reload cancel – quite important with the Claymore.
The key with this build is learning its limits. The strategy explained here is for Gold. The boost from Hunter Mode (which should always be active) and Networked AI give you significant weapon damage straight off. This is enough to one shot kill most unshielded enemies with a head shot. If they’re at longer range you might need to cloak first.
For shielded enemies, you can usually just cloak and head shot if they’re at close range for an instant kill. Otherwise, you can cloak, fire your Proximity Mine, then head shot.
Against bosses it’s similar – cloak, Proximity Mine, head shot, and repeat. The Proximity Mine is key here. With the Damage Taken option, everyone does 20% more damage against the target.
You are quite squishy, so be careful. Stick near your team and take cover between shots. Depending on the map, you don’t actually need to be locked in cover. You can stand out of view, cloak, move out and shoot, and then move back out of view before the enemy can shoot you.
Use Tactical Cloak to move around the map, heal teammates and do objectives as necessary. Bear in mind though that without Duration (4), you don’t have that long cloaked.
If you play it right, you can easily be placing first on Gold with this build.

 

N00b Rating:
4 – Learning your limits is important. Getting head shots all the time with the Claymore can also take some getting used to.
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Baby’s First Sniper – by CoreyImperia

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Build Title: Baby’s First Sniper

Class: Salarian Infiltrator

Map Difficulty Rating: This build has the potential for Platinum gameplay

Power Evolutions:
Tactical Cloak: (4) Duration*, (5) Recharge Speed, (6) Sniper Damage
Proximity Mine: (4) Radius, (5) Damage Taken, (6) Damage
Energy Drain: (4) Damage**, (5) Drain, (6) Armor Boost**
Salarian Operative: (4) Weapon Damage, (5) Power Damage, (6) Weapon Damage
Fitness: N/A

 

*Most Sniper Rifle Infiltrators should use Damage, but even without the extra 40%, your shots are still very powerful. I evolve Tactical Cloak for Duration because I like having security for the Device objectives.

 

**Energy Drain is interesting. If you play off-host more than on, take Radius at Rank 4 and Damage at Rank 6. If you play on-host more than off, use the given evolution. This is because Armor Boost does not work off-host.

 

Weapons:
There are a few different Sniper Rifles you can use for this build, each have their positives and negatives. I recommend the Javelin, M-98 Widow, the Black Widow, or my personal favourite, the Kishock Harpoon Gun. Put Extended Barrel and Spare Thermal Clip on the Sniper you use. The two Widow snipers have innate piercing and the Kishock doesn’t need it. I believe Javelin X gives you a -0%/+0% Recharge Speed. Kishock X yields +100% Recharge Speed and M-98 Widow X yields +40%. I assume Black Widow X will give something between +40% and +70%. M-98 Widow is one, powerful shot with slow reload. Black Widow is 3 not so powerful shots with a quicker reload. Kishock is one powerful shot with DoT and a quick reload. Hence favourite. Also, even though the Javelin is amazing, it’s not the best on a power-dependant infiltrator unless it is of a high level. Remember, the M-98 Widow X is actually better than the Javelin I.

 

Gear:
Phasic Rounds. It practically negates shield gate which is the bane of all Snipers, and allows you to take the shields of a Prime down with incredible ease, two shots with the M-98 Widow X to be exact and nearly one shot with the Javelin III. Use a Sniper Rifle Rail Amp and either Cyclonic Modulator (Kishock, Black Widow, M-98 Widow) or Power Efficiency Module (Black Widow or M-98 Widow). For gear, I recommend the Operative Package. +12% Tech Power Damage and +12% Sniper Rifle Damage at V; it’s a nice addition having a supercharged Proximity Mine and a potent Energy Drain.

 

Strategy:
The Salarian Infiltrator, the best Sniper Infiltrator in the multiplayer scene in my personal opinion. It has your bread and butter Tactical Cloak, the debuffing Proximity Mine and shield-stripper, self-healer Energy Drain. It is not a hard class to play and has benefits against all factions. I’ll go over the powers, then the enemies and then the “issues” if you can call them that with the build.
Tactical Cloak is mostly standard for Sniper builds. Normally, all sniper builds should have Damage at Rank 4 but I prefer Duration just for the objectives and your damage is still stellar without the extra 40%. It’s totally your preference. There is no point in Melee Damage on Cloak, so go for Recharge. Rank 6 is tailored to sniper rifles, with a bonus of 25% damage. You could go for Bonus Power to fire off a Proximity Mine before the sniper shot but, you get 25% more damage from the Sniper Damage and only 20% debuff from the cloaked Proximity Mine. Proximity Mine is standard for most builds. Radius to increase that 20% Damage Taken’s effectiveness. Appplying that debuff on more enemies will help your whole squad. You don’t need the extra damage on Proximity Mine, but it is nice. You can opt to put 3 Ranks in Fitness instead, but you should never put less than 5 Ranks in Proximity Mine and you should always get Damage Taken. If you want to play using the Javelin however, go for Recharge Speed at Rank 6. I would only every recommend using the Javelin on a power-dependant class if it was at least a Javelin V. My Energy Drain evolution is tailored to playing on-host. You get a little extra damage on it to strip more shields, you always take the Drain at Rank 5 so it regenerates all of your shields and I take Armor Boost which gives me 40% Damage Reduction for 10 seconds. This last one only works if you play on-host so otherwise use the alternative evolution I listed above. The passive is evolved for maximum Weapon Damage with the Power Damage bonus, as you don’t necessarily need the extra 20% Headshot damage, it could be nice for bosses but you get more out of the extra damage on Energy Drain.
The Salarian Infiltrator doesn’t have a niche… Because it is amazing against each faction. Energy Drain drains the shields and barriers of your targets, Proximity Mine weakens bosses and kills weaker enemies out-right and a sniper shot while Cloaked deals massive damage. He faces little trouble against trooper-level enemies (Assault Troopers, Nemeses, Centurions, Combat Engineers, Geth Troopers, Geth Rocket Troopers, Geth Pyros, Geth Bombers, Cannibals, Husks, Marauders, Collector Troopers, Collector Captains and Abominations) as most can’t survive a cloaked sniper shot, and a prior Proximity Mine or Energy Drain should weaken them enough for a quick kill with your sniper (well… at least on Gold, as long as you have the amps, it should be the same on Platinum). Even if the enemy closes in on you, like a Geth Hunter for example. If you can see it coming, place a Proximity Mine behind you as a trap and then kill it while it’s staggered. Phantoms are a little more complicated. You’ll use Proximity Mine to pre-empt their Barrier use, which keeps them still for a few seconds. That’s enough time to pull out your sniper and give it a quick headshot which should kill it. If using the Kishock, it’s bleed effect will do this if the shot wasn’t enough itself. Dragoons will fall to the same technique, except they don’t stand still when you Proximity Mine them, you’ll most likely get a stagger out of it.
For Brutes, Ravagers and Scions, your sniper will work wonders. Especially when those enemies are under the influence of Proximity Mine. It should only take a few shots to kill them provided you aim for their weak-points (Brute’s Head or Underbelly, Scion’s Head or Tumors, Ravager’s Underbelly or Forehead…if you could call it that).
Bosses like Banshees, Altases, Geth Primes and Praetorians will fall in the same manner, using Proximity Mine to weaken them and Cloaked sniper headshots in-between (Atlas’s groin once armor is shot off or Canopy, Prime’s head, Banshee’s head, Praetorian’s jaw). Use Energy Drain only to regenerate your shields here, as the damage you and your team will deal to bosses affected by Proximity Mine will be huge. Good teamwork and synergy will make quick work of bosses.
The Salarian Infiltrator covers all the bases. He can do objectives, debuff enemies, one-shot-kill troopers and heal his own shields. His lack of defence shouldn’t really be an issue as long as you can Energy Drain when you need to. If playing as host, that Armor Boost upgrade will definitely benefit you. If you’re caught off-guard and on cooldown, you don’t have much survivability so if you don’t want to go down, pre-empt a Special Ops Pack or hope that you can use Energy Drain rather soon.

 

N00b Rating:
1.5 – This build is simple to use and simple to succeed with. The most difficult things about this character is getting it and the weapons. It is one of the many Rare character kits, but it was the last character I got before Retailation came out (I’ve got ‘em all). The Kishock and M-98 Widow are Rare and the Black Widow is oddly enough blacklisted. If you have difficulty sniping in this game, this is a great build to begin to learn. Be aware of your shields though, Energy Drain when they’re low if you can or get out of the way.
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The Molus – by Cyanide483

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Build Title:
The Molus – by Cyanide483

Class:
Volus Engineer

Power Evolutions:
Proximity Mine: Radius (4), Damage taken (5)
Shield Boost: Shields (4), Regeneration (5), Protection (6)
Recon Mine: Radius (4), Recharge speed (5), Invasive scan (6)
Volus Training: (1),(2),(3)
Fitness: Melee Damage (4), Martial Artist (5), Power Synergy (6)

Weapons:
Acolyte + melee stunner + 40% dmg barrel
OR
Disciple + shotgun omniblade + whatever (shredder perhaps)
Acolye + ULM + 25% dmg barrel

Gear:
Ammo = Up to personal preference (I prefer cryo if I’m using the acolyte)
Strength III Amp (of course!)
Adrenaline III Amp (The faster run speed really helps you since you have to be point blank for this to work)
Hydralic V or Juggernaught V (Its a tradeoff of 3% melee damage for +100 shield capacity since your base shield capacity is 500)

Strategy:
Basically, you stealth and run up to enemies and then hold down your melee key until your shield is engaged. This will deal damage and stagger the enemies out of range of your shield. Once all enemies are either dead or staggered out of range of your shield attack, then press Shield Boost twice to break your attack animation and then run in position for the next melee attack. Repeat until enemy is dead. You can fit in an acolyte shot inbeteen melee attacks if necessary. It is essential to use Shield Boost between every melee because it gives your melee cooldown time to refresh and it also keeps you alive since damage can still potentially be done to you through your heavy melee animation.

Example ability / dmg rotation
*recon mine set up in an area*
-Stealth
-Proximity Mine
-Acolyte shot
-Point blank heavy melee
-Shield Boost
-Point blank heavy melee
-Shield Boost


Useful facts to know
-Your melee damage is heavily reduced by armor. Be careful!
-Using abilities or firing your gun WILL NOT break your cloak cycle! Abuse this to debuff enemies properly on your approach!
-Back your enemies into a corner so your attack staggers them against a wall but not out of your attack range (extremely useful for taking down a Nemesis)
-You must hold down your melee button or your shield / attack will break early.
-The volus heavy melee shield actually regenerates ~1/10 of your shield amount when you use it. This allows you to survive dot attacks when your Shield Restore ability is on cooldown! The shield has an innate cooldown built into it so you can not spam this repeatedly.
-You can not heavy melee out of cloak! If you accidentally cloak instead of activating your shield, you need to book it the heck out of there. You can not cloak out of your shield animation either (both of these presumably since you are using your omni-tool to cast it)

N00b Rating: (scale 1-5, 1 is easy for everybody!)
5. It’s melee with a volus…it’s gonna take some time to master.

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Weakening Whirlwind – by CoreyImperia

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Build Title: Weakening Whirlwind

Class: Volus Engineer

Map Difficulty Rating: This build has the potential for Gold gameplay, if you choose to play Platinum, make sure your team covers the bases.

 

Power Evolutions:
Recon Mine: (4) Radius, (5) Recharge Speed*, (6) Invasive Scan
Proximity Mine: (4) Radius, (5) Damage Taken, (6) Recharge Speed
Shield Boost: (4) Shields, (5) Regeneration, (6) Protection
Volus Training: (4) Damage & Capacity, (5) Shield Boost*
Fitness: (1), (2), (3)

 

*You may choose to switch Rank 5 of Recon Mine out for Damage. This build uses it more as a debuff power, but it has it’s uses. You can create killstreaks with this power. If you choose to do this, I also recommend switching Rank 5 of Volus Training for Power Damage, just to increase it that little bit more.

 

Weapons:
My recommendations are the N7 Hurricane and the Acolyte or Scorpion, or the M-358 Talon. You can use the N7 Hurricane by itself, or with Acolyte or Scoprion or you can use the M-358 Talon. If using the Hurricane, you need SMG Recoil Systems and High Velocity Barrel. If using the Scorpion or Acolyte, make sure it has Pistol Heavy Barrel and Extended Magazine on it. For the M-358 Talon, use Extended Barrel and Piercing Mod. You are using light weapons to maximize the Recharge Speed of the Volus’s powers, which come with long cooldown times.

 

Gear:
You have many choices for Ammo bonuses. Armor-Piercing shreds bosses, Incendiary allows Fire Explosions with Proximity Mine, Disruptor allows Tech Bursts with Proximity Mine and Shield Damage, Cryo Ammo gives an armor debuff and allows Cryo Explosions with Proximity Mine. Phasic is viable for Geth and Explosive Rounds III can cause staggers on targets and pairs excellently if using the Scorpion. My personal preference is Armor-Piercing/Incendiary. Use the respective Rail Amp for your primary weapon (Hurricane or Talon) and use Power Efficiency Module for armor bonus. For gear bonus, I go for the Expert Package when using the Hurricane for +12% Recharge Speed and +12% SMG damage or Pistol Amp when using the Talon for +15% or Structual Ergonomics for +15% Recharge Speed. Remember, Recharge Speed is important.

 

Strategy:
The Volus got a mixed reception coming into the Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer scene, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed their appearance and welcomed them warmly. From laughing at them tumbling to dying on a stairwell and rolling down it to watching a Banshee try to stick its arm through me, the Volus is a hilarious but powerful class. Most people choose to play the Volus characters as Shield Boost Spammers but this is bad. If your teammate spams Shield Boost and gets 10000 points at the end of the match, is that helpful? This Volus is played more aggressively and an intelligent player will be difficult to kill. As with my other builds, I’ll brief the powers, then the how he fairs against the enemies and then the difficulties my Explosive Volus faces.
Recon Mine is an interesting power, and on the Volus Engineer it is evolved for maximum debuffing not damage. It should kill trooper-level enemies within its massive radius but the beauty is its weakening powers. Radius increase the Explosion Radius to 9 metres and the Scan Radius to 12 metres. I would often go for Damage on Recon Mine to make it more multifunctional but it has a long Recharge Speed, so we substitute the loss of damage for the cooldown, remembering that this build plays best with low cooldowns. Invasive Scan is where the money’s at. Targets that enter the Scan radius receive 25% more damage from all sources and move 30% slower. The Armor Damage would be nice, it would mean you could take a bigger chunk of Armor from bosses, but we’re focusing on debuffing. Proximity Mine is a no-brainer. You always should evolve it to at least Rank 5 with Radius and Damage Taken. Taking on Recharge Speed is just to assist with the power synergy. Shield Boost should never be evolved differently. This is the best way to do it. Just remember that the invulnerability frame is just for you and not the others. You don’t need to max out Fitness because you have Shield Boost, which is augmented further with Rank 5 of Volus Training.
As a Volus, you’re actually one of the few classes that are versatile enough to be prepared for all factions. You also have the added benefit of having a poor-man’s Tactical Cloak light melee. You need to toss your Recon Mine at a choke-point, or a spawn, or someplace you know will have a concentration of enemies. If heaps of trooper-tier enemies are in it, detonate it to get the killstreak. You’ll be visiting that place often to use Proximity Mine. Since Proximity Mine and Recon Mine stack, enemies affect by both will receive 45% more damage from all sources for 8 seconds and then 25% more damage from all sources as long as they are in the Scan Radius. For when you’re fighting away from the Recon Mine, you’ll be using the light melee Tactical Cloak a lot. This is interesting because it won’t break no matter what you do but it only lasts for about 4 seconds. Light melee to cloak, then fire your Hurricane/Talon to prime a target and then Proximity Mine to detonate the ammo effect. If you are using Warp or Armor-Piercing or an ammo power that doesn’t detonate, Proximity Mine first and then fire. If you’re taking too much fire, get out of there and use Shield Boost.
For trooper-tier enemies, you can use this strategy. If you stick with another player, you’ll chew through these enemies but just be careful of Phantoms, the others (Cannibals, Marauders, Geth Hunters, Geth Troopers, Geth Pyros, Geth Rocket Troopers, Assault Troopers, Centurions, Nemeses, Dragoons, Combat Engineers, Collector Troopers and Collector Captains), the Volus can handle pretty easily. The timing of your powers can be tricky, as if you need to Shield Boost while its recharging, you’ll need to hide quickly. Geth Boombers will cause you trouble, best leave these to your teammates.
For Brutes, Ravagers and Scions, Proximity Mine them at fire at them with your teammates. If you can, lure them into the Recon Mine Radius to allow more incoming damage to them to kill them quickly. And for big bosses, keep them in Recon Mine and keep up the Proximity Mines. They’ll be taking masses of damage from you and your team.
The Volus has its perks (light melee to help with objectives etc) but it has its downfalls. It is incredibly weak: 625 Shields and a miserable 188 Health. You need to be careful that you don’t Proximity Mine when you need to Shield Boost or you’ll die instantly. Your shields need to be up as if you take one shot from anything on Gold when your Shields are down, you’ll go down with them. His other issue is his recharge speed. Recon Mine has a large cooldown as does Shield Boost and Proximity Mine is one of the powers in the game that has a slightly longer cooldown as well. This is why it is imperative to maximize Recharge Speed wherever possible. This class cannot “dominate” scoreboards, but you can top them if you play it right. This Volus does support and survival as well as it deals damage. Volus can make or break teams depending on how the Volus is being played.

 

N00b Rating:
5 - It’s a Volus. An aggressive Volus. It isn’t easy to play with character that has 625/188 defences with Fitness at Rank 3. Shield Boost is your friend and your allies best comodity when they are near you. You are the Aggressive-Supportive Grand Debuffer. You debuff with Recon Mine and Proximity Mine; Support with Shield Boost and show Aggression with your merciless weapon firing. But play smartly or be a lump of fleshy squish on the pavement.
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The support volus – by DarthVaner

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Build Title:
The support volus – by DarthVaner

Class:
Volus Engineer

Power Evolutions:
Proximity Mine: Radius (4), Damage taken (5)
Shield Boost: Impact radius (4), Recharge Speed (5), Protection (6)
Recon Mine: Radius (4), Recharge speed (5), Invasive scan (6)
Volus Training: Damage & Capacity (4), Shield boost (5), Weapon damage (6)
Fitness: (1),(2),(3)

Weapons:
Scorpion X

Gear:
Free build, but I would recommend to use shields hardener. This is a very weak character.

Strategy:
This class has a high learning curve, outside the ME3 norm. The light melee cloak gives you the ability to spend half of the match hidden, it does drop threat, and it’s completely separate from all other abilities. Need to revive someone? Run in, light melee to cloak, revive them (which does NOT break the cloak), use shield boost to protect booth of you (also doesn’t break cloak), and run away. You’re a better ninja reviver than an infiltrator. Before moving out of cover to fire PM or your weapon, cloak – since using them doesn’t break it! This is the only class ingame which can fire through cloak. That fact is so unexpected many people don’t do it, but USE THIS! The heavy melee is also very situationally useful.

Playing this class crappy or playing this class well comes down to how tactically you place Recon Mine. You want a chokepoint or a flanking position which otherwise has few sight lines to your position for maximum benefit. You need to know the maps and spawns well enough to have a decent idea where a high amount of enemies will come through, where a lot of killing will be done, and where an unexpected set of flanking mobs would do the most damage. I’m not saying to camp on the mine, just think hard about where to place it. Choose well, and you can do an entire match with just 1-3 casts of that ability.

Your teammates are already loving you for team wallhax – which has the side benefit of a static 25% damage bonus and 30% slow on everything coming through the area. If possible, you want to do your killing there – because once you (and maybe others) start tossing proxy mines out too, the damage boost becomes truly ridiculous. Synergy is how you bend Platinum to your will, and this class alone brings a >= 45% damage boost.

Preemptively use Shield Boost when you see big damage incoming. It grants around a second of complete invulnerability when used. Atlas rockets, Ravagers, Phantom bolts, Scion bolts, even grenades if timed right – they all do zero damage if you trip SB right before they go off. After that you have a full shield bar and 50% DR (edit: you CAN still be staggered, but you will take no damage. This also negates DoT applications, like the Banshee Warp or Atlas rocket). When used correctly, this can make the Volus feel tankier than almost any other class on Platinum.

Debuff everything in the Recon Mine zone with PM. If you or your teammates lose shields (listen for their “systems damaged” and other audio cues), use Boost. Learn the timing on your light melee cloak, and abuse the heck out of it. See rockets / missiles / banshee warps hit teammates? Shield Boost behind them, and glasses will be raised in your honor. If bosses are in your recon zone, help debuff them – but your main role is not bosses. The Scorp just doesn’t do that kind of damage. Instead, while your teammates focus debuffed bosses down, you should be looking elsewhere and defending the flanks with permastagger. Your job is to actively NOT tunnel bosses, so your teammates CAN efficiently focus bosses without getting wiped. Once they finish that boss off, they’ll swing across and mop up the staggered stuff you’ve been CC-ing if not killing. For escorts, pizzas, or hacks you probably will be doing more Shield Boosts than PM – particularly for escorts on open maps.

tl;dr – Debuff w/PM, boost the team, and use the scorp to stagger ALL OF THE (non-boss) THINGS. You don’t have to kill them, just keep them staggered and debuffed while your team mops up. Phantoms, Dragoons, Hunters, Pyros, Marauders, Cannibals, and Centurians.

There’s only room for one VE on a given squad, but you want a VE on your squad. Hopefully this guide will help some players improve, so the overall opinion of our Volus comrades regains some much-deserved ground.

Oh, and a free tip for platinum: gather ammo early and often. There is actually loads of ammo available in Plat; it refreshes on a pretty low cooldown. The thing is it has a low cap on how much gets put in each crate, so your lower-difficulty habit of “go a whole wave and reload between” doesn’t work. Thus the misconception that Plat has low amounts of ammo. If you hit a crate ~2 times a wave you can spam the Scorp practically the entire game.

N00b Rating: (scale 1-5, 1 is easy for everybody!)
5. High learning curve.

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