Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I have yet to actually get a damn Commendation Pack, despite participating in every weekend so far.

All I get are the dumb Victory Packs.

wow .. what level are you? I'm in the 200's and the only character I really like is my salarian infiltrator, just because of energy drain. and it suits my "be a noob and hide and let everyone else do the hard work" playstyle.

I do wish I had a mic though, so I everyone can hear when I yell "GET IN THE FRAKING CIRCLE ALREADY!!@!" like I have to in every single game I play.

I think 172ish.

I've not been promoting characters much.

What's a commendation pack?

Also, what does promoting a character do, exactly? Does it affect your N7 rating? Unfortunately I raced through the SP campaign and had already gotten a little tired of the MP from the demo; so now I'm coming at the MP from after the campaign.

Promoting a character gives you a rather large boost to your N7 rating, Galactic Readiness Rating, etc.

Commendation Packs are given after these "Operation" weekends, and include an N7 weapon.

Same here Aldarionn. Justi is my firest DLC char unlock (and only) and I can honestly say that I love the character model but have no interest in the powers XD

>buy 6 resurgence packs with leftover credits

>nothing I want except Geth SMG and Geth Engineer

>Geth Engineer is terrible

>mad

There REALLY needs to be trading.

I'd settle for a larger variety of boxes (like a Character box, a Weapons box etc)... Or a store that makes actual sense. Either or works for me.

The current system will keep most people playing, but I have better things to do with my time than grind credits for hours on end just to end up with only two or three things I actually want.

Kanluwen wrote:I have yet to actually get a damn Commendation Pack, despite participating in every weekend so far.

All I get are the dumb Victory Packs.

I'm going to guess you are on PS3?

If that's the case, unfortunately you won't be getting Commendation Packs, because Sony doesn't want the same events that appear on X-Box to appear on their platform, and refuses to allow BioWare to offer rewards to players for individual completion. You can get packs for community completion, but you cannot participate in the completion of the event, or be rewarded for doing so.

I suggest writing Sony and expressing your displeasure. It might actually help if enough of the community does it.

Ouze wrote:What's a commendation pack?

Commendation Packs and Victory Packs are special equipment packs awarded by BioWare for participation in their bi-weekly events. The first event was Operation Goliath. The community goal was to kill 1,000,000 Brutes world-wide, and the personal goal was to complete a game against Reapers on Silver difficulty and have at least 1 person extract. If the community completed the challenge, we got Victory Packs as rewards. Any player that completed the personal challenge and defeated the Reapers on Silver got a Commendation Pack. These packs had special weapons and/or better chances for certain items.

The next one coming up next weekend will be Operation Exorcist.....which I'm assuming has something to do with killing Banshees. We are supposed to learn a little more this weekend.

Ouze wrote:Also, what does promoting a character do, exactly? Does it affect your N7 rating? Unfortunately I raced through the SP campaign and had already gotten a little tired of the MP from the demo; so now I'm coming at the MP from after the campaign.

Character promotion does several things.

-When you promote, it resets the class back to level 1.
-You gain +10 N7 rating for each promotion, and the ability to level the character back up to 20 for even more N7 rating
-You get +75 war assets per Promotion. They show up in the single player game as "N7 Special Ops Team."
-Promotion lets you re-level the character with a different build than the last one you used without having to spend a reset card.

I find promotion a good way to keep your skills sharp. Basically, if you do nothing but play at level 20, you will get complacent. Plating at level 1 uses a very different skills set to be successful than playing at level 20, so by promoting you practice everything, not just the combo you use to do max damage at 20. I usually get 3-4 classes to level 20 then promote everyone and start over.

LordofHats wrote:Same here Aldarionn. Justi is my firest DLC char unlock (and only) and I can honestly say that I love the character model but have no interest in the powers XD

Actually the Justicar isn't half bad. There are a few interesting things you can do with the bubble. You can use it defensively and spec it for full damage reduction, and basically move from location to location dropping a bubble and fighting. It's very nice on Gold, where you effectively have to have everyone together in the same place holding a strong point in order to reliably win.

The other option is to spec it for pure damage. You set it up to apply Warp and set up Biotic Detonations on various targets, then use Reave to detonate them. Funnel enemies through choke points and set up the bubble in their way so they have to walk through it, then spam Reave.

In either setup, I use the Geth Plasma Shotgun, though a Valient or Mattock work as well depending on your style of play.

Karon wrote:
>Geth Engineer is terrible

Geth Engineer is not terrible. It's probably one of the top classes at higher difficulty because of the healing turret, and Overload. You CAN use Hunter Mode for extra damage or situational awareness, but it's not 100% necessary. You can also set the turret up as a flame thrower and throw it near a spawn point, then walk off to a different spot on the map and watch the kills come in. If you do it right, you can basically kill off two spawns of enemies yourself. On Gold, set the turret up for healing and Overload for Crowd Control, and against other Geth or Cerberus you are probably one of the most valuable teammates available. Every time someone gets revived, your turret will top off their Shields. When someone takes damage and ducks behind cover, your turret will give them their shields back faster. This is very important because players have the same Shield Gate as Gold level enemies. IE unless your shields are gone, no single hit can kill you (except Grenades, Shotguns or Melee, which bypass it). And Overload Spam is a strong offensive setup with a decent weapon, which combined with a turret makes you a very effective damage dealer.

Then again, the class might not mesh with your style of play so perhaps it's not your thing.

************************

On a different topic, I started my Insanity playthrough last night. I'm playing an Infiltrator with a Valient and Energy Drain until I get enough credits to buy a Black Widow. It seems to be working well enough, but the problem is Grenades. I constantly have to fall back to better positions to keep myself from getting smashed and stay out of grenade range. That said, I REALLY need to get a scope upgrade so I can see through Smoke against Cerberus. I think it would make things go a lot more smoothly.

Aldarionn wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:I have yet to actually get a damn Commendation Pack, despite participating in every weekend so far.

All I get are the dumb Victory Packs.

I'm going to guess you are on PS3?

If that's the case, unfortunately you won't be getting Commendation Packs, because Sony doesn't want the same events that appear on X-Box to appear on their platform, and refuses to allow BioWare to offer rewards to players for individual completion. You can get packs for community completion, but you cannot participate in the completion of the event, or be rewarded for doing so.

I suggest writing Sony and expressing your displeasure. It might actually help if enough of the community does it.

Nope. I only play online for the 360, my PS3 is for SP stuff.

Aldarionn wrote:useful info

Thanks! The parts about the engineer sort of make me want to try one now, as I do have a Geth engineer.

I keep seeing Aldarionn on, and I want to catch a game or three with him, but I always seem to be in a party of unsavory friends who I don't want assosciating with other people (read- Embarassing).

But they're good players so I never want to give em' the boot.

Bah... maybe this weekend.

Yeah hit me up whenever. I'm usually either playing random, or I'm playing with friends, but I usually have at least one spot open. We usually play Silver or FBW/Geth/Gold because it's easy and sometimes we run with less experienced people but if we got a strong set of 4 we could knock out some actual gold runs.

What platform are you two on?

360

Aw, that makes me sadpants.

Yeah I don't know anyone on the other platforms or I'd point you in their direction. Everyone I play with is on 360.

Convert to the superior platform!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually to be honest I kinda wish I played on PC because I like the interface better than the controller, but nobody I know plays on PC and I don't have a computer capable of running FarmVille with any kind of consistency, let alone a game like Mass Effect. I wonder if I could rig my system to use a mouse and keyboard instead of a controller.....

Sidenote, feel free to add my XBL gamertag:
Nick Risley.

I play solely with baddies in pubs, Aldy - its terrible there when nobody even knows what the feth is restoring their shields.

Actually one of the best uses of the Gethgeneer that I saw was in a Silver pub match on Goliath against Reapers. The dude kept tossing his flamethrower turret in the doorway of the room adjacent to the extraction point, then sitting by the ramp to the control room. He was killing off two spawns at once that way and his turret kept distracting the Banshees which couldn't hurt it. I was actually impressed.

If you are having trouble in pub matches, try one of the following:

Turian Sentinel - Strong and capable, good crowd control and resilient to damage. Easily able to hold off attacks with AOE spec Overload even when most teammates are dead.

Human Engineer - Tools for everything and a drone that distracts annoying things and throws an extra overload. They are a little fragile to actual damage but between the drone and chain Overload nothing usually gets through. They can also detonate their own tech bursts which makes them very self sufficient.

Any Infiltrator - Sniper or shotgun builds are very good depending on race, and tactical cloak gives you a good means of getting out of the action to set up in a different spot. Complete objectives by yourself and cloak to save teammates that die like idiots (or good teammates that just got overwhelmed or pinned by a turret).

Any of those do well enough without support. Hell the Geth Engineer is pretty self sufficient between the turrets ability to heal and chain overload. They are fragile, yes, but they have good tools and tricks to keep them alive.

I heart my infiltrator. I like the Salarian the best, because Energy Drain drops most shields. I just have a regular level 1 widow sniper rifle. I cloak, hit something with energy drain, then blast em in when they stagger back. Then I recloak rinse and repeat

Managed to get a couple of games in with Kan and his buddy last night. Was good, nice to run in a team where we seemed to be working in the same direction.

Okay was half asleep after only catching 4hrs the night before, and my dear doggy wanted cuddles (can be an issue when shes as heavy as my eight year old, black Lab) but I managed to get a few kills with the widow. Also had a free pack waiting for me when I logged in, and it had the Geth Infiltrator in it, so will need to test him out sooner than later.

What are those new 99thousand credit packs like btw?

The Resurgence Packs are overpriced, but they guarantee you get a resurgence upgrade. The only problem is they don't really offer any better chance of rare items than a standard Specter Pack, and there is no indicator so far that they offer any chance to get ultra rare (N7 Black quality) items. So if you don't care about getting a Black Widow/Javelin/Paladin/etc...and you just want more Resurgence characters/equipment then buy the Resurgence packs. Me, I'll stick with Specter Packs and hopefully unlock my Geth Engineer/Krogan Vanguard AND upgrade my Black Widow.

Resurgence Packs actually grant, at minimum, two Rares and can grant Ultra-Rares.

One I got yesterday awarded a Striker(upgrades mine to VI now), a Scorpion(means mine is now at II), and a Widow(bringing mine to III).

There was also a Tempest in there, bringing mine up to III as well.

never got to get a resurgance pack, just premium spectre packs. I finally got my first N7 weapon, the shotgun pistol thingy .. kinda nice but too heavy for my tastes right now. I need a black widow or at least a couple regular widow upgrades :/

Kanluwen wrote:Resurgence Packs actually grant, at minimum, two Rares and can grant Ultra-Rares.

One I got yesterday awarded a Striker(upgrades mine to VI now), a Scorpion(means mine is now at II), and a Widow(bringing mine to III).

There was also a Tempest in there, bringing mine up to III as well.

From everything I had seen they didn't offer any chance for Ultra Rares, but admittedly I didn't search very hard. If they are basically premium specter packs except with guaranteed Resurgence items (or at least a better chance) then perhaps they are worth buying. I still need two Resurgence characters, but I have all the weapons (Hell I have a Kishock IV or V and a Striker X). I'll buy a few this weekend and see what I get.

The problem is that most people are going off the same information you have: "Resurgence Packs don't have a chance for Ultra-Rares!", so they just go for Spectre Packs instead.

Thought what the hell, picked up three via MS points. Got a few class upgrades, plus unlocked the Drell Vanguard and +1 Missile capacity which was nice.

Weapon wise I got some gold ones, including the Spear thrower/Batarian weapon. Not sure what its like yet, but my Geth Infiltrator is trying it out with his 25% reduction on sniper rifle weight.

Sadly some router issues earlier prevented me getting on tonight, but should be on tomorrow.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:Thought what the hell, picked up three via MS points. Got a few class upgrades, plus unlocked the Drell Vanguard and +1 Missile capacity which was nice.

If you have the Drell Adept unlocked, give it a try. The Vanguard is alright, but the Adept REALLY shines. Max AOE Reave and max damage Cluster Grenades. Throw Reave into a pack of enemies to prime them for Biotic Explosion, then throw Cluster Grenades and watch them all go flying or get chunked. It's amusing.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:Weapon wise I got some gold ones, including the Spear thrower/Batarian weapon. Not sure what its like yet, but my Geth Infiltrator is trying it out with his 25% reduction on sniper rifle weight.

The Kishock Harpoon Gun. It has some interesting properties. For one, the headshots do triple damage instead of just double. Also, it's a charge weapon like the Geth Plasma Shotgun, and the charge is cumulative like the GPS. Hold the trigger and the charge accumulates until it either maxes out or you release it. If you release early, you get however much charge you built up, unlike the Graal and some other charge weapons which require a full charge to get anything. A fully charged headshot will do 450% damage, but the weapon cannot pierce like other high powered Sniper Rifles (Widow, Black Widow, Javelin), so you can be blocked by light cover.

The most amusing property though is that the gun randomly does 3x damage against certain targets. The ones I know are Brutes, Ravagers and I think Pyros. It is also the only Sniper Rifle that can get through Shield Gate (On bronze, if you knock shields off, 50% of your excess damage carries over to health. On Silver, 25% of your excess damage carries over. On Gold, nothing carries over. So on Gold, if you do 1,000 points of damage to a target that has 1 point of shields and 10 points of health, you do 1 point of damage and knock the shields off, and that's it). It has a bleed property that applies to the target and will kill it in a few seconds. Against a Gold level Geth Hunter, the initial hit will strip the Shields, and the bleed will kill it in 9 seconds if you are speced for damage.

When taking the Kishock, you should have everything set up for maximum damage and you should take a Piercing mod and High Caliber Barrel for extra damage and the ability to punch through cover (and Guardian Shields). Don't worry about weight on an Infiltrator. It barely makes any difference because the minimum cooldown for Tactical Cloak is 3 seconds, and the cooldown depends on how long you stay cloaked. If you scope, cloak, then fire immediately, your cloak goes away in less than a second and you just have a 3 second cooldown no matter how much weight you are carrying. For a Geth Infiltrator, max out damage talents wherever possible. Personally I like this spec for sniping:

6/0/6/6/6
Tactical Cloak - Damage, Recharge Speed, Sniper Damage
Hunter Mode - Power Recharge, Rate of Fire, Damage
Networked AI - Weapon Damage, Headshots, Weapon Damage
Fitness - Durability, Shield Recharge, Fitness Expert

Take your Snipe Rifle of choice and go to town. Just know that with the Kishock, if you intend to fire a charged shot, you will need to charge the shot, then cloak and fire. Also, this won't break Tactical Cloak so you can reload and fire a second time before the cloak ends. If you charge a shot while cloaked it will break cloak. Personally I prefer the Black Widow, because I can cloak and get two shots off, maybe 3, before the cloak damage bonus ends. But the Kishock does arguably more damage in a single hit, especially when charged. It just doesn't have a very good scope.

Ok so I haven't play the multiplay yet. I keep seeing all this about ultra rares and packs. What's the deal?