I bought Mass Effect 2. Tell me about it.

I've noticed discrepancies in shotgun damage too. Usually, if an enemy has full health and shield and I shoot them in the face with the Claymore, they take significant damage (sometimes it's an instant kill but usually it'll leave them with half their red bar left). However, if I shoot them with they have barely any shield left, then it'll sometimes just barely strip away the enemy's shield and leave them with full health.

To doodle what I said:

Case 1
Enemy Pre-Claymoring
Shield ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
Health ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

Enemy Post-Claymoring
Shield
Health ]]]]]]

Case 2
Enemy Pre-Claymoring
Shield ]]]
Health ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

Enemy Post-Claymoring
Shield
Health ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

Use the Scimitar with Inferno Ammo, watch defenses evaporate. Then Pull Field + Unstable Warp them and kill everything in the room. Also you should have Heavy Charge and Champion before anything else.

When do I get Champion? I'm only level 4, I think.

Also, aren't you supposed to start at level 5 if you do the comic? I want to reach level 30.

Champion is one of the two final ranks for the Vanguard class skill.

You only start at 5 if you import an ME1 save. At least, that's how it worked in the 360 version.

so what the fuck do i do against the human reaper as a vanguard?

trying to wittle away his health is fine, but his entourage keeps overwhelming me. Well, that's not right, the fucking harbinger drone keeps fucking up my day by setting me on fire, shotgun attacks just seem to stop staggering him when I get the baby reaper down to 1/4 health.

Who do you have with you?

disloyal jacob and grunt for the express purpose of killing them both.

grunt can still tank reasonably well, but Jacob is going to be almost no help. Do you have the Cain?

nevermind I did it

fuck insanity, that is all.

e: and yes I did have the cain

Still haven't done my second playthrough on insanity yet. I haven't bothered with the ps3 at all lately. :C

I MUST START IT BEFORE ME3 COMES AROUND!

hell yeah, garrus was the one who helped me into the shuttle

Garrus is a true bro.

What abilities would you recommend levelling up in what order? I'm thinking full Charge, full Champion, full whatever. What do you think?
Also, how deadly is the Charge actually? I have seen videos where enemies have flown tens of metres, and one guy just died on the ground when I knocked him over.

Prioritize Champion before Charge. You need the protection buff and the faster reload times afforded by Champion. I leveled up Charge first and I regret it because it left me with a powerful ability that I couldn't use properly because I'd die before it would recharge.

Also Charge knocks people into the air when you've removed their shield/barrier/armor. Until then you just stagger them (still useful).

Yeah, what Sarbud said. After those two though, you probably want to grab the ammos. Squad Cryo and Inferno Ammo, since shockwave is useless and it's better to have squadmates with biotics like pull so you can charge whenever you like uninhibited by cooldowns.

Get Inferno Ammo before Cryo though, Vanguards are fairly weak against armor without it and Squad Cryo is more of a luxury anyways.

If I shoot someone who is frozen, will they shatter no matter what?

Yeah, you can only freeze enemies with no defenses though. Melee, charge and any other power with 'impact' shatters them too.

So I recruited Jack after a great many hours of trying, and somehow ended up on Horizon unwillingly. However, I do have a save back to which I can switch. Should I do some loyalty missions as I unlock the characters? Grunt got the Claymore shotgun, but I want it, too. Also, I'm curious about how to level up my squad members. I was thinking of giving Grunt the health upgrade to Krogan Berserker, but then I thought "what if I must upgrade something else?" Yeah, playing on Insanity is a hassle. So far I've recruited Garrus, Jack, Kasumi, Mordin and Grunt. None are loyal. Thinking of getting Tali next so that I can start to romance her. What do you guys recommend when it comes to recruiting and making your crew loyal?

I'd recommend that you get everyone loyal as the first opportunity, otherwise you might reach the point of no return with unloyal characters. That's usually a bad thing in games, but in ME2 it's almost catastrophic, especially if you're looking to import into ME3.

All the loyalty missions are pretty good, the only one I can remember thinking was a bit dull was, quite adptly, Jacob's. He's a nice guy, but in a crew like ME2s the nice guy just ends up looking dull.

I hated Miranda's, that was shit. I like that Zaeed and Kasumi only have one mission.

Token is the worst character in the game.

His only failing is being the "normal" guy on a ship full of crazies. He just doesn't do anything to stand out, and even Jack (who I actually genuinely dislike) is memorable enough.

SimianWonder wrote:

His only failing is being the "normal" guy on a ship full of crazies. He just doesn't do anything to stand out, and even Jack (who I actually genuinely dislike) is memorable enough.

I would agree with his. On his own he's not a bad character, there's just no comparing him to the others.