I (*HEART*) The N7 Shadow | Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer

YES I KNOW!! Mass Effect 3 came out almost 2 years ago. In that time I played the shit out of the multiplayer even tho it was just a basic horde mode type of multiplayer. I have recently picked it up again and it is just as fun as it was when I was playing it back then. If your familiar with the multiplayer of Mass Effect 3 you get different classes Adept, Solider, Sentinel, Infiltrator and Vanguard (I think that's all of it.). For the longest time I was rolling with the vanilla human sentinel a very solid class. With the amount of multiplayer DLC that came with the game came new character classes. When the Earth DLC came out I manage to get my hands on The N7 Shadow...

I was not disappointed. Yes At first I was trying to figure her out in term of powers and skills. Then I was talking to some people in a lobby during a game and one of them told me she can be very powerful with melee. This is tied to her power called shadow strike where she can cloak and go right behind an opponent and deliver a very powerful melee attack. So I did a little research and from that made a new build for the Shadow. The melee build.

In this build I have centered all my skills to augment my melee damage. The Key things about this build is having bonus power during cloak and martial artist where I can gain additional melee damage after a successful melee attack. That in combination of shadow strike which counts as a melee attack gave my shadow unparalleled mobility in the battlefield. Where I cloak + shadow strike..rinse and repeat. It was soo powerful at times I can kill phantoms in one hit!!

For the longest time I was rolling with that build and was content with that. Then the Retaliation came out...
Now this DLC was a bit of a game changer in that they introduced a new enemies for the different factions but also a returning enemy the Collectors.

With this new enemy I brought my Shadow as usual in the game on gold. Now something was different I was holding my own well against them but it seem a whole lot harder to beat them. There were several time we did not get full extract. Maybe it was just the fact we needed to get used to them but durring that time playing against the collectors I notice one big flaw with my build.

Yes it may be powerful at close range in dealing the smaller tier enemies but against bosses that can insta-kill you like banshees and praetorians it is no longer an option. You may shadow strike into a group of enemies that can kill you the instant you appear especially against collectors who are close range specialists. It lacked any long range capabilities.

So I went back and did a little research on this character and then I saw vid where this person was using a Shadow but using her as a sniper! That person was dealing soo much damage with this build. I almost forgot that the Shadow is an infiltrator and can get sniper rifle bonuses from that From that basis I made my new build which was a shadow sniper.

This build I completely did away with the electric slash and focused point in maxing out the other skills. First one is Shadow strike. The major difference is in the last tier instead of damage its shield drain so if there was any situation my health is low I can shadow strike a shielded enemy and take their shields for myself thus increasing survivalbility. For tactical cloak I added points to recharge speed and sniper rifle damage. For the passive skills such as N7 Shadow I maxed that out putting points into power damage for the added bonus damage when you are cloaked and for sword mastery points into durability.

Now getting used to this new build was the hard part especially as a person who is not well known for sniping. The primary weapon I used was the widow which was powerful but had a long reload time so I practiced reload cancelling with my vanilla infiltrator. When playing with this build it required a little more thinking than the melee build I needed to be aware of my surroundings as well distance with my enemies as well when to reload cancel.

I took a while but I eventually got used to it and my N7 shadow somewhat undergone a massive transformation to the Shadow Sniper!! A formidable character that is powerful at now both long and short range. To the point when I jump into random lobbies after a match people end up asking how are you doing soo much damage with the N7 shadow haha.

Recently I upgraded my Shadow to the Black Widow and with the 3 shots from the Black Widow she is even more powerful than she was before.

 

Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag | Multiplayer Thoughts

Since Assassin's Creed Brotherhood there has been a multiplayer. A multiplayer which I LOVE!! It is a kind multiplayer that comes once in a while. A multiplayer that has a surprisingly deep psychological and strategic feel that you don't get with the other standard multiplayers like Halo or COD. A multiplayer that requires you to think a little more. Its a game where "the crowd is your jungle and behavior is your camouflage" (I got that from an article way back in 2010 talking about the Revelations Multiplayer). Speaking of which I got into Assassins Creed multiplayer durring Revelations and have been playing the multiplayer ever since.

Now we are here with AC4: Black Flag Multiplayer. What do I think? Actually I think its really good! Just a note that I mainly play free for all types Deathmatch and Wanted so I will be discussing it from that perspective.

When I started playing AC4 multiplayer for the first time. It took a while for me to adjust to it longer than the previous games. It was probably due to me not playing in a long while with the new scoring system, the changes to some of the abilities such as knife stuns and with previous game I played pretty aggressive. AC4 puts more emphasis on patience and stealth  especially on deathmatch this is due to the new scoring system. In the previous the bonus like hidden or bench kills add on to your detection meter score like +200. In this game the bonuses are score multipliers. So a hidden would be x2 of your original score.

So in previous AC games say your detection meter is at 350 and you get a hidden kill it will be
350 + 200 = 550 pts.

With AC4 if you get a hidden it will be.
350 x 2 = 700 pts.

On the flip side if you get into a contested kill or honorable death it will halve your score as well your opponent's. In a high level lobby if your careless or too impatient your target spot you which 90% of the time. There goes your 700pts out the window.

With that it has become more beneficial to use your blend groups and think of your bonuses. It forces you to become patient and observe the field to see what kind of kill I can pull off. Can I go for a bench kill or will it be better for me to stick with a hidden.  Its a risk vs. reward system that where you can see the consequences or benefits of your choices.

Another result of the new scoring system is the score spread is a lot closer. There were a lot of games where anybody from 4th-8th could have taken first place. I myself have manage to sneak into 2nd from 7th and was in contention for 1st place. This brings in a lot of things. First I think its a way for players who is not as experience or high level as others in the same lobby to feel like they had a chance of at least making in the to the top 3. Thus brings the motivation to actually play and learn more about the game and to see what they can do to be better that can have them coming back. Another thing is that it brings the tension level even higher where right at the last moment you can win or  loose...I LOVE THAT!! I never felt that kind of intense competition in previous games or not as much. Its not like who ever is in first place can keep that spot for the whole match.

Which brings me to to another topic is defense. Now a little while ago I watched a video discussing the lack of hard stun abilities (meaning: an ability that can guarantee a stun when you use it) and thus the lack of defense and how it hinders the multiplayer. I can kinda see where they were coming from. They like to beast it out in a match when they are in first place and if your in first place you would want to keep that first place spot. Right? When you are in first place you have multiple pursuers after you and you would want something to defend yourself from them. But in the previous games defense was a little OP. In Revelations just slap on mute and smoke and your good to go. It got to the point where EVERYBODY was using it. No variation and nothing unique. In AC4 they manage to balance the abilities better than the previous games. Now I see people using a wide variety of abilities and thus you having to bring in a different set of strategies to deal with the different players.

They also said that there is no incentive to be in 1st place any more because there is no abilities to defend yourself effectively. Now they are looking at it from the perspective of a veteran AC player where they want to a beast in a match all the time. I try looking at it from a player who sucks or just starting. If I'm starting out and go to a lobby with a high level players I would get my ass kicked over and over again to the point where I will not play this anymore.  I see this with a friend of mine who sucks at the multiplayer but he tried hard to get better at it but in the end he just gave up which is sad. So when you are in 1st place you are top dog and everybody will want that top spot so it makes sense for them to have multiple pursuers and you should not keep the 1st place spot so easily.

Another thing the most people often overlook or ignore is that with AC4 for the most part its not all about your abilities. Its about your strategy, your play style on how you can use the environment, behavior, misdirection, sub defuse to throw off your opponent. Its about getting inside your opponents head and be 3 steps ahead of them. Your abilities work to compliment them not replace them. So when you are in 1st place and you have 5 pursuers don't think to yourself this is bullshit this game sucks. Think to yourself what can I do to outwit them or what shall I do so when I act it will in the long run benefit me more than my persuers. That's where the challenge is.  

In conclusion this multiplayer I am enjoying a lot but I also understand that its not perfect and with any multiplayer it is an iterative process. So I can look pass some of the issues that come up, adapt to the changes and enjoy it like any other video game.