Drell Assassin - Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Character Discussion and Review

Drell Assassin

So here it is Merry Christmas, everybody's having fun...with the final three new character releases by Bioware. That's right you read correctly, in a surprise move the developers have decided to release all of the remaining new characters for the holiday season, which I guess makes sense because like most places their offices will be closed. Just before I get started I want to wish all you guys and gals a very Happy Christmas/Holiday, here's hoping Santa brought you what you wanted and you all enjoyed a great meal or two. Now speaking of gifts and food, let's see if Bioware handed out some early presents or served us a bunch of turkeys. If you've been reading my previous articles, you'll know how much waffling I can do about a single character, so for the sake of everyone's family time, I will limit this article to one character only and will write up the other two reviews separately. I was debating which of the characters I should review first and in the end decided to go with the order in which I unlocked them, so this article will be about the Drell Assassin (Infiltrator) with the following being the Volus Protector (Vanguard) and then the last being the Batarian Slasher (Adept). 

So without further ado let's get cracking. The Drell Assassin Infiltrator was one of the most eagerly anticipated characters when the list was first announced all those weeks ago and the main reason for this was because of his powers, which consist of Homing Grenades, Recon Mine and the Infiltrator standard of Tactical Cloak. I really like the Infiltrator class in general because I think the character kits are so varied and flexible, you can be brutally offensive with some, while using others to provide support from a safe distance. You can use the Tactical Cloak to carry out stealth attacks on unsuspecting enemies, complete objectives, escape from danger and even revive downed team-mates that are deep behind enemy lines. The best thing about TC though is the damage bonus you can get when initiating an attack from it, when used in conjunction with things that go boom, in this case the Homing Grenades and Recon mine, you can turn something that is already pretty deadly into something extra darn lethal. It just so happens that last weeks character (the Turian Saboteur) also had Homing Grenades as a power, so to save me the effort of using copy and paste, you can go there for more information.

Recon mine was one of the new powers introduced with the Retaliation DLC and until now was only available to the Volus Engineer, definitely one of my favourite powers because it can be used both offensively and defensively. As the name suggests, once placed it's purpose is to provide reconnaissance and to act as a mine, however this mine doesn't actually detonate when an enemy is within its vicinity. You have to manually detonate it, which I think is even better because you can save the explosion for when a group of enemies wonders into the blast radius, rather than just killing the first basic troop that stumbles across it. As I mentioned above, I'm fairly certain Tactical Cloak provides a boost to all offensive powers used while under it, which means if you cloak just before detonating you can do some serious damage. If it wasn't already a great power because of this, it's ability to reveal the location of enemies certainly makes it so. The recon side of things works similarly to Tactical Scan on male Quarian characters but instead of applying to just one particular enemy across any range, it applies to all enemies within a certain distance to the mine. I personally always spec for radius increase so I can see enemies from even further away and plan my attack way before they're even a threat but also because this synergies incredibly well with the final evolution; Invasive Scan. This upgrades the scan to slow down enemies and cause them to take more damage from all sources, on small maps or those with lots of choke points, you and your fellow team mates can literally ambush the enemy and take them out incredibly fast.

If we move onto the game plan when using the Drell Assassin, I think it's pretty simple to be honest; plant your recon mine to ascertain enemy locations then sneak up on them and either hit them with a Homing grenade or unleash a storm of bullets. This ambush style tactic works well on any map but on smaller ones it really shines because if you can predict the enemy spawns, you can plant your Recon Mine before the wave starts and begin attacking the enemies before they even leave the area. You'll be very tempted to detonate the mine immediately but if like me you go with Invasive Scan for the mine, it's much better to make use of the de-buffing powers and weaken the enemies with your 'nades and weapon first, then blow the mine to finish off any stragglers. Once you've taken care of this first group of enemies, you'll want to re-deploy the mine at a choke point on the map, somewhere you know there will be a lot of enemy footfall. If possible try to co-ordinate with the other players and herd the enemy through a pre-designated ambush zone, with the entire team focusing fire to a confined space, you'll find that even the most hardened enemies can be taken out fairly quickly. Don't forget to make sure that enemies are actually within the mines line of sight before you detonate because enemies behind walls and cover are revealed but obviously won't take damage from the blast.

I think weapon choice is pretty flexible for the Drell Assassin, at least for the game plan I laid out above anyway because firstly Grenades are not affected by cool down times and secondly the Recon Mine is something I don't think you'll be re-deploying every couple seconds. Additionally if you use the cloak-then-fire-power trick with the Recon Mine, you'll get a cool down time of roughly three seconds regardless of your load out so it's really up to you if you want to pack heavy or light. The only issue that might occur with cool down times is if you've chosen to go with duration for your Tactical Cloak and intend to stay hidden under it more often that not, bringing heavy weapons along will significantly impact the recharge time. As for weapon type, I'd say this depends largely on the map you'll be playing on, for large maps a Sniper or Assault rifle would be ideal but for smaller ones an SMG, Shottie or Heavy Pistol would probably be more appropriate. The aim is to have something that will allow you to excel when carrying out your ambush, preferably something with a highish rate of fire and enough damage to drop enemies while they're in the kill zone. I personally like using a sniper with the Drell Assassin and the Valiant was one that seemed to fit quite nicely, it does nice damage per shot, has a fast reload and being a long range weapon means I can engage the enemy from a safe distance. I also packed the Acolyte as a back up because the DA doesn't have any natural shield/barrier stripping abilities but in practice I didn't really need it. 

Volus Engineer

Now it's time for my character comparison, as i mentioned earlier there is another character that has access to the Recon Mine; the Volus Engineer and if you ask me his play style is very similar to the Drell Assassins. In fact I think the two characters in general are pretty similar, for starters they are both very fragile (the VE slightly more than the DA) but are fast and agile in order to make up for the fact, additionally the Volus has Shield Boost (to refill his and other players shields). They also both have access to Tactical Cloak, though of course the Voluses comes from using light melee and as such doesn't provide him with any damage bonus. The main thing that separates the two characters in terms of powers is that the DA has Homing Grenades whereas the VE has Proximity mines. 

It's very much personal preference as to which power you prefer but in my eyes they are both equally as good, each having benefits and slight drawbacks. Homing grenades while more powerful and posses the ability to automatically track targets, will eventually run out and if you can't get access to an ammo box then you're losing a very large part of your attacking capabilities. Proximity mine is a power you can use endlessly, though of course you can only ever have one planted at any time and you have to manually aim it at enemies. Over long distance you won't always be on target with your shot but it does have a larger blast radius than the Homing grenades so you don't need to physically hit a target to hurt it. Homing grenades can be specced for additional fire Damage Over Time whereas Proximity mines can allow the player to do extra damage to enemies from other sources but again only if you chose to spec into it. If you go with DoT for the Homing Grenades, this gives you the opportunity to set up power combos but in my experience non-bosses usually go down before that instance arises. It's worth noting that HGs can be specced to do extra damage to armoured units, something that the PMs have no evolution for, so if you're playing against an armour heavy faction, this might sway your decision.

I play both characters the same way, planting a Recon Mine for intel and to de-buff enemies that enter the ambush site, then hitting them with Homing Grenades/Proximity Mine before finishing them off with either gun fire or by detonating the Recon Mine. I should say that the Drell Assassin is probably the better character of the two if you intend on using your weapon more than your powers because his passives grant some much better bonuses for your weapon and a larger head shot bonus on top of that (if you chose to spec it). The DA also gets marginally larger bonuses for his powers in the passives but I'm not sure if that will persuade you one way or another, given the differences between HG and PM. I think the main reason you'll pick one character over the other is if you're playing a particular map, if you're playing on a grenade rich map then of course it'd make sense to go with the DA and just spam 'nades all match long. On the other hand if you're playing on a map where you know the grenade supply is pretty low, you'll be better off with the VE and spamming PM instead. You can detonate power combos with both the Homing Grenades and the Proximity Mines but only if someone else on your team sets one up, thus making that style of play generally not very fruitful when playing with randoms.

In summary then, i think the Drell Assassin is a great character, a Christmas cracker you could say ;) He has a very similar play style to the Volus Engineer, so if you like that character you'll like this one, the substitution of Homing grenades in place of Proximity mine may or may not be welcome depending on your preferences. The slow moving nature of the HGs means they can miss and can be affected by lag but the Recon Mine with it's Invasive Scan should help with that. Not to mention you have Tactical Cloak which not only grants you a damage bonus but will also allow you to safely get in close to the enemy, thus decreasing the travel the time of the 'nades and therefore should result in fewer misses. The Drell Assassins low health might be a concern for some players but i think if you play it smart and use both the Recon Mine and Tactical Cloak wisely, you should always be one safe step ahead of the enemy. I think a lot of players will like the Drell Assassin and I'm glad to say he's definitely a nice Christmas gift from Bioware :)