Quarian Marksman (vs. Turian Soldier) - Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Character Discussion and Review

Qurian Marksman

So it seems that Bioware have finally got their house in order and are once again knocking out new characters and updates on time, let's just hope it stays that way. Anyway, this weeks new kit is the Quarian (male) Marksman, classified as a Soldier and he brings to the fight; Marksman, Tactical Scan and Sabotage. Following last weeks new character release of the Asari Huntress and the Volus Mercenary before her, it seems to me that we're experiencing something of a trend in these new kits and by this i mean they appear to be more support based characters. Of course it depends on how you actually choose to play them but with the powers they have, my initial thoughts would be that they're suited to middle and rear fighting roles. However it's not really fair to pass judgement on the Quarian Marksman Soldier until I've tested him in the field, which I've now done, so let's see what verdict is.

As per usual, we'll start off by covering the powers. Currently both of the other existing male Quarian characters have Tactical Scan, so i guess it makes sense that this guy also has it. It's a power that i think is incredibly useful, especially when you're playing with players who aren't the most skilled. For starters, the base purpose of it is to offer a de-buff on the enemy targeted, which is always nice to have when dealing bosses or other hardened enemies. The secondary purpose is that it highlights enemies (even those behind cover), so for example if your team have failed to notice some troops trying to flank, you can just activate the scan and hopefully they'll realise what's happening. The best thing about TS in my opinion however, is the Area Scan evolution, which momentarily reveals all enemies within a certain distance of the enemy you targeted specifically with TS (or from you if you didn't target an enemy). On smallish maps, i generally spam TS and just provide my teammates with a constant stream of intel on enemy movements, couple this with the de-buffing bonuses and you've got one of the best support powers in the game.

The other two powers, Marksman and Sabotage, in contrast are more offensive and are there to help you put down enemies quickly and with as little resistance as possible (respectively). Currently there is only one other character with the Marksman ability and that is the Turian Soldier, likewise for Sabotage, which until now was only available to the Quarian Female Infiltrator. When activated, Marksman lasts for a few seconds and in that time provides an increase in the rate of fire and accuracy of all weapons, as well as the added bonus of a single instant reload. Sabotage has two very distinctive uses, the first being that it hacks enemy synthetic units, which will then temporarily become your allies and the second being that it will disable an enemies weapons, that will then do damage to the wielder when they try to fire it. When it comes to speccing Sabotage, i find it's generally best to concentrate on a particular side of evolutions (i.e. increase your hacking potential or go with extra backfire damage) because mixing them tends to dilute its effectiveness.

Right, so now you're clued up on the powers, it's time to talk about how the character plays in game. Well i specced my QMS for max Marksman, Tactical Scan and Fitness, with the basic three levels of Sabotage and mid level in the passive. As i said earlier i think TS is a great power and so of course i was using that quite a lot in game and as ever, it was really useful with providing enemy locations as well de-buffing the tougher enemies for me and the team to take down. Marksman behaves just like it does for the Turian Soldier and my general tactic with it was to first use TS on a particular enemy and then start firing, once the cool down timer was up, I'd then activate MM. This tactic was surprising efficient and i was dropping enemies pretty fast, in fact I'd go as far as to say that the way it works is almost comparable, to the way the Geth Infiltrator can destroy things. Funnily enough i practically never used Sabotage, so my decision to not invest more points into it was the right thing to do. However on the odd occasion i did use it, the results weren't anything special and i often thought to myself that it probably would've been better had i just followed the TS and MM game plan.

Now for the last point of discussion, what weapon should you equip with the Quarian Marksman? If you're going to be following my game plan as detailed above, i think it's best to stick to a fully automatic weapon, in order to get the most out of Marksmans increase in fire rate. The other thing i noticed while playing was that if you pick a weapon with a fairly large magazine size and/or increase it using the extended clip mod, you're going to be able to put a lot of bullets down range because of the instant reload benefit when activating Marksman mode. Armour Piercing mods and/or ammo are also really useful because they allowed me to shoot enemies even if they were behind cover, simply ping them with TS and then aim for the face ;) Bearing all this in mind, it pretty much rules out Snipers, Shotguns and Heavy Pistols but there are a few exceptions to the rule. The Indra, Piranha and Eagle are the only full auto weapons in their respective categories and so are the only weapons outside of SMGs and Assault Rifles that i think would be suited to the Quarian Marksman. Generally i use the the Indra more like an AR than an SR and so the fact that it comes pre-scoped, just means i have two mod slots that i could use for something else. For CQC engagements the Piranha is almost unmatched and becomes even more of a beastly killing machine when used with MM, the instant reload means you can put out 12 shots before a manual reload, easily enough to take out all but the toughest bosses. I treat my Eagle as a really accurate SMG, the only problem being that its usual rate of fire isn't very good however this is remedied when MM is active, thus making it a viable choice.

In terms of SMGs and ARs, i think pretty much any of them would work well but some do stand out more than others and it might surprise you to learn that it's not just the usual candidates. The Hurricane becomes even more devastating when utilised under MM but seeing as it already has an incredible rate of fire and is quite clearly not suited at landing head shots, it seems a waste to use in place of something like the Tempest or Locust. Both of these aren't bad weapons but they're not particularly great either (especially for Gold+ difficulty), however when used with the MM power they become much better at killing enemies and so i think make a nice change. Similarly for the ARs, you'd instantly think Cerberus Harrier but while it is incredibly lethal when used with MM, you run out of ammo in next to no time at all and end up making way too many trips to the ammo box instead of constantly killing enemies. I think a better choice would be something like the Revenant, which by default has an already decent clip size but requires the accuracy bonus of things like MM in order to be truly dangerous (though i personally would still leave it to a Turian). I also tried the Typhoon and while it did kill really well, its heavy weight created cool down times that i just couldn't work with. The Phaeston was another decent AR, light weight and accurate, the only draw back being that it lacks damage, which i therefore think doesn't make it a very good choice if you're relying primarily on your weapon for kills. I eventually settled on the Collector AR, slightly heavier than the Phaeston but also more damaging, it provided cool down times that were very manageable. The weapon itself is already very accurate so landing head shots at close/medium range is fairly simple, couple this with the option for extra head shot damage through Tactical Scan and the increase in rate of fire from MM and you've got yourself a fantastic setup.

Turian Soldier

In the past couple weeks I've skipped detailed character comparisons because i felt they were unique enough to be discussed alone, this week however i feel that the Quarian Marksman is very similar to the Turian Soldier, so let's get down to business. Well Marksman is the same for both so there's no need to talk about that, however it's worth mentioning that Turians have passive weapon stability, which if you combine with the benefits of MM and even recoil heavy weapons like the Revenant can be tamed (to some extent). Next we have Tactical Scan vs Proximity Mine, well TS always provides a damage bonus to enemies (which can be further increased), while PM has to be specced in order to do so but of course TS doesn't do any damage to the enemy alone, while PM does. The other thing about TS vs PM is that TS reveals enemy locations, which is invaluable and also when you target a specific enemy, everyone in game will automatically know who to concentrate their attack on, whereas people might not always know who you've hit with a PM.

The final two powers are Sabotage vs Concussive Shot, well both have the ability to stagger enemies and while that might not be the main reason for you using it, it is a nice added bonus. In reality there are quite a few differences between these two powers because they are inherently designed for different purposes but if we take a look at the picture in general it comes down to two things. Concussive Shot is a quick response power with a relatively fast recharge time, so you can use it every couple seconds to add an extra kick in your attack or just keep enemies pre-occupied in dodging/being staggered, whilst you shoot them dead. Sabotage on the other hand is not a power you can spam very often, it's base recharge time is already pretty high but if you're carrying a heavy weapon, this increases it to a point where i feel it's not really useful as a primary attack power. It should be said that Sabotage does do a fair bit more damage than CS, so like most things in ME3 it's basically a compromise, either you prefer the quicker but weaker attack that you can use more often or a heavier damaging power that you'll need to wait on.

Now we round off by talking about health and shield values, at base levels they both have the same amount of health but if we look at shields, the Turian does have a sizable chunk more than the Qurian. While the Turian is therefore a bit more sturdier, the Qurian does has one advantage over the Turian, in that he is much more mobile because of his ability to roll and sidestep. I think this point is the key in deciding which character you prefer to use; i know that some people find the Turians a tad cumbersome at times because they can't dodge enemy attacks as easily as other characters, so the introduction of the Qurian Marksman is therefore probably a welcome addition for these players. If however, you're someone who doesn't mind (too much) that the Turians can't sidestep/roll, then the biggest deciding factor is most likely whether you prefer to use either Tactical Scan or Proximity Mine. While they both do a great job of de-buffing enemies, it could be said that TS is slightly more team orientated than PM, so if you're aim is to be more of a support player then the Qurian Marksman is probably ideal for you. I don't think that Concussive Shot and Sabotage will influence your decision to pick one character over the other, simply because i consider them secondary powers, ones that you'll most likely use only very occasionally in between spamming Tactical Scan/Proximity Mine and Marksman.

In summary then, the Qurian Marksman isn't quite the rear guard troop that i assumed he might be at the start of this article but that's not to say he's the best character for leading a charge, though he can definitely hold his own with Marksman. I think somewhere in the middle ranks is ideal, as long as you're constantly using Tactical Scan, you'll be a massive help to the rest of the team and don't forget that if the situation should arise, you can even disable an enemy turret with Sabotage. The ability to roll/sidestep is what sets him apart from the Turian Soldier, that increase in dodging capacity aides in your survival and so makes the Quarian a better choice when dealing with agile enemies. If your main preference is to use Sabotage regularly, for example to hack Geth units, then I'd advise sticking with the Quarian Female Infiltrator because if you take advantage of the cloak-then-use-power trick, you can maintain low cool down times even when carrying heavy weapons. Comparing the Quarian Marksman to the other two male Quarian characters, I'd say they play slightly differently, the Soldier needs a decent weapon to rack up kills whereas the Engineer and Infiltrator can rely more heavily on their powers. For the second week running, it seems Bioware have released a character than i actually quite enjoy using and in fact provide me with a (sort of) new style of play. I would consider using the Quarian Marksman again, perhaps not over his Infiltrator counterpart but if i ever fancy taking a break from using only powers and just concentrate on the shooting, I'll definitely bear him in mind.