 |
| Awakened Collector |
Unlike last weeks character review of the Geth Juggernaut and the Talon Mercenary before him, who both took a bit of time to figure out, I think the Awakened Collector is a much more straightforward kit to play. I'll go into much more detail later on of course but as always, we start by covering the powers. First up is Dark Channel, it's exactly the same on this kit as it is for the others that have access to it, namely the N7 Fury and Asari Huntress Infiltrator (AHI). Just in case you don't know what it does I'll give you a quick run down, basically when you use the power, it will hit an enemy unit with a lingering Biotic field. This field can not be dodged by enemies because it's an instant affect power, it will do steady damage over a set amount of time and best of all, if it kills the afflicted unit, it has the ability to "jump" to a nearby target. By default it's not that lethal (on Gold+) but if you choose to spec it for full damage, it can kill basic troops within a few seconds and it's also great for weakening bosses. If I'm busy clearing up crowds of low level troops I'll usually hit a boss with DC, so that when I'm done dealing with said troops, I can then take on the boss and already have the first layer of defence dealt with i.e. Phantoms and Banshees will have most (if not all) of their Barrier destroyed. DC suffers heavily against shields and isn't soo strong against health either but it is very devastating to Armour and even more so to Barriers. So in light of this, you'll want to strip enemies of their shields before using the power and perhaps land a few shots with your weapon to just speed up the killing of unprotected troops. Unlike other Biotic powers, DC can only act as a primer, that is to say you can detonate it with another Biotic power for a Biotic Explosion but you can't use it to detonate another power for a combo.
Next up is Dark Sphere, when you use the power it launches a slow moving ball of "Dark Energy" in the direction you're facing and any enemies within its path of travel (or resting location) will suffer damage over time (a bit like being in close proximity to Annihilation Field). The ball can also be detonated any time after it has been deployed (by using the power again) to cause a lot of damage to anything caught in the blast radius. When I first started using this power I struggled to adjust to it a little bit because it's one of very few powers that doesn't lock onto targets, this means you to have to manually aim and free fire it. Once you understand how it works it's actually not that hard to master, the two key things you need to take into account when deploying it are one, it does move very slowly and two, enemies rarely sit in one place for very long. If you decide not to detonate the DS, it will continue to travel in the same direction until it makes contact with a solid surface i.e. the floor or a wall, then it will stop and remain there until it expires. The final feature of DS is that any enemies that were skimmed as the ball travelled past or those that were hit by the blast itself, are now primed for a Biotic Explosion. There are evolutions available to increase all aspects of DS, so you could have a mildly damaging massive explosion or a small but very lethal one, alternatively you could max out the damage over time and use the ball to soften up targets that you're shooting at. Something to note about DS is that its cooldown period (which is very long BTW) only kicks in once it has been detonated or when it expires, this means you can use another power immediately after deploying DS, then detonate the ball and only have to wait for one cooldown period (the DS cooldown takes precedence).
The last power is Seeker Swarm, upon activation you summon three Seeker Swarms, these will then float around your character until you use the power again (like Biotic Orbs), at which point you'll fire a single swarm at your highlighted target. When a swarm hits an enemy unit, their movement speed is reduced for a short period of time, on top of this each hit has the chance to stun it's victim, resulting in a animation reaction similar to that of being attacked by Energy Drain/Overload. You can also use the Seeker Swarm to detonate power combos and if you ask me, it's probably one of the best ones for the job because you only suffer a cooldown after initially summoning the swarms. For example, once the cooldown period has passed you can use one of your priming powers and immediately fire off a swarm afterwards, resulting in an almost instantaneous Biotic Explosion. The swarms seem to travel as fast as the Throw power, which is a nice bonus but they appear to be slightly less accurate when it comes to homing in on targets, occasionally wildly missing their intended victims. They also lack the Force effect that comes with Throw, so you won't be staggering targets on it's own, which means they're free to continue shooting back at you if they weren't stunned (unless of course you've just detonated a power combo). I think this lack of force might also make your BEs slightly weaker than those triggered by a maxed out Throw power but to be honest you'll probably only really notice that when you go up against bosses.
One of the things I find annoying about the Seeker Swarms is the lengthy character animation when you first summon them, which will leave you immobile for a good few seconds (you'll stop in your tracks if using the power on the move). Activating the power in the middle of a fire fight is definitely not a good idea, unless you want to give the enemy a few free shots and trust me, they will take advantage of the situation. Always make sure you've got a bit of breathing space to activate the power unhindered, preferably behind some hard cover but anywhere the enemy can't shoot you is better than nothing. I actually discovered the animation can be slightly shortened if you utilise one of the reload cancelling methods, just be sure to have at least one of the swarms appear on screen before doing whatever (I personally fly to another location). Currently I've specced my Seeker Swarm with the following evolutions: Slow, Damage Reduction and Damage & Slow. Originally I went with recharge speed at rank 4 but given what I mentioned above about not initialising the power during engagements with the enemy, it wasn't really a massive gain. I also went with Damage at rank 5 before eventually re-speccing for Slow, most Adepts aren't exactly known for being tanky and the Collector Adept is no exception, so any additional protection I can get while in a match can only be plus. The final evolution is a personal choice and will depend on how you play the kit, some might like the extra swarm to further increase their damage reduction or be able to set off another power combo before needing to re-summon, while others will prefer to have their swarms be a bit more damaging. To be honest I've only maxed out the swarms so that I get the most out of my BE's, otherwise I could have happily stopped at rank 5 and put the remaining points elsewhere.
Technically not considered a power, the Awakened Collector has access to one other skill set, when he uses heavy melee it will put him in "Ascension Stance". When you carry out heavy melee, your character reacts similarly to that of a Collector troop becoming possessed i.e. the body glows and does a weird stretch, while being slightly lifted off the ground. Once in Ascension Stance, you will gain a small damage boost to light melee, power attacks and your weapon but before you get too excited, gaining these benefits does come with a drawback. In AS you'll gain a +10% damage bonus but at the same time you'll be taking +15% additional damage from all enemy fire both these figures are by default and are increased further if you decide to invest further points. I personally don't think the extra damage is worth the trade off so I rarely use AS, even though I've maxed out the health/shield values on my guy. Assuming you decide to go all Ascension Stance evolutions, in order to get the best damage output possible, you'll become even more squishy than you already are and I can't imagine how anti-fun that would be in matches. You do a tiny bit of area of effect damage when entering AS but it's not really meant to be used as an attack and given the animation for entering this mode is also pretty lengthy, as well as the fact you're about to become even squishier, you'd be much better off doing it away from the front lines. The effects of AS last for 45 seconds at base value and after that they will wear off (like I said it's not a proper power), which is enough for roughly half a wave, so if you like using the mode it's a good idea to refresh it at the start of every wave and then whenever there's a lull in the fighting.
Powers covered, it's now time to talk tactics. Well, as with most Biotic kits I think Biotic Explosions on practically everything should be the way to go. In addition to Biotic Explosions however, the Awakened Collector can also use his Dark Sphere to rack up some kills by launching it towards enemies and then detonating it, a bit like a remote controlled bomb. You've probably already seen players doing this with their AC kits and it is a surprisingly lethal attack method, if you choose any of the explosion damage evolutions past rank 3, you can one-hit-kill any basic troops on difficulties Gold and below. If you decide to max out the explosion damage and use a few of the power boosting amps/gear/mods, you can even take out quite a few of the shield troops in one hit. Bear in mind however that in order to do this, you'll be seriously sacrificing the blast radius of DS, some people might think this a worthy trade off but not me, I'm happy to take out basic troops and finish off any injured survivors with my weapon. I should add that even if you decide to max out the explosion radius, you can only ever hit at most three enemy units, so you'd be well advised to try and balance damage verses radius. When I first started using DS, I'd simply aim it towards a crowd of enemies and detonate it just at flies through their midst, the problem with this is that if the group is far away you can sometimes misjudge and detonate a bit early or late (laggy games exacerbate these problems further). Recently I've been aiming it at the ground in front of an approaching band of enemies, this way I can tell when I'll get the most out of the blast, while also getting more use out of the damage over time effect (in particular against the slower moving enemies). It's worth noting that the DS can actually expire before it reaches it's destination, especially if you're trying to use it over a very long distance, for these situations it's better to use DC as you make your way closer to the front line.
The Awakened Collector actually has two ways of priming and then triggering his own Biotic Explosions, the first is to brush enemies with the Dark Sphere and the second is to use Dark Channel both followed by a Seeker Swarm. Unfortunately DS behaves like DC in that it's only a priming power and can't be used as a detonator but I guess that would be a bit over powered, given the thing already does plenty of damage on it's own. My usual tactic when playing with the AC is to always have some Seeker Swarms ready to go, then when I come across a group of enemies, launch DS at them, then quickly fire off DC at something (remember DSs cooldown occurs after detonation), then detonate DS. Anything that wasn't killed in the initial DS blast should now be primed, so hitting them with a Seeker Swarm will result in a BE. Between the unlimited priming capability of DS and the jumping effect of DC, you could potentially detonate multiple BEs in any one cycle. I have had encounters where I've successfully triggered three BEs (i.e. one for each of my SSs) after already taking out a couple targets with DS, it doesn't happen in every engagement but when you pull it off successfully, the kill feed is all you ;) This is just one way of playing of course but it gives you a general idea of the sort of things you can do when using DS, DC and the SSs, in conjunction with each other. I recently found out that the explosion from DS can hit targets even if they're behind a wall, so if you know enemies are on the other side from where you are, you can just detonate it while being completely safe (still a max of three targets hit though).
Something I should add at this point is that apparently Dark Sphere is bugged, according to this thread created by corlist on the BSN, the damage over time aspect doesn't work as intended (why am I not surprised Bioware? *rolls eyes*) and so as a result, your overall damage from DS is negatively affected if you select those evolutions. It's not that big a deal if you're main purpose for using DS is for the explosion but if you're planning on using the DoT effect to lock down enemy routes, you should be aware that you're not getting the full damage stated in game (in fact you're getting less!).
Moving onto weapons, well despite the fact that I consider the Awakened Collector to be a power based kit, I think he actually needs to carry a somewhat decent weapon into battle. The main reason for this is that most of his powers have long cooldown times (even if you're rocking a +200% CD loadout) and so when this is happening, you'll need a decent shooter to keep your attacking/defending capabilities open. If you're playing with a good team and generally stick together, these periods of vulnerability should be far and few in between but they can still occur and when they do, it can be a nightmare (especially when dealing with bosses). The AC can get a small weapon damage bonus from his passives, when using Collector and Prothean weapons (like Geth characters when using their weapons), it's nice to have but not that big a change to your damage output and in most cases, not really worth the increased cooldown times from using those heavier weapons. For the most part the AC will be involved in CQC/mid range combat, so an SMG or heavy pistol should be ideal, if you're not too fussed about getting the best cooldowns, an AR could work but it will probably mean more shooting and less power use. I've eliminated snipers and shotties because most of the good ones are too heavy and I feel they lack the flexibility to deal with smaller or larger maps, respectively. For SMGs the Hurricane is excellent as always but it's accuracy over distance can be an issue and of course, it burns through ammo. The Collector SMG is a good option, it does OK damage, is highly accurate and doesn't need ammo trips but the default clip size is way too limiting, having a high level one and using the extended magazine does it make it more appealing but it's still not perfect.
There's a lot of great options in the heavy pistol department, the ones that stood out for me were the Eagle, M-11 Suppressor, Paladin and Talon. I have a level ten Eagle and it works really well, light, accurate and fully automatic. I like the DPS of the M-11 but it runs dry quicker than a Hurricane (which is saying something), so unless you don't mind the many ammo trips you'd need to make, I'd pass on it. I thought both the Paladin and Talon were very good on the AC, great damage per shot and as long as you fire from cover for those ranged shots, they're pretty accurate too. The only problem is that both their rates of fire aren't that high, so you'll really need to make each shot count, especially on the higher difficulties. If I had to pick one winner I'd say the Talon edges ahead because it does bonus damage to shields/barriers, used in conjunction with his powers, you can therefore comfortably deal with any enemy defences. Both heavy pistols and SMGs have access to the Power Magnifier mod, this will boost the damage of all the ACs powers but in my opinion it isn't really vital. I recommend taking a heavy pistol because there's a really complimentary piece of bonus gear in the form of the "Commando Package", this boosts your pistol and Biotic power damage. If your primary is a pistol, I'd suggest taking an SMG with the lightweight material mod, just in case you run out of ammo. If you're not taking a pistol as your primary, I think the Acolyte is great as a back up, it's very light at high levels and destroys shields/barriers, which can help you put down bosses that much faster.
So in summary then, I think the Awakened Collector is a pretty good character, in terms of fitness he has a bit more health/shields than most other Adepts and is fairly mobile by being able to fly like the new Turian kits. These two factors mean that he's pretty survivable even at the higher difficulties but don't get me wrong, he's no tank and shouldn't be standing in the open for jokes, I'm just saying he can take a couple more hits while running from cover to cover. Having said this, I do have my concerns about the character, the most poignant thing is that everything about his attacking seems to be quite slow, even when you've packed light weapons. Dark Sphere can be deadly if used correctly but it does move very slowly and most enemies in this game are quite mobile, so on the bigger maps you can often struggle to get the most out of it, especially if you've sacrificed radius for increased damage. The Seeker Swarms take an age to activate and to be honest unless you're using them to detonate a power combo, they're very underwhelming as a standalone attack. Even his melee attacks can't be used if you get caught short, the light melee does decent damage (and is surprisingly forceful) but is slow to kick in, so quite often you'll be better off just trying to fly away and as for the heavy melee, well that's more or less just using a non-offensive power with a long animation. Dark Channel often feels a bit redundant on the AC and you'll have to remind yourself that it's useful to have active on enemies, while it's not as powerful as DS, the low cooldown time and the fact it's hit scan, make it more versatile for certain situations.
Something I noticed when testing the kit, was that playing against Geth can be particularly frustrating, the stun-lock can seriously hinder your character when it comes to using powers, add some lag to the mix and he's borderline useless. Things like detonating DS and firing off a SS, usually need to be done with perfect timing to be effective, if you mess up an explosion or miss fire your last swarm, it's a long wait until you can try again. That's why it's important to have a gun that you can rely on, for those periods of power cooldowns and when you just need to finish off an enemy that is already injured. The Awakened Collectors powers are mostly unique, which in turn generates a unique style of play, it's just a shame that they're slow to use but I guess they make up for that in the damage department. While it's incredibly satisfying to destroy groups of troops by perfectly detonating a Dark Sphere, on higher difficulties this becomes harder to achieve on a regular basis and thus diminishes the appear of using the AC. BioWare made an interesting kit in the AC and I've no doubt that lots of people will love spamming Dark Sphere all match long but I imagine even they'll get bored of doing that eventually. I'm not sure if I'm being a bit harsh in saying this but the AC might be what you'd call "a one trick pony", it's a cool trick but monotony is still monotony. I like the AC but I don't love him, if I know a smallish map is coming up i.e. one with lot's of choke points for my Dark Sphere explosions, I'll be inclined to give him a run but if it's a big open one, he'll be kept on the bench. When I want to be doing Biotic Explosions all match long, I'll still call up the N7 Fury or one of the Asari because the way they can attack is much faster and thus more suited to my style of play.
No comments:
Post a Comment