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| Geth Juggernaut |
I'll get around to explaining in more detail later on but as always, I'll begin by covering the powers. First off is the Hex Shield, as the name suggests it's a deployable shield that takes the shape of a hexagon (i.e. it's six sided), I believe it's based on the ones that were in ME1 campaign. By default it's pretty durable (at 2000 health points) and will soak up a fair amount of damage before it break, it's as tall as the Geth Juggernaut and is just wide enough to block any shots fired directly at him. The Hex Shield should block all incoming enemy ordinance, whether it's small arms fire from foot soldiers or power attacks from bosses, I think it also stops grenades but those tend to bounce around after landing, so there's always the chance it can still hit you. Currently I've specced my Hex Shield with: Pulse, Duration and Damage Synergy. I think picking Shield Strength is unnecessary because the cooldown time is pretty fast, so if I need another it's not that big a deal to plonk a new one down. While the Pulse evolution might not be really damaging (400 at base value), it does have it's uses, for example if you start to get swarmed you can back up and place the shield, the electric pulse that is then generated can stun several enemies and buy you that extra second or so to recover. On smaller maps and in particular at choke points, you could spam the Hex Shield to take advantage of the electric pulse, if you've got a low enough cooldown time it's actually pretty good for keeping small crowds of enemies pinned down.
Rank 5 is a personal preference, I chose Duration because I don't like having to keep checking if my shield is still active all the time but the Shock evo is pretty good too. Some enemies like to get right up in your face (Hunters/Dragoons spring to mind), so any additional damage done to them before they reach you is always welcome but what really helps is the fact these enemies are now primed. That is to say a power combo can be set off, either by your own Siege Pulse or another players detonating power. Ideally you wouldn't have let them get close enough to pass through the Hex Shield but some enemies do slip past from time to time, so it's just another line of defence I guess. As for Rank 6, I think there's no contest, everyone should be taking the Damage Synergy evolution, which will boost all of your outgoing damage by 10%, this includes your weapon, Siege Pulse and the Geth Turret. It's not a massive increase in the damage you're dishing out but the Geth Juggernaut isn't particularly strong when it comes to being offensive, so any and all boosts are very much needed. I personally believe the Large Shield option is more detrimental than it is useful to the rest of the team, while it might be tempting to block off large areas to incoming enemy fire, you should know that the shield also blocks your bullets/powers and that of your teammates. I've seen players put down these oversized shields in corridors and while it's nice not to be taking any damage, it's equally frustrating that you can't actually shoot the enemies around the shield, which leaves shooting through it and yes, they do break under friendly fire. While the Hex Shield can be used to cover an exposed flank or provide temporary defence when dealing with objectives, it's important that you don't ignore using hard cover, the shield is meant to extend your available cover and isn't supposed to be a substitute for it.
The second power is Siege Pulse and while this new addition is actually pretty weak (Gold Husks are not even one-hit-kills), it's pretty fun to use and you'll get a kick out of pretending to be a Geth Prime :P If you've yet to use the Geth Juggernaut, Siege Pulse shots are basically the same as Geth Prime pulse cannon shots, except they have some target tracking (like Incinerate/Cyro-Blast etc) and instead of occasionally staggering hit enemies, they can knock them clean off their feet (non-bosses only). When you first use the power, it generates and stores three charges within your systems, these charges are represented by the whitish crystals(?) on your characters right shoulder. The next time you use the power you will fire a single Siege Pulse, each shot counts as a charge used and you can fire off all three in quick succession. As I said earlier each siege shot is actually pretty weak, on average it will take two hits to kill basic troops/husks/abominations and three for any non-boss shielded units but sometimes it can take more. I went with the following evolutions: Radius, Damage Protection and Resistance Damage. The way I see it is, if each shot isn't strong enough to one-hit-kill basic troops, then I might as well try and damage as many targets as I can by increasing the impact radius, this way I could potentially hit and soften up entire groups. Damage Reduction is far more useful then shaving off a few seconds of your recharge time, I already said the GJ wasn't that tanky and can't take cover, so any additional protection while you're creeping towards tall cover is a blessing. Due to each Siege Pulse being already weak, it's pointless taking another shot, when you could instead increase the damage of the default three via Resistance Damage, its also helps with fighting bosses.
The last power is the Geth Turret and it's the same as the turret on the Geth Engineer, it has a relatively weak default attack but the thing that makes it really useful, is that it can restore some of your shields and that of your teammates. I decided to only take the first three ranks of the turret but that's not because I think it's entirely useless, it's just that in order to max it out, you'd have to sacrifice one of the other two powers and I think they're more essential (at least to my playstyle anyway). I take the Flame-thrower evolution with the turret on my Geth Engineer and use it as an attack that I can deploy to keep enemies at a safe shooting distance. The issue I have with using the turret on the Geth Juggernaut is that enemies will always be closing in on you and when you can't run away, this means you have to stand and fight, in which case the Hex Shield and Siege Pulse will serve you better. The Geth Juggernaut has 2000 shields at base value and so even if you decided to max out the restoring capabilities of the Geth Turret, at 700 it's still a drop in the lake. At rank 3 it only restores 350 points but that should be enough if you're playing it safe and I think being able to assist teammates that are in trouble far away, is something that shouldn't be dropped entirely. Given the fact you have a power like Siege Pulse, there's no reason why you should be maxing out the Geth Turret for offensive duties, so in my opinion it's either increase the turret's healing capabilities or leave it at rank 3.
When I first started playing with the Geth Juggernaut and realised that I couldn't rely solely on this offensive power (Siege Pulse) to comfortably get me through a match, I assumed that he'd be another one of those "any weapon will do, even if it weighs a ton" kits. Well several matches later and I'm convinced that his primary weapon should be something that doesn't require trips to ammo boxes because when you move as slow as he does, it's a major pain in the backside running dry in the middle of a fire fight. The weight of weapons shouldn't be ignored entirely either because while Siege Pulse isn't very powerful, you'll still want to spam it as much as you can in between shooting. I've seen a couple players use the Cerberus Harrier or Reegar Carbine as their primary weapon and as a result, they probably spent more time walking to and from ammo boxes, then they did engaging enemy units (lol). So the only contenders in my book, are the Collector Sniper Rifle, Collector SMG, Lancer (AR) and Prothean Particle Rifle (AR). Each weapon has it's pros and cons so it's a decision that you'll ultimately have to make on your own but I will provide my thoughts on each one, to give you some indication of their effectiveness in battle. First up is the CSR, it has pretty high DPS but it's got a tiny clip and I can't seem to use it without overheating the thing more often than not, treating it like a semi-auto weapon is a good idea but if I'd wanted to use a semi-auto weapon in the first place, there are much better options out there. To make the weapon even more frustrating to use, the laser beam thing actually has a range limit that, I mean really, what kind of stupid sniper rifle has a flipping cap on the distance it can shoot?! Utter rubbish in my book.
Thankfully the other Collector weapon isn't as retarded, the SMG is very accurate and works at all ranges, it too has a pretty small clip but unlike the SR, there is a weapon mod that will increase it's magazine size (which I think is a must). I recently discovered that the CSMG actually does additional damage to armoured units, so with the High Velocity Barrel, you can literally tear through armour defences. You could slap on the Power Magnifier mod to increase the damage of Siege Pulse but when you've only got one slot to play around with, you'll have to think if that small damage boost to SP, is worth missing out on destroying armour? I think the PPR is a great choice for the GJ but like the CSR it too suffers from a range cap, so it can be quite annoying on the larger maps but it's very accurate at any distance and has decent DPS once you get past the ramp up stage. The thing that might make it unsuitable for you, is that unless you have it at a highish rank, you may find that it's weight is impractical and the basic magazine size isn't that big, which means you won't be getting much of the post ramp up DPS. I generally always use the magazine upgrade mod because it means you can keep firing for a much longer period of time but bear in mind this means waiting longer for your ammo to fully replenish. I think the Lancer is one of the best additions to MP, it does decent damage, is pretty light and fairly accurate, though not quite pinpoint across the map. It's got a manageable clip size even at rank 1, so you could pass on the magazine upgrade and go with something else, the Armour Piercing mod and Extended Barrel is what I normally select.
Assuming you take my advice and go with one of the self regenerating ammo weapons I listed above, you shouldn't need to stay too close to an ammo box and can safely wander around the map with the rest of the team. But I think it's mandatory to carry a back up weapon that does use normal thermal clips, this is because if you get pinned down and accidentally overheat your gun, the last thing you'll want to do is stand there like a lemon. Waiting for the cooldown animation to complete, while still getting attacked by enemy forces, can only end badly for you. The Reegar is great if you get cornered because it can destroy enemies at point blank range, it's also a fantastic weapon for stripping shields/barriers, so you could use it to help you out when taking on bosses but unless you have it at max rank, I think it might be a bit too heavy and not have enough reserve ammo. This leads me to the Acolyte, at max level it's one of the lightest weapons in the game and destroys shields/barriers as well as the Reegar but without having cap on the distance it can shoot and it also has access to a Power Magnifier mod. However while it's capable of hitting multiple enemies with any single shot, I'm not a fan of the charge up mechanic and it is a little tricky to use over large ranges. If neither of these sounds appealing, I guess anything that's light and does decent damage will do, perhaps an SMG if you're using one of the ARs or some other shotty/heavy pistol if you're taking the CSMG.
Okie doke, so that's weapons discussed, it's now time to talk game plans. Well like I said earlier, I don't think it's a good idea to rely only on your powers to get you through a match (because they're pretty weak), that's not to say spamming Siege Pulse isn't a somewhat effective tactic, it's just not perfect. I consider the Geth Juggernaut to be a gun dependent kit, obviously you should use his powers as and when you can but you should be putting as much gunfire (if not more), down range in between. Before I go through the tactics I employed, I think it'll be useful if I discuss the evolutions I selected for the GJs health tree, just so you can understand why I played how I did. I am currently using the following evolutions: Durability, Speed Boost and Squad Command. I think Durability at rank 4 is non-negotiable, you can't take cover, so you want as much health as you can get and also, the additional shield restore is pretty useful at the higher difficulties. Usually at rank 5 I always take the Shield Recharge evolution but the GJ is one of very kits that will benefit from the other option, basically after you kill an enemy with heavy melee, it will temporarily increase your movement speed by 15%. It's not amazing to be honest but I think being able boost your movement speed a little bit, is a tad more useful than slicing off fractions of a second off your shield recharge time, especially since you've got the Geth Turret. I think the GJ is the first character where I've not selected the additional health and shield evolution (when maxing out fitness) and this is because I feel that the drawback of the alternative, is completely unacceptable. The choices are either an increase in melee damage of 30% while also granting teammates within a 4 metre radius a 10% damage boost OR an increase in health/shields by 75% and +50% heavy melee shield restore rate but decreasing ALL of your damage output by -15% (powers/weapons/melee). I already think the GJ is too weak, so the reduction of damage across the board is nothing short of bulls**t, I can understand the powers taking a hit but WTF is up with the weapons taking a cut?!
When you're playing as the Geth Juggernaut, there are two distinct game plans that present themselves, one being that you set up shop somewhere and two, that you follow your team around. The GJ will perform best when he's got the rest of the team around him, the problems start to occur when players run around the map and leave you to fend for yourself. Having a GJ on the team and not taking advantage of his ability to keep sync-kill bosses occupied is nothing less than idiotic, matches with GJ in them should result in no-one getting insta-killed. Regardless of the tactic you decide to use, your role as the GJ is to be the bouncer, nothing is supposed to get past you (especially bosses) and in return for keeping the enemies at bay, your teammates should be the ones that are killing anything and everything that is attacking you. A downed GJ is not helpful to anyone nor is a player that isn't killing those enemies that would put the GJ down, if either party fails to do their bit properly, the plan falls apart and you'd have been better off using a different kit altogether. As the GJ it's your responsibility to not take silly risks i.e. there is no excuse for venturing out into large open areas and expecting the rest of the team of follow you (and vice versa). As a teammate playing with a GJ, you have to understand that his damage output isn't great therefore you might (but not necessarily) have to do a bit more killing that usual, though given the fact he's soaking up lots of damage and keeping the enemies at bay/occupied, you have no excuse for not helping out. I've been in several games where players don't take advantage of my Squad Command damage boost and decide to lone wolf it on the other side of the map, occasionally managing to get themselves sync-killed, this helps no-one and just makes the game harder and longer to complete.
A good plan for setting up shop is to find a nice defensible location and have the other players standing right behind/next to you, ideally somewhere elevated, near an ammo box (for your teammates) and with as few flanking routes for enemies to attack from (i.e. a wall behind you and one to the side is good). This way you can safely pick off most advancing enemies from a distance, leaving only bosses to make it to your location, where the team should then concentrate it's fire to eliminate the threat/s quickly. Be sure to deploy both the Hex Shield and Geth Turret, it's very easy to forget to use/re-deploy these in the heat of battle but they are worth having active, even if it's just so your team can benefit. Don't worry about not having enemies to kill, with the whole team in one location, you'll find that enemies will make their way to you soon enough. If your team prefers to be a bit more mobile (some maps will require it), they should never leave you too far behind and once you come across enemy units, they should let you take point and play exactly the same as if you were holding down any other location. One on one, the GJ can easily hold his own against any of the bosses, it's when you start to get swarmed by them or a bunch of other units, that's when you can find yourself in trouble. Enemies that can do a lot of damage in a short space of time should be dealt with (or escaped from) as a matter of priority, things like Phantoms, Dragoons, Turrets, Geth Pyros, Ravagers, Brutes, Scions and all the top tier bosses, can put you from full shields to near zero health in moments. Even if you use the GJs heavy melee to restore your shields (more on this later), on difficulties Gold+ it won't be enough and you will still get downed very quickly, if you don't think you'll survive the skirmish, don't be afraid to retreat, it's better to live and fight another day (or rather in another location). Alternatively, if you get boss swarmed and find the situation untenable, don't be stingy with your Cobra Missiles, four plus bosses is an ideal time to use one.
Something I want to make absolutely clear now, is the fact that the Geth Juggernaut is not a melee character kit, you might've seen lots of players using melee as their main form of attack but that is a terrible game plan. If you take a look at the damage values for both the light and heavy melee, you'll see that they're actually weaker than most other kits, so using them all match long to rack up kills will ultimately just drag out the game time and this won't get you thanks from anyone. Having said this, the melee attacks on the GJ are unique and should be incorporated into your playstyle, just don't neglect to use your powers and of course, fire your weapon a lot more often(!) I really like the light melee attack because everytime you use it, your character will emit a short range pulse, originating from your body and spreading out a couple metres in all directions. This (very) small area of effect pulse can hit multiple enemies, doing some damage and occasionally staggering them (lightly) in the process, it's purpose is to buy you a bit of breathing space when you get surrounded by low level troops and it works very well. You can spam it but it's not that powerful and after a couple hits, the enemies will have been forced out of it's hit radius. I probably don't need to explain why the GJ's heavy melee is bad ass but on the off chance you don't know by now, when you use it on a non-armoured enemy unit (including bosses), you'll lift them off the ground and keep them suspended in mid-air while you do steady damage to them over a fixed period of time. As fun and novel as this attack is to use, in the next section I detail why it's one of the weakest damaging attacks you can do in the game (weapon or power wise) and shouldn't be used all the time. In addition to being weak, the heavy melee attack is quite unreliable, there were quite a few instances when I'd be holding down the button and not locking onto to any enemy target at all. The range at which you can sync enemies is actually pretty generous, I believe it's roughly 4 metres (the same as that of the Squad Command ring), so you can do it safely from behind your shield/other cover.
According to this thread created by BSN member peddroelmz, when you use heavy melee it will hold enemies for six seconds and do twenty four lots of 60 point hits (by default), within that time frame. If we then take these figures and do some basic calculations; 24*60 = 1440 damage done over the full 6 seconds, which implies 1440/6 = 240 damage per second. To give you an idea of how weak this is, I'll compare it to a weapon in the game, let's take a level one Predator pistol, this has a DPS value of 490 for a single clip. So as you can clearly see, anyone who's using the heavy melee as their main form of damage output, is not doing anyone any favours and especially not themselves. Despite the incredibly low damage output from the heavy melee attack, it does have it's uses, even if killing quickly isn't one of them. The main reason you should be using the attack is to restore your shields but bear in mind that it's a slow process and if you're being attacked by multiple enemies, the chances are your shields will be getting destroyed much faster that they are being regenerated. In some cases it's better to just spam light melee and then use the breathing space to either flee or attack with your weapon/powers instead. Take for example a group of three Husks, when they swarm you, your options are Siege Pulse, shoot, light melee or heavy melee, what would you do? I can tell now, using Siege Pulse would take the longest time (unless each shot hits all three), followed by heavy melee on each one; if you've got a good gun it's better to just shoot them, failing that you can spam 2/3 sets of light melee and all of them would be dead at the same time. Any time an enemy is suspended by the heavy melee animation, they are powerless to do anything and it effectively puts them out of the game for a short while, attacking enemy units like Phantoms is particularly satisfying. On higher difficulties and against boss units, enemies are very likely to still be alive after the attack but once they've been dropped, they do take a couple seconds to recover. You should therefore always be prepared to take advantage of this opportunity to land a few free head shots, if you're quick enough and using a decent weapon, they won't even have had the chance to begin standing back up. Finally, not a lot of people know that heavy melee does bonus damage to shields and barriers (though weak damage plus a bit more, is still weak), so it can be an idea to use it to help soften some units (mainly bosses) before you shoot them with your gun or Siege Pulse but if you're rocking the Reegar or Acolyte, you've got no need for this feature.
If you happen to have a power spamming character in the same lobby, it's a really good idea to use your Siege Pulse as a detonating power and continually set off power combos with the other person. Of course this will work best if both parties stay close to each other and have some sort of synergy but if there isn't a power spammer (or one that wants your assistance), you could slap an ammo power on your weapon and detonate your own. I quite like using Disruptor ammo when playing against Geth/Cerberus and Incendiary ammo against the Reapers for Tech Bursts and Fire Explosions respectively, don't get me wrong these combos aren't super damaging (there are much better kits for power combos) but every bit of extra damage that you can afflict on enemies is very much welcome. Speaking of Siege Pulse, enemies can dodge it like any other power with a flight path, so it's a good idea to land a few shots with your weapon first, this reduces the chances of it being avoided and potentially wasting a precious charge. Another point to mention about the Siege Pulse or rather the charges, is that if you find yourself getting swarmed by enemies, it can be really tempting to fire them off in an attempt to thin the enemy ranks but that can lead to an even quicker death. If you take the damage reduction evolution, in my experience it will be much more useful to keep the charges stored and use the bonus defence to stay alive, while back up arrives to help you out or you fight your way to safety. If you you didn't take the damage reduction evo but you know you're about to rushed by a group of enemies, you might as well wait for them to all be right next to you, then fire off all your charges and hopefully hit them all multiple times through the impact radius. It's good practice to always have Siege Pulse charges active, not just for the additional defence but so that you can use them at the drop of hat, it might seem like an obvious thing to say but I've seen people forget after using them.
In summary then, the Geth Juggernaut is an interesting character and one that you'll probably have fun playing with but in truth, for me he's nothing more than a novel change of pace, the disadvantages of using him far outweigh the benefits. The GJ is big, slow, can't take cover, can't vault cover, can't run and has relatively weak offensive powers, granted he's immune to sync kills but when you can't escape or kill swarming enemies quickly, this sometimes makes it a moot point. There are several other character kits that offer a better balance of defence and offence, without the drawbacks of the GJ, if you want a sturdy gun platform the N7 Destroyer (for one) is much better and if you want a decent power spammer, there's plenty to pick from. If regenerating shields is what you want, there are several kits that offer almost instantaneous restoring abilities but with other bonuses, for example the new Turians with their Stim packs, most Vanguards with their Biotic Charges and even the nerfed Alliance Infiltration Unit (AIU). I have a feeling that most experienced players and in particular those with access to the best weapons, would be better off playing with other kits, where they'll be able to kill enemies much faster including bosses. Avoiding sync kill enemies on big maps doesn't require that much effort and even on smaller maps it isn't impossible, you just need good situational awareness, which is much better learnt when not playing with the GJ. While it never gets boring syncing enemies with the heavy melee attack, it can be unreliable and ultimately isn't powerful enough to be used for anything other than regenerating shields in desperate situations. Just because you can't get sync killed, it doesn't mean you can start to play recklessly, it's still important to use tactics like you would any other kit i.e. avoiding CQC with bosses and dealing with enemies over range where possible, as you can still very easily get downed (if not easier because you're a bigger and slower target).
Despite the Geth Juggernaut being free of the burden of sync kills, I don't think he's that easy to play with on difficulties Gold+, if anything I think speccing him the way I have, requires a bit more skill and tactics than a lot of the other kits do. As with all Geth characters there's a Geth weapon bonus but given the GSMG burns through ammo, the Pulse Rifle is very weak, the Plasma Shotgun is heavy for it's damage and the Spitfire is a piece of crap, you'd be putting yourself at a disadvantage rather than gaining anything worthwhile. I suppose if your main concern is staying alive (regardless of killing enemies), going full health/shields in fitness then selecting the Damage Protection and four Siege Pulse shots (and not firing them off) can yield the tankiest kit in multiplayer. You might have an easier time playing with that build but I feel the cut in damage output is still a hurdle, though I suppose one that is lessened if you use top level ammo powers, which are apparently not subject to the penalty. Having said this, the GJ's passives aren't the best if you're planning on building an all weapon character kit, so again I'd recommend looking elsewhere. Unless I'm assured that a player using him knows what they're doing with the kit, I'd probably not be happy playing with a GJ either because I don't want long drawn out matches and I especially don't want a player who probably hasn't played a lot of Gold/Platinum before, thinking they'll be OK 'cus they're using the GJ. I personally select my character kits on their ability to kill enemies quickly and efficiently, neither of the builds I've discussed for the Geth Juggernaut allow me to do that, throw in the lack of mobility (which I greatly dislike) and I can't see myself using this guy very much in the future, if at all.
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