Achilles

Level 14 and things are significantly better now that I have the Locust and fully-evolved Charge. 2nd YMIR fight that I had so much trouble with when I was a soldier was significantly easier with the vanguard (no deaths and didn't need heavy weapons).

EDIT: New complaint about ME2 - Game doesn't auto-pause when batteries in the controller die

I have gigs of TES mod projects backed up to disk and external HDDs that are in various states of completion. Each time I fire up one of the games, I have to start over from scratch because I cannot remember where I was in the process, etc.

I'm going to have to build a new rig before I start playing PC games again.

How sad that we spend more time modding games so that we can play them to our preferences, than we do actually playing?

Many of the heavy-hitters in the secular community agree with you. I believe that Dawkins has written the most extensively on the subject, but others have as well.

3 hours to do Kasumi's loyalty mission last night. Almost all of that time was spent on the final part because Kasumi will cloak, do her shadow strike, return to where I had her in cover, but rather than go back into cover there, she strafes to the other side of the screen to take cover in a spot where she can easily be shot.

It felt like cheating, but I eventually gave up trying to kill the bad guys and just hit the ship with Reave every 6 seconds until it exploded. I hate Kasumi.

EDIT: oh yeah and it took me three tries to recruit Garrus because both Miri and Zaeed would crouch down a foot behind cover and then empty numerous thermal clips into the item they were hiding behind rather than taking cover proper. Which means the only one shooting anything was me.

I suspect that you're already familiar with Richard Dawkins and his argument that childhood indoctrination is child abuse. Just in case I am wrong though:

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/118-religion-39-s-real-child-abuse

Ok, regenerating shields and barriers I get, but how is it that vorcha can regenerate armor?

Also, I get that there are some areas that Vanguards cannot Charge to, however it's kinda frustrating when I'm not permitted to Charge to areas that I can.

In my last playthrough, I learned the importance of not being miserly with my heavy weapons ammo. In this playthrough, I will learn a similarly important life lesson re: medi-gel.

Soldier and Infiltrator were easy.

*grumbles* It's not bragging if it's true...

I refuse to let this minor setback get in my way.

I will say though that Vanguard is harder on Insanity. I have nothing for long range fighting. I have every confidence that I'm going to a lot of fun once I get a few more levels under my belt, but right now kinda sucks.

That's not encouraging news

It's unfortunate that the non-programmable quick button for Vanguards (Charge) is the same button for Soldiers (Adrenaline Rush). I'm used to tapping AR as soon as I make contact with the enemy. More than a few times last night I died because, out of habit, I tapped the Y button in the middle of a firefight and found myself sitting in the lap of a fully-armored Krogan.

This story sounds familiar

Best advice anyone ever gave me:

"Don't get old".

Vanguard build:

Incendiary & Cryo Ammo - 3

Charge - 4 (Heavy evolution)

Shockwave - 3

Pull - 2

Assault Master - 4 (Champion evolution)

Reave - 4 (Area evolution).

Reave gets both the damage and duration bonus and research multipliers (330.5 damage over 5.4 seconds) and does x2 against Armor and Barriers. Cooldown is 3.9 seconds. I'm gonna wreck some **** with this.

Playing around with the numbers for a Vanguard build. Might start over when I get home tonight (made it as far as exchanging introductions with TIM before shutting down last night). I'm thinking this could be a lot of fun (Cryo ammo until frozen, then Pull, then Charge). Also, now that I've played LotSB, I can pick Stasis as my bonus power.

Funny how different people approach the game. I figure if I'm going to spend 40 hours recruiting specialized badasses and gaining their loyalty, each one should have a job to do in the suicide mission.

First time through with Zaeed, I had him run the diversion team. My logic was sound. Alas the game disagreed with me and killed him anyway.

Despite the fact that I feel burn out approaching, I did start another run last night (Infiltrator on Insanity). Pretty sure that I can get to level 30 doing only recruit and loyalty missions and I want to fine-tune my sequence.

Hehe. My fee is completely reasonable

I think I finally found a roster for the final mission that I'm happy with:

Tech Specialist - Tali (or Kasumi)

Squad leader - Garrus

Vent party - Thane and Jack

Crew escort - Mordin

Diversion leader - Jacob

Biotic - Samara

Swarm party - Grunt and Legion

Final squad - Miranda and Thane (or Legion)

EDIT 1: Oh, and aside from three fights (2nd YMIR - Jack recruit mission, Scion boss fight - Horizon, and the Derelict Reaper), Insanity is easy (I think I learned my lesson about importing level 30 ME2 Sheps )

EDIT 2: Not sure what happened, but I got the non-Hardcore/Insanity final boss fight. Maybe I broke the game by killing it too quickly.

They do, but I tend to go for the 100% option, so that wasn't different from last time. Regardless, my Paragon meter was far lower than it was the last time (almost 50% vs more than 70%).

I think burn out might be coming soon. Going to finish this run then switch to RRD.

Modified the Soldier build:

Adrenaline Rush - 4 (Heightened evolution)

Concussive Shot - 4 (Heavy evolution)

Disruptor, Incendiary, & Cryo - 3

Combat Mastery - 4 (Shock Trooper)

Fortification - 2

Noticed that I was only using Fortification when I was close to death and needed an extra few seconds to get to cover. Heavy CS gives me 350 against barriers, which will be prevalent later in the game and against which I was otherwise mostly powerless.

This makes no sense at all: Did Horizon, then Jacob's loyalty, then one of the N7 missions, then Jack's loyalty, then Miranda's. Miri and Jack had their big fight, as per usual, but the paragon option was available. Last time I had more Paragon points, but the option wasn't available. This time I was right around 50%. Does killings/spare Aaresh have any influence on whether or not the option is available?

All I'm going to say is that the Arc Projector in Insanity feels like cheating. Did Miri's loyalty last night and the two big fights (immediately before and after the elevator) were over before they could really get started (2 shots from the AP, then switch weapons and pop out of cover to find who Miri and Kasumi hadn't killed yet).

I miss not being able to cloak, but the 70% time dilation coupled with the 140% damage bonus and 3 second cooldown time for Adrenaline Rush eases the pain.

Oh and Jack with Primal Vanguard, warp ammo, and the Eviscerator shotgun is a very lethal combo. Warp ammo does double damage on targets in a biotic field. She hits pull, waits until they are about 10 feet away and then nails them with the shot gun. If the blast doesn't kill them, the fall does.

It does feel a little like cheating, doesn't it. But in a good way

Oh man, that does sound awesome. I had one on Grunt's recruit mission: Jacob used Pull on a merc, I hit it with concussive shot with lower-right english (sending him in a arc to the left). Out of the corner of the screen, I could see Jacob tracking him with his shotgun (incendiary ammo). He took the shot and merc flamed up for about second before turning to ash and falling to the ground. Win.

P.S. I convinced my buddy KinchyB to pick up ME2 on the PS3. Your evil is spreading.

It would seem that a large part of my problem is my stubbornness re: heavy weapons. Three more tries against the YMIR and then I finally broke down and used the arc projector. Fight was over before I new what was happening (Garrus and Zaeed took it upon themselves to clean up the Blue Suns on the other side while I was trying to find cover). Go figure.

Picked up Red Dead Redemption while I was out running errands today.