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Bioware’s Mass Effect trilogy puts you in the shoes of Commander Shepard, a human special forces operative with a wide array of powers. While some of these abilities are more mundane, such as applying First Aid to squadmates or engaging in a rush of adrenaline to fight more ferociously, the more esoteric powers are divided into two categories: ‘Tech’ and ‘Biotics’.
‘Tech’ powers are centered around engaging with technology, whether it is boosting your own and that of your teammates, hacking the enemy’s tech, or using specialist technical equipment. ‘Biotics’, on the other hand, are innate abilities revolving around the titular ‘Mass Effect’ science of the series, such as throwing enemies with a thought. Both are effective, and each has a way to set your Shepard apart.
10 Tech: Shields And Synthetics Pose No Problem
Enemies in the Mass Effect series are split into ‘Organics’, such as humans or alien species like Turians and Asari; and ‘Synthetics’, which refer to robots and other machines. Mechs and Geth, both Synethics, are two common enemy types, with the latter dominating every story mission in Mass Effect, and having significant plotlines in each game.
Tech powers are often geared towards overwhelming these enemies, whether it is through shutting them down, hacking them, or making them simply explode. When facing organic enemies, Tech powers still let you decimate their recharging shields, leaving them easy pickings for you and your squadmates.
9 Biotics: Detonations Devastate All Enemies
In later games in the trilogy, Mass Effect‘s combat often revolved heavily around detonations, power combinations that reacted with one another to do massive damage to the target and to nearby enemies.
By Mass Effect 3, detonations could be set up and set off by a number of abilities, but in Mass Effect 2, when the mechanic was first implemented, only one power could ‘prime’ enemies for another power to blow them up: the damage-over-time effect ‘Warp’. Only a Biotic Shepard gets to maximize their truly devastating combos for that much of the trilogy.
8 Tech: ‘Tech Armor’ Makes Shepard Both Resilient And Deadly
Every type of Shepard (Biotic, Tech, Soldier) gets some form of defensive buff over the course of the Mass Effect trilogy, and the one gotten by Tech Shepards is simply named ‘Tech Armor’.
Tech Armor is less of a buff to your shields than similar abilities like Barrier, but comes with two useful abilities that set it apart. Its duration is theoretically infinite until it is destroyed, allowing you to apply it at the start of a mission and not refresh it, and when it is destroyed (or manually removed by Shepard), it explodes in a radius around Shepard, doing heavy damage and knocking enemies back. Few other powers in the game balance offense and defense as tightly as Tech Armor.
7 Biotics: ‘Barrier’ Makes You Nearly Unkillable
The Biotic defensive power is aptly named ‘Barrier’. In the first game, it provided you with nearly unbreakable shields for its duration, boosting them up to levels that only the highest-tier armor could come close to. In later games, it provides less of a boost but still gives Shephard some impressive staying power.
What sets Barrier apart, however, is that, by the end of the game, its cooldown is far shorter than its duration. This means it will always be available again immediately after it fades unless Shepard is under heavy fire. Only Barrier can provide Shephard with this high level of protection across the entire trilogy.
6 Tech: ‘Tactical Cloak’ Turns Shepard Into A Hidden Killer
Starting with Mass Effect 2, the Tech-Soldier hybrid class ‘Infiltrator’ gets a unique power in ‘Tactical Cloak’, which renders Shepard invisible to all enemies, while buffing their weapon damage. The downside is that Shepard’s health and shields do not recharge while this is active.
The power results in a lethal Shepard, capable of disappearing in a puff of smoke, appearing next to an enemy to kill them in one or two shots from a heavy weapon, and then disappearing again. A unique playstyle that only a Tech Shepard can play.
5 Biotics: The Best Battlefield Control In The Series
Whereas Tech powers often debuff enemies, and both types can do direct damage, Biotic powers fill a particular niche of battlefield control. With Stasis, Pull, Throw, and Singularity, a well kitted-out Biotic Shepard can have nearly every enemy in their site where they want them and nowhere else.
The most extreme example of this is at the climax of Mass Effect, when the final boss, Saren’s Sovereign-possessed corpse, can be almost entirely neutered with the ‘Pull’ power, leaving him unable to attack you and helpless to stop Shepard and their allies shooting him with their heaviest weapons as he hangs in the air.
4 Tech: ‘Overload’ Shuts Down Nearly All Enemies
While Tech powers often excel against Synthetic enemies, they have some abilities that can be just as crippling to Organics. ‘Overload’, an ability available to Tech characters from the beginning of the trilogy, is one of these, and one of the most versatile abilities in the game.
Particularly effective against Synthetics enemies, it can nonetheless damage Organics, tear away their shields, cause their weapons to malfunction, and in Mass Effect 3, stun them briefly and trigger detonations. It remains one of the most versatile powers in the trilogy.
3 Biotics: ‘Singularity’ Can Carry An Entire Party
No power better represents the strengths of Biotics than ‘Singularity’, a power that creates a vortex on the battlefield, sucking nearby enemies towards it and into the air. It can incapacitate several enemies at once, lockdown entire areas of firefights, and, in Mass Effect 3, can be detonated with a wide variety of powers.
No other power available combines such wide battlefield control with such detonation potential, and to make it even better, Singularity also does damage to enemies over time. It is one of the most lethal tools in an Adept Shepard’s toolbox.
2 Tech: Hacking Turns Enemies Against Each Other
Another power available from Mass Effect 1 (under the ‘Computers’ skill), Hacking is one area a Tech Shepard can specialize in, overriding the protocols of Synthetic enemies, and making them turn on their allies. With the number of synthetic enemies you face over the trilogy, it has a place in most missions, splitting enemy fire and adding damage to your team’s efforts.
There is a biotic equivalent to use on Organic enemies, ‘Dominate’, but it only appears in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3, and in both cases is harder to get than that game’s Hacking ability, requiring sidequests or DLC. As such, a Tech Shepard is best equipped to send enemies fighting one another.
1 Biotics: ‘Biotic Charge’ Changes The Game Completely
Much of the combat in the Mass Effect trilogy takes the form of a third-person cover shooter, where you duck behind the scenery, popping up to shoot enemies or use your abilities. Starting from Mass Effect 2, however, the Soldier-Biotic hybrid ‘Vanguard’ class gets Biotic Charge, an ability that sees them fly across the battlefield to strike an enemy up close, dealing damage and recharging Shepard’s shields.
This completely changes combat for the class, going from a cover shooter to something far closer to a run-and-gun game like Doom. While Shepard will still need to take cover occasionally, they are far less tied to it than most classes, and far more mobile, in a way that is only available to a Biotic Shepard.
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