Pathfinder tips!

by EA_David
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Original Post

Pathfinder tips!

[ Edited ]
Community Manager

Hi all, with the game release dates starting today we thought folks might like to share any gameplay/combat tips from their time with the trial. We'd like to start with some basics but we welcome more advanced tips, or even simple ones we may have missed here.

 

Take cover!

 

On medium difficulty or higher, Ryder doesn't last too long out in the open. If your shields are dropping or you're already taking damage to your health, be sure to get behind something solid. If you have a skill that can stun, you can try popping that off at the nearest/most dangerous enemy to buy yourself a moment to scramble to safety. If you're in real trouble, perhaps you can pop a shield consumable.


Blind-fire in this game can be very powerful, and with good spread control you can safely do a lot of damage. If you have an assault rifle or pistol perhaps try practicing with the blind-fire pattern spread so you can do some damage at some distance while recovering your shields.

 

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Blind-firing with a sniper rifle isn't generally smart, but there are times when it's hard to miss.

Power Combo!

 

Power combinations are a great way to make the most of MEA's combat. You'll do more damage and get to punish your enemies in fun ways. My favourite combo is to use a charged overload and a concussive shot. This does some decent damage and the stun/knockback combo buys me a lot of time. While weaker enemies are usually killed outright, even medium enemies rarely get back on their feet afterwards, as I can finish them off with an AR burst/sniper shot. 

 

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I also like Biotic charging into any enemy lifted by PeeBee's Pull if they're near a cliff/drop. It's not very efficient -I've gotten killed after doing it more than once-  but it is funny.

 

Search for Hidden Caches!


I'm not sure how Hidden they are considering they show up on your map, but these treasure chests can contain some great equipment and are always worth checking out. 

 

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In some cases you may need to be agile agility, think laterally or kill something scary, but sometimes the loot's just there for the taking. Regardless of how you get it, the caches can contain some solid upgrades, especially early in the game when you don't have the materials for crafting the really shiny gear yet. Even if you have some bad luck with the chest you'll get some materials and some vendorable items. Just like Shepard, Ryder still needs to pay for their own stuff, so credits always help.

 

Scan things!

When exploring, if you see something cool or new, scan it! Anything scannable will be brightly lit, so you can quickly assess if there's anything there that'll net you some research points. These points will be used to research gear and upgrades, so stock up!

 

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Add your 2 credits!

 

To those who played the trial content in Eos, great! This is probably not news to you so please feel free to add any of your tips. Perhaps you can share the weapon and power build that you used? What worked and what didn't? Did you focus on a small handful of skills or did you spread your points around to have more versatility?

 

While you're just getting started in Andromeda, you'll surely have gained some valuable insight into the various gameplay/combat systems of MEA.

 

 

To those who didn't take part in the trial, welcome! Hopefully there will be some helpful info here, and be sure to post any pointers you come up with as you explore the Helius cluster.

 

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Message 1 of 12 (18,658 Views)

Re: Pathfinder tips trial edition!

Community Manager (retired)

Don't be like me and travel everywhere the slow way for two days, haha.

 

To fast travel around a planet, just open your map, scroll over a Forward Station that you've discovered (the Station will be automatically deployed when you first come in range), and hit the button noted on the screen (X for PS4, A for Xbox One, hover mouse and left-click for PC).

 

Presto! You'll be transported to that Forward Station where you, your squad, and your Nomad will all heal up and repair. You'll also have all your ammo refilled.

 

Woot!

 

 

Message 2 of 12 (18,331 Views)

Re: Pathfinder tips trial edition!

★ Guide

thanks. early access helped get a lot of pathfinder multiplayer reward box items haha. 

Message 3 of 12 (18,318 Views)

Re: Pathfinder tips trial edition!

★★★★★ Newbie

I'd also recommend that anyone who finds scanning/mining to be a bit of a chore to look into the cryo point upgrades that give you a regular payout of research points and minerals. If you pick them up early and tap them regularly you'll start to find yourself with a nice supply of resources for crafting all those high tier guns and expensive Nomad upgrades. 

Message 4 of 12 (18,181 Views)

Re: Pathfinder tips trial edition!

[ Edited ]
Hero (Retired)

Personally, I have developed a strategy that, while it feels like an ultimate cop out, works surprisingly well.

 

1) Develop a Remnant assault rifle. One I chose was the P.A.W. It's mostly about Remnant weapons not requiring any ammo.

 

2) While it's not mandatory, I heavily recommend this step: get a Seeking Plasma Mod and customize your assault rifle with it while you develop it. With that mod, your weapon shoots seeker-type plasma projectiles. They don't do massive damage and are bad against enemies who move, but have one major edge - when your enemy peeks out of cover, they will ruin him without you having to peek out of cover at all - you can blind fire in general direction of the enemy, that's enough.

 

3) Now, skills. Skill set I'm sticking to is Concussive Shot (Combat skill), Incinerate (Tech) and Energy Drain (Tech). In these skills, invest in upgrades that allow you to hit multiple targets/deal area damage. The later you are in the game, the more your enemies will group up, so ability to hit multiple targets is key. now, here is the way an average fight goes:

 

  • Get to cover
  • Fire Incinerate at the nearest target without a shield
  • Perform a fire combo by hitting him with Concussive Shot (or Energy Drain, if he's well behind cover; remember that this skill ignores cover as long as you're locked in to your enemy)
  • During the rest of your fight, follow this approach: destroy shields of shielded enemies with blind P.A.W. fire from behind cover, then Incinerate them and shoot them with Concussive Shot (CS). If CS is on a cooldown or you're taking damage, use Energy Drain instead to recover part of shields. If enemy is stunned on the ground, blind fire P.A.W. If someone's flanking you, switch to whatever normal weapon you have (for me it's Carnifex pistol) and finish him off the standard way.
  • If a single, high-HP enemy shows up, stick to cover, fire Incinerate+Concussive shot, shoot entire charge at the target, rinse and repeat until enemy gets close, evade, do the same thing again. If you get hit, use Energy Drain to get shields back.

So, yeah, while the approach makes gunfights kiiiiind of shallow, it's a very solid choice if you tend to get shot up a lot the normal way and/or you have trouble with conserving ammo. The good thing is, this setup works pretty well against pretty much everything, from Chosen to Architect. While it's not a high DPS loadout, it gives you maximum safety.

 

Other note: if you're short on resources, you can destroy weapons and armor that you don't need. I would argue that in early stages of the game it's a better idea than selling it.

 

Ah, and if you're getting into area with hazard level 3, it's the game telling you 'don't go there, you will be able to visit that location later in the game'. Don't be like me, who died a couple of times just because a side quest initially was deep in radioactivity level 3 territory on Eos. The good news is, if your life support is about to run out, you can just teleport to quick travel location by using the map without any negative consequences.

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Message 5 of 12 (18,157 Views)

Re: Pathfinder tips!

★ Apprentice

When I first started the game, I built an Infiltrator setup, using cloak and sniper rifle.

After a while I got bored though and switched to a Vanguard build that is both effective and fun to play:

 

Weapons: Asari Sword, Pistol (go for a light sidearm. Predator works fine), Assault rifle, Shotgun. Make sure you are under 100% weight limit, for you need short cooldown time to make this build work well.

 

Skills: Biotic Charge, Nova, Pull

 

Gameplay: Strip shields with assault rifle, prime target with pull, trigger biotic combo with charge. Then finish off whats left with a shotgun, mele attack or a nova.

Biotic charge also recharges your shield so you have to spend less time hudding in cover waiting for your shield regeneration to finaly kick in.

Pull also works well as a "leave me alone"-button when an unshielded trash mob flanks you. Just suspend it in the air and you can concentrate on doing something else.

 

Companions: Cora works well thanks to her shield strengthening skill. Also her agressive gameplay style (she is a Vanguard after all) tends to draw attention away from you. Second companion isn't that important imho. Jaal, Vetra or Peebee worked quite well for me sofar.

 

It is a very fast-paced, dynamic play style. You will spend relatively little time in cover and more zooming about with biotic charge und jump.

You go right up in an enemy's face, but only if you know you can either finish it off quickly or have a plan for a quick retreat.

I found it much more challenging but also more fun to play then sitting in cover at the far end of the battlefield taking potshots at heads popping up from cover.

 

Biggest problem this build seems to have are snipers at long range and enemys you can't kill in one attack.

Message 6 of 12 (17,938 Views)

Re: Pathfinder tips!

★★ Apprentice

1. Activate towers ASAP and reset the vault (If they exist). This will help reduce the planetary issues of radiation, heat, or cold (and let you wander outside the Nomad much longer).

 

2. EOS - Explore and clear the old sites, reset the towers and vault, sort out the murder mission, establish an outpost, save the work crew.  DO NOT try to explore the rest of the planet for memory triggers or rare minerals YET.  The radiation will go away in time. Go back to Nexus and continue the main story line - save a planet or two. You'll be called back eventually to EOS to clear the rest (with no radiation to worry about.)

 

3. On PC. To get back to the Tempest quickly from anywhere on the planet, just hop into the Nomad and hold down T.  Saves a lot of time (and gets you off H-047c).

 

 

 

Message 7 of 12 (17,690 Views)

Re: Pathfinder tips!

Community Manager (retired)

Hello everyone! 

 

Some new and cool Pathfinder Tips available here.

 

Cheers,

Archi

Archi.png
Message 8 of 12 (17,020 Views)

Re: Pathfinder tips!

★★★ Pro

As this question was asked recently, i'll post the answer again here...

 

for the 3 squad commands you get where you can order one squad member to one place to defend, one to another using another key(button) and the 3rd button to order both to defend one location.. it was asked how you get your squad mates to return to you and stop defending a location.

 

The button(key) you use to order them to defend needs to be held down with a long press to cancel their defend order and they will then return to normal combat readiness at your side.

 

 

Hope this helps a new pathfinder.

Message 9 of 12 (17,010 Views)

Re: Pathfinder tips!

★★★★★ Apprentice

One thing that really helped me enjoy the game a lot more is to understand the order of things to accomplish. i really hit a wall with enjoyment in this game when trying to grind out all the side quests in an area. For example i first land on Eos and go all over exploring trying to find new things. At first it was pretty fun but eventually i was overwhelmed and didnt really know what to do next as some of the side quests get stale early. Also mostly all the plants limit some exploration early with hazardous conditions. You can only go so far before enviro suit is overloaded and you will die. Once i understood how to tackle each planet, exploration became much more enjoyable. 

 

1. Land on planet, immediately start unlocking fast travel points. 

2. Start solving the monoliths as soon as they are available.

3. Once you get all 3 monoliths explore vault and conquer it

4. Now you can explore in the Nomad to your hearts content. Id still work on getting more fast travel points so things are easier to get to once you decide to work on them.Its so much easier to knock out side quests and tasks when you dont have to drive around the whole map to get to them. 

5. Come back to planets later as sometimes conditions can change (ie Eos has this and in general its better not to burn yourself out on a planet)

 

 

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