Combo Strategies – Get a Colossus forum badge [ Edited ]

[EA_Alexander]

Flying around wreaking destruction upon your enemies, but do you know what makes it even more awesome? Combos.

Does your Storm have the perfect setup? What about when you’re bringing the fight to the Dominion with friends?

What are your best tips and tricks for devastating your opponents with those sweet, sweet combos?

Share your tips and strategies in the thread and get rewarded

Bonus XP from EA_Eric, EA Alexander, and EA_Ataashi to everyone that includes an on-screen combo shot in their post 😊

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[JanePhoenix]

I haven't been playing that long, and only just started paying attention to Anthem's combo mechanics. Not getting into the teamwork aspect of combos here, just managing a solo combo even by yourself. First the target has to be primed, afterwards detonated. On your javelin loadout, pay attention to the following icons in front of the gear's name.

Primers have this circular icon:

Detonators have this four-pointed icon:

So here's one that works pretty well for a Ranger. My favorite primer at this point is the frost grenade, once you happen to pick one up. If you have the Legion of Dawn edition you'll be able to get the Fist of the Mountain assault launcher right after completing the tutorial, and this makes a great detonator. If you don't have this any other pulse blast type should work very similarly.

Lob your frost grenade into a whole group of enemies for maximum effect. You can aim before throwing by holding down the fire button for your grenades. Once enemies have the Frost status effect applied to them, follow up with Fist of the Mountain on any of the affected enemies and you have yourself a nice combo.

[Racoonbrew]

As a Ranger when roaming around on Missions, Contracts or Freeplay I prefer to use my favorite combination:
Cold Blooded (Frost Grenade: +135% melee for 10sec on freeze)
Avenger's Boon (Pulse Blast: 110% melee for 20 sec on impact)
Then follow up with a melee blow if I need to continue my damage dealing with a new primer, KA-POW!

In Strongholds I prefer:
Cold Blooded (Frost) or Explosive Blaze (Fire) Grenade for priming targets and throw Tactical Onslaught on durable targets for Acid Status to help my team dealing those sweet combos, I'll also pop up a Muster point during gun heavy fights to boost gun damage dealt.

Still playing around and keep adjusting to find my optimal combinations for different situations but these are my current choices because their fun and effective to use

[cake404]

I would like to leave something for other people to contribute to the thread, so I’ll try to keep it to what I feel like are the most fundamental, but at the same time probably least obvious, aspects of the combo mechanics:

1. Each javelin’s combo detonator effect is different. Ranger’s detonates for high single target damage, Colossus detonates for area damage, Storm and Interceptor have their own effects that are more suited to crowd control. Because of this, it could be helpful to try and coordinate with the team to make sure that there is one of each javelin type in the team, and each has at least one detonator ability.
2. Since there is a limit to how many abilities you can have at once, this means it’s often best to have everyone have at least one primer as well. Note that each javelin’s melee ability is either a primer or a detonator. Of course, some javelins might be better off having more primers or more detonators, depending on your roles and what equipment everyone has available.
3. There is a limit to how often you can detonate a combo on the same enemy. Once someone detonates one, additional attempts will not result in more combos for a few seconds, even if the target still has elemental effects on it.
4. In light of 1. and 3. – think about what kind of combos would be the most efficient for you to detonate, and if possible discuss it with your team. Preferably before the match. It’s hard to resist the temptation of creating huge splosions, but on higher difficulties you’ll also want to make those combos count.

While at it, I would also like to note a few facts that are not combo-related per se, but are also often overlooked.

• Fire and Acid attacks and effects deal the most damage to armor (“yellow bars”). Cold and Electricity deal more damage to shields (“blue bars”). And vice versa – Fire is less effective against shields, etc. 
• That said, in some situations it can be more helpful to shock and/or freeze a powerful enemy for the stun/stagger effect, rather than try and deal a lot of damage to it.
• Enemy shields need to be down before you can apply any effects on the enemies themselves. If you apply damage to them every once in a while, it keeps those shields from regenerating (just like your own shields).
• A target can have more than one elemental effect on it. That said, Fire and Cold effects interact. Setting a target on fire will make it no longer frozen. Which should be obvious, but it merits paying special attention when you’re applying area Fire primers around a powerful target one of your teammates tries to freeze for crowd control.
• Somewhat like elemental damage types, each weapon type is also stronger against some defenses and weaker versus others. Slow firing, high damage weapons such as sniper rifles will punch through armor, but get stopped by shields relatively easily. Weapons that fire a lot of weaker projectiles quickly (shotguns, submachineguns) won’t penetrate armor that well, but they do have an easier time overloading enemy shields. Assault rifles are more of a “middle ground” (though they also have “marksman” and “machinegun” varieties that lean towards armor and shield damage, respectively). 
• Weapons damage also seems to fall off with distance. This doesn’t mean you should snipe from point-blank range, but it does mean your submachine gun could be doing less damage even if all the shots seem to hit.
• Each enemy has weak points. You’ll want to shoot those for maximum effect. This does not always mean “headshots,” especially when the enemies are not human. Try shooting the fuel tanks on the back of a Scar Enforcer with a sniper rifle and see what happens. Fun, right?
• Acid elemental effect also reduces enemy resistances, making them more susceptible to damage – especially weapon fire.

(Not attaching any combo pictures because I’m on from the phone, and my PC is a bit of a pumpkin at this point anyway)

[BadIuckJ]

Ralner Blaze debuff works as a primer  for you to trigger combos 

Spoiler

[Varym-Wynne]

I like the flamethrower and lightning aoe. Really nice combo with the Colossus !

[bulletw1st]

Click here for higher resolution or hit [ ] on the video to open up full screen. 

I made a video to showcase everything I talk about, below.  If I convinced ONE NEW PERSON to go Storm, my job is done! 

Hey everyone!  Tips for new players/low level, like me:

Really, really cool thread concept to engage the community!  Research led me to choose Storm.  I'm very early on in the game (just level 9) but this is what I'm using and it feels wonderful!  Anthem's probably the best game I've ever played for having satisfying combat.  And COMBOS is no joke!  At first I was like, "whatever" but now that I'm set up for sweet, sweet combogeddon on my foes, I could not imagine Anthem without it!  So here's what I'm using (PS4):

• Blast Seal = Ice Storm (primer, L1)
• Focus Seal = Burning Orb (detonator, R1)

What's cool is that if you can get an Inscription on your Ice Storm Blast Seal that increases SPEED, there's no delay and it's just so snappy!  You can freeze entire groups of enemies and then you just hold down R1 to charge the Focus Seal, the Burning Orb, and you launch this awesome fire ball that makes them explode.  You also get splash damage.  I'm only level 9 and this feels soooo powerful and satisfying.  At such a low level, your weapons are pretty useless--I've crafted an Uncommon Devastator Sniper (I take a couple shots at turrets with it in the video) which is pretty decent but with all the extra combo damage, hardly need guns this early in the game!

The Storm is great for engaging from a distance and you can hover for pretty much as long as you need to and then just L1-R1, back-and-forth, and get that roughly 30% COMBO bonus damage!  I haven't even done Strongholds yet with other people, but I'll be pretty darn useful!  Don't forget your MELEE, either!  You can L1 to prime enemies with your freeze then charge in and melee.  The melee is a detonator and does impressive combo damage.  Talk about a one-two, punch!!

Lastly, I'll just point out that these two Seals are so good that you'll manage quite well with them through most of the game.  It's such a powerful combination and then I think that some Masterwork and Legendary seals are just fancy versions of Ice Storm and Burning Orb, some of them at least, and those are the ones I will be looking for to replace my Epic versions when the time comes.  As a side note, running a Wind Wall (L1 + R1) as your Support Seal, is really good for when you need to do revives (not to mention for protection during TITAN fights!) so that you might not have to rely so much in using your Ultimate in order to ensure the clutch.  Love popping Wind Walls in front of groups of enemies or huge bosses!   

Have fun, everyone, building your own Monster Javelins!  Cheers!

[h00d00]

This is exactly why I like playing a Storm. The abilities combo so well together and then you can unless your ULT which is designed to create even more combo damage.

[Phaylis]

While soloing try to keep moving while in combat. Its very easy to get flanked and overwhelmed staying in one spot. When grouped spread out a bit so not to have AoE focused on your teammates but try to keep everyone visible, at lease know where they are. This way if they are downed you can try and quickly revive them. It seems very easy to have tunnel vision in this game so try and stay aware of your surroundings.

[ShenronNacht]

Most of my time has been spent with the ranger.

Thus far the best combo set up I've used is fire grenade and seeking missile.

The grenades still deal decent damage to shielded enemies and great damage against armor.  The seeking missile means my single target combo damage is almost mistake proof.

The quick cool down on seeking missile means I can also reliably use it after my melee primer

It also means access to AoE dmg and impact damage.

To me the benefit over frost grenades primer or venom darts primer is the efficiency against most enemies and the damage aspect as both darts and frost seem to have a very minor damage aspect (as far as I can tell)

Seeking missile gives you a range Det to combo off of allies and your grenades and melee can additionally prime for your allies.

That's my take thus far