Combat Profiles & Squads – Mass Effect Andromeda Combat Trailer 02

BioWare released a new combat trailer today with the promised look at Combat Profiles and squad abilities in Mass Effect Andromeda.

Profiles

Your profiles are your class and playstyle combined. Rather than simply picking a class like before you can cherry pick abilities from the Biotic, Combat and/or Tech trees or you can focus on one or two of these. As with most other games the more you focus on one particular skill set the more powerful skills you unlock.

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But it is interesting that the Pathfinder profile is only unlocked if you pick skills from all three skill types, however. Hopefully, that means that a Jack-of-all-traits build won’t be unviable to play in the long run.

Favorites

Favorites are a way to quickly access a set of three skills that you have previously grouped. So say your first Favorite grouping is all long range DPS. Sniper rifle, long range stunning or cloaking. You’d want something melee heavy on one of the other favorites.

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When you switch between them, the skills in the set go on cooldown so it won’t be something that can be stance-danced with impunity in or out of multiplayer. Nevertheless, that means you can bring up to 12 different skills with you into a fight. Presumably, Profiles will have to be switched out of combat.

Note that if you go with a Biotics profile your jump jet is replaced by a Biotic lift! Neat little detail there!

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Combos

Combos are back in Mass Effect Andromeda but now we’ll know when we pull one off. It’s a bit hard to tell in the screen cap below, but a message denoting a type Combo, here a Cryo Combo, flashes on the screen when it’s been achieved. A small addition to Mass Effect gameplay perhaps but one I’ve certainly wanted. I may even give a damn about power combos in MEA.

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Backlash

One interesting new ability they showed off was Backlash. It is a Biotic ability that lets you shield yourself from enemy fire and project that fire back at the enemy!

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And it looks A LOT like an invisible Captain America shield! Alright, a really big one but still!

Cover

We’ll have destroyable cover in MEA though not the clearly marked incongruously placed frail boxes we saw in ME2 and 3. This orange glass or plast cover looks like any other part of the environment but is clearly destroyed during the fight:

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Squad

The squad selection screen is looking mighty slick. Now it appears much more like you are contacting them on screen rather than the static lineups we've had in previous games:

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It doesn’t look like we’ll be able to fit many more team members on it, though? Perhaps the list scrolls down in two columns? Or perhaps these are all we get? The latter is unlikely, however, as there has to be space for some DLC teammates at the very least.

Each team member has two active and three passive skills. Below in the case of Cora Harper, Charge and Nova are her actives and Shield Boost, Asari Commando, Defensive Training are her passives.

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Squad mates can be leveled to be better at either setting up (priming) or detonating combos depending on your playstyle. It’s likely then that if you set your teammates to detonate your combos you or at least I might not even have to worry about it too much. The combos will just go off on their own!

The next video will be about exploration in Andromeda which should mean a really pretty video and I’m looking forward to it. Not that this one didn’t have its own brief glimpses of cool places:

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Possibly Notooine?

It also looks like planet probing is back, though. /sigh. Have a look at the video itself:

MASS EFFECT: ANDROMEDA | Combat Profiles & Squads | Official Gameplay Series – Part 2

What grabbed your attention in this trailer? Share below in the comments!

favorites

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