Mass Effect Hard Fights; At least to me!

Scion

All games, Mass Effect included, have some parts, fights or boss fights that for some reason are harder than others.  These might vary from person to person.  Some people breeze through things I find hard and vice versa.

Two fights that for some reason usually give me fits are “Stop the Collectors; Investigate the Collector Ship” and “Grunt: Rite of Passage.”  Perhaps they give you fits also, perhaps not?  What fights give you the most trouble?

For the most part you can beat any fights in the game with any squad mates.  There are some fights though where your squaddies and their biotics/weapons/armor make a big difference.  I usually take characters with me that I like because of their story line. But there are some fights where you need to take certain squaddies rather than your usual peeps.  Also where in the timeline of game play you accept the assignment also makes a difference.  For example are you doing a mission early while you are low level and with less fire power, armor and biotics?  Some fights are harder than others.  A harder fight might be more difficult if your character is still at a low level.

For example, I almost always take Miranda with me.  As I said in an earlier post I max out her Warp and Overload biotics.  Miranda is great at stripping away shields and armor so you can kill things.  On Insane level all enemies have armor and most have both shields and armor.  So I find her useful.  Plus I like her storyline.  She’s my go to girl in Mass Effect.  The third character I try to pick based on who I think is best suited for the mission. 

But here are two assignments that I find hard, where having the right squad can really make your life much easier.

Collector Ship

The first is “Stop the Collectors; Investigate the Collector Ship.”  In this mission you go to a disabled collector ship and quickly end up in a fight on the flying platforms in the collector ship.  For some reason this fight is just a huge blood bath for me. I have found that in order to be successful you have to kill the Collectors and the Collector General on the flying platforms as fast as possible.  You can’t let the Collector General close in on you; that’s always bad in this fight.

 Additionally there are two Scions on the platforms that will wreak havoc on you and your team with their Shockwave.  The Scion on the moving platform that moves from directly in front to your right is the most dangerous.  Killing this Scion is a priority as the other is so far away it’s not much of a threat.  Between killing Collectors bust the Scion with biotics or weapons fire whenever possible. Once it is killed your chance of success goes up dramatically.

Another is “Grunt: Rite of Passage.”  This is another hard one for me.  Although the last time I did it was on Insane and it went rather well.  I think that's because I brought Zaeed and punted Miranda. In this fight you need to do as much damage as fast as possible and preferably also do simultaneous damage to multiple targets; i.e. area biotics/weapons attacks.  In addition to bringing Zaeed I also retrained my biotics and swapped Reave for Inferno Grenade. Combined with Zaeed that gave me two really good area affects weapons to use on the packs of Varren and Klixen. Staying alive against the Thresher Maw is relatively easy.  But trying to kill the Thresher Maw is harder than running out the clock because you expose yourself to its attacks in order to attack yourself.

In the fight against the Varren and Klixen it is best if you can kill them at long ranges before they get to you.  However that's just not going to happen, as you’ll be over run by the packs eventually. So what I try to do once it becomes a close in fight is get as many together as I can in a group and use my area weapons; in this case the Inferno Grenade works great.  Observe and learn grasshopper.

What fights do you find hard?  How do you approach them?  How do you fight “Stop the Collectors; Investigate the Collector Ship” and “Grunt: Rite of Passage?”