In this Mass Effect Legendary Edition Build Guide I’m going to cover my Adept Build for Mass Effect 1, which is an Adept Build meant for mid-range encounters. I’ll be sharing the best Talents to prioritize, what it means to choose the Bastion Specialization for your Adept, the optimal Weapons, Armor, and Mods to equip, and the Squadmates to take with you on Missions and Assignments. If you’ve been looking for a way to optimally play as an Adept then this Guide is for you.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition Build Guide: Adept (Mass Effect 1)
The Adept Class, like the Engineer, specializes in dealing excellent damage at mid-range distances due to their Pistol Proficiency. Since they are not well-trained to use other Weapons, Adepts rely on their Biotic Abilities to do the heavy lifting in combat.
What makes this Class extremely effective is how easily they manipulate mass effect fields to their advantage in order to control enemies. They have Lift, which suspends foes up in the air, thereby making them vulnerable to attacks. They can even use Throw to hurl enemies as far away as possible, inflicting Force Damage in the process.
The Bastion Adept Build greatly enhances durability, which is highly beneficial to this Class since they can only equip Light Armor. Additionally, this improves the Stasis Ability so they can immobilize tougher enemies while heavily damaging them as well.
Adept Talents and Abilities (Mass Effect 1)
In this section, I’ll talk about the different Weapon, Biotic, and Combat Talents that you should focus on to make the most out of your Bastion Adept Build. Note that the number of Talent Points I’ve allocated is based on reaching Level 50 in Mass Effect 1 Legendary Edition, or 25 if you’ve selected the Legendary Mode.
Weapon Talent and Ability
There is only one Weapon Talent that you’ll have to put sufficient points into because this will help you tackle enemies by increasing the accuracy of your shots and the damage you deal.
Pistols
This Talent becomes available after reaching Basic Armor Rank 5. Since the Pistol is the only Weapon the Adept is proficient with, it’s imperative to start investing 3 points at earlier levels in order to unlock the Marksman Ability, thereby enhancing its performance. Marksman significantly boosts the Pistol’s accuracy, overall damage, and headshot damage.
Moreover, this Weapon should be used in combination with Biotic Abilities right after immobilizing enemies in order to take advantage of their vulnerability. As your level increases, you’ll have to follow through with 9 additional Talent Points, a total of 12, to maximize the firepower damage you inflict.
Biotic Talents and Abilities
There are 6 Biotic Talents that you’ll have to put sufficient points into in order to effectively control enemies. These are Throw, Lift, Warp, Singularity, Barrier and Stasis.
Throw
Throw is a great offensive and defensive Talent because it allows you to toss enemies away from your Squad while inflicting Force Damage. The Throw Ability is so strong that at higher ranks, you can even kill targets by using it together with Lift or Singularity in order to push them off balconies and ledges. Note that airborne and heavy creatures like Geth Rocket Drones and Geth Armatures are resistant to the knock back effect of this Ability.
Since the first few ranks of this Talent are readily available, you ought to invest points into it right from the very beginning. Throw is essential at earlier levels when your Weapon Damage hasn’t reached it maximum potential. You should aim to reach Advanced Throw at Rank 8 to hurl enemies farther away from you and to significantly boost Force Damage.
Lift
At Rank 1, you immediately unlock Lift, which is an AoE Ability that lets you immobilize enemies by lifting them off the ground to render them useless in the battlefield and to make them susceptible to additional damage. They stay afloat for a longer duration when you sufficiently rank up this Talent. As soon as the time expires, affected enemies fall to the ground and take extra damage.
Since Throw will have to reach Rank 6 to unlock Lift, you’ll be allocating points into this Talent midway into the game. This shouldn’t be a problem since you can utilize other Biotic Abilities in the meantime. Ideally, it’s best to reach Advanced Lift at Rank 7 in order to widen its scope and to impact more enemies.
Warp
Warp is highly effective because of how it weakens Shields, thereby making enemies easier to kill, while inflicting massive damage over time. At higher ranks, you can even eliminate them within a few seconds of activating this Ability.
Since Warp is available at the beginning, I recommend investing as many Talent Points as you can. It’s best to reach Rank 12 to gain access to Master Warp, which greatly boosts damage while severely lowering the enemy’s Shield Strength. At Rank 7, you also unlock Singularity, which I’ll discuss next.
Singularity
Singularity, which is only available to the Adept, is an incredible crowd control technique because it creates a huge ball of energy to pull enemies together in order to suspend them in the air. This makes them vulnerable, and provides open easy target for you and your squad. Furthermore, Singularity can be used in combination with Throw or Warp to eliminate targets quickly. What makes this even better is you can lure targets from their hiding places.
At Rank 12, which is what you ought to aim for, you’ll unlock Master Singularity that maximizes the Ability’s radius and the time enemies remain afloat. Compared to Advanced Lift, Master Singularity’s duration is only shorter by a second but with a much wider range.
Barrier
Barrier acts as an enhancement to your Shields by boosting its capacity to absorb damage before impacting your HP. Note however that a few Ammo Mods like Proton Rounds can pierce through Shields and Barrier. Despite this, I suggest investing points into this Talent as early as possible to improve your survivability, especially since you can only equip Light Armor. Reaching Rank 7 to unlock Advanced Barrier is sufficient for the Adept.
Stasis
Stasis lets you stun a single enemy in place. Because of this, they cannot move nor use any of their Weapons and Abilities to harm you. However, the affected target will be immune to direct damage, which means that they will just stay frozen for a period of time. The good news is that the Bastion Specialization enables you to damage them.
Stasis can be used on any enemy even when they’re flying. Note that Squadmates will not automatically attack the affected target even if you’ve already unlocked Bastion so you’ll have to command them to do so. Since you’ll be waiting to reach Level 20+ to choose the appropriate Specialization, there’s no rush in putting points into this Talent. Ideally, you’ll want to reach Rank 6 to gain access to Advanced Stasis, which improves its duration and shortens its recharge time, thereby allowing you to activate this Ability against multiple enemies in long combat encounters.
Combat Talents and Abilities
There are 2 Combat Talents that will make your Bastion Adept Build resilient in mid-range combat. These are Basic Armor and Spectre Training. I’ll explain why these are essential and how they integrate well with your Build.
Basic Armor
This Talent makes you durable in combat by protecting you from incoming Melee and Weapon Damage, as well as Tech and Biotic Attacks. Its corresponding stats, namely damage reduction and Hardening, are increased every time you rank up Basic Armor. At Rank 3, you unlock the Shield Boost Ability, which restores 30% of your depleted Shields per second. At Rank 12, which is what you’ll be aiming for, you gain access to the Master Shield Boost Ability to restore 50% of your Shields per second.
Spectre Training
This Talent can be unlocked after you become a Spectre when you complete a Citadel Mission within 2 hours of playing. Spectre Training makes your character stronger by raising the accuracy and damage of your Pistol, improves your Abilities, and raises your max HP.
At Rank 4, which is enough for the Adept, you’ll gain access to the Unity Ability, which lets you revive dead Squadmates. You can restore 30% of your downed Squad’s HP and 50% of their Shields, immediately protecting them from any form of damage.
Bastion Specialization (Mass Effect 1)
In this section, I’m going to discuss the Unique Class Talent for this Build as well as its evolved form or Specialization upon completing a certain quest.
The Adept Class Talent reduces the recharge times of all Biotic Talents and Abilities while improving your resistance to Biotic Attacks. You can only allot a maximum of 6 Talent Points into it.
At Level 20 when you access the Galaxy Map, the Assignment UNC: Rogue VI on Luna will be given to you by Admiral Hackett. Upon completing this side quest, you will be able to choose between two Specializations, namely, Bastion or Nemesis. Either Specialization will increase the rank of your Adept Class Talent from 6 to 12. Note that the Talent Points you may have allotted to your Class Talent prior to unlocking your Specialization will carry over and you’ll be receiving the same bonuses from Ranks 7 to 12.
Bastion makes your character more durable and effective with certain Abilities. Your Barrier’s Shield Strength, duration, and regeneration are all optimized. Additionally, when you use Stasis, affected enemies can now be damaged as opposed to just frozen in place.
Comparatively, Nemesis focuses on two of your offensive Abilities, namely Warp and Lift. Their radii become longer whereas Warp’s damage over time has been improved, letting you kill enemies faster. Between these two, I highly advise choosing Bastion because it becomes possible to protect yourself with more resilient Shields nearly 100% of the time, especially when Barrier is active for the entire encounter. Meanwhile, Stasis is best paired with Warp to effortlessly single out and to take down huge enemies while focusing on eliminating lesser ones.
Squadmates
Every time Shepard explores the different clusters of the Galaxy, you’ll be asked to select 2 Squadmates or Companions to bring with you. In Mass Effect 1 Legendary Edition, there are a total of 6 to choose from, each with their own Combat, Tech and Biotic Specialties. Remember that their levels are the same as yours even for those who are left in the Normandy Ship. Since your Squadmates’ Talents are fewer than Shepard’s, they receive less Talent Points every time they level up.
Tali’Zorah nar Rayya
Since you lack Tech Abilities to debuff enemies, it’s best to bring Tali’Zorah nar Rayya who is a Tech Specialist. You can recruit her after completing the Citadel: Expose Saren – Save the Quarian Mission.
What makes Tali complement your Build very well is her Tech Abilities like Sabotage, Overload and Damping. Sabotage overheats Weapons to make these unusable. Overload greatly damages Shields to eliminate enemies efficiently, and Damping disables their Tech and Biotic Abilities. Additionally, with her Electronics and Decryption Talents, you’ll be able to repair more of the Mako’s damaged hull, unlock containers, and hack security systems in order to acquire better gear and to gain extra XP. Since Tali can only equip Light Armor, she should also stay in the sidelines like the Adept.
Ashley Williams
In order to balance your need for massive firepower damage when it comes to effectively handling any type of Weapon, you’ll need a durable Squadmate like Ashley Williams. You can recruit her after completing the Find the Beacon – Continue to the Dig Site Mission.
Since Ashley is a Combat Specialist, she is proficient with all Weapons like the Pistol, Assault Rifle, Shotgun, and Sniper Rifle. This enables her to shoot with high precision and damage from any distance. Moreover, she can equip Heavy Armor, making it ideal for her to take the lead in combat.
Adept Weapons and Mods (Mass Effect 1)
For the Bastion Adept Build, you should equip the Pistol Spectre Gear. Note that this randomly appears in the C-Sec and Alliance Requisition Officers’ inventories located in the Citadel and the Normandy, respectively, so you’ll have to check with them from time to time.
Pistol
The best Pistol is the HMWP VII, which deals massive damage compared to other Pistols that you’ll obtain from locked containers. This can be purchased for 150,000 credits. Moreover, you can fire numerous shots before this Weapon overheats.
Weapon Mods
For the Pistol Spectre Gear, you can add 2 Weapon Mods and 1 Ammo Mod. With Weapon Mods, you can choose the Rail Extension VII and Combat Scanner VII. Rail Extension significantly boosts your damage but it has a heat absorption penalty of about 20%. Note that this becomes negligible at higher levels so it shouldn’t be an issue.
Meanwhile, Combat Scanner improves detection in combat since enemies will often jam your radar making it tough for you to spot their positions and total number.
For Ammo Mods, I suggest switching between Tungsten Rounds VII and Shredder Rounds VII, which deal extra 40% damage to Synthetics or robotic enemies and Organics or live enemies, respectively. More often than not, you’ll be using Tungsten Rounds due to the high volume of Synthetics relative to Organics.
Occasionally, you can also use Proton Rounds VII but you’ll be inflicting lesser damage, which isn’t too much of a concern, in exchange for penetrating Shields to directly damage HP.
Grenade Launcher Mod
For the Grenade Launcher Mod, I highly recommend equipping High Explosive X because this maximizes the blast radius of your grenades, which is essential against enemies far away from you. Your Blast Damage and Weapons Force, or the force by which you can knock down enemies, also increase notably. You can use this in combination with one of your Biotic Abilities as a finisher.
Adept Armor and Mods (Mass Effect 1)
As an Adept, you are only limited to wearing Light Armor. As such, the best Light Armor to have is the Colossus X, which you can obtain by first purchasing the Kassa Fabrication License from the C-Sec Officer in the Citadel. You can then buy this Armor from the Alliance Requisition Officer if your Level is 50+. Note that Colossus X appears randomly in the Merchant’s stock so it’s not a guaranteed purchase. Alternatively, you can acquire it from locked containers but the drop rate is low.
What’s great about Colossus X is that it has the best Damage Protection of any Light Armor in the game and it also has adequate Shields and Tech/Biotic Protection. To raise both of these, I suggest equipping the Shield Modulator VII and Energized Weave VII Mods. Shield Modulator remarkably boosts your Shields while Energized Weave enhances your Armor’s recovery rate, thereby ensuring that your Shields are available almost all the time. The Colossus X is a strong Light Armor that is incredibly resilient against Combat, Tech and Biotic Attacks.
Final Tips
When selecting your Pre-Service History and Psychological Profile during Character Creation, note that you can choose whatever you like since these only affect dialogue options and have no impact on your Build. Feel free to choose whatever suits the personality of the Shepard you wish to play.
Given that you’ll be facing different enemy types like Synthetics and Organics, remember to alternate your use of Ammo Mods, specifically Tungsten and Shredder Rounds to effectively eliminate them.
The weakness of Adepts is their lack of Tech and Combat Abilities to disable and to eliminate enemies with massive firepower damage. Because of this, you’ll need to utilize the strengths of your Squadmates like Tali in order to debuff targets and Ashley to shoot and to kill them from any distance. Furthermore, you can command Ashley to charge into combat since she is the more resilient Companion.
Lastly, make sure to equip higher versions of Pistols if you don’t have access to the best Spectre Gear yet because these will help your Build succeed. The Karpov VIII is an excellent alternative due to its exceptional damage, Heatsink Capacity, and accuracy.
Another good Light Armor is the Mantis VIII because of its considerable amount of Shields and decent Tech/Biotic Protection. To raise your Damage Protection, simply add 2 Ablative Coating VII Mods. You can get this from locked containers.
Stay tuned for more Build Guides for Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, and be sure to check out the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition Wiki if you have questions about the game!
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