This is a thread for compiling all the intentional techniques and not so intentional exploits that have been dubbed 'creative uses of game mechanics' and will not, AFAIK, get you banned for using them. Should I find out anything in this post be a bannable offense, I'll remove the offending item immediately.
This is not a thread for debating the ethics and morality of using such techniques. BioWare made the game, they make the rules, and they seem to be okay with it. So deal with it. Make another thread to talk about it, if you like.
By the way, I sometimes just arbitrarily come up with names for techniques that the community has seemingly yet to agree on a name for. If you don't like it, suggest a better one. Or write your own guide or something. I dunno.
Nothing in this thread was discovered by me (I think?), and because I'm a lazy sod I'll pretty much just be linking to other people's work anyway. So all credit goes to them and so on and so forth. If you think there's a technique that should be listed here, let me know.
On with the guide!
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ANIMATION CANCELS
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How to cut unnecessarily long animations short.
Reload Cancel
Using another animation (or attempted animation) to cancel part of the reload animation. When you hear the click, see the spent heatsink pop out, or see the numbers indicate the gun is already reloaded, it's ready to cancel.
You can cancel by:
-Attempting to use medigel (PC only)
-Sprinting
-Entering or Exiting cover
-Dodging (note: dodgeless classes can attempt backwards dodge to reload cancel)
-Using a power
-Attempting to use a power that's already on cooldown (works very well with Tactical Cloak, Marksman, AR)
-Attempting to use grenades when they're empty
-Pressing your do-everything button when standing still away from cover
-Attempting Biotic Charge with nothing targeted
-Melee (old school ME2 style)
Videos:
Claymore Cloak Reload Cancelling from Caineghis2500 -
PC Medigel Reload Cancelling from TheKillerAngel -
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Reload Hiding
Different from Reload Cancel, this is where the animation of a power is used to 'hide' the reload animation by using it when your clip is empty. The full reload still happens, it's just happening while you're using some other power. Quick reloads (1.5s or less) are best with quick power animations (eg Ballistic Blades), while slow reloads (Claymore, Widow) go well with long animations (Flamer, Tactical Scan).
Best explained by just watching this video from FlyinB:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQxhUPDjy24
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Weapon Switch Cancel
Cancels the animation of switching weapons. There are three methods for this AFAIK:
Rolling Weapon Switch - Switch weapons while rolling forward. Your other weapon will appear in your hand through the power of Space Magic. Only seems to work on roll, not slide or teleport.
Forward Exit Weapon Switch - Lean against the corner of tall cover and press forward (you should get a blue arrow pointing forward). Begin to switch weapons, then exit forward out of cover.
Heavy Melee Weapon Switch - Begin to switch weapons, then hold your Melee button. Pretty simple.
More info in Edalborez's guide here:
http://social.biowar.../index/12262630
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Tech Armor Activation Cancel
Another tidbit from Edalborez's above guide. Tech Armor and other similar abilities have annoyingly long activation animations that can be cancelled by a light melee or going into cover.
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Fall/Revive Stagger Cancel
The period of helplessness from falling off a ledge or recovering from downed state can be mitigated through use of melee or dodges. The exact method differs by character.
Ziegrif's Movement Tutorial and videos explain it better than I ever will:
http://social.biowar.../index/15846322
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Nova Cancel
Cancel Nova with a light melee or dodge roll. Time it right and you have some invincibility frames without draining your Barriers for it.
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Rocketdash Cancel
The forward and backward dodge of the Armiger Turians can be cancelled with a Heavy Melee. With the forward dodge, this gives a bit of extra distance. For the backward dodge, this lets you dash away from an enemy's attack and immediately respond with a rocket punch to the face (or toes, rather).
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Siege Pulse Cancel
Skip the animation of loading your Siege Pulses by simply performing a Heavy Melee. You noticing yet the pattern of Heavy Melee cancelling all sorts of things?
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Hammer Priming Cancel
The Krogan Warlord's Electical Hammer and Biotic Hammer priming power animations can be cancelled with a light melee.
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Seeker Swarm Cancel
The Collector Adept's Seeker Swarm activation can be cancelled with a dodge when the hand is raised in the air (it can be cancelled ealier than this, but the ability will not be activated). Offhost, however, it's usually best to just override it with Dark Channel as detailed later in the guide.
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Hatesurfing
A ragdolling power cancelled into a tracking Heavy Melee such as the Batarian's Falcon Punch. This is perhaps more hilarious than really advantageous. Particularly amusing with Lash.
This video illustrates better than words ever will:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eTaCRQNH6g
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Dual Strike
Havoc Strike cancelled into Heavy Melee (or vice versa), combining the damage of both. If done with the right timing, it triggers no cooldown. Done correctly, it has a different jetpack sound and some camera wonkiness.
shadowkinz's thread and video on the subject:
http://social.biowar.../index/14882993
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COOLDOWN OVERRIDES
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Overriding the cooldown of one power with the cooldown of another
Tactical Cloak Cooldown Override
Tactical Cloak has a cooldown that scales based on how long the power is active, with a minimum of 3 seconds when broken immediately, regardless of weight. Powers used while under Cloak have their cooldowns overriden by Cloak's cooldown when it breaks. This does not require the Bonus Power evolution on Cloak. Bonus Power merely allows you to remain Cloaked after using a power.
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Seeker Swarm Offhost Override
The Collector Adept's Seeker Swarm has a long cooldown when activating it. There are two known methods to override this cooldown. They appear to only work when not hosting.
-The first method is to use Dark Channel when the Collector raises his hand in the air. Dark Channel has a considerably shorter cooldown so this is quite useful.
-The second method is to cast Dark Sphere, cast Seeker Swarm, then detonate Dark Sphere. Dark Sphere's cooldown isn't any faster than Seeker Swarm's, but this lets you get off both powers with only one cooldown.
dudemacha has a video to demonstrate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk3JdM0DSoE
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CHEATING DEATH
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How to not die even when you totally deserve to.
Unstruggling Husk Autorevive
If you are low on Health and a Husk grabs you, sure to kill you, do not struggle. Sometimes you'll automatically be revived from the downed state, presumably from the Space Magic the Husk injected into you when you let him finish doing his thing.
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Ops Sync Denial
Using an Ops Pack immediately before a fast Sync Kill (eg Phantom) can sometimes make the Sync Kill fail or autorevive you. Of course, there's pretty good odds it'll just make your corpse extra shiny, like most other times you've used an Ops Pack.
Jeremiah12thLvlGeek demonstrates this at the end of his Phantom guide video:
http://www.youtube.c...eHfUm-pU#t=222s
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Banshee Ramp Defense
Banshees cannot Sync Kill you if your elevation differs sufficiently from theirs, such as on a steep ramp. They can, of course, still hit you with their Warp balls, aoe screams and claw swipes.
Well... Volus can actually avoid their claw swipes too...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw-BO4hcgw0
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NONSTANDARD WEAPON FUNCTIONALITY
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That wasn't in the design specs...
Sprinting Shot
Chargeable weapons such as the GPS or Arc Pistol can be charged or fired (in normal or charged mode) while Sprinting.
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Cloaked Double Shot
With a chargeable weapon, charge it then use Tactical Cloak. Releasing the charged shot will not break Cloak, allowing you to follow up immediately with an uncharged shot for a massive burst of damage. Or you could just run away or something.
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Cloaked Striker/Adas
Start firing the Striker or Adas and don't let go of the firing button, then activate Tactical Cloak. The Cloak doesn't break, allowing many more shots to benefit from the Tactical Cloak damage bonus.
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Ongoing Adas
Adrenaline Rush and Marksman refill the current clip when used (or immediately start the recharge process, on infinite ammo weapons like PPR or Lancer). On automatic weapons, the Marksman bonuses (not sure about AR) continue to apply for as long as you continue firing, even after the duration has worn out, as long as you started while it was active (and conversely, Marksman doesn't apply the ROF/Acc bonuses until you stop firing).
Using this, you can potentially have an Adas firing with the Marksman bonuses continuously until you've depleted every shot in the gun, or you get staggered, or an enemy finally kills you and your teammates cheer at the ensuing repreive on their ears.
Note that this kind of thing can also be done with Adrenaline Rush, and it can work with other weapons with ridiculous clip size like the GPSMG.
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Raiders of the Off-Host
Under heavy lag conditions, the game can get quite confused about how many shots you're supposed to have per clip with some weapons. A notably obvious example is the Raider, normally with only 2 shots. Under heavy lag it can become 3, even 4. The Pirahna is another example I've noted, with sometimes almost double its normal capacity. Some people have gotten 4 or 5 shots in their Black Widow. There are probably other examples; feel free to share!
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Focused Javelin
The Cabal's Biotic Focus and the AIU's Repair Matrix, when active while using a Javelin, can sometimes cause enemies to be visible through walls even when out of scope, appearing as flickering dark silhouettes. It's sort of like having a free Geth Scanner. This appears to be a property of the Javelin itself, as it still works if you replace the scope, and it does not seem to work when using Thermal Scope on any other weapon.
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GPS Ammo
GPS and Kishock are Proportianal Charge weapons (damage depends on charge time), as opposed to most Charge/Ramp Up weapons which are Boolean (they are either charged, or they are not; there is no in between). For the Kishock this unfortunately means Ammo damage is always based on the uncharged shot damage.
For the GPS, it's a bit weirder. Rather than giving a bonus for charged shots, the GPS imposes damage penalty on uncharged shots. Ammo damage is therefore always based on the charged shot damage. But it's only applied once per shot, not for each of the 3 projectiles.
In short, this means Ammo consumables on the GPS are doing roughly 38.89% more damage than you might expect on uncharged shots (because it's based on full charge damage), but 37.5% less damage than you might expect on full charged shots (because only one projectile applies the Ammo).
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Oh! Graaling
The Graal is a Boolean Charge weapon, which means its shots are either charged or not charged and there's nothing in between. The charged shots do double damage, and the full charge animation is 2s long, so this would suggest that charging every shot yields the exact same DPS as just rapid firing it.
However, the Graal is actually already fully charged at 0.8s, which is only very slightly slower than the its normal Rate of Fire. If you get the timing right, that means charging each shot is almost double the DPS. This results in a monstrously high 1650 potential DPS per clip, and ~900ish DPS in the long term. And this is on a weapon that completely ignores Armor damage reduction.
In short: the Graal is potentially a much better boss killer than you probably think it is.
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Burnt Cheese AKA Incendiary Ammo
Incendiary Ammo applies a 3 second DoT that refreshes and stacks with itself when used with a rapid fire weapon. When used on a target affected by Warp, Incinerate, Flamer or Inferno Grenades, these DoTs combine into some freakish hilarious super DoT of Ultimate Doom.
Here's Peddromelz's thread on the subject (with example videos and links to other test threads) if you want more
detail and aren't abjectly terrified of math:
http://social.biowar...ndex/14033200/1
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Weight Watching
Mods that apply extra weight (Pistol Heavy Barrel, shotgun Omniblade etc) don't actually apply any extra weight when used on a non-DLC weapon. For reference, these are the non-DLC weapons:
SMG - Shuriken, Tempest, Locust, Hornet, Hurricane
HP - Predator, Phalanx, Arc Pistol, Carnifex, Paladin, Scorpion, Talon, Eagle
AR - Avenger, Phaeston, Vindicator, Mattock , GPR, Falcon, Revenant, Argus, CAR, Saber, Valkyrie
SG - Katana, Eviscerator, Scimitar, Disciple, Graal, GPS, Claymore, Raider, Wraith, Crusader
SR - Mantis, Viper, Raptor, Incisor, Widow, Indra, BW, Javelin, Valiant
Things get a bit more complicated though when you add secondary weapons with ULM. If you have a weapon with a weight mod and add a light weapon (eg Acolyte) with ULM, you could actually be adding more weight than you would without ULM.
Here's a method from unclemonster to check what your actual cooldowns are:
1. Set your loadout in Weapons menu.
2. Go to Powers menu and check your cooldowns.
3. Go to Character Select menu and choose the same character.
4. Go to Powers screen to check your true cooldowns. Do NOT enter the Weapon menu, as this resets back to the false cooldowns.
Note: on rare occasions, the weight mods seemingly do apply, for reasons unknown to me. It's probably best then not to depend on this glitch too heavily, else prepare to be occasionally screwed by it.
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EXPEDITIOUS OBJECTIVES
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Getting objectives done faster through space magic and trickery.
Delivered Fast or Free of Charge
Methods for quickly delivering the package in Object Retrieval missions, nicknamed 'Pizza Delivery' on BSN.
Pizza Run - Pick up the package, start sprinting, then mash your One-Button-To-Rule-Them-All like your life depends on it (because it just might). You will rapidly drop and pick up the object over and over while sprinting. I'm told this method works on console but not nearly as well, because you can't turn the camera while sprinting.
Here's a video example from LorelynF:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr5sK3ckkEs
Cover Surf - Movement speed is normal when moving along hard cover. This of course has the added benefit of you getting shot less.
Asari Backslide Delivery - On an Asari kit, pick up the package then dodge backwards, pick it up again and dodge backwards again.
Sidehop Delivery - Much the same as the above Asari method, but using the sideways dodge of the Salarians, Quarians and Geth.
Krogan Headbanging Strafe - On a Krogan kit, pick up the package and strafe sideways while spamming the light melee headbutt.
Strafing/Backpedalling - On many classes, this is faster than walking forward while holding the package.
Nova Cancel - On Human Vanguard, use the light melee Nova Cancel while holding the package (dodging will drop the package). Not sure if it's faster, but it's certainly a lot safer.
Demonstrative video from Achire2k: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm252bp-jVA
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Hosted Hack Circle Glitch
If the person who activates the objective for hack circle missions immediately leaves the circle after doing so, they may still be counted as being within the circle. Best done with classes that have a quick, long distance dodge like the Fury, Asari, Armiger Turians etc. This glitch seems to only work properly when hosting.
Collstro's video showing it in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpYo6WEImqk
Note: on a list of already controversial stuff, use of this glitch tends to be moreso than most. Using it in a recorded solo video is pretty much certain to get you a lot of flak.
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OTHER STUFF I HAVEN'T BOTHERED TO CATEGORISE YET
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Pretty much what it says on the tin.
Right Hand Advantage
Putting cover between you and the enemy in such a way that the enemy cannot shoot you, but you can shoot it. Most commonly this takes the form of having tall cover to your left, while you shoot around the right edge of it (hence the term 'Right Hand Advantage'). Another example is shooting the top of a large enemy like an Atlas while they're behind a head-high wall, or shooting from high elevation and using the floor to block return fire.
Basically, if you can't see their gun, they usually can't shoot you. Unless they're Praetorians, who have haxlazors of cover-ignoring death.
Here's a vid from Sirian explaining it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JvAYYO3DQo&feature=player_detailpage#t=394s
Also full of generally good advice, so feel free to watch the whole thing.
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Sabotaging Weapon Challenges
Using the Backfire bug to trivialise any Weapon Challenge. Check this thread/vid for more detail:
http://social.biowar.../index/16524289
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Guardian Curveball
Homing projectile powers can be curved around a Guardian's shield to hit them in spite of it. This works by quickly flicking the camera upward before firing the power, while still having the Guardian targeted. Works with Cryo Blast,
Incinerate and Homing Grenades. Probably works with others.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgV6DtQA0hk
Confirmation of it working with other powers would be greatly appreciated.
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Collector Cover Melee
When at the side edge of hard cover, pressing melee results in exiting cover and performing a quick light melee attack (note: this is why you shouldn't be at the side edges when trying to Cover Grab). Notably, the Collector Adept's light melee attack has a bit of range and aoe to it, and this is retained in the cover melee attack despite the lack of painfully slow animation that usually accompanies the Collector's melee. Not really sure how useful this is, but it's funny to see.
mono amarillo has a video to demonstrate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWyf8eT0pQ4
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That's what I've got so far. Once again, if you have something you think should be included, or if you have more detail on something where I was lacking, or just have questions... please feel free to reply and provide said techniques/details/questions.
Edited by OniGanon, 22 May 2013 - 06:39 AM.
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