Adept Overview¶

The Adept, like the Soldier and Engineer, is a core class in Mass Effect. The focus of Adept however is on pure Biotics, making it one of the more enjoyable classes to play and the defacto “Mage” Class of Mass Effect. You’ll only have access to the Light Armor so you’ll want to keep your distance but due to your Biotics, you’ll have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to disabling your foes. Biotics such as Lift, Singularity and Throw allows you to disable most enemies in the game and stop any threat that may rush you. On top of that, you can make use of Barrier to shore up your defenses and you’ve got a great basis to start from.

The one downside from the original version of Mass Effect 1, only having access to Pistols, is also remedied here with the new changes to the weapon system. You might not get access to the talents themselves but you can still effectively use a Sniper or Assault Rifle for enemies at greater ranges.

Adept Bonus Talent¶

Provided you’ve unlocked some of the Achievements/Trophies related to using the associated Talents on a previous file, you’ll gain the ability to assign a Bonus Talent to your Adept at the time of Character Creation. Due to the Adept already having most of the useful Bonus Talents already in the main kit, there’s not too many choices that stand out so you’re looking at Hacking or Electronics as the main ones to carry over, with Electronics being the better choice.

Taking Hacking will give you access to the AI Hacking talent, this will allow you to turn the Geth to your side for a short amount of time, giving you more tools in situations where you’re up against them (which is a lot in Mass Effect 1). It won’t get as much use as your other talents but it’s always nice to have around. Electronics however is a much better use of your Bonus Talent, Adept is already light on defense and the added bonus to shields and Overload is a fantastic Tech based talent against Synthetic opponents of which you’ll be up against often.

Weapon Talents¶

There’s not much to say about Weapon Talents when it comes to the Adept, you only have one available to you and that’s Pistols. Despite Marksman seeing a buff in Legendary Edition, it doesn’t compare to the other talents from Snipers and Shotguns so you’re better off having less focus on it compared to the rest of your powerful Biotics. Most of your shooting as an Adept will most likely be through the other weapons without their talents.

Other Talents¶

The Adept talent is one of the more useful base class Talents in the game as it’ll reduce the recharge time of all Biotics, something that should be your main focus as an Adept. You’ll want to put some early points in there and make sure you have it maxed by Level 11 as you unlock your Specialization. Outside of the usual investment on Charm or Intimidate, put your early points in working towards both Lift and Singularity before making your way along Barrier to unlock Stasis, a Biotic talent that will prove its weight once you have your Specialization.

Basic Armor is the worst of the Armor based Talents but it will unlock Pistols should you decide you want to invest a few points for Marksman, this will give you another talent to use alongside your other Biotics and can be useful in situations. Throw is another useful Talent but only worth investing enough to unlock Lift as mentioned above as that and Singluarity are much more effective disabling tools for you.

Once you complete the Assignment UNC: Rogue VI, you’ll gain the ability to evolve the Adept Talent, with your options being Bastion or Nemesis. The main draw of Nemesis is that you’ll get increased damage to Throw and duration to Warp, which, while nice, isn’t enough of a draw over the superior Bastion. With this, you’ll get even more reductions on all of your Biotics along with advanced versions of Barrier and Stasis. Barrier will gain a shield regen which helps your survivability but Stasis is the clear winner here, this will allow you to damage any enemies that are in Stasis, turning it from a simple shutdown talent to a potent attack.

The final decision to make is when you unlock Spectre Training during the story. Be sure to put a point in there right away to get a nice 5% boost to your health and then consider taking it as far as Unity, beyond that, only return to this once you’ve maxed the more important Talents.