Adept vs Engineer: Who was Mass Effect's best space wizard?

Like many other fans of the Mass Effect series, I've been excitedly inhaling any and all information regarding the original trilogy's remaster. Announced last N7 Day, along with the teaser for an entirely new Mass Effect game, BioWare had been pretty quiet about the Mass Effect games in the works. Now, however, they're releasing tons of information regarding Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, and it's got me wondering: which class am I gonna play?

Personally, I've always gravitated towards mage and mage-like classes in video games. In Mass Effect you have a couple of options for a powers-based character. Adepts are the pure biotics in the Mass Effect universe, using their abilities to manipulate gravity and detonate powerful explosions. Engineers are the tech-wizards of the Mass Effect universe, and the best class at stripping an enemy of their defenses. Technically, you could also play a Sentinel as a powers-only character, but for the purposes of this article we're going to overlook the tech-tank.

Now, because the Legendary Edition will be a remaster of the whole Mass Effect trilogy and some classes received major changes between games, I think it's important we look at the classes from a game-to-game perspective. So, let's start in Mass Effect 1, in which the Adept is the obvious pick. Sorry, Engineers, but it's a well-known fact that Adepts in ME1 are downright broken.

This is because Adepts have the unmitigated ability to throw enemies around with their powers. While later installments of the Mass Effect games would require you to strip an enemy of their defenses before they're affected by most biotic abilities, ME1 does not. On some stages this means you can kill enemies just by tossing them off the map, on others you can keep tough enemies indefinitely floating in the air by chaining your abilities together.

Engineers have a much more difficult time in Mass Effect 1. While they're still amazing at stripping an enemy of their defenses and debuffing enemies, they lack personal defenses and real killing power on their own. Without weapon training beyond pistols or the Adept's ability to lock down an entire battlefield, Engineer may be one of the hardest classes to play in the original Mass Effect game, especially on higher difficulties.

Of course, Mass Effect 2 completely changes the playing field. Pretty much every gameplay aspect was overhauled in Mass Effect 2, and that included class kits and power interactions. The Adept was brought down to a more reasonable level (to the disappointment of some), while the Engineer was given some more killing power.

Starting in Mass Effect 2, protected enemies are no longer affected by biotic abilities. This means if an enemy has shields, barriers, or armor, they won't be affected by an Adept's crowd control abilities, like Pull or Singularity. However, in order to make up for this downgrade and maintain the class fantasy of "not having to fire a single bullet," Adepts were given the Warp explosion.

Enemies affected by a biotic crowd-control effect will detonate the Adept's Warp ability, causing double damage to the target and damaging enemies in a large area around the detonation. Warp explosions are powerful, even on Insanity difficulty, and keep the Adept a powerful class.

However, that doesn't mean it instantly hedges out the Engineer this time around. Keeping the shield stripping Overload power, Engineers are also given the armor destroying Incinerate and the ability to lock down unprotected enemies with Cryoblast. They also gain a useful Combat Drone for their unique power, and can hack enemy AI to fight for them for a short period.

This means Engineers have a couple of useful build paths in ME2. By focusing on the Combat Drone and AI Hack skill, they can become something of a pet class. However, the far more effective strategy is to focus on your elemental powers so you can kill any enemy, regardless of their defenses. In ME2, the Engineer is finally powerful enough that they, too, could potentially beat the game without firing a shot.

As for which class takes the cake, I'm not sure the choice is as clear in Mass Effect 2. Adepts are still incredibly powerful, especially against unshielded enemies, but they do struggle against enemies with protections they can't easily deal with. Engineers, on the other hand, don't have the crowd control or AoE options of the Adept and can get easily swarmed by enemies. I'd consider the two to be pretty evenly matched in 2 (and they even complement each other's skillsets, so keep that in mind when building your squad).

Finally, Mass Effect 3 streamlines some of the best aspects of the gameplay in Mass Effect 2, while expanding on some of the core gameplay elements for our power-based classes. The recharge penalty system for powers, in which a heavier weapon loadout will lower a character's power cooldown, helps not only the Adept and Engineer but any other class looking to build around their powers rather than weapons. But as classes that have never really relied too heavily on weapon damage to begin with, Adepts and Engineers are especially capable of taking advantage of the cooldown reduction.

To further support the powers-only playstyle, Adepts and Engineers got a few new gameplay mechanics. Starting with the Adept, Warp Detonations have been replaced by Biotic Detonations. Effectively the same thing, except Biotic Detonations can be primed and detonated by more powers. The damage of the explosion is based on the rank of the two powers used to cause the explosion, and higher difficulties multiply that damage so Biotic Explosions aren't just more effective at higher difficulty levels, but just about mandatory for Adepts and other biotics.

However, Engineers also got their own explosive fun to play around with in Mass Effect 3. While Adepts get Biotic Explosions, Engineers get Fire Explosions, Cryo Explosions, and Tech Bursts. Functionally identical to Biotic Explosions, and scaling similarly, the Tech Explosions help alleviate a lot of the Engineers weaknesses. They grant area-of-effect damage and some crowd control, especially since Cryo attacks were buffed in ME3.

With these additions, I think Engineer takes the lead as the best power-based class in Mass Effect 3. Unfortunately for Adepts, they retain their weaknesses to protected enemies (and there are even more shielded and armored enemies in ME3 than previous titles). Their unique power, Singularity, also doesn't feel as powerful in ME3, and many Insanity difficulty builds will completely ignore it in favor of a fully upgraded Pull or a bonus power like Stasis.

Engineers, however, have a Tech Explosion for every type of defense in the game, meaning they can strip the defenses of every enemy in a group with two abilities, or outright kill them with a Fire or Cryo Explosion. And while Combat Drone isn't the most exciting unique ability, the drone's short cooldown and ability to distract the toughest enemies in the game means it'll be somewhat useful even with only a couple of points.

So, overall, what does this mean? With both classes coming out on top in a game and tying in the 2nd, who is the best space wizard? Well, this may come as a surprise to you all, but that's completely subjective. Both classes are amazing and fun, and they play differently enough that they can offer you a unique experience even if you do a playthrough with each one.

If you plan on playing through Mass Effect: Legendary Edition without changing your class, you'll have an easier time with the Adept. Assuming BioWare doesn't change the way biotics affect enemies in the first game, you'll start incredibly strong. And while that strength falls off a bit in Mass Effect 2, a well-played Adept is never weak and offers a lot of creativity in how to deal with enemies. The Adept was the first class I ever played in a Mass Effect game, and it'll always have a special place in my heart.

However, I think I'll be doing my first playthrough of the Legendary Edition as an Engineer. One of my favorite things about playing mage characters in most games is their exponential growth in power, and the Engineer getting stronger with every new installment of the original trilogy is essentially that concept stretched over three games. Plus, by the third title I'll be an elemental powerhouse capable of raining fire and lightning on my enemies, and I'm about that.