Mass Effect Andromeda Character Creation: training, classes, profiles and starting skills guide

Mass Effect Andromeda throws choices at you right from the get go. What kind of Pathfinder will you be?

Mass Effect Andromeda begins with your character being woken from cryosleep.

After leaving behind the Milky Way (and the incoming nightmare of the Reaper Invasion) in between the events of Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3, the Ark Hyperion arrives in the Heleus Cluster of the Andromeda Galaxy. It’s one of four arks and part of a larger expedition designed to take the races of the Milky Way Galaxy to a new home – but all isn’t going as planned.

Your first task as player is to decide whether to play as the male or female of the Ryder twins, be default named Scott and Sara, and then customising one or both of them. This involves going through a typical RPG-style character creation system. This is a natural place for our guide to start, so let’s talk about building a character.

Creating a character and choosing the best class for you in Mass Effect Andromeda

Once you’ve got the business of deciding on a look for your Ryder out of the way (don’t forget to customise your twin, too!) you’ll then be given a major choice: you’ll be asked to ‘Choose Training’. Choosing your training is the closest thing Mass Effect: Andromeda gets to picking a class – the game actually doesn’t have a typical RPG class system.

Find more tips, tricks and explanations in our Mass Effect Andromeda guide and walkthrough.

Instead of classes, once you kick off the game Ryder will be able to access almost every single one of the skills in the game freely. You can turn your eye (and your skill points) to any skill you choose, and the skills you pick will then inform the game which ‘Profiles’ you can best fit into. You can switch your Profile at any time, and each comes with particular bonuses that grow depending on how you invest your skill points.

These profiles are named after and feature similar bonuses to the classic Mass Effect classes such as Soldier, Adept, Sentinel, Vanguard and so on. We recommend that you pick a particular type of combat expertise and focus on it, as doing so will give you a significant advantage in combat.

When you choose to customise Ryder and then Choose Training, you’ll be given a number of options. Here’s what skills they begin with as default. You’ll be stuck with these skills for the first couple of hours, but relatively early on will also be able to respec if you so desire – as soon as you have free access to the Tempest just head to the medbay where you’ll find a respec station.

Character Creation: Training Options – how to pick the right training for you

• Security

  Concussive Shot (A heat seeking round that knocks enemies down), Turbocharge (A boost to weapon fire rate & ammo), Combat Fitness (Increased durability & more weapon slots) – most similar to Soldier in ME Trilogy

• Biotic

  Throw (Hurl opponents into the air), Singularity (Create a vortex that traps, disables & damages enemies), Barrier (Defence buff) – most similar to Adept in ME Trilogy

• Technician

  Overload (Electric attack that deals high damage to shields and robotic enemies), Invasion (Infect opponents to weaken defences and damage their weapons), Team Support (Boost the effectiveness of your squad) – most similar to Engineer in ME Trilogy

• Leader

  Energy Drain (Drain enemy shields and restore your own), Annihilation (Create a mass effect field that damages foes over time), Team Support (Boost the effectiveness of your squad) – sort of similar to Sentinel in ME Trilogy

• Scrapper

  Charge (Launch at an enemy, slam them, regain shields and damage them), Combat fitness (Makes you more durable & allows more weapon slots) – most like Vanguard in ME Trilogy

• Operative

  Tactical Cloak (Become invisible and deal large damage bonus on your cloak-breaking attack), Combat fitness (Makes you more durable & allows more weapon slots) – most like Infiltrator in ME Trilogy

Next: Part 2: Ark Hyperion and Habitat 7

The abilities above are the ‘key’ abilities for each class, and the first of these abilities listed for each training option will begin already unlocked when you gain control of Ryder.

Next up, it’s time to head down to Habitat 7 – the first world in Andromeda, and supposedly a potential new home for humanity.

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