No cheating or anything, don't worry.

Legend:

• Red boxes are ammo
• Green boxes and lines are cover
• Yellow lines are ladders
• Blue boxes are spawn points of the hack something and defending it
• Numbers will be zones I refer to

What this works best against:

I have personally had the easiest time with this strategy against Gold geth. I normally play a quarian infiltrator, so that makes it even easier, but you do not need one. A good team can use this spot with any classes as long as they are level 15 or higher. Don't try to use this spot if you are low level and/or don't have some good guns.

It is also doable with Gold Cerberus, but Phantoms can be tricky to deal with. The best bet to do if you are going for gold Cerberus is to have an asari adept or asari vanguard with Stasis bubble.

If you use this spot on silver, I can guarantee you a win in most cases.

What not to do:

In most pugs I do on this map, the average group immediately runs straight to zone 2. This is probably the WORST spot on the map to try and defend. Enemies can come at you from 3 sides. They will spawn in at zone 1, 5, and 3. The only cover you have will not protect you from every direction, and the ladder makes it easy for things to get into melee range.

What to do:

The second the game starts, you want to run your group to zones 4, 5, and 6. With these 3 zones, nothing can spawn behind you and they will only come at you from one direction. Zone 4 and to the right of zone 5 will be the main kill areas. Enemies will spawn in zones 3, 7, 2, and 1. This means they will all funnel into areas for you to lay into them with biotics and tech attacks.

Where to position yourself and your team:

You basically want to have two people in zone 5 and two people in the L shaped cover at zone 4. Zone 4 will probably see the most action, but you can see the enemies from the cover by zone 5. If you are a sniper you can stand in zone 6 and have a clear line of sight on parts of 4 and the stairs leading to zone 5. Zone 4 is a good spot to get grab kills too. Zone 3 is a very good spot to but the lack of an easy to get to ammo box makes it less than ideal.

What to do when you have to hack the 4 nodes:

If you have an infiltrator, you want to have the rest of your team get the attention of the enemies and have the infiltrator stealth around to the nodes. Do not follow the infiltrator. This will just cause enemies to come at him while he is trying to get to a node. If a node spawns near you and you are clear to get it, grab it.

If you don't have an infiltrator, you want to move in a group, but don't move too fast. Running straight for the node without stealth is a good way to get yourself killed. Move slowly and take alternate routes if a pack of enemies spawns between you and a node.

Thanks for reading and I hope this helps! A gold run is 75,000~ credits. That is a spectre pack + some every 20 to 30 minutes. My fastest gold geth is 22 minutes. The slowest is normally around 30 minutes with the average being 25 minutes.

Does that mean that vanguards are effectively broken for Gold play? They dominate Bronze, but that's what it sounds like.

@onan said:

Does that mean that vanguards are effectively broken for Gold play? They dominate Bronze, but that's what it sounds like.

They aren't broken, but you can't just charge around the map like a crazy person. You have to play smart. Set up biotic explosions and do quick charges to restore barriers in a pinch.

Hah, I'm still too scared of Gold to try this, but I love reading stuff like this. Seems like a solid strategy until you have to go play king of the hill of the opposite side of the map or something. I'm just about to the point where I can win Silver matches consistently so I may try this out soon.

Just wow. Great diagram, and great breakdown and tips tc.

Geth for farming XP and creds seem to be the best bet agreed. Fits my pet class engie for sure. Just need my regs to read up and buy in.

You write strat guides? If not, apply somewhere. ;)

Really got to try this strategy. Finished my first Gold run on Firebase Dagger (the one with the satellite dishes) against the Geth about a week and a half ago. Running two Quarian Infiltrators, one Human Engie, and a Salarian Engie. Held it down and rain hell from that overlook spot where everyone eventually spawns at for the first time in that map and have the luck to carry 5 missile launchers and a friend that does so as well. Suffice it to say we did have to do the 4 node mission on wave six and basically had one guy run around cloaked and go down after that fourth node go shut down.

Kind of tough to say, but sometimes you have to be a little selfish when reviving because that process alone can do in an entire team. Two Geth Primes kept downing team members cause they would rush in for the revive. The ordeal got all the player's characters to scream "SHIELDS DOWN" to which I finally said "fuck it. just don't revive me and kite these guys around". These last two GPs were running our Survival packs thin and they were the last on the field on wave 6. If you guys know that you have a clear window of success towards the end then just go for the kills and screw the revives. It's only the end of a wave after all and your friend won't enough time to put the controller down and make a sandwich. haha

I've only beaten Gold once. It was on this map, verses the Geth, and with a random group of three people running this exact strategy.   
 
The only thing I would add is that you should STAY areas 4, 5 and 6 (we were mostly in four, and rounding the corner between 5 and 6) on the escape wave.  Then you'll want to cloak and make a mad dash for area 1 in the last 30 seconds or so.  By that time, the enemies should be thinned out to the point where you don't have to worry about the larger enemies reaching you as you're waiting for the timer.

Thanks for the tip. I've managed gold on a variety of maps and I think only against geth. Is it possible to complete gold against reapers? It seems like the brutes and banshees would be a huge problem on gold.

@RedRavN said:

Thanks for the tip. I've managed gold on a variety of maps and I think only against geth. Is it possible to complete gold against reapers? It seems like the brutes and banshees would be a huge problem on gold.

I saw a youtube video earlier of a team doing Gold Reapers in 15 minutes.

@Cataphract1014 said:

@RedRavN said:

Thanks for the tip. I've managed gold on a variety of maps and I think only against geth. Is it possible to complete gold against reapers? It seems like the brutes and banshees would be a huge problem on gold.

I saw a youtube video earlier of a team doing Gold Reapers in 15 minutes.

Thats quite the feat.

This is the strategy I run all the time, most randoms seem to know it as well.
 
If anyone wants to run with this with a non-random Salarian Infiltrator or Engineer lets add each other (XBLA).

Good strategies! Thanks!

Just did this, it's a little too effective, wouldn't be surprised if there's a nerf inc. Until then, if anyone wants to farm credits for the amazing new spectre packs, hit me up on Origin at Pinworm45 or message me on gb.

My xbox live gamertag is rl7482 send a message, let's get some of those premium spectre packs

This strategy is basically foolproof as long as you have 4 people able to defend their zones and a balanced team. I find a salarian engineer quarian infiltrator and 2 adepts to keep the biotic explosions coming works best. Send a message to this name on XBL if interested to give it a go

Just ran this with a Quarian Infiltrator, Quarian Engineer, Salarian Infiltrator and Salarian Engineer. It was about as difficult as bronze, except I got 300k xp and about 78k credits.
 
The new super spectre pack was a decent value I guess.

@RedRavN: Honestly, after the Operation: Goliath weekend (kill Brutes) when I spent most of the weekend playing Asari Adept vs Reapers (largely on gold) I've lost a lot of fear for Reapers - it definitely helps that Reapers are the least shooty of the 3 enemy groups (though Ravagers will punish you if you ever forget that they still can deal long-range damage).

Of course, the Asari Adept is pretty much the perfect counter to Banshees and Brutes (and to a lesser degree, Ravagers), can take one down in just a couple of biotic explosions. Just Warp and Throw. BOOM - half-dead Brute. Best thing you can do if you have a competent Asari Adept (I understand Salarian Infiltrators are also pretty good at this) is just make sure they have the room to navigate and keep their backs clear while they murder Banshees and Brutes for you.

In fact, as Adept, I'm struggling immensely against Geth. A lot of enemies (meaning that I'll not have time to attack everyone of them with abilities), most enemies are fairly weak (disabling me from making combos because my squadmates kill the ones I warp or in singularity bubbles) or I get pretty much one-shot by swarms of Rocket launchers (and Asari Adepts are fragile). Adepts are pretty efficient vs Pyros (though I wonder if shooting out the cannister isn't technically the most efficient way of dealing with them) and Primes - though an Infiltrator sniper with a high-level Widow would be much more efficient vs either.

Then again, I've also largely stepped down from Gold as I've been promoting characters faster because I've grown tired of terrible gold groups.

@Mnemoidian: I can see adepts being underpowered versus the geth. As long as you have a Salarian or Quarian this should still be really easy. I think Energy Drain is by far the most overpowered ability in the game, couple that with a maxed out cloak and it is very difficult to die against the geth.

I scored just over 100,000 points in a game last night only spamming energy drain and shooting a few heads with the carnifex.

Just camp zone 3. One pair covers the upstairs, one pair covers the downstairs. Enemies are forced into tight corridors and will fall to Biotic Explosion spam.

As Asari Adept I have no problems with Geth, the Primes act as massive AoE beacons, just spam explosions on them and everything around them dies. The only thing to worry about is Geth Hunters which can be put in Stasis.