I'd already played the Citadel DLC on Hardcore, so I thought I was prepared to handle anything ME on Insanity. This is my first time playing the Omega DLC and I'm on Insanity with a fresh start. Everything in the campaign has gone fine so far, and much of Omega too, but I didn't realize what I was getting into with the tougher battles. I guess having Nyreen protect the civilians vs focus on the enemy may have made things harder, I'm not sure.

Spoilers

I'm at what appears to be the final battle with Petrovsky's Adutants and Cerberus goons. I'm playing as Vanguard and may have gone too defensive on my skill tree. I'm using the N7 Valkyrie with damage and clip capacity mods. I also have the N7 Hurricane with damage and light materials mods. Limiting myself to these two gives me a 131% power recharge boost, but if I'd known that I would rarely have used the Hurricane, I'd have left it behind and gotten a better recharge boost.

Problem is I am at a save point at the start of this battle and I cannot reshuffle my or Aria's skills. Here's a couple screenshots showing how our skills are allocated:

I think I'm going to have to find a better route to take to disable the generators because I keep running into problems where two Adutants come at me. Maybe I'm wasting time destroying the shield boosters too. I can basically get in a Biotic Charge then a melee or several assault rifle rounds before using another Charge, but I'm frantically dodging every which way to try and avoid the damn Adutant attacks.

I realize I'm probably making it harder on myself doing this for the first time on Insanity with a fresh start, but I did buy the level VI upgrade for my assault rifle at Harrot's Emporium on Omega. I've been what seemed to be close to the end of this battle, with both Adutants killed, Aria assisting, and some Cerberus goons to mop up, but it's always something. I think it was a Centurion or Phantom that got me the time I nearly beat it.

I was wondering if anyone knows how far back the last weapon modding station is before this battle? I haven't added any manual saves though, so I'm worried any previous auto saves would take me back prior to one of the other tough battles. I know some of you are probably thinking I should have at least lvl 5 Bio Charge and lvl 3 Pull, but in heavy gun battles I was finding Bio Charge left me too vulnerable, so I upgraded Carnage and Pull for ranged attacks.

One thing I don't understand is Nova. It says it diverts power to Charge, but it seems to be just it's own ground attack. Do you have to use it before Charge? I really can't be leaving myself vulnerable in between powers, I don't recharge super fast. Using Charge before melee or gun bursts at least gives me a small window of invulnerability.

What.Are.You.Doing?? You are making me cry.

Max your power recharge stats, max biotic charge, max nova. Shotguns. That's it, end of strategy.

charge->nova->shotgun .. and repeat.

Nova recharges your shields. It's meant to be spammed with charge.

I got through it right after posting this thread relatively easy with slightly different tactics than I was using before. I assigned Bio Charge and Carnage to my mouse thumb buttons. I focused on first just shutting down the generators and avoiding the Adutants, only dealing with stray Cerberus troops here and there on the fly to avoid taking gunfire from them. I used the Hurricane here to light up the troops quickly with Incendiary ammo combined with a few Bio Charge attacks. If you are careful about how you navigate from one generator terminal to another you can mostly keep your distance and avoid fire though.

Once Aria was free it was nice to have control of her Flare once again. I simply ran to the end of a vacant corridor and holed up by one of the corner control terminals and used the Valkyrie and Carnage combined with Aria's Flare. The Adutants were clustered at the far end of the corridor screaming in pain. The mop up was pretty easy. The main reason I had so much trouble last night is I was up late and very tired. I didn't realize how long this DLC was and I wanted to finish it. I may actually run into worse problems with the Banshees at the final battle of the campaign.

You're the only one I've ever heard advocate using Nova after vs before Charge though. The game also describes it differently than you say. It says it puts all the power into Charge, not just regenerating shields. It doesn't make much sense to give Charge a power boost AFTER you use it. Nova is not intended as a mere recharge boost, and certainly not just for shields. I know with a different setup you can just keep spamming Charge and refreshing your shield, but that would seem to take the tactical fun and challenge out of the game.

That I finished it rather quickly after a brief assessment of strategy proves it can be done without resorting to over powered biotics spamming and invulnerability, esp considering I'm in my mid 50s with slowed reflexes. The game is what you make of it, but it offers more excitement and replay value if you avoid going out of your way to make it a walk in the park.

The only real issue I have with the game is it's horrible cover system and clumsy movement, esp while running. It makes you run on rails, making precise turns difficult, and the cover key being dual bound to sprint just makes it all the clumsier. SO many times I stick to things I don't want to or get jammed up running in place behind something.

For the final battle I'll just make sure to make a manual save at the last available modding station, and hopefully it will be close to a level up moment to reshuffle skills if necessary too.

Just tried reshuffling my powers to make Charge and Nova maxed. Using Nova immediately drains your barriers, so I don't know what you're on about saying it recharges it. For this reason I don't like Nova whether before or after Charge, but IMO it should be used before because Charge brings you point blank in front of the enemy and gives you only brief invulnerability. Furthermore Nova can't be used until your barrier is recharged, since that is what it feeds off. So you're proposing Charging, regenerating, and then using Nova whilst point blank with no invulnerability or barriers left after having used Nova? That's insane.

I've come to the conclusion that Charge is the only signature Vanguard power worth using, unless you carefully use Nova as a finishing move or while behind cover, which makes it dicey at best. I may swap Carnage for Reave or something for the Banshees, or just take different squad mates this time that have shield disabling powers. Those squad mates are always quicker to die though I find. I'm used to the ruggedness of Garrus and James, they're more dependable.