Mass Effect: Andromeda's new skill system will make you love your squadmates

You've seen the jetpack-assisted fundamentals of Mass Effect: Andromeda combat, now it's time for a crash course on the dicier side of action RPGs. The second part of BioWare's Official Gameplay Series of videos lays out Andromeda's new skills, and how the profile and favorites system encourages you to keep experimenting. The key word here is "flexibility" - take a look.

Customize your skills, customize your life

Not only can you kit out your character to your liking by choosing which skills to invest in, you can also dictate how those skills improve. Check out the Singularity power above for an example: starting at Rank 4 you can either make the ability last longer or affect a bigger area, then neutralize shields or recharge faster, and so on.

Profiles are the new classes

Investing in skills across the three trees - Combat, Biotics, and Tech - will unlock different profiles for Ryder. Profiles are like classes in that they give you bonuses for certain combat approaches, but they don't limit which abilities you can use. If you have multiple profiles unlocked you're always free to swap between them.

Favorites let you swap between ability sets instantly

Worried about keeping track of all those different skills on top of combat? Me too, honestly - I spent a lot of time in ye olde 'tactical pause' back in the original Mass Effect trilogy. Andromeda has a new trick to keep you in the action called favorites, which let you swap between ability sets faster than you can say "Krogan genophage". That should be handy for certain power sets that combo well together but aren't so good for all-purpose fighting. Just watch out because...

Switching favorites resets your abilities

That helpful little turret friend you just threw out will instantly self destruct the moment you switch to a different Favorites list. "Does this unit have a soul?" God, I hope not.

Shape your squadmates for better combos

The coolest Mass Effect moments are always those impromptu team-ups between you and your squadmates, when one of you sets up the perfect combat situation, the other executes on it, and you desperately wish there was a "fist bump" button. Andromeda codifies that idea with the  concept of priming and detonating: by guiding your companions' advancement, you can either specialize their skills for clutch setups or dramatic deliveries. Still no word on those on-demand fist bumps, though.

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