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This article is about the power in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3. For the skill in Mass Effect: Andromeda, see Tech Armor (skill). |
Tech Armor is a tech power in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3's single-player and multiplayer modes.
The power generates an energy armor suit that boosts the user's shields.
Mass Effect 2
Energy-charged armor that boosts your shields and detonates a damaging energy wave when destroyed.
Power Ranks
- Rank 1 - Generates an energy armor suit that boosts your shields. When the armor is destroyed, it sends out a pulse of energy, knocking back and damaging all nearby enemies.
- Recharge Time: 12.00 seconds
- Duration: Lasts until destroyed
- Shield Strength: +25.00% of maximum shields
- Energy Pulse Radius: 7.50 meters
- Energy Pulse Damage: 30.00 points
- Energy Pulse Force: 100.00 newtons
- Rank 2 - Generates an energy armor suit that boosts your shields. When the armor is destroyed, it sends out a pulse of energy, knocking back and damaging all nearby enemies.
- Recharge Time: 12.00 seconds
- Duration: Lasts until destroyed
- Shield Strength: +50.00% of maximum shields
- Energy Pulse Radius: 10.00 meters
- Energy Pulse Damage: 40.00 points
- Energy Pulse Force: 130.00 newtons
- Rank 3 - Generates an energy armor suit that boosts your shields. When the armor is destroyed, it sends out a pulse of energy, knocking back and damaging all nearby enemies.
- Recharge Time: 12.00 seconds
- Duration: Lasts until destroyed
- Shield Strength: +75.00% of base shields
- Energy Pulse Radius: 12.50 meters
- Energy Pulse Damage: 50.00 points
- Energy Pulse Force: 160.00 newtons
Rank 4
Evolves Tech Armor into one of the following options:
Assault Armor
- The armor is now rigged for maximum pulse when it is destroyed, increasing its damage, force, and radius. In case any enemies still survive, it gives an additional shield boost after the detonation.
- Recharge Time: 12.00 seconds
- Duration: Lasts until destroyed
- Shield Strength: +75.00% of base shields
- Energy Pulse Radius: 18.00 meters
- Energy Pulse Damage: 100.00 points
- Energy Pulse Force: 240.00 newtons
- Energy Pulse Shield Boost: 50.00% of maximum shields
Power Armor
- The armor's deflection capability is now at maximum, and the armor can channel its energy into biotic amps and weapons, increasing the damage of all your powers.
- Recharge Time: 12.00 seconds
- Duration: Lasts until destroyed
- Shield Strength: +100.00% of base shields
- Energy Pulse Radius: 12.50 meters
- Energy Pulse Damage: 50.00 points
- Energy Pulse Force: 160.00 newtons
- Power Damage Bonus: +15.00%
Player Notes
- When activated, Tech Armor provides two benefits: maximum total shield strength is raised by the listed percentage of the base shield value of 250 (the shield "boost"), and shields (not health) are fully restored to maximum hitpoints.
- Tech Armor is not a separate shield, it just adds additional hitpoints to your base shields. Thus, it is possible to raise Shepard's maximum shield to far more than their original strength by using a high rank Tech Armor, Damage Protection upgrades, armor components, and other shield-boosting powers (e.g. Geth Shield Boost, Energy Drain).
- The shield boost is only calculated from Shepard's base shield, not from any of the outside sources listed above.
- Total shield value from other sources is factored in when calculating the shield restoration; shields are always restored to full strength on activation regardless of Tech Armor's rank. Other bonuses to maximum shield strength are also factored in to the 50% restoration applied by Assault Armor's pulse when shields are destroyed.
- Even if already active, Tech Armor can be reactivated again at any time when powers are off cooldown to fully restore damaged shields.
- Tech Armor is destroyed when Shepard's shields are completely knocked out by damage while the armor is active. This sends out a large pulse of energy, damaging nearby enemies and knocking down unprotected targets while staggering most protected targets.
- As long as there is still one shield hitpoint left, Tech Armor holds, and your shields will regenerate to their full augmented strength as provided by this power. However, if your shields go down, Tech Armor is lost and your shields will only regenerate to their original level before Tech Armor kicks in. If you don't want to be spending a lot of your time reactivating Tech Armor, you will have to take care not to allow your shields to break from damage.
- Assault Armor's shield restore does not preserve Tech Armor; however, the Redundant Field Generator (Burst Regeneration) research upgrade can prevent Tech Armor from being lost if the burst regeneration triggers, despite its in-game description stating that it only triggers when shields are "depleted".
- Upgraded medi-gel can be used to restore shields on a much shorter cooldown than Tech Armor, often making Unity a better option in a pinch than reactivation.
- Tech Armor is unique among the four shield-increasing powers in that it has a duration of 'until destroyed'. This makes it very useful—simply activate it at the start of a mission and it will remain until taken down. You never need to worry about a timer running.
- Unlike Fortification, Geth Shield Boost, and Barrier, Tech Armor cannot be activated while storming (sprinting).
- Unlike ammo powers which can remain active on the player even when loading a saved game (as long as they weren't being provided by a squad member), Tech Armor being active is not "remembered" by saves and it must be reactivated on loading a game. This can be particularly disadvantageous if loading an autosave that lands you in the middle of active combat, such as after you died. Also, certain cutscenes can cause Tech Armor to deactivate.
- Tech Armor will instantly kill any unarmored Husks once destroyed and the vast energy pulse radius only enhances its effectiveness. Assault Armor's huge 18 metre radius can be a viable tactic on missions like Reaper IFF.
- From rank 3 onward, Tech Armor will reset power cooldowns for all squadmates when used, making a Sentinel's allies more efficient than they are for other classes.
- Tech Armor, being a tech power, benefits from omni-tool upgrades.
- Assault Armor's secondary shield restoration can act to block much more than just 50% shields' worth of damage, thanks to the brief immunity to health damage that you gain whenever your shields are downed. The shield restore on-detonate is not instant, but gradual, essentially allowing for multiple potential damage immunity periods following the first one that triggers from shields going down initially (similar to how medi-gel works if it's upgraded to restore shields).
- This can be life-saving when under particularly heavy fire that stuns you, e.g. getting hit by a barrage of missiles, or getting caught in the flamethrower of an enemy Pyro.
- As long as Tech Armor is not on cooldown, it can be reactivated yet again for another short period of invincibility.
- Aside from providing the strongest up-front boost to shield strength, Power Armor at rank 4 gives the Sentinel the highest potential power damage bonus of any class when combined with the "Raider" specialization of Defender, as long as Tech Armor remains active.
Availability
Mass Effect 3
Power Ranks
Rank 1: Tech Armor
Protect yourself with this holographic armor or detonate it to damage nearby enemies.
Slows power use by 50%.
- Recharge Speed: 6 sec
- Damage Reduction: 35%
- Explosion Damage: 400
- Explosion Radius: 3 m
Rank 2: Recharge Speed
Increase recharge speed after armor detonation by 25%.
- Recharge Speed: 4.80 sec
- Damage Reduction: 35%
- Explosion Damage: 400
- Explosion Radius: 3 m
Rank 3: Damage & Radius
Increase detonation damage by 20%.
Increase impact radius by 20%.
- Recharge Speed: 4.80 sec
- Damage Reduction: 35%
- Explosion Damage: 480
- Explosion Radius: 3.60 m
Rank 4: Damage & Radius/Durability
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Damage & Radius Increase detonation damage by 30%.
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Durability Increase damage protection by an additional 5%.
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Rank 5: Power Damage/Melee Damage
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Power Damage Increase power damage and force by 30% while armor is active. |
Melee Damage Increase melee damage by 40% while the power is active. |
Rank 6: Power Recharge/Durability
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Power Recharge Reduce power speed penalty by 30%. |
Durability Increase damage protection by an additional 10%.
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Player Notes
- The power use penalty at rank 1 Tech Armor is not 50% overall reduction to Power Recharge Speed, but a 50% points reduction of the Power Recharge Speed bonus visible in the weapon loadout screen. In other words, it functions like a weapon weight penalty.
- For example, if you have a +200% Power Recharge Speed bonus when looking at the weapons screen, activating rank 1 Tech Armor reduces that bonus to +150%.
- The power speed penalty reduction of 30% at rank 6 Tech Armor reduces the penalty down to 20%. E.g. if you have +200% Power Recharge Speed, activating rank 6 Tech Armor only reduces that to +180%.
- Tech Armor differs from its Mass Effect 2 incarnation in providing damage resistance as opposed to extra shielding. It also no longer breaks when shields are destroyed, and it continues to provide protection to health as well, even when shields are depleted. The damage protection bonus can also stack with additional powers such as Fortification, Defense Matrix, Barrier, or Reave. If optimized, the protection can stack up to a maximum of 90%, which is incredibly useful on higher difficulties. However, any power speed penalties from these powers also stack, further slowing power use.
- Detonation: As in Mass Effect 2, Tech Armor can be detonated, creating an omnidirectional blast wave centered on the player.
- The blast wave deals 1.5x damage to enemy shields (blue bar).
- Tech Armor only has a cooldown when detonated, it cannot be broken by enemies; even when downed in multiplayer, you will always rise with your armor intact.
- Detonation is immediate, but the player's character does a short animation of using the omni-tool which will override most actions such as running, rolling, firing, or dodging. This can leave the character open to enemy attacks, but it can be cancelled by light melee, leaving cover from the sides, sprinting, rolling again, or simply hitting the "interact" key (as is the case with most animations in the game).
- Tech Armor's detonation can hit enemies from behind cover and through walls.
- Somewhat uniquely for a non-grenade power, the detonation can hit any number of targets within its blast radius.
- The detonation has a hidden base force value of 1000N, which can at least cause most humanoid enemies to be staggered.
- In single-player, even if you manually remove Tech Armor from your quick access bar in the HUD, it will often be moved back there automatically after cutscenes or saves if there is an empty slot.
- In single-player, when assigning points to Shepard in the Squad menu, undoing your choices causes an active Tech Armor to detonate.
Availability
- Single-player: Sentinel
- Multiplayer: Asari Valkyrie Sentinel, Human Sentinel, Krogan Sentinel, Krogan Warlord Sentinel, Turian Sentinel
Trivia
- In Mass Effect 3: Citadel, a turian and a salarian can be overhead in Castle Arcade discussing the virtues of Tech Armor.
| Mass Effect 2 Powers | |
|---|---|
| Ammo | Armor-Piercing Ammo • Cryo Ammo • Disruptor Ammo • Incendiary Ammo • Shredder Ammo • Warp Ammo |
| Biotic | Barrier • Charge • Dominate • Pull • Reave • Shockwave • Singularity • Slam • Stasis • Throw • Warp |
| Combat | Adrenaline Rush • Concussive Shot • Flashbang Grenade • Fortification • Inferno Grenade • Shadow Strike |
| Tech | AI Hacking • Combat Drone • Cryo Blast • Energy Drain • Geth Shield Boost • Incinerate • Neural Shock • Overload • Tactical Cloak • Tech Armor |
| Player only | Assault Mastery • Biotic Mastery • Combat Mastery • Defender • Operative • Tech Mastery • Unity |
| Squadmate Class | Ardat Yakshi • Asari Justicar • Asari Scientist • Cerberus Officer • Cerberus Operative • Turian Rebel • Drell Assassin • Geth Infiltrator • Krogan Berserker • Master Thief • Mercenary Veteran • Quarian Machinist • Salarian Scientist • Subject Zero |