Mass Effect 3 Diary – A Primer on Gold Challenge Matches in Multiplayer

Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer mode allows people to try out matches in three difficulty tiers: Bronze, Silver, or Gold.

The differences between them range from the health of the enemies to their numbers, and with each new tier it becomes of vital importance to know quite a lot of things.

First up, you need to have a high level character, either level 20 or close to it, as you need your powers, as well as your health and damage bonuses, to be extremely potent.

Second of all, you need to know what weapons you need to use. It’s probably not a good idea to experiment when trying out a Gold match. Try out new guns in Bronze or Silver and then pick the best ones for Gold.

You also need to know what extra equipment you need, from an armor add-on, to a rail for your designated weapon, to a type of ammo that compliments your abilities. What’s more, in Gold matches you don’t need to be stingy with consumable items like rockets, medigels, or ammo packs.

Before starting a match, examine what characters your squad mates use. For example, it’s probably not a good idea to have four infiltrators, so get a character that can protect them in close quarters, like a Soldier or Sentinel.

When the match actually starts, remember to stick close to your squad, cover all the spawn points and try to complement their powers. If an Adept throws a Singularity near some enemies, add your own biotic power to result in an explosion that damages all nearby opponents.

It’s also worth mentioning that you need to know each map like the back of your hand. Know where enemies spawn from, remember ammo caches and try to have a strategy, like sweeping a map in a circle in order to find the last enemies during a wave.

Just like in Bronze or Silver matches, waves 3, 6 and 10 have special objectives. While in lower difficulties you afforded to ignore them and just kill the enemies that would endlessly spawn, now’s not the time to be selfish. Focus on the objectives: use rockets to take down priority targets, let Infiltrators handle the computer hacking and try to be present in the uploading tasks. You’ll finish them sooner and you’ll earn more money by doing so.

Doing a Gold challenge match may not be easy, especially when you’re dealing with clumsy squad mates, but the rewards, around 270,000 XP points and 70,000 credits, are more than worth it.

Have you tried out Gold matches or are you still attempting Silver ones?