Mass Effect 2 beginners guide

Here's a little guide for newbies to Mass Effect 2: how to choose your class.

there's six classes in Mass Effect. three are basic, nad the three others are mixes between the base three.

notice that even if you import a character from Mass Effect 1, you can change her class.

Soldier:

Soldiers are efficient with weapons, they can use assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles and heavy pistols.
their powers are principaly ammunitions power: incendary ammo, to burn living creatures, Cryo ammo, to freeze ennemy and disruptor ammo, to break mecas and pass through shields.
the also have the concussive shot to fire an homing head explisive bullet, and adrenalin rush, to speed up their subjective perseptions during a short time.

Adept:

Adepts are biotic fighters, using their mental powers instead of weapons.they can use heavy pistols and submachine guns.
Warp work on every kind of enemies, dammage them and destroy their shield, Pull make the ennemy to levitate, throw hurl target, shockwave sends out a series of explosive biotic impacts ignoring any obstacles, Singularity launches a dark energy sphere to create an intense mass effect field: enemies are drawn into the Singularity and held briefly helpless.

Engineer:

Engineers are tech specialist. they can use heavy pistols and submachine guns.
their tech powers are overload, to destroy enemy shield and mecas. Incinerate inflict fire dammages to ennemies. Combat drone create for a short period a drone to attack ennemy and draw their fire. Cryo blast frezze the ennemies, and can break them. AI hacking give temporay control on a synthetic ennemy.

Vanguard:

Vanguards are a mix between soldier and adept. they can use heavy pistols, shotguns
and submachine Guns.
their power are: Incendiary Ammo, Cryo Ammo, Shockwave and Pull.
they also have a unique biotic power: charge that augment their speed and strengh to chare the ennemy.

Infiltrator:

Infiltrators are a mix between soldier and engineer. they can use heavy Pistols, sniper Rifles and Submachine Guns.
their powers are: Disruptor Ammo, Cryo Ammo, Incinerate and AI Hacking.
they can also use Tactical Cloak to become invisible during a short period.

Sentinel:

Sentinels mix tech power from engineer and biotic power from adept. they can use heavy pistols and submachine guns.
their powers are: Throw, Warp, Overload and Cryo Blast.
they also have Tech Armor which improve their shield and make an explosion when this shiel is broken.

I hope this little guide will help you to choose your first character in Mass Effect 2.

Source: my own experience, obviously, but also the wiki, because i can't know all.

Nice one Rebel O Conner, I'm expecting to begin playing the Mass Effect series soon so this will be an invaluable guide. I didn't realize how many different classes the game actually had.

I've finished ME2 as soldier since I'm good at aiming head. If you're good at aiming I suggest using soldier class, and remember to use different ammo power depending on enemy you're facing.

i used a soldier the first time ( my imported shepard) but with the limited amunitions in ME2, it sometime better to have powers. i now use an ingineer, the AI hacking is good, with Morinth loyalty power, Domination.
like this, i don't have to fight a lot, my foes do it for me.

This is really good, Rebel! You've got alot of good information here. I think the biggest thing to stress with ME2 is you can't use console commands with the game and that's the hardest thing for me to adjust to. Fallout, Dragon Age and ME1 are all console commanded by me to achieve the uberness I want from my characters but ME2 is just not like that. You checked out that .ini file I have at my place and so far, between that and the Gibbed.MassEffect2.SaveEdit program have been able to give me the best results. You said the .ini file level 30 didn't work but the Gibbed Save Edit will let you change to any level up to 30 so I wasn't worried. It's the god mode I care about! If I can't have that, I can't play cause I'm such a cheater!