Best Liara Build - complete guide - Mass Effect 1 (ME1) | LE

Liara is one of the companions that you will encounter in the Mass Effect 1 journey. She is an Asari researcher. She is an expert in biotics. Due to this, she will be extremely useful in any party that needs crowd control capabilities.

How to Acquire Liara?

You will be tasked with finding the Asari scientist working on Prothean culture. You will encounter Liara in Prothean Ruins found in Knossos system of Artemis Tau cluster.

My personal recommendation is to unlock her as early as possible. This will give you a chance to have the strongest biotics companion early in the game.

Talents

A short version on where to invest talents:

• Throw: 12
• Lift: 12
• Warp: 12
• Singularity: 12
• Barrier: 7
• First Aid: 4
• Electronics 12
• Asari Scientist: 6

The first priority should be getting the three main Biotics abilities:

1. Throw – a good talent that will be the first accessible for Liara. Use it to knock down enemies: when they are close to you, they stand close to the ledge for an instakill.
2. Singularity - this is the best biotic talent. It has a large radius and can lift enemies into the air. This makes them helpless and open to any attacks. Feel free to combo this with Overload, Grenades, Sabotage, etc. Unfortunately, to obtain it you will need Warp at level 7.
3. Lift – Lifts enemies into the air. Has a medium radius of the effect. Moreover, the higher the skill level the stronger the lift. The result can be higher damage inflicted when an enemy hits the ceiling. You can easily combo this with Throw for instant kills on enemies.

After you have enough invested in Biotics (my recommendation is maxing out), concentrate then on Class Talent: Asari Scientist. This passive skill will improve your biotic abilities by reducing their recharge rate. Moreover, it boosts First Aid, but later on this one.

Once you have these, your next objective is to maximize the damage-dealing spells:

• Warp – deals a decent amount of damage, also lowers enemy protection from damage.
• Electronics – deals damage to enemy shields and health. Moreover, makes them susceptible to damage for a short period of time. Extremely effective against Geth who have a lot of armor. To unlock this ability get First Aid to level 4

Once you have all of these, feel free to put your points to either Barrier or First Aid

What Gear should you use for Liara?

In Mass Effect 1 Legendary edition Liara does not have a specific armor or weapon proficiency. This is her drawback when her skills are on a cooldown (however, this should be rare).

Weapons

Your best bet is to equip Spectre grade weapons: HMWA, HMWSG, HMWP and HMWSR. At first tier 7 will work until you get access to tier 10 after progressing to the late story: finishing Therum, Noveria, Virmire and Feros.

I have personally found that equipping her with the shotgun is the most effective:

On higher difficulties, this will enable you to save yourself from difficult encounters by knocking down enemies.

Fit your weapon with the best available upgrades like: Sledgehammer Rounds, Frictionless Materials or Scram Rail.

Armors

As you will only be able to wear Light Human armors, my recommendation is Mercenary type armor:

They have the highest damage reduction, which you will need a lot. For upgrades, I suggest:

• Energized Plating – gives damage protection.
• Medical Exoskeleton – gives health regeneration and reduces power cool down

Tools – Omni-tool and Biotic amp

This is the last crucial part of the Liara build. You should aim for tools that provide the most bonuses. My personal suggestion is to get the ones that give the largest cooldown bonus. This way you can knock down enemies any time that you need.

Here are my suggested tools:

• Savant – extremely good Biotic Amp, boosting your biotic abilities, try to get the highest tier possible
• Nexus – gives large boost to Tech cooldown, this way you can cast damage dealing skills more often.

Tactics – how to use Liara?

Liara is best used as crowd control or support. I do not recommend keeping her on the frontlines, as she has relatively low armor compared to other companions.

1. I start with Singularity if there are at least 2 enemies clustered
2. I start shooting and Omni tool skills like Warp.
3. If during that time another enemy appears, I use Lift on it
4. Once the enemies are down I use Throw to push them away before they get up.
5. If you have a good Biotic tool equipped after a few seconds the cooldown for Singularity should be done

Conclusion

Liara T’Soni is my go-to Biotics companion in any playthrough. Have in mind she is quite fragile when it comes to close-quarters combat so you should leave her at distance. Your priority should be getting the best biotic tools.

If you follow these steps I think you will have a great time playing the game when she is in your party

Feel free to leave any feedback in the comments