Build information for Liara, including talent point allocation and ideal gear.

View Full-size

Suggested talent point allocation for Liara.

Liara’s vocation, Asari Scientist, is an odd one. It’s either a more biotic-flavored Sentinel, or an Adept with a few tech abilities thrown in, depending on your preference. Whatever the case, Liara has every biotic talent in the game, but instead of having any weapon or armor talents, she’s got First Aid and Electronics, which… is a mixed bag.

Talent Point Allocation¶

Biotic Talents¶

Liara has every biotic talent in the game, and we aim to max out most of them - Throw, Lift, Warp, Singularity and Barrier. Throw, Lift and Singularity are all effective at debilitating enemies, Warp is a potent debuff that reduces an enemy’s Damage Protection, Barrier, while not ideal, is the best protection Liara has asid from whatever armor she wears. Stasis is the least of her debilitative talents, but… well, let’s be fair, you’ll probably never need it. Still, if you want an enemy excluded from combat for a while, getting to rank six for Advanced Singularity will suffice, and it’s arguably a better investment than dropping your remaining talent points elsewhere. Note that Liara won’t use this ability unless explicitly commanded to do so… probably a good thing, preventing her from locking down enemies you’d rather just shoot.

Tech Talents¶

Liara only has two tech abilities: First Aid and Electronics. First Aid isn’t a great talent tree, but you’ll need to drop four ranks in it to unlock Electronics, which is a much better investment. Electronics will passively boost Liara’s maximum Shields and give her access to the excellent Overload ability, which damages enemy Shields and reduces their damage resistance - a fine debuff. Better yet, you only need to drop nine ranks in this talent tree to get most of what you want out of it.

Sadly, Liara doesn’t have access to Decryption, meaning she will not suffice if you aim to hack/unlock every object you come across. If you bring Liara along, either Shepard will have to provide Decryption, or you’ll need to pair her with Kaiden, Tali or Garrus - only the last of which is really recommended, due to his durability, something Liara distinctly lacks.

Asari Scientist¶

As usual, the class talent is where we dump our remaining points. In Liara’s case, this will reduce the cooldowns on all her biotics, which is a fine boost. Asari Scientist also functions as a limited First Aid talent, giving her extra healing and First Aid cooldown, for what that’s worth (not much).

Best Gear for Liara¶

Colossus X Light Armor is the best armor Liara can wear, and while the 65 Damage Protection is fine, keep in mind that Liara doesn’t have an armor talent, which means her damage reduction and physics resistance will be lower than what other characters have, just by virtue of their investment in an armor talent. A pair of Medical Exoskeletons will give her decent regeneration, which Liara natively lacks, but you might want to go with a Medical Exoskeleton and an Energized Plating mod to boost her Damage Protection somewhat. We’re in favor of two Medical Exoskeletons, personally, as Liara’s durability is just something of a lost cause, and she’s got a ton of great abilities that will benefit from the cooldown bonus offered by Medical Exoskeletons.

The best weapons in the game are tier X Spectre weapons: HMWA X, HMWSG X, HMWP X and HMWSR X. These will become available when you return to the Citadel after clearing the missions on Therum, Feros, Noveria and Virmire… provided you’re high enough level. Liara doesn’t have any weapon talents, so don’t expect her to be terribly competent with any weapon, but rotating your ammo to suit your current enemies and using Scram Rail X and Frictionless Materials X mods will help.

Liara is need of both an Omni-Tool and a Biotic Amp, and the best model for both is Savant X, as they’ll grant a number of useful boosts, including a whopping 50% reduction in tech ability cooldown time and a +35% Shield bonus (Omni-Tool) and bonuses to the duration, efficacy and cooldown rate of her biotics (+35%, +40% and +40%, respectively).