Mass Effect: Andromeda Collector's Edition Guide Architect Encounters

General Phase Flowchart

General Combat Guidelines

Actively direct your squadmates to focus on targets using the Order Squadmate commands. This is vital for taking out the waves of Remnant in these encounters and for doing burst damage to the leg conduits.

Consider taking Vetra and Peebee with you for these encounters, specifically for Vetra’s Turian Smuggler Rank 6 upgrade, Focus Fire. This upgrade amplifies all damage done to the target Vetra fires at with her rifle, up to a 100% increase. Peebee’s Invasion also applies a defense debuff, effective against conduits. Not only that, but Peebee is hands down the best in the squad at crowd control, so she’s doubly effective when considering Remnant wave phases.

Avoid biotic powers. Aside from their debilitating properties, they aren’t nearly as strong as tech powers against synthetic enemies, particularly the Architect.

Dash behind cover if you see or hear the Architect winding up one of its deadly weapons, and use a peek-and-fire technique to dish out damage to conduits. Better safe than sorry!

Keep incendiary ammo or disruptor ammo active at all times. Incendiary ammo deals the most damage overall (against conduits), while disruptor ammo is effective at destroying smaller Remnant. You can keep both ammo types active by applying one per weapon, if you have two guns.

Instead of using powers to prime combos, use your fire- and electricity-based ammo. For instance, with the Shatter Defenses upgrade in assault rifles, you can unload an incendiary-augmented clip into a conduit; then, while the conduit is debuffed, detonate the fire combo with one of your detonators.

Destroy the head conduit to bring down the Architect’s interface (your “win condition”). Its head conduit is exposed when one of its leg conduits becomes wounded. Wounding a leg means bringing that leg’s conduit health down to 50%. When the head conduit is exposed, damage can be done to it. Most attacks into its major power core embedded in its maw count as weak-point hits, so enhancing your weak-point damage stat is extremely effective for these fights.

When a leg conduit is fully destroyed, the Architect repositions itself across the map. This occurs twice after the initial “mount,” for a total of three battle positions around the area. This is one of the most important aspects of planning your Architect strategy, since each position may change your approach and what supplies you have access to. For specific mount locations, see the planet-specific sections following this general guideline. The Architect’s location pattern is static, so it’s predictable.

Also note that transitioning between phases in the battle revives knocked-out squadmates automatically.

Weapons and Attacks

Energy Blast: Power core energy blast. This attack devastates anything it hits, and leaves a persistent electrical field in the area. The Architect can use this attack during head conduit and leg conduit phases. This attack is telegraphed, so it’s not too difficult to avoid. However, the electrical damage field it leaves behind forces you out of cover.

Rapid-Fire Tentacle: Rapid-fire gun turret from the other tentacle beneath its head. The Architect can use this attack during head conduit and leg conduit phases and occasionally during Remnant wave phases. This is the deadliest attack an Architect can employ, and it can instantly shred your shields and health. This is the main reason Tactical Cloak is recommended. When you hear or see the tentacle winding up to fire, immediately use your cloak!

Cluster Grenades: High damage grenades used to flush targets from cover. They are fired from a tentacle and deal damage both upon impact and detonation. The Architect can use this attack during Head Conduit and Leg Conduit phases and occasionally during the Remnant Wave phase. This is a telegraphed attack that is easily avoidable if you’re paying attention to the pattern. Whenever enemy grenades are deployed, indicators appear at the sides of the HUD where the grenades are. Evade away to avoid a horrifying death.

Electrical Cage: An electrical field deployed between the Architect’s “legs” to prevent any aggressors from attacking beneath it. This defense is always active while mounted on the ground. It basically prevents you from getting too close. Because of this Charge isn’t a particularly effective power against the Architect (as are most biotic powers).

Leg Conduit Phase

“Destroy conduits (x/3),” where x equals how many leg conduits remain. This is always the phase the Architect begins with when it mounts at a new location.

Details

Deplete the health of a leg conduit to either 50% (wounded) or 0% (destroyed). If this objective isn’t fulfilled in under 30 seconds, a “punishment” Remnant wave phase commences. This happens right after the Architect fires off several rounds of its electrical energy blast. Essentially, one of three potential outcomes occurs during the leg conduit phase.

Wounding a leg reveals a vulnerability, opening the head conduit and transitioning the battle into the head conduit phase.

Completely destroying a leg causes the Architect to fly to its next location. Additionally, this triggers an EMP blast that destroys all hostile and friendly Remnant tech (like your Remnant VI and Assault Turret).

Leg conduit health values remain throughout the entire encounter. For instance, taking one conduit down to 60%, then switching to another leg conduit and wounding it at 50% means you only have to deal 10% to the other leg to wound it the next time the Architect enters the leg conduit phase. This advances the phase quickly without instigating its retreat mode (since you aren’t fully destroying a conduit). This tactic is particularly effective for the Eos Architect, since its first location is near a forward station. However, it’s not recommended for the other Architect battles.

Remnant Wave Phase

During this phase, your Mission Tracker updates to “Clear out the Remnant.”

As weaker Remnant enemies are deployed to attack you, all of the Architect’s conduits close (meaning you can’t damage the Architect, nor can it attack you with its energy blast attack). The composition of Remnant enemies differs in this phase depending on which Architect you’re fighting.

To advance this phase, defeat all Remnant enemies OR simply survive for a while. This phase is usually much less threatening than the conduit phases, so this is a good time to find ammo and health crates. Just don’t take too long removing the Remnant enemies from the battlefield. It’s recommended that you have the EMP upgrade for the Overload power unlocked and ready to go. A fully charged Overload can chain to multiple Remnant, stunning each and potentially detonating devastating fire and tech combos.

After a period of time (around 45 seconds), the leg conduit phase commences automatically. This can make maneuvering around the battlefield tricky. You now have to deal with the Architect’s attacks as well as any Remnant left alive. Of course, you can now start attacking the Architect’s legs again. It’s important to note that when a leg conduit is fully destroyed, the Architect detonates a wide-range EMP blast, destroying all synthetics in the area, including enemy Remnant and allied ones. So if a leg conduit is close to being fully destroyed (i.e., close to 0% health), you can ignore any residual Remnant foes and focus on a damaged leg instead.

Head Conduit Phase

During this phase, your Mission Tracker updates to “Destroy head conduits.”

Details

Opening the vulnerability to an Architect’s head conduit is your primary goal, and this occurs every time a leg is wounded (damaged to 50%), and once more when the final leg conduit is destroyed.

This phase does not have a time limit, so take some time to recover. You can deal a maximum of 25% damage to its total health each time the head conduit is vulnerable.

The Architect becomes relentless during this phase, using its powerful attacks one after another. Stay in or near cover so you can peek out to deliver weak-point- and incendiary-ammo-enhanced sniper rifle shots, followed by a fire combo detonator (like Overload). When the Architect is on its last wounded leg (under 50% health), it does not retreat into the sky. Destroying the final leg forces it into one last head conduit phase, with 25% health left.