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Commander Shepard vs Adam Jensen - Deus Effect

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So after seeing Jensen in action in a previous match figured I'd give him a go with Shepard, plus brings me back to my xbox 360 days lol
  • Speed is equalised
  • Soldier Shepard is being used, his tier 8 equipment is restricted
  • Fight takes place in the streets of Chicago
  • Both are 40 metres apart
  • SBA Otherwise
I should go: 0

I never asked for this: 3

Incon: 0


 
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Hmmm...I have to give to Adam Jensen.

So one thing to note is that Adam Jensen will likely fall back to stealth. Especially if his opponent is more powerful than him. Look at Victor Marchenko. I have to question if Shepard is that much more powerful. But let's say he is, at 40 m away, Jensen can easily hide. Add to that, Jensen's cloaking. Now, in the Mass Effect games cloaked enemies are still really obvious thanks to the silhouette but we do see characters like Kasumi with perfect cloaks. And while we can see Jensen as the players, no one else can. So the cloak is likely viable as a hiding method.

I don't recall any ability in the Mass Effect universe that let's someone see through walls. In ME1 there was a minimap with enemy positions. But this is not present in ME2&3. And I don't see it mentioned in the profile so it's probably agreed to be gameplay exclusive. Meanwhile, Jensen can see through walls and thus keep track of Shepard's every move.

EMP grenades should act like overload. Though it comes with the caveat that it's a grenade Shepard can outrun compared to overload which is instant. That said, if Jensen is using stealth he can throw it from an angle Shepard is not expecting. It's not a guarantee but it does create the possibility. Actually this does raise a slew of questions regarding Jensen's grenades. Shepard can easily dodge grenades and has a history of that. But it's usually in the middle of a firefight and not a stealth master waiting for when Shepard least expects it. But that doesn't mean Shepard will just stare at a grenade on the floor like a ninny.

So I'll just say that grenades combined with stealth raises the possibility but does not guarantee.

Jensen also has mines he can lay as traps.

Also there are weapons that Shepard simply can't dodge like Jensen's LS66 laser. Of course that doesn't exclude the possibility of missing or Shepard simply taking cover. But, once again, it creates the possibility.

Gas grenades can be countered by a helmet.

No special vision means Shepard doesn't really have a solution to smoke grenades except to run out of it.

Oh...and I just looked this up. Jensen is equipped is monomolecular blades. You know who else has monomolecular blades? Phantoms which can cut through shields with only a few strikes and can punch through them with a stab. Meaning that is viable for Jensen to sneak up behind Shepard and literally stab him in the back.

Shepard's shields do help a lot. Jensen will have to either use an EMP or whittle the shields down bit by bit.

Shepard has his own share of mines but Jensen's visual augments mean he's going to see them. Can even hack into and disable them so there's not even an indicator of where he is and can't control his movement.

Here's the thing. Jensen's stealth is so potent that even Shep's tier 8 equipment probably won't cut it.

So at stealth I'd give it to Jensen as his technology is excellent at countering many of Shepard's.

I'll switch scenarios for a bit. What if Jensen goes in with a frontal assault? Now the monomolecular blades should be able to cut down Shepard but Jensen has to close that distance first. Shepard has a superior arsenal of weapons plus his shields.

Jensen has his Titan skin but it will be inferior to Shepard's shielding. Still, it's something.



Frontal assault means no setting mines. Shepard sees all the grenades coming. It's not a slaughter but at the very least Shepard has superior versions of most of Jensen's equipment. Well, sort of. Tier 8 explosives for Shep has been restricted and Jensen still gets to keep his rocket launchers. I had mentioned Shepard being unable to dodge Jensen's lasers. It's not like Jensen can dodge a collector particle beam. As an N7 soldier, Shepard's training will also be better.



So, I'd say frontal assault gives Shepard the win with superior training and technology. Jensen has Titan skin but Shepard has passive shields that can recharge. Jensen has guns and rockets, Shepard has better versions of those.

The equipment Jensen has that would be good against Shepard aren't that good in a straight fight.

Now let's say they get down and dirty up close. As seen by the phantoms, monomolecular blades kinda shred the shield and armor. Plus Jensen wields two of them. (Well, he might wield four. We've seen them come out of the front of his hand as well as out the elbow. But I don't know if that's the same blade going out two different directions or four different blades). Soldier shep only has a single omni blade. Plus Jensen's titan skin should take a few hits. But as an N7 soldier Shepard should be a better CQC. I'll call a melee between the two inconclusive. Jensen dual wields weapons that should make short work of Shepard. But Shepard has better combat training.

Overall i'd give it to Jensen especially since the method that would be best used against Shepard is his go-to method.
 
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To give some responses to this stuff here (Awesome analysis there btw)

Shepard doesn't have his barriers in this fight as their tier 8, regardless Soldier Shepard has Immunity to lessen the damage he takes and has medigel for healing. Idk what the AP is but Shepard can harm and fight the shadow broker who can knock out Krogans like Grunt, Grunt's comparable to Drack who casually does a 0.01 ton feat. Adrenaline Rush also amps Shep's AP iirc. Skill wise idk what feats Jensen has, can give a full list of feats for Shepard though.

On the topic of not seeing through walls Shepard's N7 helmet has this description in ME2

"Dual layer of fabric armor and kinetic padding within a lightweight ablative ceramic shell. Comes standard with a suite of communication, navigation, and battlefield awareness software." Shepard can probably at least discern if Jensen is somewhere nearby him at least I'd say. Pretty sure there was a minimap in 2 if you were selecting powers and weapons?

For sneak attacks behind Shepard I'd argue that's a super bad idea, Kai Leng tried that and got clapped by him. Smoke likely won't be all that surprising for them as Cerberus frequently uses that as an offensive method and they included phantoms and the shield guys and other enemy types.
 
I'll bump this with an updated analysis.

So without shields it does improve Jensen's odds in frontline combat. But not enough for me to say Jensen would win in a straight fight. Even without shields, Shepard has superior armor, weapons and training.

Both their AP are marked at small building level. Shepard has been scaled to the Shadowbroker. Jensen's been scaled to his augments.

So I should've been more detailed regarding the smoke grenades. If Jensen throws a gas grenade, as long as Shepard as a helmet, nothing will happen. Jensen could throw them to the end of time and nothing will happen. It's a hard counter. Shepard doesn't have a hard counter to smoke. No thermal or sonic vision to render it useless. And Cerberus troops wouldn't use them if they didn't have their uses.

But smoke won't be a guaranteed win. But they're like the grenades as they at least help increase the possibility. If Shepard stands in the smoke, he has to accept loss of vision and Jensen can take advantage of that. If he runs, Jensen can herd him. So no promises but it does open more avenues. Of course Shepard also has to behave how Jensen wants and no doubt N7 training will cover smoke cover. So it's like the grenades. Shepard can get out of range of normal grenades but he doesn't have a point defense system to just neutralize them. Smoke grenades won't guarantee Jensen a win since it's one thing to surround Shepard in smoke and it's another thing to capitalize on it. Not guaranteed but it still helps Jensen since Shepard can't nullify it.

Now regarding battlefield awareness software. What if Shepard does have a minimap like we see in ME1. This is huge to the point I'd have to rethink Jensen's victory as it effectively means Jensen can only use stealth if he cloaks. He isn't like other stealth characters like Corvo Attano who could be leaping across ceiling rafters. If the minimap pings him ahead, he's hiding ahead. The most that Jensen could do is hide on an upper floor and have Shepard thing he's on a lower one but that's it and that's not much of an advantage.

But as mentioned, I don't think it works that way. And we can see this in several moments regarding characters like Thane. While tailing Kolyat, Thane vanishes into the crowd and Shepard doesn't know where he is. Likewise, in Thane's recruitment mission. They couldn't just use tech to locate Thane. They had to get to Nassana first. And when Thane fell from the ceiling, he caught them off guard. We also see this with Kai Leng. When Kai Leng tries to assassinate the salaran councilor, he was within line of sight and Shepard doesn't notice him until he looks right at the guy. Likewise Kai Leng doesn't notice Than sneaking up on him. And While Leng isn't Shepard, they should have comparable combat awareness software. Another one is when they were talking to the prothean artifact on Thessia. It was the artifact that alerts Shepard and crew that Leng has walked in.

While Kai Leng does fail to sneak up behind Shepard, he was already on the brink of death. So I don't think this indicates Shepard has some sort of inherent ability to detect sneaky enemies. He does have good awareness overall. I forget which scene this was. But him and his squad walk into a room and there was a civie hiding behind some boxes. Shepard does sense that there is someone there and calls for them to come out. Namely announcing "Company" then drawing his gun and aiming it in the civie's direction. So perhaps anyone that isn't a stealth master would be detected. And this actaully rather lines up well. He would notice anyone that isn't an expert at hiding. And while Kai Leng is, at that moment in ME3 he was fatally wounded and not up to par.

Now let's open up the awareness software to more interpretation. Let's say it's proximity software. With the exception of Thane sneaking up on Leng, the sneakers were a distance away from the snuck up on. So let's say that Shepard won't get alerted unless Jensen gets close. While this does shift things slightly toward Shepard's favor I don't think it'll net him the win. It means if Jensen wants his stealth kill he'll need to go in cloaked. It also doesn't negate hit and run attacks.

I should also add that Jensen matching Shepard in melee combat requires his Titan. Shepard is better trained than Jensen. Sure dual wielding does have an inherent advantage over a single omni blade but I think N7 training is advanced enough to say Shepard still takes the edge. Jensen needs Titan to cover for any failings if he wants to match. If Jensen opts not to use Titan or doesn't have the energy, Shepard will easily win hand to hand.

Things like medi gel also solidfy my position. In a firefight even if Jensen manages to actually injure Shepard, Shepard can use medigel to patch himself up. Though Jensen does have passive healing. Then again, I'm still of the position that Shepard's weapons are superior so Jensen might not even get the chance to use passive healing.

There's also that Immunity doesn't protect against electrical attacks like Husk shockwaves. And Jensen has his TESLA augment which lets him shoot electricity.

So most fields do favor Shepard such as open combat and hand to hand. The one field Jensen has an edge over Shepard is stealth and it's a field Jensen is most likely to go to.
 
So that's gonna be a bit chunky for me to take apart there but lets go over what I can say.

Skill wise Shepard blows Jensen out the water from what I can tell, Shepard can fodderise Krogans who are a race of ancient spartans in outer space with Wrex being close 1000 years old last I checked and can also fodder Asari Commandos who would have at least decades lowballed to centuries worth of military experience. Plus he's also superior to Garrus, a Turian who's race has military training as mandatory on their 15th birthday who in 2 spent over 24 hours held up in a siege against three different merc groups and was able to shoot and dismantle a gunship with the mercs even saying he stomped via skill. Not sure what Jensen has that might be comparable to this

AP wise Jensen seems to be around 0.04 tons. For Shep his chain goes Shepard >/= Shadow Broker >>> Grunt/Wrex/Drack >>>>>>> 0.01 tons, plus he can amp himself further with Adrenaline Rush, AP should comfortably go to Shep there. On the topic of Adrenaline Rush its pretty much activated via thought based, the instant Shep catches Jensen in his sights he'll be getting lit up and if he's frozen by a few cryo ammo shots its gg. Concussive Shot also has a degree of homing capability to it also.

Cerberus use smoke often and Shepard can fodderise their troopers on the regular which include Phantoms, its also worth a mention that he can have weapon mods that let him see through it too. For one of those scenes you talked about I think that's from the first mission in 1. For those scenes that involve Kai and Thane Shepard is sadly subject to cutscene incompetence when the former shows up usually, I'm honestly just half tempted to wrap that as CIS, Thane does have stupid stealth feats however fighting Phantoms is something Shepard does on the regular and use a cloak similar to what Jensen has from what I remember. Also Shepard might not have his N7 armour on in those missions yet I'm assuming he does here under SBA (Not sure if there'd be enough from the different armour types to warrant a CRT tbh)

Immunity might not protect from elemental attacks but it'll help tank anything lethal
 
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I'll also add that Shepard has the LS advantage, so if the fight was to go into cqc he'd be better in grappling.
 
Okay well I guess I'll try to break down the points for each, lemmie know I miss anything

Jensen
  • Pretty good stealth, this might be enough to circumvent Shepard's awareness though if he gets too close with it he should still likely be picked up by Shep's radar. Ignoring the fact that Jensen's cloak can only last for so long anyway.
  • Seemingly better equipment, Laser weapon that Shep might not be able to dodge which can wall hack, sleep manip, a taser and smoke grenades. His melee weapons are more numerous.
  • Forcefield which will help him take bullets and he seemingly has better AP off the bat
  • Can possibly hack Shepard's weapons, however see my points below for this.
Shepard
  • Far, far better showings of combative skill. Shepard on the regular skill stomped beings with decades to centuries of combat experience and whose entire cultures revolved around war. This includes gunplay and melee fighting
  • Shepard has better scaling in AP, being able to harm and damage someone who can oneshot Krogans who casually do the AP feat. And can amp himself via Adrenaline Rush/Immunity
  • Faster acting hax, Adrenaline Rush/Immunity is thought based and various ammo types or medigel is done with a button press. Iirc Jensen's cloak is thought based but idk bout his others.
  • Higher LS which would favour him in a cqc situation, plus his cryo ammo would only need a few shots to freeze.
Now to address a few points I want to raise
  • It was discussed that Jensen could possibly hack Shepard's equipment, I find this to be very unlikely truth be told. Jensen's tech might be cutting edge yes, but its for his era while mass effect takes place well over a hundred years later. Not helping the fact was that beings similar to Jensen were considered outdated by the time the first DX game took place which only helps my point further here.
  • Both have grenades that cancel each other out more or less from what I can see.
  • Both have attacks with some degree of homing which again cancels out.
  • Sleep manip may not last long enough for an incap, Shepard has shown resists to drugs in the past. To the point where his captors had to continue and up his doses within hours iirc just to keep him out, I'll try to find this but it had occurred somewhere. Tasering Shepard may work however this only stuns and Shep's pain threshold let him soldier on even after taking a stray reaper laser beam
 
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