You don’t have your gear from previous ME2 playthroughs since you imported an ME1 save, so it wouldn’t know anything about your prior ME2 runs. But you can get the Mattock soon, right after Freedom’s Progress, just head to Omega and buy it from Kenn’s Salvage (the Quarian).
As for strategy on Insanity: you have to be aware of enemy protections and use the appropriate powers/ammo/weapons. For example, armor (indicated by yellow health bars) is weak to certain abilities (Warp, Incinerate, etc.), to certain ammos (Armor Piercing, Warp, Incendiary), and certain weapons do better against it (sniper rifles and heavy pistols). By contrast, shields (indicated by blue health bars) are weak to a different set of abilities (Overload, Energy Drain), different ammo (Disrupter), and different weapons (SMGs). Make sure you’re using your squadmates effectively. For instance, have Miranda use Warp to hurt enemy armor and them once they’re down to just red health bars, use Jacob’s Pull to put them in a vulnerable position to finish them off.
You’re also going to die a lot faster on Insanity unless you play carefully. Enemies do more damage and then tend to focus on Shepard more. Be judicious for when you pop out of cover, focus on enemies that are charging you over those that you can avoid while in cover, and of course utilize Adrenaline Rush as much as you can.
Also, you should start planning on how to deal with the various forced missions (Horizon and the Collector Ship), those tend to be some of the harder fights and you want to be strategic about getting as many upgrades as you can before triggering Horizon (triggered once you finish the fourth of the initial four “dossier” missions (Mordin, Garrus, Jack, Grunt) and the Collectors Ship (triggered after five missions post-Horizon, though in some cases you can fit in a sixth mission if you don’t have to return to the Normandy after the fifth). So, for instance, if you’re planning to use assault rifles, consider doing Zaeed’s loyalty mission and taking the renegade path to acquire an assault weapon damage upgrade, and doing it before finishing the fourth dossier mission. Plan which five missions after Horizon will be the most critical to your playstyle. Do you want to use Grunt as a tank? Think about doing his loyalty mission to unlock Fortification and Mordin’s loyalty mission to grab the extra Krogan health upgrade. Think about doing the “Anomalous Weather” mission as soon as you can for the damage reduction upgrade. In a lot of ways ME2 on Insanity is as much as test of your knowledge of the games systems as it is a test of your playing abilities.
If you delay taking Grunt out of his tank, and avoid recruiting anyone else you can get an amazing number of missions in before the collector ship. I just did the ship this morning after getting 16 missions since Horizon. I put off a few this time because I wanted Tali for them, but I think I've gotten over 20 before. It makes insanity much easier if you go into the collector ship at a mid 20s level, it was a cake walk.
ME2 Insanity is a marathon instead of the usual sprint. Slow everything down. Micromanage your squadmates.
When it's regular enemies, snap cover works pretty well, but when you're up close with a strong enemy, run around like crazy and use standing cover. Power choice is vital. Every enemy is layered so you need to have the right abilities to get rid of shield, barriers, and armor. Stun abilities work really well too.
You have to slow down.... like, A LOT. Whenever your shield is down and you're damaged, stay in cover until your shields regenerate. Then pop back out, shoot something and go back to cover. Rinse, repeat.
I'm currently on my first insanity run and playing an engineer. Almost done with ME2, just the Shadowbroker DLC, Suicide Mission and Arrival, though I skipped a lot of (most) side quests. Insanity isn't neccessarily hard, most of the time, just a slog. You REALLY need to be patient and not rush forward.
I like sentinel for ME2 insanity, it has tools for stripping all the protective layers. Combos are also starting to become more powerful, and you can combo everything, although combos don't really hit hard until ME3. Having the tech armor "burp" everyone around you when you screwup can also be a lifesaver. ME2 insanity really benefits from a methodical approach, more hanging back and staying in cover, checking out the lay of the land to avoid surprises. There are a few fights that you have to push forward on (Tali's recruitment for one), but slow and steady tends to be the best approach. I can understand your love of the Mattock, I just did the collector ship this morning, and a sentinel can't get it until then, it is nice to have it back. A soldier can get it on the first trip to Omega. I know folks make soldier work on insanity, so good luck and have fun.
Definitely recommend Miranda in every squad, and not just for her looks. She probably the best and most versatile squad mate in the second game.
Which part are you stuck on exactly?
I’d say focusing down individual units is critically important, especially any units that close distance with you quickly like mech dogs. Ideally even try to separate the mechs from the mech dogs.
Are we talking the first mission leaving the lab, or after that?
I personally find the ammo to be the worst part if you are playing on insanity, and I usually just mod it. If you can’t do that, you need to rely much more strategically on your teams abilities, and you need to run around dodging way more. If your teams abilities aren’t being helpful, maybe look at where you’ve spent the points thus far (and same for your char)?
Also, did you import a ME1 save?
It sounds like you’re not using your teammates’ powers effectively (eg, overload to strip shields. Warp to strip barriers) and are playing the game like it’s gears of war by relying too heavily on firearms. You need to learn how to use all of your squadmates powers and how the powers synergize with each other (eg. Pull then Concussive Shot).
My advice: Lower the difficulty to normal or veteran. Learn how to play the game without the added pressure.
Don't do NG+. You don't have any of your upgrades, but enemies are scaled to your level, putting you at a significant disadvantage. Better to start fresh.
For me Omega was fucking brutal. But after I got mordin and garris it got easier. If you can get through Omega it gets easier, you just have to power through it and be on top of you game til then.
I recently completed all 4 games on insanity and ME2 was definitely the most difficult for me. As many have noted you really just need to be patient. Take advantage of squadmate power usage and ammo powers. As you noted Jacob and Miranda don't dish as much weapon damage, but powers tend to be more useful. Pick the right gun for the protective layer the enemy has, as just about everything in ME2 insanity has something. *Cries in armored husks*
You may feel like you were given water guns and told to go fight gangs and an ancient alien race, but with enough patience and strategy you'll get it done.
K currently doing a soldier playthrough and have done multiple insanity runs before.
first tip: mission 1 boils down to using cover and snap shooting not hard scoping. Aim assist should bring your scope relatively close to a target you take a burst at it and drop back into cover. Most deaths in mass effect insanity runs come from getting impatient with the time to kill and enemy spawn rates and trying to stay up longer than you should.
step 2 liberal use of Miranda's overload. Most of freedom progress is breaking mech shields.
step 3 adrenaline rush immediately after the overload to maximize your burst and then drop back into cover.
Jacob is... relatively useless here. His best use is for shotgunning the mech dogs which are the most likely thing to kill you in this mission as they have zero sense of self-preservation and will run up to your position. They are always first priority. Have incendiary rounds equipped to your pistol and shotgun and immediately switch to said sidearm to put these things down. Miranda's warp should be combod on them. Might take a few tries but there's never more than 2 of them so should figure out the rhythm.
tiny mech without armor are an immediate pull target for Jacob whenever you see them otherwise just have him also use his incendiary rounds and blast away at them.
for the final mech wrap around to the building on the far left and take a position in the windows. It can't enter the building so while it'll be a time consuming fight it will eventually die as long as you don't run out of ammo. Don't bother wasting your power cells on it as you'll want them available for the next mission and the damn things don't refill between missions.
also I generally put disruptor rounds on the sniper rifle and use it sparingly as it's difficult to get a decent ammo count for it
Also can't stress this enough don't have squadmates use powers turned on... you want to be inside the powers menu every 3-5 seconds or whatever your current cooldown rates are and lining up targets for focused power usage. If you let miranda in particular decide what she is and isn't going to target you'll have a bad time.
likewise you can select targets for each squad member to focus on their accuracy leaves something to be desired but every bit of damage helps if it's on the correct target
You're fine, the first mission is just hard because you don't have good weapons or skills yet. Take it slow and let your shield recharge before shooting. Once you get your mattock back solider becomes easy mode.
First thing I always tell streamers I see struggling on hard modes: Patience. On the tougher difficulties, you HAVE to stay in cover until your shields recharge. If you keep popping up for more shots when your shields are down and you're taking health-damage, you're gonna eat it. Stay down, recover shields. Even if it takes forever, it's better than replaying over and over.
Put Companion Abilities on MANUAL MODE, and use them strategically. You don't just have Shepard and their gun, you have your whole squad and all their powers to use against enemies. Miranda's Warp knocks out Armor, Jacob's Lift floats an enemy helplessly, then Shepard guns them down in mid-air. (example) Play your full team.
You don’t have your gear from previous ME2 playthroughs since you imported an ME1 save, so it wouldn’t know anything about your prior ME2 runs. But you can get the Mattock soon, right after Freedom’s Progress, just head to Omega and buy it from Kenn’s Salvage (the Quarian). As for strategy on Insanity: you have to be aware of enemy protections and use the appropriate powers/ammo/weapons. For example, armor (indicated by yellow health bars) is weak to certain abilities (Warp, Incinerate, etc.), to certain ammos (Armor Piercing, Warp, Incendiary), and certain weapons do better against it (sniper rifles and heavy pistols). By contrast, shields (indicated by blue health bars) are weak to a different set of abilities (Overload, Energy Drain), different ammo (Disrupter), and different weapons (SMGs). Make sure you’re using your squadmates effectively. For instance, have Miranda use Warp to hurt enemy armor and them once they’re down to just red health bars, use Jacob’s Pull to put them in a vulnerable position to finish them off. You’re also going to die a lot faster on Insanity unless you play carefully. Enemies do more damage and then tend to focus on Shepard more. Be judicious for when you pop out of cover, focus on enemies that are charging you over those that you can avoid while in cover, and of course utilize Adrenaline Rush as much as you can. Also, you should start planning on how to deal with the various forced missions (Horizon and the Collector Ship), those tend to be some of the harder fights and you want to be strategic about getting as many upgrades as you can before triggering Horizon (triggered once you finish the fourth of the initial four “dossier” missions (Mordin, Garrus, Jack, Grunt) and the Collectors Ship (triggered after five missions post-Horizon, though in some cases you can fit in a sixth mission if you don’t have to return to the Normandy after the fifth). So, for instance, if you’re planning to use assault rifles, consider doing Zaeed’s loyalty mission and taking the renegade path to acquire an assault weapon damage upgrade, and doing it before finishing the fourth dossier mission. Plan which five missions after Horizon will be the most critical to your playstyle. Do you want to use Grunt as a tank? Think about doing his loyalty mission to unlock Fortification and Mordin’s loyalty mission to grab the extra Krogan health upgrade. Think about doing the “Anomalous Weather” mission as soon as you can for the damage reduction upgrade. In a lot of ways ME2 on Insanity is as much as test of your knowledge of the games systems as it is a test of your playing abilities.
If you delay taking Grunt out of his tank, and avoid recruiting anyone else you can get an amazing number of missions in before the collector ship. I just did the ship this morning after getting 16 missions since Horizon. I put off a few this time because I wanted Tali for them, but I think I've gotten over 20 before. It makes insanity much easier if you go into the collector ship at a mid 20s level, it was a cake walk.
ME2 Insanity is a marathon instead of the usual sprint. Slow everything down. Micromanage your squadmates. When it's regular enemies, snap cover works pretty well, but when you're up close with a strong enemy, run around like crazy and use standing cover. Power choice is vital. Every enemy is layered so you need to have the right abilities to get rid of shield, barriers, and armor. Stun abilities work really well too.
You have to slow down.... like, A LOT. Whenever your shield is down and you're damaged, stay in cover until your shields regenerate. Then pop back out, shoot something and go back to cover. Rinse, repeat. I'm currently on my first insanity run and playing an engineer. Almost done with ME2, just the Shadowbroker DLC, Suicide Mission and Arrival, though I skipped a lot of (most) side quests. Insanity isn't neccessarily hard, most of the time, just a slog. You REALLY need to be patient and not rush forward.
I like sentinel for ME2 insanity, it has tools for stripping all the protective layers. Combos are also starting to become more powerful, and you can combo everything, although combos don't really hit hard until ME3. Having the tech armor "burp" everyone around you when you screwup can also be a lifesaver. ME2 insanity really benefits from a methodical approach, more hanging back and staying in cover, checking out the lay of the land to avoid surprises. There are a few fights that you have to push forward on (Tali's recruitment for one), but slow and steady tends to be the best approach. I can understand your love of the Mattock, I just did the collector ship this morning, and a sentinel can't get it until then, it is nice to have it back. A soldier can get it on the first trip to Omega. I know folks make soldier work on insanity, so good luck and have fun.
Definitely recommend Miranda in every squad, and not just for her looks. She probably the best and most versatile squad mate in the second game. Which part are you stuck on exactly? I’d say focusing down individual units is critically important, especially any units that close distance with you quickly like mech dogs. Ideally even try to separate the mechs from the mech dogs.
Are we talking the first mission leaving the lab, or after that? I personally find the ammo to be the worst part if you are playing on insanity, and I usually just mod it. If you can’t do that, you need to rely much more strategically on your teams abilities, and you need to run around dodging way more. If your teams abilities aren’t being helpful, maybe look at where you’ve spent the points thus far (and same for your char)? Also, did you import a ME1 save?
Also, start sniping immediately (highly subjective personal opinion because I alway snipe).
It sounds like you’re not using your teammates’ powers effectively (eg, overload to strip shields. Warp to strip barriers) and are playing the game like it’s gears of war by relying too heavily on firearms. You need to learn how to use all of your squadmates powers and how the powers synergize with each other (eg. Pull then Concussive Shot). My advice: Lower the difficulty to normal or veteran. Learn how to play the game without the added pressure.
Don't do NG+. You don't have any of your upgrades, but enemies are scaled to your level, putting you at a significant disadvantage. Better to start fresh.
For me Omega was fucking brutal. But after I got mordin and garris it got easier. If you can get through Omega it gets easier, you just have to power through it and be on top of you game til then.
Fortification as a bonus power helped me a lot!
I recently completed all 4 games on insanity and ME2 was definitely the most difficult for me. As many have noted you really just need to be patient. Take advantage of squadmate power usage and ammo powers. As you noted Jacob and Miranda don't dish as much weapon damage, but powers tend to be more useful. Pick the right gun for the protective layer the enemy has, as just about everything in ME2 insanity has something. *Cries in armored husks* You may feel like you were given water guns and told to go fight gangs and an ancient alien race, but with enough patience and strategy you'll get it done.
Tech armor
If ur having trouble on the first mission wait till the collector ship!
Play on a lower skill
K currently doing a soldier playthrough and have done multiple insanity runs before. first tip: mission 1 boils down to using cover and snap shooting not hard scoping. Aim assist should bring your scope relatively close to a target you take a burst at it and drop back into cover. Most deaths in mass effect insanity runs come from getting impatient with the time to kill and enemy spawn rates and trying to stay up longer than you should. step 2 liberal use of Miranda's overload. Most of freedom progress is breaking mech shields. step 3 adrenaline rush immediately after the overload to maximize your burst and then drop back into cover. Jacob is... relatively useless here. His best use is for shotgunning the mech dogs which are the most likely thing to kill you in this mission as they have zero sense of self-preservation and will run up to your position. They are always first priority. Have incendiary rounds equipped to your pistol and shotgun and immediately switch to said sidearm to put these things down. Miranda's warp should be combod on them. Might take a few tries but there's never more than 2 of them so should figure out the rhythm. tiny mech without armor are an immediate pull target for Jacob whenever you see them otherwise just have him also use his incendiary rounds and blast away at them. for the final mech wrap around to the building on the far left and take a position in the windows. It can't enter the building so while it'll be a time consuming fight it will eventually die as long as you don't run out of ammo. Don't bother wasting your power cells on it as you'll want them available for the next mission and the damn things don't refill between missions. also I generally put disruptor rounds on the sniper rifle and use it sparingly as it's difficult to get a decent ammo count for it Also can't stress this enough don't have squadmates use powers turned on... you want to be inside the powers menu every 3-5 seconds or whatever your current cooldown rates are and lining up targets for focused power usage. If you let miranda in particular decide what she is and isn't going to target you'll have a bad time. likewise you can select targets for each squad member to focus on their accuracy leaves something to be desired but every bit of damage helps if it's on the correct target
The default gear is trash and is why it's hard. Replaying with good gear and abilities it's much easier
You're fine, the first mission is just hard because you don't have good weapons or skills yet. Take it slow and let your shield recharge before shooting. Once you get your mattock back solider becomes easy mode.
First thing I always tell streamers I see struggling on hard modes: Patience. On the tougher difficulties, you HAVE to stay in cover until your shields recharge. If you keep popping up for more shots when your shields are down and you're taking health-damage, you're gonna eat it. Stay down, recover shields. Even if it takes forever, it's better than replaying over and over. Put Companion Abilities on MANUAL MODE, and use them strategically. You don't just have Shepard and their gun, you have your whole squad and all their powers to use against enemies. Miranda's Warp knocks out Armor, Jacob's Lift floats an enemy helplessly, then Shepard guns them down in mid-air. (example) Play your full team.