Biotic Skills

Throw

Think "Force Push". Throw causes enemies in your sights to be thrust backwards away from the caster. It doesn't do much damage, but it can knock enemies down, forcing them to get back up again before they can continue the fight, allowing you and your teammates to shoot them while they're lying on the ground. If you manage to push your enemy into an area where they normally wouldn't be able to go, or off a cliff, they'll often die instantly.

Advanced/Master Throw: As you increase the strength of Throw, the damage and distance that your targets get thrown will increase, as will the radius of effect, while the recharge time will decrease.

Lift is arguably the best biotic skill you can acquire.

Lift

Lift raises enemies into the air, immobilizing them and preventing them from taking action for a few seconds. This is going to be one of the primary offensive abilities of a biotic character. Not that it's necessarily all that offensive; Lift, in and of itself, does not do much damage to enemies. However, while enemies are Lifted, they'll be incapable of firing on you, allowing you to shoot them without a care in the world. Lifting will also let you bring enemies up above their cover positions. As with Throw, any enemies that drop into an unmapped area of a level will instantly die.

Advanced/Master Lift: Increased the radius, duration, and reduces the recharge time.

Warp

Warp is a damage-over-time spell. When cast on enemies, or a group of enemies, it will deal a small amount of damage to them every second and decrease the amount of protection from damage that their armor lends them. This is probably the least useful of the biotic skills; by the time you get far up the tree here, the damage dealt will be a pittance compared to the damage you'll be able to deal from your weapons. The protection reduction feature is nice, but if you have a character capable of Overloading shields, that's just as good.

Advanced/Master Warp: Further increases the damage, radius, and duration of Warp while reducing its recharge time.

Singularity will create some amusing effects while incapacitating enemies.

Singularity

Singularity is another very useful biotic skill. It's somewhat like Lift, in that it can suck enemies upwards, but instead of only going upwards, Singularity can force them up, down, or all around. It creates a small area of energy that will suck all nearby foes towards it. If it lasts long enough, they'll actually go into orbit around it. You can use Singularity in some weird ways, such as by casting it in such a spot so that it pulls your foes out from cover, or sucks them out over a ledge so that they fall to their deaths, but in general it will usually be useful mostly as an incapacitating device.

Advanced/Master Warp: Further increases the radius and duration of Warp while reducing its recharge time.

Barrier

Barrier temporarily overcharges your shields, causing them to become capable of absorbing much more damage for a short period of time. This is a handy skill to have for Adepts and other light armor-wearing classes, as it will let you absorb damage as you position yourself to make the most use of your abilities in combat.

Advanced/Master Barrier: As you increase your skill level with Barrier, it will become capable of absorbing more damage, will last longer, and will have a lower recharge rate. By the time you Master the skill, you'll be capable of keeping Barrier up over half the time.

Stasis

Stasis locks an enemy into a mass effect field, preventing them from moving or attacking, but also preventing them from taking damage. It's a handy way to isolate a particular enemy while you take down its teammates. Unfortunately it only works on one enemy at a time, when most of the combat you're in will be against many enemies simultaneously. It can still be useful to eliminate that Krogan Battlemaster that's charging at you, or temporarily restrain a single tough enemy in the midst of a bunch of cannon fodder, but in most cases your skill points will be better spent elsewhere, at least in our opinion.

Advanced/Master Stasis: Increases the length of time that enemies are locked up while reducing the recharge time.