History GameBreaker / MassEffect

* Adrenaline Rush. Unlike the later games, each power in [=ME1=] has its own cooldown, independent of all the others. What Adrenaline Rush does is reset the cooldowns of all your powers so you can use them again instantly. In the hands of a Vanguard, this essentially amounts to dual-casting Lift, Throw, and Barrier, with a side of Marksman/Carnage for good measure. And by the time all those run out, you'll probably be ready for another Adrenaline Rush. Oh, and since you've got a bio-amp anyway, Vanguards are ideal for using a biotic bonus power like Singularity for even more chaos. And in case you're worried that tech powers were left out of the fun, Garrus also packs Adrenaline Rush for all your rapid-fire-Overload/Sabotage needs. Enjoy.

** They benefit from Tactical Cloak's unique cooldown mechanic - should the Tactical Cloak be cancelled before it naturally expires, it has a reduced cooldown. You can break Cloak early by shooting or using a power and getting a damage boost from Cloak. Normally, you'd want light weapons (which give bonuses to cooldown) to ensure the cooldown for a useful power like Tactical Cloak remains short. However, by breaking cloak immediately after engaging it, you can force its cooldown to be as low as ''three seconds.'' This means Infiltrators get an unparalled damage boost to ''both'' powers and weapons (most classes only have passive skill trees that benefit one or the other), and can carry the heaviest (and generally most powerful) weapons in the game while still spamming powers freely with Tactical Cloak's damage boosts.
* Power combos are nice enough on their own, but what really broke the difficulty in the single-player was when some observant players discovered the ability to chain different types of power combos. Before patches, it was discovered that using Warp to detonate a Tech Burst did not stop it from priming the target for a Biotic Explosion. Patch 1.04 introduced the ability to keep up repeated Tech Bursts and Fire Explosions just by alternating between Overload and Incinerate. Once this was discovered, Atlases, Geth Primes, and Banshees became the only enemies to provide any challenge. All other shielded enemies found themselves being wiped out en masse. This feature is especially kind to the Engineer and Sentinel classes. The former can damage and stunlock everything at a rapid rate while their drone and turret distract enemies or just shoot rockets at them while the latter went from the JackOfAllStats to the MasterOfAll, especially with Warp Ammo.
* Flare, a bonus power unlocked upon completing the Omega DLC. It's a biotic power that triggers a powerful explosion with a huge radius. It has a base radius of 6 meters, roughly twice that of any power other than some of the grenades, and can be evolved up to a potential maximum of 10.8 meters. Meanwhile, it inflicts close to or over 1000 points of damage, much better than other offensive powers like Warp, and it can be used to detonate Biotic effects and even has an evolution for increasing the damage, force, and radius of Biotic Explosions. Although it's got the longest cooldown time of any power to date in single player, Shepard can still pretty easily bring it down to six seconds or less by selecting lightweight weapons and gear and bonus power recharge rate boosts. Doing nothing but heading for cover and casting it multiple times is sufficient to win most encounters, since each casting will inflict heavy damage to all large enemies in the radius and instantly kill all mooks. Oh, and it sets off pre-existing biotic primers, such as Reave, Warp, Singularity, and a few others. Double explosions FTW! And it can be upgraded to make Biotic explosions more powerful. And it's the only Biotic power in the entire game that's highly effective vs Shields. Properly built, it's entirely possible for Shepard to go an entire game never doing anything but chucking a Biotic primer power and Flare at everything they come across. In other words, Flare can be akin to hitting the "I Win" button.
* Lash, the other Omega bonus power, is also extremely powerful. Normally it flings enemies around with a relatively low cooldown, as well as dealing a reasonable amount of damage. The final upgrade, however, makes it the only biotic physics power to work on shielded enemies, albeit for lowered damage. That is, enemies that normally need to be extensively damaged before they can be pulled out of cover/knocked around can be sent flying right at the start of the fight, and are entirely powerless to keep themselves from being thrown from wall to wall until they’ve been easily shot to death. In levels with pitfalls, normally dangerous enemies can be thrown over the edge before they have a chance to do a single harmful thing. In particular, it breaks the Kai Leng boss fights. Normally, he is impossible to knock over or hinder, as he always has shielding, and so will constantly pursue Shepard with dangerous melee attacks; with lash, he can immediately be slammed into the wall and Shepard and crew can stand over his defenseless body shooting him repeatedly until he tries to stand up, at which point he can immediately sent sent flying again and the process can start again. Lash makes this normally tricky boss literally defenseless and harmless.
* Surprisingly enough, the humble Concussive Shot. Exclusive to the Soldier class, it was really only useful against barriers and unshielded husks in ''2'', but its final rank allows it to have the effects of the active ammo power applied to it, allowing it to burn, freeze, disrupt, warp, or pierce armor. Mind you that the Soldier has three different ammo powers just to start, and can pick up the remaining two as bonus powers, allowing them to set up combos of their choice at will. Selecting the right weapons can give the Soldier a maxed-out power recharge rate, allowing you to chain combos and buzz-saw through enemies with little resistance even on Insanity.
* The M8-Avenger is the game's starting rifle, and as such is a JackOfAllStats, with no major weaknesses except being unpredictable at long range, and no major strengths other than being very lightweight. The High Velocity Barrel from the ''Omega'' DLC turns the Avenger into a death machine as it ignores 90% of armor and punches through cover like it was made of toilet paper. The reason why the HVB is the perfect match for the Avenger is that the HVB adds a weapon's weight by 50%, but the Avenger is so light that with a few upgrades it practically negates the weight penalty, making it an awesome combination for power-spamming classes. Oh and if you find the accuracy to be a problem, slap a scope on it and you can snipe enemies across entire hallways. This also works with the M7-Lancer, which is an Avenger with a bit more recoil but with the cooldown mechanic from the first game.

** The N7 Crusader Shotgun. It fires a single, accurate, solid slug rather than buckshot. This essentially makes it an unscoped sniper rifle, with comparable stopping power to the single shot sniper rifles...except it's semi-auto.
** The N7 Eagle. It's got the accuracy and power of a pistol, and the fire rate of a SMG. Put a scope on it, and you have a full auto SniperPistol. Like the Particle Rifle, you can probably take nothing but the Eagle and do just fine. Note that this doesn't apply to multiplayer, where the N7 Eagle is seen as one of the worst guns in the game.

** The N7 Hurricane; if you can learn how to handle the prohibitive recoil, it's got more power per shot than any other SMG, and with magazine expansions, can dish out a whole world of pain. It's especially game breaking when employed by the Turian Soldier class in multiplayer with level V heatsink and thermal clip mods. The Turian Soldier's signature skill, Marksman, increases the firing rate and ammo count and decreases the recoil of his guns. In his hands the modified Hurricane becomes a super accurate death machine that never stops firing.

** At the top of this list should be the Cerberus Harrier, from the ''Firefight Pack'' DLC and the multiplayer ''Rebellion'' DLC. It's a modified version of the M-96 Mattock DMR (which is already listed in the ''[=ME2=]'' section of this document) that fires in full auto, and as of the MP ''Reckoning'' expansion it is the most commonly used weapon in multi-player. Why? It deals great damage, has a superb rate of fire, and is only a mid-weight assault rifle. It stands head and shoulders above every other assault rifle, and can be used by a wide variety of classes, save the most power-centric. Its only flaw is a truly horrendous clip size, which can be fixed with a weapon mod.
** The Particle Rifle (from the ''From Ashes'' DLC) runs on the same "cooldown" system from the original game, but also uses a beam that gets stronger as the trigger is held down. Not only can the weapon be acquired right after Mars, it can also be augmented like the other weapons with mods. A Particle Rifle with a magazine upgrade and extended barrel will have much more ammo than normal, and will chew through enemy defenses easily, even on Insanity difficulty. Even better, if a Soldier class runs the beam's ammo down to 0 and uses Adrenaline Rush, the weapon's reloading animation (which often takes several seconds) is skipped and the ammo will refill again, saving precious seconds in combat. Finally, it allows LoopholeAbuse: the weight system penalizes you with increased cooldowns if you overburden your character, but ''grants cooldown reduction'' if you manage to find a single gun that can handle both long-range precision operations ''and'' fending off swarms of Husks. You know, like the Particle Rifle can. You can go through the entire solo campaign with no other weapon equipped and never even notice.
** The Venom Shotgun from the ''Groundside Resistance Pack'' DLC is described, even on the ME wiki, as having all the benefits of a heavy weapon from the [[VideoGame/MassEffect2 previous game]], minus the ammo issues. It fires high power grenades, rather than shotgun blasts. Like the Geth Plasma Shotgun, it can charge for added damage, but the similarities end there. Whilst the Geth shotgun can empty its magazine with one fully charged shot, the Venom only uses one shot for each fully charged attack, allowing for four high power blasts before it needs to cool down. With maxed-out upgrades, an extended barrel and incendiary ammo (which is fairly easy to accomplish early on), the Venom becomes a beast that can one-shot Brutes and Phantoms, and take down Geth Primes, Banshees and Atlases (some of the hardest enemies in the game) in three-four shots. Aside from weight issues, it makes any difficulty up to and including Insanity a complete joke.
** The N7 Piranha shotgun (also from ''Groundside Resistance'' and the ''Earth'' multiplayer pack) has very poor accuracy and a small clip size, but with the right stability upgrades it can do monstrous damage with near-perfect accuracy. To put this in perspective, in single-player, the Level I version of the Pirahna is better than the ''Level X'' Katana shotgun (which is also acquired near the beginning of the game).
** The Krysae Sniper Rifle (from the ''Firefight Pack'' and the ''Rebellion'' multiplayer pack) might as well have been called the Krysae Rocket Launcher. Though it can't get headshots, the rounds it fires are explosive and operate on a proximity charge, allowing it to blow up groups of targets with one or two shots each, even on Gold difficulty. With a few damage bonuses even boss-type enemies fall prey to the Krysae's wrath. This gun was ''the'' reason that Tactical Cloak and Hunter Mode were nerfed in multiplayer, since they both provided too much synergy with it. And even after being nerfed, it's ''still'' in widespread use to this day.

** The M-7 Lancer Assault Rifle (also from the ''Reckoning'' DLC) combines the recharging ammo of the Particle Rifle with the power and high rate of fire of the Cerberus Harrier, giving you arguably one of the most powerful weapons in the game. And on top of that, it is also one of the lightest assault rifles in the game, so all but the most power dependent of classes can use it without any problem. Combined with the explosive burst evolution of incendiary ammo, it can kill a Brute on insanity in around five seconds of sustained fire. The only downside is the slightly less than forgiving recoil, which can easily be taken care of with a stability mod.

** The M-90 Indra (formerly a PreOrderBonus) is handed to Shepard by Liara after completing the "Shore Leave" mission. It's basically a full auto sniper rifle that might not have the punch of, say, the Widow, but add-ons and upgrades fix that. Throw in special talents like cloak or the ability to slow down time when aiming and you could take down Harvesters. Unaided.
* The Claymore shotgun, while already a partial gamebreaker in the second game, is even more of a game breaker here, especially with a vanguard. It only fires a single shot, but it will one hit kill almost any enemy in the game, even powerful enemies like brutes or phantoms, and only a few enemies remain genuinely dangerous once Shepard gets it, such as Banshees or Atlases. Throw in a Vanguard's Biotic Charge, which allows you to get into a group of enemies very quickly, and a lot of enemies can be easily beaten. Shepard can just walk through otherwise challenging levels just fine with the Claymore shotgun with no real danger of taking damage.
* Even in the vanilla game, there are a few things that stand out as impressively broken. The Javelin sniper rifle has a scope that highlights enemies behind cover, is virtually as powerful as the Widow, and has innate cover penetration. Combine this with Armor Piercing Ammo and a high-level Piercing modification, and the Javelin can pierce multiple consecutive layers of cover and still be lethal. It is entirely possible to kill enemies several rooms away, or from such a huge distance that their A.I routines don't even trigger a response to the multiple heads exploding around them. Seems that both the Quarians[[note]]The ones who originally created the Widow[[/note]] and the Geth[[note]]The creators of the Javelin[[/note]] had a thing creating overpowered sniper rifles.
* Slam is subject to some... interesting interactions with the physics engine. A properly timed combination of Slam to lift a target, followed instantly by warp as the target begins to rise off the ground will result int them being launched dozens of meters into the air before slamming back down at tremendous velocity. Absolutely no Slam-vulnerability enemy in the game will survive this combo, even on Insanity. Mixing in Overload/Energy Drain to strip shields off priority targets essentially translates to any humanoid opponent dead in a single fast-recharging combination attack. While not much use against larger reaper enemies, missions against Cerberus become a series of 'who can bounce the highest' contests, as only Atlas mechs cannot be Slammed.
* Several of Shepard's squadmates can be gamebreakers in the right hands.
** Kaidan is the king of power combos. He can set up three, something no other character can do outside the ''Citadel'' arena, and detonate all four. As long as there is another biotic in the team, Reave and Overload ensure that there is literally no situation where Kaidan cannot prime a power combo that will wreck the enemy's day. The combination of [[BarrierWarrior Barrier and Reave]] also gives Kaidan utility as a damage sponge that surpasses the squad's designated tank even with his significantly lower health, and his ability to use both pistols and assault rifles lets him keep his damage up. If evolved properly, Barrier's cooldown penalty can be nearly negated by Kaidan's default outfit.
** Ashley has the squad's second highest base weapon damage. Later patches ruined her [[MoreDakka Marksman]] ability, but gave her some other deadly tools to work with due to the fact that, out of her remaining three powers, Concussive Shot is the only one with a cooldown. Ashley can blast an enemy for a bit while empowered by Disruptor Ammo, then throw an Inferno Grenade to trigger a Tech Burst and wipe out her target's shields, then immediately follow up with a Concussive Shot to trigger a Fire Explosion that will heavily damage health or armor. Combined with her high weapon damage, Ashley can mow through large numbers of enemies with no help from Shepard or the third squadmate. And as of ''Legendary Edition'', Marksman works, which [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill combines the power of the different patch levels]].

** Liara's Singularity and Stasis powers let her lock down large groups of mooks at once, leaving you to either blast them with a biotic explosion or ignore them in favor of priority targets. Warp is also useful as a general damage-dealer and biotic detonator, and with a Paladin she can be entirely reasonable at gunplay as well.

* Multiplayer has its share of incredibly broken classes and skills:
** The final MP DLC, ''Reckoning'', all but cements the place of Infiltrators as the most powerful class, in the form of the Alliance Infiltration Unit. The [=AIU=] has a unique cloak similar to the Turian Ghost's: its final evolution at rank 6 can give a boost to shotgun damage fired from cloak. Powerful, but not game-breaking. Its true power lies in another ability: Repair Matrix. Repair matrix offers the [=AIU=] some general buffs (speed boost, damage reduction, and shield regeneration), and most importantly, ''a free revive when she would be downed.'' For literally very other character in the game, going down means you either wait for a teammate to revive you (and risk being executed by an enemy or simply bleeding out in the meanwhile), or using a medi-gel (of which you can bring at most 6 per game). Proper application of Repair Matrix means you will never die, because you'll revive instantly. The kicker? Repair Matrix is a ''grenade-based'' power. This means you can freely refill at ammo boxes. Because Repair Matrix can have a duration of roughly 20 seconds, you can simply run from ammo box to ammo box, all under the protection of Repair Matrix, and so completely trivialize damage taken and death.
** The Asari Huntress is perhaps the most powerful asari class. They have Tactical Cloak, of course, and Dark Channel, a powerful biotic damage-over-time power (previously only available to Javik in single-player and the N7 Fury in multiplayer). These two powers combine for a devastating ability that eats up foes' health. First, the Huntress's Tactical Cloak was released bugged--it only gave damage boosts to melee attacks and powers, not weapons. Rather than wait for a patch to fix the bug, it was decided that the Huntress would be given a unique Tactical Cloak: her Tactical Cloak can give a ''120%'' bonus to general damage (though that still only applies to powers and melee) as opposed to the 80% of other Infiltrators, with a further 40% boost to biotic powers instead of sniper damage. Second, Dark Channel while decently powerful but not exceptional on its own, gets a damage boost from Tactical Cloak for the ''entirety'' of its duration. So while your cloak may break right after you use Dark Channel, it keeps that 120% damage boost until it runs out... and if its current target dies before that duration expires, it'll simply jump to a nearby foe. A Dark Channel cast under cloak is capable of killing a ''[[DemonicSpiders Banshee]]'' from full health on Gold difficulty, all while the Huntress is running about targeting other foes.
** The Drell Assassin Infiltrator, as yet another example of why Infiltrators are often considered the most powerful class. Drell have excellent passive bonuses to power and weapons damage, with a unique speed boost evolution in another skill tree, making them fast and hard-hitting. As an Infiltrator, he also gets Tactical Cloak. And he gets Recon Mine, which highlights all enemies in a rather large radius, making them visible through smoke and even ''walls'', as well as potentially slowing them and making them more vulnerable to damage. The icing on the cake? You can detonate the mine, dealing massive damage to all enemies in range. Recon Mine is only available on the Drell Assassin and the Volus Engineer, which as a support class offers much less damage potential. Its fortunately balanced by the fact that Drell are [[GlassCannon Glass Cannons]], with low base health and shields.
** The Geth Infiltrator toting an N7 Piranha is agreed by many to be the best multiplayer character. The already overpowered Piranha loses its spread thanks to accuracy bonuses, becoming viable at range, and its already high damage is amped up by cloak, hunter mode and (optionally) proximity mine debuffs.
** The Geth Trooper Soldier can deal obscene amounts of damage against armor and health using its flamer ability. While the class has no abilities effective against shields, this can be counteracted by equipping it with an anti shield/barrier weapon such as the Acolyte or Reegar shotgun while still maintaining a relatively low cooldown period. To top this all off, the Trooper has 1000 base shield which can be further upgraded using its class ability with damage reduction added on by Fortification. And of course the Trooper has access to Hunter Mode. At the cost of slightly reduced durability, the Trooper can see through walls and deal even more damage from weapon and ability alike. And unlike most "tank" classes, the Trooper still maintains its agility
** The Geth Juggernaut, basically a playable version of the Geth Prime, is so big that it can't use cover and moves very slowly (it can't even run), but it has more health and shields at Level 1 than most classes could possibly get at full upgrade, and all of its powers can be evolved to further increase its toughness. It also has a heavy melee that recharges its own shields and, more importantly, immobilizes small-sized enemies, allowing it to [[CherryTapping Cherry Tap]] terrors like [[DemonicSpiders Phantoms and Dragoons]]. It's also immune to sync-kill moves, which makes it viable strategy to have a Juggernaut walk up to a [[BossInMooksClothing Banshee or Atlas]], throw a turret or hex shield in front of it, and then heavy-melee the closest enemy while the rest of the squad pour fire on enemies converging on the Juggernaut. This is viable even on Platinum difficulty, where the Juggernaut can stand at an entryway or corridor, and then become a StoneWall by using the heavy melee, turning the entryway into a chokepoint as the hordes of enemies plug up the bottleneck trying to reach the Juggernaut. If executed properly and not flanked, the Juggernaut can do this pretty much indefinitely to buy the rest of the squad precious time to deal with other threats. There's even a piece of gear (aptly named the Juggernaut Shield) that improves shields and melee damage to further improve survivability. A group of Juggernauts is even more devastating, as they can assist each other by stunning enemies, deploying energy shields as cover and turrets that can restore each other's shields. It's BoringButPractical, but the Jugg's survivability and usefulness makes the N7 Destroyer pale in comparison.
** The N7 Destroyer Soldier is basically ''ComicBook/IronMan'' brought to the ''Mass Effect'' universe. The character is in a big suit of powered armor and is quite powerful. Devastator Mode, even after being nerfed, increases weapon damage, rate of fire and magazine capacity in exchange for losing a bit of movement speed. Additionally, with Devastator Mode active, the Destroyer '''cannot be stunned.''' That means that all those overpowered Geth attacks that cause you to stumble will still damage you, but your firing won't be interrupted. Secondly, the Destroyer has the Hawk Missile Launcher. It's an auto-firing missile launcher that can be upgraded in a variety of ways. Its only drawback is that it decreases your max shields. That's a small price to pay for a missile launcher that has an unlimited ammo capacity, doesn't need to be manually locked on or fired and stuns most regular enemies. Finally, the Destroyer has Multi-Frag Grenade, which is pretty good when it comes to grenade powers. All that, though? Not the best part. The best part is that apart from enabling Devastator Mode and the Hawk Missile Launcher at the beginning of a match, the Destroyer '''never''' has to worry about cooldown. That means that a Destroyer player can equip the heaviest two weapons he or she wants with no penalty whatsoever. It's no wonder why Bioware nerfed the Destroyer.
** The N7 Shadow possesses Shadow Strike, a teleporting backstab that synergises with its cloak and lets it zip around the field like a Vanguard. When set up properly it can inflict massive damage (boosted by both melee, cloak and power attack bonuses) without breaking cloak, possibly twice in a row. The class also has the benefit of cloak (handy for objectives and reviving allies) and a cover-piercing shockwave attack that can set up its own tech bursts and be used in combo with Shadow Strike.
** The Targeting VI, an item which will augment headshot damage by 25%, 50%, or 100%, depending on the level. If you can consistently get headshots, you can use this in conjunction with a semi-automatic sniper rifle - say, the Raptor or the Viper. Watch yourself score at the top of matches every time.
** The Turian Ghost infiltrator class has amazing synergy with assault rifles, with class passives improving stability and a cloak variant that boosts their damage even more than normal damage-specced cloaks. They combine this with the general utility of cloak, a cloak-boosted overload for stunning and shield-stripping, and Stim Packs, which are deployed instantly like grenades and instantly refill shields (temporarily raising them above max) and give a damage bonus. They can get all this power and survivability and still use heavy weapons without penalty by breaking cloak as soon as it deploys.
** The Krogan Warlord Sentinel is what Shepard would be if s/he had four testicles and a hammer large enough to kill a small elephant with. He finds the concept of guns and keeping distance from a fight quaint, launching into the fray with a biotically- or electrically-charged hammer that can kill lesser foes in one shot, and demolish bigger ones with a few more. He gains strength from the ludicrous amounts of enemies he can kill, and has tech armour to replace shields. Which probably won't be needed, since he regains shields and health at an ungodly rate. He does have two particular weaknesses: He is still vulnerable to sync-kills, so he shouldn't just run up to a Banshee or an Atlas head on, and must either come from the side or back, or exploit whatever precious little range his hammer gives him. At higher difficulties this can become a CripplingOverspecialization, as enemies will use sync-kills at every opportunity, and the Battlemaster has no long-range powers, but that doesn't mean he can't equip a gun. In fact, his powers being limited to recharging the effects on his hammer and applying and detonating his tech armor mean that players can load up on the heaviest weapons they like with minimal drawbacks. Getting swarmed by enemies where you would want to detonate tech armor simply means he can use the hammer more. His other weakness is a complete inability to take cover or dodge, but this can be mitigated by finding big enough things to hide behind. His MightyGlacier speed (his walking pace is roughly half that of human characters) is offset once he enters the Krogan Rage, which is triggered by killing two or, with the right upgrade, just one enemy in melee in a relatively generous period and upgrades your weapon and melee damage output and resistance and health regen and movement speed. Considering enemies tend to come in clusters, it's easy to stay in Rage for an entire game, only possibly slipping out due to the time between waves.
** With the human vanguard, if the player is hosting, however, a certain trick you can perform when you use the Nova [[note]]The game grants about a second of immunity to any form of damage whatsoever, which you can exploit by cancelling the Nova by, for example, rolling to the side or performing a quick melee attack. Provided you don't run into enemies that can instantly kill you or stagger you, you could walk across a field of Cerberus turrets and come out none the worse for wear by abusing this.[[/note]] turns you into an unstoppable killing machine with some practice. Slap a powerful, yet light enough gun on the human Vanguard and you won't need teammates.

** The [[CoolSword Asari Huntress Sword]]. It has the highest damage of any melee weapon, and its attack is essentially a short-range Biotic Charge with no cool-down, allowing you to melee attack targets from much further away and are much less likely to miss. Its sole weakness is a longer attack animation than the others, but that's hardly any trouble at all since Ryder is invicible for the duration.

** The Talon pistol is a very handy weapon to have in this game, as it is basically a shotgun masquerading as a pistol. Although, it has a pistol's weight, it has the damage of a shotgun, making it particularly useful for a Ryder that switches between profiles. Since the Talon's weight is low, it has a minimized effect on cool downs, allowing Ryder to also bring along say a SniperRifle and/or an assault rifle. Ryder can now switch to a Vanguard profile and murderize enemies up close and personal, from any other profile, without a significant cool down penalty. Want to combine being an Infiltrator and Vanguard? Now, with this Talon you can!! The Plasma Charge and Seeking Plasma augs, which are normally [[ScrappyWeapon found in the scrap heap]], really shine with this pistol, as the seeking plasma ensures that all pellets ''will'' strike your target, doing more damage, while the plasma charge lets you operate this pistol as a plasma grenade launcher that does increased damage.
** Remember the Particle Rifle from ''3''? It's back. It's called the Particle Accelerator Weapon and it's Remnant instead of [[spoiler:Prothean]], but it works the same as its Milky Way counterpart did: a continuous beam delivering face-melting amounts of damage with pinpoint accuracy, even at long range. This means that, even before Weapon Mods are added, it's once again versatile enough to be carried as Ryder's only weapon, especially if our Pathfinder has opted for a power-heavy build and doesn't want to exceed weight limits. The P.A.W.'s only downside compared to the Particle Rifle is that it lacks the "do more damage the longer you've fired" thing, but let's face it, none of us ever went into battle thinking, "But it's the fact that my gun is a [[VideoGame/StarCraftII miniature Void Ray]] that will ''really'' trounce the Reapers."
*** Put the Grenade launcher or Sticky Grenade launcher augmentation on the PAW and it becomes a beast that can even take Fiends down in ten seconds. Since the Grenade launcher’s rate of fire is meant to mimic that of a ballistic weapon, combining it with the PAW means you are practically beaming over a continuous stream of grenades. Which then explode at the same time like a cluster bomb. And since the PAW doesn’t have an ammunition limit, you can keep launching these cluster grenade streams indefinitely.

** Cryo Beam and Flamethrower not only deal serious damage to enemies, but they also cause them to panic or freeze, giving Ryder time for a free detonation. Enemies that are immune to those effects (such as ones with armor) will have their defenses severely weakened for several seconds after either power is used. One of the best methods for taking out Fiends, in fact, is to order both squadmates to attack them while alternating between Flamethrower and Cryo Beam. By the time one has finished firing, the other's {{cooldown}} will be almost finished if not completely. While both abilities are slightly hindered by their limited range and necessity to stay out of cover for the duration, they are so powerful in their specific niches that it's worth keeping one Profile with both of them at the ready, with either Energy Drain or Biotic Charge as the third ability to both detonate a combo and restore shields if necessary.

** The Life Support upgrade for the Team Support passive. Regenerating health every time you use a tech power is an enormous boost to survivability, especially on Insanity Mode, and combining it with the Team Drain upgrade on Energy Drain essentially allows the player to create their own version of Shield Boost, the very power that makes Cora so useful, that sacrifices a bit of power for the ability to use it at will while dealing with the enemy's shields and possibly priming Tech Combos.
** The Cobra RPG, a consumable power that is not unlike the heavy weapons from ''3''. Launched from the omni-tool with next to no priming time, they're a one-hit-kill on most enemies with incredible splash damage, and heavily damaging to things like [[HumongousMecha Remnant Architects]] and all those larger forms of wildlife you'll run into. A vendor on Aya will sell five at a time, so a player that visits frequently (or just saves and loads a game to refresh the vendor's inventory) can stock up enough to use them like candy. They're expensive, but considering the amount of ShopFodder an average player will drop off over the course of a single planet it's very easy to build up a reserve. The only other downside is that they take up a slot in your consumables list, so early on you may have to choose between that and a special ammo type or shield capacitors.

** Cora, by virtue of being TheMedic ''and'' an extremely powerful LightningBruiser to boot. As long as you don't have serious issues with her personality, chances are good you'll never go into battle without her. She's very resilient thanks to her high health and shield pools - it takes concentrated boss-level firepower to even have a chance at downing her in combat. Her Shield Boost makes both her and the rest of the squad (including Ryder) next to unkillable and can be upgraded to have a ridiculously short cooldown, so it can be active almost constantly; depending on upgrades, it can even regenerate health. To top it off, her offensive abilities are among the strongest of any squad mate you have, what with being a full-fledged Vanguard with all the game-breaking biotic powers that entails. Also, since she tends to fight at melee distance, a lot of enemies will be focusing fire on her instead of you much of the time. If you're exploring and fighting without Cora, you must be desperate for that extra bit of challenge.
** Drack continues the trend of Krogan being nigh unstoppable monsters on the battle field. Between a massive health/shield pool, the best damage resistance in the squad, and Blood Rage making him literally unkillable for its duration, practically nothing can actually stop him. With Unstoppable, even if he does somehow go down he'll get back up on his own, meaning so long as Ryder lives Drack will ''never'' stop fighting. His Incendiary Ammo upgrade also means every shot he fires can Prime targets for combos. Incinerate can both prime ''and'' detonate combos with proper upgrades which makes him perfect for setting up lots of fiery explosions. Bring him and Cora together and your squad will roll through all but the toughest encounters with ease.

** Vintage Heat Sink brings back the original ''Mass Effect'' cooldown mechanics for guns. Popping this into one of the overpowered weapons, like the Isharay, N7 Piranha, or Black Widow, will turn Ryder into a death-dealing juggernaut who will never run out of ammunition.
** When using the infiltrator profile (which lets you see the silhouette of enemies when scoped, even if they're behind walls) the mods which increase penetration are '''completely''' unfair. Whenever your enemy takes cover, they become sitting ducks for you to just shoot ''through'' said cover, especially with an Isharay to kill them with one shot. You can even penetrate the normally invulnerable forward-facing barrier on Nullifiers.
** The Fusion Mod of Adrenaline is in a class of its own. In exchange for increasing all power recharge speeds by 50%, you gain the ability to reset all power cooldowns everytime you kill an enemy. You'll essentially be able to spam Biotic/Tech/Fire/Cold combos without worry for cooldowns and wipe out entire camps of mooks like they're nothing.
** Patch 1.08 added augments that can alter a weapon's firing type. For example, a semi-auto assault rifle can be converted to a full auto rifle. This comes at the cost of a forty percent reduction to damage per hit, which is not nearly enough to balance it out. Placing the full-auto augment on an N7 Valkyrie will create a weapon that still has very high damage per hit for its weapon class while having an exceptional firing rate and being more accurate than an assault rifle has any right to be. A full-auto Valkyrie will melt enemies on Insanity mode for pretty much no drawback other than ripping through your ammo just as fast... which is why you install the Vintage Heat Sink on it.

* Early on it was discovered that a bug allowed players to equip two boosters from the same category, Ammo, Weapon, XP etc. For practicality, it meant people could use two different ammo types at once and utterly dominate a lobby, even on Gold, to the point it became the best way to farm credits for a good portion of time. Bioware eventually realized and patched the bug, preventing boosters of the same class to be equipped.
* The Angaran Insurgent possesses Trip Mines--explosive devices that go off whenever an opponent steps on it or trips the laser sights. It not only does major damage, but can either prime or detonate combo powers depending on which evolution is taken. He also has Shield Boost, which makes them the CombatMedic of the group, if his teammates stay in range. This kit makes him the ultimate camping character: if your team needs to defend an area during a Hack or tense HoldTheLine standoff, the Insurgent is perfect.

* The Regeneration and Berserker evolutions on the krogan passive skill tree. Regeneration allows the character to fully recover health while raging (instead of capping health recovery at 50% like normal) while Berserker switches it so that it only takes two melee kills within 30 seconds to trigger Rage ''and'' causes Rage to automatically trigger any time the character's health falls below 33%. At that point, only sync kills or large mobs concentrating their fire represent a threat. The 1.08 patch heavily changed the Rage evolution tree, giving Regeneration as a starting effect for taking a single rank in it while switching the Regeneration evolution to Unstoppable, boosting the Krogan's damage resistance for 2 seconds after every kill. It further changed Rage so that instead of requiring melee kills to trigger, it can now be triggered with any type of kill that the krogan character scores against an enemy that's within 10 meters.

* The humble pistol is the weapon of choice for most people, even beyond several of the weapons found later in the game. It has the best accuracy, damage, rate of fire and it's available from the beginning of the game for all classes. With a little tweaking, you can turn it into a good long range killing machine (without bothering to use a sniper rifle). The pistol's Marksman ability, at maximum, will also out-shoot assault rifles easily - more rounds, more damage, less heat and more accuracy. With the Infiltrator class, specializing in Commando, as well as a Medical Exoskeleton, it can speed up the recharge on Marksman to the point where you can have the skill enabled permanently.
* Now combine Pistol's Marksman with the Immunity ability. You can basically stand still right in front of a pack of six enemies who all have guns blazing on you and methodically take them all down one by one before Immunity wears out. This will work on ''any'' game difficulty! The only enemies you'll have trouble with are biotics who can knock you down on the floor repeatedly, but there are only a handful of those kinds of enemies in the whole game, and [[DemonicSpiders they're trouble for everyone, not just pistol-users]].
* ''Mass Effect 1'' shotguns do have very tight pellet groupings that grant considerable range. With the right shotgun stats and equipment, you have a nonscoped sniper rifle in your hands. Add to that high force upon hits and the ability to equip shotguns with specialized ammunition that increases impact force even further and the only thing you can't tie down to the ground are krogan. And those still die fast enough, even on Insanity if you can hit them before they cast Immunity.

* A simple method to clear any exploration planet's outdoors in even the highest difficulty is to fire on enemies at a distance that is so far away, their health bar and name info will not pop up upon being engaged. [[ArtificialStupidity The AI will bug]], holding down their triggers to return fire against you but staying completely still to maintain a range that almost every enemy will have no hope to hit you at anyway. With just about every exploration planet's outdoors being ridiculously open and spacious, this is pretty much always possible to do on all of them against every enemy--just take out any snipers they have first with a sniper rifle (just about the only weapon capable of hitting anything reliably from so far), keep an eye out for any rocket or large energy ball projectiles they might fire to easily dodge by moving to one side, and you can kill everything outdoors on a planet assuredly (if slowly).
** Alternatively, you may utilize the Mako similarly. It can actually be hit by enemies at such a range, but can usually quickly run to a safe spot on a regularly completely open exploration planet to wait for its shields to recharge. Get out of the Mako to land killing blows on enemies when they've gotten low to get full XP for your trouble. This'll probably take a while to do as well (especially since the Mako's shields take a damn long while to recharge), but again, the strategy can make it pretty much impossible for stuff outdoors to kill you when pulled off with no requirements to set up. And in the Legendary Edition, you didn't even need to get out of the Mako to get full XP of the kills.

* The Mako can be this at times; just about every outside fight is meant to be fought from within the Mako, but if you manage to find one that isn't and still got the Mako there? Well, then you have what's essentially a sniper rifle with the ability to kill anything meant to be fought from the ground in ''one'' shot. Goodbye difficulty! Although this does significantly decrease the XP received from kills, nothing prevents you from damaging enemies down to a sliver of health and then CherryTapping an enemy to death--which you can also do with any fight you use the Mako in, allowing you to net more XP than any fight in the Mako is intended to give you.
* Frictionless Material weapon mods, the high level variant of the early game Heat Sink mods, reduce the heat buildup of any weapon to such a degree that they basically get infinite ammo. And in most cases you only need to equip one, leaving your higher tier weapons free for another non-ammo mod.
* On the companion side of things, Wrex. Between his massive passive health regeneration, access to Immunity, Barrier, Combat Armour, his natural bulk, and access to Heavy Armour, Wrex is one tough son of a bitch, to the point where he can be sent in alone against waves of enemies on all but the highest difficulties and come out no worse for wear. He's no slouch in the offense department either, packing the aforementioned shotguns, while still being handy with an assault rifle for those occasions where a shotgun isn't enough, and ''still'' having a couple of Biotic trump cards up his sleeve, including Stasis and Warp, the latter of which plays almost ''too'' well with Wrex's affinity for close-quarters combat, leading to many instances of a freshly softened enemy decorating a nearby wall with their innards following a point blank Carnage-boosted shotgun blast.

* The Mattock Assault Rifle for the soldier. It deals ungodly damage in Adrenaline Rush [[note]]Adrenaline Rush drastically boosts damage while slowing time, and weapon fire rate slows proportionally. While the Mattock has a maximum fire cap, it's at a rather generous 750 [=RPM=], and on top of this, it's not reduced while under Adrenaline Rush.[[/note]], is extremely accurate, and is available from the start of the game.
* The M-29 Incisor Sniper Rifle is a DLC weapon that does decent damage when Shepard equips it, and is available from the beginning of the game. Give it to your ''allies'', however, and you can walk through most of the game without '''firing a shot''', especially on Insanity difficulty (and right from the beginning of the game). As [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0PsjaAEv0U this video]] shows, Zaeed and Garrus will mow down most enemies in three or four shots, while the player can stay behind and play "spectator" as the AI kills everything in the way with massive damage. According to the game coding, squadmates do reduced damage on higher difficulties with most weapons ''except'' those obtained through DLC, making the M-29 king of the hill.

* The Sentinel class goes from the bottom of the heap in ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' to nigh-unbeatable status here. The variety of available powers and the short cooldown time means you can run through the game without firing a single shot, and Tech Armour lets you restore your shields whenever you want on your own time as well as knocking back and stunning anyone nearby whenever they go down. A properly-prepared Sentinel can stroll casually through the entire game tossing power combos left and right while ignoring enemy fire and his/her own guns.
* The M-98 Widow Sniper Rifle, for Soldiers and Infiltrators. Damage-wise, the only non-heavy weapon that does more damage is the Claymore, except the Claymore becomes useless at more than a few feet from the enemy, while the Widow can take down enemies from half-way across the map. Add in its Anti-Armor bonus, Headshot Damage upgrade and the bonus damage given by Adrenaline Rush/Tactical Cloak, and you've got a long-range death-dealer with damage second only to the ''Cain''.
* For a squad composition, Miranda paired with Garrus is absolutely devastating, particularly on Insanity difficulty, where every enemy has defenses. Both of them have Overload which tears shields to shreds, Garrus has Concussive Shot and Armor-Piercing Ammo which are useful against barriers and armor respectively and Miranda has Warp which is effective against both and stops krogan and Vorcha from regenerating health. In other words, both of them are effective against every single defense in the game, and have synergy with each other, covering blind spots in their abilities' coverage, such that there's no enemy that can't be dispatched in short order. On top of this, Miranda's passive ability is able to add 15% weapon damage to the entire squad and Garrus' damage output is already extremely high on its own. Simply put, they are useful in virtually any situation.
* Fully upgraded Cryo Ammo with the Squad Ammo being chosen is arguably the deadliest of all the special ammos. Cyro Ammo automatically freezes enemies once shot when they don't have any shields left. When the whole party has the Cryo Ammo equipped this creates insane crowd control potential. Frozen enemies are especially susceptible to momentum attacks so biotic attacks like Charge and push, and Sniper Rifles and instantly shatter enemies.
* The Soldier Class, thanks to Adrenaline Rush combined with the aforementioned Mattock Assault Rifle and Widow Sniper Rifle can become arguably the largest damage dealing class in the game. In exchange for not getting any special powers like the other classes, the Soldier gets access to ''three'' ammo types (Incendiary, Disruptor and Cryo) and ''all'' of the weapon types. The Mattock and Widow are already stupid powerful on their own, but the buff provided by Adrenaline rush effectively trivializes almost all of the boss fights in the game.

* Vanguards have become field-wipers thanks to their new ability, Nova. Nova is normally a DeathOrGloryAttack because it drains your shields to cause a huge biotic explosion. However, the vanguard staple Biotic Charge ''regenerates'' shields, up to 100% capacity with the right upgrade. Should a vanguard equip a light enough weapon, the cooldown between the two can be short enough that a skilled player can jump around blasting any enemy in view over and over again until all that's left is a pasty smear on the wall. And have we mentioned that both Biotic Charge and Nova give the player invulnerability during their duration, making a skilled Vanguard all but invincible.
** Nova or not, Vanguards with maxed out Biotic Charge and a strong shotgun will turn you into Superman thanks to the weapon weight/power cooldown mechanic. Equipping light weaponry will leave you with a fast enough recharge to practically spam Biotic charge, which both means practically unlimited shields and the ability to reach every enemy on the terrain in a matter of seconds (knocking them down on impact) and making it impossible to corner you.

* Now that Overload works against both regular shields and biotic barriers, it's surpassed Warp as the go-to anti-defense power. In addition, its later evolutions can make it jump from target to target chain-lightning style, as well as impart a neural shock effect. Put all these together, and you've got multi-target, anti-shields, anti-barrier, and stun, all in one power.
** Likewise, the Energy Drain power has also gotten a similar boost. It can't chain like Overload, but simply making it usable against barriers means that no matter whether you're fighting husks, Cerberus, or [[spoiler: geth]], there's at least ''one'' enemy type available to drain from. This is particularly useful for Infiltrators, since they don't get Overload by default, and the main drawback of Tactical Cloak is that your shields do not recharge while it's active. Energy Drain solves both problems, which is why Salarian Infiltrators (who have Energy Drain) are so prominent in multiplayer.
* Incendiary Ammo. The final stage of the skill grants a chance of an explosive burst. The damage of the burst is a set amount of damage (roughly 100 points), unlike previous games where the damage was a percentage of the weapon damage. The upshot? Fast-firing weapons trigger this explosive damage more often. With fast-firing, low-damage weapons this skill can effectively boost damage by +200% while adding an '''area effect'''. The Particle Rifle is generally the best weapon to use with this skill, as it has a fast fire rate, can be upgraded with cover penetration, has perfect accuracy, and regenerating ammo. The Geth Pulse Rifle, which has a much lower weight, enormous ammo pool and nearly perfect accuracy, or the M-7 Lancer, which also has regenerating ammo plus reasonable base damage and a very low weight, are also strong contenders.
* This game's version of Stasis has the most potential for game breaking yet. Unlike the first two games, enemies under the effects of Stasis ''can'' take damage (though too much damage will break the stasis effect). It also acts as a source power for biotic explosions (which means you can follow up with Warp or Throw for massive damage), it ignores shields and barriers (so [[DemonicSpiders Phantoms]] among others are not immune to it), and a Rank 6 evolution lets it create a bubble that will stun any unarmored enemy that walks into it, essentially making it a multi-target trap like Singularity.

** They benefit from Tactical Cloak's unique cooldown mechanic - should the Tactical Cloak be canceled before it naturally expires, it has a reduced cooldown. You can break cloak early by shooting or using a power, and getting a damage boost from cloak. Normally, you'd want light weapons (which give bonuses to cooldown) to ensure the cooldown for a useful power like Tactical Cloak remains short. However, by breaking cloak immediately after engaging it, you can force its cooldown to be as low as ''three seconds.'' This means Infiltrators get an unparalled damage boost to ''both'' powers and weapons (most classes only have passive skill trees that benefit one or the other), and can carry the heaviest (and generally most powerful) weapons in the game while still spamming powers freely with Tactical Cloak's damage boosts.

** Cryo Beam and Flamethrower not only deal serious damage to enemies, but they also cause them to panic or freeze, giving Ryder time for a free detonation. Enemies that are immune to those effects (such as ones with armor) will have their defenses severely weakened for several seconds after either power is used. One of the best methods for taking out Fiends, in fact, is to order both squadmates to attack them while alternating between Flamethrower and Cyro Beam. By the time one has finished firing, the other's {{cooldown}} will be almost finished if not completely. While both abilities are slightly hindered by their limited range and necessity to stay out of cover for the duration, they are so powerful in their specific niches that it's worth keeping one Profile with both of them at the ready, with either Energy Drain or Biotic Charge as the third ability to both detonate a combo and restore shields if necessary.

* Soldiers and Infiltrators can both get Master Immunity and a CooldownReduction specialization so it cools down before it runs out. A.k.a the timer can be reset before it runs out, making the player virtually invincible. It completely negates the need for cover, which is supposed to be a major defensive component. It also negates the benefits of taking defensive bonus talents, which are otherwise pretty logical choices for a Soldier if you don't realize how effective Master Immunity was. It gets nerfed in ''Legendary Edition'', losing a lot of duration and recharge speed (although at least the enemies suffer the same penalty when ''they'' use Immunity).

** The Particle Rifle (from the ''From Ashes'' DLC) runs on the same "cooldown" system from the original game, but also uses a beam that gets stronger as the trigger is held down. Not only can the weapon be acquired right after Mars, it can also be augmented like the other weapons with mods. A Particle Rifle with a magazine upgrade and extended barrel will have much more ammo than normal, and will chew through enemy defenses easily, even on Insanity difficulty. Even better, if a Soldier class runs the beam's ammo down to 0 and uses Adrenaline Rush, the weapon's reloading animation (which often takes several seconds) is skipped and the ammo will refill again, saving precious seconds in combat. Finally, it allows LoopholeAbuse: the weight system penalizes you with increased cooldowns if you overburden your character, but ''grants CooldownReduction'' if you manage to find a single gun that can handle both long-range precision operations ''and'' fending off swarms of Husks. You know, like the Particle Rifle can. You can go through the entire solo campaign with no other weapon equipped and never even notice.

* Soldiers and Infiltrators can both get Master Immunity and a specialization to reduce its recharge time to be faster than its duration. This ability makes the player virtually invincible and can be reused before it even wears off. It completely negates the need for cover, which is supposed to be a major defensive component. It also negates the benefits of taking defensive bonus talents, which are otherwise pretty logical choices for a Soldier if you don't realize how effective Master Immunity was. It gets nerfed in ''Legendary Edition'', losing a lot of duration and recharge speed (although at least the enemies suffer the same penalty when they use Immunity).

** The Particle Rifle (from the ''From Ashes'' DLC) runs on the same "cooldown" system from the original game, but also uses a beam that gets stronger as the trigger is held down. Not only can the weapon be acquired right after Mars, it can also be augmented like the other weapons with mods. A Particle Rifle with a magazine upgrade and extended barrel will have much more ammo than normal, and will chew through enemy defenses easily, even on Insanity difficulty. Even better, if a Soldier class runs the beam's ammo down to 0 and uses Adrenaline Rush, the weapon's reloading animation (which often takes several seconds) is skipped and the ammo will refill again, saving precious seconds in combat. Finally, it allows LoopholeAbuse: the weight system penalizes you with increased cooldowns if you overburden your character, but ''grants cooldown reduction'' if you manage to find a single gun that can handle both long-range precision operations ''and'' fending off swarms of Husks. You know, like the Particle Rifle can. You can go through the entire solo campaign with no other weapon equipped and never even notice.

[[folder:Mass Effect]]
* Soldiers and Infiltrators can both get Master Immunity and a specialization to reduce its recharge time to be faster than its duration. This ability makes the player virtually invincible and can be reused before it even wears off. It completely negates the need for cover, which is supposed to be a major defensive component. It also negates the benefits of taking defensive bonus talents, which are otherwise pretty logical choices for a Soldier if you don't realize how effective Master Immunity was.

* ''[=ME1=]'' shotguns do have very tight pellet groupings that grant considerable range. With the right shotgun stats and equipment, you have a nonscoped sniper rifle in your hands. Add to that high force upon hits and the ability to equip shotguns with specialized ammunition that increases impact force even further and the only thing you can't tie down to the ground are krogan. And those still die fast enough, even on Insanity if you can hit them before they cast Immunity.

[[folder:Mass Effect 2]]

[[folder:Mass Effect 3]]

** Ashley has the squad's second highest base weapon damage. Later patches ruined her [[MoreDakka Marksman]] ability, but gave her some other deadly tools to work with due to the fact that, out of her remaining three powers, Concussive Shot is the only one with a cooldown. Ashley can blast an enemy for a bit while empowered by Disruptor Ammo, then throw an Inferno Grenade to trigger a Tech Burst and wipe out her target's shields, then immediately follow up with a Concussive Shot to trigger a Fire Explosion that will heavily damage health or armor. Combined with her high weapon damage, Ashley can mow through large numbers of enemies with no help from Shepard or the third squadmate. And as of Legendary Edition, Marksman works, which [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill combines the power of the different patch levels]].

[[folder:Mass Effect 3 - Multiplayer]]

[[folder:Mass Effect Andromeda]]

[[folder:Mass Effect Andromeda - Multiplayer]]

** Alternatively, you may utilize the Mako similarly. It can actually be hit by enemies at such a range, but can usually quickly run to a safe spot on a regularly completely open exploration planet to wait for its shields to recharge. Get out of the Mako to land killing blows on enemies when they've gotten low to get full XP for your trouble. This'll probably take a while to do as well (especially since the Mako's shields take a damn long while to recharge), but again, the strategy can make it pretty much impossible for stuff outdoors to kill you when pulled off with no requirements to set up.

** Ashley has the squad's second highest base weapon damage. Later patches ruined her [[MoreDakka Marksman]] ability, but gave her some other deadly tools to work with due to the fact that, out of her remaining three powers, Concussive Shot is the only one with a cooldown. Ashley can blast an enemy for a bit while empowered by Disruptor Ammo, then throw an Inferno Grenade to trigger a Tech Burst and wipe out her target's shields, then immediately follow up with a Concussive Shot to trigger a Fire Explosion that will heavily damage health or armor. Combined with her high weapon damage, Ashley can mow through large numbers of enemies with no help from Shepard or the third squadmate. And as of Legendary Edition, Marksman works, which restores her full lethality to pre-patch levels.

** Ashley has the squad's second highest base weapon damage. Later patches ruined her [[MoreDakka Marksman]] ability, but gave her some other deadly tools to work with due to the fact that, out of her remaining three powers, Concussive Shot is the only one with a cooldown. Ashley can blast an enemy for a bit while empowered by Disruptor Ammo, then throw an Inferno Grenade to trigger a Tech Burst and wipe out her target's shields, then immediately follow up with a Concussive Shot to trigger a Fire Explosion that will heavily damage health or armor. Combined with her high weapon damage, Ashley can mow through large numbers of enemies with no help from Shepard or the third squadmate.

** At the top of this list should be the Cerberus Harrier, from the ''Firefight Pack'' DLC and the multiplayer ''Rebellion'' DLC. As of the MP ''Reckoning'' expansion, it is the most commonly used weapon in multi-player. Why? It deals great damage, is fully automatic with a high rate of fire, and is only a mid-weight assault rifle. It stands head and shoulders above every other assault rifle, and can be used by a wide variety of classes, save the most power-centric. Its only flaw is a truly horrendous clip size, which can be fixed with a weapon mod.
** The Particle Rifle (from the ''From Ashes'' DLC) runs on the same "cooldown" system from the original game, but also uses a beam that gets stronger as the trigger is held down. Not only can the weapon be acquired extremely early (by doing [[spoiler:Javik's mission]] right after Mars), but it can also be augmented like the other weapons with mods. A Particle Rifle with a magazine upgrade and extended barrel will have much more ammo than normal, and will chew through enemy defenses easily, even on Insanity difficulty. Even better, if a Soldier class runs the beam's ammo down to 0 and uses Adrenaline Rush, the weapon's reloading animation (which often takes several seconds) is skipped and the ammo will refill again, saving precious seconds in combat.

* Incendiary Ammo. The final stage of the skill grants a chance of an explosive burst. The damage of the burst is a set amount of damage (roughly 100 points), unlike previous games where the damage was a percentage of the weapon damage. The upshot? Fast-firing weapons trigger this explosive damage more often. With fast-firing, low-damage weapons this skill can effectively boost damage by +200% while adding an '''area effect'''. The Particle Rifle is generally the best weapon to use with this skill, as it has a fast fire rate, can be upgraded with cover penetration, has perfect accuracy, and regenerating ammo. The Geth Pulse Rifle, which has an enormous ammo pool and nearly perfect accuracy, or the M-7 Lancer, which also has regenerating ammo plus reasonable base damage and a very low weight, are also strong contenders.

* Incendiary Ammo. The final stage of the skill grants a chance of an explosive burst. The damage of the burst is a set amount of damage (roughly 100 points), unlike previous games where the damage was a percentage of the weapon damage. The upshot? Fast-firing weapons trigger this explosive damage more often. With fast-firing, low-damage weapons this skill can effectively boost damage by +200% while adding an '''area effect'''. The Particle Rifle is generally the best weapon to use with this skill, as it has a fast fire rate, can be upgraded with cover penetration, has perfect accuracy, and regenerating ammo. The Geth Pulse Rifle is probably a close second.

** The M-7 Lancer Assault Rifle (also from the ''Reckoning'' DLC) combines the recharging ammo of the Particle Rifle with the power and high rate of fire of the Cerberus Harrier, giving you arguably one of the most powerful weapons in the game. And on top of that, it is also one of the lightest assault rifles in the game, so all but the most power dependent of classes can use it without any problem. The only downside is the slightly less than forgiving recoil which can easily be taken care of with a stability mod.

** The Cobra RPG, a consumable power that is not unlike the heavy weapons from ''3''. Launched from the omni-tool with next to no priming time, they're a one-hit-kill on most enemies with incredible splash damage, and heavily damaging to things like [[HumongousMecha Remnant Architects]] and all those larger forms of wildlife you'll run into. A vendor on Aya will sell five at a time, so a player that visits frequently (or just saves and loads a game to refresh the vendor's inventory) can stock up enough to use them like candy. They're expensive, but considering the amount of VendorTrash an average player will drop off over the course of a single planet it's very easy to build up a reserve. The only other downside is that they take up a slot in your consumables list, so early on you may have to choose between that and a special ammo type or shield capacitors.

** with the human vanguard, if the player is hosting, however, a certain trick you can perform when you use the Nova [[note]]The game grants about a second of immunity to any form of damage whatsoever, which you can exploit by cancelling the Nova by, for example, rolling to the side or performing a quick melee attack. Provided you don't run into enemies that can instantly kill you or stagger you, you could walk across a field of Cerberus turrets and come out none the worse for wear by abusing this.[[/note]] turns you into an unstoppable killing machine with some practice. Slap a powerful, yet light enough gun on the human Vanguard and you won't need teammates.

* The Human Kineticist has one of the most devastating kits in the game, with a SuperMode that allows her to deal more damage, take more damage, and bypass {{Cooldown}}s. Plus, the lack of Cooldown means she can be outfitted with ‘’obscenely’’ powerful weapons and bypass the NecessaryDrawback every other biotic has. The one weakness is that her powers become CastFromHitpoints while Ascended, but investing in points in shields, and using the right Boosters and Equipment makes this a non-issue. Also, she has ''amazing'' synergy with the aforementioned Angaran Insurgent; not only can she Pull or Throw enemies over his Trip Mines (which can create Combo Detonations), but his Shield Boost is just what she needs to stay at peak fighting performance and spam her attacks without fear of losing SuperMode.

* For a squad composition, Miranda paired with Garrus is absolutely devastating, particularly on Insanity difficulty, where every enemy has defenses. Both of them have Overload which tears shields to shreds, Garrus has Concussive Shot and Armor-Piercing Ammo which are useful against barriers and armor respectively and Miranda has Warp which is effective against both and stops krogan and Vorcha from regenerating health. In other words, both of them are effective against every single defense in the game. On top of this, Miranda's passive ability is able to add 15% weapon damage to the entire squad and Garrus' damage output is already extremely high on its own. Simply put, they are useful in virtually any situation.

* The M8-Avenger is the game's starting rifle, and as such is a JackOfAllStats, with no major weaknesses except being unpredictable at long range, and no major strengths other than being very lightweight. The High Velocity Barrel from the ''Omega'' DLC turns the Avenger into a death machine as it ignores 90% of armor and punches through cover like it was made of toilet paper. The reason why the HVB is the perfect match for the Avenger is that the HVB adds a weapon's weight by 50%, but the Avenger is so light that with a few upgrades it practically negates the weight penalty, making it an awesome combination for power-spamming classes. This also works with the M7-Lancer.

* For a squad composition, Miranda paired with Garrus is absolutely devastating, particularly on Insanity difficulty, where every enemy has defenses. Both of them have Overload which tears shields to shreds, Garrus has Concussive Shot and Armor-Piercing Ammo which are useful against barriers and armor respectively and Miranda has Warp which is effective against both. In other words, both of them are effective against every single defense in the game. On top of this, Miranda's passive ability is able to add 15% weapon damage to the entire squad and Garrus' damage output is already extremely high on its own. Simply put, they are useful in virtually any situation.

* Vanguards have become field-wipers thanks to their new ability, Nova. Nova is normally a DeathOrGloryAttack because it drains your shields to cause a huge biotic explosion. However, the vanguard staple Biotic Charge ''regenerates'' shields, up to 100% capacity with the right upgrade. Should a vanguard equip a light enough weapon, the cooldown between the two can be short enough that a skilled player can jump around blasting any enemy in view over and over again until all that's left is a pasty smear on the wall. And have we mentioned that both Biotic Charge and Nova give the player invulnerability during their duration, making a skilled Vanguard all but invincible?
** Note that this doesn't extend to multiplayer, where Vanguards (beside the [[StoneWall Krogan]]) are incredibly squishy, not powerful enough to be a viable GlassCannon and almost unplayably laggy if not hosting. They are very tough to play well and even then there are better classes.
** Really, nova or not, Vanguards with maxed out Biotic Charge and a strong shotgun will turn you into Superman. Equipping light weaponry will leave you with a fast enough recharge to practically spam Biotic charge, which both means practically unlimited shields and the ability to reach every enemy on the terrain in a matter of seconds (knocking them down on impact) and making it impossible to corner you.
** If the player is hosting, however, a certain trick you can perform when you use the Nova [[note]]The game grants about a second of immunity to any form of damage whatsoever, which you can exploit by cancelling the Nova by, for example, rolling to the side or performing a quick melee attack. Provided you don't run into enemies that can instantly kill you or stagger you, you could walk across a field of Cerberus turrets and come out none the worse for wear by abusing this.[[/note]] turns you into an unstoppable killing machine with some practice. Slap a powerful, yet light enough gun on the human Vanguard and you won't need teammates.