History GameBreaker / MassEffect

* 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 Geth Inflitrator 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 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 was available from the beginning of the game. 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.

** Even in the vanilla game, there are a few things that stand out as impressively broken. The Javalin 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 Javalin 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.

* The humble Pistol was the weapon of choice for most people, even beyond several of the weapons found later in the game. It had the best accuracy, damage, rate of fire and was available from the beginning of the game. With a little tweaking, you could turn it into a good long range killing machine (without bothering to use the 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 (i.e. as a Soldier or Infiltrator). 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]].
* ''[=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.
* An Adept's skills, when set up properly, lasted longer than it took for them to recharge. On top of that, they could have the ability to make anything in a Stasis field damageable, which ''normally'' renders things invincible for the duration in return for it being unable to fight back. This ability works on the final boss.
* Biotics in general are deliciously overpowered in the first game, not simply because of how effective they are but also because nothing could counter them. Even if Shepard lacks any biotics themselves, taking along Kaidan and Liara (the two weakest squadmates combat-wise) both with marginally upgraded Lift and Throw makes all of the side missions and even some of the main story missions laughably easy, and that's before considering Barrier (fully upgraded it makes you almost indestructible to anything except [[ThatOneAttack poison attacks]]), Singularity (renders whole groups of enemies harmless ''and'' draws them together for easy shooting), and Stasis (target a single powerful enemy to completely immobilize them, and as mentioned Sentinels and Adepts can take a PrestigeClass to allow enemies to be damaged while immobilized).
* Adrenaline Rush. Unlike the later games, each power in [=ME1=] had 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.
* A simple method to clear any exploration planet's outdoors in even the highest difficulty would be fire on enemies at a distance that is so far, 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).

* Soldiers and Infiltrators both could get Master Immunity and a specialization to reduce its recharge time to be faster than its duration. This ability made the player virtually invincible and could be reused before it even wore off. It completely negated the need for cover, which is supposed to be a major defensive component. It also negated the benefits of taking defensive bonus talents, which were pretty logical choices for a Soldier if you didn't realize how effective Master Immunity was.
* [[InfinityPlusOneSword The Spectre Master weapons]], gained by amassing a million credits and buying them from the C-Sec/Normandy requisitions officer (and can be done very early on, if you save enough). Every other gun pales in comparison, though [[HarderThanHard in the Insanity difficulty]] they are merely what you need to survive.
* 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 Cherry Tapping]] an enemy to death- which you could also do with any fight you use the Mako in, allowing you to net more xp than any fight in the Mako was intended to give you.

** Garrus has the highest weapon damage of all of Shepard's squadmates. With the right evolotions in his passive ability and Armor-Piercing Ammo, as well as an outfit that improves weapon damage, his damage per shot is roughly ''tripled'' against armor and health, and is still more than doubled against shield's and barriers, which are easily removed with his Overload. If Proximity Mine is evolved to reduce the target's damage resistance, Garrus's already insane damage output is pushed even higher, as is the rest of the party's.

** As far as squadmates go, Liara is by far the most useful on Insanity. Her 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 with a Paladin she can be entirely reasonable at gunplay as well.
** 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.

** 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. 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.

* Biotics in general are deliciously overpowered in the first game, not simply because of how effective they are but also because nothing could counter them. Even if Shepard lacks any biotics themselves, taking along Kaiden and Liara (the two weakest squadmates combat-wise) both with marginally upgraded Lift and Throw makes all of the side missions and even some of the main story missions laughably easy, and that's before considering Barrier (fully upgraded it makes you almost indestructible to anything except [[ThatOneAttack poison attacks]]), Singularity (renders whole groups of enemies harmless ''and'' draws them together for easy shooting), and Stasis (target a single powerful enemy to completely immobilize them, and as mentioned Sentinels and Adepts can take a PrestigeClass to allow enemies to be damaged while immobilized).

** Oh, and it sets off pre-existing biotic primers, such as Reave, Warp, Singularity, and a few others. Double explosions FTW!

** 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. 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 three enemies in melee in a relatively generous period and upgrades your weapon and melee damage output and resistance 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.

* Shotguns, fullstop. [=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. If they managed to, well, biotics are instant win abilities.

* [[InfinityPlusOneSword The Spectre Master weapons]], gained by amassing a million credits and buying them from the C-Sec/Normandy requisitions officer (and can be done very early on, if you save enough). Every other gun pales in comparison.
** Though [[HarderThanHard in the Insanity difficulty]], they are merely what you need to survive.

* Soldiers and Infiltrators both could get Master Immunity and a specialization to reduce its recharge time to be identical to its duration. This ability made the player virtually invincible and could be reused as soon as it wore off. It completely negated the need for cover, which is supposed to be a major defensive component. It also negated the benefits of taking defensive bonus talents, which were pretty logical choices for a Soldier if you didn't realize how effective Master Immunity was.

** 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. 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 shot, 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 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. 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 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 M-90 Indra from the Firefight Pack is a fully automatic sniper rifle. With an obscenely large 25-round magazine to start with, the weapon has hilariously low recoil and is the second-lightest sniper rifle available, making it very friendly to power-heavy classes. This, plus the rapid rate of fire, means that any class could fold together the assault rifle and sniper rifle and save on weight.

** 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 N7 Typhoon is the most obscenely powerful weapon in the series. It has a damage bonus against all types of protections on top of its already considerable base damage. Once it reaches its maximum firing rate, it's damage doubles. When used by Shepard or in multiplayer, it's balanced by being extremely heavy and having horrible stability. What breaks the game is that Shepard's squadmates are completely unaffected by weapon weight and have perfect stability no matter what. It is a testament to the power of the Typhoon that even Kaidan and Javik, who need to rely on other squadmates for ammo powers and potentially have no weapon damage bonuses at all, are capable of easily melting the toughest enemies. Ashley's Marksman ability, James' Incendiary Ammo that was mentioned above, or Garrus' extreme weapon damage bonuses break it even more. Some players eventually stopped giving their squadmates Typhoons because the game became ''too'' easy.

** 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 Infiltrators]].

** 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 problem with this is the presence of an enemy biotic who can knock you down on the floor repeatedly, but there is only two or three of those specific instances in the whole game.

** 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 a singular weakness: 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. 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 three enemies in melee in a relatively generous period and upgrades your weapon and melee damage output and resistance 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.