History GameBreaker / MassEffect

* The M-300 Claymore in the hands of a skilled player can one-shot most enemies with a well-timed headshot. This is due to the game [[GoodBadBugs having a rather infamous exploit]] where you can quick-reload your guns. This can effectively turn what is an otherwise AwesomeYetImpractical weapon due to it's slow reload time, into a rapid-firing beast. While the caveat is it is limited to close range, this made it the go-to shotgun for Vanguard and Soldier players.

** Garrus has the highest weapon damage of all of Shepard's squadmates. With the right evolutions 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. Here's an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPbB4qfsA14 example]] of how ridiculous a well-built Garrus can be.

* 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]].

* 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.

** 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.

** And you can get them the moment you first enter the Citadel - once you've saved Doctor Michelle, she sells you items at a sufficient discount that you can make a profit re-selling them to other vendors. A dozen or so trips and 20 minutes of gameplay allow you to qualify AND amass enough funds to purchase every Spectre weapon.

* 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.

** Garrus has the highest weapon damage of all of Shepard's squadmates. With the right evolutions 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.

** The M-11 Suppressor Pistol (also from the ''Citadel'' and ''Reckoning'' DLC) might not have the stopping power of other pistols like the Carnifex or Paladin, but it makes up for it with one of the largest head-shot bonuses in the game. If used with the correct mods (the scope and cranial trauma mods are the two best choices) and enough skill, the Suppressor can reliably kill just about anything except for the heaviest of heavy enemies in two shots or '''LESS'''. You don't even have to go out of your way to get it - it's handed to you at the beginning of the first mission.

* 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.

** The N7 Piranha, an Ultra Rare fully automatic shotgun. Its damage output from a single magazine allows Ryder to mow down any enemy at close-to-mid range, and it’s reload speed is pretty good for a shotgun as well.

** On the other end of the spectrum, Tali is a devastating GlassCannon in this game, due to the Geth making up a large portion of the enemy encounters. While she shares most of her abilities with Garrus, she has one particularly nasty ace in the hole with her AI Hacking ability, which she shares only with an Engineer Shepard, allowing her to force Geth units to attack their allies. While the basic level of Hacking works against most Geth rank and file, she's able to turn even Juggernauts, Armatures and their mounted turrets against the enemy for up to 30 seconds once she's maxxed out the skill. While this is not only an easy way to clear out encounters with one "miniboss" Geth and a platoon of Mooks, it also tends to draw a large portion of the enemy fire away from the squad even in more mundane firefights. Oftentimes, the hacked units will be the last ones standing, making it easy to execute them in their weakened state and move forward.

* For a squad composition, Miranda paired with Garrus is absolutely devastating, particularly on Insanity difficulty. 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.

* For a squad composition, Miranda paired with Garrus is absolutely devastating, particularly on Insanity difficulty. 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 25% 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.

*** In his in-depth review of the game, [[https://youtu.be/D12n35evy0Y?t=1078 Raycevick]] mentioned that the crowd-control and tech bursts from Overload -> Cryo Beam -> Energy Drain were enough to carry him through a Hardcore playthrough.

** Who needs aim when you have Singularity? Just lob one of these into a crowd of enemies and then detonate an enemy with another power...and ''another'', if available. If they have Barriers or Shields, this almost certainly strips them and leaves unarmored foes floating helplessly. Then pop the bubble itself for even more damage with its final evolution.

*** The Remnant Tech tree allows you to turn any weapon into a PAW. The Hornet has the highest DPS in the game, except that it isn't full auto. With a Vintage Heat Sink, it becomes an unlimited ammo face-melter, but the magazine size leaves something to be desired. It weighs virtually nothing; leave off the VHS, carry two, and laugh maniacally as Architects on Hardcore and Insanity are broken down after about ten seconds of fire from your tiny little death laser. Did we mention that the Hornet is more accurate than most assault rifles?

** 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 that Kaidan can not 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 let's him keep his damage up. If evolved properly, Barrier's cooldown penalty can be nearly negated by Kaidan's default outfit.

* The Sentinel class goes from the bottom of the heap in ME1 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.

** 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.

** 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.

* 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 replaced the Regeneration evolution with the Unstoppable evolution, which replaced the health regen with a 2 second boost to damage resistance every time a melee kill is made, removing this combo from the game.