Build Title: Angel of Death

Class: N7 Shadow

Power Evolutions:

Tactical Cloak: (4) Duration, (5) Melee Damage, (6) Bonus Power

Electric Slash: (1), (2), (3)

Shadow Strike: (4) Damage, (5) Electric Damage, (6) Damage

N7 Shadow: (4) Damage & Capacity, (5) Power Damage

Sword Mastery: (4) Sword Damage, (5) Martial Artist, (6) Armor Damage*

*More damage against troopers is not required, better to go for Armor Damage.

Weapons:

You will not be using your weapon with this build so I recommend a Heavy Pistol using High Caliber Barrel and Melee Stunner. Try to keep your recharge rate as high as possible because you will want cloak and Shadow Strike available as often as possible. Editor’s Recommendation: M-358 Talon or M-6 Carnifex/M-77 Paladin.

Gear:

Juggernaut Shield or Hydraulic Joints, Strength Enhancer and Adrenaline Module. Use the ammo that best suits the opponent. Cerberus: Incendiary/Disruptor/Armor-Piercing, Geth: Disruptor/Phasic/Armor-Piercing, Reapers: Armor-Piercing/Incendiary/Warp, Collectors: Warp/Disruptor/Armor-Piercing, Unknown: Armor-Piercing or Warp.

Strategy:

Let’s take a look at the power evolutions first. Tactical Cloak: cloak will be the only thing between you and an enormous amount of fire. For rank 4 the duration bonus will prove much more valuable than the damage bonus. (If you believe you can pull off multiple shadow strikes in the 5 second duration of cloak then by all means select damage but I don’t recommend it). At rank 5 you want the melee damage because while shadow strike is a power it benefits from melee damage bonuses instead of power bonuses when selecting abilities. Rank 6 is incredibly useful because it allows you to use shadow strike twice during one cloak and you won’t be using any gun let alone snipers with this build anyway.

Electric Slash: Honestly this ability is only really helpful when fighting bosses that are dangerous to shadow strike or when performing certain objectives (i.e. Hack, Escort) that require you to remain in a certain area. Electric Slash has a large range of 20 meters by default and can travel through obstacles and walls. Electric Slash is not used enough and does not provide enough bonuses to make it worth ranking past 3.

Shadow Strike: This is your bread and butter, using Shadow Strike is what makes this class so incredibly deadly. You have unlimited range as long as you lock on to an enemy (even through walls) with all the bonuses to melee damage one Shadow Strike can take out most lower level enemies in one hit. Use this ability to remove annoying nemesis that keep dropping your squads shield, or remove the phantom that is flanking your teammates, better yet remove the combat engineer before he sets up the turret or if the turret is already up use it to destroy the turret; however, be cautious with this ability enemies such as guardians can turn around to block the Shadow Strike if he spots you cloaking and does not have another target nearby. Always Shadow Strike from cloak it provides a nice damage boost and allows you to move around unnoticed to find a target to hit.

N7 Shadow: The bonuses are always nice but and you will not be using your gun at all really. Because of this, focus on Power Damage bonuses, which augment your Shadow Strike further. At Rank 4, you’ll also receive more encumbrance, so you sould take a heavier weapon if you wish. Remember though, that this build is made around Shadow Strike, not your weapon.

Sword Mastery: This is the tree which will make your sword an unstoppable killing machine. At rank 4 you will want the sword damage bonus because it provides not only damage bonuses to your powerful melee but also to Shadow Strike, you will be using cloak to stay alive anyway so the health and shield bonus is not all that appealing. At rank 5 again you will want the sword damage bonuses because while the movement speed bonus is nice it is not really worth sacrificing a 50% damage bonus after killing someone with the sword (melee, heavy melee, Shadow Strike). At rank 6 you can choose either evolution depending upon the enemy you are more likely to face. The sword already gains substantial bonuses to shield and barriers so I am more inclined to choose armor. Against Cerberus the shield bonus will most likely be more helpful but against geth you will want the armor bonus for pyros and primes and against the reapers you can already kill the marauder in one Shadow Strike so the shield bonus only helps against banshees and it is not a good idea to Shadow Strike a banshee.

On to the gameplay. You are responsible for removing the frustrating enemies that stay at range (Nemeses, Engineers, Turrets, Cannibals, Rocket Troopers, Collector Captains) or the enemies that cause a lot of havoc when flanking (Phantoms, Assault troopers, Centurions, Guardians, Geth Hunters, Geth Pyros, Marauders). Generally you will want to stay away from large enemy types such as Atlases, Brutes, Banshees, and Primes unless they are the last enemy. Because while you can do a lot of damage to boss enemy types you are very squishy and the moment you hit a boss with your strong attack you gain a lot of aggro even with cloak active and will die very quickly if hit a few times. While your squadmates hold the enemy off in a defensible position you will be flanking the enemy and taking out enemies that like the hide in the back and provide problems for your teammates. Say for example a turret is placed and starts to tear apart your team you will be removing the turret before it causes you team to die. You will also be the person who kills off enemies who have gotten to close and are causing problems for your squishier teammates (Phantoms are the big one here). And don’t forget to use your standard melee if the need arises. If you are cornered by an infantryman and you are awaiting a recharge then heavy melee it is strong enough with the melee bonuses to kill a lot of enemies outright or on the second hit and is very quick to execute.

Make sure that you use cloak anytime you are out in the open and use Shadow Strike as often as you can against the enemies that start to separate from the main group. If a teammate goes down and no other infiltrators are on the team you will be the medic there to rescue them. When the objective waves start to come around you will have to adapt to slightly different strategies depending on the objective. For Hack and Escort you can either continue to assassinate targets as they begin to pose a problem for your teammates or you can hide behind cover and spam Electric Slash to great effect against enemies. For targets it will depend upon what the targets are, if the targets are boss type enemies you will want to assassinate all the other smaller units guarding it to cut a way for your teammates to take it down, however, if the enemy type is an infantry style enemy you will be doing what you do best and assassinating them. For the 4 items hack objective you will want to use cloak to get to the objective and hack it or if another infiltrator is doing the objective you will want to assassinate anyone who comes after them. For recovering objects you will not want to carry the object because you cannot cloak while carrying the object and are quite squishy under direct fire instead defeat enemies that are targeting the carrier.

This class is also one of the best if you are last man standing. Use cloak and Shadow Strike to remove individual infantry and avoid confrontations with boss style enemies (save them for last) however fighting the boss enemies is going to be difficult, against atlases you can simply cloak and Shadow Strike while avoiding their fire but this will take a long amount of time to whittle them down and against banshees you will want to use a rocket, if you do not have a rocket your best bet is to take advantage of the good range on electric slash. Primes are a very similar to Atlases but do not possess a sync-kill animation.

N00b Rating:

3.5 – The greatest learning curve with this class is prioritizing targets and staying out of enemy fire long enough for you shield to recharge, but otherwise the class is very straightforward and if used correctly will greatly benefit the team.

Edits by CoreyImperia