Category Archives: N7 Shadow Infiltrator

Shock and Awe – by Beleghost

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Build Title:

Shock and Awe – by Beleghost

Class:

N7 Shadow Infiltrator

Power Evolutions:

Tactical Cloak: (4) Duration, (5) Regen, (6) Bonus Power
Electric Slash: (4) Damage, (5), (6)
Shadow Strike: n/a
N7 Shadow: (4) Damage & Capacity (5) Power Bonus, (6) Weapon Damage
Sword Mastery: (4) Durability, (5) Shield Delay/Speed Increase, (6) Armor Damage

Weapons:

Carnifex with armor piercing mod (use this on every gun ever) and I prefer LWM but go with what you want. Other weapons with high regen bonus work as well. I just prefer the high damage and overall sex factor of the carnifex

Gear:

Omni-Capacitors V or anything else that gives you high regen. I enjoy the damage bonus this also gives

Strategy:

I used to like SS until I realize you get killed A LOT doing it and that honestly, it didn’t feel to be as useful as ES until I realized something. ES can be used after you pop out of cloak. For some reason the game lets you use ES WHILE your TC is recharging! How cool is that?! Now you may be thinking “well SS does a crap ton more damage” and I’m not going to argue with you on that, however let us do a little math and rational thinking.

Even if ES is doing half the damage SS does there are a variety of reasons I prefer it. For starters you are not flung like a squishy Drell Vanguard into a plethora of enemies. Also, if you notice, ES can shoot thorough walls and in the skilled hands of a frequent user, can hit multiple enemies all in ONE shot! The range is equally amazing sending electric slash bursts half-way across most maps! Now think about that, even if ES was doing half the damage of SS (which if speced right it shouldn’t) you’re hitting as many as three-four times the number of enemies and essentially doing a huge amount of damage. What’s even more awesome is it staggers too!

Now comes the coolest part, YOU ARE IN COVER AND/OR CLOAK WHILE USING IT! Use your head, pop tac cloak, slash, wait, RIGHT when that regen bar hits back, pop out of cloak and immediately start mashing that ES behind cover or through a wall. Done properly the only times you should EVER have to show your mug to the enemy is when reviving teammates.

Reviving teammates is a little more tricky, make sure you are in TC, go revive an ally, RIGHT when you exit TC, hit ES and you will once again ES while your TC regens. Now you must back flip/side flip your way to safety which honestly is the hardest part of this build. Your speed increase, TC, and ES stagger make you the ultimate one-woman rescue team for your allies.

With this build you will almost always top games you come in, have grateful allies, and likely tons of people friending you for being such a good and helpful player. Not to mention earning some freakin’ style points with everyone and their mom using SS and getting killed half the time. I have nothing against that build, however I feel too many inexperienced people attempt it. If this is your first time with the Shadow I HIGHLY recommend going with this FIRST.

N00b Rating: (scale 1-5, 1 is easy for everybody!)

1 on bronze and silver. 2.5 on gold, and 5 on platinum because platinum just plain sucks no matter what you play. HIGHLY noob friendly build and has way more versatility than the Shadow striking glass Shadow most run with.

Appearance: I prefer going with purple and black/grey/white camouflage combination. Just looks fitting on her to me.

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Hit and Run Shadow – by ARMAVQUE

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Build Title:
Hit and Run Shadow – by ARMAVQUE

Class:
N7 Shadow Infiltrator

Power Evolutions:

Tactical Cloak: Duration (4), Melee (5), Bonus Power (6)
Electrical Slash: Damage (4), Detonate (This is quite optional though, both work in given situations. (This will be explained later)) (5), Damage (6)
Shadow Strike: Damage (4), Electrical Damage (5), Shield Drain (6)
N7 Shadow: Damage and Capacity (4), Power Damage (5), N/A (6)
Fitness: Take the first three ranks only

Weapons:
For this build, really anything moderately lightweight will work. I prefer the Carnifex, but It really comes down to personal preference. You will not use your weapon very often so it really should be that much of a worry.

Gear:
For gear something along the lines of an omni-capacitor or really anything that can provide power, tech or recharge speed. But this really come down to personal preference as you can tweak it to fit the way you want to use the build.

Strategy:

This is mainly a two step build, and those two steps are quite interchangeable. The first step is using your shadow strike. Find and enemy, and also find an escape route near the enemy so you can retreat to a safe distance. Use tactical cloak so you will remain hidden and so you can get a damage boost, and then use shadow strike on your unsuspecting target. Because you have bonus power, you will remained cloaked after you strike. This will create a dichotomy that leads into step two. From here, you need to make the judgement as to: A) If it is safe to uncloak, make another shadow strike on a same of different target to do some extra damage (this would uncloak and leave you vulnerable however). OR B) use what’s left of your cloak to retreat to a safe and reasonable distance away from your target or other enemies and then use electrical slash to detonate and get extra damage on you prey. This will result in high amounts of damage for single targets, if you apply good judgement and can make the right call as to when it is time to retreat and get yourself out of danger. This above strategy will really only be effective however when you can judge and predict a proper escape route to return to a safe distance, if this is not, however, an option, this class still has some utility. This is where the Spec 5 power of Electrical Slash comes into play. If things are getting hectic and you don’t think a Shadow strike would be viable at the time, then having shadow strike spec’d for recharge speed would be quite advantageous as you would be able to spam it in a pinch and keep enemies at bay in things such as doorways or choke points. However, should you choose detonate, then this will make electrical slash far more effective at detonating enemies set up by shadow strike, or at detonating enemies set up by team mates (if you friends are good teams players). This leaves of spec #5 of electrical slash wholly up to you as it can fit in well with different styles and points of play. Just remember that because this build lacks high ranks of fitness, extra caution should be utilized as playing stupid and getting yourself killed in the midst of a clump of enemies is doing more harm than good. But keep principles of good judgement in mind and this class can deal thousands of points of damage in one fell sweep

N00b Rating: (scale 1-5, 1 is easy for everybody!)
3. While having tactical cloak spec’d for bonus power definitely gives you a better chance of escaping a sticky situation, you are still quite flimsy and are potentially going to be putting yourself in some risky scenarios. While this build definitely gets the job done on nearly any gold game, it is not for the faint of heart or those new to the Mass effect multiplayer scene. Bad judgement and not knowing when to fall back will land you and easy loss and will make you a burden for your team. However, if you make the right calls and strike when you calculate the odds, you will be a damage dealing machine that one a single enemy, has the potential to rack up thousands upon thousands of point of damage in a matter of seconds.

Appearance: Everything Black, all the time.

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N7 Hunter by JayneCobb88

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Build Title:
N7 Hunter by JayneCobb88

Class:
N7 Shadow Infiltrator

Power Evolutions:
Tactical Cloak

(4) Duration – Useful for objectives but it’s main use is for survivability and performing safe assassinations.

(5) Melee – Just about the only weapon you will need

(6) Bonus Power – This plus duration means one can kill with impunity

Electric Slash

(4) Damage – Gives it that extra umph

(5) Tech Det – Provides for amazing synergy with any electrical wielding ally, makes gold level geth farming simple and provides a method for dealing with brutes

(6) Damage – Keeps it relevant on platinum

Shadow Strike

(4) Damage

(5) Electric Damage – Finishes off shielded opponents and sets up tech bursts

(6) Damage

N7 Shadow

Just the first 3 Passives

Sword Mastery

(4) Sword Damage – Damage output means better chance for survival

(5) Martial Artist – Send your damage through the roof

The sixth evolution is bugged and the damage bonus does not apply to shadow strike

Weapons:
Primary – Acolyte heavy pistol with melee stunner and heavy barrel

Secondary – SMG of your choice with armor piercing and stabilization, I like the tempest. If this second weapon pushes you past 190% power recharge change out the stabilization for light weapon materials

Gear:
Mental Focuser or Hydraulic Joints, whichever is higher. The great thing about this build is that no consumables are needed because your damage output and survivability are high enough to see the character through platinum. You may occasionally want to use disruptor ammo for brutes, but more on that later

Strategy:

Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving, use TC to move and attack with impunity. I can’t stress constant use of TC enough. Used correctly, you can spend 75% of a match cloaked.

*Mooks – Tactical Cloak (TC), Shadow Strike (SS) and retreat back to cover to recharge. A second option against shielded mooks is to strip shields with the acolyte and follow up with a heavy melee.

*Guardians – Be patient with guardians and wait until you know they don’t know where you are before using SS. And if their shield gets too annoying just whip out the SMG and lay waste from cover.

*Phantoms/Turrets/Pyros – You have 3 good options. The best option requires some prep time but doesn’t drop your cloak when you shoot. Charge the acolyte, TC, shoot the target to drop shields/barriers, SS, retreat to cover. Next best is TC, SS, Backflip, ES to set off the tech burst killing surrounding mooks with the combo. An unreliable yet quick method if you can pull it off is to TC, SS, Heavy Melee while enemy is staggered. Obviously there are more ways to kill but these three are both the highest damaging, quickest and usually safest.

*Brutes – These are the most dangerous enemies for this build bar none. Only use SS if they are alone, if not either take out the mooks around them or spam ES. The reason they are so dangerous is because SS keeps them from moving like any other enemy and when the character swings for the SS animation she steps into the brute’s blade armor, dropping her shields and staggering her. The trade off is 3-4 bars damage to the brute. The best option for brutes, if you know you’ll be facing reapers, is to equip disruptor ammo before the mission. When you see a brute, switch to your SMG and shoot until a tech burst is primed then ES and repeat.

*Atlas/Prime/Banshee – Rip off their protection with your acolyte then go to town with TC, SS, retreat to cover and repeat. A word of caution for banshees – TC and then spend 3-4 seconds changing position before you SS and then immediately backflip. This throws the banshee off her game and keeps you from getting grabbed.

*Ravager – SS doesn’t stagger ravagers and they will immediately spew their acid killing you in one hit. Never SS ravagers unless ALL 4 of their swarmer sacks have been popped. This is another job for that trusty SMG sidearm

N00b Rating: (scale 1-5, 1 is easy for everybody!) 4 – The build requires patience, proficient tactical planning before an assassination and a working knowledge of good cover spots for all maps.

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Sneaky-Stab Girl by PunxsatownyPhil

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Build Title:
Sneaky-Stab Girl by PunxsatownyPhil

Class:
N7 Shadow Infiltrator

Power Evolutions:

Tactical Cloak: (4) Duration, (5) Melee Damage, (6) Bonus Power
Electric Slash: (4) Damage, (5) Detonate, (6) Range
Shadow Strike: (4) Damage Protection, (5) Electric Damage, (6) Damage
N7 Shadow:
Sword Mastery: (4) Sword Damage, (5) Martial Artist, (6) Armor Damage

Weapons:
A light SMG, the lighter the better, because you won’t be using it much. Geth Plasma with Ultralight Materials has served me well.

Gear:
Ammo bonuses aren’t particularly necessary, strength makes a good weapon bonus, and whatever you want for armor is fine. Structural Ergonomics makes a good gear bonus.

Strategy:

On lower difficulties, you’re going to go into tactical cloak and shadow strike everything. Attack a weaker enemy first, because it will be stronger the second time thanks to Martial Artist. You’ll usually be able to get away easily if you play smart, because you’re not that squishy and you get the damage reduction. On higher difficulties, especially geth gold runs, you’ll mostly want to spam electric slash, which has a really low cooldown and goes through walls. It works especially well in conjunction with a Slayer using the same specs on Biotic Slash. Together, you can grind down a Prime in seconds flat. A good strategy against boss enemies in general, even Banshees, is to cloak, shadow strike, and then run away and use electric slash to get a nice tech burst. Of note is the fact that you cannot miss with shadow strike, so use it on a brute as it charges or on a banshee as it teleports to do damage but appear far behind them.

N00b Rating: (scale 1-5, 1 is easy for everybody!)
I’ll say 3. It doesn’t take much getting used to but if you stay in the open for long you’ll die. Oddly, it’s easier on harder difficulties when you’re spamming your slash through the wall in the corner of a room.

Appearance: I go for an electric blue and yellow look, which I achieve with A10 B10 B4 etc.

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Angel of Death – by MajorStupidity

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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

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