Tag Archives: shotgun

HK-47 by Sageruffin

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Name: HK-47 (Huntress-Killer 47)

 

Class: Alliance Infiltration Unit Infiltrator

 

Map Difficulty Rating: This build has the potential for Gold gameplay, Platinum gameplay is untested.

 

Power Evolutions:
Tactical Cloak: (4) Weapon Damage, (5) Recharge Speed, (6) Shotgun Damage
Snap Freeze: (4) Damage
Repair Matrix: (4) Survivability, (5) Charge Capacity, (6) Enhanced Repair Matrix
Unshackled AI: (4) Weapon Damage, (5) Power Damage*, (6) Weapon Damage
Fitness Module: (4) Durability

 

*Personal preference, I went with Power Damage to strengthen Snap Freeze

 

Weapons
Any shotgun that keeps your recharge speed at least 100% is ideal as you’ll want to be cloaking a lot to maximize your damage outputs. I prefer the Wraith with the barrel attachment as I feel it’s the most versatile; it’s essentially a lightweight Claymore at this point with an extra shot in the clip (see below). Other options include the Disciple and the Eviscerator, also with damage mods. A thermal clip or accuracy mod is recommended, but not imperative.
If you prefer to go for higher damage at the expense of longer cooldowns, then go with the Graal Spike Thrower, AT-12 Raider, N7 Crusader, or M-300 Claymore. Do keep in mind that both the Crusader and Claymore have little room for error, with the former being insanely precise and the latter having only one shot per clip.

 

Gear:
For the Weapon bonus, roll with a rail amp. Shotguns, of course.
For permanent gear, use either the Shotgun Amp, or the Shock Trooper Upgrade. I personally recommend the Shotgun Amp as you get a better damage bonus. I’ll explain in the strategy section.
For the Ammo bonus, I’ve found Incendiary rounds work best. I’ll explain this as well in the strategy section.
For the Armor Bonus, just use whatever’s comfortable, though I would recommend the Power Efficiency Module for further reduced cooldowns.

 

Strategy:
“Query: Is there something you need killed, master?” – HK-47, Star Wars: the Knights of the Old Republic 2: the Sith Lords
Your Systems Alliance-built “huntress-killer” assassination gynoid is ready to serve. This curvy little robot may not look like much, but she packs a shotgun and is more than eager to let you know how she uses it. Just follow a few simple steps and your huntress-killer will lay waste to any meatbags (metalbags) that dare threaten the peace of the galaxy (or really anything else if you just ask, like that one doctor who stole Jacob from your FemShep  :D ).
Now, while you *can* go balls-out and charge into the fray thanks to the extra
shields and the Repair Matrix, your huntress-killer works far better if you focus on her namesake: hunting and killing (not necessarily in that order). Break off from the rest of the group and eliminate anything that might wanna try and cause some problems. That said, the strategy is pretty simple: find an enemy, cloak, aim shotgun, spread brains or other major internal/external organs across 10-foot radius, laugh, repeat. Good times.
Of course, your damage dealing doesn’t stop there. Maybe you’d like your enemies to chill out for a bit before you start performing rather brutal surgery with your shotgun. Or maybe you’d like to light them ablaze, then shock-freeze them into millions of little pieces (hence the Incendiary rounds – they can prime a tech combo with Snap Freeze). Or maybe you’d like to reenact a few Mortal Kombat characters by cloaking then uppercutting them into oblivion? Cloaking then shotgunning will be your primary method of dealing damage, but if you’re looking for better experience gains, you certainly have plenty of options.
If you’re quick enough on the controls, you can fire your shotgun *and* Snap Freeze an enemy before the cloak physically breaks (but it has to be in that order). The timing is a little tricky to pull off, but if you can do it consistently, you’ll maximize your overall effectiveness that much more.
Keep in mind is that you don’t have a lot of time to cloak, so try to be quick with your huntress-killing to maximize your effectiveness for the rest of the sortie. Also, for objectives, be vigilant if you happen to find yourself volunteering for enabling/disabling the 4 nodes – the cloak may last just long enough to get enemies to redirect their attention, but try not to rely on that (especially the “smart” enemies like dragoons and geth bombers).
So, the offensive capabilities of this sexy little huntress-killer are all fine and dandy, right? How does the Repair Matrix fit into all this, you may (or may not) be wondering? Simple, young padawan – if your shields ever drop (and let’s be real: they WILL), just activate your matrix, flip some ways away from the gunfire and you’re good to go. And should you actually go down while your matrix is active, you’ll stand right back with full health (it still counts as a “death” however). But so long as you’re not swarmed, you’ll actually regain shields faster than you lose them (similar to the vorchas’ Bloodlust and the krogans’ Rage).
Your huntress-killer may not be the best choice for most objectives – especially enabling/disabling the 4 nodes – but one objective where she’ll be particularly effective is Object Retrieval, since you get a speed boost while the Repair Matrix is active. Find the object, grab it, activate your matrix (since this particular build almost completely negates the speed penalty), and you and your sortie will be getting paid in no time.  :)
 Another thing that’s great about the Repair Matrix is that it functions a bit like a grenade. That means that it’s impervious to certain “breakdown” attacks like getting hit by a seeker swarm; so long as you’re not in hit-stun or preoccupied with an objective (the aforementioned 4 nodes, to be specific), you can activate your matrix at almost any time. Also, when active, the Repair Matrix overrides the “recharge penalty” from cloaking, so that’ll be one less thing you’ll have to worry about.
If/when you get up from the repair algorithms doing their repair algorithms, remember that there’s a slight delay before active control of your huntress-killer is given back to you. So before you start drumming that button trying to activate your matrices to restore your shields, nothing will actually happen until your character is up and able to move freely. Also, the Repair Matrix doesn’t revive you from insta-kills.
Now… remember when I said that if you so chose, you could forgo the Shotgun Amp for the Shock Trooper Upgrade? Here’s why: the Shock Trooper Upgrade gives you a shotgun damage boost in addition to *extra grenades*. Extra grenades means *extra charges for your Repair Matrix*. The trade off with this is that you end taking a slight hit in shotgun damage (+12% shotgun damage at max level vs +15% shotgun damage from the Shotgun Amp). It’s entirely up to you how you wanna go about your huntress-killing.
Since the Repair Matrix qualifies as a grenade, you can go with a Grenade Capacity mod to expand your repair charge count, if you feel so inclined. I don’t recommend that however – you’ll be forgoing extra shotgun damage in favor of a couple of extra charges you may not even need.

 

N00b Rating:
3 – As mentioned before, you won’t have a lot of time to cloak, so you have be quick on you huntress-killing. But if you stick to whittling down the enemy meatbags (or metalbags), things become easier for everyone involved, and everyone gets paid.

 

“It is my primary function to burn holes through meatbags that you wish removed.”

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I’m The Juggernaut B**** – By Reanimated Eggs

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Build Title:

I’m The Juggernaut B**** – By Reanimated Eggs

Class:

Krogan Vanguard

Power Evolutions:

Biotic Charge – Radius(4), Melee Synergy(5), Barrier(6)
Carnage – N/A
Barrier – Barrier Strength(4), Shield Recharge(5), Power Recharge(6)
Krogan Battlemaster – Damage & Capacity(4), Power Damage(5), N/A(6)
Rage – Durability(4), Martial Artist(5), Fitness Expert(6)

Weapons:

Any shotgun that will keep you at 200%. I personally use the Eviscerator but i get like 3 kills with a gun in any given gold anyway.Any shotgun that will keep you at 200%. I personally use the Eviscerator but i get like 3 kills with a gun in any given gold anyway.

Gear:

Anything that provides bonuses to Shield Total/Recharge Speed and/or Melee damage (especially melee damage mods on the shotty).

Strategy:

As with most vaguard classes it is vital you do not encounter our signature glitch to ensure this host your own match.

I chose radius in Biotic Charge because it helps with the crowd control as your meleeing guy #1 in the face guys 2 and 3 are still dazed and will be served in a minute. I chose Power Recharge in Barrier because maintaining 200% recharge and constant shield regeneration is key. I left the last skill in Battlemaster open b/c the bonuses they provide are useless to this build and up for personal choice.

The entire point of this build is to CONSTANTLY use Biotic Charge and get kills via melee. At the start of the game hit barrier and never take it off. For any enemy save for the ones with the capability to instakill you are to biotic charge to them for easy travel / melee bonus and keep (heavy) meleeing until the enemy is well tenderized. Always keep biotic charge on cooldown to ensure shields stay up and you will be fine, regardless of how many enemies are in one spot. Now if you encounter a Guardian with a shield BC to expose him and blast away with the shotgun. Now the only thing i haven’t covered are those with instakill capability, there are a few such as the Phantom, Atlas, or Brute where if done correctly can keep you from being skewered or stomped. But if you see a Banshee I personally suggest staying away and taking her down slowly with a shotgun unless she is currently impaling one of your teammates like a doll guarantee-ing she wont (cant) do the same to you.

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

Eh, I’ll give ita 3.5, Just make sure BC is constantly used and to be VERY careful next to Instakill units( You may have 1850 Health/Shields but instakills dont care about that) and you will be running through enemies like a Juggernaut.

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Paladin Blackguard – by Gemeril

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Build Title: Paladin Blackguard

Class: N7 Paladin Sentinel

Map Difficult Rating: This build has potential for Gold gameplay

Power Evolutions:
Energy Drain: (4) Damage, (5) Drain, (6) Armor Boost*
Incinerate: N/A
Snap Freeze: (4) Reach, (5) Duration & Slow, (6) Damage & Weakness
N7 Paladin: (4) Weapon Damage, (5) Power Damage, (6) Power Damage
Shield Mastery: (4) Durability, (5) Shield Recharge, (6) Cryo Shield

 

*Be aware that Armor Boost does not work off host, if you play off host, get Damage instead

 

Weapons:
M-11 Wraith or to a lesser extent the M-22 Eviscerator are the bread and butter to this build. If you have access to neither, substitute them for a shotgun you are comfortable in using that isn’t too heavy and try to keep your Recharge Speed above 120%. Put the Smart Choke and Shredder (or High Caliber Barrel/High Velocity Barrel) on it.

 

Gear:
Use the Beserker Package, Stronghold Package or Juggernaut Pacakage for your gear bonus. Armor-Piercing ammo is suitable or Incendiary to make Fire Explosions. Use a Shotgun Rail Amp or Strength Enhancer for your weapon bonus. It’s up to you for the armor bonus. Editor’s recommendation: Cyclonic Modulator.

 

Strategy:
Welcome to the Paladin. This build you will be mostly relying on your gun to kill things, but above all this build excels at debuffing and weakening enemies for your teammates to mop up. The shield mastery line I took will ensure you are nice and beefy, even on gold with a respectable 1050/700 that still doesn’t mean you can just sit out in the open though. On an Atlas, or other shielded/armored enemy you’ll want to spam energy drain and unload your shotgun clip while waiting for a recharge. Once you’re down to armor on an Atlas, you then use your Snap Freeze to weaken it by 50%, ensuring that Atlas in front/behind the wall you’re shooting Snap Freeze through melts like it was made of butter. With that said, be aware that your Snap Freeze with its range of 15m can shoot through walls very effectively. The last piece of advice, and this one will take some practice, is use your heavy melee (Omni-Shield) to safely stand your ground on an approaching Phantom. Just do not think you can sit behind your shield forever. Be very careful when a sync-kill boss (Phantom, Banshee, Atlas, Brute, Scion, Praetorian) nears, as they will grab you matter-of-factly and you’ll be a dead, lonely Paladin. The melee is a great Phantom deterrent though as it usually staggers one (or smacks her away and up into the air), especially if she’s down to health from a two Energy Drains.

 

N00b Rating:
3 – With a decent weapon, and decent aim, you can safely play gold with this build and do respectable. I don’t ever play aggressively, as I run with two very aggressive guys already, but this is one of the most fun support builds I’ve played.

 

Appearance:
A16, A16, C16, 1:9B, B1
Black with red highlights, black of any sort is a must for any Blackguard :P

 

Thank you to Gemeril for supplying the feature image below, showing you guys exactly what your “Blackguard” will look like :)

 

Edits by CoreyImperia

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Vorcha Butcher – by Lad Stankfoot

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Build Title: Vorcha Butcher

Class: Vorcha Sentinel

Power Evolutions:
Bloodlust: (4) Health Regeneration, (5) Weapon Damage, (6) Health Regeneration
Flamer: N/A*
Cluster Grenade: (4) Force & Damage, (5) Max Grenades, (6) Force & Damage
Vorcha Resilience: (4) Weapon Damage, (5) Power Damage, (6) Weapon Damage*
Fitness: (4) Melee Damage, (5) Martial Artist, (6) Melee Synergy
*If you really think you need Flamer, you could drop rank 6 of Vorcha Resilience and put those points into Flamer.

 

Weapons:
The M-358 Talon, and a heavy or medium shotgun of your choice. Your cooldown makes no difference, positive or negative, as you have no skills that would otherwise rely on it. As for weapon choice, the M-358 Talon with the Pistol Heavy Barrel or Pistol Extended Barrel and Pistol Piercing Mod is very effective against enemies with armor, like Brutes, Banshees, and Guardians. (More about killing these later.) The Talon is so important I consider it an essential part of my playstyle with this character. Any shotgun you have will suffice as a secondary weapon, though I like the M-300 Claymore as an anti-health counterpart for the Talon’s armor-shredding ability. I use the Shotgun High Caliber Barrel and the Shotgun Blade Attachment, though you can switch out the latter for an attachment of your choice. The Reegar is a good choice as well, with Shotgun High Caliber Barrel and Shotgun Shredder Mod. You can exchange the Talon for a Paladin or Carnifex with the same mods if you don’t have one.

 

Gear:
N/A; but Shock Trooper Upgrade is a good choice.

 

Strategy:
The Vorcha Sentinel, along with the Vorcha Soldier are by far my favorite of the Rebellion DLC character kits. Their Bloodlust ability, specced for maximum health regeneration, allows for incredible survivability. This also features a stacking mechanic that increases movement speed, health regeneration, and melee damage. This makes for an incredible melee-oriented class suitable for both Silver and Gold.
When you begin the match, immediately turn on Bloodlust. You don’t need to and shouldn’t turn it off at any point during the match, as there is no detonation function like the other Sentinels’ Tech Armor or the Krogan Vanguard’s Barrier.  Your standard tactic is very simple: Use your heavy melee to begin your combo on trash mobs (including Cerberus Nemesis and Centurions, Reaper Mauraders, and Geth Rocket Troopers) followed by a flurry of standard melees if the target does not die from the initial blow. Like a Vanguard, be very leery of running into groups and biting off more than you can chew without your health being full. Don’t be afraid to use your evasion moves to get away and take a short breather in cover while your health comes back.
Finally, there are the enemy units that are a bit more dangerous than your standard Cannibal or Assault Trooper. These are the enemies with one hit kill abilities (Banshees, Brutes, Ravagers, Phantoms, and Atlases) or are simply tougher than their ilk (Guardians, Geth Primes, and Geth Pyros) or can simply dispense a turret that hurts like a freight train (the Combat Engineer). The large Reaper units, Geth Primes, and Atlases you either want to not engage at all or engage from the back with your gun while they are distracted by your squadmates. The most important vulnerable places on the Atlas are the exhaust fan on the back and the armor plating that can be destroyed on its shoulders and groin. (That’s right, shooting a mech in the groin does more damage. Who knew?) Since the recent patch, shots to the canopy also count as boss headshots, for an additional 40.00% damage.
For Pyros, Guardians, and even Primes to a lesser degree, take out your armor-piercing pistol and fire away at their vulnerable bits. For Pyros, this is the fuel tank on their back and for Guardians this is the letter box gap in their riot shield’s front. Getting behind a distracted Guardian and mauling him to death also works. Combat engineers are easy prey to you, as long as they do not have their turret nearby. If they do, either throw a grenade at it to soften it up or take out your pistol to blast it to bits before you pursue its attached Engineer. Every engineer (especially ones placing their turret) you see should be a high priority because any single sentry turret can and will chew up your entire squad if given the chance. Their backpacks, like a Geth Pyro, will explode if you shoot at them long enough and a few well placed Talon shots will do the trick nicely.
Finally, for Phantoms you do not want to duel them in melee range, as tempting as it may be. It is very possible that they will either down you or use their sync-kill on you, making you useless for the rest of the wave. Rather, back up a bit and take a moment to line up a solid headshot with your shotgun. Remember that phantoms need to have used a melee attack before they use their sync-kill and that one of their acrobatic evasion leaps counts as part of this required pre-finish melee. The same goes for Ravagers, whom you want to engage in melee even less, due to the fact that they almost always have an escort of trash mobs that can take you down quickly. Just like any other sync-kill unit, stay back and use your pistol to attack its damage multiplier zones. For reference, the easiest of these to access is the green stuff behind its central sac.
Also, even though you will be running like a fiend around the map for most of the game, it is important that you are a team player during objective waves. Revive teammates and help them in the hacking circle. If there is a nearby hack point, use it or protect the person who is. Stick with your team during the later waves and remember that you should be using missiles to protect the squad, not to speed along the wave. You can stop squad mates being killed by sync-kill enemies (Phantoms, Atlases, Brutes, Banshees, Scions and Praetorians) with missiles if you are quick, but the Banshee and Praetorian are the only ones this is truly feasible on thanks to the launcher’s draw time. Remember, you are very tough thanks to your constant health regeneration from Bloodlust and that you can exploit that to your advantage.

 

 

N00b Rating:
3 – Despite the mobile and aggressive style of this class it is critical that you play intelligently and make good decisions.

 

-Edits by CoreyImperia

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Geth Weapons Expert – by bladedrummer

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Build Title:
Geth Weapons Expert – by bladedrummer

Class:
Geth Infiltrator

Power Evolutions:
Tactical Cloak: damage(4), recharge speed(5)
Proximity Mine: Radius (4), Damage Taken(5), Damage(6)
Hunter Mode: Weapon Accuracy(4), Rate of fire(5), Damage (6)
Networked AI: Weapon Damage(4), Headshots(5), Weapon Damage(6)
Advanced Hardware: (1), (2), (3)

If you feel a bit too squishy, drop TC 5 and put Advanced Hardware 4 into Health and Shields.

Weapons:
First of all: only use 1 weapon!!! The best part of this build is that it supports different weapons with great results.
Claymore X with High Caliber Barrel and Shredder Mod. (This is a classic and possibly the best loadout for this build. It shines on gold and platinum).

Piranha X with High Caliber Barrel and Shredder Mod. (You can tear down an Atlas or a Banshee in two reload cycles).

Hurricane, you need to add stability to this weapon to make it really shine so either have a stability mod consumable, use the new recoil mod on the weapon or the new barrage gear with this is great.

Cerberus Harrier with Extended Magazine and Extended Barrel or Armor Piercing mod.
Krysae Sniper Rifle with Extended barrel and AP mod.

Typhoon: Haven’t tried it yet, but I’m guessing it would be godly as well.
As you can see the possibilities are many. Just use a weapon with high dps and you’ll be rocking!
Remember to combine you mods and consumables so that you have at least one AP component to make it even more awesome.

Gear:
Depending on the weapon you equipped. With shotgun use the Shotgun Amp. With the Harrier use the Assault Rifle Amp or the Densified Ammo mod. With the Hurricane use the Barrage Upgrade or SMG Amp. For consumables anything to amplify your weapon damage. If you don’t have an AP mod on your weapon, use AP ammo, otherwise any ammo will do (incendiary, warp, disruptor, cryo). Good choices for consumables are also Adrenaline modules and Power Amplifiers (you will be getting lots of kills from Proxy Mines alone). If you’re using the Hurricane remember to use a stability consumable if you don’t have enough stability through weapon and gear mods.

Strategy:
Turn your Hunter Mode on first thing in every match. Never turn it off. The advantages of Hunter mode play right into this build so just keep it on and use the visibility to anticipate enemies. Use the movement speed and vision for pizza delivery-type objectives.

No matter the weapon of choice, the main cycle is: cloak, poxy mine at the feet or the body of the target, shoot. Get out of the enemy line of fire and repeat.

Proxy mine is a beautiful tool. It debuffs all the targets it hits so that they take +20% damage from all sources! And it stacks!!! On a big enemy, like a Geth Prime, you can manage to stack it up to 40% or even 60%, depending your cooldown and reload speed. A word to the wise: never ever ever fire a Proxy Mine out of cloak, the cooldown will be painfully long. Tactical Cloak overrides the Proxy Mine cooldown when it is fired from cloak.

Try to aim for the head for extra damage. Stay Mobile, move out of line of sight while you wait for cloak cooldown.

With the Claymore, you can fire a non-cloaked shot every other shot using reload canceling. To make it easier just bind another key to the quick use button 7 (medigel). Personally I bind my medigel to the mouse wheel button so that, as soon as my shot is in the barrel, I press the mouse wheel and cancel the rest of the reload animation for a fast second shot.

When using a rapid fire weapon (Piranha, Hurricane, Harrier) remember that sometimes you’ll need to get to cover before emptying the whole clip.

N00b Rating:
4, the fact that you are squishy takes some getting used to.

-edits by Lucien Midnight

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