Tag Archives: tactical cloak

Three Trick Pony by JayneCobb88

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Build Title: Three Trick Pony

 

Class: Asari Huntress Infiltrator

 

Map Difficulty Rating: This build has the potential for Platinum gameplay

 

Power Evolutions:
Tactical Cloak: Duration (4), Melee Damage (5), Bonus Power (6)
Dark Channel: Damage (4)
Warp: Detonate (4), Expose (5), Pierce (6)
Asari Adept: Damage & Capacity (4)
Fitness: Melee Damage (4), Martial Artist (5), Power Synergy (6)

 

Weapons:
Primary: Reegar Carbine with Omni-Blade and Shredder Mod
Secondary: SMG with Ultalight Materials and other mod
Hurricane – Heat Sink, Collector SMG – Extended Mag, other SMG – your mod choice

 

Gear:
This build is all about the Incendiary Ammo, even if all you have is level I, use that. Hydraulic Joints, Juggernaut Shield or Berserker Package are all solid choices. Don’t bother with a shotgun amp, the Reegar does plenty of damage for our purposes.

 

Strategy:
As the name implies, Three Trick Pony has three distinctly different ways to attack.
Trick #1: Cloak, close the distance to the target, Warp, Reegar. This attack gets you within the Reegar’s 10m range safely and allows Warp to nearly always hit. Warp will do several things for this attack plan; stagger the target, increase weapon damage by 15%, reduce armor effectiveness by half and along with the Shredder Mod negates armor reduction entirely. The best thing though is an exploit of Warp’s DOT mechanic. Warp’s DOT damage is registered by the game as incendiary ammo damage. This means shooting the target with incendiary ammo will stack the ammo damage to Warp’s DOT which turns into tens of thousands of damage done to the target over the next 5 seconds that the incendiary ammo does its DOT. And the more times the ammo damage is applied, the more extreme the damage becomes. Simply put, Warp + Incendiary Ammo allows the Reegar to melt armor in addition to health, shields and barriers. Your SMG sidearm is great for situations in which you want to keep your distance while still using the same Warp + Incendiary Ammo tactic.
Trick #2: When necessary the Pony can play it safe by cloaking and hitting a target with Dark Channel. The player can let the DOT do its thing or launch a Warp while still cloaked for a powerful BE. It’s a little counter intuitive but both the Huntress and N7 Shadow can do more damage reliably with Tactical Cloak duration + bonus power than with Tac Cloak damage. Taking duration also allows for better utility for objectives, reviving teammates and running to safety for shield recovery. A longer duration also allows for a heavier weapon load out since there is more time to attack cancel out of cloak and take the automatic 3 second cool down. Also of note, the Huntress’
Tactical Cloak damage bonus only applies to melee and power attacks, which relieves the mental pressure to fire your weapon while cloaked and makes taking cloak duration over damage less of a loss than it is on other classes.
Trick #3: The asari heavy melee when used correctly can utterly wreck crowds. First off, the good qualities; the asari heavy biotic blast is area of attack, does respectable damage to health and receives a 50% increase vs shields, barriers and armor. Now the bad qualities; slow to execute, won’t hit through walls and has a one second recovery period. Counter the first two problems by cloaking a good distance away from your targets and carefully choosing your point of attack. Counter the one second recovery time by making sure you’ve already got a heavy melee kill within the past 30 seconds before attacking a shielded foe, ensuring their death in one blow. You can also hit them with Dark Channel or Warp either on approach or just before the melee.

 

N00b Rating:
2 – Since the Three Trick Pony has so many different ways to attack she is adaptable to any situation or any enemy and is an awesome team player with her cloak built for utility. And having so many ways to attack just makes her a blast to play.
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The Undefeated Quarian – by WadeVox

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Build Title: The Undefeated Quarian
Class: Male Quarian Infiltrator
Map Difficulty Rating: This build has the potential for Gold gameplay (Platinum is doable with the right team)
Power Evolutions:
Tactical Cloak: (4) Damage, (5) Recharge Speed, (6) Sniper Damage
Tactical Scan: (4) Weapon damage, (5) Headshots, (6) Damage
Arc Grenades: (4) Damage, (5) Electrical Damage*
Quarian Defender: (4) Weapon Damage, (5) Headshots, (6) Weapon Damage
Fitness: First three ranks
(*Either is appropriate here, max grenades or electrical damage. It all depends on your personal play style)

 

Weapons: Black Widow with extended barrel and piercing mods.

 

Gear: Juggernaut Shield, Guerilla Upgrade, Operative Package, Shield Booster, Sniper Rifle Amp, Survivor Loadout, Vulnerability (If you are GREAT at getting headshots). I strongly recommend whatever you have to give you the most shield strength or the most sniper rifle damage boost. My personal preference is the Operative Package. For Ammo, weapon and armor use whatever you are most comfortable with and whatever you have to use.

 

Strategy:
First a little about me, then my thoughts about the character, then the powers, then how to play him; I don’t have any friends that play this game any more so most of my builds are constructed around playing as the lone wolf on a team of randoms and surviving without relying on others to detonate my combos or deal damage after I prime something; If you want to play with me sometime my gamertag on XBOX Live is Pecos McCleod.
This is probably my favorite character in the whole game. I named him as a nod to Crixus from the television show Spartacus on Starz and because this guy is incredibly powerful and has gotten me kicked from several games by people who can’t handle his awesomeness. His powers are evolved for maximum damage at every possible point. Tactical cloak takes damage at 4, recharge speed at 5 (I always take recharge speed here), and sniper damage at 6. This is pretty standard evolution for tactical cloak; although if you like to do objectives and like to have extra time to line up the perfect headshot take duration and deal a bit less damage. Tactical scan is evolved similarly to Quarian Defender, weapon damage at 4, headshots at 5, and damage at 6. Scan EVERYTHING to get assist points and assist medals by the end of the game. Arc grenades are only there for controlling and stunning mobs, or as a panic escape from a crowd. I take damage at 4, and either max grenades or electrical damage at 5; either is appropriate, these aren’t for killing the enemy, only as small crowd control devices and panic buttons to escape situations. Quarian Defender is evolved for weapon damage at 4, headshots at 5 and weapon damage at 6. Everything is about boosting the damage for your rifle off the map. I only take the first 3 ranks of fitness; however if you like the extra comfort of shields, lose the arc grenades and max out fitness. Always remember, his health and shields are crap and even with them maxed out you will still die very easily; not worth giving up grenades for in my opinion.
The theory behind this build is to take the Black Widow sniper rifle, apply the damage from his tactical scan to your first two shots against an enemy, cloak, and then shoot your last shot dealing an insane amount of damage (this build and weapon combo demolishes armor). Your last cloaked shot is almost like a Widow shot with the damage it does. Even with a low level Black Widow (I only have a rank 3) your power recharge speed stays healthy enough to have your tactical cloak at a respectable 5.8 seconds and your tactical scan at 2.4 seconds. The longer cool down of the cloak allows for easy reload cancels, and the quick cool down of the scan lets you scan, then cloak for extra damage. I can’t stress enough how important it is to SCAN EVERYTHING! Even scan the base, low level enemies for additional assist points and medals. Your tactical scan helps out everyone by not only boosting weapon damage and movement speed penalties against the target, but highlights where a target is at which is useful against pesky Phantoms and other cloaked individuals. Like most other infiltrators this guy is not a front line warrior. Maintaining distance between enemies is vital, with no secondary or close quarters weapon if someone gets close you will be chewed up. When enemies get close to you, back away while firing and if necessary use the tactical cloak to make a retreat in any direction and reestablish proper distance for your Black Widow shots. Don’t be afraid to constantly move and change positions to maintain the distance from an enemy. When playing with random teammates everyone may die leaving you as the only player left in the wave; no matter what they are saying make sure you keep your distance from enemies and slowly take them down one at a time then work on the bosses. Remember that the arc grenade is a useful tool to briefly stun an enemy or flash stun a mob giving you precious seconds to escape or line up the crucial headshot. It is also effective for taking down or weakening enemy shields. Always remember the usual order of operations, tactical scan, fire 2 shots (this will normally take down most enemies), cloak, fire the last shot, reload cancel, and then start over. Remember to tactical scan every enemy, especially boss enemies, and get those free assist points. Tactical scan also won’t remove you from cover so use this power often.

 

N00b Rating:
4 – This build is like any other Infiltrator sniper build but with one great tool: tactical scan. This power has a low recharge time and takes the Black Widow to new worlds of damage. Tac scan, 2 shots, cloak, shoot, reload cancel, repeat. Maintain your distance from the enemy, change sniping spots when necessary and don’t feel compelled to rush in and protect other teammates when they behave stupidly because you are very frail. Final Note: this build is unfair to play with on silver or bronze, you will only find proper contest on gold.

 

Appearance:  A16 B9 A16 1:B9 A4; Dark red and black with red stripes.
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T-1000 – by JayneCobb

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Build Title: T-1000

 

Class: Alliance Infiltration Unit Infiltrator

 

Map Difficulty Rating: This build has the potential for Platinum gameplay

 

Power Evolutions:
Tactical Cloak: (4) Damage, (5) Melee Damage, (6) Shotgun Damage
Snap Freeze: (4) Damage, (5) Cryo Explosion
Repair Matrix: (4) Survivability, (5) Duration, (6) Enhanced Repair Matrix
Unshackled AI: (1), (2), (3)
Fitness Module: (4) Melee Damage, (5) Martial Artist, (6) Melee Synergy

 

Weapons:
Primary: A lightweight and “accurate” shotgun with Blade Attachment and High-Velocity Barrel. The best is the Wraith but the Eviscerator and Disciple also work.
Secondary: Acolyte with Ultralight Materials and High Caliber Barrel

 

Gear:
Use Shock Trooper gear if it gives you 2 grenade slots, otherwise use Grenade Capacity.

 

Strategy:
The Alliance Infiltration Unit is the consummate close quarters specialist. Tac Cloak is useful as it always is but provides extra shotgun damage instead of sniper damage. Snap Freeze sets up cryo explosions, staggers across a wide area, provides 10% vulnerability and weakens armor 25%. That last one is a big one especially coupled with High-Velocity Barrel. The damage of every shot against an armored target is reduced by 50 so for shotguns which spread their damage over 8 pellets, that’s 400 damage resisted per shot by armored targets. But with 25% weakening and 65% piercing, only 40 damage is shrugged off by armored targets. Repair Matrix almost feels like cheating. The increased movement speed paired with the acrobatic dodges (which reduce damage taken by 50%) means you simply don’t get hit. So when you get hit, Repair Matrix reduced damage taken by 40% and if you’re hit in the middle of a dodge then that’s 90% damage ignored. That measly 10% is quickly repaired by the 235 shield points regenerating per second. And should you go down for some reason, you get back up with full health and enough invulnerability time to activate another repair matrix, cloak, and side flip to safety. Activating Repair Matrix has no animation which means doing so is instantaneous so long as you aren’t staggered and being a grenade power, using it will not cause you to decloak.
The T-1000’s offense is an extremely fast rotation mixing cloak, Snap Freeze, heavy melee and shotgun blasts. The Wraith’s only shortfall is the time delay between shots. The Infiltration Unit’s heavy melee is both powerful and crazy fast. This speed allows heavy melee to be used to cancel the last second of Snap Freeze that does nothing but slow down the attack and to fill the space in between shots from the Wraith to maintain a continuous assault. Also, once an enemy is killed by heavy melee the T-1000  gains 25% weapon damage for 20 seconds which is equivalent to maxing out Unshackled AI for weapon damage. An assault run looks something like this; Cloak, close distance to enemy, Snap Freeze, cancel to Heavy Melee, Shotgun blast, Heavy Melee, Shotgun, cloak, side-flip, reload, repeat.
Most enemies die with or before the first shotgun blast and only Brutes or higher survive the second shotgun blast. This assault rotation is so fast that only the last shotgun attack doesn’t receive Tac Cloak’s damage bonus.
A few last words on Repair Matrix. With a duration of 12 seconds and Shock Trooper IV or V, the T-1000 has the potential for a full minute and a half of invulnerability. And with that said, Repair Matrix does not need to be active all the time. When facing down one or two enemies, leave it off unless your shields go down. And when attacking groups just form a plan, pick a target and then activate Repair Matrix. This kind of use minimizes trips to the ammo boxes which I make a policy to do whenever I only have 1 Matrix left. Repair Matrix will also stop the damage over time effects from banshees and scions. So in summary only use Repair Matrix before fighting groups, when shields are dropped or being drained and always have one on hand.

 

N00b Rating:
2 – Super effective, super fun and Repair Matrix keeps even inexperienced players in the game. Sync kills will still make you super dead, Repair Matrix won’t reactivate you.
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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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Flash of Greatness – by CoreyImperia

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Build Title: Flash of Greatness

Class: Alliance Infiltration Unit Infiltrator

Map Difficulty Rating: This build has the potential for Platinum gameplay

Power Evolutions:
Tactical Cloak: (4) Damage, (5) Recharge Speed, (6) Shotgun Damage
Snap Freeze: (4) Reach, (5) Cryo Explosion, (6) Damage & Weakness
Repair Matrix: (4) Survivability, (5) Duration, (6) Enhanced Repair
Unshackled A.I: (4) Weapon Damage, (5) Headshots, (6) Weapon Damage
Fitness: N/A

 

Weapons:
You’ll want to utilize the M-300 Claymore, M-11 Wraith or the AT-12 Raider. For each of them, you’ll want High Velocity Barrel and Smart Choke. Recharge Speeds aren’t a pressing concern on this character. My personal favourite is the M-300 Claymore, but any are acceptable. The M-22 Eviscerator is a suitable substitute provided you don’t have any of these weapons.

 

Gear:
Armor-Piercing or Warp Rounds for your ammo bonus. Both apply high damage and either ignore or weaken armor. Shotgun Rail Amp for weapon bonus, Adrenaline Module or Cyclonic Modulator for armor bonus. Use Grenade Capacity or Shock Trooper Upgrade for gear. The choice comes down to how many Repair Matrices you think you’ll need.

 

Strategy:
I wasn’t impressed with EDI in the single player mode… but this Alliance Infiltration Unit is incredible. Finally! An infiltrator tailored to shotguns! This makes her so unbelievably powerful but we have to skip out on Fitness because of her talents. Fortunately, with Repair Matrix, she has so high survivability that a lack of fitness is normally not an issue, but you still shouldn’t be careless. She isn’t a Geth Juggernaut after all. I’ll go over the powers, then the enemies and then some issues you may experience.
I adore her Tactical Cloak; we final have Shotgun Damage which skyrockets her damage output. With Shotgun Rail Amp III, M-300 Claymore X with High Velocity Barrel V and a cloaked point-blank shot, you’ll cause a massive 6,081.12 damage! Rank 4 for Damage, recharge at 5 to mitigate the lack of weight and Shotgun Damage at rank 6. If you PuG a lot, perhaps Duration is better but without Damage you’ll deal 40.00% less damage. This is how I normally use Snap Freeze, it’s basically just for weakening targets. So many people argue about whether or not Tech Combo is bugged so I play it safe and choose Damage & Weakness at Rank 6 which, I swear is better. Especially since you’re focusing on weakening and not explosons. Reach allows you to maintain some distance (and your shotgun will still deal high damage due to Smart Choke), and Cryo Explosion weakens enemies you have used Snap Freeze on. Win and win. Repair Matrix is like Stimulant Pack, but in my personal opinion, much better. In addition to massive and constant shield regeneration, if you’re down while it’s active, it’ll revive you too! Survivability at rank 4 is handier than the shield option, as it gives you a chance to flee with the movement speed bonus and that damage reduction is great as long as you can keep those shields up during it. Duration is superior at rank 5 as security in case you get downed and Enhanced Repair Matrix gives you better bonuses in this case because you’re not focusing on it being a second medi-gel, you’re focusing on not going down when it’s attack. Standard weapon’s platform spec for the class passive and no points for fitness.
The class itself has little trouble against any faction because the strategy doesn’t change regardless. Snap Freeze is your tool for disabling annoy minions like abominations, husks, cannibals, collector troopers and so on. It’s other utilization is armor weakening which is specifically for any boss-tier enemy. Tactical Cloak is your key to getting around undetected and skyrockets the damage of your weapon. If you’re quick, you can pull of a Snap Freeze and a shotgun shot during the second it takes Tactical Cloak to fade. Repair Matrix is your backup, use it generously but remember to keep stock. If possible, play grenade maps. On Hazard Ghost, Repair Matrix will completely mitigate the damage from the acid rain. She has the most difficulty with minions and flanking, so don’t bite of more than you can chew. In saying this, her cloaked shotgun strike should kill most minions, usually including Phantoms or armored minions (Pyros or Dragoons) and bosses will take only a few shots. Be cautious of sync-kills also, that’s why we’ve got Smart Choke so you can maintain some distance and still be effective.
The Alliance Infiltration Unit is tailored to killing, not objectives. Her functionality with Escorts and Uploads improves as long as you can keep Defence Matrix up just purely because she is frail. Her better objectives are Devices because of Tactical Cloak and Delivery because of the movement speed bonus Repair Matrix supplies. The only issues you may face are been surrounded by umpteen Mauraders so the damage output is strong enough to overcome Repair Matrix, and having Repair Matrix revive you, only to be sync-killed a second later (trust me, Phantoms are evil). Take care to ensure her health stays high, as Repair Matrix won’t save you from much if you’re surrounded on low shields and low health. Overall she is a powerful and versatile class but if she’s caught in the wrong place at the wrong time or you bite of more than you can chew, she will go down and its then you’ll hope you’ve got Repair Matrix. After all, this is no Geth Juggernaut.

 

N00b Rating:
2.5 – This character has an intense amount of survivability especially with the way Repair Matrix is evolved. Her shields restore at an insane pace and the bonuses to movement speed coupled with Adrenaline Module means she can fire her Claymore right in someones face and run off before any of the other enemies realise she’s been there. In saying all this, she is vulnerable to stagger and is weak defensively which is why you can’t be stingy with your Repair Matrices. If you learn the tricks, you can get through gold games easily without using any medi-gel or ops packs.
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