My Favorite Characters and Weapons in the ME3 MP

The multiplayer part of Mass Effect 3 is so amazing that I feel like writing even more about it. In this post, I will list my favorite characters and weapons, and give reasons why I like them best.

Heavy Pistol: M-6 Carnifex (Rare)

A heavy hitting pistol which is weightless at the max rank, making it an excellent choice for caster type characters who like having a +200% power recharge rate. The ultra rare M-77 Paladin is s'posedly an upgrade but due to its rarity I only have it at rank 3, which weights too much.

Submachine Gun: N7 Hurricane (Promotional N7)
SMGs are not all that awesome because of their low damage and ineffectiveness against armor. However, the N7 Hurricane recently received couple buffs and even at rank 1, on the hands of a Turian soldier it actually feels quite nice. I haven't tried it on Gold, though. There also seems to be a bug that's caused by either the Turian Soldier's Marksman power, the weapon itself, lag, or any combination of the three, that makes the weapon sometimes unable to reload. Not much to do in a match if your weapon ceases to work.

The M-25 Hornet (Rare) is also a decent SMG that shoots three-round bursts. It climbs rather steeply if shot continously, though, and requires some skill to use. I haven't brought this with me to Gold either.

Assault Rifle: None

There are a whole lot of ARs in the game but none of them is really to my liking. The M-76 Revenant (rare) at least sounds like its doing massive damage but its reload time is probably the game's longest one. And it really doesn't do all that much damage; it's quite inaccurate. The new ultra-rare assault rifle, the Cerberus Harrier that was added with the Rebellion Pack update, is more accurate but runs out of ammo quickly.

The M-99 Saber (ultra-rare) shoots single heavy shots but one might as well use a pistol that doesn't slow down your power use. The M-37 Falcon (rare) assault rifle is actually a small grenade launcher. Sadly, it was heavily nerfed and now it's much like the rest of the ARs; too low damage for Gold. Although it can still keep a bunch of Cerberus Phantoms at bay since each of its shots causes stagger.

Sniper Rifle: M-98 Widow (Rare)
The Widow is a single-shot sniper rifle that can penetrate through 0.5 meters of cover (and enemies) -- more if modded and/or used with armor penetrating ammo. It's pretty fun when you manage to down three enemies with a single shot.

The Javelin penetrates a whole meter of cover and has a scope that highlights enemies through walls. The weapon requires some time to get used to, though, since you need to hold down the trigger half a second before it shoots. It's also ultra-rare (mine is at rank 1) and has very low reserve ammo.

The Black Widow (ultra-rare) upgrades the Widow by making it semi-automatic with three shot clips and doubles the cover penetration. Its single shot damage is lower but its dps is higher, and on Gold where enemies have a 100% shieldgate it's clearly better and many consider it to be the best sniper rifle. I have yet to unlock it sadly. The N7 Valiant (N7 promotional) also has the same size clip and is lighter but lacks in cover penetration. I have yet to receive it as well.

Shotgun: Geth Plasma Shotgun

This is my favorite weapon in the game. It shoots three projectiles in a V-shape that spreads out with distance. However, sometimes -- rather often actually -- the shotgun decides to expel the projectiles in a single blob instead, making it like a sniper rifle, although it doesn't receive headshot bonuses.

It's also a non-hitscan weapon, and often suffers from no-damage shots when you're not hosting the game. It can be charged for higher damage by holding the trigger too, though even the base damage is quite acceptable. And it ignores the shieldgate mechanic, making infiltrators able to one-shot most enemies on Gold when releasing a charged shot with the Tactical Cloak damage bonus. (Probably requires some ammo consumable.) Also, the shots like to home ever so slightly. This weapon is just amazing.

The Rebellion Pack also added the Krysae Sniper Rifle, which shoots explosive rounds, and the Reegar Carbine, which is kind of a plasma flamer. That also is capable of making headshots... For some reason, people are yelling for nerfs for both of them. I haven't tried them enough myself to say anything, although Xcal completely wipes the enemy with the Reegar in this video. He was really good at the game even before the gun, though.

And onto the characters...

Adept: Asari

The Adept class is designed to prime and detonate biotic explosion by themselves. In my opinion, the Asari succeeds best at this with her Warp-Throw combo that works on every target. Both powers have a travelling time, though, making long distance bombardment somewhat slow unless there is another biotic character priming/detonating with you. The Drell and Asari Justicar Adepts with their Reave are my favorites to pair with. This character makes Reapers on Gold noticeably easier.

Sentinel: Turian
The Sentinel class is somewhat stale, though it comes with tools to fight against all enemy protection types; shields, barriers, and armor -- with varying degree of effectiveness. The Turian doesn't have combat rolls, making Phantoms a very unpleasant surprise at close range. However, since both Warp and Overload are very good powers, I prefer the Turian over the rest of the races.

Soldier: Human
For the longest of time the soldier (especially human) seemed quite an underachiever to me. They buffed it, though, and I discovered that Adrenaline Rush specced for shield restore is a lifesaver. The GPS is my weapon of choice for this character. The Frag Grenade can do a huge loads of damage as well, but grenades are such a chore to use due to the ammo boxes giving them out so sparingly.

Vanguard: Human
All the vanguard characters have the Biotic Charge power that hurls you through air to your target, doing damage and restoring half of your barriers (or all if specced for it). The Human Vanguard, however, makes the best use of the charge since they have the Nova power that does AoE damage based on your barriers. It also drains them but since you can recharge them by charging again it's a non-issue. Well, almost.

Nova isn't affected by the global power cooldown but there's still a short moment before you can use your Biotic Charge again. During the short window you're quite vulnerable if surrounded by a mob of enemies. In addition, the character is very risky to use off-host because getting your charge off immediately is often vitally important. The charge ability is also very suspectible to making your character glitched when launching charge just after you've died thanks to possible latency. After you are revived, your character will start gradually gaining altitude and soon you will find yourself floating above the map unable to do anything. This happens almost every time.

On Bronze, the Human Vanguard absolutely dominates, and easily soloes the whole match. On Silver, one learns humility from enemies like the Cerberus Turret. And on Gold one actually needs to know how to play to not get killed all the time. The Krogan Vanguard is somewhat to my liking as well as he's the toughest character in the multiplayer, thanks to the Krogan passives, the Biotic Charge, and the Barrier power. The kroguard also covers half of your screen.

Infiltrator: Salarian
The Infiltrator is the most played class of the multiplayer. Probably because of being able to hide from enemies with the Tactical Cloak. It's actually quite akward to be the only non-infiltrator in a game because everything will come at you since you're not invisible.

The Salarian Infiltrator has two very good powers, the debuffing Proximity Mine and Energy Drain, which restores your shields when used on synthetics and/or shielded enemies. (Your shields don't regenerate while in Cloak.) I do like shield restoring abilities, very much.

The Geth Infiltrator is also a very good pick -- they're capable of dealing the most damage in the game, thanks to the combination of Cloak, Hunter Mode, and Proximity Mine. Although the graphical effect of Hunter Mode makes the character somewhat painful to play, at least on large maps. On Firebase Glacier the enemy highlighting is very useful, though objective markers are still difficult to see.

Engineer: Geth
The Geth Engineer is my favorite class in multiplayer; Chain Overload removes shields and keeps enemies incapacitated, Geth Turret restores ally shields, and Hunter Mode boosts your damage, shows hidden enemies, and increases your movement speed. Armored enemies are probably the weakness of the GE but charged GPS shots with ammo consumable do decent damage to even them. The character is just awesome, and with it I'm most comfortable playing Gold. He keeps your whole squad alive yet does more than barely supports the group.

I just unlocked the last two of the Rebellion characters but I haven't really been impressed by the rest four so far. The ex-cerberus characters have rather cumbersome powers, and the male Quarian powers don't bring much new. The Vorcha health regeneration is pretty cool but I'd rather take shield restoration any day. And while the heavy melee attack is deadly, the camera in this game is just too close to use it effectively. Every mistake in melee might be your last, while missing a shot from afar isn't quite as lethal.

There you go, a whole lot of text about ME3 MP again. I think I spent at least two hours writing it. But I do like talking about the game.