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[Synthetic Frost]

Okay everyone, Mass Effect 3 has been out for a week now, and many of us have beaten the game on Insanity by now. It's time we started crunching the numbers. This is the first of what I hope to be a series of threads consisting Gold Standard Builds for all classes.

This is intended to be a discussion. 

I am in no way claiming to have all the facts or the cold hard numbers at this point. I also don't own the PC version of the game, so I can't personally check the game's files and data for the exact stats and multipliers.

I will be talking mostly about the talent point builds. The weapon choices, while important when deciding what you'd like to tailor your build around, will not be the primary focus of the discussion, at least at first.

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Today I will be focusing on the Infiltrator, simply because that was the class I played through with first, and is the class I have the most experience with in both ME3, and throughout the franchise.

I will be sorting the rank 4, 5, and 6 choices by the name of the option in the Squad Screen. 

After a few playthroughs, I've settled on tailoring my own personal Level 60 Infiltrator with the following build:


Tactical Hybrid DPS/CC Sniper Build:

Disruptor Ammo - Rank 4: Damage, Rank 5: Headshots, Rank 6: Damage

Cryo Ammo - Rank 4: Squad Bonus, Rank 5: Headshots, Rank 6: Freeze Chance

Incinerate - Rank 4: Damage, Rank 5: Recharge Speed, Rank 6: Freeze Combo

Tactical Cloak - Rank 4: Damage, Rank 5: Recharge Speed, Rank 6: Sniper Damage

Sticky Grenade - Rank 4: Radius

Sabotage - Rank 4: Backfire, Rank 5: Recharge Speed, Rank 6: Tech Vulnerability

Operational Mastery - Rank 4: Weapon Damage, Rank 5: Weight Capacity, Rank 6: Sniper Damage

Fitness - Rank 4: Durability, Rank 5: Shield Recharge, Rank 6: Durability

Bonus Power:

Warp Ammo - Rank 4: Damage, Rank 5: Headshots, Rank 6: Damage


This build focuses mostly on having a light load-out with as short of cooldowns as possible, with an emphasis on Tech Bursts via the Rank 6 Freezing Chance Cryo Ammo ability.

Equipment load-out consists of using only a sniper rifle, and an SMG for barriers and shields. Gear includes the Kuwashii Visor or the Delumcore Overlay helmet, and armor from Armax Arsenal and Hahne-Kedar to maximize weapon and headshot damage.

Best used with a party that can CC the enemies so the player can mow them down with high DPS sniping, this build calls for very short power cooldowns for maximizing DPS and mobility with the tactical cloak. It also lets you set up tech bursts easier with a fast-acting Incinerate.

This build excels with Squad Cryo combined with party members like Liara, EDI, and Garrus for their CC and defense stripping abilities. Using their SMGs and assault rifles for a solid stream of Cryo inducing Tech Burst setups.

I've chosen to NOT include the other squad ammo powers. This lets you set your squad to Cryo, and you can set yourself to Disruptor or Warp Ammo. This way, you can strip barriers and shields quickly, and the enemy will be chilled or frozen almost instantly due to the covering fire of your cryo-enabled squadmates.

I've chosen Warp Ammo as the Bonus Power simply because I wanted an ability that I could fill the gap of the Infiltrator's weakness to Barriers without adding another power to the cooldowns. Though Reave would fill it nicely.

Squad Notes:

Without going into great squad detail, I recommend maxing out Liara's Singularity with the 100% cooldown bonus. This pretty much completely negates any and all husk-related issues the long range Infiltrator builds had in ME2. It also means Liara can set off her own biotic detonations pretty frequently via Warp.

All in all, this is a pretty standard sniping build. The only real thing to take note of is the affinity for mobility and CC as opposed to other comparable builds which favor more heavier load-outs or Power Damage.

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I hope we can get some more builds in here. We definitely need some CQC Infiltrator builds in the mix. Feel free to critique my build, or add your own!

Modifié par Synthetic Frost, 14 mars 2012 - 01:22 .

[Athenau]

CQC infiltrator:

Maxed disruptor ammo with damage and headshot damage evolutions.
Maxed cryo with damage, headshot damage, and increased damage taken.
Maxed incinerate with damage, DOT damage, and freeze combo.
Tactical cloak with damage, recharge, and power while cloaked.
Maxed sticky grenade with damage, capacity, and damage.
Maxed sabotage with duration, recharge speed, and berserk.
Operational master with weapon damage, weight capacity, and power damage.
Fitness with melee, shield recharge, and melee.
Bonus Power is rank 4 Defense Matrix with the shield restoration evolution.

Tactics:

My favored loadout with this build is the M-11 Wraith with the M-6 Carnifex. Your standard burst damage combo with the Wraith is cloak - shoot - incinerate - shoot. You can easily one shot mooks with body shots and even elites (centurions and nemesis) go down with a headshot. The only things that survive all three hits are armored enemies like brutes and banshees.

The Carnifex is there because it gives you the power of a sniper rifle in half the weight.

Sabotage is the "FU turret" power. I chose duration over damage because it has crap damage anyway, that's not what it's there for. Explosive hack vs recharge is a matter of taste, both are fine choices. I chose the berserk final evolution because +100% damage on insanity turrets is ridiculous. Remember, unlike your squadmates enemies don't suffer any damage scaling. Hacking a turret is easily 2 or 3 free kills--anyone standing one gets instagibbed.

Incinerate is your damage power. Choose all the damage evolutions. You don't need the recharge evolution because 90% of the time your cloak cooldown will trump your incinerate cooldown (since you fire it just before uncloaking). Also, if you're feeling lazy you can cloak and bomb enemies with incinerate from cover. The cloak damage boost buffs your powers too.

Sticky grenades are for hard targets. You want to stick it to them (literally). Especially useful for brutes to cancel your shotgun reload. Also, grenade spam while cloaked is effective if your aim is good.

For fitness I chose the melee damage upgrades over the bonus health/shields since you'll be in the thick of things more often. The exception being the shield regen upgrade because the alternative of more melee damage on a melee kill is useless. Melee damage is nice, but you're not a krogan.

Defense matrix. 80% shield recharge on a ~3-4 second cooldown. What more needs to be said?

It's super fun to play. Cloak gives you a lot of leeway to be aggressive, but unlike a sniper it's not a get out of jail free card. Enemies often see through it at close range (especially elites) and it halts your shield regen. So you have to be very aware of cover and potential flanks at all times. It also requires good aim and reflexes. Acquiring a fast moving target up close is very different from lining up headshots from cover and the penalty for missing can be much worse. This build really benefits from squadmates with strong CC. Liara is a must-have because of her ridiculous singularity cooldown. Garrus and Kaidan are also good choices. Garrus has huge weapon damage (compared to other squadmates) and a low concussive shot cooldown, Kaidan is your only other biotic and his tech powers are good too.

[AKOdin]

Synthetic Frost wrote...



Disruptor Ammo - Rank 4: Damage, Rank 5: Headshots, Rank 6: Damage


Bonus Power:

Warp Ammo - Rank 4: Damage, Rank 5: Headshots, Rank 6: Damage

I've chosen Warp Ammo as the Bonus Power simply because I wanted an ability that I could fill the gap of the Infiltrator's weakness to Barriers without adding another power to the cooldowns. Though Reave would fill it nicely.!

Interesting-I'll have to look at the squad cryo! Why include Warp Ammo for barrier takedowns though? In ME3, disruptor ammo also gets a bonus to barriers. I was thinking the Ammo Piercing Bonus Power would be more useful, as it ignores X% of armor when attacking armored targets.

[No Snakes Alive]

I think the idea of having gold standard builds applies more to a game like the first Mass Effect where every point counts and foregoing the sniper rifle could make all the difference endgame. Here we've got points to spare on every class and a ton of potential gold standard builds.

Nonetheless, if I have anything to add about Infiltrators it's that Energy Drain and, especially, Defense Matrix are the two optimal choices for bonus power, hands down. The Infiltrator's glaring weakness is that shields don't regen while cloaked and both of these powers cover that hole entirely, while still also playing to the Infiltrator's strengths. I'd recommend Energy Drain for a sniper Infiltrator and Defense Matrix for a CQC build. Nothing like going invisible, refilling your shields like nothing ever happened, and resuming that ass-whooping.

[Athenau]

Yes, defense matrix is silly.

[Synthetic Frost]

AKOdin wrote...

Synthetic Frost wrote...



Disruptor Ammo - Rank 4: Damage, Rank 5: Headshots, Rank 6: Damage


Bonus Power:

Warp Ammo - Rank 4: Damage, Rank 5: Headshots, Rank 6: Damage

I've chosen Warp Ammo as the Bonus Power simply because I wanted an ability that I could fill the gap of the Infiltrator's weakness to Barriers without adding another power to the cooldowns. Though Reave would fill it nicely.!

Interesting-I'll have to look at the squad cryo! Why include Warp Ammo for barrier takedowns though? In ME3, disruptor ammo also gets a bonus to barriers. I was thinking the Ammo Piercing Bonus Power would be more useful, as it ignores X% of armor when attacking armored targets.

Yeah. I'll be perfectly honest and admit that I hesitated when I first started looking at the bonus powers. Because the Infiltrator gets along just fine without one at all. After looking at the numbers, Warp Ammo adds an 80% boost to Barrier damage, while Disruptor adds 66%. Armor Pericing may indeed be the better choice since Armor is the thing we seem to not have any real damage boosts to in this build. I dismissed it originally because I run around with the Armor Pericing mod on my rifle.

Or you could use Reave so you can set up quicker detonations with Liara....

I think the idea of having gold standard builds applies more to a game like the first Mass Effect where every point counts and foregoing the sniper rifle could make all the difference endgame. Here we've got points to spare on every class and a ton of potential gold standard builds.

You speak truth, sir. However this is the class build and strategy forum, and we have YET to have any real threads on build preferences or the like.

Another thing Mass Effect 3 brings to the table is the multiplayer. We could even start discussing multiplayer strategy for the Gold difficulty matches if the mood struck us.

[Moriinsomn]

I never played as an infiltrator before im a shotgun fan ill try it out for sure
A close range combat feels more chalenging to me anyone can kill from a long distance but the true chalenge/reward comes from close combat.

[Seloun]

Squad Cryo with Hurricanes (or other rapid fire weapons) definitely works well for anything unshielded. I personally don't really like Incinerate as a damage option, though, since I feel like the CD is better used for weapon strikes using Tactical Cloak (especially since Incinerate is quite weak against barriers and shields).

Freeze combo with Incinerate is nice, but in practice I find that I usually don't have to explicitly take out frozen targets. Either squadmates can kill them in a burst, or you can just ignore them since they won't be bothering  you for a while anyway.

As for my bonus power, I prefer Slam for biotic combo with Singularity. The main advantage of Slam is the extremely short cooldown - actually competitive with Liara's, which means pretty much a combo going off every two seconds. This combined with Squad Cryo essentially completely resolves the problem of anything that isn't armored/shielded/barrier. Slam/Singularity really trivializes almost every encounter, to the point that it's literally not worth shooting anything besides an armored enemy (shielded ones, if you didn't bring overload/energy drain).

Armor piercing seems like a good idea on paper, but in practice the only armored enemy that seem to pose a problem are Banshees, and it's absolutely imperative to drop their barriers rather than optimizing for armor. Once you're on armor and they aren't charging, Banshees are a pretty trivial kill. Brutes/Rachni already die in one Black Widow clip, and adding armor piercing wouldn't save more than a shot at best (which means you still have to reload to take out a second Brute).

I'll note that this is with mostly HK armor, essentially always taking the Weapon Damage bonus over any other consideration (with Headshot bonus being secondary) and appropriate research bonuses.

Sabotage seems primarily useful for Geth and turrets, which is why I prefer the duration increase for tier 4. It can also be nice as a very large AE mini-stun, but in that case I want the disable rather than the damage (which is pathetic anyway). Under most situations singularity + slam is far more efficient, so I'd rather specialize Sabotage towards hacking bonuses.

[No Snakes Alive]

Moriinsomn wrote...

I never played as an infiltrator before im a shotgun fan ill try it out for sure
A close range combat feels more chalenging to me anyone can kill from a long distance but the true chalenge/reward comes from close combat.

Amen, dude. Can't stand hiding back and sniping. You don't have quads unless you're punching your enemies in the face in between shots.

[Athenau]

Moriinsomn wrote...

I never played as an infiltrator before im a shotgun fan ill try it out for sure
A close range combat feels more chalenging to me anyone can kill from a long distance but the true chalenge/reward comes from close combat.

I posted a shotgun focused build in the second post.  GIve it a try.   Infiltrators are very versatile.

[Synthetic Frost]

Moriinsomn wrote...

I never played as an infiltrator before im a shotgun fan ill try it out for sure
A close range combat feels more chalenging to me anyone can kill from a long distance but the true chalenge/reward comes from close combat.

A lot of people, including me, will disagree with you. Anyone who's ever fought any kind of real battle or war will tell you that it has nothing to do with "which is easier". Each role requires different talents, but BOTH are required.

Long range focuses on tactics. Setting up your enemy while offering cover fire and fire support. Other people will find long range playing more challenging and more rewarding.

Just because you enjoy close range more doesn't give you the right to say long range is for newbs.

[Moriinsomn]

Synthetic Frost wrote...

Moriinsomn wrote...

I never played as an infiltrator before im a shotgun fan ill try it out for sure
A close range combat feels more chalenging to me anyone can kill from a long distance but the true chalenge/reward comes from close combat.

A lot of people, including me, will disagree with you. Anyone who's ever fought any kind of real battle or war will tell you that it has nothing to do with "which is easier". Each role requires different talents, but BOTH are required.

Long range focuses on tactics. Setting up your enemy while offering cover fire and fire support. Other people will find long range playing more challenging and more rewarding.

Just because you enjoy close range more doesn't give you the right to say long range is for newbs.

Chill out dude i never said long range is for newbs didnt want to offend anyone but if u wanna feel offended please go ahead..
Your right long range is more of a tactical game plan but lets be honest you are much more safer when ur shooting from afar lining up that headshot.

[Synthetic Frost]

I wasn't offended. I was just stating a fact. Sorry if I came off like I was.

[Tumedus]

Regarding the bonus power in the OP, I really don't see the value in an extra few percent to barriers since the only thing with barriers in the whole game that was even remotely troublesome were banshees and maybe the phantoms during the Kai Leng fight.

Personally I would go with something to assist in those moments when you can't continuously hide and cast tactical cloak all the time. To me that means reave for the DR, energy drain for the shield restore or decoy to get someone off of you (the first two both do good damage to barriers as well). In my game I used energy drain.

[Eurhetemec]

Moriinsomn wrote...

Chill out dude i never said long range is for newbs didnt want to offend anyone but if u wanna feel offended please go ahead..
Your right long range is more of a tactical game plan but lets be honest you are much more safer when ur shooting from afar lining up that headshot.

Much less so than in ME2, though, thanks to enemy grenades, which are less of an issue at close range (where enemies often backpedal or try to melee you).

[Synthetic Frost]

Eurhetemec wrote...

Moriinsomn wrote...

Chill out dude i never said long range is for newbs didnt want to offend anyone but if u wanna feel offended please go ahead..
Your right long range is more of a tactical game plan but lets be honest you are much more safer when ur shooting from afar lining up that headshot.

Much less so than in ME2, though, thanks to enemy grenades, which are less of an issue at close range (where enemies often backpedal or try to melee you).

No kidding. I've been killed by the grenades more than once simply because my Shepard absolutely refused to come unglued from the wall she was humping.

[Synthetic Frost]

Shameless bump.

[HenryN7]

I have a similar build, except i skip out cryo ammo, and max sticky grenade.

I don't like buffing squad ammo power (just too much micromanagement, and not necessary), and also i run with Liara and Garrus, and they both have their own ammo powers.

The game on insanity is a complete breeze once you get your black widow.

[Guglio08]

Use Energy Drain as your Bonus Power. It gets rid of Shields and Barriers, restores your Shields, and even without the Bonus Power Tactical Cloak upgrade, you can still Cloak, use Energy Drain, then snipe the target before the Cloak turns off.

Incinerate for armor, Cryo Ammo with Squad Effectiveness. Max out damage bonuses for Tactical Cloak. That's really all you need.

[Synthetic Frost]

Yeah, I've retrained my Infiltrator to use Energy Drain, and it's already proven useful. Thanks for the tips!

[in2seconds]

With energy drain, you don't even need to have disruptor ammo. Cryo ammo works perfectly.