So I spent some time looking for a replacement weapon to exploit, and after a little searching I found it. Enter the Hornet.
"But wait!" you're saying. "That's a SMG. Don't SMGs suck?"
Well, not quite. Most of the smgs are indeed terrible peashooters. But not the Hornet. The Hornet is a mega-beast. To start, look at its ridiculous dps. The single player version of the hornet does 780 dps (not counting reloads). That's more than every other gun except the Falcon, Chakram Launcher, and the (charged) particle rifle. Then look at its weight. Even without UL materials the Hornet weighs as much as the Avenger, one the lightest weapons in the game. Then look at its accuracy. For a CQB weapon the Hornet is remarkably accurate. Fired from cover it has better spread than any of the hitscan shotguns, even with Smart Choke V. And its hip-fire accuracy is crazy good for a non-shotgun (shotguns don't lose any accuracy when fired from the hip/whlie moving). Finally, look at the ROF. The Hornet fires at ~11.1 rounds per second when accounting for the refire. That's really fast. And by now we should know what we do with high ROF weapons...that's right, set things on fire with flame explosions.
But the Hornet's only half the picture. As good as it is, you want a more accurate weapon for long range fights. Fortunately, Mass Effect 3 is silly and lets you snipe with pistols. So take advantage of that and slap a scoped Paladin in your other slot.
This combination of weapons does it all. It destroys mooks, elites, and armored units with frightening ease. It panics human enemies in a wide radius, does substantial AOE dps without using any cooldowns, and allows you to engage opponents at any range. And with modest upgrades you retain a 200% cooldown bonus.
The build:
Adrenaline rush with damage and bonus power evolutions--this is a build based around killing stuff quickly, so don't bother with the tank evolution.
Combat mastery with weapon damage and ammo power damage evolutions --don't bother with the extra weight, you don't need it. You want more weapon damage, power damage, and ammo power damage to buff your bullets and your flame explosions.
Incendiary ammo with damage, headshot damage, and explosive ammo evolutions--obvious
Disruptor ammo with damage and headshot damage evolutions--essential for the Paladin.
Squad cryo ammo with the 50% more damage taken evolution - squad cryo is good. Squadmates freezing enemies is good. Frozen enemies taking 50% more damage is even better.
Bonus Power:
I like energy drain. Evolve for pure damage and it can take almost down centurion/engineer/marauder shields which means the flame pain starts even sooner. The shield regen is also a lifesaver.
The Loadout:
Hornet with heatsink and mag upgrades. This combination more than triples your effective magazine size, which puts you in "never reload" territory since you can fire until adrenaline rush cools down and be back to full again. Another good option is heatsink + barrel, but I don't like this quite as much since you're already stacking a lot of +weapon damage and eliminating the need to reload entirely makes a bigger difference to your overall dps and survivability. But if you prefer playing a little more cautiously and minimizing your time out of cover the extra damage might be worthwhile.
Paladin with scope and mag extension. The Paladin's primary purpose in your arsenal is as a headshot machine. To that end you need the scope (to land headshots at longer ranges) and the mag extension (to land more headshots before you have to reload). Extra damage is wasted because of shield gate and armor piercing is mostly pointless since the Paladin does so much damage per shot.
Update (Firefight DLC):
The Blood Pack Punisher takes over as the new king of SMGs. It is a fair bit more inaccurate than the Hornet (but still better than the hitscan shotties), so I recommend taking the scope to give it more mid-range punch and the heatsink upgrade. The heatsink alone is enough to put you in "never reload" territory with adrenaline rush. Since the reload is relatively long for a SMG this is a good thing.
Strategy:
For non-arrmored enemies use incendiary ammo on the Hornet and disruptor on the Paladin. Learn to deal with the recoil on Hornet. One tip I found very helpful (and which any professional fps player will echo) is to turn off mouse acceleration in-game and in windows. This makes mouse movement so much more predictable, which in turn makes aiming easier. In particular tracking targets and compensating for recoil, two things that require smooth and controlled movement, benefit enormously from turning acceleration off.
Get a feel for the effective range on each of your weapons and their positioning. For example, it may be better to use the Hornet on a tight pack of unshielded enemies even at longer ranges because of the flame splash, but if they're more widely separated switch to the Paladin to clean them up with chain headshots.
For big enemies stick to the Hornet. It has unmatched dps and dps is what you want for bosses. Make sure you switch to disruptor to strip shields first--that +90% shield damage makes a very substantial difference.
Also, don't underestimate the splash radius on incendiary ammo. It's very funny (and useful) to panic enemies hiding behind cover by shooting next to them.
Vids:
Hornet + Paladin/Carnifex:
N7 Cerberus Attack
Priority: Tuchanka
N7 Gellix
Geth Dreadnought
Citadel
Punisher + Paladin
Ontarom
Hornet + Claymore (Kronner):
Sur Kesh
Tuchanka
Rachni Relay
Modifié par Athenau, 26 août 2012 - 04:16 .
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I never bothered with SMGs on any of my classes, but I might have to check out the Hornet.
