You absolutely must max Inferno Grenades, they are the best power the Krogan Soldier has, especially on Gold. Power Damage bonuses help your Inferno Grenades do more damage. There's no reason to carry 2 weapons either, unless you're doing a melee build and don't have the Smart Choke on your shotgun. Also, you need at least some type of armor piercing for Gold. If you don't have a high-level shotgun piercing barrel, then drop the Incendiary Ammo and use AP ammo. Try something more like this: Build. If you want to use Carnage more often, then you can maybe drop R6 of Fitness for the recharge speed bonus at R6 in Fortification.
Honestly though, if you only have the Claymore I, you probably aren't ready for Gold. Not that you can't do well with the Claymore I - it's more because having such low-level guns reflects your lack of experience.
It's a very unfocused build. It doesn't really play to any of the strengths of what is admittedly an excellent kit with great utility. It's not because of weapons--playing KroSol as a weapons platform who laughs at cooldowns is totally viable (not great, but viable, for sure). You can also play him as a grenade spammer or a melee machine, or hybridize the three somewhat. But you've got him set up as a power-oriented guy with insane cooldowns and inferno grenades not maxed. Max inferno nades with this guy, always. They're too good to pass up. I personally max fitness and fortification for maximum resilience, but that one's more up to you. Definitely no more than 4 levels in passives. After the encumbrance boost, Krogan passives lose their luster, and a 20% headshot bonus just isn't worth the points you could put into something better.
This makes a lot more sense compared to the build in the OP. Your main power as the KroSol is Inferno nades, and they have no cooldowns so you don't have to worry about power recharge. Carnage is used only to detonate fire explosions on stuff that's already burning from the nades. If you want to be more melee focused then you could pick 4a in rage, he still gets way more than enough shields.
Don't worry about the speed penalty in Fortification, with Carnage as the only active power, you can still use it frequently.
Spec Carnage for damage
Grenades always gets 6 ranks
Spec Passives for power to give more grenade damage
3 Fitness will give you 1000+ shields and 1000 health, which is plenty for Gold
I like to take a shotgun on him personally. Wraith, Claymore, or Pirahna
Gear up with incindiary for extra explosions, shotgun amp, power amp for more grenade damage, and grenade capacity/shock trooper
There might be better builds, but this one works well for me
If you absolutely want to use two weapons, skip Carnage, investing 15 points into a power doing 569 damage with a cooldown of 16,7 seconds is a waste. Taking 5a in Rage but 4a in Fortification is also not very consistent. I add that you should max Inferno Grenades, the armor damage bonus at rank 6 is so good.
Bad weapons and acolyte X in the same post, weird.....
Let me know when you wrote a program that loads the OP's manifest into the character builder so I can choose weapons for him. Until then pick the lightest of the **** guns you have and go for it.
Have to max Inferno Grenades (and not much sense in taking 6b since its bugged and you only get the extra radius IIRC- go for moar armor damage instead), sort of have to take Power Synergy (5b) on Fortification (+30% damage on inferno 'nades= muy bien), there's not much point in having 5 points in Carnage but taking two guns, Krogan passives are sort of trash so you may want to rethink 5 ranks in that, and if you have any sort of grenade gear (Grenade Cap, Shocktrooper, War Fighter) that's going to be preferable to a measly +17% shields. You are using the correct gun though (I'd personally lose the Saber and just roll Claymoar, but if you're going to spec out of Carnage there's no harm in bringing some extra firepower since you don't need to worry about cooldown).
I would ditch two weapons, honestly. You won´t be in mood to constantly switch them anyway, you´ll see.
Keep Claymore
Also, inferno grenades are insanely strong, I would put all six points into them and went for power damage rather then headshots in passives. Mooks can be already killed by headshot(Claymore) and half of bosses is pain to headshot.
And lastly, I would either go for full melee damage in Fitness or none(but that might be just me)
Don't worry about the speed penalty in Fortification, with Carnage as the only active power, you can still use it frequently. Spec Carnage for damage Grenades always gets 6 ranks Spec Passives for power to give more grenade damage 3 Fitness will give you 1000+ shields and 1000 health, which is plenty for Gold
I like to take a shotgun on him personally. Wraith, Claymore, or Pirahna
Gear up with incindiary for extra explosions, shotgun amp, power amp for more grenade damage, and grenade capacity/shock trooper
There might be better builds, but this one works well for me
That's almost how I spec him, but I can't make up my mind Incendiary Ammo for extra explosions or Drill Ammo for double hits on Atlas or Praetorian when Noob procs the bubble (and he will). Though with that much penetration, sometimes I will be the Noob. Love those double hits.
UPDATE: I tried Disruptor Ammo tonight, it worked pretty well. I forgot that Disruptor has no reapplication timer, and wondered why my Fire Explosions weren't working. Then I remembered that and Atlases got the alternating Fire Explosion/Tech Burst treatment.
Have to max Inferno Grenades (and not much sense in taking 6b since its bugged and you only get the extra radius IIRC- go for moar armor damage instead)
To my knowledge, Inferno Grenades 6b is only visually bugged. You get the extra radius, you also get an extra shrapnel. When your grenade detonates, there is a potential AoE, but it is limited in how many actual targets it can affect by your shrapnel count. 6b increases the shrapnel count, meaning it can potentially affect more enemies within that AoE. The bugged part is that the shrapnel does not track a target; it merely sinks straight down to the ground.
Try throwing one at the ceiling or a wall sometime. You'll see a bright orange ball of fire drop straight down. Those are the shrapnel chunks that are supposed to track targets (but don't). Visually, it was supposed to look like ME2 Zaeed's version of the skill, which was pretty friggin cool, but didn't track targets.
This is the best video I could find. They start throwing them around 30 second mark.