Noob questions - MP beginners guide for dummies

It's ammunition consists of pure hatred.

At level 1, I think it has something between 6-10 shots. By level X it has 19. Single shot chamber, long reload time, but forgiving if you can reload cancel. It absolutely needs a smart choke upgrade to make it effective for more than about five feet of distance. Kits with improved accuracy turn it into a sniper rifle (Hunter mode, Marksman, etc), drawing all the pellets in a tight circle. Adrenaline rush and Marksman both auto-reload your weapon, which makes a double-shot Claymore a huge draw on the HSol, TSol and Quarksman. 

RoF bonuses can also speed the reload cancelling process, making the gun fire fairly often.

It's a fantastic weapon overall, and easily could have been an Ultra Rare.

Nothing wrong with carrying a sidearm, provided it makes sense.

That said, the vast majority of my builds use only one weapon. When I do carry a sidearm it's usually an acolyte to strip shields or deal with phantoms on a kit that has difficulty doing so. Alternatively, I may carry a SMG if my primary weapon is the acolyte on a build. In most cases the cooldown penalty doesn't budge as a result. However, as q5tyhj mentioned, cooldowns aren't so terribly important. I used to use a Claymore on my FQE and I didn't have a problem getting out powers when I needed to. I prefer the Arc Pistol now, but that was more because I was constantly running out of shotgun amps. Definitely pay attention to your cooldown, but don't fret over the difference between 200% and 150%.

The Batguard doesn't need an acolyte - Charge should be enough to stagger a phantom and shotguns are usually more than capable for stripping shields..

^ sounds like you were the victim of some standard Phantom nonsense: if you charge them while they're doing their bubble thingy, they won't be staggered and will immediately tickle you in the tummy. All the sync-kill enemies (Phantom, Banshees, Scions, etc.) have different routines and triggers that dictate when they can sync and when they're safe to charge/melee. There should still be an article/video by Deerber in the Resource Library on sync routines and specifically how to play Vanguard against them safely, probably worth checking out.

Yep, although the phantom is tricky as they can cancel their animations quickly and a bit of lag can cause some awkward moments.

It is a thing of beauty. Nothing else comes even close to the might of the High Lord.

Created a new alt account. With only 11 games (1 bronze, 7 silver, 3 gold) and a bit over 3 hours in game I have successfully upgraded my common weapons to lvlX, 5 of my common weapon mods to lvlV, unlocked 3 other common weapon mods with 5 more to go. All that using only starter packs. There could have been more, but I wanted one 60k pack (which gave me Falcon and SMG damage mod). After I finish with starter packs, I am going to move onto spectre packs since they can give three uncommons and a rare card (in comparison I could get three Veteran packs at the same price containing three uncommons without a single rare card).

So far, I have found out I cannot play nowhere aggressively as I would like, I cannot rush enemies, cannot afford for the enemy to have a direct line of sight at me since I die so easily,


Additional discoveries:


- worst scrubs are on silver
- curriers are doing gods work
- the best way to contribute is to stay with the player who knows what's he doing and do whatever you can to not die much
- and most importantly don't die in bad places (like huge open areas)
- go around, kill stuff, see what you can kill easily (for example, I deal with brutes, abominations, engineers quite easily even as a quite disadvantaged player) that's the best way to contribute to taking down the wave budget
- Right hand advantage ofhost is an illusion


Edit: If any of the newbies wants to play with me on silver/gold, or if there are other fresh alt accounts, PM me to exchange Origin IDs

Oh... I have another moment of complete bewilderment.

I went to try Lancer on my KroSoldier, and... that thing only has 38 charges, runs our of ammo in like a few geth, will not reload when you ran to the box, and seem to randomly get back to full if I kept pressing down the trigger insistently, does not react to any presses of R, then stopped in the end reloading altogether (at an awesome point when everyone unfathomably decided to just hold the extraction zone from the start), so... is that the no clips part of it? I ran half a game on melee and grenades trying to make the thing to go from zero to non-zero (idiotically I did double damage than on the whole night of working myself into a state on the Asari). And, to add insult to injury, the internet describes it as a Harrier with less damage and no ammo problems. Hints? Tips? Hugs?

^ This. When you've overheated your Lancer, Particle Rifle, Collector SMG or Collector Sniper Rifle you have to do it exactly as Pearl said. And keep in mind that while the cooldown animation is still going, you can only stand around or go normally - any other action like using a power, dodging, meleeing, going into hard cover, sprinting will interrupt the animation and you will have to do it all over.

As Pearl already said, using a Thermal Clip Pack circumvents the cooldown part and let's the gun recharge immediately - however bear in mind that it will still start at 1 ammo point and climb upwards from there...so if you hit a Pack and then start firing right away, your gun will be empty again in a matter of seconds. Better wait a few seconds before firing to be safe.

The safest way to let the gun cool down is hitting R and then just walking behind soft cover of some sorts to get out of the line of fire until you're good to go again.

Awesome, thank you all. I did not recognize the mechanics from ME1, as it clearly showed overheat, and cooled the gun authomaticaly. I'll keep practicing, because Otherwise I have really liked it. I think I will try it on Geth Trooper, as someone has suggested a while ago. The wisdom of Evil suggestion has finally percolated to me after trying the gun. I've only played Geth once, but I have a feeling I can find the Flames button again. 

You used to be able to shoot the reegar and use flamer at the same time, IDK if they ever fixed that.

Okay, I will set up my Vorcha with it and see if it's worth it yet, or I need to wait till Reegar & mods grows up a little. Another scum!

I hope they will make a ramp up weapon that works great, because I dig the concept of the GPSMG.