I Decided To Ask For Advice Addressing My Oldest ME 3 MP Problem. Five Minutes Later I Think I Solve

But it's far from perfect, so I'll still seek advice.

One of my "stock kits" is my melee Vorcha Engineer. Incinerate gets 5 ranks, and even though I never use it, the Submission Net gets 3. I'm always grateful to have it when I remember to use it, but that isn't often. I carry the Graal and use Incendiary ammo.

All of which is fine. I can fight any enemy unit using some combination of tools, except one: The Guardian.

The goddamned Guardian. I haven't had to deal with a Guardian with any other kit in over 5 years.

I can "mailslot" them with just about any weapon (not that I ever need to) except the Graal. It seems as though unless all the pellets manage to squeeze through the opening, none of them do any damage. And they have quite a spread, so successfully pulling that off is... very rare.

My usual techniques, in order of commonality:

- Ignore them. This works remarkably well, since no one else has the problem I do fighting them. Except Pugs. Actually they struggle with them a surprising amount.

- Use a distraction and shoot them in the back.

- Try and get a slight angle, often 75 degrees is enough for a headshot, or at least I might lock them down with incinerate if I get a bit lucky.

So I'm wondering if there are any other ways. The most obvious would be "carry a sidearm with an AP mod," and 99% of the time I would do exactly that. I really don't want to add any more weight to the guy, because I do like being able to fire off Incinerate pretty regularly.

About five minutes into the Cerberus PuG that inspired me to make this thread, I caught one from behind and actually remembered to use Submission Net. He immediately dropped his shield - problem solved! Except I'm pretty sure Submission Net doesn't work from the front in that situation (but I actually failed to check because - I forgot to use it. It is a chronic problem I have.)