Which Weapon 'Types' Are Most Useful In PvE?

It depends on your playstyle really. What kind of class or abilities do you mainly use?

Hm, in that case maybe one sniper and one shotgun, letting you have a weapon best suited for each range of combat. 

From my experience, either a sniper rifle or a pistol - or both, if you so fancy.

Sniper rifles for extended range (and by that I mean ranges where health bars aren't even visible - I've had sniper rifle kills to which I had no reaction from the remaining enemies, because I was so far away).

Pistols for when you need to backup your empty weapon. In ME this is not much of a concern, but in reality, switching to a sidearm IS faster than reloading - one of the things games like CoD DO get right. (My time to reload a rifle right now is somewhere between 3.5 and 4s, while my rifle-to-sidearm is just under 2s, all measured without a plate carrier, so on-base kit)

Unfortunately the reloads in the game are so fast that pistols largely lose their utility value as secondaries.

Still, I'd recommend an automatic pistol (like the N7 Eagle) or a PDW (like the Tempest) as a secondary. If you favor semi, you can even follow my footsteps with the M5 Phalanx.


Shotguns are largely useless due to their spread, unfortunately. Unless you play a Vanguard.

What? No!



Yes.

Hmm... I haven't found shotguns to be all that useful myself, Vanguards excepted. There aren't all that many encounters which are in confined enough spaces to make shotgun range easy to get into without exposing yourself to more fire than I care to take.

This is a game.  Real life rules don't apply.  It's not like I can get a pistol out and use my free hand to keep a Fiend at an acceptable distance.

Personally I just stick to good old fashioned automatic rifles. Deals with adds quickly, and with the right mod can shred into heavier foes.