Thought experiment: Balance changes you would make in the Mass Effect Trilogy

Probably not.

The "big three" sort of have everything covered from the start. Cryo can CC any target that goes to health, and gives the "100%" frozen/ragdoll damage bonus, killing husks outright. Incendiary has organic panic, which is bugged with Burst and affects AOE targets through shields. Disruptor is great against mechs and geth.

On the other hand, only the three combat classes get to use the above (ignoring "squad" ammo). So to some extent it might still be useful to some person.

Alternative could also be to change at least part of the damage to "bleed," aka DOT. Normally I would want damage up front, but this would also sort of help in the edge case where a target moves behind cover. Or it may also allow increasing the total bonus amount if the duration is long enough. Would stop regen.

For AP, natural effect might be to add cover penetration. But that has the potential to disrupt a lot of balance and level design. It has pretty good damage numbers for an ammo already, so maybe it is ok.

I suppose Warp already has a niche, since it is the only one that damages barriers. But for the most part I would not find it all that compelling except on Widow soldier or infiltrator really. It does does bonus damage to ragdolled, but that is not a whole lot compared to the bonus weapon damage to ragdolled anyway.

Touching more on weapon balance in Mass Effect 2, I think some of the assault rifles could use some changes.

Firstly, Avenger and Geth Pulse Rifle are the least damaging weapons in the game. I think these weapons could use a buff.

There used to be a weapon comparison chart on GameFAQS, but it has long since disappeared; I should have downloaded a copy when I had the chance. But I did manage to at least grab some weapon damage values from another web site at some point.

So for relevance, here are the assault rifle base damage numbers:
- Avenger: 10.8
- Geth Pulse Rifle: 10.8
- Collecter Assault Rifle: 17.4
- Revenant: 21.3
- Vindicator: 36.8
- Mattock: 50.4

Some ammo counts, which I think is also important for balancing:
- Avenger ammo: 40|400
- Geth Pulse Rifle ammo: 40|480
- Collector Assault Rifle: 28|280 (taken from a video)
- Revenant: 80|480
- Vindicator: 24|96
- Mattock: 16|64

Avenger: I think it could use somewhere around a +40% to 50% damage buff. But then drop both clip and spare about 25% for 30|300.
Geth Pulse Rifle: I think it could also use about a +40% to +50% damage buff. Keep the clip size, but then drop just spare ammo by about 25% for 40|360. Or maybe 40|320.
Revenant: Slight damage increase (a few damage points, about +10% damage buff). Then change base defense multipliers to be +1.25x versus all defenses. Maybe reduce clip size from 80 to 60?

I have never used the Collector Assault Rifle (never had it on console) so I do not know how it performs. My impression of it from the one or two videos I have seen is that it performs about as well as the current Avenger and Geth Pulse Rifle. I do not want to suggest any changes to it without having used it myself.

I think everything else is fairly balanced. The Locust SMG could MAYBE use either a slight damage decrease (from about 25 to 24 or something) or maybe a slight accuracy decrease to make it less effective at long range.


Phalanx is like a more damaging Carnifex (Phalanx 109.8 versus Carnifex 85.4) but with a laser sight instead of a targeting reticule. It could maybe use an ammo reduction from 6|24 to 5|20 or even 5|15? For comparison, Carnifex ammo is 6|18.

NOTES:
- All balance changes should be extensively tested on various difficulty levels.
- Admittedly I have not used the Avenger, Geth Pulse Rifle, or Revenant much in my Soldier playthroughs. With more use, my thoughts on the current balance of these weapons could change.

I think the game designers had a clear hierarchy in mind. Cryo (which offers the best immobilization effect) is only available to soldier hybrid classes, and only as a level-up.  The second best immobilizers (Incendiary, Disruptor) are easier to get, and available through some squad mates (but cannot be taken as a bonus power).  Then as a third tier, ammo powers that merely boost various kinds of damage are provided as a bonus power.  Giving Shredder Ammo an immobilization effect would definitely disrupt this hierarchy.    

Given the other game mechanics, the increased health damage of shredder doesn't really make much sense.  A more logical balance would have been "Warp" with bonuses against barriers & armor, "Piercing" with bonuses against shields & armor, and "Shredder" with bonuses against shields and barriers (none boosting health damage).  I think this would have made purely damage-boosting Ammo powers more appealing as a bonus power or squad power for classes weak to certain protection schemes (especially early game when these bonuses actually help). As an example, I usually take Warp Ammo on Vanguard until I can respect to Stasis, because it helps early game.  

I love the Revenant, and took it on the vast majority of my soldiers. It is practically tailor made for use with Adrenaline Rush, although it worked out fine on hacked Vanguard too since it also works great with incendiary ammo. I didn't have the Mattock, so I wasn't tempted that way though. I think Revenant is mostly fine as is. Kill speed against elites is good compared to anything else in ME2 as far as I remember.

I always thought Mantis should have more spare ammo, but even so I don't think that would tempt me to use it on other classes. Maybe engineer is best case with overload.

Which begs the question: would it be possible to actually balance the Mattock so it is not completely broken under Adrenaline Rush? Reducing its fire rate (or refire delay) would be a start.

Another option would be to remove the damage bonus from Adrenaline Rush completely, but that introduces a whole host of other questions:
1. Would A-Rush still be considered a good power without the damage bonus?
2. Would you then need to remove the damage bonuses from Tactical Cloak, including possibly creating a new evolution to replace Assassination Cloak?
3. Removing damage bonuses from Adrenaline Rush and Tactical Cloak would adversely affect early-game Mantis on Insanity. Is that a bad thing?

I remember some discussion on the old BSN forums about the damage bonus in Adrenaline Rush. Someone brought up the point that the damage bonus in Adrenaline Rush allowed the Soldier to effectively maintain the same Damage Per Second (DPS) as they would if they did not have it. But that does not apply to all weapons; burst-damage weapons like the Mantis/Widow and some shotguns can only get one shot off and so get a big damage boost for that one shot.

But since the Soldier uses mostly ammo powers (which are set and forget), would removing the damage bonus from A-Rush not give the Soldier enough tools to deal with enemies, even though it has the most guns to start?

Not sure why RedCaesar wants to buff the Avenger. That thing is deadly when fired on full auto.

i would give me3 soldier more weapon damage passives. And more weight capacity. I can't even carry 1 heavy weapon without losing the 200% cooldown bonus

Outside of synthetic missions (such as Geth, Freedom's progress, and few optional secondary missions), synthetic enemies tend to appear with the Eclipse mercs. Maybe making mechs more of a staple with the Eclipse and adding them to Blue Suns as well? Mechs having armor would make them fit in with the Blood Pack, but mechs do not really fit with the Blood Pack "style".

Yeah.... that is no longer a small change. A lot of what you propose calls for additional design, which is no longer small. Interesting, but not small.

Was sifting through the Nexus earlier and noticed that no one seems to have made a mod that recreates the effects of the Armax Arsenal Arena increased protections modifier in the base game. That would be an easy way to make ME3's combat more interesting.

Abandon the philosophy that all class powers minus signature abilities have to be drawn from the same pool.