How should weaponry work in the next game?

General rules: Sidearm weapon. Good against armor, poor against shields, good accuracy but poor stability.

ME2-style Predator:
Decent clip size, decent damage. Moderate to good rate of fire. The ME2 predator kind of morphed into the ME3 Phalanx.

ME3-style Predator:
Decent clip size, decent damage. Can fire as fast as you can pull the trigger. Less accurate than other pistols. Average damage to shields and barriers. (A good 1-2 starter weapons kit with an Avenger-style assault rifle.)

Carnifex:
Small clip size, but big damage. Good with headshots.

Scorpion:
Fires explosive projectiles that will stick to targets or surfaces, and then explode after a second. Small clip size. (In ME3, had some stagger/hitstun).

ME2-style Phalanx:
No reticle, will activate a laser sight when zooming. Perhaps a stronger version of the Carnifex but with different aiming mechanics. (In ME2 had stagger/hitstun.) Could feature a smaller clip size and/or better headshot damage. Could tweak the fire rate/refire delay.

General rules: Sidearm weapon. Good against shields, poor against armor. Poor accuracy. (Variable stability?)

NOTE: I do not have a lot of SMGs here. Could maybe combine with Pistols to form a "Sidearm" category like MEA had a single "Pistols" category.

ME2-style Shuriken:
Fires in 3-shot bursts. Poor accuracy. Moderate stability? Can be "pulsed" with no refire delay. Moderate clip size. Moderate damage. Moderate stability?

Tempest - ME2 style or modified ME2 style
In ME2, the Tempest fired in 5-round bursts, or could be held for full auto. Accuracy degraded heavily after the first shot. Large clip size. Moderate damage. Options.
1. Could keep the ME2 style, but then it feels a little similar to how the Shuriken works.
2. Could modify it so it is full auto, but the accuracy degrades as normal (or a little less than ME2 normal), so you have to hold-hold-hold instead of press-press-press. This would differentiate it more from the Shuriken. If use option 2, then could include the Locust and make it option 1?

ME3-style Hurricane:
Highly but predictably inaccurate. Large clip size. Good damage to make up for high inaccuracy (lots of missed shots against basic enemies).

General rules: Average against armor and shields. Moderate accuracy and stability.

Avenger:
Moderate damage, stability, and accuracy. Reliable full-auto assault rifle. Obvious starter weapon. Needs to actually be decent in a Mass Effect game for once.

Vindicator:
Mass Effect's battle rifle, fires in 3-round bursts. Good damage, especially with headshots, lower clip size for an assault rifle.

Mattock:
Semi-auto assault rifle. Good damage with smaller clip size. I think it should be slightly less accurate than its ME2 or ME3 counterparts.

Revenant:
In ME2, this gun just felt like a better Avenger. To give it its actual own identity, I think it should be more like the ME3 Typhoon (or MEA Cyclone), where it has good enough damage but with a ramping rate of fire. A "boss killer".

Geth Pulse Rifle:
If the Geth are in the game, then the Geth Pulse Rifle should also be in the game. It needs to be a Geth equivalent of the Avenger. You need to differentiate it enough from the Avenger somehow. In ME2, it had a variable rate of fire (it would speed up and slow down), higher shield damage and lower armor damage. In the Legendary Edition of Mass Effect 1, it has a ramping rate of fire and no mod slots. In ME3, it was more accurate with a larger clip size. Maybe combine ME2 and ME3, where it has more stability and a little more accuracy than the Avenger, but less damage with a higher clip size, better against shields and not as good against armor.

Falcon:
I like the idea of a "grenade launcher" as a weapon that does not take heavy ammo. Splash damage. Give it 4-7 clip size but with 0 spare clips. Picking up a spare clip adds +1 to the current clip size (but cannot exceed maximum clip size), unlike other weapons where a spare clip picks up one or more clips' worth of bullets. Maybe a charge-fire mode where charging the weapon will cause it to lock on to an enemy and then fire it like a rocket? (Or maybe the "missile launcher" can be a separate weapon?) Idea of this weapon is a powerful weapon meant to be used sparingly, like ME2's heavy weapons but it takes up another weapon slot. Could give it a lot of "weight" if weight capacity comes back.

General rules: Scoped "long range" weapons. Small clip sizes but big damage. Good against armor, but poor against shields. High headshot damage.

Mantis:
One-shot one-kill sniper rifle. Needs to be able to kill the basic enemies on the highest difficulty with a headshot.

ME3-style Javelin:
One-shot one-kill sniper rifle. Requires a brief charge before firing. More total damage than the Mantis. Maybe make it have clip size of 2 but fire both shots at once (and make it good against both shields and armor)?

ME2-style Viper:
Semi-automatic sniper rifle. Good clip size for a sniper rifle. Cannot one-shot kill except maybe on the lowest difficulty setting.

Incisor, Indra, and MEA-style Raptor?:
The Incisor was introduced in ME2 and fires in three-round bursts. It feels a bit like a scoped Vindicator, so I am not entirely sure of its role or if it should return. Is it supposed to be an anti-shield sniper rifle?

The Indra and MEA Raptor are automatic sniper rifles. As such, they kind of feel like scoped assault rifles. As stated previously, I do not like the idea of scoped versions of existing guns; it feels like lazy design (even if it is not), since it feels like a lazy way to make a new gun. Not sure if you would need only one or none. Indra has better stability but less accuracy, while the MEA Raptor has better accuracy but worse stability. Both versions would need about half the clip size of the Avenger.

Modified Widow:
In ME2, it was just a better Mantis. In ME3 while it was stronger than the Mantis but had fewer shots, it still behaved like the Mantis though. Perhaps make it explode on impact dealing damage in a radius, but give it much less spare ammo to compensate?

General rules: Video-game style shotguns: high damage at close range.

ME2-style Katana:
In ME2, you could get into an alternating shoot+melee rhythm. I would love to see this return.

ME2-style Scimitar:
Automatic shotgun. More shots and faster fire rate than the Katana, but less damage. Maybe make it a cross between the ME2 Scimitar and ME3 Piranha?

Geth Plasma Shotgun:
In ME2 and ME3, it fired three projectiles and could charge for more damage (about x3 damage for 2 shots). Could lean into the charge mechanic and reduce clip size to 4, or reduce clip size to 3 and have two levels of charge. Maybe take inspiration from the MEA Dhan and have the projectile(s) have limit range to keep it a short-range weapon. Charge could fire more projectiles (1 accurate projectile for uncharged shot, 2 or 3 inaccurate projectiles when charged).

Claymore:
Clip size of 1. Very inaccurate but very damaging. Satisfyingly loud. Needs to be renamed from M800 Claymore to the 800M Claymore (BOOM!).

Reegar:
Make this more of a trick shotgun that only works with special ammo equipped:
- Disruptor Ammo: short-range electrical current (sort of what it looks like in ME3 and MEA) that deals higher damage to shields and can stun enemies (with % chance of chaining to nearby enemies?)
- Incendiary Ammo: short-range flamethrower that deals higher damage to armor and can panic organic enemies
- Cryo Ammo: short-range cryo blast similar to ME3MP Flash Freeze or shorter range MEA Cryo Beam that can freeze unprotected enemies