Post by ssog on Jun 3, 2021 22:00:20 GMT
I've always loved Cryo Ammo, so much so that (thanks in no small part to the hard work of this community digging through the gameplay mechanics) I built out a spreadsheet to find the mathematically best weapons to use it with in ME3. To pay it back to the community for all their help, I wanted to share the data in case there are any other potential Cryo Junkies out there looking to give it a shot in the new Legendary Edition.
Some caveats up front: I'm a Playstation owner who upgraded from the PS3 to PS4 thinking that old games would be backward-compatible. Which... oops. So I haven't been able to play Mass Effect in like 6 years. I tested a lot to verify that everything was working like expected based on the raw math, but again, this was like 6 years, however many patches, and a full remaster ago, so I can't vouch for all of the numbers anymore. I've got a Cryo Ammo Infiltrator going through ME3 right now (it's why I dusted off the old spreadsheet), so I'll update anything that is obviously incorrect. Also, if any of you find anything that is obviously incorrect, let me know.
Why Cryo Ammo?
Because it's cool, duh. Especially with the introduction of armor-weakening and tech combos in ME3, it's a solid offensive ammo that also happens to be the best defensive ammo in the game. It's also hands-down the best squad ammo power because debuffs aren't impacted by the squadmate damage penalty and there's no penalty to freeze chance.
More philosophically, any time you're killing the enemies faster than the enemies are killing you, you are winning. Any time the enemies are killing you faster than you are killing them, you are losing. When enemies stop attacking you because they're frozen, the rate at which they're killing you drops down to zero and you are automatically winning (or at the very worst holding steady). Cryo ammo improves your killspeed, decreases the rate at which you are dying, improves your battlefield mobility. It seems like a defensive power, but it actually enables more aggressive gameplay. It's just good in a variety of substantial ways beyond just NUMBERS GET BIGGER BRRRRRRRRRR.
How to Evolve Cryo Ammo
If you're starved for points, Cryo Ammo is the cheapest ammo power in the game (possible exception: Armor-Piercing Ammo if you just want to do some wallhacking). It's totally fine at rank 1 or 2. It's the best squad ammo at rank 4. Incendiary Ammo really wants Rank 6 for Explosive Burst, Disruptor Ammo needs at least Rank 3 to maximize its crowd control potential, Warp Ammo doesn't do anything except make numbers bigger so it wants as many points as you can feed it for maximum number embiggening. If you're using Armor-Piercing Ammo as a "NUMBERS GET BIGGER" power then it's like Warp Ammo, but like I said, sometimes it's fun to take a single point just so you can shoot through guardian shields and such.
This isn't to say you shouldn't take Cryo Ammo to Rank 6. Rank 6 makes any Cryo Combos more powerful and the Damage Combo evolution is quite useful for number-embiggening. It's just to say you don't have to. You can coast on low totals for quite a long time without feeling especially handicapped.
The other nice thing about it is it's super easy to evolve. Most of the choices are no choice at all.
Rank 4 (Squad) > Rank 5 (Ammo Capacity) > Rank 6 (Damage Combo)
Why? Well, like I said, it's probably the best squad ammo power in the game. If you want to bring along James and abuse those broken Explosive Bursts on his Incendiary Ammo (BIG NUMBERS), you could go Freeze Duration at Rank 4 instead, but for the most part there's no reason not to give your squaddies Cryo. On Rank 5, the Headshot damage bonus only works on enemies that are fully frozen, and it doesn't behave the same as most headshot bonuses so you won't get the full 35% boost anyway, so skip it. (Especially since the best cryo weapons can sometimes have ammo issues.) Finally, at Rank 6 the Freeze Chance might sound tempting, but most of the best Cryo weapons are already 100% to freeze after the Rank 2 bonus, anyway.
How Does Cryo Ammo Work?
The chance to freeze per shot is a function of a weapon's rate of fire. Specifically, the formula is
Freeze Chance = 60 / (Effective Rate of Fire)
Freeze Chance = 78 / (Effective Rate of Fire) (with the Rank 2 Freeze Chance bonus)
Freeze Chance = 108 / (Effective Rate of Fire) (with the Rank 6 Freeze Chance bonus)
This means the faster your gun shoots, the less likely it is to freeze per shot. This might sound unfair, but actually it's a pretty clever setup. It essentially means that, all else being equal, all guns are equally likely to freeze an enemy over any given length of time. (All subsequent calculations will assume the player has the Rank 2 Freeze Chance bonus, but not the Rank 6 Freeze Chance bonus.)
Say you like the Locust. It has a RoF of 550, which means each individual shot has a 14.18% chance to freeze. Over a second of sustained fire it will shoot 9-10 shots and the chance an enemy will be frozen at the end of that second (assuming all shots hit) is ~75%.
Let's say you prefer the Hornet. It has a RoF of 1000, which means each individual shot has a 7.80% chance to freeze. Over a second of sustained fire it will shoot 16-17 shots and the chance an enemy will be frozen at the end of that second (assuming all shots hit) is ~75%.
The Indra has a RoF of 500. After a second of sustained fire, there's about a 75% chance that the enemy will be frozen. The Typhoon has a RoF of 600. After a second of sustained fire, there's about a 75% chance that the enemy will be frozen. The Particle Rifle has a RoF of 800. After a second of sustained fire, there's about a 75% chance that the enemy will be frozen. Neat, huh?!
So if all weapons are roughly equally likely to freeze over a given period of time, why are some guns better with cryo ammo than others? There are four key realizations here.
1 is pretty self-explanatory. Some guns miss more than others. Firing semi-auto guns at maximum possible speed is impractical. Some guns need to reload more than others. All of these factors impact final performance.
2 is almost always true, but if a gun has an AoE effect that lets it hit two enemies, it doubles the rate at which it freezes.
3 is where the real differentiation starts to come in. Freezing takes a little bit to start once it triggers. A gun with 1200 RPM and 60 RPM might both trigger as many freezes per minute, but the fast-firing weapon will "waste" some of those freezes because it keeps shooting at an enemy that has already started to freeze but hasn't yet given any visual indications. The 60RPM gun freezes with every shot, so its user knows to switch targets after every hit, never wasting any freezes and spreading them more quickly.
4 is the real secret, though. A gun with 60 RPM doesn't fire one shot in the first second, it fires two (one at the very beginning and one at the very end). Meanwhile, a gun with 1200 RPM doesn't fire 20 shots in the first second, it fires 21. Going from 1 to 2 is a bigger proportionate boost (100%) than going from 20 to 21 (just 5%), and since the nature of a cover-shooter involves short burst more than sustained fire, the slower a weapon shoots the more it benefits from this fact.
How much difference does this make? You know above where I said all those different guns have "about a 75% chance" to freeze an enemy in a second of sustained fire? Here's the actual chances.
1000 RoF: 76.2%
800 RoF: 77.0%
600 RoF: 78.4%
400 RoF: 81.0%
200 RoF: 82.3%
150 RoF: 92.3%
100 RoF: 98.2%
78 RoF: 100%
This means that, despite a lot of sources saying it's best to use Cryo Ammo with fast-firing weapons, this is the worst thing you could possibly do. You want to use slow-firing weapons. Ideally, you'd want to use a weapon whose Rate of Fire exactly matches your cutoff to get a 100% freeze chance per shot, which means 78 RPM assuming you have the Rank 2 Freeze Chance evolution. At that point, every shot is a guaranteed freeze so the second you see the hit indicator you can move on to a new target.
There's one final adjustment going on that I should mention. In the formulas above, you might notice that I said "effective" Rate of Fire. Because shotguns fire 8 projectiles, their "effective" rate of fire is considered 8 times more than their actual rate of fire. Crucially, this adjustment is based on weapon category as a whole, which means it is true even for shotguns that fire fewer than 8 projectiles. Similarly, the Talon is a pistol that fires six projectiles per shot, but since it's in the pistol class it doesn't suffer a 6x penalty to it's "effective rate of fire".
As long as all projectiles are hitting, shotguns work just as well as freezing weapons as anything else. Of course, that "assume all shotgun pellets hit" thing is kind of a dumb assumption, as the whole point of shotguns is adding spread, which means they're not supposed to all hit! But if you equip a Smart Choke and activate Marksman, shotgun spread actually drops down to zero and all pellets will hit, which turns shotguns into some of the best freezing weapons in the game. I mean, it's a really weird / niche build, but you can totally do it and it's actually pretty cool.
The exception is shotguns that fire fewer than 8 pellets: the Graal Spike Thrower (6 projectiles), the Venom / Reegar / Crusader (1 projectile each), and the Geth Plasma Shotgun (ostensibly 3 projectiles, but only 1 carries the effects of ammo powers). In fact, pair the shotgun penalty with its single projectile and its massive rate of fire and the Reegar is the worst freezing weapon in the game. Each shot has a less than 1% chance to freeze, and a full second of sustained fire gives you just a 15.9% chance to freeze an enemy.
So What Are The Best Cryo Guns?
Glad you asked.
Broken-Tier
Krysae -- one of five guns with a 100% chance to freeze with Rank 1 Cryo Ammo, and the only one of the five without massive downsides. (The Black Widow costs $125k to buy, the Executioner has to reload after every shot, the Acolyte has to charge to fire, and the Falcon essentially requires NG+ to use.) In fact, not only does it not have any downsides, it actually has some huge benefits. Most notably, it has an AoE freeze effect and benefits from all of the Sniper Rifle bonuses (time dilation and the Infiltrator's damage bonus). You can use it to freeze enemies around corners or behind cover, you can freeze multiple enemies at once, you can hip-fire it for close quarters or scope it for long range, squaddies do awesome with it, it's amazingly broken with Cryo Ammo. The biggest drawbacks are that it can't pierce cover, it can't get headshots, it's a bit heavy (though most good freeze weapons are), and it takes a bit of getting used to.
Talon -- 100% chance to freeze with Rank 2 Cryo Ammo. In fact, its 75 RoF is the closest of any gun in the game to that ideal 78 RoF target. It's a bit heavy for a pistol, but thanks to Ultralight Materials you can get its weight down to 30, which is waaaaaay lower than any other top freeze gun in the game (Viper is 70 and everything else is 100+). Because it gets 6 projectiles per shot without the associated freeze chance penalty, the Talon is the only Freeze Gun in the game that will work through shield gates, and the spread becomes an advantage because it's not unusual to freeze multiple enemies at once. Plus it negates most of the Krysae's drawbacks-- it can get headshots, penetrate cover, etc. The biggest drawback is it's not available until mid-game.
S-Tier
Viper -- 100% chance to freeze with Rank 2 Cryo Ammo. Its 70 RoF is very close to the ideal 78 RoF target. It doesn't have any gimmicks like some of the other top choices, but it's just super solid. Great clip size and ammo reserves, second-lightest freeze gun, and most importantly, on a fresh playthrough it's the first top Freeze Gun you're going to find.
Falcon -- If this were anything other than the last gun you acquire in any given playthrough, it'd contend for broken tier. But, you know, it's the last gun you acquire on any given playthrough. Great for NG+ runs, it's basically like a lighter-weight, shorter-range Krysae.
A-Tier
Scorpion -- It's a weird weapon to use because of the delay before the damage kicks in, but it has a 97.5% chance to freeze at Rank 2. The grenade will trigger ammo effects on impact but not on explosion, which is in some ways good (the freeze happens faster) and in some ways bad (no AoE component). Pistol ULM mods can make it one of the lightest freeze guns in the game, and this will usually be the first good freeze gun you get that is usable by Pistol/SMG squadmates. It's no Talon, but it'll hold you over pretty well until you get there, and if you just like the way it handles you could easily use it the entire game without issues.
Adas Anti-Synthetic Rifle -- the only weapon to rank this high despite not being a virtually guaranteed freeze, the Adas has a RoF of 350, which means it "only" has an 82.2% chance of freezing after a second of sustained fire. So why is it A-tier? Because everything else about it is great. It's available early, it's an AoE gun that can freeze multiple enemies at once, its shots have a slight tracking to them which means they're much less likely to miss, it gets a bonus against shields and barriers to facilitate stripping defenses, and it's just really fun and satisfying to use. The downsides are the tracking makes it harder to hit enemies in the back of the crowd, it can't pierce, and it chews through ammo. It's an amazing squaddie gun except that if they fire it near you it makes your screen shake like crazy, which is hella annoying.
B-Tier
Black Widow -- It's more likely to gib an enemy than freeze them, but otherwise it's a guaranteed freeze semi-auto with 3 shots in the clip and innate pierce. It'd be higher but it's insanely heavy and insanely expensive.
Carnifex / Paladin / Saber -- Single-shot weapons that fire just a hair too fast to be a guaranteed freeze, they're... fine. I don't know why you'd pick them over the Viper or Talon, but they're fine.
SMGs -- They all have a 75-79% chance to freeze over a second of sustained fire. They all weigh less than 10 pounds with ULM. They're so light that there's very little reason not to take one, but they're so similar that it just comes down to player preference.
Katana / Eviscerator -- The whole "Smart Choke + Marksman" trick is kind of a dumb one, but if you wanted to do it these would be the best Freeze Shotguns. It's just... not worth the effort, other than as a gimmick.
C-Tier
Pretty much any other fully-automatic gun -- They all have about the same chance to freeze, so pick your favorite. Or better yet, use a different ammo power.
Pretty much any gun that reloads after a single shot -- Great for freezing a single target, bad for freezing more than one.
F-Tier
Any high-RoF Semi-automatic -- Don't kid yourself, you're not feathering the trigger fast enough to get 600 RPM out of that Suppressor.
Reegar / Geth Plasma Shotgun / Venom / Crusader -- Single-pellet shotguns get completely destroyed by the shotgun penalty.
Some caveats up front: I'm a Playstation owner who upgraded from the PS3 to PS4 thinking that old games would be backward-compatible. Which... oops. So I haven't been able to play Mass Effect in like 6 years. I tested a lot to verify that everything was working like expected based on the raw math, but again, this was like 6 years, however many patches, and a full remaster ago, so I can't vouch for all of the numbers anymore. I've got a Cryo Ammo Infiltrator going through ME3 right now (it's why I dusted off the old spreadsheet), so I'll update anything that is obviously incorrect. Also, if any of you find anything that is obviously incorrect, let me know.
Why Cryo Ammo?
Because it's cool, duh. Especially with the introduction of armor-weakening and tech combos in ME3, it's a solid offensive ammo that also happens to be the best defensive ammo in the game. It's also hands-down the best squad ammo power because debuffs aren't impacted by the squadmate damage penalty and there's no penalty to freeze chance.
More philosophically, any time you're killing the enemies faster than the enemies are killing you, you are winning. Any time the enemies are killing you faster than you are killing them, you are losing. When enemies stop attacking you because they're frozen, the rate at which they're killing you drops down to zero and you are automatically winning (or at the very worst holding steady). Cryo ammo improves your killspeed, decreases the rate at which you are dying, improves your battlefield mobility. It seems like a defensive power, but it actually enables more aggressive gameplay. It's just good in a variety of substantial ways beyond just NUMBERS GET BIGGER BRRRRRRRRRR.
How to Evolve Cryo Ammo
If you're starved for points, Cryo Ammo is the cheapest ammo power in the game (possible exception: Armor-Piercing Ammo if you just want to do some wallhacking). It's totally fine at rank 1 or 2. It's the best squad ammo at rank 4. Incendiary Ammo really wants Rank 6 for Explosive Burst, Disruptor Ammo needs at least Rank 3 to maximize its crowd control potential, Warp Ammo doesn't do anything except make numbers bigger so it wants as many points as you can feed it for maximum number embiggening. If you're using Armor-Piercing Ammo as a "NUMBERS GET BIGGER" power then it's like Warp Ammo, but like I said, sometimes it's fun to take a single point just so you can shoot through guardian shields and such.
This isn't to say you shouldn't take Cryo Ammo to Rank 6. Rank 6 makes any Cryo Combos more powerful and the Damage Combo evolution is quite useful for number-embiggening. It's just to say you don't have to. You can coast on low totals for quite a long time without feeling especially handicapped.
The other nice thing about it is it's super easy to evolve. Most of the choices are no choice at all.
Rank 4 (Squad) > Rank 5 (Ammo Capacity) > Rank 6 (Damage Combo)
Why? Well, like I said, it's probably the best squad ammo power in the game. If you want to bring along James and abuse those broken Explosive Bursts on his Incendiary Ammo (BIG NUMBERS), you could go Freeze Duration at Rank 4 instead, but for the most part there's no reason not to give your squaddies Cryo. On Rank 5, the Headshot damage bonus only works on enemies that are fully frozen, and it doesn't behave the same as most headshot bonuses so you won't get the full 35% boost anyway, so skip it. (Especially since the best cryo weapons can sometimes have ammo issues.) Finally, at Rank 6 the Freeze Chance might sound tempting, but most of the best Cryo weapons are already 100% to freeze after the Rank 2 bonus, anyway.
How Does Cryo Ammo Work?
The chance to freeze per shot is a function of a weapon's rate of fire. Specifically, the formula is
Freeze Chance = 60 / (Effective Rate of Fire)
Freeze Chance = 78 / (Effective Rate of Fire) (with the Rank 2 Freeze Chance bonus)
Freeze Chance = 108 / (Effective Rate of Fire) (with the Rank 6 Freeze Chance bonus)
This means the faster your gun shoots, the less likely it is to freeze per shot. This might sound unfair, but actually it's a pretty clever setup. It essentially means that, all else being equal, all guns are equally likely to freeze an enemy over any given length of time. (All subsequent calculations will assume the player has the Rank 2 Freeze Chance bonus, but not the Rank 6 Freeze Chance bonus.)
Say you like the Locust. It has a RoF of 550, which means each individual shot has a 14.18% chance to freeze. Over a second of sustained fire it will shoot 9-10 shots and the chance an enemy will be frozen at the end of that second (assuming all shots hit) is ~75%.
Let's say you prefer the Hornet. It has a RoF of 1000, which means each individual shot has a 7.80% chance to freeze. Over a second of sustained fire it will shoot 16-17 shots and the chance an enemy will be frozen at the end of that second (assuming all shots hit) is ~75%.
The Indra has a RoF of 500. After a second of sustained fire, there's about a 75% chance that the enemy will be frozen. The Typhoon has a RoF of 600. After a second of sustained fire, there's about a 75% chance that the enemy will be frozen. The Particle Rifle has a RoF of 800. After a second of sustained fire, there's about a 75% chance that the enemy will be frozen. Neat, huh?!
So if all weapons are roughly equally likely to freeze over a given period of time, why are some guns better with cryo ammo than others? There are four key realizations here.
- These numbers assume projectiles never miss, semi-auto weapons are always fired at maximum speed, and guns never need to reload. They set a theoretical maximum rate that real-world results will always underperform to one degree or another.
- These numbers assume each projectile only hits one enemy at a time.
- The faster a weapon fires, the more likely you are to get multiple "wasted" triggers on a single enemy.
- Most importantly: the first shot of any burst is always instantaneous (outside of charged weapons).
2 is almost always true, but if a gun has an AoE effect that lets it hit two enemies, it doubles the rate at which it freezes.
3 is where the real differentiation starts to come in. Freezing takes a little bit to start once it triggers. A gun with 1200 RPM and 60 RPM might both trigger as many freezes per minute, but the fast-firing weapon will "waste" some of those freezes because it keeps shooting at an enemy that has already started to freeze but hasn't yet given any visual indications. The 60RPM gun freezes with every shot, so its user knows to switch targets after every hit, never wasting any freezes and spreading them more quickly.
4 is the real secret, though. A gun with 60 RPM doesn't fire one shot in the first second, it fires two (one at the very beginning and one at the very end). Meanwhile, a gun with 1200 RPM doesn't fire 20 shots in the first second, it fires 21. Going from 1 to 2 is a bigger proportionate boost (100%) than going from 20 to 21 (just 5%), and since the nature of a cover-shooter involves short burst more than sustained fire, the slower a weapon shoots the more it benefits from this fact.
How much difference does this make? You know above where I said all those different guns have "about a 75% chance" to freeze an enemy in a second of sustained fire? Here's the actual chances.
1000 RoF: 76.2%
800 RoF: 77.0%
600 RoF: 78.4%
400 RoF: 81.0%
200 RoF: 82.3%
150 RoF: 92.3%
100 RoF: 98.2%
78 RoF: 100%
This means that, despite a lot of sources saying it's best to use Cryo Ammo with fast-firing weapons, this is the worst thing you could possibly do. You want to use slow-firing weapons. Ideally, you'd want to use a weapon whose Rate of Fire exactly matches your cutoff to get a 100% freeze chance per shot, which means 78 RPM assuming you have the Rank 2 Freeze Chance evolution. At that point, every shot is a guaranteed freeze so the second you see the hit indicator you can move on to a new target.
There's one final adjustment going on that I should mention. In the formulas above, you might notice that I said "effective" Rate of Fire. Because shotguns fire 8 projectiles, their "effective" rate of fire is considered 8 times more than their actual rate of fire. Crucially, this adjustment is based on weapon category as a whole, which means it is true even for shotguns that fire fewer than 8 projectiles. Similarly, the Talon is a pistol that fires six projectiles per shot, but since it's in the pistol class it doesn't suffer a 6x penalty to it's "effective rate of fire".
As long as all projectiles are hitting, shotguns work just as well as freezing weapons as anything else. Of course, that "assume all shotgun pellets hit" thing is kind of a dumb assumption, as the whole point of shotguns is adding spread, which means they're not supposed to all hit! But if you equip a Smart Choke and activate Marksman, shotgun spread actually drops down to zero and all pellets will hit, which turns shotguns into some of the best freezing weapons in the game. I mean, it's a really weird / niche build, but you can totally do it and it's actually pretty cool.
The exception is shotguns that fire fewer than 8 pellets: the Graal Spike Thrower (6 projectiles), the Venom / Reegar / Crusader (1 projectile each), and the Geth Plasma Shotgun (ostensibly 3 projectiles, but only 1 carries the effects of ammo powers). In fact, pair the shotgun penalty with its single projectile and its massive rate of fire and the Reegar is the worst freezing weapon in the game. Each shot has a less than 1% chance to freeze, and a full second of sustained fire gives you just a 15.9% chance to freeze an enemy.
So What Are The Best Cryo Guns?
Glad you asked.
Broken-Tier
Krysae -- one of five guns with a 100% chance to freeze with Rank 1 Cryo Ammo, and the only one of the five without massive downsides. (The Black Widow costs $125k to buy, the Executioner has to reload after every shot, the Acolyte has to charge to fire, and the Falcon essentially requires NG+ to use.) In fact, not only does it not have any downsides, it actually has some huge benefits. Most notably, it has an AoE freeze effect and benefits from all of the Sniper Rifle bonuses (time dilation and the Infiltrator's damage bonus). You can use it to freeze enemies around corners or behind cover, you can freeze multiple enemies at once, you can hip-fire it for close quarters or scope it for long range, squaddies do awesome with it, it's amazingly broken with Cryo Ammo. The biggest drawbacks are that it can't pierce cover, it can't get headshots, it's a bit heavy (though most good freeze weapons are), and it takes a bit of getting used to.
Talon -- 100% chance to freeze with Rank 2 Cryo Ammo. In fact, its 75 RoF is the closest of any gun in the game to that ideal 78 RoF target. It's a bit heavy for a pistol, but thanks to Ultralight Materials you can get its weight down to 30, which is waaaaaay lower than any other top freeze gun in the game (Viper is 70 and everything else is 100+). Because it gets 6 projectiles per shot without the associated freeze chance penalty, the Talon is the only Freeze Gun in the game that will work through shield gates, and the spread becomes an advantage because it's not unusual to freeze multiple enemies at once. Plus it negates most of the Krysae's drawbacks-- it can get headshots, penetrate cover, etc. The biggest drawback is it's not available until mid-game.
S-Tier
Viper -- 100% chance to freeze with Rank 2 Cryo Ammo. Its 70 RoF is very close to the ideal 78 RoF target. It doesn't have any gimmicks like some of the other top choices, but it's just super solid. Great clip size and ammo reserves, second-lightest freeze gun, and most importantly, on a fresh playthrough it's the first top Freeze Gun you're going to find.
Falcon -- If this were anything other than the last gun you acquire in any given playthrough, it'd contend for broken tier. But, you know, it's the last gun you acquire on any given playthrough. Great for NG+ runs, it's basically like a lighter-weight, shorter-range Krysae.
A-Tier
Scorpion -- It's a weird weapon to use because of the delay before the damage kicks in, but it has a 97.5% chance to freeze at Rank 2. The grenade will trigger ammo effects on impact but not on explosion, which is in some ways good (the freeze happens faster) and in some ways bad (no AoE component). Pistol ULM mods can make it one of the lightest freeze guns in the game, and this will usually be the first good freeze gun you get that is usable by Pistol/SMG squadmates. It's no Talon, but it'll hold you over pretty well until you get there, and if you just like the way it handles you could easily use it the entire game without issues.
Adas Anti-Synthetic Rifle -- the only weapon to rank this high despite not being a virtually guaranteed freeze, the Adas has a RoF of 350, which means it "only" has an 82.2% chance of freezing after a second of sustained fire. So why is it A-tier? Because everything else about it is great. It's available early, it's an AoE gun that can freeze multiple enemies at once, its shots have a slight tracking to them which means they're much less likely to miss, it gets a bonus against shields and barriers to facilitate stripping defenses, and it's just really fun and satisfying to use. The downsides are the tracking makes it harder to hit enemies in the back of the crowd, it can't pierce, and it chews through ammo. It's an amazing squaddie gun except that if they fire it near you it makes your screen shake like crazy, which is hella annoying.
B-Tier
Black Widow -- It's more likely to gib an enemy than freeze them, but otherwise it's a guaranteed freeze semi-auto with 3 shots in the clip and innate pierce. It'd be higher but it's insanely heavy and insanely expensive.
Carnifex / Paladin / Saber -- Single-shot weapons that fire just a hair too fast to be a guaranteed freeze, they're... fine. I don't know why you'd pick them over the Viper or Talon, but they're fine.
SMGs -- They all have a 75-79% chance to freeze over a second of sustained fire. They all weigh less than 10 pounds with ULM. They're so light that there's very little reason not to take one, but they're so similar that it just comes down to player preference.
Katana / Eviscerator -- The whole "Smart Choke + Marksman" trick is kind of a dumb one, but if you wanted to do it these would be the best Freeze Shotguns. It's just... not worth the effort, other than as a gimmick.
C-Tier
Pretty much any other fully-automatic gun -- They all have about the same chance to freeze, so pick your favorite. Or better yet, use a different ammo power.
Pretty much any gun that reloads after a single shot -- Great for freezing a single target, bad for freezing more than one.
F-Tier
Any high-RoF Semi-automatic -- Don't kid yourself, you're not feathering the trigger fast enough to get 600 RPM out of that Suppressor.
Reegar / Geth Plasma Shotgun / Venom / Crusader -- Single-pellet shotguns get completely destroyed by the shotgun penalty.
