Consumables or Powers

Consumables. They are life savers on insanity. I've used tons of shields and ammo types.

Consumables are great but because its so clunky to access and use them, I don't use them that much. I overall like the ideas thrown in this thread though. I'm thinking of a combination of the ideas here.

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Ammo Upgrades can come in two forms:

Ammo Mods can be equipped on weapons at forward stations or before a mission, similar to other weapon mods like scopes and barrels. They passively grant damage and debuff bonuses to the equipped weapon and can stun enemies, but can't prime enemies for power combos.

Ammo Powers have their own power tree under the Combat skills, take up a power slot, and use charges similar to other Combat skills. Ammo Powers can prime enemies for power combos and grant very high damage/debuff bonuses compared to Ammo Mods, but lasts for only 2 clips per charge before deactivating (can be upgraded through the Ammo Power Skill tree). This is to offset their combo synergy with other powers and their high damage output (These should be more powerful than ME3's Ammo Powers).

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Ex. Ammo Powers are great for Soldier/weapon-based builds, especially One-Shot, One-Kill enthusiasts (ME2 Charging Vanguard, Widow Infiltrator, or Widow Soldier comes to mind). Ammo Mods can be used for basically any build but lack the damage output of Ammo Powers (still good for specific targets though).

With this system, you can have even more diverse customization and builds than before. You can equip an Assault Rifle with Incendiary Mod and an SMG with Disruptor mod for different kinds of defenses and combine it with your 3 biotic powers. Or you can run with a Revenant with Disruptor Mod for basic shielded enemies, and when need be, throw an Incendiary Ammo Charge on the Revenant when you need to take out a single heavily armored enemy with both heavy fire and power combos.

Powers changing ammo type in ME2 didn't make sense whatsoever. So yeah, this is one improvement I'll grant ME:A.

But I agree with others that ME1 weapon mods are the way to go.

Same....i really haven't had a need to and if i did, because i'm so used to ME3MP, i'd either hit up, down, left or right on the control pad....

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Fuck consumables!

Never figured how long they last. Especially when using the replenishing weapons. And only 2 shots for unmodded stuff like Ushior? I don't mind using a consumbale - but I mostly ignored it for the clicky aspect and obscure mechanics.

I would prefer ammo powers back. The combat power charges system is cool but the skills that use it I find rather underwhelming compared to the utility that ammo powers would provide. I'd gladly trade away trip mines, flak cannon and barricade if meant the old disruptor, incendiary and cryo skill trees came back.

However if Bioware is determined to keep ammos as some type of consumable then ok, but they need to last way longer than just 3 magazines. On something like the Ishary, the new big hitter, that is just 3 shots. Perhaps ammo could go back to a ME1 like system where its a permanent mod that you have to switch around. Or if that is too hard, I think I saw a suggestion earlier to make ammo consumables last until equipping another one. That would be ok but I still wish I had ammo powers back.

ME1-style ammo is cool and all due to allowing for weapon customization, but I can see it being overpowered if weapons in general can passively prime for power combos. That could be potentially overpowered when combined with a full detonator build of Lance, Energy Drain, Concussive Shot, for example, which is why I can see why the devs decided to make incendiary ammo and the others a consumable.