What is the best guns? am having a hard time figuring out which gun is worth anything besides the sh

IMO best full auto assault rifle is the Thokin, highest rate of fire and highest damage. Use seeking plasma mod to overcome its low accuracy, and bio converter mod to make up for the small clip size.

My biotic Ryder is hitting the ground with an assault rifle, side arm and a sniper rifle.

Assault Rifle: Zalkin 3, which has some pretty decent damage, burst fire and fantastic accuracy

Sidearm: Carnifex 3, has tremendous damage, good accuracy but unfortunately a slow rate of fire and low magazine count but it's been my go-to sidearm since ME2 so I sort of feel like I'm betraying it to not take it now.

Sniper Rifle: Black Widow 3, it's just so darn powerful... If I'm ever annoyed or just don't want to deal with swarms like at the end of the Voeld storyline in the Kett Facility, I pull it out for crowd control and fast kills. Kind of cheating but kind of don't care.

These are my weapons of choice for now. That might change but I was impressed with how much I liked the Zalkin since I didn't think I would when I first found it.

Depends bud you gotta remember that enemies don't stop scaling but we do at 80. Try out different styles and see what works for you.

When your around level 90 and on high difficulty they start to become just bullet sponges that one hit almost.

I find the most useful setup for myself if this helps.

Charge - Bastion.
Rem VI - Draw attention when i require cover movement.
Biotic Shield - Useful to have up while swapping cover or caught off guard.

Close to Mid range - modified bullet seeking Hurricane X.

Long range - Modified Black Widow X

Infinite ammo weapon - modfied explosive Scattershot and Modfied heatsink Mattock.

If my main two are low on ammo i will use these to draw the fight out. Until it's safe to get up from cover and charge + melee.

Otherwise Hurricane and Black Widow make good work of level 90+ enemies ( still bullet sponges).

Shotguns and snipers are the better way to go. Assault rifles are on the weaker side and the effort required to make them work a combination of a shotgun and a sniper will serve you better.

Valkyrie, Carniflex and Valiant are working for me quite well on Insanity, though I've been playing around with different pistols. Eagle is quite damn fun.

I'm only using the dhan with my vanguard.
It's the best.

A combination of Dhan and Lanat is pretty good.

I like to throw a lot of lead around so I've been carrying a Revenant (+sticky grenade mod) and a high clip Raptor for longer shots. Sometimes I'll switch the Raptor to Black Widow for more umphh.

Exactly what i would post here as an answer! Thokin is OP. At least for soldiers because you have even more wepon damage AND turbocharge, which turns this wepons into a superkiller machine. There's this other high velocity gun from the kett, which have more rounds and damage but has to charge and rate of fire is lower so thokin is still better because you usually will prefer agility while changin g guns and powers instead of a big machinegun which has you exposed for a few seconds before you can kill anithing.
The main con is that is has few bullets and you will end up running for the ammo boxes while killing enemies into the battlefield. That's other reason why it's best for soldiers who have more survivability.
If you are squishy and don't have turbocharge as a main power, you better stick to shotguns or sniper rifles unless you are a powerful biotic, in this case a good smg or pistol can be your best friend if you know how to mod it

Dhan shotgun. Nuff said.

I find the heat sink upgrade very useful for my vanguard even though it means one shot overheat. Shoot, then do something else (charge/melee/evade/run around) then shoot again. Reloading your gun can be quite a problem in close combat, the heat sink eliminates that. That, and infinite ammo obviously.

edit: oops, thread title asked for guns beside shotguns and sniper rifles. Forget what I said then.

I like the hornet however maybe it is just me but that gun doesn't seem to level up as well as others. I do like the Sandstorm AR and while I know it isn't the best it works for me. I don't recall the name right now but I like the heavy hitting Angara sniper rifle.

Carnifex is to Mass Effect as Murder Knife is to Dragon Age.