Melee Shadow help

Spent a lot of time experimenting and have finally finished my new build,. It's p. cool.

N7 Shadow Melee Platinum build

Tacticool cloak is used to get in, Shadow Strike, get out.

Electric Slash is used to cloak cancel, as well as to get opportunistic damage/kills/fire explosions/tech bursts off anything that you don't want to Shadow Strike right now but can't shoot. Great paired with the Geth Scanner. Often will SS, run around a corner then cloak cancel into an ES that sets off a fire/tech explosion and gets an extra kill or two.

Shadow Strike is damage/DoT/shield restore. The reason for taking 6b is that there's simply no benefit to the extra damage, whereas with 6b it can function as an emergency (if risky) shield restore.

Passive is Capacity because after some testing I really find the extra cooldown reduction more useful than 7.5% extra weapon damage (which I don't even notice). 5a because there's nowhere else to put the points. 6 skipped because again, I don't notice 10% extra weapon damage, and it means I can put the points into...

Sword Mastery: Melee on 4, Shields and Speed on 5 - this does make a big difference to your survivability and downtime - and finally 6a, electric sword. This is because with electric sword and a pistol stunner the Shadow can one-shot any normal mook on Platinum without worrying about the Acolyte shot, which synergises really nicely with the Shield Drain on SS 6b. Also means that on many waves you can flit about in stealth double Shadow Striking and having your shields topped up every time, which is a nice change of pace.

Normal playstyle on Platinum is to charge the Acolyte and look for targets of opportunity. Phantoms can be one-shotted provided the Acolyte hits first. Ideally you time the Acolyte shot so they dodge *before* you strike, but if this isn't possible then the Incendiary DoT + SS DoT often finishes them. If not hopefully you can cloak-cancel into an ES from behind a wall that'll finish them off. Not as simple as you'd like, but Phantoms rarely are.

If you see a mook you can SS it Acolyte or not. Pyros can be treated like Phantoms. For bosses and stuff with armor it's



Dragoons are complicated. If you get it alone, you can Acolyte -> SS as they charge -> melee to finish off without swapping. If not, best strategy is to plink away with the hurricane and get cloaked ESes in whenever possible. The only reason they're an issue is because it's rare, when soloing Plat, to get just one Dragoon at once. Sometimes it's rare when with a team too

Ravagers and Brutes are really easy, just position yourself and use the Hurricane. Ravagers go down in one clip, Brutes in two. Other bosses are just regular RHA while you use your guns to kill them. In fact, waves with Ravagers and Brutes are some of the easiest with this build, because your damage with the Hurricane is so good that you can kill them faster and easier than almost anything else on Platinum.

Wave 7 Plat against Cerberus is bonkers. You have all these enemies that can charge you at Ludicrous Speed so separating them out to kill is hard, and if you make a mistake you've got Phantoms, Dragoons and Geth Bombers to stunlock you while the Pyros /afk and hit their flamer key. By contrast wave 4 is hilarious as basically nothing is a threat to you.

Tried a solo Giant/Cerberus/Platinum this morning but failed on wave 8 owing to a really bad mistake on wave 3 that cost me a bunch of gels and some overly aggressive play on wave 7 against the Pyro/Dragoon/Phantom swarms. But overall it was actually pretty easy. Took me just under 40 minutes to get to near the end of wave 8, which is quite respectable given the Shadow's rep for low DPS.

I've tried a lot of variations on the above spec on the same solo, and this one is definitely the most effective. It's got just the right breakpoints for survivability, SS killing power and ranged DPS to be useful and interesting as well as fun.

Edit: oh right, Equipment. Incendiary ammo is great for DPS against anything with armor as well as fire explosions. It also adds some fire DPS and potential panic to anything you hit with your Acolyte before SSing. SMG rail amp because you don't need any extra melee damage. Geth scanner because it's amazeballs for this class and build, helping you plan your attacks, retreats and ESes as well. Other slot is whatever you please. Cyclonic and Adrenaline both add lots of survivability. Power Amp won't quite get you to the point where you can one-shot a Phantom without the Acolyte, but if you used a Wraith with an omni-blade it would. Shield regen thingy would also work well.

^ Good job! Did you have fun?

That summed it up nicely. But really, nice job, can't stress that enough. Platinum solo with mostly SS is nothing to scoff at. 

Hey, any chance you could link to your build, loadout and equipment? thanks!

sure. here it is

i don't know if this is the most optimal in terms of numbers but it works for me. i've used this against every faction and done well with it.

I can see why this isn't fun for everyone - but it's exactly this part that made it fun for me. (It IS also the part where I said "Fuck it!", when I tried it on Platinum)