Mass Effect might be a role-playing game (RPG), but it sure doesn’t skimp on the combat. There are a variety of enemies to take on and each type has its own specializations, attack patterns, and weaknesses. Krogans love to charge, Asari prefer to use biotics, and machines have heavy armor that you’ll need to cut through.
To help you combat the myriad of opponents you’ll discover, the first Mass Effect allows players to equip ammo upgrades that alter the kinds of rounds that you’re shooting at the enemy. They’re especially important if you choose to play on a high difficulty — the highest and hardest being “Insanity” mode. Here’s every ammo type and when you should use it for quick reference during your experience in the game.
9 Explosive Ammunition
Explosive ammunition is self-explanatory: it blows up. It causes immense heat, damage, and impact force that can sweep opponents off their feet. The major drawback? It overheats your weapon. Guns in Mass Effect can become overheated from any type of ammo, but these explosive shots cause it to happen much more quickly. When your weapon does overheat, you’re left with a cooldown period before you can shoot again.
Players should use these rounds on shotguns. They can improve their ability with shotguns in the talent menu and one talent — called Carnage — allows them to shoot with perfect accuracy over long distances. While Carnage is active, their weapon also won’t overheat, making it perfect for these chaotic rounds.
There’s only one type of Explosive Ammunition in the first Mass Effect:
8 Anti-Biotic/Anti-Tech Ammunition
Using this type of ammunition will cause biotic and tech abilities to have a slower recharge once they’ve been used. While tech abilities rely on the person’s skill with their computers and omni-tool, biotics are (usually) a naturally occurring ability due to exposure to element zero. As a result, some races are more talented at it than others due to their generational exposure.
You’ll want to take advantage of this ammo whenever you know you’re going up against an enemy with powerful biotics or tech abilities, but if you’re not sure, it’s a good rule of thumb to assume that Asari enemies will be talented with biotics and Quarian enemies will be talented with tech abilities.
There’s only one ammo type that fits into this category:
7 Incendiary Ammunition
No matter which incendiary ammo you choose, it will do two things. First, it causes a certain amount of damage per second for 5 seconds after the round makes contact with the enemy. Second, it will reduce your target’s accuracy with their weapon.
These rounds are known to be effective on a variety of enemies, but consider using them especially when going up against Krogans. Krogan enemies can regenerate their health, but incendiary ammunition will stop them from doing it.
The two kinds of Incendiary Ammunition are:
6 Shield Piercing Ammunition
Shield piercing ammo is exactly what it sounds like: ammo that can more easily take out an enemy’s shields. As you progress through the game, you’ll have a better understanding of which enemy types use shields and, by extension, which missions you need this type of ammo for.
However, you should keep in mind that these ammo types typically do less actual damage to health than the average round would. Be sure to bring a squadmate with high DPS, or switch out your weapons as need be.
The two kinds of shield-piercing rounds are:
5 Anti-Organic Ammunition
The anti-organic ammunitions are very simple. They provide bonus damage when used against organic (living) opponents. Since that’s all that they do, there’s really no reason not to use them — until, that is, you unlock better ammo later in the game. For the beginning of the game, though, feel free to take advantage of this small buff.
It’s especially helpful because several of the early quests involve fighting organic non-human opponents. There are the Thorian Creepers, for example, on Feros. Or there’s the mission on Noveria in which the player must fight Rachni and decide the fate of the Rachni queen.
Anti-Organic Ammunition includes:
4 Cold Ammunition
There are two types of cold ammunition and each one has a particular benefit:
If you shoot an enemy with any cold round, that enemy’s weapon accuracy will drop. However, while the Cryo Rounds are particularly good at bypassing shields, the Snowblind Rounds will massively increase your weapon damage.
There’s a catch, though — Snowblind Rounds cause your rate of fire (how quickly you can shoot) will take a massive hit. It means that your weapon will never overheat, but the pros don’t always outweigh the cons. While the Cryo Rounds may continue to be useful throughout the game, Snowblind Rounds give such a minimal improvement that it’s better to just use a different type of ammo once you’ve unlocked higher level upgrades and/or equipment.
3 Toxic Ammunition
Toxic ammunition isn’t like fire or cold or other types of ammo — it doesn’t do sustained damage over time, nor does it cause your allies to do more damage on each attack. Instead, toxic ammunition prevents the enemy from healing. They have to heal through the toxic damage first before they can actually heal their health bar.
Since most enemies in Mass Effect don’t heal themselves, these ammo types aren’t incredibly useful — except on Insanity difficulty. On Insanity, enemies do heal themselves, so you should absolutely take advantage of toxic ammo.
There are two kinds of rounds that fall under Toxic Ammunition:
2 High Impact Ammunition
High impact ammunition doesn’t increase the amount of damage from each round; it causes push-back that often knocks your enemy off their feet entirely. These rounds are best used to stun or forcefully stop an enemy who is in the middle of an action. For example, enemies that charge for you — like Krogans — can be stopped in their tracks by high impact ammo. Players love to use these rounds in Shotguns but they are effective in nearly any weapon.
The two types of High Impact Ammunition are:
1 Anti-Armor/Anti-Synthetic Ammunition
These ammunitions are made from tungsten, a type of metal that can be found on Earth naturally but is extremely rare. In Mass Effect, it’s used to make rounds that can pierce other metals — namely, an opponent’s armor or a metal enemy.
The Mass Effect trilogy features a long conflict between the Geth and the rest of the universe — one which Shepard must ultimately resolve however they see fit by the end of the third game. These opponents appear often in the first Mass Effect game as soldiers for Saren. Any time you expect to go up against the Geth, bring this ammo with you.
There are two types of this armor piercing ammunition:
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