Soldier Guide



The Soldier is most proficient at dealing -- and handling -- heavy amounts of damage. Specializing in most weapons, and the only class that can wear Heavy Armor, as well as the only class that can wear medium armor at the start, Soldiers are the only class that has the Assault Rifle talent.

Suggested Talents

 * Assault Rifles - This is the staple weapon for a Soldier. This talent stays your aim and confers damage bonuses for each point invested.


 * Shotgun - Nothing ruins a charging enemy's day like a blast of shotgun. Accuracy and damage bonuses conferred for each point invested.


 * Pistol - Small, accurate, fast firing and has a higher shots-before-overheat ratio than sniper rifles and shotguns, it is a staple in other classes, but second to the assault rifle for Soldiers.


 * Sniper Rifle - Accurate and powerful, the sniper rifle talent allows you to remove threats from a distance. Points devoted here give you better accuracy and damage.


 * Combat Armor Unlocks heavy armor, and gives the Shield Boost ability. Each point here upgrades the Shield Boost talent. Very useful talent for this class.


 * First Aid - Improves squad healing. Imperative for some combat actions and boss fights.


 * Assault Training- Increases melee and weapon damage and grants the awesome Adrenaline Burst that instantly cools down all your talents.


 * Fitness- Increases health and gains the damage reduction powers of Immunity.


 * Soldier - Increases health and health regeneration for every point invested.


 * Spectre Training - Grants the Unity ability which is essential for later stages . Also increases accuracy and damage for all weapons.

Talent Points
When starting a career as a Soldier, always put your first weapon specialization points into assault rifles. In the early levels, even the most basic rifle (Lancer I) can kill most enemies very quickly. Put any excess points into Combat Armor and the Soldier specialization. These specialties boost your health and can keep you alive in the early levels (e.g. the firefight in Chora's Den) and Combat Armor unlocks Heavy Armor, which is Soldier-exclusive.

Once you have filled out the Soldier specialty before level 20 and after becoming a Spectre, put all of your points into Spectre Training. Once maxing out Spectre Training, start putting points into the weapon specialties again, but with the exception of Assault Rifles, put only four points into the specialization. Do not put points into Charm or Intimidate until you have nothing else to do because you get one point for each every time you complete Spectre Training and at 3 of the 5 Paragon and 3 of the 5 Renegade sections on their respective scales. So, if you are good you can get 4 points for Charm & Intimidate in your first playthrough. Make sure to put points in either Charm or Intimidate, not both.

Fighting as a Soldier
When you get in a firefight, follow one golden rule; an exposed target is a dead target! Even if you have very high physical damage reduction, upgraded shields and the like, any fight can quickly go downhill if you're exposed to the enemy. The best thing to do is to immediately seek cover if you are facing multiple opponents. Watch your radar and check up on how your team is faring; observe the tracking reticules carefully and take your shots.

Yet as a combat-centric character, you do have much greater liberty than other classes to "stand your ground" in any fight, especially if you choose to focus on the Immunity skill: max it out, choose your specialization class (either Shock Trooper or Commando will work) then race for the "Immunity Specialization" skill by keep adding points to it. At the highest level of Immunity, it lasts 20 seconds and has a 30 seconds cool down; with specialization, cool down is cut by 25% to just 22.5 seconds, and in conjunction with cooldown-reducing armour upgrades the ability will actually recharge before it wears off, allowing the ability to be constantly active.

Weapons

 * Pistols may be overlooked when picking a weapon of choice for a Soldier. However, the effectiveness of pistols should not be disregarded. At low character / skill levels and when equipped with low-end equipment, pistols have less overheating and recoil issues compared with assault rifles, and hence retain superior accuracy at longer ranges when fired rapidly. Pistols can serve as a good secondary weapon for shotgun specialists, since points will have to be invested anyway, and pistols are superior to shotguns at long range. If the Pistols skill is maxed out with talent points, then while Marksman, the pistol special ability, is activated, pistols have the highest damage per second in the game.


 * Shotguns inflict enough weapon force to knock down weaker enemies on a regular basis, effectively disabling them for a few seconds even if the blast is not enough to kill them outright. Recoil is, surprisingly, not a serious issue for shotguns since they fire slowly and have time to recover accuracy in between shots. Overheating might pose a problem when firing in quick succession unless suitable weapon mods are installed. Shotguns are crippled at long range, but can still give assault rifles a run for their money at medium range.


 * Assault Rifles are the jack-of-all-trades weapons that only Soldiers can become proficient in. They are good general purpose weapons over most range. However, low-end assault rifles suffer badly from recoil and overheating problems, forcing aspiring assault rifle specialists to fire in short, controlled bursts at long range to retain accuracy. The Overkill ability helps to overcome heat issues, allowing effective sustained fire at shorter ranges. As skill levels and equipment improve, recoil and heat issues will gradually be overcome, and the assault rifle truly comes into its own with the ability to lay down long bursts of accurate gunfire out to long range.


 * Sniper Rifles will allow you to devastate opponents at long and extreme ranges with relative impunity, but significant skill points must be invested to conquer the sight drift. A sniper rifle specialist can handle swarms of weaker enemies without putting his squad at risk. Even heavy vehicles and turrets that would pose a severe threat at closer ranges can be felled easily with repeated sniping. Sniper rifles can still be effective in medium range against unaware / stationary targets, since they only need one well-placed shot to take down weaker opponents and will still inflict severe damage on the tougher ones.

Armor
Soldiers have exclusive access to Heavy Armor. Heavy Armor provides excellent damage mitigation, however you must still heed the golden rule: an exposed target is a dead target, even if it's a walking tin can. Use cover! Your armor should be the last thing you rely on to keep you alive. Armor effectiveness can be increased with talents like Immunity, and Shield Boost which almost double your absorption value.

Some bonus talents (which must be unlocked by getting the achievement with other classes first) make armor and shields more effective. Taking the Barrier bonus talent gives you about 1000 temporary bonus points of armor when maxed, or Electronics, which boosts your max shield amount permanently by 270 points when maxed. Beware though: some weapons can partially or completely cut through this amount of shields. Rachni warriors, and other lifeforms like thresher maws use acid attacks which ignore shields completely. The Shock Trooper specialization class gives more absorption and hit points to add to this, and partially deals with this though. Furthermore, the alternative to the Shock Trooper class, Commando, would be well suited to upgrade all armor and shield talents.

Upgrades
What upgrades you use on your weapons and armor is determined entirely by your own personal preference. The sheer number of upgrades available means you will probably be experimenting constantly. Do note, however, that accuracy and stability mods can be made obsolete for the most part if you fire your weapon in small bursts. This goes for the weapon cooling mods as well.

For an assault rifle, getting a rail extention would be good, as it greatly increases you amount of Damage Per Second. if you have to pop out of cover, and can deal the same damage in 8 seconds, as you would in 10 seconds, if we say every shot hits. the amount of heat would be the same though. but dont invest in it untill Rail extensions are available. High caliber barrel is just a waste of modslots

Squad Composition
As a soldier you will easily do most of the fighting for your team. This power comes at a price, however. You don't have the crowd control abilities of a biotic and you don't have Decryption, which means you will need to drag a character with the Decryption skill around with you wherever you go so that you don't have to revisit an area later on to get missed loot. On the bright side, this means they will have Sabotage, which lays in more damage and prevents enemies from firing at you.

Pick a squad that makes up for the talents the soldier lacks. You'll should always have one person who has Electronics for opening doors, repairing the Mako, etc. Teammates that can fill this role are Garrus, Kaidan, or Tali. This also gives you access to Overload, which removes shields and makes people more vulnerable to being strafed up by assault rifle fire. Of these the best choice is Tali, as she is the only squadmate with the Hacking ability, which will give the soldier a valuable extra option when fighting synthetic enemies. While she is not as skilled in combat as Garrus, this is not a problem for the soldier's squad as the soldier will naturally be the team's powerhouse anyway.

Your second team member should be someone who balances out any lack of ability your first teammate has in either biotics or tech (or if Kaidan is in your party, whoever's specializations match your preferences): Liara for biotics (especially Singularity to pull out snipers), Garrus or Tali for a lot of tech abilities, or Kaidan for a mixture of both (Kaidan's recommended abilities are Medicine, Lift, and Electronics / Decryption). Wrex can be configured as a tough bodyguard, with Barrier and Fitness maxed, along with his Krogan Battlemaster talent, and a few points in assault weapons.