Infiltrator Guide (Mass Effect 2)



Infiltrator is the most rogue-like class of Mass Effect 2, and combines the versatility of tech skills with the freedom of attacking at long range using sniper rifles. Sniper rifles provide opportunities to eliminate groups of targets at extreme range presenting very little risk to the rest of the party. The available tech skills allow you to deal with shielded, armored and regenerating enemies, leaving barriers as the only defense you'll need NPC aid to counter easily.

The Infiltrator is the quintessential sniper class, and an expert at guerrilla warfare.

Powers
The selection of a character's powers can be an important choice, as there are only a limited number of skill points that may be assigned. Indeed, there are not enough points to raise every skill to its maximum (at most, 5 skills can be maxed), but some skills can be useful even at lower levels.

Active Powers
These are powers used in the middle of a fight to deal damage or gain an advantage.

Tactical Cloak: This is the infiltrator's bread and butter. Tactical Cloak gives the infiltrator many options. It can be used for flanking, backstabbing, escaping, sniping, etc. It has a great synergy with the SMG, pistol, and, most importantly, the sniper rifle. Assassination Cloak is a good choice for a large damage increase, especially for setting up a sniper shot. Enhanced Cloak is more useful if you prefer using cloak to flank, move to cover, or for avoiding fights. In most cases the 6 second duration of Assassination Cloak is sufficient, although emptying a clip and reloading will end the effect of this power.

Incinerate: One of the most useful damage powers in Mass Effect 2, incinerate burns through armor and health very quickly. This power can be arced around many pieces of cover and is decently effective even against shields and barriers. On the other hand, this power slightly overlaps with the sniper rifle. A sniper with the AP Sniper Rifle research upgrade is very effective against armor, especially when combined with the bonus damage of Tactical Cloak.

AI Hacking: This is a very situational skill. It is useless against organic enemies, and it cannot affect mechs that have shields up (including any attempts to reapply a hack to enemies shielded by from the last hack you performed). While it is useless in many missions, it can be a better choice for your final squad point than cryo ammo. It has some utility as a delaying tactic and distraction, affording you several seconds of shooting without taking enemy fire. It's also good for setting up mechs to be destroyed by enemy fire.

Passive Powers
These are powers used not at all or at the start of a mission, with no real need to use them in combat. For ammo powers it is usually better to set up different weapons with different ammo types at the start, then swap weapons instead of resetting the ammo. Rarely will you want to switch in combat.

Disruptor Ammo: Disruptor ammo is very effective against shields and synthetics. When upgraded, the percentage of weapon damage is increased and the duration of overheating and disabling an enemy is also increased. When upgrading to level 4, one can choose either Heavy Disruptor ammo or Squad Disruptor Ammo. Heavy Disruptor ammo is preferred because it increases your weapons' damage to shields tremendously and many squad-mates already have ammo powers that they use instead. Sniper rifles tend to be weaker against shields, but heavy disruptor ammo goes a long way to correcting that deficit.

Synthetics are disabled only when their shield are down, similarly you can only overload enemy weapons if they have no special defenses. This type of ammo has no bonus against biotic barriers which constitute as a separate type of defense. Overall Warp Ammo is a much better choice when dealing with enemy defenses. Use this ammo type primarily against the geth and Mechs.

Cryo Ammo: Cryo Ammo gives a chance for a player to freeze the enemy. As good as it sounds, its inability to freeze enemies protected with armor, shields or barriers dramatically reduces its effectiveness. You'll often want a different ammo type to burn through the protection, and switching weapons/ammo just to finish off the health is usually not worthwhile.

On the other hand when coupled with the semiautomatic Viper Sniper Rifle, it provides unrivaled battle field control against enemies without special defenses. Since these type of enemies attack en masse and sometimes in confined spaces, it is a useful ammo type to have in your arsenal. A sniper rifle shot with Improved Cryo Ammo has 100% chance of freezing and you can freeze 2-3 targets with each bullet timed zoom. Another great benefit of this ammo type is that you will be able to conserve ammo when fighting mobs since you can just freeze enemies with a single shot and order your squad mates to finish them off.

Use this ammo type against FENRIS and LOKI mechs, varren, vorcha, klixen, husks, abominations and humanoids without any special defenses. This ammo type loses its edge on Hardcore and Insanity difficulties since every enemy you will face thereafter will have some type of special defense preventing you from freezing them with a single shot.

However, Squad Cryo Ammo has been proven to provide assistance off-screen. Squadmates with Cryo Ammo will help prevent enemies from closing in on you. One recommendation is to take down defenses on incoming enemies and allow the other squad members to freeze the target before it can reach you. This proves to be invaluable on higher difficulties when facing Husk swarms and incoming Varren.

Operative: There are 2 specializations, Agent and Assassin. Agent reduces skill cooldown, increases health, and increases paragon and renegade points. Assassin, on the other hand, grants more weapon damage, and more sniper slowdown while scoped. Assassin would be the better option because of all the investment into ammo abilities because they work off the modifier for weapon damage (and the additional 6% works off of that). Choose Agent if you want to be able to access paragon or renegade options earlier, feel the need to get 5% more health over the weapon damage or if you prefer to rely on more frequent uses of Tactical Cloak for damage (works well with Assassination Cloak, which delivers a 75% bonus to damage on the first shot).

Geth Shield Boost / Barrier / Fortification
The three shield boost powers. Geth Shield Boost, the Tech based variant, is the obvious choice for the Infiltrator. Its Improved version is unique in that it offers a 10% damage bonus instead of a longer duration, offering a bonus to defense and offense at the same time, making it a good idea to always have it active. It offers good synergy with native Ammo powers, or those offered by allies, as it is an additional bonus. Extremely effective at increasing survivablity, though it has some issues with Tactical Cloak, as it has a a relatively long cooldown. With some care, it can easily be used with Cloak, creating almost unparalleled survivability.

Warp Ammo
The infiltrator naturally lacks abilities that are good against barriers. Warp ammo helps mend this hole, being effective against barriers, armor and health, gaining an additional bonus to enemies already affected by biotic abilities(Pull, Shockwave).

Armor Piercing Ammo
While Armor-Piercing Ammo does give a higher damage bonus than Warp Ammo when maxed (70% vs 50%), it only applies to armor and health. Armor-Piercing Ammo makes Sniper Rifles even more effective versus armor and health, and with Incinerate already effecitve against both.

Reave
Yet another way to compensate the Infiltrators lack of effectiveness against biotic barriers. If you go along this path, you can forgo Incinerate and have a packed up skill that can damage both armor and barriers. This power additionally grants temporary health regeneration when used against unprotected organic enemies. With this build in mind you can also invest in AI Hacking and/or Cryo Ammo to produce an effective battle controller rather than pure damage dealer. On the downside, Warp Ammo, the other method of dealing with barriers, has better synergy with the class skill Tactical Cloak. Reave is a much better option for a class that has better power cooldown and damage such as the Sentinel. And although this method of stripping enemy from its armor is effective, you already have Incinerate as a base power, making it slightly redundant.

Neural Shock
An alternative, especially on lower difficulty settings. Depending on your party composition and/or ammo powers, the stun effect from Neural Shock can be invaluable for disabling an enemy long enough to land a headshot, once they are vulnerable. As a form of crowd control it is useful in stopping charging krogan or varren. Note that it is useless against inorganic opponents.

Dominate
Only available if you recruit Morinth, this is the organic equivalent of AI Hacking. It seems very useful as a bonus skill, allowing you to control the battle from both sides.

Heavy Pistols
Pistols can be useful in close quarters and their higher rate of fire, when compared to a sniper rifle, makes them better suited against quickly moving enemies at mid to short range. Pistols are more effective against armored enemies than against shielded or barriered enemies. The major disadvantage of the upgraded pistol is its extremely small ammo capacity. It cannot be used in an extended firefight, so it is difficult to rely on a heavy pistol as a primary weapon. On the other hand, it is also fairly accurate and packs a decent punch, so it can be used as a poor man's sniper, in case you run out of thermal clips for your primary weapon.

Sniper Rifles
Sniper rifles are the single most damaging means of attack for an infiltrator. Sniper Rifles, like the pistols, are very effective against armored enemies but weak against shielded or barriered enemies.

You start off with the M-92 Mantis Sniper Rifle, a basic rifle with heavy damage and the unfortunate drawback of heavy heat generation, requiring a new thermal clip after each shot. It only holds a reserve of 9 thermal clips. The Mantis should really only be used before acquiring any of the other snipers, as they all tend to outclass it.

If you have the Digital Deluxe version of Mass Effect 2 or have installed the Aegis Pack DLC, you have access to the M-29 Incisor Sniper Rifle. The Incisor has 15 shots per thermal clip, but it fires in 3-shot bursts. Although the damage per hit is much lower than the Mantis, it can prove quite useful in heavily populated areas, even taking down 2 or 3 enemies at once. Due to a slight delay between the three shots in the burst, it is possible to fire each shot in a slightly different way, making the burst a unique strategy for a sniper. The Incisor holds 15 shots at the ready and 30 available in thermal clips ready to swap out for reload, which makes for 15 trigger pulls total.

The M-97 Viper Sniper Rifle can be picked up during Thane's recruitment mission. Although it deals less damage per shot than the Mantis, its high ammo capacity and great rate of fire make up for it. Since many normal enemies are 1–2 headshot kills, the Viper ends up with the most endurance of any rifle. The Viper holds 12 shots at ready, and 48 in backup thermal clips. It also allows for better crowd control than the single shot rifles.

The M-98 Widow Sniper Rifle is quite easily the highest damage rifle in the game. Each shot does roughly 1.4 times the damage of the Mantis, but unfortunately it has the same slow rate of fire. The significant increase in damage makes up for this drawback. Similar to the Mantis, it requires a new thermal clip after each shot, and it holds a reserve of 12 thermal clips.

M-98 Widow vs. M-97 Viper
The M-98 Widow Sniper Rifle boasts a noticeably higher chance for a clean kill on and off the head. The lack of ammo is easily avoided with clean headshots, being thorough in collecting ammo, and on higher difficulty settings, using it in conjunction with Incinerate. Equipping the correct armor and upgrades increases the ammo capacity, helping to counter the ammo shortage.

The M-97 Viper Sniper Rifle, on the other hand, is more of a semi-automatic sniper rifle with an advanced scope. Even on Veteran difficulty, a clean headshot with this rifle will not produce a one shot kill. Though the M-97 Viper boasts a larger ammo capacity, it requires more ammo to kill an opponent, thus negating most of the extra ammo's benefit. The recoil on this weapon is much less than the M-98 Widow, but an enemy will shift its position following a headshot, meaning you must readjust your aim to compensate. Because it takes more shots to kill an enemy, Shepard is out of cover for longer. This means that you will situationally take more damage during the prolonged time out of cover.

Disruptor or Cryo Ammo makes the M-97 Viper more feasible. Enemies will take more than one shot to kill, which allows the ammo power to take effect. Disruptor Ammo will overheat the enemies' weapons and Cryo Ammo will freeze them (see passive powers above) but using such will make taking down enemies with barriers a lot harder.

The Incisor is situationally useful against shields, but overshadowed once you receive either the M-97 Viper or the M-98 Widow.

In short, it comes down to personal preference. The M-97 Viper possesses superior speed and flexibility, while the M-98 Widow boasts stopping power and damage.

Submachine Guns
SMGs are rapid fire weapons that can be used in close range combat. While very effective against enemy barriers and shields, SMGs have limited accuracy, which tends to restrict their effective range. The SMG works as the backup weapon when the primary is out of ammo or when conserving ammo for a later fight. It can also be used to take down shields at close range. Especially useful against Praetorians and heavy mechs, it takes down their shields faster than any other weapon (including the Collector beam), leaving the possibility of a follow-up sniper barrage. Note that SMGs can be improved with a passive upgrade which deals 50% more damage to shields and barriers.

Advanced Weapons Training
On the Collector Ship, the player has an opportunity to learn to use either Shotguns or Assault Rifles, or get the M-98 Widow Sniper Rifle. Like the Vanguard, this is about either patching up the class's weaknesses, or making it better at what it already does. In the end though, it's mainly up to player preference and goals.

Assault Rifles
Assault Rifles are an interesting choice, and can provide some damage at medium range crowds. The Geth Pulse Rifle is useful in bringing down shields and barriers and is significantly more accurate than the M-9 Tempest (although having Kasumi's DLC and the M-12 Locust will counter the dismal accuracy of the Tempest).

Shotguns
Shotguns give the Infiltrator some close range damage for things like Husks, Varrens and other close quarters enemies that like to sneak up on you outside the view of your scope. Installation of the Firepower Pack DLC allows access to the Geth Plasma Shotgun, a shotgun that excels at damaging foes at range. This adds a compelling reason for Infiltrators to receive training in shotguns as it can be a powerful addition to any player's line-up.

Heavy Weapons
Heavy weapons chosen by an Infiltrator should be useful in negating tight-knit crowds, making the Arc Projector or M-100 Grenade Launcher wise choices. The M-920 Cain should be held in reserve for situational instances (Thresher Maw, Human-Reaper, etc.). One great thing about the Tactical Cloak is that charging up a Heavy Weapon (Cain) will NOT break Tactical Cloak, allowing your squad mates to take the heat while you sit back and charge up without any interruption. The M-622 Avalanche is an interesting choice to help line up head-shots, and the M-490 Blackstorm (if available) can also help in lining up head shots. The M-451 Firestorm is situational at best, usually when you know there's going to be a lot of close quarters combat.

The Collector Particle Beam is somewhat wasted as the Infiltrator is already a master at long-range combat.

Party Selection
Since the Infiltrator is strong against most enemy types, there is very little need to fill in party members that protect against weaknesses. Any selection of NPCs can work well for most missions. For the final mission and for a couple of the main storyline missions, you'll run into a majority of enemies that have barriers, so bringing a team-mate with Warp or Concussive Shot can help. team-mates with short-range firepower to keep enemies off your back can also be useful, but aren't strictly necessary.

In other tactics (insane difficulty, especially), bring Miranda and any other member that has an assault rifle. Miranda's passive skills increase the entire squads' health and damage, while the other member uses the assault rifle to take out husks, varren and other point-blank type enemies. This setup increases survivability drastically. Note that Grunt is also a good option along with Miranda; he already has superior health and gets even more, because Miranda's abilities are percentage-based. Moreover, Miranda's Overload ability makes her a valuable asset when fighting shielded enemies.

Zaeed is a good choice, especially alongside Miranda. His Veteran line gives him a 50% weapons damage boost. This along with Miranda's 15% squad damage boost makes him deal nearly as much damage as Shepard (squad members' assault rifles deal only about half as much damage as Shepard's). Zaeed's Disruptor Ammo can temporarily lock up synthetic enemies, setting up an easy snipe. His Inferno Grenade offers great control of husks and varren, and is available long before most other squad members' special powers.

Some other choices that can help you out are a Jack/Jacob/Samara and Garrus/Grunt/Legion. Jack, Samara, and Jacob's Pull makes picking off targets that are in cover a lot easier. Jack's Shockwave can give her an edge over the two, though -- although it can be arguable that Samara's Throw is just as useful as Shockwave. Garrus and Legion are useful for their assault rifle/sniper combo, but Legion tends to be a better choice due to his hacking skills. Legion is the least likely choice, however, because you get him later in the game. Grunt is useful as a meat shield. Sending him in to distract enemies is a good way to pick them off with your sniper rifle. Grunt's use of the assault rifle is also a good balance if you are using Jack, Jacob, or Samara. In general, any squad combination works with the Infiltrator, but it's recommended to have someone who specializes in close-range combat and another who has hacking/overload skills to make fighting against synthetics easier.