Incendiary Ammo

This article is about the Power. For the Ammo Upgrade, see Incendiary Ammunition. For the Ammo Bonus in Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer, see Incendiary Rounds.

Incendiary Ammo is a power available in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3. When activated, the user's weapon causes fire damage to enemies, burning through armor and setting them on fire. This stops health regeneration, and can cause unprotected organic enemies to panic. Synthetic enemies are resistant to fire damage. The anti-regeneration quality is quite helpful against charging krogan and vorcha.

Mass Effect 2

Power Ranks

• Rank 1
  • Recharge Time: 1.50 seconds
  • Duration: Lasts until overridden by another ammo power
  • Fire Damage: 20.00% of weapon damage over 3.00 seconds

• Rank 2
  • Recharge Time: 1.50 seconds
  • Duration: Lasts until overridden by another ammo power
  • Fire Damage: 30.00% of weapon damage over 3.00 seconds

• Rank 3
  • Recharge Time: 1.50 seconds
  • Duration: Lasts until overridden by another ammo power
  • Fire Damage: 40.00% of weapon damage over 3.00 seconds

Rank 4

Choose to evolve the power into one of the following,

Inferno Ammo

• An explosive charge spreads the ammunition's payload on impact, potentially igniting the target and all nearby enemies.
  • Recharge Time: 1.50 seconds
  • Duration: Lasts until overridden by another ammo power
  • Fire Damage: 60.00% of weapon damage over 3.00 seconds
  • Blast Radius: 3.00 meters

Squad Incendiary Ammo

• Each member of your squad gains the effect of your incendiaries, allowing you to spread pain and panic in a very literal crossfire.
  • Recharge Time: 1.50 seconds
  • Duration: Lasts until overridden by another ammo power
  • Fire Damage: 40.00% of weapon damage over 3.00 seconds

Player Notes

• Damage dealt against armor is inflicted instantly rather than over time.
• The explosive effect of Inferno Ammo can only be triggered when hitting health.
• The explosive effect of Inferno Ammo may panic secondary enemies through armor/barriers/shields (this only works for the explosive effect - normally, protected enemies won't panic). If these secondary enemies are armored, the damage is not instant but done over the burn time. No damage is done, if the secondary targets have barriers/shields (but they will perform the burn/fire-dance animation, if they panic).
• If you focus on killing opponents quickly, Incendiary Ammo is generally inferior to Armor Piercing or Warp Ammo.

Availability

• Soldier
• Vanguard
• Jacob Taylor
• Grunt

Mass Effect 3

Power Ranks

Rank 1: Incendiary Ammo

Shoot and your enemies will burst into flames.
More weapon damage.
Weakens Armor.
Chance to make an enemy panic

• Weapon Damage Bonus: +10.50%
• Armor Damage Bonus: +10.50%

Rank 2: Panic

Improves the odds of panicking an enemy by 15%

Rank 3: Damage

Increases health and armor damage bonuses by 4%

• Weapon Damage Bonus: +14.50%
• Armor Damage Bonus: +14.50%

Rank 4: Damage/Squad Bonus

Damage Increases health and armor damage bonuses by 6% Weapon Damage Bonus: +20.50% Armor Damage Bonus: +20.50%

Squad Bonus Squadmates gain Incendiary Ammo bonus at 50% effectiveness

Rank 5: Ammo Capacity/Headshots

Ammo Capacity Increases ammo capacity by 30%.

Headshots Increases headshot damage by 25%

Rank 6: Damage/Explosive Burst

Damage Increases health and armor damage bonuses by 10% Weapon Damage Bonus: +30.50% Armor Damage Bonus: +30.50%

Explosive Burst Ignites enemies with an intermittent explosion that covers 2.50 meters for 100.00 damage

Player Notes

Note: Incendiary Ammo does not do anything to shield or barriers.

Mechanics

• Incendiary Ammo has a buggy interaction with both itself and other fire-powers/Warp (which is incorrectly assigned the same damage type as Incendiary Ammo). Most fire-based damage over time effects are combined additively into one debuff, but Incendiary Ammo's damage increases far faster than should be expected from successive stacks.
  • Among other things, if Incendiary Ammo is used on an enemy affected by Warp, Incendiary Ammo will take on Warp's damage modifiers, rendering it capable of affecting shields and barriers (at .5x strength and 2x strength respectively).
• The ammunition capacity boost, if chosen, only applies on the active ammo power. Switching to another ammo power will remove the extra ammunition even if both have the capacity boost.
• Notes on Explosive Burst:
  • Explosive Burst has a 50% chance to trigger from any shot, regardless of the weapon's rate of fire. Automatic weapons get the most benefit from it.
  • Explosion damage is much higher than individual shot damage of most automatic weapons. For those weapons, Explosive Burst can increase damage rate against unprotected enemies by several hundred percent.
  • Each shotgun pellet has an individual chance to trigger Explosive Burst. Most shotguns shoot 8 pellets, for up to 8 possible simultaneous explosions. On average, every fully connected shotgun blast results in 4 explosions. On a similar basis, a fully charged shot from an Arc Pistol can result in 3 simultaneous explosions. However, the Hurricane can only trigger one explosion per 2 shots spent. As a side note, the shotgun-styled pistol Talon shoots 6 projectiles.
  • Explosive Burst doesn't harm enemies who are protected by shields or barriers. However, the explosions occur regardless of your target's defenses. When you shoot a shielded enemy, the resulting explosions will harm the surrounding non-shielded enemies.
  • Unlike other ammo powers, independent nature of Explosive Burst's damage allows weapons with low damage per individual shot (e.g. the Locust or the Geth Pulse Rifle) to be moderately effective against armor, depending on difficulty level.
  • Explosive Burst's damage is increased by character's passive training that improves power damage, and by Soldier's talent that improves ammo power damage. However, Explosive Burst's is unaffected by armor pieces, effects of other powers, and Shadow Broker research. It's also unaffected by talents or effects which improve weapon damage.
  • Explosive Burst is triggered by shots which penetrate cover due to a weapon's piercing mod. This combination provides an easy way to deal with Guardians, and is more effective for shooting unprotected enemies through cover than simply using Armor-Piercing Ammo.
  • Explosive Burst deals instant damage and doesn't always set enemies on fire. Its effect is separate from Incendiary Ammo's "burn and panic" effect (which can be used to set up tech explosions). However, the EB's explosion also has a chance to ignite and panic surrounding enemies.
  • The squad version of Explosive Burst provided by James Vega may have 50% reduced damage for the team (player included).
  • Explosive Burst is not triggered by weapons that do not fire bullets. Note, however, that it does occasionally seem to be triggered when shooting at the dummies in the Firing Range when equipped to the Particle Rifle. This is observable by the trademark "burst" effect and a subsequent decrease in the health of the nearby targets. It happens very rapidly due to the nature of the Particle Rifle's firing mechanism, and might cause extreme damage if it carries over to other enemies as well.
• Upgrades to power damage will increase Incendiary Ammo's listed damage bonus for weapons and against armor.

Strategies

• Due to Incendiary Ammo's buggy damage-over-time stacking mechanism, one can quickly obliterate any enemy by using a high rate-of-fire weapon such as a Reegar Carbine.
• If used on an enemy already affected by a fire damage over time effect or Warp, Incendiary Ammo's damage-over-time will start off at an elevated level (though it may truncate the total effect duration of the original power).

Availability

• Single Player: Soldier, Vanguard, James Vega, Grunt, Jacob Taylor
• Multiplayer: N/A