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Disambiguous 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. For the consumable cryo ammo item in Mass Effect: Andromeda, see Consumables.

Incendiary Ammo is a power available in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3's single-player mode.

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 sentient organic enemies to panic.

  • Non-sentient organic enemies, such as husks, klixen, and abominations, do not panic when set aflame.
  • Synthetic enemies are resistant to fire damage.
  • The anti-regeneration quality is quite helpful against charging krogan and vorcha.

Mass Effect 2

Incendiary Ammo ME2 Icon

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. This makes the ammo power invaluable when facing heavily armored opponents, as a steady stream of fire can quickly tear their defenses apart.
  • 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 protected, the damage is not instant but done over the burn time. This splash damage can occur without the panic effect.
  • If you focus on killing opponents quickly, Incendiary Ammo is generally inferior to Armor Piercing or Warp Ammo. That being said, the damage-over-time effect is helpful if an enemy breaks your sightline and ducks into cover - sufficiently weakened enemies may be fatally wounded by a previous shot and succumb to the aftereffects, allowing you to focus on another target.

Availability

Mass Effect 3

ME3 Incendiary Ammo

Power Ranks

Rank 1: Incendiary Ammo

Shoot and your enemies will burst into flames.

More weapon damage.
Weaken armor.
Chance to make an enemy panic.

  • Weapon Damage Bonus: +10%
  • Armor Damage Bonus: +10%


Rank 2: Panic

Improve the odds of panicking a target by 15%.

Rank 3: Damage

Increase health and armor damage bonuses by 4%.

  • Weapon Damage Bonus: +14%
  • Armor Damage Bonus: +14%


Rank 4: Damage/Squad Bonus

Damage

Increase health and armor damage bonuses by 6%.

  • Weapon Damage Bonus: +20%
  • Armor Damage Bonus: +20%

Squad Bonus

Squadmates gain Incendiary Ammo 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% (Damage), +24% (Squad Bonus)
  • Armor Damage Bonus: +30% (Damage), +24% (Squad Bonus)

Explosive Burst

Ignites enemies with an intermittent explosion that covers 2.50 meters for 100 damage.


Player Notes

Note: Incendiary Ammo does not do anything to shield or barriers.[1]

Mechanics
  • The "50% effectiveness" of the squad version of Incendiary Ammo provided by James Vega applies not only to its damage dealt but also to its ability to prime targets for Fire Explosions. Some weapons can still prime but seem to have the chance for a given shot to do so reduced, necessitating more hits before a target becomes primed. Other weapons become totally unable to prime for fire combos at all with the squad version of the ammo power when they otherwise could.
  • 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).[1] 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).[1]
  • 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. For this reason, the Headshot Damage boost may be preferable in some instances, given that the ammo boost is essentially temporary and the damage boost is guaranteed. However, even for marksman weapons (Sniper Rifles, or single-shot rifles like the M-96 Mattock), the boost in headshot damage may often net less damage in total even for a skilled player. It's a question of whether you focus on hard, fast strikes or battles of attrition.
  • 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. Hitscan weapons, such as the Particle Rifle, receive an almost incredible level of 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 N7 Hurricane can only trigger one explosion per 2 shots spent. As a side note, the shotgun-styled pistol M-358 Talon shoots 6 projectiles, so 3 explosions are expected from a fully connected blast.
    • 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, the independent nature of Explosive Burst's damage allows weapons with low damage per individual shot (e.g. the M-12 Locust or the Geth Pulse Rifle) to be moderately effective against armor, depending on difficulty level.
    • Explosive Burst's damage is increased by the character's passive class power bonuses that improves power damage, and by the Soldier's Combat Mastery that improves ammo power damage. However, Explosive Burst's damage is unaffected by armor piece bonuses, effects of other powers, and the Intel Terminal bonuses. It's also unaffected by powers 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 fire explosions. However, an explosion from Explosive Burst 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, Explosive Burst does seem to trigger for the Particle Rifle, even though it fires neither bullets nor any type of possibly payload-bearing object. Ironically, the incredibly high "fire rate" of the Particle Rifle (Each unit of ammo spent still carries the 50% trigger chance) ensures that it benefits from Explosive Burst more than almost any weapon which could logically utilize it.
    • The Reegar Carbine is also an exception to the "weapons that do not fire bullets" rule. The Reegar will trigger explosions and follows the Particle Rifle's example of 1 unit of ammo spent has a 50% chance of causing an explosion.
  • Curiously, the incendiaries have no effect on the trees and foliage of the Prime Evil stage of the Armax Arsenal Arena.
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.[2]
  • 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

References

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