So, I'm an infiltrator...

Should I hold out for awhile longer and cash in on the Black Widow ($250,000) sniper rifle or hook myself up with one of the armor packages (50,000) right now?

I play heavy with incinerate and energy drain / disruptor and cryo ammo.

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thanks guys and gals, I've put about 25 hours in the game and I'm happily taking my sweet ass time.

Black Widow is the most amazing goddamn gun in the game.

You can find armour pieces (the majority of them) in the missions you take. Side mission or otherwise.

go with black widow

I am also an infiltrator and it has been nothing but fantastic, especially all upgraded

I think Black Widow is worth it for an infiltrator.

@Oldirtybearon: @Animasta: @TentPole:

noted, thanks folks! few more Gs to go

What armor package?

Yeah, with the cloak damage bonus, one headshot with the Black Widow is pretty much the end of anything that gets in your way

Black Widow V is fucking beastly. Infiltrator becomes incredibly fun when you have that gun. I pair it with Cryo-shots and just watch guys shatter with a single heatshot before they are even in range to engage the rest of my squad. All my armor was either 10% weapon damage or 5% weapon damage + 10% headshot damage.

black widow is preeeeeeeetty amazing, you should save up

@Sign said:

Black Widow V is fucking beastly. Infiltrator becomes incredibly fun when you have that gun. I pair it with Cryo-shots and just watch guys shatter with a single heatshot before they are even in range to engage the rest of my squad. All my armor was either 10% weapon damage or 5% weapon damage + 10% headshot damage.

Cryo Ammo is definitely a choice substitute for Tungsten Rounds. In ME2 Cloak + Tungsten Rounds/M-98 Widow = Everything Died

for ME3 I totally recommend Cryo Ammo, Tactical Cloak, Energy Drain, and the Black Widow. It's beyond beastly.

Even on Insanity BW will one-shot any non-shielded enemy out of stealth. Get HK/Armax pieces instead of a set.

I thought the Black Widow (M-98?) that you pick up rather than buy ends up being better than the one you can purchase? I played as an Infiltrator and eventually bought the one from the specter requisitions and remember being disappointed that it wasn't as good when fully upgraded as the other Black Widow. I'll pop back into my game to check, but I'm pretty sure that is the case.

Edit: M-98 Widow doesn't have black in the name. My bad. Also, you don't find it until a fair ways into the game, so take that into consideration. It is pretty much the most powerful sniper in the game though.

Black Widow!!!

@Subjugation:

you pick one up in me3?! Man cause I'll maybe wait if that's the case

@hoossy: Yeah, I edited my post to clarify a bit. I won't spoil anything for you, but you pick up the M-98 Widow on a main story mission (if you pay attention and don't miss the gun). Having used it and the actual Black Widow, I regretted buying the Black Widow after I already had the M-98. That Black Widows costs some serious credits.

@Subjugation: The Widow is bolt action while the Black Widow is semi auto. I prefer the Black Widow even if the recoil makes using the semi auto useless.

@SmasheControllers: Duly noted. I think my favorite rifle was actually the Javelin, but you pick that up on the tail end of the game. It has such an awesome firing sound though ...

Black Widow is THE gun of me3. Thats ALL I used in ME3, I was an adept and once I got it there was no need for biotics anymore, of course playing K/M helps me headshot everything in sight in split seconds, I don't know how easy sniping is on console. 
 
In coop I'm consistently first in points as an Engineer with the blackwidow and sniper upgrades, freeze+snipe repeat. No need for a sidearm. I actually do better with just the black widow equipped and nothing else because the powers charge up faster. 

@SmasheControllers said:

@Subjugation: The Widow is bolt action while the Black Widow is semi auto. I prefer the Black Widow even if the recoil makes using the semi auto useless.

The 3 round magazine saves time reloading.

@Cataphract1014 said:

@SmasheControllers said:

@Subjugation: The Widow is bolt action while the Black Widow is semi auto. I prefer the Black Widow even if the recoil makes using the semi auto useless.

The 3 round magazine saves time reloading.

Also the max rounds is like double.

get the rifle, the armor sets aren't that good anyways, you want to stack up weapon damage armor pieces in your N7 armor set.

@SoothsayerGB said:

I wouldn't bother with a Scope unless your a soldier using Adrenaline rush. To much of the game is close quarters and the baddies worth a sniper round move to much/quick, imo.

I used the Barrel (weapon damage) and the scope (higher accuracy) mods for all my sniper rifles in the game. I was often picking enemies off with headshots as they entered each area. Many times they weren't even in range to engage my teammates. Something satisfying about watching a bunch of enemies run one after the other into an area and just picking them off 1 at a time as they emerge.

@Sign said:

Black Widow V is fucking beastly. Infiltrator becomes incredibly fun when you have that gun. I pair it with Cryo-shots and just watch guys shatter with a single heatshot before they are even in range to engage the rest of my squad. All my armor was either 10% weapon damage or 5% weapon damage + 10% headshot damage.

Cryo Ammo is definitely a choice substitute for Tungsten Rounds. In ME2 Cloak + Tungsten Rounds/M-98 Widow = Everything Died

for ME3 I totally recommend Cryo Ammo, Tactical Cloak, Energy Drain, and the Black Widow. It's beyond beastly.

@Subjugation: The Widow is bolt action while the Black Widow is semi auto. I prefer the Black Widow even if the recoil makes using the semi auto useless.

@SoothsayerGB said:

I wouldn't bother with a Scope unless your a soldier using Adrenaline rush. To much of the game is close quarters and the baddies worth a sniper round move to much/quick, imo.

I used the Barrel (weapon damage) and the scope (higher accuracy) mods for all my sniper rifles in the game. I was often picking enemies off with headshots as they entered each area. Many times they weren't even in range to engage my teammates. Something satisfying about watching a bunch of enemies run one after the other into an area and just picking them off 1 at a time as they emerge.

@Tennmuerti: That's why you use Energy Drain as a bonus power. You cloak, pop Energy Drain, and if you're smart, you picked the "can use powers while cloaked" path in the tree. I've seen one Energy Drain take down the shields of four marauders on Insanity. Then pop-pop-pop Heavy Incinerate.

It's a beautiful thing, man.

Black widow was awesome but I'm a fan of the Geth Sniper rifle. The view finder looks sick as hell.

@Tennmuerti: That's why you use Energy Drain as a bonus power. You cloak, pop Energy Drain, and if you're smart, you picked the "can use powers while cloaked" path in the tree. I've seen one Energy Drain take down the shields of four marauders on Insanity. Then pop-pop-pop Heavy Incinerate.

It's a beautiful thing, man.

Black. Widow.

I used the Black Widow until I got the regular Widow during the game. It's a bolt action, but Widow + extended barrel + concentration mod + max damage bonus from armor + max damage bonus from cloak let me two shot Brutes and three shot Mechs without shields on insanity.

Has anyone gotten the pistol, Carniox, is it worth it?

@Dany said:

Has anyone gotten the pistol, Carniox, is it worth it?

I bought the pistol but it's not as good as the one find in the game it has less ammo capacity but the same amount of damage pretty much

@Tennmuerti said:

@Oldirtybearon said:

@Tennmuerti: That's why you use Energy Drain as a bonus power. You cloak, pop Energy Drain, and if you're smart, you picked the "can use powers while cloaked" path in the tree. I've seen one Energy Drain take down the shields of four marauders on Insanity. Then pop-pop-pop Heavy Incinerate.

It's a beautiful thing, man.

I know about the enrgy drain. I was only talking about cryo ammo. It seems useless to me since you one shot enemies without shields anyway with the black widow.

Cryo Ammo at full spec guarantees those one shot kills. And on the rare occasion it won't, it freezes enemies solid and takes them out of the play for a good 15 seconds (by that point you should heavy incinerate because why wouldn't you?). It's more a safe guard/guarantee than anything else, but I like to keep my bases covered.

@Tennmuerti said:

@Oldirtybearon said:

@Tennmuerti: That's why you use Energy Drain as a bonus power. You cloak, pop Energy Drain, and if you're smart, you picked the "can use powers while cloaked" path in the tree. I've seen one Energy Drain take down the shields of four marauders on Insanity. Then pop-pop-pop Heavy Incinerate.

It's a beautiful thing, man.

I know about the enrgy drain. I was only talking about cryo ammo. It seems useless to me since you one shot enemies without shields anyway with the black widow.

Cryo Ammo at full spec guarantees those one shot kills. And on the rare occasion it won't, it freezes enemies solid and takes them out of the play for a good 15 seconds (by that point you should heavy incinerate because why wouldn't you?). It's more a safe guard/guarantee than anything else, but I like to keep my bases covered.

@Tennmuerti said:

@Oldirtybearon said:

@Tennmuerti said:

@Oldirtybearon said:

@Tennmuerti: That's why you use Energy Drain as a bonus power. You cloak, pop Energy Drain, and if you're smart, you picked the "can use powers while cloaked" path in the tree. I've seen one Energy Drain take down the shields of four marauders on Insanity. Then pop-pop-pop Heavy Incinerate.

It's a beautiful thing, man.

I know about the enrgy drain. I was only talking about cryo ammo. It seems useless to me since you one shot enemies without shields anyway with the black widow.

Cryo Ammo at full spec guarantees those one shot kills. And on the rare occasion it won't, it freezes enemies solid and takes them out of the play for a good 15 seconds (by that point you should heavy incinerate because why wouldn't you?). It's more a safe guard/guarantee than anything else, but I like to keep my bases covered.

But I get one shot kills anyway. With no need for Cryo ammo. I suppose if you get a lot of body shots it's usefull, but with the sniper rifle slow mo + infiltrator slo mo stacking it's really really hard to miss headshots. Also Cryo ammo does not even do more damage to normal targets. Whereas Disruptor ammo actually gives you 16.5% extra dmg. PS: I can see Cryo being usefull agaisnt armored targets, now that i think about it. (but armor piercing ammo is just so much better in that regard)

My Black Widow is kitted with a level 5 barrel for +25 some-odd percent damage, as well as a level 5 scope (they let you see through smoke). I don't use the concentration mod because slow mo is slow enough. But, I have found that on the occasions I missed the headshot and got a shoulder (it happens, even with the slow-mo user error can lead to funny things sometimes, plus I play on 360), the flash freeze of a target worked to my benefit rather than detriment. Those precious 15 seconds allowed me to fire off a power, decloak, and get into cover quickly to pop another cloak. I'm not saying that's the only way I played the game, as I found sticky-nading groups of centurions and assault troopers did serious damage while getting Liara to pop Singularity for clean up of anyone still breathing. And then there are times when I'm feeling frisky and decide to tac-cloak behind a Guardian and shank his ass Oz style. Lots of options in ME3 for the Infiltrator.

I'm sure we can agree that Sabotage on turrets is the greatest "fuck you" in the game, yes?

Edit to add: I agree that armour-piercing/Tungsten Rounds are the best ammo power in the game, but sadly, it's either that or Energy Drain. And I'd rather save my bullets for when the shields go down.

@Tennmuerti: Fair enough, but Sabotage on turrets fucks up their IFF, making them shoot any enemies in their targeting area. They ignore you completely.

I took a couple of Atlas Mechs out that way, save for the one I decided to hijack. You know, cheevos.