Characters:
I got the N7 Slayer Vanguard first so I began playing around with that for a while. At first, I couldn't decide on what build I wanted him to be as he comes with long-range and close-range abilities so I mixed them up. Later, I found out that I preferred him up-close and personal, especially stacked with free shield recharge from Biotic Charge. I re-organized his abilities and made him a shotgun-wielding sword user.
His Phase Disruptor ability is awesome and is identical to the ones the Phantoms use. You shoot a high-powered blast from your hand which deals a fair amount of damage (a lot if you fully specialize in the damage upgrades) but it consumes 50% of your barrier to use it. I went for the sensible option and reduced this to only 25% to use and it pays off. His Phase Disruptor ability can take out weaker enemies from long range and then, when the crowd is thinned, you can charge in and cut enemies down with Biotic Charge and melee strikes.
His other move, Biotic Slash, is a very awesome and stylish-looking move that can (cheaply) be used through walls and around cover. Very spammy but very satisfying, when used you spin around and slash with your sword, sending forth a blast of energy that topples most enemies. It has high damage and can be upgraded for even more, but the way I have my character specialized didn't allow me to play around with this ability at its full potential. Still, it hits pretty hard, can be used through walls and recharges quickly.
This set can be played with any weapon type because his abilities complement a variety of tactics. If you've chosen to specialize in Phase Disruptor for long-range takedowns, I'd recommend a Carnifex with lightweight mods and a scope to finish off enemies at long-range. Your Biotic Charge is your staple move and you should probably upgrade it fully to restore your shields when you initiate it - this will save your life. Alternatively, if you're going for a more close-range character, specialize into Biotic Slash for range and damage, upgrade Biotic Charge and max out Fitness so that you can run around the battlefield unhindered. Biotic Slash combined with range, damage and your health fully maxed can allow you to hold down a flank in those objective rounds such as hacking, drone escorting and activating devices. This guy's melee attack propels him forward a bit so you'll need to active the move NEAR an enemy, not in front of it otherwise you'll miss, keep that in mind.
The N7 Paladin is the new Sentinel and he rocks. For a while I didn't know how I wanted him to be as his abilities (Energy Drain, Incinerate, Snap Freeze) are all very useful but if you get all those maxed out, you sacrifice shield-upgrades and health bonuses. His new ability Snap Freeze is essentially a shotgun version of Cryo Blast. You need to be close but when activated, you shoot out a cone of ice cold that freezes the closest enemy and chills the rest. This ability has a lot of debuffs which you can stack such as slowing down enemies and weaking armour which work well on things like Banshees and an Atlas.
However, perhaps the cooler (no pun intended) thing about this guy is the fact that he comes with an Omni-Shield. His basic melee attack is actually his only one because if you hold down the attack button, you plant the shield into the ground and take cover behind it. Teammates are somewhat protected and you can absorb a fair amount of damage until it breaks. However, you can't move whilst using the shield but it's a pretty cool ability nonetheless.
You can choose to increase the shield's strength, which I did, and at the of the upgrade tree you can either choose to add a fire effect or an ice effect to the shield. When you bash enemies with the shield you can either burn them or freeze them, which really works well if you play quite aggressively. I chose to make my Paladin another shotgun user so I ignored his Incinerate ability (put the fire effect on the shield to balance this instead) and specialized in Snap Freeze, Energy Drain (free shields are always nice) and melee. His melee move is actually pretty damaging and fast. You can send a Marauder flying away with it so it hits damn hard. Overall, a fun class to play quite aggressively. I'd recommend using a shotgun or assault rifle to balance out your close-range/long-range capabilities.
The Avenger X with armour piercing/damage and stability is a good choice here because it weighs little. Plus, you can always take cover behind your shield whilst you wait for your powers to recharge. Alternatively, something like the new N7 Piranha shotgun would be a good choice (especially if you've specialized into Snap Freeze AoE and debuffs) but it does weigh a fair bit. I would also suggest the Reegar Carbine because of the sheer power but unless you've got it at a high level, it might weigh a little too much.
I got the N7 Fury only this morning and this is perhaps the most brittle but fun class to play as because, if done right, you can annihilate enemies in no time. The Fury is a biotic specialist (even better than the Asari in my opinion) and her abilties are all about annihilating things. Her most important skill, Annihilation Field is an aura that lingers around you for 40 seconds (can be upgraded to 90 seconds) but the interesting thing is that any enemy that you go close to has part of the field put on them and from this, you can use Throw to set off a Biotic Explosion. If the enemy doesn't die, you can just back away, walk forward and it's set up for another explosion!
Her other new ability, Dark Channel, is similar to that of Javik's in the single player. Cast it at an enemy and a continous biotic field leeches their defenses away. The awesome thing about this ability is that if you cast it at an enemy and then kill that enemy, the channel will find another enemy nearby and latch onto it. This can quickly turn a group of Cerberus Troops, Geth Pyros or Marauders into nothing. Even better, if you put Annihilation Field on, cast Dark Channel, walk up to that enemy, use Throw and kill the enemy, you'll still get a Biotic Explosion and the channel will find another enemy but this time, you only need to use Throw on the new enemy to set off an explosion!
I tried this setup with the Disciple V shotgun (instant staggering is a lifesaver, especially whilst setting up explosions) on Firebase Hydra and it was complete carnage. We were against Cerberus and the only things that could block my destruction was the Guardians. Their shields protect them from all my abilities, but a good shot to the face (or Throw) solves that. Phantoms can still be quite annoying if they flip around and spam that crappy pew-pew-hand-cannon-of-own move but if you're quick enough a Dark Channel will sap their shield, run up to them and infect them with Annihilation Field, wait for the stagger, then use Throw to send them into the abyss.
I'd recommend a shotgun with this class because all of her abilities are focused around close-range combat. Annihilation Field can be upgraded to increase your movement speed by 20% whilst active AND you can restore your own shields by damaging enemies with it so it's definitely a shotgun class if you ask me. The Disciple is my go-to shotgun for power-reliant classes as it weighs very little (my Fury has 200% recharge speed with it) and staggers enemies. A pistol with armour piercing and lightweight materials would be a great backup weapon to deal with Guardians, Pyros and Ravagers from far away whilst your powers recharge/health regenerates.
~~~I know I recommend setups and things but I'd just like to point out that I don't want to sound pushy or anything. These are just setups I've tried and they worked really well~~~
Guns:
I've got the three new guns that came with the DLC.
The N7 Tycoon is an assault rifle that actually functions as an LMG. It comes with a face-guard that SAYS it protects the user from headshot damage but I don't know if it actually does. This gun hits like a truck, has a massive round of ammo but it weighs ALMOST a full bar. Even on Krogan characters this gun will push your recharge times to around 100 and below which can be annoying for power-reliant classes.
This gun is an all-round fantastic new addition. It comes with a passive armour piercing ability that allows you to shoot through Guardian shields and cover WITHOUT needing an armour piercing mod, which is great. Slap on damage and stability and this gun is even more lethal. It takes four to five shots to reach its full fire rate but when it does, everything will die. You can take out a Banshee on Silver with a full round providing you don't miss too many shots! This gun apparently works very well on the new N7 Destroyer soldier but I haven't got that yet so I'll have to wait.
The new shotgun, the N7 Piranha is decent but not great, in my opinion. It functions as an automatic shotgun but the wide-pellet spread makes it difficult to hit things that are actually right in front of you. Getting headshots with it is also hard sometimes. I tried this gun out on Firebase Goddess with the Krogan Sentinel (most pointless class ever, I might add) and I did fairly well. It fires fast, deals good damage and has a good amount of ammo but I found it hard to hit things that were pretty close to me. Playing as a shotgun character, you do not want to have to fire more shots than necessary because being in close-combat in this game can be deadly more often than not. I found that the Disciple worked far better as it staggers, has a tighter pellet-spread and headshots are far easier to achieve.
The Piranha is not a bad weapon, but I just found it fiddly to use. Against the Reapers this gun would do a little better because most of the enemies are fairly big and chunky. Slap on an accuracy mod and armour piercing and you can tear things apart, but I'd go with damage and accuracy because headshots are your friend. This gun works well in crowds, so try to put something like Disruptor or Cryo ammo on to obliterate a crowded area in no time. It could also be pretty effective at setting off Tech Bursts/combos thanks to its wide range.
The last weapon, the Acolyte is similar to the Piranha in that I found it fiddly to use. It fires off a grenade-type shot that bounces off walls/surfaces. It can only hold 3 shots in the clip and each shot has a charge time of about a second before you can fire it, so this gun definitely isn't a run-and-gun type of deal. Each shot needs to be placed carefully. When it comes into contact with an enemy, it explodes dealing decent damage. The problem is that it can be hard to hit enemies that above you/behind cover due to the small hit-box of the shot. I tried putting an armour piercing mod on mine to see how it dealt with Guardians and Brutes and the like but I didn't really notice the difference.
However, this gun works pretty well against the Geth and combined with Energy Drain to cause good damage to them. Charge the shot, aim at the feet and then wait for the shot to fire before using Energy Drain. Your ability will hit instantly, draining their shields and by the time your shot reaches them, it will damage their armour/health, instead of wasting it on the shields. Similarly, you could do this with Incinerate (AoE), Snap Freeze, Cryo Blast, Carnage and so on. Either way, you definitely shouldn't rely on this gun to get you kills. You will probably need powers to aid this gun otherwise you might be feeling a little lacking.
