This guide is meant for people who want to play tech-based and combat-based classes. If you want to use biotics, this guide isn't really for you but you can still check it out.

When it comes to offensive talents, your combat skills and tech skills should be evolved to have maximum weapon damage, maximum tech combo damage, and maximum tech construct damage.

When it comes to defensive talents, you should maximize health, as well as health and shield regeneration.

In the conclusion of this guide you will learn how to evolve the tech and combat powers you will be using, as well as how to evolve some of the passive offensive and defensive talents in order to maximize the damage and effectiveness of the proposed weapons and combat profiles.

But first things first -- let's start with those weapons, shall we?

Why N7 Valiant you ask?

• Very fast reload
  
• Very fast fire rate (125 rounds per minute)
  
• 778 damage per shot at level X

The only other sniper rifle that has faster fire rate (180 rounds per minute) is Inferno Sniper Rifle, but the downsides despite 30% larger clip capacity (10 .vs. 7 rounds) is ~48% lower damage (523 damage per shot at level X), slightly lower accuracy, and the fact that it is prone to overheating because it uses "unlimited" ammo.

If you think you can manage your ammo use you can go with Inferno Sniper Rifle instead, but my recommendation remains N7 Valiant.

So without further ado, here's how to craft and equip it:

• Double Mod Extension (x1)
  
• Kinetic Coil (x4)

• SR Barrel X
  
• SR Receiver X
  
• SR Heavy Spare Clip X
  
• SR Tactical Scope X

For maximum damage, use a profile with an Infiltrator class and a Tactical Cloak rank 6 evolved to Combat Cloak.

You must be wondering now whether I am trolling you, but allow me to explain why this is the best weapon in the game for taking down anything, including Fiends on Insanity.

Hornet SMG has a fire rate of 950 rounds per minute and it fires three-round bursts with a seemingly modest 156 damage at level X. However, with some clever crafting this weapon becomes the literal firehose of death. How?

• Automatic Fire System (x1)
  
• Bio-Converter (x1)
  
• Kinetic Coil (x2)

• Pistol Barrel X
  
• Pistol Heavy Magazine X

These choices certainly require a bit of explaining so if you are curious how they work to produce the most powerful single-player weapon just keep reading, and if you are impatient to try it out just skip to the next section.

Automatic Fire System is our first secret ingredient -- it will bring the fire rate to insane 1425 rounds per minute, as well as increase the clip size. It will also reduce damage and accuracy, but that's not important because you will mostly be using this weapon to take down large targets, and there are other ways to compensate for reduced damage.

Bio-Converter will drain 5% of your health to refill an empty clip, but only if you don't reload manually before the clip is fully emptied. This will allow you to keep firing for much longer before you run out of ammo, and usually long enough to take down even the toughest of foes without having to leave cover to look for an ammo box.

In order to be able to use this without killing yourself, your health regeneration needs to be high enough to compensate -- your Combat Fitness skill rank 4 has to be evolved for Regeneration, and your Team Support rank 6 has to be evolved for Life Support. When using this weapon without reloading manually make sure to keep an eye on your health bar!

You could sacrifice one Kinetic Coil to install Double Mod Extension instead, but that's not necessary because you really don't need more than two mods anyway.

To maximize your weapon damage you should use Kett Fusion Helmet X, and Maverick Skirmisher Chest X.

If you want to maximize your tech damage output, then use Angaran Guerrilla Chest X instead of Maverick Skirmisher Chest X.

Arms and legs, as well as any crafting augmentations and armor mods are your choice.

So, how are you supposed to play with those two weapons?

I recommend having at least two profiles:

Class: Engineer
Skills:

• Incinerate (rank 4 Burning, rank 5 Anti-Armor, rank 6 Detonator)
  
• Energy Drain (rank 4 Recharge Speed, rank 5 Extended Drain, rank 6 Team Drain)
  
• Assault Turret (rank 4 Recharge Speed, rank 5 Omni-Link, rank 6 Flamethrower)

This is a tech-based profile which is well suited for using the sniper rifle to pick off distant targets, as well as for creating a lot of explosive tech combos at medium to close range while the Assault Turret is guarding your flank -- just remember to throw it close enough to you (within 10 meters) for the rank 5 Omni-Link evolution to work its magic.

Taking rank 6 detonator for Incinerate and rank 5 Extended Drain for Energy Drain allows you to chain combos of those two powers in any order.

Energy Drain is preferred to Overload despite lower overall damage simply because it can act both as a primer and a detonator. It also restores shields to you and your team giving you much better survivability on higher difficulties.

In order for the Assault Turret rank 6 to be an effective primer you also need Auxilary Systems rank 4 to be evolved for Priming.

Class: Infiltrator
Skills:

• Tactical Cloak (rank 4 Damage Bonus, rank 5 Speed, rank 6 Combat Cloak)
  
• Invasion (rank 4 Outbreak, rank 5 Weaken, rank 6 Virulence)
  
• Turbocharge (rank 4 Duration, rank 5 Damage & Force, rank 6 Dump Heat)

This is a mix of tech-based and combat-based profile which will allow you to fully utilize both weapons you just crafted by following this guide.

The strategy is to use Tactical Cloak and Invasion for extra damage and enemy defense debuff, and Turbocharge for those situations when you want to unleash the full power of your Hornet SMG -- Turbocharge increases damage, fire rate, and greatly increases clip size thus allowing you to fire longer before reloading (or losing a chunk of your health), which makes taking down even the toughest foes on Insanity a walk in the park.

So, what are you waiting for?

Go ahead and try it out, that Insanity achievement is waiting for you to claim it.

Have fun!

I mentioned that by now you should know to always have an Asari Sword in your melee slot, but if by any chance you don't know why here's the explanation.

Asari Sword has 5 augmentation slots -- crafting it with five Kinetic Coils will give you 15% bonus weapon damage.

Yes, you read that right. Even when you are not wielding the sword, this bonus is applied to any weapon you are currently using.

After writing this guide and watching more Xaine's World videos for inspiration on weapon crafting (the Hornet SMG build is from one of his videos, and they are well worth watching) I realized that I missed one little thing in my guide.

Remnant Architects.

Those things are giant and very deadly bullet sponges and even the Hornet SMG, despite being a formidable weapon against Hydras, Destroyers, Fiends, etc, doesn't deal enough damage to them fast enough to keep us out of danger. While you can definitely take them down using Hornet SMG it's a real slog to do so, and it turns out there's a much better way.


I can already hear you thinking "But HK-47, you said only two weapons and that's the third!" but you are wrong, because for the 99% of the game you will be carrying just the previous two -- this one is just for dealing with those pesky Remnant Architects so you will be carrying it only on those (thankfully) few and far between missions.

Here is how to craft it:

• Seeking Plasma System (x1)
  
• Aerial Performance Optimizer (x1)
  
• Kinetic Coil (x2)

• Shotgun Barrel X
  
• Shotgun Receiver X

Seeking Plasma System will allow projectiles to hit the target without damage drop off, and Aerial Performance Optimizer will provide you with 35% extra weapon damage because let's be honest -- most of the time during fight you will be jumping around evading Architect's nasty grenades and stun beams.