Mass Effect 3: How to Increase Your Rate of Fire With Reload Cancel
If you want to play effectively on Platinum, you’re going to have to master the Reload Cancel for weapons that have slow reload times. Basically, there is a difference in the time when your weapon ammo actually reloads and the time the reload animation takes. This difference can be quite large depending on the weapon you use. Reload Cancel allows you to reload your ammo while skipping over the longer animation, which in turn lets you fire more often.
There are a lot of ways to do this and some are more reliable than others:
First, you have to time the Reload Cancel so that your ammo has filled up – some people do it the second they see the “0” ammo go to the full number, but for me it’s easier to time it the moment I actually hear the weapon reloading. Take your pick.
Then, at the right time, you can do ANY of these actions:
1. Sprint forward a little (be careful you don’t go into cover accidentally)
2. Press down on the directional pad (the Medi-Gel arrow, you know)
3. Press the melee button (doesn’t work for Geth or classes that teleport during their melee)
4. Press any button to activate an offensive power (like Incinerate or Overload)
5. Cloak (Infiltrators only, obviously)
I personally think options 4 and 5 are the easiest and most reliable.
Ok, so you might think this small sliver of time saved is arbitrary, but it’s actually extremely helpful, especially on Platinum when DPS (damage per second) matters most. For example, the Javelin Sniper Rifle at Level X (possibly the slowest gun in the game) will take 2.97 seconds to reload normally and only 1.38 seconds with Reload Cancel. That takes your DPS from 336.57 to 575.78! You more than halve the time it takes to reload and you deal more than 70% more DPS.
Another great example is the Claymore Shotgun. At Level X, it will take 2.57 seconds to reload normally and only 1.04 with Reload Cancel. This brings your DPS from 469.85 to 833.38. That’s almost an 80% increase in DPS!
Hope you found this tip helpful … let me know if you have any questions or other tips!
Medigel is PC only, isn’t it?
A couple ways I like to employ (where applicable) are simply tapping the A button if you’re in a wide open area with no cover immediately in front of you. Also, if you’re a class without a dodge roll (Turian, Krogan, Destroyer) quickly holding pack on the control stick and tapping A works wonders pretty much everywhere.
Hitting an offensive power button even when it is in cooldown works as well, though it synergizes best with Infiltrators.
I’ve never heard anyone on any of these posts mention the scorpion. It’s not too heavy and works great with adepts that can lower the weight of pistols. Also there’s nothing like covering a boss with sticky grenades and then watching them all blow up. So fun! Maybe this is a noob gun. I don’t know. But it works as a nice compliment to a character that has issues with heavy weapons and power recharge. Oh, and if you get swarmed and certain death is coming you can often smother the ground around you in sticky grenades for ultimate vengeance from the grave.
The scorpion was good in single player but I don’t love it on Multiplayer … do you rock it on platinum?
or you can do this. Press the reload and then quickly take cover about half way, so it only takes half the time.