So you want to be a soldier...
I hear you. The Adepts have biotics.
Sentinels take low damage from tech armor.
Infiltrators are pussies with high damage rifles and cloak.
Engineers have a drone and the highest shield capacitors.
Vanguards are unique with their biotic rushes and nova.
All of those and all you Soldiers got is adrenaline & concussive shot.
What good are they, really?
Keep your chin up. Here's how you improve your soldiering skills.
Weapons of War
Ditch the snipers, fuck the shotguns, those are too slow for this sort of action you're going for.
Avenger Mark X is probably the most reliable and fastest firing rifle out there. And it's lightweight to boot. Fuck the rest, the ammo clip on the other rifles are too low and their weight is too high. Buy the Recruit Crates to unlock higher Avenger upgrades. It took me a while, but I did max it out eventually.
Here's your secondary. The Phalanx packs a good punch to armor, but the beauty of this gun is like a lightweight, automatic sniper rifle with the Pistol Scope attachment. A sniper rifle that holds 12 ammo per clip and contribute very little weight is a boon when starting out. To get the Phalanx, buy the Veteran crates and pray hard. Pistol scopes are fair game from the 5k crates. Barrel extensions are veteran.
These two weapons at level 1, leaves your recharge speed at 128%. This is very good for your button of awesome.
"Sir, button of awesome? What button of awesome?" you ask.
The Button of Awesome
This. Concussive shot is a shitty soldier skill that emulates Throw. While packing no punch and no biotic synergy. It will annoy your friends because it bounces enemies and does little damage. But hell, wait for Rank 6 and laugh. Enter Amplification - The reason why soldiers don't suck,
Look at the numbers again. 1.40 sec recharge. You're spamming whatever ammo power you have at 1.4 seconds. Equip the Cryo ammo and you'll ice those fuckers. Equip the Incend. and burn those bastards. Enter a forest, slurp a pussy. You get the idea. This is by far the best skill a Soldier can have. The effect is quite insane when you consider a basic throw does shit against big guns like Brutes and Banshees, but when you spam these babies with burning ammo, it'll start doing some crazy shit like melting down a Bronze brute in 5 seconds.
But no, you won't spam these against Brutes. This is simply your button of awesome. What you need when the heavy hitters come is the button of even more awesome:
Adrenaline Rush. This is pretty self explanatory. With Rank 6 Power Use, Adrenaline Rush allows you to pull off a concussive shot before you hold down your trigger to burn down that poor son a bitch that's asking for it. A Mark X Avenger holds 47 bullets and reloads in less than half a second. Basically when Brutes charge in, you just hold tab, say 'Fuck you' before hitting Adrenaline, fire a burning/freezing concussive shot and hold down the left mouse button, hitting R when you finish your clip.
And that's how you be Soldier, now go kick some asses.