----------------------------- - Each power added/change and the reasoning as to why: - -----------------------------

Jimmy (Soldier/Sentinel/Vanguard):

Vanilla Jimmy - How he plays:

Jimmy plays as your defensive tank character with Fortification and very limited powers. He's okay in combat but there isn't anything really spectacular combat wise compared to your other squadmates. Carnage is an absolutely bad power and is never worth investing in as it's probably one of the worst powers in the game. Frag grenade is alright for damaging armor, but it's not as good as Inferno Grenades or Lift Grenades for power explosions. Incendiary is the best ammo power in the game bar none due to it's final evolution - which means he basically is just here to shoot at things since he has no actual good powers to help out Shepard.

The other big problem with Jimmy is the fact that if Ashley is alive, you have two soldiers characters and lose out on Kaidan (who is probably one of the best Mass Effect 3 squadmate's with his abilities).

He has one decent power which is Incendiary Ammo. If you are a Soldier or a Vanguard that means he is redundant since you have that power and don't need him for it. Frag grenades are the weakest grenade type in that they can only detonate one type of combo, and they do not set up any combos themselves. Carnage does middling damage and is mediocre for CC, compounded by the fact that it has a relatively long cooldown. Fortification is not really useful for the helping out the squad to achieve any type of power combo - but it does allow him to survive longer. The only other things worth mentioning are that his squad bonuses in Arms Master, can pair nicely as a tank build for if you choose to make a tank build for him. Shotguns usually aren't particularly great on squad members but assault rifles are good for squadmates with the Particle, Harrier, Typhoon, or Falcon being great options.  Overall he is an unbalanced squad member that is best against organics.

Modded Jimmy - How to fix him:

First of all, it should have been that if you saved Ashley - Jimmy would have been a Sentinel, and if you saved Kaidan - he would have been a Soldier. That would have made the most sense to cover 'the missing' class depending on which Virmire Survivor you saved. Bioware obviously made him a solider no matter what making Ashley even less of a good option to save.

So how can we fix Jimmy? We give him three class options to choose from:

1. Soldier = His original class, and a class you can pick if Ashley is dead or you want to keep him as his designated class in the story or you want two solider classes.
2. Sentinel = To replace Kaidan if Kaidan is dead or to use alongside Kaidan if you want.
3. Vanguard = To have if both Ashley/Kaidan is alive (Virmire Survivor mod) or if you want to fill in the missing Vanguard class that you don't have in the base game. It also could just be you want a Vanguard no matter if Kaidan or Ashley is alive (to act as hybrid of both)

So below has the powers and reasoning for them.

Powers (Soldier):

Biotic Explosion Powers: None
Cryo Explosion Powers: Concussive Shot (S/D), Carnage (D)
Tech Burst Powers: Concussive Shot (S/D), Carnage (D), Disruptor Ammo (S)
Fire Explosion Powers: Concussive Shot (S/D), Carnage (D), Inferno Grenade (S), Incendiary Ammo (S)

Power 1 (Concussive Shot): Concussive Shot is an insanely good power on Insanity. Give a squadmate the Amplified evolution and it becomes insanely overpowered as it does x4 damage with whatever ammo power is being used. It makes no sense to get rid of this ability for James as a soldier class.

Power 2 (Carnage): An extra power that I added to his kit so he has another 'active' power he can use other than Concussive Shot. It's not really that useful with Jimmy having Concussive Shot but another ammo power/grenade power/defense power seemed like overkill and made him way too similar to other squadmates.

Power 2 (Inferno Grenade): A great power for priming fire combo's and it works well with him having Incinerate. It also does not have a cooldown when using Fortification. Since Ashley is dead, it means one of your squadmates actually has this power.

Power 3 (Deadeye): Basically Marksman from the Custom Power Pack. Since he is meant to be a replacement for Ashley as a soldier, it made sense to give him this. Now if Ashley is dead then another squadmate has a similar power.

Power 4 (Omni Armor): A power that allows Jimmy to survive longer should you choose to invest in it. With the limited Soldier powers, this was the best one to give him (and it allows some versatility in how you level him up now). It also has the huge benefit of not causing power cooldowns so it is extremely powerful compared to other defensive abilities. Since Omni Armor is a 'custom' power, we can give it to Jimmy as there is no 'pre-established' class that has this power.

It is likely considered a Tech power, but it could be a Combat power too since the Omni Tool is a melee weapon + it allows us to give him a Tech Armor equivalent without breaking his Soldier class not having such an ability).

Power 5 (Incendiary Ammo): The best ammo power in the game. The rank 6 Explosive Burst evolution is good for most (or even all) weapons. It basically has a 50% chance of bursting for 100+ damage on burst. Power combos can also eat through armor very quickly. If Shepard is getting the Incendiary Ammo from Jimmy then the explosive Burst damage is 50+ damage (Jimmy gets the full 100+ damage). Amplified Concussive Shot is akin to wielding a flamethrower when using Incendiary Ammo.

Power 6 (Disruptor Ammo): The second best ammo power in the game, that allows him to damage shields and barriers (which was a weakness vanilla Jimmy had). Since he's replacing Ashley as a soldier, it made sense to give him this ability alongside Incendiary Ammo so he can strip any type of protection on an Insanity run.

Jimmy as a soldier now is a mix of his vanilla self and Ashley. He now has half of his powers from his vanilla set (Concussive Shot, Incendiary Ammo and a Fortification equivalent) and half of his powers from Ashley's power set (Inferno Grenade, Disruptor Ammo, and a Marksman equivalent). Basically if Ashley is dead, you don't lose out or miss out on any of her abilities.

The chosen abilities makes him way better considering it replaces his lackluster Carnage and Frag Grenades. It also makes him play a little differently from Ashley if she is alive - since he has two ammo powers compared to hers but they are extremely similar otherwise.

With the limited Soldier powers, this was the best solution I could come up with to have his powers still be good and to have him be a replacement for Ashley. If Ashley is alive, or both of Ashley/Kaidan is alive - I highly recommend using one of the other classes for Jimmy since it would basically just be a (mostly) duplicate of Ashley. (This was intentional as I picked these powers to have him replace Ashley most players choosing this option would only do so because Ashley is dead in their game).

If there were more Soldier only powers, I could spec him to be way different than Ashley but as of now this was the best outcome/solution with what powers made sense (lore-wise) for him. You might want this option to keep it "lore-friendly" but I'd recommend a Vanguard Jimmy in that case as you will have a better time playing with him in your game.

Powers (Sentinel):

Biotic Explosion Powers: Warp (S/D), Dark Channel (S), Lift Grenades (S/D), Throw (D)
Cryo Explosion Powers: Warp (D), Incinerate (D), Lift Grenades (D), Throw (D)
Tech Burst Powers: Warp (D), Incinerate (D), Lift Grenadess (D), Throw (D), Disruptor Ammo (S)
Fire Explosion Powers: Warp (D), Incinerate (S/D), Lift Grenades (D), Throw (D)

Power 1 (Warp): Warp does damage, primes, detonates, and has a fast recharge time. It is one of the best biotic powers in thegame, and allows Jimmy to be a versatile option.

Power 2 (Incinerate): A great tech power to give Jimmy that allows him to be much more different than Kaidan/Jacob, while allowing him to do fire combos.

Power 3 (Dark Channel): Another amazing power that Jimmy now has. A squadmate with Warp Ammo or Prothean Ammo gives 62.5% bonus to Shepard's damage against "lifted" targets which includes targets primed for biotic explosions, something Dark Channel does greatly. Stagger from Dark Channel allows you to decimate entire groups of enemies. It also has the unique ability where it can "jump" to another enemy like a chain allowing you to keep initiating biotic combos.

Power 4 (Lift Grenades): An extra power I decided to give him that now diffrentiates him a little bit from the Vanguard version of himself in this mod. It also gives him back a grenade power. It at least makes him play slightly differently so he isn't entirely a clone of the Vanguard version in this mod.

Power 4 (Throw): Throw has such a fast cooldown and can detonate any power combination making it a super useful power for Jimmy to have.

Power 5 (Omni Armor): A power that allows Jimmy to survive longer should you choose to invest in it. It also has the huge benefit of not causing powers to recharge prior to casting. It may make him a lot more stronger than Kaidan when it comes to casting powers faster (since Kaidan's Tech Armor affects cooldown time) but Kaidan has the advantage of having more offensive powers to choose from.

Power 6 (Disruptor Ammo): A power that allows him to take out shields/barriers which was a huge weakness for him in the vanilla game.

Jimmy was hard to build powers for since I made Jacob and Miranda sentinels too (since there are so many game state variables, i.e. Jacob/Miranda as Sentinels or you have no Sentinels since Jacob/Miranda/Kaidan can all be dead by the time Mass Effect 3 starts).

Jimmy has an impressive amount of source/detonator powers compared to a lot of other Sentinels:

• Jimmy has 17 S/D Powers
• Kaidan has 11 S/D Powers
• Miranda has 13 S/D Powers
• Jacob has 14 S/D Powers
  

Comparison to Kaidan: Kaidan and Jimmy had to be somewhat interchangeable.

• Jimmy has Warp/Disruptor Ammo/Omni Armor to compensate for Kaidan's Reave/Overload/Tech Armor.
• Jimmy has 3 Biotic powers, 3 Tech Powers - Kaidan has 2 Biotic Powers, 4 Tech Powers
• The each have 1 defensive power (Omni Armor/Tech Armor), 1 support power (Sabotage/Disruptor Ammo), and 4 offensive powers
• They play relatively the same and are balanced (both having mostly offensive abilities, but still some support/defensive abilities)
• Kaidan has a fast CC power in Cryo Blast, Jimmy has a fast CC power in Throw
  

Comparison to Miranda: Jimmy and Miranda have some similarities in having the same powers

• Both Jimmy & Miranda have Warp, Incinerate, Omni Armor
• Miranda has way more defensive and controlling abilities than Jimmy (Biotic Shield + Dominate vs Dark Channel + Throw)
• Jimmy has 3 Biotic Powers, 3 Tech Powers - Miranda has 3 Biotic Powers, 3 Tech Powers
• Miranda is much more survival/defensive focused (more defensive powers + dominate) whereas Jimmy/Kaidan are more balanced.
  

Comparison to Jacob:

• Jimmy and Jacob share no powers
• Jimmy has 3 Biotic Powers, 3 Tech Powers, Jacob has 3 Biotic Powers, 3 Tech Powers
• Jacob has no defensive abilities and focuses on a high number of offensive abilities
• Compared to Kaidan/Jimmy - Jacob is much more offensive focused whereas they are more balanced
  

Overall, I wanted to make all the Sentinels unique from each other but also have them able to 'fill' the role if another Sentinel was dead.

Once again because of so many save game state variables (who's dead, who's alive, what does the player do in ME3?) All of these choices made it difficult to design Jimmy any other way as a Sentinel. I wanted him to be a substitute for Kaidan but not play the exact same way as Kaidan (nor play exactly like Miranda/Jacob). Since unlike Soldier abilities, there are a lot more biotic/tech abilities it meant I could choose to not have him be a 'clone' of Ashley like the soldier build above.

Hopefully this works for a lot of players and I think his powerset works nicely no matter what set of choices were made in the previous Mass Effect games or what mods change the outcome of certain events.

Powers (Vanguard):

Biotic Explosion Powers: Warp (S/D), Dark Channel (S), Throw (D)
Cryo Explosion Powers: Warp (D), Concussive Shot (S/D), Throw (D)
Tech Burst Powers: Warp (D), Concussive Shot (S/D) Throw (D), Disruptor Ammo (S)
Fire Explosion Powers: Warp (D), Concussive Shot (S/D), Inferno Grenade (S), Throw (D)

Power 1 (Concussive Shot): Concussive Shot is an insanely good power on Insanity. Give a squadmate the Amplified evolution and it
becomes insanely overpowered as it does x4 damage with whatever ammo
power is being used. It makes no sense to get rid of this ability.

Power 2 (Warp): Warp does damage, primes, detonates, and has a fast recharge time. It is one of the best biotic powers in the game, and allows Jimmy to be a versatile option.

Power 3 (Dark Channel): Another amazing power that Jimmy now has. A squadmate with Warp Ammo or Prothean Ammo gives 62.5% bonus to Shepard's damage against "lifted" targets which includes targets primed for biotic explosions, something Dark Channel does greatly. Cast it on an enemy and keep the beam of the Particle Rifle on them, stagger from Dark Channel allows you to decimate entire groups of enemies. It also has the unique ability where it can "jump" to another enemy like a chain allowing you to keep initiating biotic combos.

Power 4 (Inferno Grenades): An extra power I decided to give him that now diffrentiates him a little bit from the Vanguard version of himself in this mod. It also gives him back a grenade power. It at least makes him play slightly differently so he isn't entirely a clone of the Vanguard version in this mod.

Power 5 (Throw): Throw has such a fast cooldown and can detonate any power combination.

Power 6 (Omni Armor): A power that allows Jimmy to survive longer should you choose to invest in it. It also has the huge benefit of not causing powers to recharge prior to casting. It may make him a lot more stronger than Kaidan when it comes to casting powers faster (since Kaidan's Tech Armor affects cooldown time) but Kaidan has the advantage of having more offensive powers to choose from.

Power 7 (Disruptor Ammo): A power that allows him to take out shields/barriers which is a weakness that he had in the vanilla game.

Although Jimmy as a Vanguard is meant to bridge a gap between Ashley and Kaidan. he now acts differently compared to both if they are alive, or if one of them is dead (if you saved only one because you aren't using the Virmire Survivor mod). His abilities are a bridge between Ashley and Kaidan but he still manages to be unique from both of them. He is very similar to his Sentinel build other than swapping Incinerate with Concussive Shot.

Because it's likely both Ashley/Kaidan are alive using this option or you just wanted a Vanguard on your squad (since Javik is an Adept in this mod) = I had to make sure he had a good array of powers without being too much of a clone. Half his powers are biotic powers to make up for only having Liara/Javik guaranteed as biotic. So he still retains his role as a more biotic focused squadmate to help round out your squad.

Ashley (Soldier with 1 Tech Ability):

Vanilla Ashley - How she plays:

Ashley has some problems that make her a somewhat bad pick for saving over Kaidan. First of all her story scenes and how she plays out compared to Kaidan are much worse (it seems like Kaidan had more thought put into him). Not only that but power combo's in Mass Effect 3 are your bread and butter for determining who to bring. With a multitude of tech squadmates (Garrus, EDI, Tali, Kaidan) on the main roster for ME3, it becomes incredibly difficult to save her over Kaidan (who allows for biotic combos/tech combos) when you only have two biotic squadmates (Liara/Javik) on the main squad. Since Vanilla Garrus can do everything she can better - it makes it a difficult choice to bring her along or save her.

Some squadmates can prime and detonate one type of combo without assistance, Ashley can prime and detonate two, and chain them together,  all without any help from Shepard or the third squadmate. By using Disruptor Ammo in conjunction with an assault rifle, Ashley can easily prime enemies for a Tech Burst, and immediately detonate it by throwing an Inferno Grenade. Since Inferno Grenades do not trigger a cooldown, she can immediately follow up with a Concussive Shot to detonate a Fire Explosion. Concussive Shot and Inferno Grenades are both evolved to be able to hit a large number of enemies while still causing decent damage.

Assault Rifles work much better with Disruptor Ammo for priming combos, so Ashley's ability to use sniper rifles is ignored. Alliance Officer is thus evolved to give Ashley the game's second highest weapon damage. Ashley does best with the armors that improve her weapon damage.

Ashley evolves towards functioning as the squad's heavy gunner / pyromaniac (Typhoon/Revenant + Marksman ability in order to serve as the perfect heavy-gunner. Concussive shot + expanded Inferno Grenades for instant fire explosions). She is relatively versatile, though she really shines when paired with EDI and Garrus. However, why would you not just bring Garrus who can do the same thing that Ashley can do or just be fine with Jimmy (who you automatically get whereas you have no Sentinel character if Kaidan is dead).

However, squadmate's don't use guns as effectively as the player controlled Shepard. Not to mention if you're not using a power cooldown mod (which I recommend anyways) then Marksman becomes a liability. Marksman is a terrible power on Ashley if you don't use a power cooldown mod. Squadmates do not use guns effectively, and as a result Ashley will not use Marksman effectively. It also has a long cooldown, locking her out of Concussive Shot (which is a much more useful power).

Basically. Jimmy = Soldier and you automatically have him in ME3. Whereas if Kaidan is dead, you have no Sentinel squadmate (and Sentinels are considered the best squadmates in both ME2/ME3 - Miranda and Kaidan respectively). The lack of biotic squadmates in ME3 also makes it very, very hard to justify saving Ashley unless you're using the Expanded Galaxy Mod and have the biotic squadmates from the Citadel DLC. As in why save Ashley when Jimmy does what she does but better? (Survives better, has the best ammo power in the game, etc.)

Despite this, I always saved Ashley in the original as I much prefer her to Kaidan.

Modded Ashley - How to fix her:

We're going to make Ashley a fire-orientated soldier, similar to a Phoenix rising from the Ashes after Virmire.

First of all, we're going to change Disruptor Ammo to Incendiary Ammo as Incendiary Ammo is the best ammo power in the game and it will shine nicely with her Inferno Grenade. Next we're going to keep her as a Soldier class but give her 1 Tech ability (that we can head-cannon as her learning this ability from her "little sister" Tali and it being a somewhat interesting power as it steals shields. You could also argue as a Specter maybe she had training to utilize some non-soldier abilities to keep herself alive). In the ME2LE version of this mod, she also has Energy Drain and you can head-cannon that she learnt it before going to Horizon as some kind of N7/Military/Specter technology that they were testing for soldiers out in the field in preparation for the Reaper war.

The reason to give her Energy Drain is because if we take away Disruptor Ammo, she has no way to damage shields so by giving her Energy Drain she can now still strip shields and barriers.

Ashley is a soldier character, and compared to biotic or tech specialists, they aren't as good at triggering power combos. This allows her to have some usefulness while retaining the majority of her soldier abilities. By giving her Energy Drain she can much more reliably detonate other squadmates/Shepard's tech bursts (assuming that the enemies in question either have shields/are synthetic enemies). If you want a somewhat lore-friendly explanation for this power just head-cannon that Tali taught her during/after Mass Effect 1. Maybe she also got additional training between the events of Mass Effect 2 and 3 when Shepard was under house arrest (or the 2 years that Shepard was dead).

You could also maybe head-cannon that her Spectre training in Mass Effect 3 or special operative assignment in Mass Effect 2 (which is never expanded upon unlike Kaidan's having trained special forces) had her focusing on self-improvement or ways to survive in the battlefield longer such as taking on or learning a tech-related ability.

Since there are two options for Ashley being alive:

1. You sacrificed Kaidan on Virmire (losing your only main Sentinel squadmate in ME3)
2. You're using the Virmire Savior Mod, allowing both her and Kaidan to survive.

Considering these two options, I wanted to keep Ashley mostly a soldier but change her to be more 'like' vanilla Jimmy, and change Jimmy to be one of three classes fill in the variables of "what decisions a player made for their game save state" (as in are they using the Virmire Savior mod, is Ashley alive, or is Ashley dead?) I assume most players will use the Virmire Savior Mod, but some players may not utilize it.

She likely loses her ability to prime/detonate two types of power combos are her own - but Disruptor Ammo appears to be bugged when used with Concussive Shot (Amplified Evolution) and doesn't prime/detonate tech combos when it should. (https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Talk:Concussive_Shot) So I'm not sure if you could still actually even prime/detonate two types of combo's with her original powerset due to said bug.

Plus with this version of this mod/just in general it's likely a ton of the Citadel squadmates will have Disruptor Ammo, so I rather her have Incendiary Ammo so not every soldier has Disruptor Ammo.

Powers:

Biotic Explosion Powers: None
Cryo Explosion Powers: Concussive Shot (S/D), Energy Drain, Carnage (D)
Tech Burst Powers: Concussive Shot (S/D), Energy Drain, Carnage (D)
Fire Explosion Powers: Concussive Shot (S/D), Inferno Grenade (S), Carnage (D), Incendiary Ammo (S)

Power 1 (Concussive Shot): Concussive Shot is an insanely good power on Insanity. Give a squadmate the Amplified evolution and it becomes insanely overpowered as it does x4 damage with whatever ammo power is being used. It makes no sense to get rid of this ability.

Power 2 (Energy Drain): By getting rid of Disruptor Ammo, we needed a power that could handle shields/barriers. This will not only handle that problem, but also allow her to survive longer as it takes the enemy's shield and replenishes her own).

Power 3 (Inferno Grenade): Inferno Grenade is a nice power to keep on Ashley due to it's ability to combo her newly acquired Incendiary Ammo as well as being able to let her chain primers (do one combo after another). It would make no sense to get rid of this power.

Power 4 (Carnage): An extra power that I gave Ashley so she has another 'active' power she can use other than Concussive Shot/Energy Drain. It's not very useful on Insanity when you have Concussive Shot but there was a limited amount of Soldier powers to give her.

Power 4 (Marksman): Her unique power, and it's recommended to use a Shared Cooldown mod so she doesn't always use it causing her other powers to be put on hold. Since it's not bugged in the Legendary Edition of the game, it makes no sense to get rid of it (plus there is a limited amount of soldier powers to give her to keep her having a unique power).

Power 5 (Fortification): A power that allows Ashley to survive longer should you choose to invest in it. With the limited soldier powers, this was the best one to give her (and it allows some versatility in how you level her up now).

Power 6 (Incendiary Ammo): The best ammo power in the game. The rank 6 Explosive Burst evolution is good for most (or even all) weapons. It basically has a 50% chance of bursting for 100+ damage on burst. Power combos can also eat through armor very quickly. If Shepard is getting the Incendiary Ammo from Ashley, then the explosive Burst damage is 50+ damage (Ashley gets the full 100+ damage). Amplified Concussive Shot is akin to wielding a flamethrower when using Incendiary Ammo.

Ashley now still retains her abilities or playstyle as in the original vanilla Mass Effect 3, but with some improvements or options that should allows a more versatile play style for her. With Energy Drain, she now has a way to get in on Cryo/Tech combo's more frequently allowing her to be much more useful in a squad. It may still be hard to consider saving her over Kaidan but at least with her new modded powers there is a much better reason to save her.

It also was difficult to improve her since there are so many limited soldier abilities but this should at least make players consider saving her or using her.

This now gives her the best ammo power in the game (Incendiary Ammo), and although she loses the ability to prime/detonate two combo's by herself Jimmy now gains the ability to do so (if using the Soldier/Vanguard option). Ashley however now has the ability to detonate Cryo/Tech/Fire explosions using Energy Drain and to obviously prime/detonate fire explosions.

She's swapped her role with Jimmy, taking more of his abilities to make up for the fact that she's not really as useful to save in an Insanity playthrough compared to Kaidan. With Incendiary Ammo, she now replaces Jimmy's role as a soldier (thus not really needing to keep Jimmy as a soldier if you saved Ashley.)

Kaidan:

Vanilla Kaidan - How he plays:

Kadian in the base game is one of the best squadmates due to his potential as a Sentinel to prime and detonate numerous types of power combos. He is far better than Ashley due to his effectiveness (and the fact that Disruptor Ammo is glitched and doesn't prime Tech Combo's).

Kaidan's powers let him counter shields, barriers and armor and he provides decent firepower if he uses his assault rifle. With help of Barrier and getting his cooldown reduction costume to counter Barrier's penalty not only he deals highest damage among biotic squad members, he provides substantial bonus power damage to other squadmates as well, making him the best to take with squads focused on power usage. Thanks to Reave's protection buff and Barrier he is the 2nd tankiest squad mate after James.

In the case of both Reave and Overload, the Recharge Speed bonus is chosen because Kaidan has very few ways to reduce that. Cryo Blast is fast enough on its own that it does not need that same consideration. Reave is evolved both to improve Kaidan's defense and to damage and prime as many enemies as possible. Overload is evolved to soften up nearby enemies for the impending Tech Burst. Biotic Explosions and Tech Bursts are the two most valuable power combos, so neither Reave nor Overload are worth giving up in favor of his other powers. The choice then comes down to Barrier versus Cryo Blast. Barrier in conjunction with Reave gives Kaidan the best defense in the squad, but many players feel that the recharge penalty isn't worth it. Players who decide that it is should evolve it to minimize the penalty and give an extra boost to Reave and Overload. If the player doesn't think Barrier is worth it, Cryo Blast is useful for weakening the game's strongest enemies, and should evolve to maximize that. It also gives Kaidan a third type of power Combo to prime. Reave already gives Kaidan a strong defense boost, so Alliance Officer was evolved to maximize Kaidan's damage output. The fact that Reave keeps going after its been used as part of a power combo makes it especially useful, and the Biotic Damage Upgrade makes the most of that. Regardless of whether or not Barrier is used, Kaidan does best with the armor that lowers his recharge times.

Modded Kaidan - How to fix him:

There's not much needed to improve Kaidan honestly since he is one of the best squadmates in Mass Effect 3 but there are some things we can do to make him even more effective. To improve him, we're going to change Barrier to Tech Armor (so he has a unique power) and Tech Armor gives a higher defense rating than Barrier. Alongside that, we will give him two more powers with Sabotage and Slam (since his Tech Armor can cause power recharge speed to go down, meaning we want some really fast powers that allow him to send off powers faster).

He still has most of his original powers meaning he can still be played/specced how people want him. However he now has the option to be played a bit differently or to avoid a defensive power altogether (if you hate defensive powers on squadmates).

Powers:

Biotic Explosion Powers: Reave (S/D), Slam (S/D), Flare (D)
Cryo Explosion Powers: . Cryo Blast (S), Overload (D), Slam (D)
Tech Burst Powers: Overload (S/D), Sabotage (S), Slam (D)
Fire Explosion Powers: Overload (D), Slam (D)

Power 1 (Cryo Blast): Cyro Blast is extremely fast and allows him to prime Cryo Explosions, and it has relatively fast cooldown speed. It also lets him set up Cryo Explosions and is just a nice power to have.

Power 2 (Overload): An extremely good power that makes no sense to get rid of. It allows him to take out barriers/shields - getting rid of it would make him weaker.

Power 3 (Reave): A very good biotic power that can both prime/detonate and also let's him bulk up his defenses and makes him one of the few biotic squadmates to have this power.

Power 4 (Sabotage): You want Tech Vulnerability as soon as possible. Sabotage should be your go-to power for starting power combos and Tech Vulnerability has the added benefit of increasing tech combo damage. It literally is the best tech power in the game for creating tech bursts.

Power 5 (Slam): A kit that makes up for him lacking Pull and gives him a unique power that is kind of gimmicky, but fun to use. Consider it a replacement for Pull.

Power 6 (Flare): An extremely devastating power that I gave him as an extra power. It makes his kit a lot more unique and diffrentiates him from other Sentinels.

Power 6 (Tech Armor): A replacement for Barrier so he has a unique power (and so that Samara has a unique power).

Kaidan now retains his defensive capabilities and has more options for offensive powers than he did previously. Overall Kaidan was a strong squadmate and there wasn't much need to improve him with a ton of changes. The changes that I did give him allows him to have more options when leveling him.

The biggest thing is choice though - you now have a lot of ways to spec him if you want. You probably will always go Overload (and probably Reave) but now you have some choices in Slam/Tech Armor/Sabotage. Basically these changes provide actually RP options to go with so you can decide how Kaidan would perform in Mass Effect 3 (maybe your Shepard is more of a Biotic so he focuses on that, or your Shepard is more of a Tech specialist, so he focuses on that).

Kaidan has the least amount of source/detonator powers out of all the Sentinels:

• Jimmy has 17 S/D Powers
• Kaidan has 11 S/D Powers
• Miranda has 13 S/D Powers
• Jacob has 14 S/D Powers
  

Comparison to Kaidan: Kaidan and Jimmy had to be somewhat interchangeable.

• Jimmy has Warp/Disruptor Ammo/Omni Armor to compensate for Kaidan's Reave/Overload/Tech Armor.
• Jimmy has 3 Biotic powers, 3 Tech Powers - Kaidan has 2 Biotic Powers, 4 Tech Powers
• The each have 1 defensive power, 1 support power (Sabotage/Disruptor Ammo), and 4 offensive powers
• They play relatively the same and are balanced (both having mostly offensive
  abilities, but still some support/defensive abilities)Kaidan has a fast CC power in Cryo Blast, Jimmy has a fast CC power in Throw

Comparison to Miranda: Kaidan and Miranda have some similarities in having the same powers

• Kaidan has Reave/Overload/Tech Armor to compensate for Miranda's Warp/Overload/Omni Armor
• Miranda has way more defensive and controlling abilities than Kaidan (Biotic Shield + Dominate vs Cryo Blast + Slam)
• Kaidan  has 2 Biotic Powers, 4 Tech Powers - Miranda has 3 Biotic Powers, 3 Tech Powers
• Miranda is much more survival/defensive focused (more defensive powers + dominate) whereas Jimmy/Kaidan are more balanced.
• Kaidan can outpower Miranda tech-wise due to Sabotage being in his kit
  

Comparison to Jacob:

• Kaidan and Jacob share Cryo Blast/Overload
• Kaidan has 2 Biotic Powers, 4 Tech Powers, Jacob has 3 Biotic Powers, 3 Tech Powers
• Jacob has no defensive abilities and focuses on a high number of offensive abilities
• Compared to Kaidan/Jimmy - Jacob is much more offensive focused whereas they are more balanced
  

Liara:

Vanilla Liara - How she plays:

Liara is probably one of the best squadmates for any Shepard in Mass Effect 3. She lacks firepower and durability, and some of her powers are devalued by shields. Singularity and Stasis all but guarantee a dead enemy, especially to a player with good aim. Warp with the Expose evolution will help against the many armored opponents. Re-spec her Stasis with bubble to be able to grab even shielded enemies from behind cover. A biotic Shepard can combo with her Warp and other powers to create instant and frequent biotic explosions even against shielded and armored enemies. Liara's damage is low but due to low cooldowns and good crowd controls she is an OK squadmate especially with an Adept Shepard.

Warp Ammo is left at level 3 because Liara's role is not to shoot things. Her role is to control the battlefield with powers and her passive is evolved to make sure her powers can be used as often as possible and last as long as possible. Liara's recharge bonus from her passive power is so high, it is likely unnecessary to take the Recharge Speed evolutions on her other powers. Singularity can be evolved to capture as many enemies as possible. Stasis Bubble is an excellent trap. It allows Liara to detonate her own Biotic Explosions on unarmored enemies. Warp is evolved to maximize the damage enemies take from Biotic Explosions, while also weakening enemies for other squadmates to kill. With her passive recharge speed bonus is so high, she does better with armor that increases her power damage. Because she is so fragile, Liara should not be allowed to use her submachine gun unless she is using a Locust or a Geth Plasma SMG.

Her passives and abilities allows her to have an insanely low cooldown time/recharge speed meaning she can constantly keep priming and detonating biotic explosions. Warp also can allow her to detonate the rest of the power combos in the game. Warp Ammo is okay on her, but it's just an extra damage booster for her shooting and her goal shouldn't be shooting things anyways.

Probably the biggest weakness of Liara on Insanity is she is very squishy and dies very easily. So you would not want her taking fire/being on the front lines a lot. Other than that, she's insanely versatile for any Shepard and is one of the few biotic squadmate's on your main squad.

Modded Liara - How to fix her:

It would probably would be advisable to give her something like Barrier, but due to the limited power selection in Mass Effect 3, I instead opted to give Samara barrier so she could have a unique power (same with Miranda getting Biotic Sphere so she could have a unique power). To make up for this, I gave her two powers she had in Mass Effect 1: Pull and Throw. The benefit of this is Pull/Throw is that alongside Warp they are probably the best biotic powers in the game due to their low recharge speed and ability to crowd control.

Since she (like Kaidan) is one of the best squadmates in the original game - there wasn't much of a need to improve her drastically, and I didn't want every squadmate to have a defensive ability. So she got more offensive abilities or abilities that allowed her to perform more combos since her recharge speed is so low.

Powers:

Biotic Explosion Powers: Warp (S/D), Pull (S), Singularity (S/D), Slam (S/D), Throw (D), Stasis (S)
Cryo Explosion Powers: Warp (D), Slam (D), Throw (D)
Tech Burst Powers: Warp (D), Slam (D), Throw (D)
Fire Explosion Powers: Warp (D), Slam (D), Throw (D)

Power 1 (Warp): One of the best biotic powers in the game, it's ability to detonate any type of combo and do an insane amount of damage means it would be stupid to get rid of it (especially since she lacks Reave to compensate for its loss).

Power 2 (Pull): Pull is an amazing ability in Mass Effect 3, and it brings Liara back to her Mass Effect 1 roots.

Power 3 (Singularity): You probably only really need to invest in either Singularity or Pull - not both. This gives you choices in which one you'd prefer. Sadly you have to have 1 point in Singularity to get past the tutorial. So you may want to respect her right away when you can if you don't want to use Singualrity.

Power 4 (Slam): A fun power for Liara that may not be that useful, but considering the limited amount of powers it was the best one to give her.

Power 5 (Throw): Throw like Pull is an extremely versatile and an amazing power to have in Mass Effect 3. It's also a power she had in Mass Effect 1, so it's paying homage to her roots.

Power 6 (Stasis): Her unique power that has some usefulness on Insanity. Personally, I'm not a fan of Stasis but it can be used to buy time or hold an enemy in place. Some people also love using Stasis, so one squadmate should have it (and she needed a unique power).

Power 7 (Warp Ammo): A support power that allows her to do more damage when she shoots things, or just allows her to have a power that focuses on being more support than offensive. Her having 6 powers and no type of support ability would hinder her too much (even if her main goal isn't shooting enemies).

Liara now has more options that brings her in line with her Mass Effect 1 counterpart (and brings her in line with the Mass Effect 2 version of this mod). Although Liara is still a fast, recharge power user she still comes off as a glass cannon meaning that her playstyle hasn't changed drastically. She will still die a lot, but if every squadmate had a defensive power, it would get old real fast. She's now got two extremely fast, awesome biotic abilities that probably gives her one of the best powersets in the game (at the expense of having any powers to increase her survivability).

Overall, Liara still is an amazing squadmate, and these additions only make her more versatile/good in how you want to play her (providing her even more fast biotic abilities, that also let her have the option to detonate more types of power combos). It is also difficult to work with Adept powersets because there is a limited amount of biotic powers in the game to choose from.

Garrus (Infiltrator):

Vanilla Garrus - How he plays:

Fan favourite Garrus is back in action, and he sports Concussive Shot, Overload, Proximity Mine, and AP-Ammo. These powers are okay, it's well known that Garrus can abuse the typhoon, his passive, and AP-Ammo to become god-like (however Squadmates do not use guns effectively and it becomes misleading that this becomes an extremely better option versus investing in his powers).

Squadmates deal only 30% of base weapon damage. So even if you max their weapon damage or in this case, Garrus's sniper rifle or assault rifle damage -- they are still dealing less than 100% of base weapon damage.*

* Squadmate base weapon damage is reduced to 30% of base, and all weapon damage bonuses are additive to the 30% base damage value.

So if a weapon has a base damage of 100, and the squadmate has a +100% weapon damage bonuses, then (0.30 x 100) + 100% = 30 + 30 = 60. *
NOTE: Squadmates will deal something like +200% weapon damage for a short duration when ordered to attack a specific target.

All this to say that squadmates will not use weapons very effectively unless you micromanage them. Certain weapons such as the Typhoon seem to work better on certain squadmates than others (not sure why). Incendiary Ammo's explosive burst can also give reliable damage from weapons for squadmate's using that power. However, Shepard will be killing most enemies himself using either powers or weapons, meaning squadmates are better left as additional power functions rather than gun turrets. This is especially true on higher difficulties.

Since enemy values scale with your level, Garrus needs max power damage to ensure his Overload can completely strip enemy shields at level 60. Hence why I recommend a power-based approach on Garrus rather than weapon-based approach. Powers can prime and/or detonate power combos. Depending on the power, powers can also provide some crowd control as well through knockdowns or staggers, or can outright disable enemies.

The best three ammo powers in order in Mass Effect 3 are: Incendiary Ammo, Disruptor Ammo, and then Cryo Ammo. These ammo powers can cause Fire Explosions/Tech Bursts/Cryo Explosions which deal a ton of damage.

Garrus becoming 'god-like' with the Typhoon is more-so because the Typhoon being completely broken then his abilities being extremely good. If you give the Typhoon to any squadmate, they'll wreck havoc on the enemies (but James/Garrus/Ashley have the most noticeable damage with it due to their passives). So realistically, it's less his powerset being good and more so the Typhoon being busted. Personally I don't give squadmates the Typhoon, but feel free to play however you like (albeit by that point, they're killing mostly everything for you so...)

In regards to the above, his powerset is lackluster. AP Ammo is not good compared to other powers (but it is not a bad power). Proximity Mine is trash except for the allowing extra incoming damage from other sources when you use it (rank 5 evolution). That evolution alone makes it very worthwhile to take if a squadmate has that ability. Lastly, Concussive Shot would be much better to use if Garrus had Cryo/Incendiary/Disruptor ammo to prime/detonate combos.

Modded Garrus - How to fix him:

Garrus is going to become a go-to Cryo squadmate for priming/detonating Cryo Explosions (but he can also detonate/prime Tech Bursts if the need arises).

First off all, since we are building off of the Mass Effect 2: LE version of this mod we will use a similar powerset to what he had there. AKA we will give him Cold Flame (basically Incinerate), Sabotage (which is basically AI Hacking), and Cryo Ammo. On top of all that we will provide him with Omni Armor which has no penalty to recharge speed cooldown.

Cold Flame has an option to either spec into Fire Damage or Cryo and it makes sense to do Cryo in this instance but he can also source/detonate Fire Explosions. So you could build him towards that if you wanted or build him towards both (investing in his cryo abilities but having Incinerate being more fire-focused in the evolution choices you pick for it).

Suddenly, Garrus becomes a lot more viable/scary. Omni Armor provides ways for him to survive longer should the player want to invest in it. I thought about not including Omni Armor but with so many powers it made sense to give him a defensive ability. Not all powers in this mod (if you invest in them) appear on the screen so having a defensive power they can cast or ammo power is good in case one of them does not appear on the screen.

Garrus now becomes a much more powerful and threatening squadmate. He becomes your go to Cryo squadmate (either on his own) or becoming a great companion to a Cryo (or even Fire) based Shepard. However he isn't 'designated' to those roles, as he can help out a Tech orientated Sherpard also. I thought about building him as a fire squadmate but I thought it would be cool to try giving him ice abilities and building him like that in both Mass Effect 2LE/3LE. Meanwhile I wanted Kasumi (in ME2LE/ME3LE) and Ashley (in ME3LE) to be your fire focused squadmates.

Most people save Garrus so by making him your Cryo squadmate, you will always (usually) have a squadmate with Cryo Powers on the squad. You can then either save Ashley/use the Virmire Savior Mod or use the Soldier version of Jimmy to have a fire squadmate on the main squad. Kasumi then functions as an alternative if for whatever reason you don't like either of those options (for a fire based squadmate).

Powers:

Biotic Explosion Powers: None
Cryo Explosion Powers: Concussive Shot (S/D), Overload (D), Cold Flame (D), Cryo Blast (S), Cryo Ammo (S)
Tech Burst Powers: Concussive Shot (D), Overload (S/D), Cold Flame (D), Sabotage (S)
Fire Explosion Powers: Concussive Shot (S/D), Overload (D), Cold Flame (S/D)

Power 1 (Concussive Shot): Concussive Shot is an insanely good power on Insanity. Give a squadmate the Amplified evolution and it becomes insanely overpowered as it does x4 damage with whatever ammo power is being used. It makes no sense to get rid of this ability.

Power 2 (Overload): An extremely useful power on Insanity for taking out shields/barriers, it makes no sense to get rid of this power.

Power 3 (Cold Flame): A power that allows him to have a ton more options when triggering power combos, and one that allows him to do crowd control much more effectively and strip armor (which is needed since we got rid of AP ammo on him).

Power 4 (Cryo Blast): A power with a fast recharge time, and that opens up the ability for him to prime Cryo Explosions, so now other squadmates or Shepard can detonate them.

Power 5 (Sabotage): An extra power given to him as it is devastating for Tech combos and is one of the best abilities in the game to use with Tech abilities.

Power 6 (Omni Armor): A power that allows Garrus to survive longer should you choose to invest in it. With the limited Infiltrator powers, this was the best one to give him (and it allows some versatility in how you level him up now). It also has the huge benefit of not causing a loss of power cooldown/recharge if you use it - so it is extremely powerful compared to other defensive abilities. Since Omni Armor is a 'custom' power, we can give it to Garrus as there is no 'pre-established' class that has this power. (It is likely considered a Tech power, but it could be a Combat power too since the Omni Tool is a melee weapon + it allows us to give him a Tech Armor equivalent without breaking his Infiltrator class not having such an ability).

Power 7 (Cryo Ammo): If you're starved for points, Cryo Ammo is the cheapest ammo power in the game (possible exception: Armor-Piercing Ammo if you just want to do some wallhacking). It's totally fine at rank 1 or 2. It's the best squad ammo at rank 4. Incendiary Ammo really wants Rank 6 for Explosive Burst, Disruptor Ammo needs at least Rank 3 to maximize its crowd control potential, Warp Ammo doesn't do anything except make numbers bigger so it wants as many points as you can feed it for maximum number embiggening. If you're using Armor-Piercing Ammo as a "NUMBERS GET BIGGER" power then it's like Warp Ammo where you want as many points as possible, but like I said, sometimes it's fun to take a single point just so you can shoot through guardian shields and such.

This isn't to say you shouldn't take Cryo Ammo to Rank 6. Rank 6 makes any Cryo Combos more powerful and the Damage Combo evolution is quite useful for number-embiggening. It's just to say you don't have to. You can coast on low totals for quite a long time without feeling especially handicapped.

The other nice thing about it is it's super easy to evolve. Most of the choices are no choice at all.

Rank 4 (Squad) > Rank 5 (Headshot Damage) > Rank 6 (Damage Combo)

The chance to freeze per shot is a function of a weapon's rate of fire. Specifically, the formula is

Freeze Chance = 60 / (Effective Rate of Fire)
Freeze Chance = 78 / (Effective Rate of Fire) (with the Rank 2 Freeze Chance bonus)
Freeze Chance = 108 / (Effective Rate of Fire) (with the Rank 6 Freeze Chance bonus)

This means the faster your gun shoots, the less likely it is to freeze per shot. This might sound unfair, but actually it's a pretty clever setup. It essentially means that, all else being equal, all guns are equally likely to freeze an enemy over any given length of time. (All subsequent calculations will assume the player has the Rank 2 Freeze Chance bonus, but not the Rank 6 Freeze Chance bonus.)

Despite a lot of sources saying it's best to use Cryo Ammo with fast-firing weapons, this is the worst thing you could possibly do.You want to use slow-firing weapons. Ideally, you'd want to use a weapon whose Rate of Fire exactly matches your cutoff to get a 100% freeze chance per shot, which means 78 RPM assuming you have the Rank 2 Freeze Chance evolution. At that point, every shot is a guaranteed freeze so the second you see the hit indicator you can move on to a new target.

Basically Garrus now becomes an actual bigger threat than previously. He swaps AP Ammo for one of the better ammo powers in the game and swaps Proximity Mine for Cryo Blast which is 100% times a better Tech Power (not that Proximity Mine is bad, but I felt like I could give it to another squadmate.)

Garrus is basically your ice powered squadmate, having a nice plethora of abilities to freeze and chill a ton of enemies in the game.

Vanilla EDI - How she plays:

EDI like Kaidan can handle both shields and armor, but lacks some of his tankiness and firepower. Her Decoy can be deployed for crowd control, particularly with groups of small enemies. She can prime both fire explosions and tech bursts if the team has a generic detonator such as Concussive Shot or Carnage. If you bring her make sure to max her Defense Matrix and keep it active, thus providing her with decent durability.

EDI is also one of the only three characters that can prime more than one type of power combo. Incinerate and Overload should both evolved to facilitate this while softening up other enemies that will be in range of the follow-up detonation. Neither one should be sacrificed regardless of what is done with Defense Matrix in the vanilla game. The question of whether or not Defense Matrix is worth it as it is very similar to Barrier. EDI gets no recharge speed bonuses from her passive, so her other powers would need to be evolved to compensate for this, which Defense Matrix would cancel out. However, it does improve both her survivability and burst damage. Decoy should not be used because the lack of movement makes the  explosive upgrade of little use. 

The problem then becomes this. Decoy is an absolutely useless power and should be avoided at all costs. It is even worst than Carnage - at least Carnage has a guarantee to hit the enemy. Decoy can be use and basically just sit there and be useless (wasting her powers). EDI is not a bad character overall in the vanilla game, and she's oddly one of the only main squadmates who has Incinerate and Overload.

Modded EDI - How to fix her:

First off, nuking Decoy from her powerset it a must. It's such a useless power and only holds her back if you accidentally put points into it. To compensate, she needs a unique power that no one else has which leads us to give her Proximity Mine which is okay. It's one redeeming feature is it can apply a debuff to make targets take extra damage but the pathing for it for squadmate's is a bit wonky (sometimes it doesn't go where you want like other powers).

We then will keep most of her powers the same but give her Sabotage so she can do insane damage with the Tech Vulnerability evolution (now matching Garrus/Tali and other squadmate's in that regard) and also give her Disruptor Ammo so she can reliably take down shields/barriers + give this ammo power to other squadmate's if she is given the squad evolution of it.

Powers:

Biotic Explosion Powers: None
Cryo Explosion Powers: Incinerate (D), Overload (D), Proximity Mine (D)
Tech Burst Powers: Incinerate (D), Overload (S/D), Proximity Mine (D), Disruptor Ammo (D)
Fire Explosion Powers: Incinerate (S/D), Overload (D), Proximity Mine (D)

Power 1 (Incinerate): A great power on EDI that allows her to effectively take out armored enemies and it has the ability to prime/detonate fire explosions. It's an extremely good power and it would make no sense to get rid of it since she has no other way to take out armor.

Power 2 (Overload): Another very good power for taking out shields/barriers.

Power 3 (Proximity Mine): An okay power that shines due to it's damage debuff it applies to enemies (so they take more damage). The launching/casting of it is a bit wonky even on squadmates however I needed a unique power for EDI, and this was the best one to give her. It is worth taking just for the extra damage it allows powers to do.

Power 4 (Sabotage): Sabotage is an extremely good power with the Tech Vulnerability evolution. It's extremely powerful and the best Tech power in the game. This allows her to do even more damage with her powers.

Power 5 (Sentry Turret): An extra power that allows her to summon a Robot companion who can help out or serve as a distraction.

Power 6 (Defense Matrix): To help EDI survive with her lackluster durability. Some players may not invest in it but it's there in case they would like to.

Power 7 (Disruptor Ammo): A power that differentiates her from Tali so they aren't exactly similar, and also allows her to reliably take out barriers/shields.

EDI now has more powers that improve her kit heavily and this kit provides a player with more options in how to spec her. She still retains her usefulness like in the vanilla game, but her weak/useless power of Decoy has been replaced with much better powers.Now EDI should be a lot more fun to play with/better to use especially in a Tech based squad where she will excel.

Vanilla Tali - How she plays:

Tali has decent crowd control and damage output via drones and shotguns but the short range of these mechanics exposes her durability issues. She is probably one of the worst squadmates on the main squad for a variety of reasons:

1. She is squishy and her weapon set requires her to be close to enemies to damage them (meaning she goes down on Insanity a lot)
2. She lacks a power to deal with armor, meaning against armored enemies, she is pretty useless.
3. Protector Drone is useless in a lot of scenarios.

Energy Drain is evolved both to shore up Tali's questionable defense, and to prime Tech Bursts on as many targets as possible. Power combos are the primary source of power based damage in this game, and the loss of damage is a small price to pay for these benefits. A fully powered Rocket Drone is surprisingly useful for wearing down enemies while the squad deals with them, and Quarian Machinist is evolved to capitalize on that. Defense Drone is neglected because it simply doesn't have much to offer compared to the alternatives (AKA it's a shitty power). The Tech Vulnerability upgrade alone makes Sabotage worth investing in because of the boost not just to base tech powers, but Tech Bursts and Fire Explosions. Like Liara, Tali's recharge speed bonus from her passive power means she won't get much out of the armor that improves recharge speeds. The armor that improves power damage is better to boost her drone, while the armor that improves weapon damage is better to boost her shotgun.

She really shines in any fight with Geth, as her abilities absolutely destroy them and she is extremely useful due to her ability to fire off combo's as fast as Liara. Like Liara however she dies very fast in combat, and on Insanity this can be a huge detriment to the team.

Modded Tali - How to fix her:

Like her Mass Effect 2 version of this mod, we're going to give Tali both Incinerate (allows her to deal with armors) and a defensive power (which allows her to actually survive on the hardest difficulty). These two powers should provide a useful solution to her vanilla kit since she has no way to deal with armors and her surviving has been a huge issue in the vanilla game.

The last thing we will do is give Tali Cryo Ammo so she has a great defensive power that compliments Garrus' kit quite nicely (since most people tend to take them together a lot of the time).

She now solves most, if not all of her weaknesses as a squadmate while also making her able to hold her own in a fire fight.

Powers:

Biotic Explosion Powers: None
Cryo Explosion Powers: Incinerate (D), Energy Drain (D), Cryo Blast (S), Combat Drone (D)
Tech Burst Powers: . Incinerate (D), Energy Drain (S/D), Sabotage (S), Combat Drone (D)
Fire Explosion Powers: Incinerate (S/D), Combat Drone (D)

Power 1 (Incinerate): A power that fixes a major weakness of Tali in that she can't damage armor in anyway in the vanilla game. This is a huge fix for her as it finally makes her worthwhile to take as she can deal with an armor now. It also lets her pair up with Garrus nicely if you choose the freeze evolution.

Power 2 (Energy Drain): Energy Drain is her go to move to remove shields/barriers. It would make no sense to get rid of this power as it's super useful for her.

Power 3 (Cryo Blast): A power with a fast recharge time, and that opens up the ability for her to prime Cryo Explosions, so now other squadmates or Shepard can detonate them. It also allows her to pair up with Garrus nicely.

Power 4 (Sabotage): One of the best Tech powers in the game, as noted above in Garrus' section. It would make no sense to get rid of it with how useful it is.

Power 5 (Combat Drone): Combat Drone is extremely useful unlike Protector Drone, plus Tali needed a unique power and this was the best option for her.

Power 6 (Sentry Turret): A power that allows her to have a companion drone that can fire at enemies or be a target if needed. Given as an extra power.

Power 7 (Defense Matrix): Defense Matrix fixes another major weakness of Tali's and that is the fact that she can't survive long on Insanity without dying. With her fast recharge speeds/cooldown in her passives/abilities = taking it shouldn't really hurt bringing her along that much.

Tali now fills an incredible role of being super useful to bring along as she can strip/take care of any protection in the game, and she can also survive now thanks to the fact that she has Defense Matrix. She also is a great partner to take with Garrus since they now complicate each other so well. She actually is no longer one of the worst squadmates in the game (alright to be fair, that actually goes to probsably Kasumi, Wrex, and Jacob in the vanilla game due to their horrible power set).

Javik (Adept):

Vanilla Javik - How he plays:

Javik is a nice alternative to Liara if you hate Liara (considering the lack of main squad biotic squadmates). The problem is on a vanilla playthrough in the original Mass Effect 3 was if you didn't have his DLC, and left Kaidan for dead then you only had Liara as a biotic focused squadmate. His weapon set allows him to have Assault Rifles and he has some very good powers in his kit.

There are some strategies to Javik that help make him a strategic pick when playing him. Dark Channel's value in priming Biotic Explosions means it is better to make it last as long as possible. It's also an insanely good power as it "moves" to the next enemy allowing for multiple biotic combo's. Kaiden's Reave is better than Javik's Dark Channel as Reave can both prime and detonate biotic explosions; whereas Dark Channel can only prime. Kaiden also get get a quicker cooldown with Reave than Javik can with Dark Channel. Reave can also hit multiple enemies at once (with rank 4 Radius), whereas Dark Channel is single-target ability. Dark Channel can jump to a new target when the first target dies, but in practice it does not happen all that often.

He also can't cast as fast as Liara, hate or love Liara - she is probably the best squadmate for most Shepard classes, especially for biotic classes just because she can cast her powers so quickly/fast and she has extremely good powers.

Lift Grenades are a crowd clearer so making sure they hit as many enemies as possible is a good choice, especially since Javik's passive ability makes up for the loss in damage from not choosing the alternative. They also can damage shields/barriers. Pull followed by a Lift Grenade allows Javik to detonate his own Biotic Explosions on unprotected enemies. Double Pull also helps with Guardians, since they like to come in pairs. Pull is also considered one of the best biotic powers in the game alongside Throw. Slam is a gimmick and has little to offer compared to Javik's other powers. It's usually not worth taking compared to his other powers.

Overall Javik's vanilla powers compared to Liara's are not that good. Just because she has one of the best powersets in the game (+ her insane recharge speed).

For Vengeful Ancient you'd want Durability (power damage) - Power Damage - Squad Bonus (power damage). Basically, you want a lot of power damage for Grenades and Dark Channel. As noted in the Ashley/Garrus section, squadmate's rarely ever use guns effectively - except for the Typhoon but it just breaks the game. However if you wanted to invest in more weapon damage for Javik you now have the option of going that route + investing in Warp Ammo to do more damage with his guns. (You could also decide to distribute his skillpoints differently if you just want to spec for some weapon damage/power damage for his passive and have an ability like Warp Ammo to increase his weapon damage).

Because Javik's power damage is already so high he gains more benefit from the armor that improves his recharge speeds.

Modded Javik - How to fix him:

To fix Javik, there isn't much needed really to do other than get rid of Slam and add some powers that make him a nice alternative to Liara should you not want to use her. The Legendary Edition of Mass Effect 3 has the Custom Power Pack mod which has a ton of Prothean releated skills/abilities.

Since they are there, we might as well make use of them and give him those abilities. By giving him Prothean Warp, Prothean Singularity, Prothean Shield, and Prothean Ammo he is actually a nice alternative to Liara (if you hate her) and allows him to play much more differently than her. He becomes a much more durable/better powered focused character compared to his vanilla self.

Warp is the best biotic power in the game, so giving him Prothean Warp makes a ton of sense as it in that it does damage, primes, detonates, and has a fast recharge time. If you're going to use Warp for combos, then get the Expose evolution as that option that increases combo damage-n-radius.

We are keeping Lift Grenades and this makes sense as it is a good power. We get rid of Slam for Prothean Ammo and add Prothean Shield to Javik. Now Javik has the same ammo power as Liara (meaning he becomes an option if you don't want to use her/want to bring them together and have them use Warp Ammo to increase their biotic output abilities) and he's different enough in abilities/tankier to play differently than Liara. However, we also give him Dominate so he has a nice control power that makes him much more different than Liara.

It also makes sense lore-wise that if the Protheans 'up-lifted' the Asari to prepare them for the next cycle, that they would have had a lot of similar biotic abilities and/or trained them into using the biotic abilities they had from Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 3.

Powers:

Biotic Explosion Powers: Prothean Warp (S/D), Prothean Singularity (S/D), Lift Grenades (S/D), Prothean Blast (D)
Cryo Explosion Powers: Prothean Warp (D),  Lift Grenades (D)
Tech Burst Powers: Prothean Warp (D),  Lift Grenades (D)
Fire Explosion Powers: Prothean Warp (D),  Lift Grenades (D)

Power 1 (Prothean Warp): A unique power from the Custom Powers pack. This basically gives him a nice warp ability like Liara that allows him to detonate every type of combo in the game - but it also allows him to prime Biotic combos. Warp does damage, primes, detonates, and has a fast recharge time.

Power 2 (Prothean Singularity): Since Javik has a huge number of source powers for combos, it made sense to give him another detonator power for biotic combos that he could also use to detonate other types of combos. It also counts as a source power as well.

Power 3 (Lift Grenades): Another amazing power that allows Javik to detonate his own biotic explosions on protected enemies.It also allows him to deal damage to all types of protections, and is super effective against barriers. It wouldn't make sense to get rid of this ability of his.

Power 4 (Dominate): Allows Javik to control enemies and makes him much more different than Liara. Considering he shares half his powers with her (Warp, Singularity, and Warp Ammo essentially) it made sense to make him much more different than her. Plus it is just a fun power to play with. He shares it with Miranda now due to this mod. However, it should be useful on both squadmates.

Power 5 (Prothean Blast): A close quarters combat ability that knocks down enemies and does damage to them. It is an extra power given to Javik.

Power 6 (Prothean Shield): A power that goes well on Javik's kit and bolsters him as a unique pick over Liara as Liara is one of the squishiest/most vulnerable squadmates. Now you have Javik as an alternative to Liara who will survive much longer than her while having similar powers to her. It's basically Barrier but green.

Power 7 (Prothean Ammo): A Warp Ammo clone that is Green. I thought about Disruptor Ammo but this gives him a unique power while also allowing him to compete with Liara.

Javik's role is now a companion/competitor to Liara as they have a lot of similar abilities, but they are still different/unique enough to both be on the same team together. Javik provides some alternative biotic abilities, a better weapon set, and more survivability than Liara. Liara on the other hand has some similar powers, but also some more unique powers while also having a faster recharge time than Javik. Basically, I wanted to design Javik as an alternative to Liara to pick and have him be more viable.

Liara is forced on you a ton in Mass Effect 3 (at least in the vanilla game), and although some people may like Liara - others have a disdain for her. However if you left Kaidan for dead you only had two main biotic squadmates to choose from and Liara made a lot more sense than Javik for power combo's since she could have a faster recharge time than him. He now becomes an alternative somewhat to Kaidan also as his Prothean Shield ability allows him to tank more hits if Kaidan is dead in your playthrough/play that role somewhat.

----------------------------- - Each power added/change and the reasoning as to why: - -----------------------------

Wrex (Vanguard):

Vanilla Wrex - How he plays:

Wrex is probably the worst squadmate in the Citadel DLC. Carnage, Lift Grenade, Barrier, Stimulant Packs are his powers. Carnage is bloody awful compared to Concussive Shot. Lift Grenades sounds great except he spams his Stimulant Packs right away which eats into his grenade pool meaning he has no Lift Grenades. Barrier sounds great to allow him survive except now his cooldown on Carnage is even longer.

Some people will argue "oh but using his Stimulant Packs allows him to be a bulky defensive tank" except the goals of squadmates it to usually build off of them with their powers to enact combos. Not to mention, Stimulant Packs run out eventually which means your left with Carnage as your only power once it runs out.

His powerset is awful.

Modded Wrex - How to fix him:

There were a few options, we could make Wrex like his Mass Effect 1 self with Pull, Throw, Warp, etc. However a ton of squadmates already have those abilities, and trying to mix and match different abilities on squadmates without making them too similar was already a challenge.

So the best thing to do was to make him completely unique as in give him a set of powers/combination of powers that no one else really has. This makes him a bit of a strange pick, but really makes him much different than any other squadmate in your roster.

Powers:

Biotic Explosion Powers: Lash (S/D), Pull (S), Lift Grenades (S/D), Reave (S/D)
Cryo Explosion Powers: Lash (D), Concussive Shot (S/D), Lift Grenades (D)
Tech Burst Powers: Lash (D), Concussive Shot (S/D), Lift Grenades (D)
Fire Explosion Powers: Lash (D), Concussive Shot (S/D), Lift Grenades (D)

Power 1 (Concussive Shot): A great power that allows him to have a lot more versatility. It it extremely good with ammo powers, so you will want to try to pair him up with someone who has an ammo power.

Power 2 (Pull): An extra power give to him, it is an extremely fast and useful power which compliments his kit nicely since it can be used in tandem with Fortification to pull off faster biotic combos.

Power 3 (Lift Grenades): With Stimulant Packs gone from his loadout, Wrex actually has grenades that he can use for actually power combos! Now he doesn't waste them all (i.e. it's not a useless power anymore).

Power 4 (Reave): Since so many squadmates had Warp, it made sense to give Wrex Reave. This allows him to maintain his defensive powers/survive longer as if he still has Stim Packs. The bonus though? It's an actual power AND can last longer/be used instead of having a time limit/duration before it runs out unlike Stimulant Packs.

Power 5 (Nova): A close quarters combat ability that allows him to deal damage if enemies get too close, which allows him to make up for the loss of Stim Packs.

Power 6 (Lash): Lash is a great power for taking out shields/barriers and it's insanely good just with how powerful it is.
Wrex is a very powerful Krogan biotic, so giving this to him (as he can
match Aria in terms of power) makes perfect sense. It also gives him a
unique playstyle compared to your other squadmates.

Power 7 (Fortification): A way better power than Barrier that allows him to get a bigger defensive bonus. Since we took away Stimulant Packs from him, it only seemed fair to give him a better defensive power so he can survive longer.

Now Wrex is actually useful, he doesn't only have Carnage essentially. Yeah he loses some of his defensive surviviability from Stim Packs but the caveat with that was: once Stim Packs ran out, he was essentially useless more so than any other squadmate. His new set of powers gives him much more abilities to be a useful power focused squadmate, while also allowing him to have defences similar to his vanilla build (that don't run out however).

It was very hard to build Wrex and not have him be exactly like every other squadmate. So this made the most sense powerwise to diffrentiate him/give him an interesting powerset. He should be fun to play with and actually y'know be a real threat on the battlefield rather than a liability who you have to babysit/revive once his stimpacks run out.

Miranda (Sentinel):

Vanilla Miranda - How she plays:

The best squadmate in Mass Effect 2 on Insanity got sidelined in Mass Effect 3 hard. With the Cerberus subplot, and the lack of biotic squadmates - Miranda should have been a shoe-in for a squadmate in Mass Effect 3. Luckily, both the Expanded Galaxy Mod and Miranda Mod places her on the squad. However there are some prevalent issues with Miranda that causes her to be lackluster compared to her Mass Effect 2 counterpart.

First off all she has a horrible powerset. Warp, Overload, Incinerate, and Reave. This sounds good on paper but Warp/Incinerate/Reave are all basically interchangeable. Yes, they have some different versatility - Warp can detonate all type of power combos and allows for damage against armor/barriers, Reave allows for a tankier biotic output and can damage armor/barriers, and Incinerate allows for damage to armor and for it to detonate all combos as well... The problem is you really would only want to 'invest' in one of these powers at most (maybe two as you can argue Incinerate has its uses over Warp/Reave). This leaves you with either investing in Warp or Reave (if you want her Biotic focused) or Warp/Incinerate (alongisde Overload if you want her Tech focused). The problem is Warp is the best biotic ability in the game due to its evolutions and the fact it can detonate almost every type of power combo. This means it always makes sense to take Warp and Overload. This leaves you with Incinerate or Reave. Why take Reave when Incinerate has more uses and different uses (whereas Warp/Reave are interchangeable).

Not that Warp/Reave/Incinerate is all bad but since in the vanilla game, you're forced to invest in all the Citadel squadmate's abilities, it ends up hurting her by having her invest in all those powers.

Compared to the other squadmates, she also lacks a way to be as useful as them with this powerset. EDI does tech damage better (and potentially faster). EDI can also survive longer if you spec into Defense Matrix while Miranda has no way to boost her defences via a similar power unlike EDI. Tali is much better at damage output due to Sabotage and having her powers go out faster than Miranda's. Liara and Kaidan are better with Warp and Reave (Liara has a fast recharge speed and Kaidan is tankier). For Citadel squadmates, Jack has way faster recharge times due to her passive (fast cooldowns) and has Pull/Warp which means you can use her powers more frequently. Meanwhile, Samara has two of the best biotic powers in the game (Pull/Throw) due to their insane cooldown times, and she also has Warp/Reave meaning she functions as a way better Biotic than Miranda (and you have so many Tech experts in the game already).

You could argue she might have been a somewhat of a replacement for Kaidan, except Kaidan is one of the tankiest squadmates in the game and can blast Cryo Blast extremely fast (not to mention he has a way better weapon set than Miranda). All in all, Miranda is probably one of the worst
squadmates in the Citadel DLC due to her power distribution (which is a shame since she's my favourite squadmate) and the fact she can't frequently use them as other squadmates/she can't survive like other squadmates.

Modded Miranda - How to fix her:

Miranda is going to become another balanced Sentinel squadmate (akin to Kaidan, to replace him if he's dead or help fill in the void).

So how can we fix Miranda to be actually useful in Mass Effect 3? We'll do a few things:

We are going to design her to be similar to Kaidan and fill in if he's dead (replacing him as a better Tank whether he is dead or not). First we will giver her the Custom Power called Omni Armor. This means she can survive way longer and not suffer as many power recharge penalties (since Omni Armor has no rechage penalty associated with it). Since this mod makes Kaidan have a balanced set of biotic/tech powers, it will do the same for Miranda. Some people may also not want a Vanguard/Sentinel Jimmy so having Miranda be an alternative replacement to Kaidan is neccessary.

First off all, we'll keep Warp and Incinerate these two powers can be used for either a biotic Shepard or Tech Shepard. Warp has the benefit of triggering more combos than almost any other biotic power and Incinerate can trigger a variety of combos as well. This means you have the option to invest in both or one of them if you choose to.

Next we'll give her Biotic Shield. Biotic Shield stacks with Omni Armor and can be used to basically double her defences allowing her to be the tankiest character in the game should you choose to invest in both. Biotic Shield does have a cooldown time. However because Omni Armor doesn't, it means she can stack both and not take the double recharge speed penalty. (Making it worthwhile to take both).

We can argue that she learned how to enact a Biotic Sphere from her days when she fought alongside the Mass Effect 2 squadmates, especially since she must have realized how fragile/squishy she was after surviving the Collector mission. It'd make sense that she would try to teach herself ways to control her biotic potential/abilities (after seeing that a squadmate needed to hold a biotic barrier for the long-walk) and to just increase her survivability in combat. So it made sense to give her Biotic Shield (plus I just wanted a squadmate who had the option of being this extremely difficult to kill tank).

Since we have 3 Sentinels (potentially 4), I wanted Miranda to be a a balanced Sentinel who could replace Kaidan if you don't want Jimmy to shift from his original class (since there are so few biotics in the main squad) and to be the most defensive squadmate to help on more hardcore/difficult missions in both the Armax Arena and main story missions.

Powers:

Biotic Explosion Powers: Warp (S/D),
Cryo Explosion Powers: Warp (D), Overload (D), Incinerate (D), Throw (D)
Tech Burst Powers: Warp (D), Overload (S/D), Incinerate (D), Throw (D)
Fire Explosion Powers: Warp (D), Overload (D), Incinerate (S/D), Throw (D)


Power 1 (Warp): Warp allows her to do massive damage to armor and barriers. She also had warp in ME2 so it is also very lore-friendly for her to have. Warp is one of the biotic powers that can detonate every type of power combo in the game. Since you want squadmates that focus on being able to prime/detonate power combos it made sense to keep this power. Warp does damage, primes, detonates, and has a fast recharge time.

Power 2 (Overload): An extremely useful power on Insanity for taking out shields/barriers, it makes no sense to get rid of this power. This alongside Warp allows her to take out every protection in the game. It also is a power she also keeps in ME2.

Power 3 (Incinerate): A tech power that allows her to do a ton of damage to armor, while also allowing her to stop health regen and perform various new power combinations.

Power 4 (Throw): An extra power given to Miranda that is super useful on Insanity, and allows her to have a quick CC power in her arsenal.

Power 5 (Dominate): Dominate is a fun power, and Miranda being the Vixen and attractive spy she is would be able to sway just about anyone to join her side. This is where dominate comes in, giving her a new ability and making her much more different from the other Sentinels. It also just seemed like a fun power to have and gave her a nice support/control ability to help change the tide of battle.

Power 6 (Biotic Shield): A power from the Custom Power pack that is the equivalent of Barrier (but with a pink VFX effect). The idea was to provide her this power for a few reasons. First off, it counts as her unique power. Secondly, she can use it in tandem with Omni Armor to get a huge defensive bonus making her tankier than Kaidan. Thirdly, because Omni Armor has no recharge speed penalty, in conjunction with it - it acts as if she only has the barrier recharge penalty.

Power 7 (Omni Armor): A power from the Custom Power pack that is way better than Tech Armor because it doesn't "slow" down the recharge speed of a character's power and has a higher defensive bonus than the original. It doubles up her defenses and makes her extremely hard to kill if you use it with Biotic Shield. If you don't use it together with Biotic Shield, then she has a defensive ability that doesn't affect her recharge speed putting her
on par with the likes of Jack/Samara/Liara - while making her able to survive longer than them.

I'd recommend a no shared cooldown mod such as this, otherwise Miranda (and every other squadmate with a defensive power) will automatically cast Barrier/Tech Armor/etc. which will prevent you from using their other powers.

This new kit for Miranda accomplishes quite a bit of things to make her way more unique of a squadmate pick while eliminating her weaknesses. Firstly, she's now a tankier Kaidan if you choose to go down the route - having better defences than him while still having access to good powers without the heavy recharge penalty of using two types of defensive abilities. So if Kaidan is dead, you have a Sentinel who can not only replace him  defensively - but has an equal amount of tech/biotic powers like Kaidan (so even if they are both alive, they play differently).

Speaking of powers, with her new powers she has way more options to be a threat and to have a more versatile play style like in Mass Effect 2: Legendary Edition version of this mod. She becomes your a balanced Sentinel and you can choose to ignore her defensive powers to force points into her newly added Dominate ability (with it's fast recharge speed) alongside Warp, Incinerate, and Overload or you can choose to build her defences up somewhat while still focusing heavily in some of her powers.

She becomes more viable overall as there's a multitude of playstyles you can use her for now. She becomes a much more unique pick than before (as she doesn't have 3 powers that do the same thing basically). Although she won't have as fast cooldown times as Liara or Jack, her Omni Armor  allows her to not suffer a recharge speed penalty which puts her in a better position than she was (while also providing a way for her to survive longer than both Liara or Jack). She should survive a lot longer now and be a much better pick on a team (especially since there is a huge lack of biotic squadmates in general in Mass Effect 3).

Jacob (Sentinel):

Vanilla Jacob - How he plays:

Jacob's problem is he's just like how he was in the vanilla Mass Effect 2 game, except with the addition of Lift Grenades to his powerset. The problem with Jacob is he doesn't have a good detonator power other than Lift Grenades, and you could argue that's not even really a power (it's a grenade). He basically functions as a Biotic Jimmy/Grunt, being more useful on a Biotic team but not that useful since all he has to really build off power combo's with is Pull.

Functionally, with the amount of Solder type characters in the vanilla game, he still comes off as a bit useless - albeit his saving grace is having Incendiary Ammo - but why would I bring him when I can bring Grunt who has better powers/can be way tankier?

Modded Jacob - How to fix him:

Like Mass Effect 2, we are going to change his class to a Sentinel. This solves a lot of problems by not making us have four Vanguard characters and giving us four Sentinels instead. (Note you can still have up to 3 Vanguards if everyone is alive, so you still have plenty of Vanguards).

First of all, we aregoing to change his powers so he plays more like an aggressive tech-focused power based Sentinel by giving up a ton of his powers. He loses Barrier, which makes him easier to kill however every other potential Sentinel squadmate has a defensive power... so do we really need a 4th Sentinel with another defensive power? No, no we don't. Next we will give him Cryo Blast, Overload, Simgularity, and Armor-Piercing Ammo to make him a much more versatile pick. He now has a way better plethora of powers to choose from, while still making him one of the most unique Sentinels (with a bigger focus on tech powers).

His powerkit may seem a bit of an odd combination, but they actually compliment each other nicely. He also can fill in for Kaidan if he's dead (thanks to Cryo Blast/Overload) He also is very different from each of the squadmate's in this mod.

Powers:

Biotic Explosion Powers: Pull (S), Lift Grenades (S/D), Singularity (S/D), Lash (S/D)
Cryo Explosion Powers: Cryo Blast (S), Overload (D), Lift Grenades (D), Lash (D)
Tech Burst Powers:  Overload (S/D), Lift Grenades (D), Lash (D)
Fire Explosion Powers: Overload (D), Lift Grenades (D), Lash (D)

Power 1 (Cryo Blast): An extremely good power that allows him to have more power combination options.

Power 2 (Pull): An extremely good CC power and it makes no sense to get rid of it.

Power 3 (Overload): By giving him Overload, he now has a way to strip barriers/shields reliably which was something he really couldn't do in the vanilla Mass Effect 3

Power 4 (Lift Grenades): Lift grenades are extremely good, so it makes sense to keep them.

Power 5 (Singularity): A great power that makes him a viable option and provides some versatility. See Javik/Liara's section for why it is so good.

Power 6 (Lash):

Power 7 (Armor-Piercing Ammo): By giving Jacob Armor-Piercing Ammo he has a way to reliable deal with armor which was his one weakness in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3.

Jacob has now become the more Tech power focused Sentinel. Unlike Miranda/Jimmy/Kaidan he focuses way less on defences, while still having a nice combination of powers to choose from. It does make him easier to kill on Insanity due to getting rid of Barrier, but his new powers overcompensate for this by actually making him useful in a squad due to his new power selections. He also can provide a unique ammo power to support the squad, and is the only Sentinel squadmate to be able to do so.

Jack (Vanguard):

Vanilla Jack - How she plays:

Jack became much better in Mass Effect 3 compared to Mass Effect 2. She has some of the best powers in the game and looks like a mixture of vanilla Javik and Liara. Warp is one of the best powers in the game, Shockwave is okay - it's a lot less useful in Mass Effect 3 as close range powers are annoying to manage on squadmates. Pull allows her to have an insanely fast cooldown CC power and quick priming. Her passives (like Liara) allow her to have an insane recharge speed.

Warp Ammo isn't a bad power, but it also doesn't lend much to her options as Jack should be trying to utilize her powers over shooting anyways. Overall, she's basically a replacement for Liara.

Modded Jack - How to fix her:

First off we're going to give her Throw, Incendiary Ammo and Disruptor Ammo so she has a plethora of new and great abilities that really add to her kit. Throw is an extremely useful and fast CC/detonator. Incendiary Ammo is the best power in the game and a godsend against armored enemies/organics. Lastly, Disruptor Ammo allows her to overcome Shields/Barriers on enemies, which was one of her major weaknesses as a biotic squadmate.

We keep Shockwave since it's a unique power to her, and Warp/Pull because of how useful they are.

Powers:

Biotic Explosion Powers: Warp (S/D), Pull (S), Throw (D), Singularity (S/D), Shockwave (S/D)
Cryo Explosion Powers: Warp (D), Throw (D), Shockwave (D)
Tech Burst Powers: Warp (D), Throw (D), Shockwave (D), Disruptor Ammo (S)
Fire Explosion Powers: Warp (D), Throw (D), Shockwave (D), Incendiary Ammo (S)

Power 1 (Warp): The best biotic power in the game, it makes sense to keep it on her.

Power 2 (Pull): Another amazing biotic power that gives her options.

Power 3 (Singularity): A power that was requested in the Mass Effect 2 LE version of this mod, which meant I wanted to give it to her aresenal in the Mass Effect 3 LE version. It is useful, and also an extra power added to her kit.

Power 4 (Shockwave): Probably the worst power in her kit, but it's worth keeping for the fact alone that it's unique to her and does provide the option to take it if a player wants to try a different build.

Power 5 (Throw): Another amazing biotic power that gives her more options like Pull.

Power 6 (Incendiary Ammo): An awesome power that gives her another option if you don't want to invest in Disruptor Ammo, or you can invest in both.

Power 7 (Disruptor Ammo): By replacing Warp Ammo with Disruptor Ammo, Jack now has a way to damage shields/barriers which was her one major weakness on Insanity.

Overall, Jack had an extremely good kit/power set in Mass Effect 3 - and there isn't much need to change it that much. The new powers provided/changes given allow her to be extremely versatile than before.Like I said, she really didn't have a bad power set in the Citadel DLC and hopefully this provides her with some more Soldier options so you can play around with her class being a Vanguard class. (Now she's a mix of modded Samara/Jimmy while being different enough from them).

Having two ammo powers might seem odd, but it allows you to invest in both and switch between them depending on the enemies type making her a great pick for just about any squad she is in.

Grunt (Soldier):

Vanilla Grunt- How he plays:

Grunt is basically a better version of vanilla Jimmy. He has a higher defensive stat compared to Jimmy (base defense). He has Concussive Shot over Carnage, which is a way better power. Other than that he has Incendiary Ammo which is the best ammo power in the game.

He's not a bad squadmate, but like Jimmy he's not very useful in the long run. So how can we fix him? The only benefits over Jimmy is like I mentioned = higher base health/shields and Concussive Shot over Carnage. This makes him better than Vanilla Jimmy.

Modded Grunt - How to fix him:

Due to him being a Soldier, there is not much things to give him to improve him because his kit isn't that bad. However there are a few things we can do to give us more options/make him better. The first is keep Inferno Grenade alongside Frag Grenade so he has an increased grenade pool/the best ammo ability, and the second option is to give him Disruptor Ammo as a backup ammo to make up for his inability in Mass Effect 3 to strip barriers/shields.

Powers:

Biotic Explosion Powers: None
Cryo Explosion Powers:  Concussive Shot (D), Frag Grenade (D)
Tech Burst Powers: Concussive Shot (D), Frag Grenade (D), Disruptor Ammo (S)
Fire Explosion Powers: Concussive Shot (S/D), Inferno Grenade (S), Frag Grenade (D), Incendiary Ammo (S)

Power 1 (Concussive Shot): One of the best powers in the game, so no point in getting rid of it. See the above discussions why it is so good.

Power 2 (Inferno Grenade): An extremely good power, as noted above.

Power 3 (Frag Grenade): Keeping this power is good even though it's the weakess grenade power because:

• I needed to keep him having a unique power.
• It does increase his grenade pool
• It provides options for him to use.
  

Power 4 (Omni Armor): An extra power given to Grunt that maximizes his survivability in combat.
Power 5 (Fortification): A defensive power that allows him to survive longer, no reason to get rid of it.

Power 6 (Incendiary Ammo): An extremely good power, the best power in the game. It would make no sense to get rid of it.

Power 7 (Disruptor Ammo): One of Grunt's biggest weakness is his inability to take out barriers/shields - which this power gives him a way to do so.

Grunt now is much more useful, but he basically is a copy of Jimmy (Soldier) if you pick that option because he has 4 of his same powers. He is also similar to Ashley (having Concussive Shot/Inferno Grenade/Fortification/Incendiary Ammo) and Zaaed (having Concussive Shot/Inferno Grenade/Disruptor Ammo). Sadly there isn't much more of a different way to build him without completely changing his class.

Realistically, he's always been a replacement for Jimmy (Soldier), so this isn't much different. It's why I recommend that you either take Jimmy as a Sentinel or Vanguard because at least it makes him way different from Grunt. He is still very similar to both Ashley/Zaeed, but I tried giving them some unique powers that make them somewhat different picks.

Like I said, there isn't much way to give him more/different powers - no matter what powers you give him, he'll be very similar to either Ashley, Jimmy (Vanilla/Soldier), and Zaeed. So this was the best way to have him more viable, while trying to retain some differences from the other Soldier characters.

Samara (Adept):

Vanilla Samara - How she plays:

Samara was good in Mass Effect 2, and she's even better in Mass Effect 3. She has probably one of the best biotic skillsets in the game - Warp, Pull, Throw, Reave. She probably has the best biotic skillset in the game for a pure biotic character since Warp is so insanely good, Pull/Throw are some of the best Biotic powers in the game, and Reave allows her to fortify her defences.

However, her main weakness is she lacks a good way to take out shields/barriers.

Modded Samara - How to fix her:

There isn't much needed to fix Samara, however we will get rid of Warp since she has Reave and replace it with Lash which is an insanely powerful biotic move that has the option to be damaging to barriers/shields in one of its evolutions. It also is a detonator power like Warp, so you can detonate all the other power combos.

Since we're building off the Mass Effect 2 mod, we will also give her Barrier (so she can survive longer as an Adept) and also Warp Ammo so she can have more supportive powers. Albeit losing Warp might hurt her a bit, I think Lash more than makes up for it if I am honest.

Powers:

Biotic Explosion Powers: Reave (S/D), Pull (S), Singularity (S/D), Throw (D), Blast (D)
Cryo Explosion Powers: Throw (D)
Tech Burst Powers: Throw (D)
Fire Explosion Powers: Throw (D)

Power 1 (Reave): Reave is very good, it allows her to make her defenses better and acts as an alternative to Warp. (Plus too many
squadmates had Warp, so I had to choose someone to lose it).

Power 2 (Pull): As stated a million times, Pull is a very good power.

Power 3 (Singularity): A power that is added to her kit as an extra power. It has a ton of uses, and it makes her a much more of a threat now. I got rid of Lash as it had a very long cool-down and it made more sense for Samara to have powers in her kit that allowed her to spam powers faster.

Power 4 (Throw): An insanely good power like Pull.

Power 5 (Blast): Her unique power now that allows her to deal with enemies who get in close quarters combat with her.

Power 6 (Barrier): A power that provides her a way to survive longer or boost her defences, you probably might not invest in it due to her being a more power focused squadmate but it's there if you need it. It's also her unique power now since there wasn't a lot of other options.

Power 7 (Warp Ammo): A nice option for Samara that provides her with more supportive powers if you want to invest in them.

There new powers improve Samara a lot, or provide different options for your to level her in. Samara like Jack really didn't need much improvement, she was one of the best Citadel squadmates due to her powerset. Even pre-loaded, none of her abilities hindered her compared to other squadmates.

Kasumi (Infiltrator):

Vanilla Kasumi - How she plays:

Kasumi is probably the worst squadmate who has fallen from grace in Mass Effect 3, as she has lost Shadow Strike (the best power in Mass Effect  2) and doesn't have Flashbang Grenades (which is also an insanely good power in Mass Effect 2). Whereas Miranda got screwed over by having
Warp/Reave/Incinerate (which all do the same thing). Miranda isn't as good as Liara/EDI for power damage output or fast casting and Miranda isn't as tanky or versatile as Kaidan. However, Miranda at least has useable powers in the vanilla game versus Kasumi. Kasumi just got shafted in ME3.

Decoy is an absolute joke of a power, even worse than Carnage. There's almost no reason to ever invest in it and you're forced to in the vanilla game. Armor Piercing Ammo is not as good as the Disruptor/Incendiary/Cryo or even Warp Ammo. She has Tactical Cloak which is basically special damage Cloak, which is insanely good for her but you need to micromange her since she won't use it automatically and then click Overload.

Her abilities are lackluster and there is almost no reason to take her over other squadmates especially if you don't want to constantly spam Tactical Cloak/then Overload, and repeat. Being forced to invest in some powers mean you have no options but to have her have some mediocre abilities.

Modded Kasumi - How to fix her:

To make Kasumi better, she's going to be the fire ninja basically. Whereas Ashley has a setup that nicely compliments fire powers, she can't use  Incinerate. Whereas Kasumi can use Incinerate, Inferno Grenade, and Incendiary Ammo (which is what we're going to give her). We want to
maximize her damage output as well, so I've given her Sabotage which is one of the best tech powers in the game and allows her to be a way more
dangerous squadmate.

She still has a smaller amount of active powers compared to other squadmates, but at least you now have more choice in how you want to build her while still retaining aspects of her kit that made her unique in the Citadel DLC (i.e. Tactical Cloak). She at least has a way better/more useful role in comparison to how much they made her worst compared to Mass Effect 2.

Powers:

Biotic Explosion Powers: None
Cryo Explosion Powers: Incinerate (D), Overload (D), Sticky Grenade (S/D)
Tech Burst Powers: Incinerate (D), Overload (S/D), Sticky Grenade (S/D), Sabotage (S)
Fire Explosion Powers: Incinerate (S/D), Overload (D), Inferno Grenade (S), Sticky Grenade (S/D), Incendiary Ammo (S)

Power 1 (Incinerate): A great power to give Kasumi that allows her to not only damage armor, and provide crowd control but it lets her either prime/detonate fire explosions or detonate other types of explosions. It also makes her a great alternative to EDI if you don't like EDI.

Power 2 (Overload): A great power in the game for a variety of power combos and it allows her to take down barrier/shields, it makes no sense to get rid of this power.

Power 3 (Inferno Grenade): A great power for her kit that lets her have grenades if she needs them, and allows her to prime fire
explosions without requiring her powers to be go on a cooldown.

Power 4 (Sticky Grenade): A grenade power that she can use that lets her keep herself Cloaked.

Power 5 (Sabotage): You want Tech Vulnerability as soon as possible. Sabotage should be your go-to power for starting power combos and Tech Vulnerability has the added benefit of increasing tech combo damage. It literally is the best tech power in the game for creating tech bursts. Not to mention because of the increased damage output alongside Tactical Cloak, it makes her an extremely formidable squadmate worth taking because of her unique powers that only benefit her usage of Sabotage.

Power 6 (Tactical Cloak): You need to micro-manage her to get the most out of Kasumi I think. Squadmates auto-attack, so it may be hard to really get the most out of her Tactical Cloak. Ideally, you would want to Cloak > Power > shoot to get the most out of it. It's very micro-managing to get a lot of use out of it sadly but you can now choose not to invest in it if you don't like to constantly activate Cloak/then a power. However, because of its uniqueness, it made no sense to get rid of it.

Power 7 (Incendiary Ammo): The best ammo power in the game replaces Armor Piercing Ammo for her. Now she's a huge threat with her new fire based abilities and it gives her a unique position compared to other squadmates with Incendiary Ammo (who are mostly soldiers).

These changes should actually make Kasumi viable and worth taking as she fills a unique role in the squad, and alongside Ashley they make an insanely good fire based squad or team (or alongside Soldier Jimmy or Grunt if Ashley is dead for whatever reason). Given the limited amount of powers to choose from, this unique kit I gave her at least made her role unique amongst all the squadmates you can have in Mass Effect 3. It should also make Kasumi fans very happy because now she is no longer useless.

Yeah other squadmates have fire abilities - but no one is on the level of Kasumi. Ashley is a close second, and they actually pair insanely well together because their fire kits compliment each other so well. She/Ashley are also a really great option for Garrus to be paired up with.

Zaeed (Soldier):

Vanilla Zaeed - How he plays:

Zaeed is basically Ashley. I could write a long list - but their powers are almost exactly the same except Carnage is replacing Marksman. Marksman in the original trilogy was bugged + a lot of people didn't find it useful or don't spec into it (but in the LE it is fixed, so it's worth considering to make Ashley more of a heavy gunner/providing options for her to be more weapon focused). Carnage is extremely bad as a power. So all in all, Marksman is better (when it works) but in the original Mass Effect 3? They both had a bad powerset and basically were interchangable (Ashley's glitched Marksman made her useless and Zaeed's Carnage is a horrible power).

Modded Zaeed - How to fix him:

By providing some more interesting option/making him a bit unique compared to other Soldier characters. With the limited Soldier abilities, there was not much to change or do but see below for the changes made.

Powers:

Biotic Explosion Powers: None
Cryo Explosion Powers: Concussive Shot (S/D), Carnage (D), Cryo Ammo (S)
Tech Burst Powers: Concussive Shot (D), Carnage (D), Disruptor Ammo (S)
Fire Explosion Powers: Concussive Shot (S/D), Inferno Grenade (S), Carnage (S/D)

Power 1 (Concussive Shot): An extremely good power, it makes no sense to get rid of it.

Power 2 (Carnage): With the limited Soldier abilities and to not have him like everyone else, it made sense to keep Carnage. Even though it's an awful power, it can detonate power combos and can act as a source for Fire Explosions powers (but so can Concussive Shot - so you'd be better off investing in that).

Power 3 (Inferno Grenade): Another incredible power that would be stupid to get rid of.

Power 4 (Sticky Grenade): A power that lets him remain invisible while using it and added as an extra power to his kit.

Power 5 (Invisibility): A new power from the Custom Power Mod that is supposed to be a Tech power, but since it's not in any of the classes so we're going to pretend it's a Combat power as well (there are very limited Soldier only powers). Similar to Kasumi's power, it's very good albeit you need to micromanage it - one key difference though? One of the evolution increases Sniper Rifle damage output which should be extremely good for Zaeed to use. It's here as an option and counts as his unique ability. (It's likely down the line I'll replace Carnage with something else, just not sure what yet).

Power 6 (Disruptor Ammo): A power that allows him to take down barriers/shields. It makes no sense to get rid of it.

Power 7 (Cryo Ammo): As noted above many times, Cryo Ammo is very good. It also makes him unique compared to other Soldier characters (Grunt, Jimmy, Ashley). It also provides more options in how to build him.

Like I said, with the limited amount of soldier powers and trying to keep him different from the other Soldier characters - this was the best outcome/powerset to give him. These options really were the best options to give him.

Temp Squadmates:

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Temporary squadmates all have the same number of abilities/powers as the main squadmates.