Best Ashley Builds | Gamer Guides: Your ultimate source f... (2024)

This page will show you some of the best builds for your squad mate Ashley Williams in Mass Effect 3 Legendary Edition. Here, you’ll find details on the best abilities to pick, the best weapons to equip, and the best Outfit to wear.

Ashley Williams Overview¶

Ashley Williams is a soldier skilled with weapons and standard combat hard suits. She is considered reliable and dedicated by her peers, which she gained from a long line of family serving the Systems Alliance. Although she is considered a tough and strong-willed woman, her more sensitive side is shown through her love of poetry. Ashley’s negative traits come through with her bluntness, which often times shows her as xenophobic, especially with other species. In Virmire, Shepard’s choices can end her story with her dying if you opt to save Kaidan instead.

When do you get Ashley¶

Ashley becomes available during the Mission Priority: Mars, and then fully playable in Act II.

Inferno Grenade Tech Burst Build¶

This build revolves around maxing out Ashley’s Disruptor Ammo, and Inferno Grenade. This combination will allow her to prime and detonate her own Tech Bursts by shooting the enemies with Disruptor Ammo activated which will prime them, then follow it up with an Inferno Grenade to detonate the Tech Burst, dealing major damage. We then max out Concussive Shot which is good for crowd control as well as stripping enemy barriers, it can also be used immediately after Inferno Grenade to trigger a fire explosion. Finally, we max out her passive skill line Alliance Officer to increase her Weapon, Power and Assault Rifle damage.

Powers¶

This section will go into more detail on why the Powers are chosen for this particular build.

Disruptor Ammo¶

When Disruptor Ammo is activated, it will coat the equipped weapons ammunition with electromagnetic properties. This will do damage to shields, barriers and at higher upgrades, health. The main reason we take this here is to prime the enemies for a Tech Burst.

Inferno Grenade¶

Inferno Grenade will explode on impact dealing x1.5 damage to armor, and its shrapnel will hit further enemies, potentially burning them. The main reason we take this is to detonate the enemies who have been primed by your Disruptor Ammo, this will create a Tech Burst and deal major damage to any enemies in its radius.

Marksman¶

Marksman is a great passive skill that increases weapon damage and accuracy, at higher ranks it’ll increase your fire rate or headshot damage when it’s activated. The only reason we don’t take this higher, is the lack of points available after maxing out everything else.

Concussive Shot¶

Concussive Shot was buffed in Mass Effect 3, and is useful for knocking down enemies, and dispersing enemy barriers. For this build, we use this immediately after throwing an Inferno Grenade (as grenades don’t have a cooldown). Providing the enemies are burning from the grenades, hitting them with Concussive Shot will result in fire explosions on multiple enemies dealing major damage.

Alliance Officer¶

Alliance Officer is Ashley’s passive skill line which’ll increase her Health, Weapon Damage, and Power Damage. The final upgrade will give her Assault Rifles a damage boost by 60%.

Best Outfit¶

In Mass Effect 3, each outfit gives squad mates different bonuses. For Ashley, choose her default Outfit to increase her Weapon Damage a further 25%.

Best Weapons¶

This section will talk about what weapons are best for this particular build. Although Ashley is good with Sniper Rifles, we take the Assault Rifle as her main weapon as it works better with the Disruptor Ammo.

Assault Rifle¶

The N7 Typhoon was originally a DLC weapon in Mass Effect 3. In the Legendary Edition, it can be purchased at the Spectre Requisitions terminal in the Citadel Embassies for 150,000 credits.

This weapon is mainly taken for its large clip size and high fire rate, which makes it great for hitting multiple enemies with Disruptor Ammo.

Or

It doesn’t get much better than the Cerberus Harrier, which can be purchased from the Spectre Requisitions terminal in the Citadel Embassies for 150,000 credits. It does great damage with pinpoint accuracy, the only reason it’s not first choice is its low fire rate.

Sniper Rifle¶

Although this build recommends Assault Rifles, if you want to go for a Sniper instead, these are the best ones to choose.

The Krysae Sniper Rifle was originally a DLC weapon in the original Mass Effect 3, in the Legendary Edition, it can be purchased from the Cipritine Armory terminal in the Presidium Commons, Citadel for 10,000 credits

What makes the Kyrsae Sniper Rifle so strong is its high damage and Semi-Automatic Fire Rate, on top of that it has specialized ammunition, which is both armor-piercing and explosive.

Or

The Black Widow can be purchased from the Spectre Requisitions terminal in the Citadel Embassies for 125,000 Credits

It’s hard to pick between the Black Widow or the Kyrsae Sniper Rifle. Both are great guns that do incredible damage. You can’t go wrong with either, but the Kyrsae is the cheaper out of the two, which is why it’s listed first.