Weapons and Synergies

Builds and synergies

Builds The 7 active and passive abilities you'll be able to use
Synergy How well the actives and smaller extent passives work together.
Rotation The order in which you will spend most of the time pressing your number keys.

This is where it gets nitty gritty and you spend hours (or at least minutes) agonizing over what to choose.

What you need to pay most attention to:

1. do your passive match your actives as stated before, some passives are highly specific to weapon, attack type, or active ability.
2. will your rotation be too complicated more about this below, but will you be able to use your consumers after 2, 3, or 5 builder hits? Does the damage of your consumer depend on the number of resources built?
3. what are you building towards? keep in mind your end goal here. Are you tanking, leeching, healing, dps, buffing, or pvping?
4. what can you currently use at the moment Some people may link builds that you can not use yet. You can work towards it or maximize what you can do with the weapons you've already chosen or can use.

Overviews of Roles:
         1. Soloing - Your standard build for going around the various zones interacting with PvE content. Typically you want to do a mix of dps and damage mitigation (Blocking, evading, healing, impairing, hindering, etc.)
         2. Tanking - This ain't like other MMOs. You do not just stack HP and expect to be able to tank. You are in charge of building massive amounts of hate so no matter how much damage your team mates do, your damage and hate will still outweigh theirs. Agitator in the Misc Abilities is your main passive for that and look at your builders to see which ones say "Generates large amounts of hate". You are also in charge of impairs and making sure any mobs/adds that spawn attack you instead of your group members.
         3. Healing/Leeching - You are in charge of making sure your group members don't die. DO NOT PRE HEAL. That's the best advice I can give you if you want to live. Healing generates a lot of hate and you'll normally be second in line on the hate chart. First is the tank. Make sure you have plenty of utilities that can give big heals or buff your healing for the "Oh crap they're dying!" moments.
         4. Buffing - You're in charge of DPS and using your buffs at the right time. Standard buff builds are either DABS, SF, and then your situational buffs of CU or WW. Please see my other guides for the meaning of the acronyms.
         5. DPS - Give it everything you've got but for the love of your group Do not shoot before the tank gets in there. Do not impair. Do not hinder. and just watch the AoE on that the bosses or trash spawn and you're good.

Below are some weapon combinations that are useful and most widely seen. This list is by no means exhaustive.

Tanking

Main thing you want to pay attention for in these builds. What builders generate hate, what impairs do you have, and add control as well.

Blade/Hammer -
Blade Torrent is really your only builder as you need to start building hate right away and Grand slam requires weakened to be on the mob already to make you gain hate.
Crimson Theater or Raging Volcano is great to use on top of your consumers.
Trial by Swords, Stunning Swirl, Art of War, Beatdown, Shockwave, Eruption are your impairs.
Saving grace is a good utility but situational at best.

Chaos/Hammer -
Escalation is really your only builder as you need to start building hate right away and Grand slam requires weakened to be on the mob already to make you gain hate.
Discord rising or Raging Volcano is great to use on top of your consumers.
Chaotic Pull, Domino Effect, Beatdown, Shockwave, Eruption are your impairs.   

Chaos/Blade -
Blade Torrent or Escalation should be used as builders.
Crimson Theater or Discord rising is great to use on top of your consumers.
Trial by Swords, Stunning Swirl, Art of War, Chaotic Pull, and Domino Effect are your impairs.
Saving grace is a good utility but situational at best.

Healing

Main thing you want to pay attention for in these builds. What generates Heals, Heals over Time, and Shields.

Fist/Pistol (Also known as Fistol)
Nuture and Cauterize are both good builders.
Surgical steel is a good consumer.
Fired up, Greater Good, Back up Drone, Win-Win are all good utilities.

Fist/Blood
Nuture, Cauterize, Ruby Curtain are all good builders.
Surgical steel and The Scarlet Arts are a good consumers.
Fired up, Cold Blooded, Transfuse and Abuse, are all good utilities.

Leeching

Leeching is having to balance DPS power with Healing power, the more DPS you do, the more healing you do, but you also need +Healing to get the maximum effect. The standard Leech build is Assault Rifle/Blood but there's other permutations out there.

Assault Rifle/Blood -
Anima shot is best bet for your builder. You can replace it with Anima Burst later.
Anima Vessel, Transfuse Anima, and Scarlet arts are good consumers.
Cold Blooded, Transfuse and Abuse, Energize, and Reap and Sew are all good utilities.

Assault Rifle/Hammer
Anima shot is best bet for your builder. You can replace it with Anima Burst later.
Anima Vessel, Transfuse Anima, and Molten Steel are good consumers.
Full Momentum, Lock and Load, Do or die, Energize, or Reap and Sew are all good utilities.

Buffing

Buff builds are just DPS with added utilities to give the party bursts of DPS at certain points in a fight.
Do not sacrifice your DPS capabilities for having more buffs.

Pistol/Shotgun -
The Business or Powder Burn are good builders. Eventually replace either The Business with Hair Trigger or Powder burn with Striker.
Out for a kill, and shoot out are good consumers.
Utilities are Deadly Aim, Breaching shot, and your choice of Win-Win or Cleanup for the situational bosses in dungeons. Greater Good is okay, but normally a healer will carry it or not need it.

Shotgun/Elemental -
Powder Burn or Ignite are good builders. Eventually replace Powder burn with Striker or Ignite with Ignition.
Out for a kill, Flame strike or Blaze are good Consumers.
Utilities are Breaching Shot and Short Fuse with Cleanup being situational for dungeons. You definitely want to start putting your points towards the manifestations as these come into be a big help later on, specifically Electromagnetic Manifestation and Fire Manifestation.

Pistol/Elemental -
The Business or Ignite are good builders. Eventually replace The Business with Hair Trigger or Ignite with Ignition.
Shoot out, Flamestrike, or Blaze are good Consumers.
Utilities are Deadly Aim and Short Fuse with Win-Win being situational for dungeons. You definitely want to start putting your points towards the manifestations as these come into be a big help later on, specifically Electromagnetic Manifestation and Fire Manifestation.

DPS
There are many, many combinations of DPS weapons. In fact any two weapons can be a good combination.
For that, I'd suggest playing around or requesting builds.

or, TL:DR edition:

Sword
Builder: Blade Torrent; can eventually be replaced by Forking Paths if doing a solo or scenario build.
Consumer: Dancing Blade; Replace it as soon as possible with Chop Shop, Clearing the Path, or Steel Palace (best for soloing).
Utility: Martial Discipline and Stunning swirl, eventually replaced with Four Seasons, Trial By Swords, Steel Echo.

Hammer
Builder: Smash or Grand Slam are both good, but eventually you realize other weapons have better builders.
Consumer: Hell to pay. Replace as soon as possible with Molten Steel.
Utility: Stonewalled and Shockwave are both great utilities and can even be used situationally in end game content. Beatdown, Full Momentum, Furnace are great from the outer wheel.

Fist
All and all this is really best for soloing or healing. It's not strong dps output.
Builder: Claw is your only real option to start and even then there's noting else really good.
Consumer: Hog wild is okay. Savage is an okay consumer.
Utility: None that aren't for heals.

Blood
Builder:Boiling blood is good to use at first. Bloodline will be the eventual replacement.
Consumer: Bloodspike/Infliction is good to use for a long while. Bloodshot or Guts and Glory eventually replace them but you don't have to rush for them.
Utility: Cardiac Arrest is good for soloing. Plague and contaminate are good as well.

Chaos
Builder: Escalation if you're soloing, eventually replace with Run Rampant. Hand of Change if you're in dungeons. Still meh for builders.
Consumer: Schism is quite powerful until you get Pulling the strings, Cry Havoc, and Karma are all good.
Utility: Domino Effect. So great. Very Useful. Much powerful. Wow. Disclamer: only use Domino affect soloing or in scenarios . Discord Rising also.

Elemental
Builder: Ignite is a good go for starting. You *can* replace it with Ignition if you want or arc flash depending on the situation.
Consumer: Thor's hammer to start out with. Still useful later. Flame Strike, Blaze, Inferno, Fire Manifestation, Lightning Manifestation. It's all situational and you can pick and choose from there.
Utility: Molten Earth is beautiful to start out with. Cold Wave, Whiteout, Hard Reset, Electromagnetic Manifestation, Ice manifestation, or Overload. You just have your situational picks here.

Shotgun
Builder: Powder burn is good to start, Eventually switch it out for Striker or Scattershot depending on the situation.
Consumer: Out for a kill. This really is the best option.
Utility: Kneecapper works well into end game. Bombardment, Bomb Squad, Smart Bomb, Point Blank, and Shotgun wedding all have their uses based on what you need to do.

Pistol
Builder:The Business is okay. Try and get hair trigger as fast as possible if you want to build with pistols.
Consumer: Shootout is a great option. I still use it in end game raiding.
Utility: Dirty tricks is good for soloing. Gun-fu and Marked are also good as well.

         Assault Rifle
         Builder: Safety Off is okay, eventually replace with Hip Fire. Suppressing Fire becomes situational for  large amounts of mobs.
         Consumer: Fire at will is good to start. High Explosive Grenade is good for groups of mobs while Transfuse Anima is a good consumer as well even if you aren't leeching.
         Utility: Slow the Advance is great for soloing. Red Mist and Incendiary Grenade are good as well.

Skill Points

Skill Points

Skill Points Are just points to enable you to use better gear.

QL - Quality level, basically, the higher it is, the better gear it is (Current cap is 11 from End Game raids)

Every 120,000 xp points, you earn, you will recieve 1 SP and this does not change the entire game since there are no "levels".

At the start of the game, your cap or maximum SP is 40 SP.

Later game when you start putting SP into both Speed and Efficiency under AEGIS, every level of that increases your SP cap by 5 to a maximum of 130 SP.

It presents you with a lot of options at first, and I'm here to break it down for you with a few simple guidelines.

1. Level up your head and major talismans first. Not all the way but it's a general rule of thumb to keep them 2 ql levels above where your weapons are at. I'll explain more in the post about gear.

2. Level up your minor talismans second. Keep them 1 ql level above where your weapons are at.

3. Weapons should not all be leveled at the same time. pick a pair or two to level. Then worry about the rest.

4. Do not double up on the weapon categories. Choose one category only. Damage, healing, survivability, or support. Go back and finish when you have extra SP to spare. Just worry about getting it to QL 10 in one area.

Later game SP
1. Only unlock the auxiliary weapons that are most useful to you. It's a matter of whether you need more impairs (whip), maneuverability (rocket launcher), aoe damage (flamethrower, chainsaw), or protection (chainsaw).

2. Notice how I didn't mention the Quantum auxiliary? It's abilities are situational at best and cost a lot of AP to be as effective as the others.

3. Augments: Throw AP in as needed. You don't need to bring them all up to level 5 at once, as more than likely you'll be putting your AP towards the AEGIS.

4. Aegis:
     a. Efficiency - This will be your measure of how you spend your points in Aegis. This should be highest at all times. This controls how much damage against AEGIS shields you do, or how fast you heal up the AEGIS shields that match your active weapon type.
     b. Speed - Keep it 1 or 2 below Efficiency. it controls how fast your abilities come back up after switching your aegis disruptors.
    c. Shield - Don't put AP in shield until you've maxed both efficiency and speed. This controls the strength of your AEGIS shield that you won't get until you complete the quest One for the AEGIS. Shields don't really come into play until "To The Dark Tower Below" and onwards.

Ability Points and Passive Abilities

Passive Abilities

What are Passive abilities?
Passive abilities are the purple abilities you see on your abilities wheel that can be used anywhere, anytime. Have a pistol passive you want to use with a blood / elemental build? feel free!

Some good rules of thumb:

1. Consider whether the passive would be useful in more than one build Some passives are very specific to an active ability, type of attack, or weapon.
2. Consider what your build will be for Will the passive be good for whatever you're planning on doing?
3. A few passive are staples between many builds My guide is by no means extensive but Iron Maiden is used in many, many builds I've seen or use myself.

Ranged:
Pistols:

Rapid Getaway - Resource consumers give you 15% faster movement for 10 seconds and increases Crit chance by 10% for 8 seconds.
Advantage Me - Critical hits give you a HoT for 5 seconds, Critical heals cleanses your defensive target of one debuff
Seal the Deal - consumers are 15% more powerful and increases their crit rating by 5%.
Closer - increases damage and healing of consumers by 7.5% - good for leeching
Contortionist - increases heal, leech, and barriers by 10% - removes hinders or impairs automatically ever 25 seconds

Shotguns

Breaching Shot - Increases Penetration change by 40% for 8 seconds. BS of the DABS Combo
12 gauge - More useful when you have a high penetration chance - applies weakened
Shield formation gives group members the minor ward, major ward, or Protection. Normally only seen in PVP

Assault Rifles

Experience - increases the effectiveness of leeching by 20%
Lethality - Good for many builds - increases damage by 1% per stack for 10 seconds, can stack up to 10 times. If you have a high glance chance, it's wasted.
Shadow Medic - Increases all healing by 7.5%
Anticoagulant - your leeching now does a DoT
Leeching Frenzy - 2.0% of the damage dealt heals you

Magic:
Elemental:

Elemental force - a staple of most dps builds, on the 5th successful hit, gain a 20% increase in crit chance for 5 seconds. Does not build counters while buff is active.
Aidelon - 40% chance to critically hit afflicted targets with blaze.
Live Wire - after 4 counts from critical hits, this gives your next critical an additional 147 damage. If the mob is killed shortly after, you automatically get two counters.

Chaos

Intensity - Reduces glance chance of Escalation by 5%, Increases hate generation by 20% and exposes the mobs by 2% per stack up to 20%
Breakdown - Exposes mobs by 2% per stack up to 20% from all chaos, blade, or hammer hits. The GO TO expose for tanks/melee dps.
Fever pitch - 10% chance to reduce glancing by 50% for 10 seconds.
Extended Fracture - Gives reality Fracture 15% more damage and affects 2 more targets

Blood

Dark Potency -Whenever you afflict something, penetration increases by 40 points per stack for up to 200 points. Use this until you get Iron Maiden
Coagulation - Increases effectiveness of barriers by 40%
Iron Maiden - Increases penetration by 15% for 8 seconds when you penetrate and afflicted target.
Circulation - When you afflict a mob, gives you a HoT for 10 seconds.

Melee:
Swords:

Perfect Storm - Puts a nice DoT on the Mobs
Twist the Knife - Good for builds with high penetration, increases damage by up to 9% every penetrating hit
Immortal Spirit - Gives you a HoT for 5 seconds every time you penetrate

Hammer

Brawler - Increases crit power by 15%
Cool, Calm, and Collected - if you block an attack, you take 25% less damage for 6 seconds. If you critically hit, you gain 8% damage dealt for 10 seconds.
Insult to Injury - If you critically hit, you reduce your target's damage by up to 3% for 10 seconds for up to 10 stacks.
Sweet Spot - Gain health every time you critically hit
Knuckle Down - increases damage and healing of builders by 10%

Fists

Lick your Wounds - Heal over time for 3 seconds, stacks up to 4 times
Bloodsport - Staple affliction - does 23 damage for 3 seconds for up to 3 stacks
Healing Sparks - Gives your defensive target a HoT
Glimmer of Hope - Your HoTs have a 15% chance to apply a HoT to you as well
Making Amends - Your HoTs are 10% more powerful

Misc Skills
Agitator - Increases how much you earn hate by 350%

Ability points and Active Abilities

Useful Active Abilities

What are active abilities?
They're abilities that you have on your bar that you have to push the buttons 1-7 (8 for auxiliary) to activate.

Some good rules of thumb:

1. Have two weapon abilities on your bar at all times. You'll come to realize that you'll have both builders and consumers and can use one builder in order to have resources for two consumers after 5 hits
2. Don't be afraid to add buffs/utilities to your bar Speed utility, butts for crit/hit/penetration or even block/evade can come in handy soloing
3. Builders are normally put as 1, while your two main consumers are 2 and 3 After that it's up to you. Play how you want, though.
4. Watch cast times Every single ability has a cast time, might be instant, might take 45 seconds before it's up again for some consumers. Plan out using them wisely.

Ranged:
Pistols:

Deadly Aim - buffs crit chance by 40% for 8 seconds. DA of the DABS combo.
Win-Win - PBAoE that heals but more importantly cleanses 2 debuffs on the party within a 15 meter radius of yourself ever 45.

Shotguns:

Clean up - cleanses a total of 6 debuffs over 9 seconds, also purges the boss/mob of buffs every time you/your party hits
Shotgun Wedding - Does damage in a 60 degree cone channeled over 2.5 seconds. Every time it his, damage increases by 25% for up to 4 times. Best for stationary targets.
Out for a kill - Consumer that gives you a handy Penetration boost by 8% to your turrets for 10 seconds

Assault Rifles:

Anima burst - Builder that heals on hit for 10% of the damage dealt.
Shot of Anima - Consumer Heals your defensive target and gives them a 1.6% leech effect for 8 seconds as well
Red Mist - Consumer that has no glance, can't evade, powerful single target attack
Slow the advance - hinders target's movement speed by 70% for 8 seconds.
Reap and Sew - gives everyone a 12.2% leech effect for 8 seconds. Useful for dungeon healing.

Magic:
Elemental:

Short Fuse - Increases all damage done by 20% for 10 seconds.
Electromagnetic Manifestation - chain attack 6 mobs in a 10m area for 20 seconds, also purges 1 buff from all targets.
Lightning Manifestation - Consumer that has a chain attack that deals 14 damage in a 7m area for 13 seconds
Fire Manifestation - Consumer deals 200 damage over 10 seconds in a 5m area.
Ice Manifestation - deals 90 damage over 9 seconds in a 5m area. Mostly used for its hinder/root ability.
Blaze - deals 200 damage to afflicted targets. When paired with Aidelon a very effective consumer.

Chaos:

Domino Effect - Pulls up to 6 people toward you in a 7m area. Impairs them for 4 seconds. The PVP bomb. (Earns you a lot of hate from other players)
Escalation - AOE builder for tanks. Pair it with Intensity. Just do it.
Chaotic pull - 15m impair range, pulls them to you.
Reality Fracture - AOE consumer for tanks. 6 seconds in a 5m area. Best paired with Extended Fracture

Blood:

Blood Shield - Builder that is Most useful early game shield
Angelic Aegis - Good consumer until you can get Scarlet Arts
The Scarlet Arts - Consumer that places a barrier on your defensive target, channels a heal for 3 seconds, then places down a second barrier after.
Ruby Curtain - Builder that will replace Blood Shield
Cold Blooded - Deal 3% of your health as damage to yourself to heal and barrier your entire team. You also take 40% less damage while you channel this ability.

Melee:
Swords:

Blade Torrent - PBAoE builder that's for tanking. It give you hate. Best paired with Perfect Storm
Steel Echo - Buff for 10 seconds every hit does an extra hit for 311 damage
Trial by Swords - Impair
Clearing the Path - PBAoE builder that has a 40% chance to penetrate any afflicted targets
Sling Blade - Single target attack where you throw your sword to get an enemies' attention
Forking Paths - PBAoE Consumer that heals you if targets are afflicted
Steel Palace - PBAoE Consumer that reduces damage by 7.5% if targets are afflicted
Crimson Theater - PBAoE that generated additional hate
The Art of War - PBAoE that forces mobs to attack you and impairs them for 5 seconds

Hammer:

Shockwave - Elite impair
Molten Steel - Massively powerful single target attack. Deals an additional 15% crit damage. has a 30% extra chance to critically hit. I've seen this crit for over 40k damage.
Beatdown - Single Target impair
Full momentum - Give you a free hammer consumer (gain 5 hammer resources)
Trucker - Charge to the enemy and increases block chance by 45% for 6 seconds

Fists:

Cauterize - Healing single-target builder that not only heals but does a HoT as well
Surgical Steel - Healing burst consumer that heals and also applies a HoT. Best combined with Healing Sparks
Vigour - TAoE heal
Shelter - PBAoE Healing Builder that also has a HoT as well

Misc Skills
Useful Actives
Provoke - used in tanking, starts attacking you for 3 seconds
Stoicism - Reduces damage by 20% and increases hate by 500% for 10 seconds
Misdirection - Used to pass hate back to the tank for 8 seconds (used only in certain circumstances)
Slight of Hand - Removes all crowd control effects for 7 seconds. Very, very useful.
Turn the tables - A self heal that doesn't require a second weapon!

Starting at Ability Points

Starting with the basics: Ability  Points

AP - Ability points. These are currency for your abilities and highly useful. The more quests you do, the more AP you get, so those little side quests come in handy in the long run!

Every 40,000xp points, you earn 1 AP. This is a fixed amount as there are no "levels" for the character in game.

You start out with a cap or maximum amount of AP points you can have at one time of 175

Later in the game, once you start putting Skill Points into the Augment abilities when it opens, the cap of AP you can have will increase to the maximum of 515 AP points.

Some good rules of thumb:

1. Fill out the inner wheel first. Gives you plenty of options to grab passives you need for later.
2. Use more than one weapon - This is the entire point of the synergy system, to be able to use two or three consumers with only one builder and gives you utility as well.
3. The premade decks aren't great with the exception of the Elite decks once you get to end game content such as Kaidan. Don't worry about them, all they give you is cool outfits.
4. Ask for help if you're still confused. Many people will be glad to share their builds or help you tweak yours! (/chat join sanctuary - the best channel ever)
5. Don't start over if you "chose" the wrong combination or spent it on something you didn't need. Just go out and earn more AP. It's a lot simpler than starting a new character. Plus there's no wrong combination. Just some combinations or synergies that work better than others.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Useful Terms
Builder: Builds Weapon Resources
Consumer: Consumes Weapon Resources
Offensive Target: The enemy be it a mob or another player
Defensive Target: Whichever player/yourself you're targeting for your buffs/heals

PBAoE: Point-Blank Area of Effect
TAoE: Targeted Area of Effect spreading out from the target
GTAoE: Ground Targeted Area of Effect (either you click on the ground where you want it to be placed, or select a mob and before you cast it, click CTRL)

Afflicted: Damage over Time
Hinder: Slowed but not stopped
Impair: Completely stopped/silenced
Weaken: Corrupted: lowers a mobs' healing
Weaken: Debilitated: lowers damage from mobs
Weaken: Exposed: increases damage a mob takes from you

Blast: Cone/column attack
Burst: 2-6 rapid attacks that are applied together(all are low damage)
Chain: jumps between said number of mobs
Focus: Attack that gives multiple hits over time and can be interrupted by: a hinder, impair, line of sight, distance, or you accidentally jumping
Frenzy: PBAoE or TAoE
Strike: Single target damage attack

Barrier: Shields which absorb damage
Beneficial effect: Buff
Detrimental effect: Debuff
Hate: How Aggro is measured
Leech: Converting a percentage of your damage to defensive target heals or self heals.
Heal over time/HoT: Heals player for a certain amount of time
Cleanse: gets rid of the debuffs on you, your defensive target, or the enemy

DABS Deadly Aim + Breaching shot - buffs in a shotgun/pistol build
SF Short Fuse - buff from the Elemental abilities
CU Clean up - cleanse ability from shotguns
WW Win-Win - cleanse ability from pistols
SoH Slight of Hand - Misc ability that removes all crowd control debuffs from you

AoE Area of Effect - You'll see a white area on the ground either on a column, cone, or circle spreading out from the enemy. Get out of it by dodging (double tap w, a, s, or d)
Cleave - normally a cast attack that will not have a white area on the ground but a cast bar somewhere near your ability bar.
Stuns - Usually caused by an AoE, roots you in place and normally leaves you vulnerable to a powerful attack from the enemy.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pros and Cons of each weapon
Ranged:
Pistols:

Pros
Part of the DABS buff set
Good for DPS and Heals
Good from the start of the game

Cons
Mid range weapon, will have to watch your toes especially with mobs that send out a lot of AoE.

Shotguns:

Pros
Part of the DABS buff set
Lots of AOE damage for DPS
good from the start of the game

Cons
Mid range weapon, will have to watch your toes especially with mobs that send out a lot of AoE.

Assault Rifles:

Pros
Longest ranged weapon in the game
LEECH builds are great for soloing/healing
AR/Blood leech build = EZ mode to Kaidan north of the wall

Cons
It takes a LOT of AP to get an effective leech build
Fights will take longer but you'll be able to down things way above your QL level.

Magic:
Elemental:

Pros
Good for DPS/ SF Buff Build
Good for AOE DPS
Good for Soloing
Good for Scenarios
Good for PVP

Cons
Can take a lot of AP to get a solid build for the later areas

Chaos:

Pros
Good for Tanking
Good for PVP
Good for Soloing

Cons
Can take a lot of AP to get a solid build for the later areas
Mostly useful for its passives unless tanking/PvP
Boring animations. Seriously, the most exciting is Domino effect that gives you a green whirlpool for .5 seconds.

Blood:

Pros
Good for Leech
Good for Healing
Good for Dps
Used for Soloing
Good for Heal Tanking

Cons
Can take a lot of AP to get a solid build for the later areas
Have to build for shield strength
Cold-blooded applied at the wrong time - u r ded
You generate a lot of hate. Seriously. Do not. Heal. Before. Tank. Goes. In.

Melee:
Swords:

Pros
Good for Tanking
Good for DPS
Good for Solo
Good for Scenarios
Impairs for daaayyys

Cons
If you can't do a DPS dance out of AoE/Cleave/Stuns, don't melee in dungeons

Hammer:

Pros
Impairs for daaayyys
Good for Tanking
Good for DPS
Good for Soloing

Cons
If you can't do a DPS dance out of AoE/Cleave/Stuns, don't melee in dungeons
Feels a bit clunky to wield sometimes especially lining up the blast column attacks.

Fists:

Pros
Good for Healing
Good for Soloing

Cons
Boring animations. If you're think you're going to be Wolverine-levels of bad-ass, be prepared to be disappointed.
If you can't do a DPS dance out of AoE/Cleave/Stuns, don't melee in dungeons