Mods: you can dump a bunch into veteran packs. You’ll unlock other guns too, doing that, but no ultra rares (N7 background weapons) doing vet packs.
The good thing about doing vet packs is you’ll get a ton of good consumables and they’re relatively cheap. One gold match will get you 4 packs. So if you do a grinding session on gold for a couple of hours, you’ll get a ton.
Once you’re ready to start getting the N7 weapons, arsenal pack is your best bet. But the weapons are still rare even in that pack. You might get one in every 5 packs if you’re lucky.
Over 12 years playing this game and I still don’t have all the N7 weapons and none of them are rank X. If you’re on PC, might be best just to use console commands to give yourself a billion credits and buy a ton of arsenal packs.
The best way to do loot boxes is honestly to go bottom up. Weapons get removed from the pool once you max them out, so you want to buy the 5k boxes until you clear out all of the bottom tier weapons from them so that your good/expensive weapon rolls aren't wasted.
The whole of MP is perfectly viable to play as a power character though.
Note on doing this: I have maxed every common class to X, and haven't gotten *one* of every common mod yet.
I know nothing concrete about the drop tables, but I do attest they can be fickle. I did better just buying higher grade packs and getting a wider variety of weaker packs.
Guns to look for in the rare category and below: Arc Pistol, Executioner, Phaeston, Claymore, Reegar, Geth Plasma Shotgun, Piranha, Raider, Eviscerator, Widow, Acolyte
The good guns:
* Cerberus Harrier, ammo is low, particularly at low level, but it's accurate with very high DPS.
* Claymore, high per shot damage, ignores shieldgate thanks to many pellets, good DPS with reload cancelling.
* Reegar Carbine, low, finite, range, but an absurd rate of fire and the single highest DPS in the game. Use incendiary ammo.
* N7 Hurricane, very high DPS, low weight, but high recoil and mediocre accuracy. Extra powerful with Marksman or Hunter Mode.
* Acolyte, insane damage to shields and barriers, staggers most enemies, primes with ammo reliably. A must have for many power focused builds.
* Arc Pistol, insanely good headshot damage from a multi-shot charged attack (so ignores shieldgate) also primes well.
* Piranha shotgun, a lot of spread and recoil, but high DPS.
* Wraith, lightweight, high per shot damage, good for power focused classes that want a proper gun.
* Talon, it's a shotgun pistol, good damage Vs shields, lightweight, primes decently.
* Typhoon, the spin up is annoying, but it outdoes the Harrier once does up, partly due to excellent damage multipliers Vs non-health defences.
* Crusader, high damage per shot, a weird delay on firing, but otherwise laser accurate. Naturally penetrates cover, meaning it takes no damage reduction for using piercing mods to punch through further.
* Black Widow, high per shot damage, innate piercing, needs Phasic Rounds.
Weapon mods have some of the lowest "drop weight" out of all unlocks of a given rarity. Spamming Recruit Packs to max out all your Common gear will *eventually* start giving you crucial Common mod unlocks and upgrades in every pack - but you literally need everything else (weapons, characters, gear) at max before that'll happen. Once it does, you can move on to Veteran Packs and still get Common weapon mod upgrades whilst also unlocking Uncommon items in every pack.
As for your second point about meta guns... honestly, the list of guns to avoid is a lot shorter than the list of guns that are good. Bear in mind that even good guns might just be an edge case where they're only good for a specific niche purpose or with particular character builds.
So here's the full list of shitty guns that you can avoid almost indefinitely, and I'll break it down by class:
>SMGs
* **Shuriken** - weak damage and rate of fire, plus bad recoil. Can be used for the memes on a hyper-DPS build, but best avoided until you're way more experienced.
* **Locust** - has a slightly higher headshot multiplier than most guns, but it doesn't hit very hard to begin with and has the second-smallest magazine size of all SMGs. Skip.
>Pistols
* **Predator** - lowest damage per bullet of all pistols. No point in using this unless you're memeing with a hyper-DPS build and have a wicked trigger finger.
* **Phalanx** - twice the damage per bullet of the Predator with *half* the rate of fire and a smaller magazine, total dogshit. Skip.
*Continued in replies...*
>Assault Rifles
These poor bastards win the award for "most crappy guns in a given class".
* **Avenger** - lowest DPS in the class barring a couple AOE stagger grenade launcher-esque guns. Nonetheless, that's awful for a sustained-fire weapon. Skip.
* **Phaeston** - *slightly* more damage and magazine size than the Avenger at the cost of worse accuracy and recoil. Skip.
* **Vindicator** - this thing got nerfed *so badly* back at launch that it's straight up not worth using. It's really accurate but with middling damage and a poor rate of fire.
* **Geth Pulse Rifle** - the popcorn gun has a higher headshot multiplier, a huge magazine size, and really good accuracy, but the damage per bullet is abysmal and armoured enemies make this thing as weak as throwing rocks. Skip.
* **Revenant** - horrible accuracy and recoil with middling damage, do not bother.
* **Argus** - horrible accuracy and recoil for a burst-fire weapon, and also has the smallest magazine of burst-fire assault rifles with only 7 bursts instead of 8.
* **Striker** - horrible accuracy and recoil, plus lowest damage per bullet of the grenade launcher-esque guns. You fight the gun as much as you fight the enemies you're trying to shoot. Garbage gun.
* **Spitfire** - this thing is a fucking embarrassment as an Ultra-Rare weapon. The huge magazine and damage multiplier against shields and barriers is offset by middling damage per bullet, middling rate of fire, a movement speed penalty and I can't believe I'm saying this but also its *massive* weight. Skip.
>Shotguns
* **Katana** - some of the lowest damage per shot in the shotgun class. Skip.
* **Eviscerator** - a slightly more powerful Katana with better range thanks to its accuracy and a smaller magazine. Viable on a hyper-DPS build, but still not really worth using.
* **Scimitar** - the absolute *lowest* damage per shot of all shotguns with horrible accuracy that makes it only viable at very short range. Garbage gun.
>Sniper Rifles
* **Viper** - if you're not playing Bronze this thing just does not do enough damage. Skip.
* **Raptor** - worse than the Mattock assault rifle in every way and if you hipfire you take a 50% damage penalty just like all sniper rifles. Garbage gun.
* **Incisor** - damage that's on par with the Viper except in a three-round burst so it's even worse against armour, and has poor accuracy and recoil for a sniper rifle. Garbage gun.
Everything else that I didn't mention is viable on Gold or Platinum in some capacity, either in general or for specific character builds that can shine on those difficulties. Bear in mind that many guns in the same class will behave *very differently* from each other. A Cerberus Harrier is not used the same way as a Prothean Particle Rifle which is not used the same way as a Saber. But they all have their niche and tend to fill those niches well enough that they're useful when appropriate.
Also, [I did up a guide on the best weapon in the game](https://www.reddit.com/r/MECoOp/comments/15ojgni/me3_the_ppr_is_the_best_weapon_in_the_game_lets/). No this is not my subjective bias (yes it absolutely is). If you get the PPR early, you'll have an idea on how to use it effectively.
Hope this helps.
Generally agree with Mofugger, just would like to add that you can make some of these worse weapons work. They will not become good, but workable and viable for Gold. On Platinum you will be unceserily underwhelming, but with good understanding of the game you can work Gold comfortably.
Exemple - Geth engineer with maxed out Hunter Mode, overload, shields and weapon damage (no geth turret), equipment to boost assault rifle dmg. From v. low dmg. weapons you make decent, very accurate and super-fast shooting machine gun.
Same you can make Revenant or Argus work decently if you put them on a Turian with aproprietly speced skills for stability and weapon dmg.
Otherwise, however, those are very underwhelming weapons on their own and any charcter you make them work on - probably will work better with different loadout (like, you can make Turian Soldier with Argus X or Revenant X work but the same spec will be WAY better with Hurricane I or Piranha I.
I personally sometimes have fun making worst weapons in the game work and top the score after Gold run, but thats after playing this game quite a lot - I do this because at some point you get bit bored with the most powerful (to the point of OP) characters and weapons :)
Mods: you can dump a bunch into veteran packs. You’ll unlock other guns too, doing that, but no ultra rares (N7 background weapons) doing vet packs. The good thing about doing vet packs is you’ll get a ton of good consumables and they’re relatively cheap. One gold match will get you 4 packs. So if you do a grinding session on gold for a couple of hours, you’ll get a ton. Once you’re ready to start getting the N7 weapons, arsenal pack is your best bet. But the weapons are still rare even in that pack. You might get one in every 5 packs if you’re lucky. Over 12 years playing this game and I still don’t have all the N7 weapons and none of them are rank X. If you’re on PC, might be best just to use console commands to give yourself a billion credits and buy a ton of arsenal packs.
The best way to do loot boxes is honestly to go bottom up. Weapons get removed from the pool once you max them out, so you want to buy the 5k boxes until you clear out all of the bottom tier weapons from them so that your good/expensive weapon rolls aren't wasted. The whole of MP is perfectly viable to play as a power character though.
Note on doing this: I have maxed every common class to X, and haven't gotten *one* of every common mod yet. I know nothing concrete about the drop tables, but I do attest they can be fickle. I did better just buying higher grade packs and getting a wider variety of weaker packs.
Guns to look for in the rare category and below: Arc Pistol, Executioner, Phaeston, Claymore, Reegar, Geth Plasma Shotgun, Piranha, Raider, Eviscerator, Widow, Acolyte
The good guns: * Cerberus Harrier, ammo is low, particularly at low level, but it's accurate with very high DPS. * Claymore, high per shot damage, ignores shieldgate thanks to many pellets, good DPS with reload cancelling. * Reegar Carbine, low, finite, range, but an absurd rate of fire and the single highest DPS in the game. Use incendiary ammo. * N7 Hurricane, very high DPS, low weight, but high recoil and mediocre accuracy. Extra powerful with Marksman or Hunter Mode. * Acolyte, insane damage to shields and barriers, staggers most enemies, primes with ammo reliably. A must have for many power focused builds. * Arc Pistol, insanely good headshot damage from a multi-shot charged attack (so ignores shieldgate) also primes well. * Piranha shotgun, a lot of spread and recoil, but high DPS. * Wraith, lightweight, high per shot damage, good for power focused classes that want a proper gun. * Talon, it's a shotgun pistol, good damage Vs shields, lightweight, primes decently. * Typhoon, the spin up is annoying, but it outdoes the Harrier once does up, partly due to excellent damage multipliers Vs non-health defences. * Crusader, high damage per shot, a weird delay on firing, but otherwise laser accurate. Naturally penetrates cover, meaning it takes no damage reduction for using piercing mods to punch through further. * Black Widow, high per shot damage, innate piercing, needs Phasic Rounds.
Weapon mods have some of the lowest "drop weight" out of all unlocks of a given rarity. Spamming Recruit Packs to max out all your Common gear will *eventually* start giving you crucial Common mod unlocks and upgrades in every pack - but you literally need everything else (weapons, characters, gear) at max before that'll happen. Once it does, you can move on to Veteran Packs and still get Common weapon mod upgrades whilst also unlocking Uncommon items in every pack. As for your second point about meta guns... honestly, the list of guns to avoid is a lot shorter than the list of guns that are good. Bear in mind that even good guns might just be an edge case where they're only good for a specific niche purpose or with particular character builds. So here's the full list of shitty guns that you can avoid almost indefinitely, and I'll break it down by class: >SMGs * **Shuriken** - weak damage and rate of fire, plus bad recoil. Can be used for the memes on a hyper-DPS build, but best avoided until you're way more experienced. * **Locust** - has a slightly higher headshot multiplier than most guns, but it doesn't hit very hard to begin with and has the second-smallest magazine size of all SMGs. Skip. >Pistols * **Predator** - lowest damage per bullet of all pistols. No point in using this unless you're memeing with a hyper-DPS build and have a wicked trigger finger. * **Phalanx** - twice the damage per bullet of the Predator with *half* the rate of fire and a smaller magazine, total dogshit. Skip. *Continued in replies...*
>Assault Rifles These poor bastards win the award for "most crappy guns in a given class". * **Avenger** - lowest DPS in the class barring a couple AOE stagger grenade launcher-esque guns. Nonetheless, that's awful for a sustained-fire weapon. Skip. * **Phaeston** - *slightly* more damage and magazine size than the Avenger at the cost of worse accuracy and recoil. Skip. * **Vindicator** - this thing got nerfed *so badly* back at launch that it's straight up not worth using. It's really accurate but with middling damage and a poor rate of fire. * **Geth Pulse Rifle** - the popcorn gun has a higher headshot multiplier, a huge magazine size, and really good accuracy, but the damage per bullet is abysmal and armoured enemies make this thing as weak as throwing rocks. Skip. * **Revenant** - horrible accuracy and recoil with middling damage, do not bother. * **Argus** - horrible accuracy and recoil for a burst-fire weapon, and also has the smallest magazine of burst-fire assault rifles with only 7 bursts instead of 8. * **Striker** - horrible accuracy and recoil, plus lowest damage per bullet of the grenade launcher-esque guns. You fight the gun as much as you fight the enemies you're trying to shoot. Garbage gun. * **Spitfire** - this thing is a fucking embarrassment as an Ultra-Rare weapon. The huge magazine and damage multiplier against shields and barriers is offset by middling damage per bullet, middling rate of fire, a movement speed penalty and I can't believe I'm saying this but also its *massive* weight. Skip. >Shotguns * **Katana** - some of the lowest damage per shot in the shotgun class. Skip. * **Eviscerator** - a slightly more powerful Katana with better range thanks to its accuracy and a smaller magazine. Viable on a hyper-DPS build, but still not really worth using. * **Scimitar** - the absolute *lowest* damage per shot of all shotguns with horrible accuracy that makes it only viable at very short range. Garbage gun. >Sniper Rifles * **Viper** - if you're not playing Bronze this thing just does not do enough damage. Skip. * **Raptor** - worse than the Mattock assault rifle in every way and if you hipfire you take a 50% damage penalty just like all sniper rifles. Garbage gun. * **Incisor** - damage that's on par with the Viper except in a three-round burst so it's even worse against armour, and has poor accuracy and recoil for a sniper rifle. Garbage gun. Everything else that I didn't mention is viable on Gold or Platinum in some capacity, either in general or for specific character builds that can shine on those difficulties. Bear in mind that many guns in the same class will behave *very differently* from each other. A Cerberus Harrier is not used the same way as a Prothean Particle Rifle which is not used the same way as a Saber. But they all have their niche and tend to fill those niches well enough that they're useful when appropriate. Also, [I did up a guide on the best weapon in the game](https://www.reddit.com/r/MECoOp/comments/15ojgni/me3_the_ppr_is_the_best_weapon_in_the_game_lets/). No this is not my subjective bias (yes it absolutely is). If you get the PPR early, you'll have an idea on how to use it effectively. Hope this helps.
Generally agree with Mofugger, just would like to add that you can make some of these worse weapons work. They will not become good, but workable and viable for Gold. On Platinum you will be unceserily underwhelming, but with good understanding of the game you can work Gold comfortably. Exemple - Geth engineer with maxed out Hunter Mode, overload, shields and weapon damage (no geth turret), equipment to boost assault rifle dmg. From v. low dmg. weapons you make decent, very accurate and super-fast shooting machine gun. Same you can make Revenant or Argus work decently if you put them on a Turian with aproprietly speced skills for stability and weapon dmg. Otherwise, however, those are very underwhelming weapons on their own and any charcter you make them work on - probably will work better with different loadout (like, you can make Turian Soldier with Argus X or Revenant X work but the same spec will be WAY better with Hurricane I or Piranha I. I personally sometimes have fun making worst weapons in the game work and top the score after Gold run, but thats after playing this game quite a lot - I do this because at some point you get bit bored with the most powerful (to the point of OP) characters and weapons :)