How to beat harvesters

Question

I'm having trouble beating the harvesters, they'll often fly off before I can beat them. I've found using the sniper rifle works well but it fires too slowly and runs out of ammunition quickly, is there any more sustainable method of beating them?

I am an Infiltrator playing on normal difficulty.

Answer 1

Harvesters have Armor style health so heavy anti-armor weapons such as sniper rifles are preferred(If you're feeling brave, heavy pistols or really brave, shotguns). The Anti-Material rifles (Black Widow, Widow, or Javelin) should also be your weapon of choice as they penetrate armor thus eating it faster.

Your ammo choices should also be anti-armor as well, Incinerary and Armor Piercing rounds do bonus damage to armor. Warp Ammo is a close second if you have access to nether.

The weak points on a Harvester are the glowing disc in it's chest, or the eyes on the face. 3-4 shots from an Anti-Material rifle running Incinerary or Armor Piercing rounds here will put it down quickly.

If you're looking for a quick solution, take a look around the area briefly, most of the time there's a Hydra Rocket launcher or other heavy weapon nearby. One good bodyshot with the heavy weapon takes out that foe immediately.

The only place that this isn't fesable is the Thessia Mission. Just bunker down until Talon 5 returns to draw off the Harvesters. Between them and the Ravagers, pressing on is suicide.

Answer 2

Use disruptor ammunition in your sniper rifle if you're not already. You don't have to beat the harvesters, you only have to damage them and they'll run away.

Answer 3

I play an infiltrator and been able to 1-2 shot them since I meet the first on normal difficulty. I focused on high damage. My current spec I got maxed Disruptor ammo, Tactical Cloak and Operational Mastery all focusing on max head shot damage. I'm using a Black Widow with Extended Barrel and Enhanced Scope and this gear:

Answer 4

With sniper it is easy. You can use any sniper rifle you like. Probably it is the easiest with the Widow, but I managed to kill them with Raptor and Viper as well. The infiltrator cast is better than the soldier, because you can use the tactical cloak to go to a much better position to aim at the harvesters.

The following things can increase your weapon damage:

• player level and cast (I am not certain whether the level and cast or the power training what matters here. What I am certain of, that it is easier to begin with a level 30 character than with a level 1 character, because you can start to max out powers immediately.)
• powers like tactical cloak, fitness, operational mastery (some of them have weapon damage, while others sniper damage bonus)
• ammo modifying powers like warp ammo, armor piercing ammo, etc. (which burn through barriers and armors. note: my personal favorite was the cryo ammo with Viper in ME2 against the husks)
• custom armor mods (Kuwashii Visor, Armax Arsenal and Hahne-Kedar mods increase weapon and headshot damage)
• weapon damage mods (sniper rifle concentration mod and extended barrel)
• weapon level (You can increase the level from 1 to 5 by upgrading the weapon, or by importing an ME3 character you can upgrade some weapons to level 10. I am not certain about how much that matters.)
• intel terminal upgrades (You can open upgrade modkits and select weapon damage bonus.)

With these modifications with a Widow it is about 4 shots to kill a harvester. It is better to aim at the head, because you have headshot damage bonus. With a Viper or a Raptor it requires more, but you don't need to reload them as far as I remember. If you still do not manage to kill them then you should use team force damage to increase you chances.