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General notes

"What packs should I buy?" is by far the most common question asked in the ME3MP communities I frequent, followed closely by "People still play this game?!". The answer to the latter is very simple ("Yes"), the former being less straightforward. Since there are nearly a thousand Rare and Ultra-Rare item cards alone, you have an extremely slim chance of unlocking a specific item you want – especially if you're not willing to go through the hassle of only having the DLC pack containing your desired item installed while shopping. Before offering any further tips, my most important advice is this: Try to make do with what you have. If you're not enjoying yourself while working your way towards the "good stuff", the game won't suddenly turn fun once you unlock the Harrier.

However, there is a "best practice" especially for the early stages of the grind, and anyone consulting a guide like this is likely looking for specific tips. This breakdown is for those who want to get the most out of their hard-earned credits.

Note: The data on the pack compositions is retrieved from Mgamerz's Store Catalog tool which was posted on r/MECOoP a few months ago. This post is an interpretation and different presentation of the results.

Below are some general tips for players at different stages. Click Expand on the right to show contents.

New to intermediate players The general advice is that you should stick to Recruit and Veteran packs while you're mainly playing Bronze or Silver and/or have yet to max your Common and Uncommon stuff, and only bother with the more expensive packs once your basic unlocks are out of the way. I would also not advise you to save up for premium packs until you have a good extraction rate on the higher difficulties: If it takes several matches to save up for a single 5-item pack, you're going to find yourself without equipment and supplies soon enough. This can reduce your efficiency and decrease your chances of success, which means less credits earned overall. You do have a decent chance of unlocking a Rare weapon if you save up for a Spectre or Arsenal pack, but considering how many Rares there are, you only have a 4% chance of getting the one you want once a Rare weapon does drop. The percentage then goes up by a teeny tiny bit for every subsequent Rare weapon unlock. However, even Veteran packs have a 2% chance of dropping a Rare weapon and a separate 2% chance of dropping a Rare character, so while you focus on the basic equipment, you're likely to end up with a few Rare unlocks as a bonus anyway (every 25 Vet packs or so). Veteran packs are also the cheapest way to unlock Uncommon gear upgrades. Another reason you don't want to rush into the expensive packs is that they have a lower drop rate of Common and Uncommon weapon mods. The reason for this is mainly that in the more expensive packs, all weapon mods are grouped together, so the common mods have to compete with the rare ones. (More on this grouping in the next section.) The common mods are not to be underestimated or neglected: the standard damage, piercing, melee, mag-size, and accuracy mods are all permanent bonuses that you will benefit from on any difficulty. See the Recruit and Veteran pack compositions for specifics.

Advanced players If you only want to have a glance at what the packs are likely to drop without any further explanation, you may skip directly to the relevant pack sections. Those of you who are only interested in Ultra-Rare weapon upgrades don't even have to go that far: any "Rare or better" slot has the exact same chance of dropping an Ultra-Rare weapon (7.5%), so you can pay 60,000 credits for a 7.5% chance of getting one, or 99,000 (any Premium pack will do) for a 14.4% chance of getting at least one. The latter is generally a better deal if you don't care much about what other items you get. See the Ultra-Rares section for more hamfisted probability math. What advanced players can do to rack up equipment more effectively is make sure their supply items are constantly pushing the 255 limit. At the beginning of a shopping spree, buy Jumbo Equipment Packs until the consumables are capped before buying any standard 5-item packs. This way you're guaranteed a level III equipment item in each of the 99k packs instead of a 5×Consumables card, for instance. You can also keep buying Jumbos, which will now instead drop equipment items (two each of level I and II).

Cards, slots, and pools

How are the cards selected? This section eplains the store mechanics and sheds some light on how the items are selected when a pack is purchased. Some important terminology: A card is a specific item or a set of them, such as "3 Medi-Gel", "Reset Powers", "Salarian Infiltrator", or "Particle Rifle".

is a specific item or a set of them, such as "3 Medi-Gel", "Reset Powers", "Salarian Infiltrator", or "Particle Rifle". A slot is the "space" for a card within a pack. All packs have 5 card slots except for the Jumbo Equipment Pack, which has 10 slots. Each slot corresponds to a specific set of card pools from which one card is drawn to fill the slot. The pools and their relative percentages are what you'll want to be looking at when determining which pack is the most likely to drop what you're looking for. Let's look at pools a bit more closely: A pool is a set of cards, such as "all Rare weapons" or "level II equipment items".

is a set of cards, such as "all Rare weapons" or "level II equipment items". Pools are independent of each other, and their percentages (the chance that a card is drawn from that pool) may vary between slots and further between packs.

A pool can be selected even if it's empty. If there are no cards left in the selected pool, a card is drawn from a slot-specific backup pool instead. Backup pools typically consist of equipment and possibly other items. A consumables-only pool is considered empty once each of the four consumable types (Cobra missile launchers, medi-gel, ops survival packs, thermal clip packs) are at max capacity (255). Example: Spectre packs have a slot with the following pools: Common and Uncommon weapons (25% chance), Reset Powers card (5%), Level III equipment items (45%), and XP card (25%). If the "Common and Uncommon weapons" pool is selected but all said weapons have already been fully upgraded and there are thus no cards left, a card will be selected from the backup pool, which in that slot's case is a level III equipment card. Similarly, if "Reset Powers" card was initially chosen but the player already has three respec cards in their inventory, the draw happens from the backup pool. Note: Ever wonder why you don't start seeing level IV equipment (Rare) until you've capped some of your Rares? It's because the level IV equipment cards are restricted to a backup pool, which is only drawn from once at least one of the slot's main pools are empty. The pools include Rare weapons, Rare characters, Rare gear items, Ulta-Rare Weapons, and Ultra-Rare characters.

If there are no cards left in the selected pool, a card is drawn from a slot-specific instead. Backup pools typically consist of equipment and possibly other items. A consumables-only pool is considered empty once each of the four consumable types (Cobra missile launchers, medi-gel, ops survival packs, thermal clip packs) are at max capacity (255). Pools may contain items of just one type (only weapons) or items of several types (eg. characters, weapons, and gear items).

Pools sometimes contain items of mixed rarity (such as "all weapon mods").

Drop rates explained

Drop rate and probability math Based on the pool mechanics above, we can technically calculate the probability of getting a specific item from a certain pack. To illustrate, let's say you are hoping to unlock the Acolyte – every cooldown-sensible character's favorite shield-stripping device – and to that end, you decide to buy a Spectre pack. The probability of success can be calculated in two steps: The probability for the desirable pool (one containing Acolyte cards) to be selected. The probability for the desirable card (an Acolyte card) to be selected from within that pool. There are 25 Rare weapons and 10 cards for each, so that's 250 Rare weapon cards in total. The Store Lords have already bestowed 64 Rare weapon cards upon you, so out of the total 250, only 166 remain. This is classic probability math: if you have a bag with one red ball and several white balls, the chance of randomly grabbing the red ball is greater the fewer white balls there are to get in the way. Similarly, your chance of getting the Acolyte increases the fewer other cards there are left in the pool. We're ready to perform the calculation. The chance of a Spectre pack dropping a Rare weapon is 40%. All the 10 Acolyte cards are still left in the Rare weapons pool, so the chance that the card is an Acolyte is in this case 10/166 = 6.02%. Thus, when you open the pack, the chance that the Rare weapons pool is selected and that the card is an Acolyte is 0.4 × 0.0602, which is about 2.4%. Bonus statistics note: Because an item dropping in the store can be modeled with geometric distribution, we can calculate an expected value for how many packs we need to buy in order for the item to drop. As the probability of success in this case is 0.4, you can generally expect to get a Rare weapon in a Spectre pack every 1/0.4 = 2.5 tries (see Math section). This means that you need to buy three Spectre packs in order for a Rare to be more likely to drop than not.

Ultra-Rares

On Ultra-Rare drop rates For the selective reader, let's again note that all the 99k packs are equally likely to drop Ultra-Rare weapons. UR weapons and characters are in separate pools, which means that if an UR character drops, all the other pools (including UR weapons) lost to it and you didn't come any closer to getting a weapon than anything else. Contrary to the Premium Spectre Pack's description, it doesn't seem to drop URs at a higher rate than the other packs. In terms of URs, the only notable difference between the packs is that an Arsenal Pack does not draw from the UR character pool at all; otherwise each "Rare or better" slot (one for the Spectre Pack, two for the 99k ones) has a 7.5% chance of drawing a card from the weapons pool and 5% of drawing it from the characters pool. If we know the drop rate, we can calculate the number of packs we can expect to buy before the item drops and also estimate a price for the UR. Spectre Packs: Since the UR drop rate is 7.5% = 0.075, the expected number of tries to get one is 1/0.075 = 13.333... That is, an UR dropping is a bit more likely than unlikely if you buy at least 14 Spectre Packs. In this scenario an "estimated cost" for the UR would be (1/0.075) × 60,000 = 800,000 credits.

Since the UR drop rate is 7.5% = 0.075, the expected number of tries to get one is 1/0.075 = 13.333... That is, an UR dropping is a bit more likely than unlikely if you buy at least 14 Spectre Packs. In this scenario an "estimated cost" for the UR would be (1/0.075) × 60,000 = 800,000 credits. 99k Packs: The drop rate is 0.075 in two separate slots, so the overall drop rate for "at least 1 UR per pack" is 1 – 0.9252 = 0.144375. The expected number of tries is therefore about seven (1/0.144375 = 6.926...), which puts a single UR weapon's cost at about 685,714 credits. To generalise: if you go to the store to buy Arsenal Packs with about 700k credits, you're neither lucky nor unlucky if you come out with one UR weapon, unlucky if you come out with nothing, and luckier than you should expect if you come out with two or more. See the Useful math section for more on how to calculate expected tries and item prices.

Pack contents breakdown

Now that we're on the same page with terminology and pack mechanics, we can move on to pack composition specifics. Below is a documentation of which items can be obtained in each pack as well as notable availabilities, chance percentages, or backup pools. For example, the Recruit pack promises a "small chance for an Uncommon", but it only pertains to certain Uncommon items. Each root bullet corresponds to one slot.

Note: "Consumables" (or "Supplies") refer to medi-gel, ops survival packs, cobra missile launchers, and thermal clip packs. The number between parentheses indicates the amount. Your initial capacity for each type is 2, but you can unlock permanent upgrades that let you carry a max of 6 into each match.

Recruit Pack

Recruit Pack composition "Small chance for an Uncommon" – 5,000 credits (card cost: 1,000) Two Consumable(1) cards Backup: level I equipment

One level I equipment card Backup: Consumable(1)

Slot 4: 75% chance for a Common mod , out of a specific pool : Assault Rifle Stability Damper, Pistol Scope, SMG Magazine Upgrade, Shotgun Smart Choke, Sniper Rifle Spare Thermal Clip 20% for level I equipment 5% chance for pool that includes all Common mods and the Sniper Rifle Extended Barrel Backup: level I equipment

Slot 5: 60% chance for Common weapon 35% for Common character 2.5% for Uncommon weapon 2.5% for Uncommon character Backup: XP card (12,500 or 62,500)

Notes: Doesn't drop: level II-III equipment, Uncommon mods , any gear upgrades, or anything Rare . Appropriate when you still need Common upgrades. At just 5,000 credits, this is a very affordable option for getting these out of the way. Note that once you max those 5 specific Common mods , you only have a 5% chance of getting the other ones, so at that point it's better to move on to Veteran packs. Note that if the other pools of slot 5 are empty (the items capped), then the XP card is guaranteed. More expensive packs give more XP, but their drop rate is lower, so the Recruit pack's cost– XP ratio remains the best.

Veteran Pack

Veteran Pack composition "At least one Uncommon or better" - 20,000 (card cost: 4,000) Two Consumable(3) cards Backup: level II equipment

Slot 3: 60% chance for level II equipment 40% for Common weapon Backup: level II equipment

Slot 4: 55% chance for any Common mod or SR extended barrel 30% for level II equipment 10% for an XP card (62,500) 5% for weapon mod of any rarity Backup: level II equipment

Slot 5: 52.5% chance for Uncommon weapon 22.5% for Uncommon character 12.5% for Uncommon gear upgrade 4% for Reset Powers card 2.5% for Rare gear upgrade 2% for Permanent consumables capacity upgrade or Reset Powers 2% for Rare weapons 2% for Rare characters Backup: Uncommon weapon, character, or level III equipment

Notes: Appropriate when you still need Common mods (only some of them drop in Recruit packs) have maxed your Common weapons, but still need Uncommon upgrades or want level II equipment. have maxed your Uncommons and want level II and (to a lesser extent) III equipment items (with that small chance for some better goodies). The 12.5% chance of getting Uncommon gear is rather affordable compared to the Spectre Pack's 15% (60,000 credits) or the 99k packs' 20%.

Jumbo Equipment Pack

Jumbo Equipment Pack composition "10 random equipment and supply items" - 33,000 credits (card cost: 3,300) Four slots drop a specific card, or give level I-II equipment as backup: 5 Thermal Clip Packs (Backup: level I equipment)

5 Medi-Gel (Backup: level II equipment)

5 Cobra Missile Launchers (Backup: level II equipment)

5 Ops Survival Packs (Backup: level I equipment) The remaining six cards are drawn from the following pool set: 30% chance for level I equipment

30% for level II equipment

30% for level III equipment

10% for Medi-Gel(2) or Cobra(2) Backup: level II equipment

Notes: Useful for the tactic of keeping your supply items near the 255 cap. See General Notes for advanced players.

Spectre Pack

Spectre Pack composition "At least one Rare or better" - 60,000 (card cost: 12,000) One Consumable(5) card Backup: level III equipment

One level III equipment card

Slot 3: 45% for level III equipment 25% for XP card (250,000) 25% chance for Common or Uncommon weapon 5% for Reset Powers card Backup: level III equipment

Slot 4: 40% chance for any weapon mod 15% for Uncommon gear 15% for Uncommon character 15% for consumable capacity upgrade or Reset Powers Backup: level III equipment

Slot 5: 40% chance for Rare weapon 27.5% for Rare character 20% for Rare gear 7.5% for Ultra-Rare weapon 5% for Ultra-Rare character (Awakened Collector or Volus Adept/Engineer) Backup: Rare character, weapon, gear, or level IV equipment

Notes: Reminder: The UR weapons pool is separate from the UR characters – the weapon pool needs to be chosen for a card of that pool to be drawn. So when the Volus Adept card drops, the chance of getting an Ultra-Rare weapon was (in a sense) lost to begin with. The chance for getting Uncommon gear is decent (15%), but the Veteran pack's 12.5% chance for 20,000 credits is more affordable.

Arsenal Pack

Arsenal Pack composition "At least two Rares or better, as well as a higher chance for weapons" - 99,000 (card cost: 19,800) One Consumable(5) card Backup: level III equipment

Slot 2: 50% chance for Common / Uncommon weapon 45% for level III equipment 5% for Reset Powers Backup: level III equipment

Slot 3: 45% chance for a weapon mod (any rarity) 20% for Uncommon gear 15% for consumable capacity upgrade or Reset Powers Backup: level III equipment

Slots 4 and 5: 72.5% chance for Rare weapon 20% for Rare gear 7.5% for Ultra-Rare weapon Backup: Rare character, weapon, gear, or level IV equipment

Note: This is the only pack that may only drop UR weapons and not UR characters. There's more focus on Rare weapons instead. (If there are Rare characters left, they may still appear if the draw falls to the backup pool.)

Premium Spectre Pack

Premium Spectre Pack composition "At least two Rares or better, as well as a higher chance for Ultra-Rares " - 99,000 (card cost: 19,800) One Consumable(5) card Backup: level III equipment

Slot 2: 45% chance for level III equipment 25% for Common / Uncommon weapon 25% for XP card (250,000) 5% for Reset Powers Backup: level III equipment

Slot 3: 40% chance for a weapon mod (any rarity) 15% for Uncommon gear 15% for consumable capacity upgrade or Reset Powers 15% for Uncommon character Backup: level III equipment

Slots 4 and 5: 40% chance for Rare weapon 27.5% for Rare character 20% for Rare gear 7.5% for Ultra-Rare weapon 5% for Ultra-Rare character Backup: Rare character, weapon, gear, or equipment (level IV)

Note: There seems to be no obvious reason to go for the Premium Spectre Pack – the Arsenal Pack does weapons and mods better, and the Reserves Pack has double the chance of dropping an XP card as well as more than double the chance of dropping a Rare character.

Reserves Pack

Reserves Pack composition "At least two Rares or better, as well as a higher chance for characters" - 99,000 (slot cost: 19,800) One Consumable(5) card Backup: level III equipment

Slot 2: 50% chance for XP card (250,000) 45% for level III equipment 5% for Reset Powers Backup: level III equipment

Slot 3: 35% for Uncommon character 20% chance for a weapon mod (any rarity) 15% for Uncommon gear 15% for consumable capacity upgrade or Reset Powers card Backup: level III equipment

Slots 4 and 5: 67.5% for Rare character 20% for Rare gear 7.5% for Ultra-Rare weapon 5% for Ultra-Rare character Backup: Rare character, weapon, gear, or level IV equipment

Note: The Reserves pack has the highest probabilities of dropping Rare characters and XP cards. However, if all pools of the Recruit Pack's slot 5 are empty, the Recruit pack will technically offer a much better cost–XP ratio. If you're willing to sit through a near-endless Recruit pack opening train, that is.

Useful math

Calculate item prices and more The chance of an item dropping in the store represents a geometric distribution, as it meets the following conditions: The phenomenon being modelled is a sequence of independent trials.

There are only two possible outcomes for each trial, often designated success or failure. (In this case, an item dropping or not dropping.)

The probability of success, p, is the same for every trial. (In this case it means you're buying the same pack over and over, or at least packs where the drop rate p for the desired item is the same.) The expected value, then, is 1/p. Using this method you simply divide 1 by the probability (drop rate), which gives you an idea of how many packs you can expect to have to buy to get the item. You can then further multiply that number by the cost of the pack to get a rough idea of a "price" for the item through that specific pack, which allows you to compare item prices across packs. Example: If we're missing Uncommon gear, what would be the cheapest way to obtain more of them – Veteran, Spectre, or Arsenal packs? Uncommon gear Veteran (20,000) Spectre (60,000) Arsenal (99,000) Drop rate p 12.5% = 0.125 15% = 0.15 20% = 0.20 Expected packs 1/0.125 = 8 1/0.15 = 6.7 1/0.20 = 5 Item price 20,000 x 8 = 160,000 60,000 x 6.7 = 402,000 99,000 x 5 = 495,000 We've determined that Veteran packs have the best price–drop-rate ratio, so in this case they're the cheapest option.

Afterword

As a player who's maxed everything out once on PC (after ~720 hours of playing) and have accounts going on each of the ME3 platforms, I can say the anticipation and excitement of unlocking things in the store is a bigger fun factor than one might think. It is certainly true that some weapons benefit significantly from upgrades, but usually not in a way that will remarkably affect enjoyment or efficiency.

Once there are little or no upgrades left, you're likely going to feel a certain sense of emptiness – racking up that level IV equipment is nice for a while, but credit rewards have largely lost their meaning, which inevitably removes a significant dimension from the overall experience. I, too, was often frustrated with the totally unfairly low drop rate, but you could say I had to max my manifest before realising why it's designed to take so long: not having access to my single-player favorites forced me to explore new playstyles and items I'd previously been certain wasn't for me. This led me to appreciate new aspects of the game and made the journey more relevant than the destination.

I'm so in love with ME3MP in general that I delighted in my capped stuff for over a year before starting over. The restrictions let me revisit the core of the game; I've already gained a better understanding of the Cabal Vanguard's melee playstyle, for instance, and I've noticed that even a Krysae I is quite feasible on Gold (my first Rare character and weapon unlocks on the new account, respectively). I'm also constantly learning more about what really makes you a strong player in this game – the level of your equipment is but one factor alongside general experience, flexibility, knowledge of mechanics, and a healthy attitude.

With that (hopefully) encouraging thought, I thank you for reading and wish you a fun journey towards a maxed manifest!