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[Achire]

Video

First attempt after the buffs. I guess they did help a bit. Grabbed by the very first Banshee spawned.

Modifié par Achire, 24 août 2012 - 11:19 .

[Pedro Costa]

Achire wrote...
First attempt after the buffs. I guess they did help a bit. Grabbed by the very first Banshee spawned.

Kit? Gear/Equiipment?

Bloody good try, tho.

Also, I'm honestly loving how this community believes Charge is an insta win button, and there's nothing wrong with the class.
And it pisses me off even more that it is the same community that despises vanguards because -and I quote- "They're only good at dying, kill-stealing and screwing the rest of the team up".
This is not to mention how it is obviously the people who never play a vanguard above silver talking.

Sigh... I'm really reaching my tipping point.

[Methew]

What is the "proper" way to play the Cerberus Vanguard?

I heard of a build that drops Lash and takes points in Fitness for melee damage since Cerbguard's heavy melee deals damage in an area of effect. Charge, Heavy Melee during the GCD then Smash. However I'm not that fond of it. Is it a matter of me not playing correctly or should I promote when I hit 20 again and just dump the points back into Lash again?

If I do the latter, what's really the difference between playing Cerbguard and Cerb Adept? Adept get's easier long range BEs against unshielded targets while Cerbguard gets a free barrier refill on command?

[Quething]

My smashguard is built for melee. Full melee Fitness, the usual Smash evolutions, Area/Power Charge and three in Lash just for upload objectives (you're going to use a pistol, you don't need the weapon weight from the racial passive). Melee stunner on a Talon (if you have one; I'm using the Eagle for lulz since I don't) and melee gear rounds out the set. The trick is to stack power bonuses from melee kills to make Charge and Smash that much more brutal; I'll charge a small group of trash, melee once or twice until I get a kill, charge again, and then Smash any nearby heavies. You can't get locked into a routine, it's all about flexibility, meleeing when you think it'll kill and Smashing through walls when things are too hot.

It's a lot of fun on Silver, although you have to remember you're not a novaguard and your melee isn't giving you invulnerability frames. And it's mostly a Cerb killer, you just don't get enough melee finishes from Reapers. I've never even considered taking it to Gold, much less Platinum, but with the new buffs maybe I'll give it a shot this week.

Modifié par Quething, 24 août 2012 - 02:58 .

[Methew]

Quething wrote...

My smashguard is built for melee. Full melee Fitness, the usual Smash evolutions, Area/Power Charge and three in Lash just for upload objectives (you're going to use a pistol, you don't need the weapon weight from the racial passive). Melee stunner on a Talon (if you have one; I'm using the Eagle for lulz since I don't) and melee gear rounds out the set. The trick is to stack power bonuses from melee kills to make Charge and Smash that much more brutal; I'll charge a small group of trash, melee once or twice until I get a kill, charge again, and then Smash any nearby heavies. You can't get locked into a routine, it's all about flexibility, meleeing when you think it'll kill and Smashing through walls when things are too hot.

It's a lot of fun on Silver, although you have to remember you're not a novaguard and your melee isn't giving you invulnerability frames. And it's mostly a Cerb killer, you just don't get enough melee finishes from Reapers. I've never even considered taking it to Gold, much less Platinum, but with the new buffs maybe I'll give it a shot this week.

Heavy Melee kills increase power damage?

Is Smash considered a melee attack and gets double damage from the 5A evolution of Fitness? Because I'm thinking it's a power and that only 5B on Charge increases it's damage.

[Quething]

Methew wrote...

Heavy Melee kills increase power damage?

For Smashguard it does. Rank 6a, Power Synergy: Increase melee damage bonus by 30%, increase power damage bonus by 30% for 20 seconds after an enemy is killed by heavy melee.

It's particularly useful for Smashguard since your heavy melee is faster and more reliable than your light melee, which you basically never want to use, so you don't get the annoying "I killed it with melee and didn't proc my buff" thing.

[Methew]

Quething wrote...

Methew wrote...

Heavy Melee kills increase power damage?

For Smashguard it does. Rank 6a, Power Synergy: Increase melee damage bonus by 30%, increase power damage bonus by 30% for 20 seconds after an enemy is killed by heavy melee.

It's particularly useful for Smashguard since your heavy melee is faster and more reliable than your light melee, which you basically never want to use, so you don't get the annoying "I killed it with melee and didn't proc my buff" thing.

*Is taken back. Swaps out current game for ME3 again. Loads up MP and Smashguard.*

I honestly never bothered to look.

I figured that since it was called Fitness it was cookie cutter Fitness like the Novaguard.

[Achire]

DarkLord_PT wrote...

Achire wrote...
First attempt after the buffs. I guess they did help a bit. Grabbed by the very first Banshee spawned.

Kit? Gear/Equiipment?

Bloody good try, tho.

Video finished uploading.

Talon X with AP/Magazine, Disruptor IV, Pistol Amp III, Cyclonic Modulator IV, Stronghold Gear V.

[Pedro Costa]

Achire wrote...
Video finished uploading.

Talon X with AP/Magazine, Disruptor IV, Pistol Amp III, Cyclonic Modulator IV, Stronghold Gear V.

24 minutes to wave 7? Seems a pretty reasonable time!
Is the mag size so important that it beats taking the extended barrel?

[Achire]

The magazine upgrade is really quite useful. I can't seem to get the reload while Charging thing to work without adding more vulnerability frames, and that's just a bad idea on Platinum. If someone can make it work feel free to give some advice. You can see on the video that I have some trouble finding a good time to reload, so having 7 shots instead of 4 is very nice. EB adds about 16.7% damage in this case (more on Armor). Nice but not vital.

Really liking Youtube's automatic music identifier. It think's Marvin Gaye's magnificent "T" Plays it Cool is the same as some crappy remix by some random kiddo.

Modifié par Achire, 24 août 2012 - 05:37 .

[Pedro Costa]

Achire wrote...

The magazine upgrade is really quite useful. I can't seem to get the reload while Charging thing to work without adding more vulnerability frames, and that's just a bad idea on Platinum. If someone can make it work feel free to give some advice. You can see on the video that I have some trouble finding a good time to reload, so having 7 shots instead of 4 is very nice. EB adds about 16.7% damage in this case (more on Armor). Nice but not vital.

That does make sense. Thanks.

Really liking Youtube's automatic music identifier. It think's Marvin Gaye's magnificent "T" Plays it Cool is the same as some crappy remix by some random kiddo.

Youtube is awesome like that...

[Achire]

So it's been a couple of days. How do you guys feel about the changes?

[grayrest]

Does anybody have tips on full nova vanguard? I did a couple solo silvers to try it out but it wasn't until I slapped on power efficiency and structural ergonomics that I got enough invincibility frames with a full nova stack to make the charge/nova cycle work. Threads/videos/advice would be appreciated since I get the feeling I'm doing it wrong. It IS considerably higher dps than half blast.

Modifié par grayrest, 24 août 2012 - 09:43 .

[Pedro Costa]

Achire wrote...

So it's been a couple of days. How do you guys feel about the changes?

Good. Really good.
It became especially noticeable how much more effective my Slayer got.
I died oftenly with him on Silver, but decided to give him another go after the buff, so I slapped it a Martial Biotic 1, an Eviscerator X with EB and blade attachment and absolutely rocked unknown/cerberus/Silver with it, it's like night and day, really.

Still doubt any non-krogan vanguard will be of much use on Platinum for the non-elite vanguard players without some damage mitigation buffs, tho.

grayrest wrote...

Does anybody have tips on full nova vanguard? I did a couple solo silvers to try it out but it wasn't until I slapped on power efficiency and structural ergonomics that I got enough invincibility frames with a full nova stack to make the charge/nova cycle work. Threads/videos/advice would be appreciated since I get the feeling I'm doing it wrong. It IS considerably higher dps than half blast.

 
http://www.youtube.c...5?feature=watch 
http://www.youtube.c...n?feature=watch 
As for tips...
Practice. A lot. Don't do solos at first, rely on a team to help you out when you screw up while getting the hang of it. After you feel competent enough, you can do a few solos before jumping to gold, tho. Only immediately Nova if you're charging things that can sync kill (funny things happen when a banshee or a phantom grab you while you're on invulnerability frames, otherwise wait .5secs, that'll help.
Also, combat roll while pressing back/left or back/right, it gets you out of geth prime stun/phantom sync and still keeps you within Nova range. The DR you get from it and its duration also help while you wait for charge to be ready.
You can also heavy melee right after you charge and only then Nova. But this one's situational and usually you won't be dealing full damage because your barriers will most likely have taken a hit or two.

Also, this convo between me and 
tyhw 
http://social.biowar...9430/2#13822702 

And this topic on the Vanguard group:
http://social.biowar...scussion/22895/ 


For reference, right now I'm at the skill level where a Wraith I (160% cooldown) and a Shield Booster II (+15% shields) are all I need to rule over Silver, even though I feel more comfortable with an Eviscerator X (EB/Shredder) and a Carnifex IV (EB/ ULM).

Hopefully more seasoned Manguards will be able to help you out more than I can.

[Quething]

Haven't tried the rest yet, but I've been playing Gold novaguard a bit since the buff. It actually feels pretty good against phantoms, once you get the power bonus going. I can get to round 8 now before I fall off the top of the scoreboard instead of round 6. Progress!

When I get home from work tomorrow morning I'll give it a shot against PuG Reapers, see if it holds up any better there.

Modifié par Quething, 24 août 2012 - 10:41 .

[Pedro Costa]

Quething wrote...

Haven't tried the rest yet, but I've been playing Gold novaguard a bit since the buff. It actually feels pretty good against phantoms, once you get the power bonus going. I can get to round 8 now before I fall off the top of the scoreboard instead of round 6. Progress!

 
I've got top score on most Cerberus gold matches with a full-novaguard after I decided to step up to Gold, my problem is how often I die =/

When I get home from work tomorrow morning I'll give it a shot against PuG Reapers, see if it holds up any better there.

Just got out of my first two gold pugs vs Reapers, lv 18 Novaguard and lv19 novaguard, top score both times with one fury in the first match and a fury and an AJ on the second. Sadly, died about 9 or 10 times and spend almost all my medpacks as lv18 and most survival ops as lv19, used a shield booster II and an eviscerator X (EB V/Shredder III). On the second match I added a Cyclonic III and AP ammo III.

Many of the times I died it was because I derped (missed a cannibal/marauder who backstabbed me)... Definitely lacking in the protection department, but Charge is doing decently well, even against banshees.

[MP-Ryan]

I haven't had a chance to fire up a Novaguard on gold yet, but plan to tonight. I may promote my Vanguards afterward instead of wasting a few respec cards, since I should be able to take radius on both my half-blast and full-blast builds.  My only disappointment is that Novaguards still appear to require a power amplifier to get enough force to stagger Phantoms if you spec radius and weapon synergy, which is just wrong.  Charge puts you right in an enemies' face - it should stagger reliably at rank 3.

My Kroguard was happily thrashing Geth last night, and I've definitely noticed a difference in Charge's crowd-clearing with radius since the boost.

Modifié par MP-Ryan, 24 août 2012 - 11:54 .

[grayrest]

DarkLord_PT wrote...

Practice. A lot. Don't do solos at first, rely on a team to help you out when you screw up while getting the hang of it. After you feel competent enough, you can do a few solos before jumping to gold, tho.

Thanks for your response. Looks like people simply have fewer things shooting at them and rely mainly on the gates.

[MP-Ryan]

So, just ran two matches with my full blast Novaguard specced as follows: http://narida.pytalh...9p7ECREN4L4I4H4 (don't mock the weapons, I have a limited selection for 200% cooldown; I actually didn't have a strength enhanced but the class builder stuck it back on after I deselected it)

First game was U/C/G, ended up on Condor. Fared pretty well here; topped the leaderboard until about wave 8, and then got overtaken by a charge-less asari vanguard. Phantoms were staggering reasonably well, and my downs were the result of Atlas rocket staggers or turrets pretty much. Downed 4 times over the course of the match - and sync-killed by a Phantom that failed to stagger and grabbed me as soon as charge dropped in Wave 11. Had a decent PuG team with only one getting carried (a kroguard no less, shameful). Full blast has definitely been rendered gold-viable on some maps* (see below) as a result of the boost to biotic charge.

Second game was U/C/G, ended up on Giant with a new PuG squad. We wiped in wave 10 after I finished the objective. Topped the leaderboard with over 110,000. Same build as above, but toting a Carnifex instead of the Disciple+Acolyte set. That was a mistake - the twitchy-but-sometimes-firing stagger from a Disciple can be quite useful, and Acolytes are murder against turrets.  I missed both. We did quite well initially (as well as can be expected when the leader doubles the score of second throughout) and the novaguard performed admirably until wave 9 when I started running into groups of Phantoms, which is when the weirdness started. I'd charge a lone Phantom, her sister would come around a corner and melee as charge dropped, staggering me despite charge having finished just as she meleed. I'd hit Nova, but it would refuse to go off, and then the pair of them would melee me to death while I'm stunlocked. Then it got worse - charge wasn't even staggering the first Phantom, so I was meleed immediately after charging. I got downed 4 times in 45 seconds by three separate groups of phantoms because this kept happening - no stagger, slashed with sword, dead. A couple times I got staggered as I triggered the nova animation, which made no sense whatsoever. I wasn't sync-killed, just stunlocked by their melees because it didn't matter how far I disengaged to max synergy before coming back, if I dropped back in on two phantoms in close proximity I was dead.  I couldn't even backroll or sideroll after charge, that's how fast they were stunlocking me.

That said, that was only the last two waves. Condor went much more smoothly. In general, I'd say the charge buff has definitely improved the novaguard so it can be consistently used in Gold matches (beyond it's hit-or-miss performance before), but the inconsistent stagger when radius-specced is a serious problem against Phantoms. So is the stunlock - it's absolute nonsense that I can't stagger a phantom when she has friends, but she can actually stunlock me with melee and prevent the additional use of charge to escape or nova for invul frames.

Silver was a joke for novaguard's before, even solo, so I'm not going to bother testing there. This thread has been about vanguard viability in higher difficulties, which is better but still needs tweaking. Frankly, if we couldn't be stunlocked survivability wouldn't be much of an issue. With stunlock, we need a major health OR force OR weapon damage bonus attached to charge in addition to the buffs already granted.  Really, I think if all Vanguards gained the force necessary to stagger phantoms at BC rank 3, I think they could probably leave it at that for balance changes.

Modifié par MP-Ryan, 25 août 2012 - 02:14 .

[Pedro Costa]

MP-Ryan wrote...
[...]We did quite well initially (as well as can be expected when the leader doubles the score of second throughout) and the novaguard performed admirably until wave 9 when I started running into groups of Phantoms, which is when the weirdness started. I'd charge a lone Phantom, her sister would come around a corner and melee as charge dropped, staggering me despite charge having finished just as she meleed. I'd hit Nova, but it would refuse to go off, and then the pair of them would melee me to death while I'm stunlocked. Then it got worse - charge wasn't even staggering the first Phantom, so I was meleed immediately after charging. I got downed 4 times in 45 seconds by three separate groups of phantoms because this kept happening - no stagger, slashed with sword, dead. A couple times I got staggered as I triggered the nova animation, which made no sense whatsoever. I wasn't sync-killed, just stunlocked by their melees because it didn't matter how far I disengaged to max synergy before coming back, if I dropped back in on two phantoms in close proximity I was dead.  I couldn't even backroll or sideroll after charge, that's how fast they were stunlocking me.

That is why I took F&D at upgrade 4, Radius Charge is too inconsistent for me.
Also, can you confirm if power amps/gear also boost power force?
Narida's says it does, but many here say it doesn't, and the failed staggers might've been because the consumable didn't up force and so you were actually staggering them due to the Power Synergy upgrade

[...]vanguard viability in higher difficulties, which is better but still needs tweaking. Frankly, if we couldn't be stunlocked survivability wouldn't be much of an issue. With stunlock, we need a major health OR force OR weapon damage bonus attached to charge in addition to the buffs already granted.

This is my overall impression aswell. In damage dealing, I'm not extremely happy with full-Nova, but I'm satisfied enough for gold to leave it alone. Achire's the Platinum guy, after all =P

grayrest wrote...
Thanks for your response. Looks like people simply have fewer things shooting at them and rely mainly on the gates.

No problem, and yeah, I definitely rely on the gates heavily. And trust me, there's always too much stuff shooting any of us. Especially when there's that stupid marauder/turret/nemesis you didn't see that is now shooting at you after you've just dropped a Nova.

[Achire]

Power Amplifiers and Martial War Amp etc only boost power damage, not Force. You can't stagger Phantoms with Charge as a Nova or a Drellguard if you spec for both Area Charge and Weapon Synergy. All the other Vanguards can.

The trick to dealing wiht Phantoms other than speccing properly is always making sure you have the 10s power synergy buff up when you Charge one. So Charge something else first. Full Nova also staggers with Power Synergy.

Modifié par Achire, 25 août 2012 - 02:26 .

[MP-Ryan]

Achire wrote...

Power Amplifiers and Martial War Amp etc only boost power damage, not Force. You can't stagger Phantoms with Charge as a Nova or a Drellguard if you spec for both Area Charge and Weapon Synergy. All the other Vanguards can.

The trick to dealing wiht Phantoms other than speccing properly is always making sure you have the 10s power synergy buff up when you Charge one. So Charge something else first. Full Nova also staggers with Power Synergy.

That's the weird thing - I was specced for power syngery and was building up before the phantom group charges.  All I can figure is that it wasn't building enough with the spacing, and that's what ended the stagger.  And of course it doesn't matter if you stagger phantom 1, if her sister appears as charge finishes and melees you and gets you staggered it's all over.

I was quite surprised what a difference the charge buff made overall, but the problem for the novaguard remains the infernal stagger/stunlock mechanics that players get subject to.  I don't dare attempt platinum because it tends to be a constant stagger-fest, and I don't see myself being an asset there.  For now, at least until either force gets boosted or stunlocking gets addressed I think I'm sticking with my kroguard for platinum games.

[disappearingone11]

All this talk about novaguards (and a little about the Phoenix) is good because we need to know how they perform, but I'm curious to hear more about the others (Kroguard excluded).

Before promoting eveyone for the weekend op I did a little gold testing with the Slayer using a 6/6/3/5/6 build (sounds crazy to gimp BS, but I was more interested in testing BC and possible PD/BC combo viability).

The results were mixed: utilizing the short melee DR bonus, I found him to be pretty effective at staying toe-to-toe with the Geth and Reapers (less so against Cerberus, which was surprising), and he turned out to be particularly good at ravager killing. Unfortunately, PD/BC didn't work so well (not a big surprise, but I was hoping): even with a cyclonic modulator III and stronghold V gear, just using PD once at close range (with efficient blast evo) was very, very dangerous, and required an immediate charge to avoid immediate death.

Shotgun blasts were a far better BC complement (BS is way to slow), but I couldn't find a clear winner as far as which was best. I tried the disciple, reeger, and pirhana (all X's). The disciple gave the best cd of course, but I'd have been better off using a carnifex for damage output; the reeger was hit or miss--damage was great, but weight became an issue (no reduction bonuses, so I was at 135%) since I wasn't always able to charge quickly enough; and the pirhana was in between: 170% weight was managable, but I needed sustained fire to do enough damage, which was too difficult to do while keeping my DR up. Btw, I'm not claiming that these are the best shotguns for vanguards, they just seemed to be my best options for damage/weight balancing (I don't have the wraith, so it wasn't an option).

Last note: the short melee definitely helped my survivability, and the buffs to BC allowed for a lot more staggers (used area and full barrier evo's). However, the barriers are still just too weak, even with maxed durability fitness, which obviously comes at the expense of melee damage, so the short melee is an almost pure survival mechanism. Bottom line is that poor survivability still ruined my gold viability. And phantoms are still the bane of my existence--I can handle one at a time, but no more.

Modifié par disappearingone11, 25 août 2012 - 03:40 .

[disappearingone11]

[Accidental double post.]

Modifié par disappearingone11, 25 août 2012 - 03:41 .

[Pedro Costa]

I actually use a 6/6/3/5/6 on my Slayer, it's the most effective build for me.
http://narida.pytalh...9@0YEROF4I4@0@0

I 3xPD -> Charge -> 3x light melee -> Charge, and use the Talon where it seems appropriate.