851 réponses à ce sujet

[-Preie-]

I would say that if you have to NOT incorporate the class's main ability, biotic charge, than the class is NOT ok. Just like saying that the class is fine, besides platinum. I don't see the argument there. Sure in gold it should be used a little more defensively but with camping games, it is hard to justify a Vanguard in the roster.

[megawug]

Personally, I haven't found a way to play AV on platinum. Gold is extremely hard, but can be done with decent teammates, but platinum is murder.

Her charge is extremely weak, stasis is only good for grunts and can't depend heavily on lift grenades, even with grenade capacity V. She can survive without charging, but then there are lots of classes better suited for that.  And it's no fun playing a vanguard that doesn't use its signature ability!

Modifié par megawug, 02 août 2012 - 06:47 .

[Achire]

Gamemako had some good ideas on Balance ALL the Thing! I think the main reasons why Kroguard is quite good on Platinum and the rest of the Vanguards aren't are:

1. Can stagger Phantoms
2. Stagger immunity. Getting staggered kills you very fast on Platinum.
3. High base shields, and thus high utility from Cyclonic Modulators.

Every Vanguard should have 1&2, and higher base shields than adept counterparts. Also weapon and power bonuses of Charge need a serious buff, especially the weapon one.

Modifié par Achire, 02 août 2012 - 06:54 .

[Pedactor]

-Preie- wrote...

I would say that if you have to NOT incorporate the class's main ability, biotic charge, than the class is NOT ok. Just like saying that the class is fine, besides platinum. I don't see the argument there. Sure in gold it should be used a little more defensively but with camping games, it is hard to justify a Vanguard in the roster.

There's a list of issues with Biotic Charge being a "main ability," though.

1) No talent for big-boom Biotic Explosions, hence it's weaker in many ways than throw.  That's the only synergy with other Biotic Abilities.  And not all of them can prime for themselves anyway, meaning, the damage that BC has is all the damage BC brings.  Because I get pissed on Golds playing my AA when a Vanguard is detonating my primes since my detonations are so much more powerful.

2) It puts you in melee range, which is where you can be sync-killed.  Throw doesn't do that last I checked.  Nor do Grenades.

3) Damage is lackluster for what it does.  So is force.

4) Very little choice in how to spec it outside of the 5th Evolution.

5) Ability to shoot across levels that aren't that big to begin with is pretty niche.

6) Due to sticking you in melee range, basically necessitates a 180-200% recharge bonus.

7) Can't be set up to prime.


Now the other "main abilities,"

1) Tactical Cloak can be specced for melee damage, utility, and/or overall damage.  Big variations here.

2) Tech Armor, this is pretty self-explanatory.  Big Damage Reduction, acts as a power amp, or can turn wearer into a bomb.


Only Tac. Cloak is slapped onto everybody more blatantly than Biotic Charge.  Look at the variation between soldiers' first point abilities, or Engineers, or Adepts.

Big variation. 

It's a shame.  It really is.  It's why Slayers are getting played less and less.  Not every Vanguard should have Biotic Charge.  Not every Vanguard should immediately seem so inferior to the Kroguard or even be unplayable above certain difficulties without blowing a power reset to dump that first talent point...........

Modifié par Pedactor, 02 août 2012 - 06:55 .

[Ramsutin]

One word: Stunlock. Cripples when playing against Geth even if you host.

[RamsenC]

megawug wrote...

Personally, I haven't found a way to play AV on platinum. Gold is extremely hard, but can be done with decent teammates, but platinum is murder.

Her charge is extremely weak, stasis is only good for grunts and can't depend heavily on lift grenades, even with grenade capacity V. She can survive without charging, but then there are lots of classes better suited for that.  And it's no fun playing a vanguard that doesn't use its signature ability!

I pretty much only use her against cerb, but you can charge and shoot/grenade pretty freely and stasis kill phantoms. The downside is Stasis is just not all that useful outside of Phantoms and the Scorpion with ULM is just as good so why even spec into it? But if you go that route you might as well go Drell Vanguard for the better grenades. The Asari dash is amazing with Charge though. Not great on Platinum, but OP against cerb and decent against geth.

Modifié par RamsenC, 02 août 2012 - 06:57 .

[Achire]

Ramsutin wrote...

One word: Stunlock. Cripples when playing against Geth even if you host.

This! It's ridiculous on Platinum.

[-Preie-]

Yey Archire participating in this thread! Now we just need Konner.

And Pedactor, it is a reason that the vanguard needs some overhaul

[ToaOrka]

Got sick of VG Glitch -> Specced out of charge for the only VG I use, Asari.

[Pedro Costa]

Achire wrote...
Every Vanguard should have 1&2, and higher base shields than adept counterparts. Also weapon and power bonuses of Charge need a serious buff, especially the weapon one.

On the subject of Weapon and Power damage boosts, they should be added to base Charge, with the weapon/power synergy evolutions only reinforcing the type of damage you prioritize.

Edit: Biotic Charge should also prime for Biotic Detonation, this way Vanguards wouldn't need other classes, like the other classes don't need them.

Modifié par DarkLord_PT, 02 août 2012 - 07:14 .

[Oich]

Since we're talking vanguards, can someone explain Drell Vanguard to me?

When I got it I thought, "Cool! Explode everything! (without shields)". But it seems like following Pull with Biotic Charge is like flipping a coin for a BE. Sometimes I get one, and sometimes I just end up standing under/next to some floating husk/cannibal/assault trooper.

Am I doing something wrong? (apart from putting points into pull, which I actually kinda like.)

[-Preie-]

Oich: I wonder if the random experiences you are having is due to issues with latency. Do you notice the same results when hosting?

Update: just played a silver, whole team is dead and three banshees where chasing me! Needless to say, it was game over when two of them grabbed me lol

Modifié par -Preie-, 02 août 2012 - 07:29 .

[Elotana]

Oich wrote...

Since we're talking vanguards, can someone explain Drell Vanguard to me?

When I got it I thought, "Cool! Explode everything! (without shields)". But it seems like following Pull with Biotic Charge is like flipping a coin for a BE. Sometimes I get one, and sometimes I just end up standing under/next to some floating husk/cannibal/assault trooper.

Am I doing something wrong? (apart from putting points into pull, which I actually kinda like.)

Did you take the radius evolutions at Level 4 for both Pull and Charge? It makes Drellguard a lot more forgiving because otherwise you have to make sure to pull and charge the exact same mook.

[curly haired boy]

i loved novaguard during the demo, but i fell in love with vanguards in ME2 because they could empty horrifying amounts of firepower directly into the craniums of hapless mooks.

so to me, vanguarding is about unparalleled battlefield mobility and extremely high single-target sustained DPS. that's what eventually turned me off from novaguard - it was a one-trick pony, almost completely reliant on nova for stunning enemies and doing damage. furthermore, you couldn't take a good high-damage weapon on the novaguard without killing your cooldowns.

thus, when the kroguard was released, it was like a dream come true. hardy enough to stand up to sustained fire, weight capacity big enough to carry some serious firepower, and a good strong melee attack. it's the closest one can get to the old ME2 formula, imo.

i enjoy that it's viable on platinum, but i'm forced to use the piranha. my preferred weapon, the graal, is too latency-sensitive to use when i'm not hosting.

[Oich]

I am 100% sure about pull, Ill have to check how I specc'd charge on the Drell though since it's been a long time since I played him.

It very well could be latency, because I have a habit of not-hosting. (connection gets used for a lot of Netflix streaming and I don't want to drop people mid-match)

When I get home later tonight I'll make a point to fool around in a solo bronze match to check. The combo always just seemed spotty at best to me. (irregardless if I was the only person on my connection or not)

I guess I was wondering more along the lines if I was "doing it wrong". Like, use pull, wait a sec, THEN charge. I usually just try to spam charge after pull.

Modifié par Oich, 02 août 2012 - 08:14 .

[vDarkEaglev]

A few things about the OP

They have buffed shockwave and its the second most powerful ability to set up (if you take lifting shockwave) and set off explosions (they did a major overhaul on pull and brought the detonation up to 75% and shockwave is 65%)

Second I usually take a Disciple X on my vanguard its a very light yet quite powerful shotgun it works great on both vanguards and shadows.

But I do agree they need a little more health and shield they're quite squishy and the Vanguard glitch was supposed to be fixed in the 1.3 patch but that patch was garbage and didn't fix a damn thing. If anything it broke more things. My suggestion for EA/Bioware for a quick and easy fix is to put a "Roof" about 2 meters above the highest point in a level and if any player passes that point it resets them many games have things for this. (one of the earliest I can think of ATM is Zelda A Link To The Past "secret room" which was used for this very purpose)

And as for Drellguards Pull has been majorly buffed and Cluster Grenades are great for long range detonations (especially if you have another biotic partner like a Drell Adept) but Drellguards are a very squishy class and take some very advanced tactics to play one effectively.

Asariguards are really effective as well Lift Grenades are the strongest grenade in the game and Stasis is just amazing. Slap a Scimitar, Disciple, or Pirahna (if you dont have Pirahna X i wouldn't recommend using it its a little too heavy) and you have one of the strongest classes available (though it takes some getting used to)

Modifié par vDarkEaglev, 02 août 2012 - 08:01 .

[-Preie-]

Has anybody tried to do a charge/shockwave build? I may just re-spec my vanguard to give it a try if it means an end to play gold without harming the team. I will fire up my xbox360 and give it a try

[Pedactor]

-Preie- wrote...

Has anybody tried to do a charge/shockwave build? I may just re-spec my vanguard to give it a try if it means an end to play gold without harming the team. I will fire up my xbox360 and give it a try

CD collisions.  If you cannot charge when needed since you just Shockwaved, you are in a very bad place.

[-Preie-]

True. Just live Reave on single player. I just had a brilliant idea! I can make the female a shockguard to try it out rather than re-specing, ha. I don't even know offhand what the cooldown on shockwave is. I always skipped it, even in Mass Effect 2. Poor Jack never made it in my team

[Ziegrif]

DarkLord_PT wrote...

Ziegrif wrote...

I actually see the Vanguard as a 2 way see-saw.
You can either play it like a soldier or an adept.
Or go hybrid and find a balance or dip to the other side.
I myself dip myself to umm... off the bridge and into the mile long canyon.
I'm trying to figure out Viable ways to play without using BC.
This has made some cracked up builds and utilities.
For example am going to try and use the Krogan vanguard as a better built stagger resistent Krogan soldier. And I already molded my Asari Vanguard into something akin to the Krogan Sentinel but with faster movement and an ''OH S***'' power I.e Stasis.
Going to see if I can make a Shockwave/Nova Vanguard work aswell.

A vanguard without Charge isnt a vanguard, it's an adept. Not saying I don't like my Chargeless Krogan Battlemaster, just that I play Vanguards because of Biotic Charge, and Novaguards in particular because of the Charge/Nova synergy - fly like a bullet, hit like a grenade... sigh, if only I had the damage/impact equivalent to those things instead of just the animations...

Also, the Slayer having to pick between health and sword damage sucks. Hard. It can have a huge melee damage and the animations for it are nothing short of beautiful, but becomes so fragile that spending any amount of time actually meleeing (so the investment was worth it) is suicidal.

So... a chargless Krogan Vanguard is an adept... now if the Kroguard depends on weapons and Carnage it's a soldier.
So he's a see-saw.

I can see your point with the Asari Vanguard and Dree vangard and teh Human vanguard.
But in the end I dislike biotics.
Not with a passion but they feel... clunky and I can't use em as effectively as guns.
Also vanguard glitch.
And on slayer I'd pick either health or take 1 health upgrade and one melee upgrade.

[RecoonHoodie]

Biotic Charge damage increased from 250 to 400
Biotic Charge force increased from 500 to 850
Biotic Charge evolution 5-A weapon damage bonus increased from 15% to 40%
Biotic Charge evolution 5-B power damage bonus increased from 25% to 35%
Human Vanguard base health and shields increased to 600/600
Ex-Cerberus Vanguard base health and shields increased to 600/600
The same goes for N7 Slayer,Asari Vanguard
Drell Vanguard barrier increased from 250 to 450
Drell Adept barrier increased from 250 to 325
Fixed a bug when Biotic Charge wont activate when the button is pressed, leaving you with no bariers and soon on the ground bleeding.
Fixed a glitch when you can charge after dying and start flying around the map.
/thread

When I see the thing UP ^ there in balance changes, the world will be better place

[megawug]

RecoonHoodie wrote...

Biotic Charge damage increased from 250 to 400
Biotic Charge force increased from 500 to 850
Biotic Charge evolution 5-A weapon damage bonus increased from 15% to 40%
Biotic Charge evolution 5-B power damage bonus increased from 25% to 35%
Human Vanguard base health and shields increased to 600/600
Ex-Cerberus Vanguard base health and shields increased to 600/600
The same goes for N7 Slayer,Asari Vanguard
Drell Vanguard barrier increased from 250 to 450
Drell Adept barrier increased from 250 to 325
Fixed a bug when Biotic Charge wont activate when the button is pressed, leaving you with no bariers and soon on the ground bleeding.
Fixed a glitch when you can charge after dying and start flying around the map.
/thread

When I see the thing UP ^ there in balance changes, the world will be better place

+100

[Gamemako]

Achire wrote...

Gamemako had some good ideas on Balance ALL the Thing!

Thanks! I'll just go ahead and copy-paste it here.

Gamemako

GodlessPaladin

Did a few tests on Platinum with a Human Vanguard.

So the Novaguard works decently well with the Acolyte and can easily do Acolyte-->Charge-->Nova (causes ammo explosion) = dead Hunter.

The key issues I see are that he can't stagger Phantoms anymore, and he doesn't do that much damage to bosses (besides the Acolyte peeling off shields, but that works with any character, especially seeing as it's got that Predator weight).

And the sync kills. Don't forget those. All of the sync-killers are out in force in every Platinum match, and the lack of stagger makes you rather susceptible.

How do you fix him? Well, the damage issue is difficult. I would suggest buffing nova damage considerably but divide it by the number of targets affected. Would require a patch, obviously, but not much else is going to make sense without breaking him on lower difficulties. It's either that or normalize the damage. Survivability is more a core issue of Charge itself, though. I'll address changes to Charge toward the end.

GodlessPaladin

The other two core Vanguards arguably suffer even more in the transition. Lack of ability to stagger with charge is even more of an issue for the likes of the Drell Vanguard. And the Asari Vanguard suffers from an inability to deal with bosses well too. Moreover, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seemed like charging doesn't seem to give back the shield gate right away, which means that the Drell Vanguard can get blown away right after charging.

And of course, all of them bear even higher risk on Platinum than they did before, be it from sync kills or other sources (since their ability to control enemies is curbed on Platinum and enemies deal more damage... enough that I'm pretty sure I was seeing my Drellguard get downed through the shield gate right after charging).

First off, that's a bug with your shield not restoring properly after charging. That happens with all characters (though I don't think I've ever seen it happen with the Krogan). I've killed myself by charging Engineers many times -- they stop to drop a turret, I hit them, and boom, we both die from his exploding turret. This even happens on host at times, believe it or not. Generally, when it happens, you die (or at the very least you eat a lot of health damage).

Now, Drellguard was always bad at... uh, everything. Fixing him is a Herculean task. His grenades are his greatest asset, but making him more reliant on them is messy. Pull is totally useless still and will remain so until it fundamentally changes. I liked the suggestion of making it prime targets for detonation, but that's for another thread. Regardless, he's supposed to be fast, so I think his charge cooldown should be reduced to 6 or 8 seconds. Shield is supposed to be unique and all, but it's just silly where it is. Buff to 325 base. His charge should give higher bonuses for short duration -- weapon damage in particular would be more useful. Make him a high-risk high-reward character instead of a high-risk pathetic-output class.

The Asari Vanguard is sort of an oddball in general. She has Stasis for dealing with Phantoms and other assorted mooks, and that leads a lot of people to use her as a stasis sniper with grenade backup. Not viable on Platinum for obvious reasons. Her Lift Grenades don't detonate Stasis unless it's holding an unshielded target, which is a damn shame which should be rectified. She has no specific tools for armored opponents and in general is terrible against them, and I don't know how to address that at all. Power damage would be meaningless for Stasis and only mildly beneficial to Lift Grenade. Honestly, that says to me that making her unique would best be done by adding straight up power, damage, and radius to her charge itself. Instead of being about speed, she's all about biotic power. Ideally, you'd give the charge a detonation bonus as well, but that would obviously require a patch (though many changes for individual classes may require that depending on whether overrides can be set).

Kroguard doesn't need anything, really. He's a damn truck already and probably my most-used Platinum character. Staggers even phantoms and uses huge barrier and high DR to tank all the things. I once ran cyclonic modulators on him, but I found that it was a waste when I could use a stronghold package and instead give him an adrenaline module to walk backwards faster than Banshees teleport, removing your sole weakness. FOR TUNCHANKA!

The Phoenix Vanguard... power damage bonus. Big, whopping power damage bonus. That's what he is in the first place: a damage hound. Throw the man a bone and give him +50% power damage for 10 seconds after a charge.

Then we'd have the N7 Slayer. I've been mulling over making a thread for him about the changes I think should be made. Mainly consists of buffing melee and giving him a true melee/power dichotomy (since he's clearly not about weapons at all). Ideally, his Charge would have power synergy vs. melee synergy and Fitness would be replaced with Sword Mastery. The last evolution of Sword Mastery, which is currently tech-based on the Infiltrator, would be changed to Warp Blade (+50% vs armor and barrier) vs. Biotic Focus (+25% power damage, +25% health and barrier -- remember that biotics have barrier, so increasing biotic power would logically do both). Increase light melee to 350 base, give invulnerability during the first half of the heavy melee (prior to the end of the swipe). Whole lot of stuff that can't be changed in live updates, though.

GodlessPaladin

I was thinking Vanguards might need a little love even before the introduction of Platinum, but I think it's even more true now.

Platinum was basically a huge ****-you to Vanguards. Vanguards were always best at slaughtering riff-raff, not picking off bosses. Platinum dispenses with anything a Vanguard was ever to kill. The only one who was adept at fighting big things was the Krogan, and guess what: he's the only one anyone uses (except to farm, sadly).

GodlessPaladin

What should be done to make them more viable here? One obvious bit that jumps out at me is "more force." They should be able to stagger Phantoms.

Krogan Vanguards are viable in part for that very reason: they stagger anything when they hit it, even when specced for Radius (making the force evo somewhat dubious).

However, I don't think we should just make everyone force-happy. That would mainly be useful only against one target. We should instead look to see what other things make Vanguards so damn weak compared to everyone else. The main issues are survivability (Charge puts you in a vulnerable spot) and damage output. Survivability is a combination of factors: you're a prime target for enemy fire, you're out in the open, and for all but the Krogan, you have pretty meager shielding. That means that it's often hard to justify using charge at all. Damage output is more related to what you do after charging, since charge is a primary damage skill for exactly no-one.

Survivability I think has two main facets: first, you get shot; and second, you get staggered or sync killed. The first is mostly a matter of you being out of cover and in the line of fire because you charged, and that's what the DR is supposed to address (but just isn't nearly enough). Thus, I would change the DR offered by Charge to a tiered system: start high, fall off with time. 75% for 2 seconds, 50% for 2 seconds, 25% for 2 seconds. This would allow you to get out of bad situations quickly -- combined with DR offered by dodging, most Vanguards (Krogan excepted) would be nearly invincible if they're sacrificing damage to high-tail it back to cover. Krogan obviously shouldn't have that much and instead should get 50-50-25. Second is stunning and sync-killing. Stunning is the deadliest sonofa**** in space, and it hits Vanguards like a 2-ton truck rolling over a baby carriage. The reason Krogan Vanguards are so damn viable is that they're immune to staggering. For the first 2 (or maybe even 4) seconds after Charge, the Vanguard should be immune to stagger. That gives you time to escape or point your Wraith at the Hunter's head. Sync kills are sort of a wild card: most opponents don't sync kill without using a primer first (melee for Phantom and Atlas, chest-pound and melee for Brute -- also think you can stagger the instakill mode out of them anyway), and if you're immune to stagger, you shouldn't be in a position to get sync-killed in the first place unless it's your own damn fault. The exception is Banshees, and their niche is moving players around by posing that specific threat. I don't think that we shouldn't bother to mess with that, instead just letting Vanguards pick other targets and move around the battlefield away from the magnet hands.

Damage output is what I was attempting to address -- at least partially -- in the customization of Charge for the various classes. Charge doesn't deal much damage itself, so it needs to provide opportunities to deliver additional damage through powers, etc. The current bonuses offered by Charge are far too small. An infiltrator is getting +80% (or more with GI HM bonuses) to both weapons and powers (//EDIT: Or +130% to melee), a Soldier is getting +70% (or similar in alternate forms) to weapons, and a Vanguard is getting... +15% to weapons OR 25% to powers? That's some massive balance fail there. These bonuses need to be made much larger and longer, especially the weapon bonus. Additionally, BioWare should really re-tool Charge in general to make the bonuses more sensible. Rank 4 F&D only made sense for staggering Phantoms since the damage bonus is all of 75 damage. Unless that is re-added, the utility of that evo is zero, and it isn't even particularly wise to build the entire character around one opponent in the first place. Instead, I'd dump the thing entirely, increase base damage to 300 and force to 600, and make the evolution an expose-type evolution. +25% damage to target for 10 seconds. Now you have a mooks-vs.-bosses dichotomy. Similarly, Bonus Power is quite possibly the most bizarre evolution in the game, even downright stupid. It either needs to be made to delay the cooldown and allow for a true bonus power (like Cloak does -- for 1 second after you shoot to break Cloak, you can throw out a power with no cooldown) or just needs to become something else altogether (preferably something damage-oriented since the alternative is full shield restore).

'Course, that's a lot of wishlist stuff that will likely never happen. Maybe tomorrow I can pare it down to stuff that can actually be changed in a live update.

//EDIT: Vanguards were always my favorite class. Can you tell?

//EDIT: Stupid formatting differences... <_<

Modifié par Gamemako, 02 août 2012 - 08:57 .

[Pedactor]

RecoonHoodie wrote...

Biotic Charge damage increased from 250 to 400
Biotic Charge force increased from 500 to 850
Biotic Charge evolution 5-A weapon damage bonus increased from 15% to 40%
Biotic Charge evolution 5-B power damage bonus increased from 25% to 35%
Human Vanguard base health and shields increased to 600/600
Ex-Cerberus Vanguard base health and shields increased to 600/600
The same goes for N7 Slayer,Asari Vanguard
Drell Vanguard barrier increased from 250 to 450
Drell Adept barrier increased from 250 to 325
Fixed a bug when Biotic Charge wont activate when the button is pressed, leaving you with no bariers and soon on the ground bleeding.
Fixed a glitch when you can charge after dying and start flying around the map.
/thread

When I see the thing UP ^ there in balance changes, the world will be better place

I guess this is what should be now.

I still think there's a lack of variation:

Again, Biotic Charge still won't have the evolutions to really make it compelling.  In the end it's just a crappier throw, but you throw your whole body.

EDIT: Great write-up Gamemako, but I still think Biotic Charge is a little bland compared to Tactical cloak, but that's really personal preference.

Modifié par Pedactor, 02 août 2012 - 09:05 .

[Gamemako]

Pedactor wrote...

RecoonHoodie wrote...

Biotic Charge damage increased from 250 to 400
Biotic Charge force increased from 500 to 850
Biotic Charge evolution 5-A weapon damage bonus increased from 15% to 40%
Biotic Charge evolution 5-B power damage bonus increased from 25% to 35%
Human Vanguard base health and shields increased to 600/600
Ex-Cerberus Vanguard base health and shields increased to 600/600
The same goes for N7 Slayer,Asari Vanguard
Drell Vanguard barrier increased from 250 to 450
Drell Adept barrier increased from 250 to 325
Fixed a bug when Biotic Charge wont activate when the button is pressed, leaving you with no bariers and soon on the ground bleeding.
Fixed a glitch when you can charge after dying and start flying around the map.
/thread

When I see the thing UP ^ there in balance changes, the world will be better place

I guess this is what should be now.

I still think there's a lack of variation:

Again, Biotic Charge still won't have the evolutions to really make it compelling.  In the end it's just a crappier throw, but you throw your whole body.

It's the self-buff, damage resistance, and barrier recharge that should make it worthwhile. With those buffed, it makes a lot more sense to use. Still, I think we should further customize Charge for every class. There are a lot of opportunities to shore up specific weaknesses by buffing Charge in unique ways, and much of it can (probably) be done in live updates without the need for a patch.

//EDIT: By the way, looks like RecoonHoodie and I largely agree on what should be done, though I would address durability in terms of post-charge damage resistance rather than base-health bonuses, would buff base charge's force and damage less, would be even more aggressive with rank 5 bonuses, and would customize Charge for each class, adding both uniqueness and power without the need for a full patch.

Modifié par Gamemako, 02 août 2012 - 09:10 .