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[Pedactor]

Mazandus wrote...

Bleachrude is correct. Vanguard's are hardly alone in being sub optimal for all situations/difficulties. All the classes are incredibly powerful on Bronze, almost equally so on Silver, and all are perfectly viable on Gold, less so with Platinum.

The thing with Vanguard's, is, they need space and opportunities to shine, but as the difficulty of the game is increased, the amount of time a player can spend "out in the open" decreases dramatically, regardless of class. All are still viable and there are very very good players who have solo'd Gold with all the classes, but without the space and time to pick your target, and indeed on Platinum and later Gold waves, without even having the right targets, the Vanguard suffers.

But they are hardly alone in this regard. Months ago the prevailing strategy on gold was to collapse into a corner and snipe everything. After numerous buffs and nerfs to the classes and weapons, and buffs to some of the enemies, things have changed. There are many more viable "mobile" team set ups now, but they require strategy and teamwork. Any significant buff to Vanguards or Krogan Soldiers or whomever and you are only adding to the arms race of power creep.

Sabresandiego and his crew were steamrolling Reaper Gold back when it was the hardest battle in the game with squads of Drell. But the average player who gets his/her hands on the Drellguard or Slayer or Krogan Sentinel and tries to get right in the face of the enemy is going to suffer. I'm not sure what, if anything, can be done about it. There are only so many knobs to tune without fundamentally changing the entire game. Also, it doesn't help the Vanguard that the entire game is horde survival. If there was some mode where credits were awarded based on clearing speeds or rapid extermination of targets then Vanguards would be much more prevalent in Gold (and maybe Plat too).


The best thing to do, imo, would be to fix the bugs, and give all vanguards a 100% stagger after Biotic Charging anything but a Brute or Banshee. And then perhaps consider upping their base melee damage or increasing the bonus to weapon damage after a charge.

It still doesn't change the fact that Biotic Charge is a very bland ability.  It's effectively throw.

The tactics and mobility in SP don't come into use that often in MP since the boards aren't that big.

Biotic Charge, no matter which Vanguard you are using, is generally, used on CD and the Vanguard has to tank.

Because if you don't use it that way, then there's really no point to it.  The damage and force are lackluster.

[MAGlKARP]

Pedactor wrote...

It still doesn't change the fact that Biotic Charge is a very bland ability.  It's effectively throw.

The tactics and mobility in SP don't come into use that often in MP since the boards aren't that big.

Biotic Charge, no matter which Vanguard you are using, is generally, used on CD and the Vanguard has to tank.

Because if you don't use it that way, then there's really no point to it.  The damage and force are lackluster.

You very much underestimate the benefit of instant shield recharge. It's mainly a defensive ability.

[Pedactor]

MAGlKARP wrote...

Pedactor wrote...

It still doesn't change the fact that Biotic Charge is a very bland ability.  It's effectively throw.

The tactics and mobility in SP don't come into use that often in MP since the boards aren't that big.

Biotic Charge, no matter which Vanguard you are using, is generally, used on CD and the Vanguard has to tank.

Because if you don't use it that way, then there's really no point to it.  The damage and force are lackluster.

You very much underestimate the benefit of instant shield recharge. It's mainly a defensive ability.

I'm not disputing that.  I understand the benefits and not saying it's necessarily bad.  I'm just saying it's bland.

Compare it to Tactical Cloak, which provides much more interesting variation depending on how you build it out.

[cgvhjb]

Hell I can't even play a vanguard because at least once per match I will charge right as I'm downed and experience the same bug that has been reported from day one (that was supposedly fixed) where you become unclipped and float off into nothingness.

So yea, you want to point out strengths and weaknesses how about the fact that often enough Vanguards are gimped with the fact that you can't even complete a mission with them?

[Mazandus]

The Asari Vanguard is one of the best classes in this game. Her only weakness is in dealing with the 3 "bosses" of Primes/Atlas'/Banshees. Compared to the other classes, she can solo anything else with ease. And you certainly don't use Biotic Charge every cooldown and tank the rest of the damage with her, or with the Drell, or even the Novaguard. The only Vanguard who can tank is the Krogan, and that's almost entirely due to the bug that renders him immune to staggers.

I would hardly call tanking a Vanguard feature if it only functions on 1 out of the 6 Vanguards we have to choose from. The Nova and the Slayer can chain powers and use invulnerability frames to remove themselves from existing on the map long enough to take damage, but I don't think it was an intended feature. Perhaps BW decided they would leave this element alone after it was discovered and embraced by the players, but I don't think it was part of their class vision, rather just something that was discovered and left alone to provide "depth."

Consider all the Sentinels. If there is a "tank" class in this game, it is certainly the Sentinel. All 6 of them have some kind of damage reduction ability, yet I don't see Batarian Sentinels running around in the open tanking fire from every direction. They die just as quick as a Vanguard who charges head first into every pack. I don't think this is a problem. This is intentional. This is just what happens as the difficulty increases. The enemies have to hit harder to make them dangerous.

The problem, as you said, is the lack of tactics and mobility. When every game is survive 10 waves, many of the nuances of the classes and potential team set ups are lost because we, as players, want to use cost effective weapons and classes. IE bang for buck. Click button and kill. Hence we use Infiltrators. Or Destroyers. Or Demolishers.Or Reegars.Or Harriers. Or Piranhas.

And as Godless Paladin sort of pointed out, none of those classes or weapons existed at launch. Power creep and lack of new game modes, as well as bugs resulting in design inconsistencies are what makes the Vanguards, as well as the Krogans and Turians and Batarians and Engineers less popular options than the other classes.

Modifié par Mazandus, 03 août 2012 - 08:25 .

[Gamemako]

Zanru wrote...

You want a solo run on a mode riddled with
synch kills and banshees for a class you know has a horrible time in
general with them?

I can point to a few Krogan Vanguard solos if you want them. If any Vanguard is vulnerable to sync kills, it is the Krogan. However, he is easily the most successful Vanguard on Platinum (and really, he's one of the most successful Platinum characters in general).

I hear people complain about sync kills a lot, but it is not really such a large part of why Vanguards suffer so much on Gold and Platinum. Banshees are the only opponent who is actually likely to sync kill you without you screwing things up considerably, and you have to get close to them while they're in their charged mode for that to happen as well. In my last 5 Platinum matches as Vanguards (Krogan, Krogan, Slayer, Asari, Phoenix), I was sync-killed twice, once as a Krogan while not paying attention to the Phantom who snuck up behind me (i.e. not as a result of being a Vanguard at all) and once as a Phoenix (because I'm a really awful Phoenix in general and probably shouldn't have tried -- wasn't really an asset to the team ).

Zanru wrote...


All Uberschveinen was pointing out was it is far
better than most give it credit for. I do believe it needs a few tweaks
here and there but the Slayer really does sum up a vanguard quite
nicely....

1) Slayer has standard Charge DR, no DR on a dodge that drains barrier, and no DR on heavy melee. He drains his shields to deliver attacks (PD, HM) that offer no DR. He has standard 500/500 shields with 65% max fitness bonus, putting him in the normal squishy subset. He's also not particularly fast, having no movement speed bonus (Drell, Geth, Fury, and Shadow all get one).  In that regard, he's extremely high-risk in general. The only time he isn't incredibly squishy is when he is spamming the light melee combo, where he's still vulnerable to stagger and sync kills and does embarassingly-bad damage due to low base damage and busted targeting. With a melee build, it will take 2 full charge -> light melee combo cycles to kill a single Marauder. Alternatively, a Gethfiltrator could just do it in one shot. Which would you rather have?

2) You know what staggers better and faster than Biotic Slash? Shockwave. No warmup, high force. You know who has that? The Human Vanguard. You know how many people spec into Shockwave for the Manguard? Nobody who's in his right mind! Biotic Slash exists almost explicitly as a wallspamming skill. Even if you aren't camping in one spot, you aren't going to spend your time using Slashwave unless you're hiding safely behind a wall.

3) And let's talk about using PD. PD offers no DR whatsoever and drains your barrier. It also has a horrible tendency to do nothing or be ignored by opponents. You've also comically exaggerated the damage. Platinum Rocket Troopers, the single weakest shielded target, have 1755 shield, which will take you two shots to strip even if you took the +75% to shields evo. Platinum Phantoms have just under 4000 shield, and you actually need to spec for damage and power damage to take that out in 3 direct hits (and you can't hit while she's dodging or the DR will end your attempt). You also can't get shot in the meantime, or you won't have barrier to finish the job (and she'll finish you instead). Specced for damage, you deal just over 4000 damage to shields and barriers over 3 shots, which is not much more than you can do with a single shot from an Acolyte which is faster and doesn't drain your shields.

Zanru wrote...


For the Slayer I would agree on a slight melee buff
and some extra shields, giving him too strong of a light melee with the
amount of invul/DR it gets could easily break the character, especially
since people want to give hima sword mastery tree with
armor/shields/barrier damage as a 6th evo. It could easily allow him to
wade into a fight and kill everything with no worries outside of a sych
kill, and if you led in with PD>charge the only thing that would live
long enough to do so would be banshees and atlases.

Uhhh... what? The damage output is currently quite pathetic, and not even a 100% increase would make it overpowered. Unlike the Krogan, the Slayer can't stagger phantoms and Atlas mechs with his melee attacks, so he's effectively unable to use it against anything but -- you guessed it -- those same little mooks that are in such meager supply on Platinum in the first place. Again, the damage output of the melee is so bad that wading into a group of enemies and attempting to slash them to death would take you half the round (I would know, I have tried). The Slayer needs something to account for the risk of this kind of playstyle, because he sure as hell doesn't get much for it right now. That's why people just use him to slash walls all day.

And again, most Vanguards should not get more shields. They are not Krogan Soldiers. It is not the job of a Vanguard to sit around taking hits from cover. Their durability should largely be tied to their aggression, and that is done through damage resistance on Charge, not through base shields.

Bleachrude wrote...

Why exactly are you focusing on Platinum? Seriously, how many classes are actually viable on platinum?

There are 36 individual class breakdowns...From Human adept to N7 Slayer. Now, factor out the infiltratos who are all platinum viable INDIVIDUALLY (except ironically for the Shadow - the boss spam of platinum screw her hard) we have 30 individual classes.

The adepts are platinum viable but that requires the entire team to be biotic...Ever seen how well a asari justicar does with a non-biotic team? Not pretty at all...

Soldiers have what - 2 classes maybe? Destroyer and Human Soldier
Sentinels - absolutely boned
Engineers - Demolisher grenade spam - if you don't have Grenade gear V, don't bother....maybe Geth Engineer thanks to hunter mode...
Vanguards have two proven platinum classes in kroguard and the smashguard.

And you guys think Vanguards are being shortchanged?

Uhhh, what?

Soldiers: RedJohn did a Krogan Soldier solo. Turian are currently semi-viable due to Marksman with the Piranha. Batarians can walk around with considerable shield as well as an insanely-short delay on regeneration and melt armor with Inferno Grenades.
Adepts: Fury, AA, Justicar, and some even play the Drell (though I'm not sure I understand how).
Engineers: Gethgineer, MQE, SE. I have occasion to see all of them, with SE actually having considerably more utility than it previously did. I've even seen an HE do just fine for himself (though he's still pretty rare because Gethgineers are just better). Odd man out, really, is still the FQE.
Sentinels: Paladin, maybe HS, probably BatSent (dear everyone: Acolyte, blade armor for DR, shield power cells, spam shockwave. You're welcome.).
Infiltrators: Looooool
Vanguards: Krogan is the obviously viable option; there are quite a few Kroguard. I have never seen a Phoenix do anything other than fail miserably outside of moronic farming runs, and I have not succeeded with them either (but I was never a good Phoenix).

Soldiers: 5/6 (4/6 whenever the Piranha gets nerfed back into whatever hole it came out of)
Adepts: 4/6
Engineers: 5/6
Sentinels: 3/6
Infiltrators: 6/6
Vanguards: 1/6, maybe 2/6 on a good day.

Average: 4/6

Vanguards underperform in that regard. Of course, there's still 8 non-Vanguard classes that could use work for joining in on the Platinum bandwagon, but that is neither here nor there.

more importantly, though, Vanguards underperform regardless of whether they meet some pre-defined threshold. Their damage output is pretty mediocre, as I mentioned previously, and they are on the bottom of the scale in terms of survivability. Whether or not you think most characters are viable for Platinum or not is pretty irrelevant because they're still better than the Vanguards.

[GiroX-]

Bleachrude wrote...

Why exactly are you focusing on Platinum? Seriously, how many classes are actually viable on platinum?

There are 36 individual class breakdowns...From Human adept to N7 Slayer. Now, factor out the infiltratos who are all platinum viable INDIVIDUALLY (except ironically for the Shadow - the boss spam of platinum screw her hard) we have 30 individual classes.

The adepts are platinum viable but that requires the entire team to be biotic...Ever seen how well a asari justicar does with a non-biotic team? Not pretty at all...

Soldiers have what - 2 classes maybe? Destroyer and Human Soldier
Sentinels - absolutely boned
Engineers - Demolisher grenade spam - if you don't have Grenade gear V, don't bother....maybe Geth Engineer thanks to hunter mode...
Vanguards have two proven platinum classes in kroguard and the smashguard.

And you guys think Vanguards are being shortchanged?

All of the Adepts have abilities that are useful in Platinum. Warp and Reave in particular help with debuffing/priming/detonating safely. All of them still putting out better damage than most Vanguards, while doing it safely.

Destroyer, Turian and Human are fine on Platinum. Bat Soldier still has BB for stagger and Infernos. Minus the Vorcha and Krogan soldiers, Vanguards still underperform compared to the Soldiers.

Human Sentinel is fine. Turian Sentinel still has Warp and Overload, better than anything the Vanguards can do on Platinum. Same with the Paladin's ED and Snap Freeze. Minus the Vorcha, Krogan, and Batarian sentinels, they still can sit back, spam powers that debuff and damage, while the Vanguards have to throw themselves to the sync kill bosses to do the same damage, without any debuff.

Most engineers do the same thing across all difficulties, strip defenses and setup TB's. Human's drone is designed to distract bosses (particularly Banshees) and Overload is awesome, he works well. Demolisher and Quarian Male are viable for obvious reasons. Geth engineer is basically an offensive version of the Human. Salarian Decoy is great still and ED is useful.

Vanguards though, cant do anything special on Platinum. What can the Asariguard do on Platinum? Stasis a phantom every so often? Lob a grenade that does laughable damage and that has a limited supply? Charge where at any given time about 75% of the enemies can sync kill you? How about the Drellguard? Pull (lol)? Subpar grenade damage thats even lackluster for the Drell adept who has reave to prime on Platinum?

Novaguard, again, cant charge most of the enemies safely. On the later waves when banshees spawn, what he to do? Spam Nova every 2.5 secs for 700 damage? The Pheonixguard is limited to spamming Smash as well (same with the adept, but there basically the same class)


The point everyone is trying to make is not that Vanguards are the only class that dont do a lot of damage on Platinum (like you said, most classes arent), but that there are only a few classes in the game that Platinum flatout eliminates the way the class was meant to be played.

Some of the classes that Platinum changes the way the class is played because of boss spam:

Drell Adept (cant run around clearing spawns, but reave is still useful)
Pheonix Adept/Vanguard (stuck spamming smash)
Vorcha classes (no mooks to build bloodrage, flamer can be used well still)
Shadow (SS isnt recommended against bosses, but ES is still amazing)

And finally, all the Vanguards besides the Kroguard. Platinum made charge incredibly situational, instead of a reliable talent for Vanguards.
The Novaguard cant run around charge/nova spamming anymore.
Asari, Stasis becomes useless, leaving you with Charge and one of the lesser nades.
Drell, pull is useless, leavin you with Charge and a grenade that still not doing anything special.
Slayer is limited to either spamming PD every 2.5 secs which is stupid, or spamming BS through a wall which is lame.

As you can see, only the Vanguards and Pheonix Adept are the only classes that are just pointless to take for Platinum because their powers simply dont do ANYTHING to bosses.  They dont serve a purpose and they cant contribute to the team. All of their damage will be coming from the gun they're shooting and at that point, why dont you take any other class that can shoot just as well AND have powers that will ACTUALLY help.

[GiroX-]

Honestly though, I dont see the Vanguards ever being fixed to be usable on Platinum. The hole has been dug and it would take a TON of work on Biowares part to change Vanguards to work. As it stands, most Vanguards have fundamental problems with their design and power setup and you would have to completely change the majority of power evo's on most of the Vanguards to fix it.

Its just too late in the game to expect something like that. They really did get hit hard by the power creep over the past few months.

We wont get ever get the ME1 Vanguard back, but they could make them more like ME2 vanguards, particularly bring back that 2x bonus for being point blank. And buff the hell out of biotic charge. I would be content if they would make these 2 big changes above.

[Gamemako]

Achire wrote...

I was thinking a new thread with a combined list of reasonable buffs might be in order. Perhaps with the changes categorized as requiring or not requiring a patch. Balance changes, after all, actually get implemented as opposed to patches. Having a coherent list instead of ideas scattered all around the thread would help the visibility of these issues a lot.

There is, of course, nothing stopping me from starting a thread like this myself. I'm just kind of hoping Gamemako would do that instead, since he clearly has the best grasp on the situation

I can, though I need to hammer out the exact numbers first. Balance is important, after all.

Bwnci wrote...

All this focus on Platinum is bad though.
The difficulty was designed to encourage teamwork (well honestly it was
designed to kick our arses, but that in turn encourages teamwork) and
the Vanguard is a great team player. As stated, most are quite capeable
of detonating several bursts or explosions during frames of
invulnerability which causes so much aggravation for the enemy that the
Vanguard becomes invaluable to many teams, as is.

And as I pointed out, Vanguards are worse at it than the alternative. A smarter plan would be to bring a Batarian Sentinel for +65% multi-detonations or any character with Throw. Better damage output, less risk. Vanguards are not skilled at team-tackling bosses. The Slayer and Human Vanguards are actually the only ones with skills that are even remotely suited to the task, and those uses are dependent upon primers. Human Vanguards are insanely vulnerable to stagger and lag and are a poor choice for detonation duty. Vanguards are not tanks; again, only the Krogan can do so in any semi-reliable fashion, and the Drell is comically far from that.

Bwnci wrote...


If they matched
the damage output of a infiltrator they wouldn't need a team, scratch
the latency issues and most never die. The DPS of a Geth infiltrator
with a Pirahna shotgun is insane, but he's a glass cannon. Someone needs
to watch his shiny metal butt. There's all these different roles to
take in the game and I think that makes it great. If everyone's a
powerhouse we're just clean-up squads as opposed to men and women
fighting a desperate war.

Fix the Vanguard glitch!.. And those sync kills while your at it.

1) I don't think anyone has proposed adding a +120% damage bonus to Charge yet. I've proposed some very, very aggressive boosts, but they're light years from an Infiltrator's damage output. But since we're on the subject, a Vanguard risks his ass to deal damage, yet he's supposed to be outdone by the guy who disappears at will? That's a messy sentiment.

2) Most never die? What are you smoking? Vanguards DO die, and they die often. Vanguards, the Krogan excepted, are a high-risk class. They put themselves in a vulnerable position every time they use Charge.

3) A Geth Infiltrator is only a glass canon when he's using no cyclonic modulator and a low-fitness build. They're actually reasonably sturdy and are able to cloak and relocate at will. A Vanguard cannot do that. Things go bad, he can only really hope to find something further away to charge to, and that isn't always available. You will find yourself quite alone in believing that a Gethfiltrator is less durable than any non-Krogan Vanguard.

4) And speaking of the above, you're still off on this belief that a Vanguard is a (1) sturdy (2) soldier. He is neither. The Vanguard is not a waste of slot who sits around waiting for the Gethfiltrator to go down so he can revive him with his UBER 500 SHIELDS!!!11111 The Vanguard is a frontline fighter. His strength should be in mobility and damage output, but as it turns out, he's just squishy and weak. Once again, the only exception here is the Krogan, because he IS a tank. He is the anti-Vanguard. No other Vanguard is like him in any way.

MAGlKARP wrote...

You very much underestimate the benefit of instant shield recharge. It's mainly a defensive ability.

That is not really true. The shield recharge only serves to facilitate agression. You cannot biotic charge the wall and restore your shield. You must have a target, and killing that target any any nearby targets is now your top priority before you get gunned down.

Modifié par Gamemako, 03 août 2012 - 09:11 .

[Achire]

Zanru wrote...

You want a solo run on a mode riddled with synch kills and banshees for a class you know has a horrible time in general with them? All Uberschveinen was pointing out was it is far better than most give it credit for.

There are no sync kills on Geth Platinum until the two Phantoms on Waves 4&5. It would be really nice if the people who keep saying Vanguards are fine could at least solo the first three waves to help out the rest of us noobs here.

Gamemako wrote...

Achire wrote...

I was thinking a new thread with a combined list of reasonable buffs might be in order. Perhaps with the changes categorized as requiring or not requiring a patch. Balance changes, after all, actually get implemented as opposed to patches. Having a coherent list instead of ideas scattered all around the thread would help the visibility of these issues a lot.

There is, of course, nothing stopping me from starting a thread like this myself. I'm just kind of hoping Gamemako would do that instead, since he clearly has the best grasp on the situation [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/tongue.png[/smilie]

I can, though I need to hammer out the exact numbers first. Balance is important, after all.

I would really appreciate that. I think the best way forward is having a list of reasonable balance changes that can be implemented without a patch. I liked some of the Charge DR buff ideas people have had. Do you know if it'd be possible to implement the sort of 100% DR for 1s, 75% for 1s then 50% for 2s that was proposed on the balance group with just coalesced.bin edits?

A Geth Infiltrator with Hunter Mode, Max Fitness and Cyclonic Modulator IV has 2476 shields. A Human/Asari/Phoenix Vanguard with Max Fitness and Cyclonic Modulator IV has 2063 shields. A Drellguard with Max Fitness and Cyclonic Modulator IV has 1125 shields.

Modifié par Achire, 03 août 2012 - 09:31 .

[Gamemako]

Achire wrote...

Do you know if it'd be possible to implement the sort of 100% DR for 1s, 75% for 1s then 50% for 2s that was proposed on the balance group with just coalesced.bin edits?

Extremely unlikely unless there are some variables hiding somewhere I haven't seen. You can change the 4-second buff to ~65% as a stopgap measure (average of 100/75/50 split is 68.5%), but the downward tiering probably isn't possible without a patch.

[Bwnci]

The second paragraph of my last post was not intended to be taken so literally, I was merely fleshing out a concept. The point being that with the right team makeup the Vanguard becomes very useful and that you don't need to beat the game by overpowering it everytime.

Tell me why a team of three Furys and a Human Vanguard can't dominate a Platinum game. The Furys wouldn't need to worry about detonating their own explosions so they could all equipt a Harrier or a Piranha. Running around as a group the Furys would light up and gun down everything while the "Novaguard" sets of a string of explosions that seriously impedes, and even wrecks, the enemy. In this situation the Vanguard is invaluable. Is it the best way to beat Platinum? Probably not. Is it the easiest? No but it definitely isn't hard. But most importantly, is it fun? Yeah it is!

Its this team mechanic that makes the game so fun and varied. With some creativity you can find all sorts of ways to team up and beat the game and that's because classes like the Vanguard bring something a little different to the table. Sure they don't match many in terms of overall viability (I'll stay as vague as possible here to avoid disrupting the Math again), but the skills they do hone can be put to great effect if you care to.

[Chaoswind]

Charge:

Charge can now be canceled by rolling keeping 75% DR for 2 seconds (not gaining barriers)
Charge improves weapon damage by 25% for 2 seconds, and the evolution adds 50% more weapon damage for 1 more second (+75% weapon damage for 3 seconds), this effect is triggered on activation (even if canceled).



There Vanguard class is fixed.

Now Charge is MUCH more useful as you can use it for the DR and Damage bonus without flying into the banshee/phantom/brute/ATLAS arms, and the most OP vanguard aka the Krogan can't take advantage of it.

with the weapon damage bonus the vanguard truly becomes an adept/soldier hybrid instead of... THAT.

[-Preie-]

I agree. I will update the original post and try to collect the data together. I do work all night tonight so I will update it tomorrow, if that is alright.

I don't agree that another post will help our situation. I feel like it would be taken as spam and people whining. I will even agree to put some "vanguard are fine" if I find valid reasoning behind it other than, vanguards are fine, you are playing wrong . I wanted to create this thread to be a fair and equal discussion, and to avoid spam and just whining.

I still don't feel the Vanguards are fine vibe. We are too dependent on "perfect" performance or else we are dead from a sync- kill or we charged too far outside the group to be rescued (granted, this could be at fault at the vanguard player). And someone did say that we could play with a team of furies, well sure. But what happens if one friend wants to play a demolisher, one a destroyer, one a GI, and I want to play my vanguard on Platinum. Is it fair they have to tell me to switch to a viable class, or is it fair I tell them to switch so I can play along? Plus I DON'T believe in the class will never be viable so give up. I my biotic warrior!

And the glitch fixed yet needs to be addressed. Plain and simple.

Thanks for the continue discussion. I will address some comments more after I get a chance to thoroughly read through them.

Modifié par -Preie-, 04 août 2012 - 12:35 .

[Pedro Costa]

Bwnci wrote...
The point being that with the right team makeup the Vanguard becomes very useful and that you don't need to beat the game by overpowering it everytime.
Tell me why a team of three Furys and a Human Vanguard can't dominate a Platinum game. The Furys wouldn't need to worry about detonating their own explosions so they could all equipt a Harrier or a Piranha. Running around as a group the Furys would light up and gun down everything while the "Novaguard" sets of a string of explosions that seriously impedes, and even wrecks, the enemy. 

...And?
Do tell, how many other classes are completely dependant on another one to be at least viable on Platinum?
If I need to check the friggin lobby to see if I have 3 freaking furys there just so I can take my Novaguard and not die horribly and constantly, something's wrong. Really, really wrong.
I don't see infiltrators looking for someone else, I don't see Soldiers, I don't see adepts, I don't see sentinels, I don't see ENGINEERS. Why must Vanguards be the exception? Because you say they're fine?

You have yet to prove empirical evidence that Vanguards, and Novaguard specifically, are perfectly viable on Platinum difficulty, btw.
Up until now you've just been "l2p", "but but but they're not infiltrators!" and "needs moar furys". If you think those are valid points, well, they aren't. You're just saying that people are idiots who can't grasp the concept of the class, that they are demanding buffs to compete toe-to-toe with the most OP characters avaiable and that under perfect conditions they don't have to die miserably all of the time.
The first two are insulting, the third is true, but shouldn't take a "perfect setup" to make a class survivable.

I want to help my team, not depend completely on it to survive.

Besides, 4 furys do a better job since they can actually enhance the biotic explosion damage while staying in cover, vanguards don't have BE boosting evolutions and have to be constantly in the face of staggerers and sync killers.

Tell me why a team of three Furys and a Human Vanguard can't dominate a Platinum game.

Oh, they can.
But so can 4 adepts, 4 infiltrators, 4 soldiers and 4 demolishers, aswell as any combination of the aforementioned. And guess what? They are faster doing it and much more resilient doing it.

The Furys wouldn't need to worry about detonating their own explosions so they could all equipt a Harrier or a Piranha.

Wait, what?
Are you saying that it takes a Novaguard to prevent furys from biotic detonations with piranhas and harriers? Seriously? Please, excuse me while I laugh like a madman.
Three furys can detonate eachother's BEs aswell as, if not better, if they hadn't a vanguard with them. You know why? Because while one's in cooldown, the other detonates it with a +50% detonation damage, and while those two are in cooldown, the third one primes another target so that the first can detonate it as soon as they exit the cooldown period. 4 furys makes it even more efficient.
You're saying you have to gimp the team (only 3 furys) in order to take a vanguard while saying vanguards are perfectly fine.
Loving it.

Running around as a group the Furys would light up and gun down everything while the "Novaguard" sets of a string of explosions that seriously impedes, and even wrecks, the enemy. In this situation the Vanguard is invaluable.

See above. It isn't.

Is it the best way to beat Platinum? Probably not. Is it the easiest? No but it definitely isn't hard. But most importantly, is it fun? Yeah it is!

No, it isn't. I don't want to depend entirely on my team for one character, and I don't want to gimp them because of it.

Its this team mechanic that makes the game so fun and varied. With some creativity you can find all sorts of ways to team up and beat the game and that's because classes like the Vanguard bring something a little different to the table. Sure they don't match many in terms of overall viability (I'll stay as vague as possible here to avoid disrupting the Math again), but the skills they do hone can be put to great effect if you care to.

sigh... you just don't seem to get it. Either that or I'm being massively trolled, and if I am, kudos to you.
10/10, would be trolled again.

NOONE is saying there aren't ways to make it work, EVERYONE is saying that vanguards don't bring anything to the table another class doesn't, and what they do bring  is useless because others can do it better.

You're using strawman after strawman: you bring points no one is contesting and you ramble on and on about them as if they were why everyone has their panties up in a bunch.

Modifié par DarkLord_PT, 04 août 2012 - 02:05 .

[Bwnci]

If you can take anything I've said here and twist it into a personally insult then you really are an idiot. If I was accusing anyone of anything, it was missing the point of the teamwork mechanic. Why is it such a bad thing to be dependant of your team in a co-op only multiplayer game? Isn't that what many developers strive for, doesn't that strengthen the teamplay experience, isn't the Galaxy at War a desperate struggle?

DarkLord_PT wrote...

Bwnci wrote...
The Furys wouldn't need to worry about detonating their own explosions so they could all equipt a Harrier or a Piranha.

Wait, what?
Are
you saying that it takes a Novaguard to prevent furys from biotic
detonations with piranhas and harriers? Seriously? Please, excuse me
while I laugh like a madman.
Three furys can detonate eachother's BEs
aswell as, if not better, if they hadn't a vanguard with them. You know
why? Because while one's in cooldown, the other detonates it with a
+50% detonation damage, and while those two are in cooldown, the third
one primes another target so that the first can detonate it as soon as
they exit the cooldown period. 4 furys makes it even more efficient.
You're saying you have to gimp the team (only 3 furys) in order to take a vanguard while saying vanguards are perfectly fine.
Loving it.

No, I'm saying exactly what I said. "They wouldn't need to". Noone, but you, said "prevent".

Me and my friends do have fun producing these tight knit groups, I'm sorry you can't organise setups like these yourself. Prehaps you should stop treating new people like the enemy? Independantly the Vanguard do fall short, everywhere. But I don't believe any class should be independant.

The Vanguards are the last teamplayers.

Modifié par Bwnci, 04 août 2012 - 01:51 .

[DHKany]

I'd say the Krogan Vanguard is the saving grace for the vanguards/
The others have too low health and shields to do anything on platinum.

[curly haired boy]

i'd love more weapon synergy on vanguards. make it something ridiculous - maybe even bring back the x2 damage multiplier from ME2. give us reason to get in people's faces.

[u21]

Vanguards may not be tanks, but they are scrappers. CQC demands sub-tank health, some manner of regeneration, and at minimum a chance to crit, if not an outright damage buff.

All can be addressed, as previously stated, by live-updating the bc bonuses in each vanguard's bc evo.

[megawug]

I think as long as I can stagger with BC in platinum, I'd be satisfied. Vanguards are high risk characters, so platinum should be extremely risky for them. But without any chance for survival, it's better off to play an adept (excluding kroguard, per usual).

[Destructo-Bot]

I've uploaded two videos to youtube highlighting one of the killer bugs of the class: Instant loss of shields after a charge and being targeted immediately out of a charge. It happens with all factions. You charge a target and your barrrier is gone before the screen is even done shaking. This effect completely negates any benefits of charge. I was the host, so no lag related glitches here.

http://youtu.be/q2e6_h1ylpk?hd=1
http://youtu.be/2DeJefLNRBU?hd=1

[Dabal Hayat]

Great post, this one. It's an unusual thing: an interesting and (more o less) well mannered discussion at the same time, here on BSN. I've played Vanguard many matches, and I hope to contribute to this interesting discussion with something of mine.

First of all, I completely concur with -preie- , Gamemako and the others: the little resilience of every Vanguard, Kroguard excluded, make Gold and Platinum an impossible threshold to achieve, for now (at least for me). To give a paragon: with a Kroguard I can aggro and tank 1/2 Atlases with almost no problem on Gold, and even go 1 vs 3 with Phantoms; and win. 
Humans, Drell and Asari go down simply too fast for me to even consider them for use on Gold.
Yes, Vanguards can be kings and queens of Bronze or Silver, and are funny as hell to use, but again they lack the resilience of the other classes for the more difficult levels, and this is... simply strange.
How do improve their chances, and our fun as Vanguards?
A good idea for me too, is to maximize the stagger capability of every Biotic Charge and its base damage: It should be as a little breathe- window, to decide if to evade, to continue with the attack or find a new target. As things are now, we are light years away.
This could be a good solution and a gift/ little help for the new players too: no more new Vanguard bleeding out on Wave 1- Silver on their first try...

One other good idea, is to improve the carry limit of all the Vanguards (even the Kroguard, albeit just a little): as Pith the Bull and others noticed, the Vanguards are more an Adept (and an inefficient one) than a Soldier. With stronger weapons (which weigh more) the Vanguards could ignore this flaw and move down goons with their biotics, using weapons + charge bonus for the bosses.
Examples:
-Krogan Vanguard+ Graal X =200% CD
-Human Vanguard+ Piranha X+ Heavy pistol X= 200% CD.
It will be not a major twist for the game, but a real useful one, IMO.

Last, but not least: buff the base barrier of every Vanguard. We should be "close and personal" addicted, but (again, Kroguard excluded) we haven't the numbers to do so. As It has been said: "High Risk for very little reward..." is almost the standard.
I have one last idea, more of a crazy thought, on the Novaguard: buff the base damage and make the Nova use 50% of the barrier at level 1 and 33% at level 5 of the evolution tree. Yes: 3(!) Nova at your disposal. 

It's a major change, I know, but IMO It will improve the resilience of the Novaguard and their damage-dealer roles, making them usable on Gold.

Modifié par Dabal Hayat, 04 août 2012 - 05:47 .

[Achire]

I'm not really sure if that's a bug or just a massive gap in invulnerability frames, but it is the main reason you die on Platinum.

Now one solution to this would be to up the hidden damage reduction of charge from 50%. However you can't put it at 100% (or the 130% or so that actually translates to full immunity) since the duration is 4 seconds and thus less than Charge's cooldown. A really good solution suggested elsewhere was to make it a staggered 100%, 75% 50% damage reduction. However since Gamemako pointed out it's not doable with coalesced.bin edits, we can pretty much forget about that happening. We should ask for a higher DR than 50% in any case, since clearly that is completely inadequate on Platinum.

[thegamefreek78648]

-Preie- wrote...

Is that a little better? I wrote it in Word for easier editing. Didn't know it would be a nightmare to cut and paste, Ha!

Copy it to note pad first, that will get rid of all the background Word info that drives forums crazy....

[thegamefreek78648]

Now, let me start by saying I didnt read many of the posts made after the OP so I may go over some things already touched on before.

First let me hit weapon weight.

If you want to take a heavier weapons load but still maintain a high cool down you should look at the Power Efficiency Modules which can help off set the reduced cool down bonus you get from heavier weapons.  Also, there are several peices of gear that also increase power cool downs, some of them also giving bonuses to weapons as well [such as the Expert package which increase cool downs and smg damage]

Ammo powers and weapon amps can also help with the lighter weapons, boosting their damage by a significant amount.

Also, if you have a pistol with ultralight materials equiped you can use a SMG with ultra lights and have them actually work allowing you to take a beefy pistol for long range work and a good SMG for mid - close - in your back pocket ranges.

Something Ive discovered about heavy melees is that it seems you can charge them up while charging, allowing you to hit your target with your strongest melee attack right after you get to them.  Or atleast I was able to do it on the Asari Vanguard, I havent tried it out on the others yet.

Lastly, combat rolls.  Either right after getting to your target, or right after your heavy melee, roll backwards, it takes you out of melee range of just about every mob ive tried it on.  Ofcourse you cant do this on a Krogan Vanguard really but barrier helps make up for it.

Hope some of that helps you while playing a vanguard