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[SergeTroy]

So, I've been reading through the Forums and watching a number of vids on playing the Vanguard in ME2, but I have a few questions for the community, on both my build idea(s) and people's opinions on specific powers.  (BTW, from my understanding I'm topped out on DLC, with even the Dr. Pepper bonus items being covered by the Recon Pack or whatnot).

 

Firstly, I'll be importing a level 60 Shepard with the 'Rich' Achievement into a brand new Mass Effect 2 game & profile, meaning no Squad Powers have been unlocked at the start.  I plan on starting gameplay at Veteran and working up from there to both work on my skills and polish the build to my preference   Now the builds that I have in mind and my questions

 

Standard Vanguard Build:

 

• 10 points Incendiary Ammo - Inferno Ammo
• 10 points Cryo Ammo - Squad Cryo
• 10 Points Charge - Heavy Charge
• 10 Points Shockwave - Heavy Shockwave
• 1 Point Pull
• 10 Points Assault Mastery - Champion

Now from my understanding, Shockwave starts off a blase mediocre and quickly falls into that camp of powers that might better be described as Gameplay Penalties: a bad investment the greater the difficulty.  Sooo, with that as an understanding, the moment I unlock Slam, my build will be changed to:

 

• 10 points Incendiary Ammo - Inferno Ammo
• 10 points Cryo Ammo - Squad Cryo
• 10 Points Charge - Heavy Charge
• 1 Point Shockwave - unless it's better to just leave that one point unassigned (which I wouldn't doubt)
• 10 Points Assault Mastery - Champion
• 10 Points Slam - Heavy Slam

or Alternatively

 

• 10 Points Incendiary Ammo - Inferno Ammo
• 10 Points Charge - Heavy Charge
• 3 Points Shockwave
• 10 Points Pull - Area Pull
• 10 Points Assault Master - Champion
• 6 Points -  Stasis  or Slam or I have no idea  what :/

My plan is to mostly play with a pure Pistol, SMG, & SHOTGUN! Vanguard, not opting in for either Sniper Rifle or AR training until a few separate playthroughs. 

 

Now, some questions.  It's my understanding that on any difficulty, Reave (or at least Area Reave) is considered to be an Overpowered Power, because it's use starts to dominate the play style of whatever build it's a part of.  That is to say: whenever you have Reave free, it's always the best thing to toss down straight away (but particularly against shielded, armored opponents for defense stripping).  Charge is a tactical choice where there are always going to be occasions or points that you don't want to charge; it's the bread and butter of the class but that doesn't mean you want to charge into a group of YMIR Mechs that haven't even been softened up yet and around whom there is no cover (not saying that's an occurence in game, just aiming for an example).  I've heard this can also be said of Energy Drain, though to a lesser extent.

 

Curious to know if that's something that is generally agreed on or not.  Also, and just checking, but do most people agree with the sentiment of not taking another ammo power as a bonus power and just leaving that up to the respective squad mate?

[capn233]

Here are my quick thoughts on the powers in the tree for Vanguard, based on my own bias:

 

Charge - Core power, this should be the first thing taken to rank 4, and Heavy is the better evolution there.

 

Incendiary Ammo - You want to have at least a rank for the first couple of missions, and then it should be a priority to level it to Inferno after Charge and or passive to Champion, and it is essentially a core power for a standard shotgun vanguard.

 

Cryo Ammo - This is a luxury, although you will probably want at least 1 point by Horizon.  Getting the squad evolution makes a huge difference on a few missions (husk heavy missions like Derelict Reaper), but not quite as big a difference on the merc heavy missions, and it is just ok on Geth missions.

 

Shockwave - Personally, I don't like this power all that much and I wouldn't worry about it on vanguard.  It has a couple missions with tight hallways where it can be useful (Dantius Towers), but it is a little whonky.  An acquired taste, but it works better on an adept or a caster vanguard playthrough.

 

Pull - Decent for ranged CC and to setup warp bombs.  But point investment is a bit high to get here relative to other options.

 

Passive - Core power, needs to be leveled early for the Charge cooldown bonus.  Champion is what I tend to take.

 

The bonus powers depend on what you want to do.  On PC you can't pick Stasis right away since the menu is bugged, but you can either put it on your character with the gibbed save editor, or just wait until you can access the research terminal.

 

Slam - This is one of the one point wonder powers in the game, you get most all of the utility at level 1 and it is pretty helpful early game when it is very difficult to charge willy nilly.  It also has significantly less investment cost than Pull if you are interested in some fast cooldown CC and primer for warp bombs.  I wouldn't worry about leveling it until the core powers and Cryo Ammo is leveled, but even then the higher ranks are more for luxury.  This is my favorite bonus power for the Vanguard.

 

Stasis - Powerful single target CC since it works on nearly everything.  The real reason most people recommend it is for the damage glitch as enemies will take more damage than they are supposed to when the effect wears off and they are falling.  With Charge+Claymore this extremely powerful against minibosses like Scions and YMIR mechs.

 

Reave - This is a good power, but as you say it ends up dominating the build as many times there isn't much reason not to just use Area Reave over and over.  As such I think it has poor synergy on the Vanguard if you care about charging.  In reality the two classes that are probably best with Reave as a bonus are Soldier and Engineer, interestingly enough.

 

Energy Drain - Sort of like reave, it can help with durability.  I don't like that it is a tech power and makes a non pure class, and also that it has some overlap with Charge.  For full disclosure I haven't done a full playthrough with this as a bonus on any character because I don't really care for it, but if I was I would probably use it on Infiltrator or Engineer.  A lot of people liked it on Adept because of the notion that Adept has "no way to deal with shields," but that is only half true.

 

Neural Shock - another one point wonder, it would be pretty good early game for CC.  But I would rather take Slam.

 

Whatever Ammo Power - Vanguard (and Soldier) have the two best ammo powers in the game from the factory, and there isn't a great reason to take a bonus.  None of the bonus ammos give any CC.

 

Flashbang - This might not be so bad, but it is a bit tricky to aim and might rob some Charge cooldown time.  I would rather just take Kasumi along.  Does severely nerf Harbinger.

 

Anything else - not particularly useful, IMO.

 

By mid to late game if you have kept up with upgrades, you will nearly be able to Charge anywhere, anytime.  The one other thing is that since you are going to stick with Shotguns, the upgraded shotgun really needs reload canceling to shine, so it might be worth looking into that.  Basically in this game you use melee right when the clip is ejected, while holding down the fire button.

[SergeTroy]

Thanks capn233, really appreciate the breakdown there of the various powers! If I didn't mention it in the ME1 threads, the level by level guides you set up for the Adept, Engineer, and the Soldier were fantastic as a strong template for a beginner like me. Generally the only thing I ever saw about changing was a sniper rifle for the AR on the Engineer, and mostly just because I prefer being able to snipe in ME1 (ME2's sniping will be called the Heavy Charge followed by a double-tap of the GPSG upside the head :grin )

[a_mouse]

I tend to play a hit-and-run, ambush style of Vanguard (as opposed to wading into groups with a Claymore hoping to panic them with Inferno Ammo). For this I find Cryo Ammo more generally useful than incendiary, so level this before Incendiary.  Thus my priority is usually to level-up Charge, Passive, and Cryo Ammo.  I usually put one point in Slam initially as a "poor-man's pull" since it does not require wasting 3 XPs in Shockwave.  Later, when I have enough XPs, I replace Slam with Level 1 Stasis, and take Level 2 Shockwave and Level 1 Pull.  I find Stasis to be *incredibly* useful and synergistic on a Vanguard because it allows you to time-manage your enemies better (I'd take it even without the glitch!)

 

Thus sometime before the Collector Ship the build looks something like:

 

Incendiary Ammo: 3

Cryo Ammo: 10 

Heavy Charge: 10

Shockwave: 3

Pull: 1

Champion: 10

Stasis: 1

 

Here is an example close to this level.  After this it really doesn't matter much.  A year ago I probably would have said Incendiary all the way, but now ...?. I'm not sure.  Cryo is so much more generally useful (as an immobilizer) than incendiary, and putting those XPs into Pull Field is pretty awesome if you are set up with squadmates that have defense-stripping powers and Unstable Warp.  I tend to respec a lot, so don't take Pull past Level 1 until I have 9 XPs elsewhere to level-up Pull all at once.  

 

I've never really liked Reave on a Vanguard.  You don't really need the extra protection, and it's just sapping cool downs (similar argument for Energy Drain). If you are charging a lot, your barrier is constantly going back up anyway.  Meanwhile I think it's more efficient to strip with squadmate powers and let Shep control (or give the squad Cryo ammo) than spend Shep's cool downs stripping.  Perhaps Reave and ED are more useful if you are going to deal with enemies from range rather than assault them. 

 

I don't usually take Shockwave past level 2 (to unlock Pull).  It's sometimes fun to toss in for flavor, but it's very situational, so not worth putting 10 points into.

 

Best of luck!

[SergeTroy]

Thanks a_mouse, I was curious about Pull Field in practical use.  I could have sworn I'd read somewhere there were some issues with it and Frozen Enemies, but I may be misremembering (lotta reading over a short period get's somethings mixed up).  There's definitely going to be a lot of trial and error for me as far as goes the combos, etc. in combat.  I can't even guess how long it'll be before I get the thermal clip mastery down (top off than pick up clip, top off than pick upf clip). 

 

And overall I'm willing to bet that Shockwaves lackluster performance is something that irritates others as well as me.  In my naivette in watching ME3 Let's Plays and combat, I thought Shockwave was the equivalent of Nova in ME2.  Woops!    It's all good though, I started reading and realized how tired people were of that style.  I'll probably get that way too (after a few runs) :lol

[KrrKs]

If that entire run will be on Veteran difficulty, a rank 4 shockwave (wide evo) should actually work pretty well on all missions involving husks.

Energy drain and Reave will instead not be all that useful, as there are way less protected enemies around.

(I'm not sure if heavy reave will drain all live of a basic trooper)

 

Personally, I find Zaeed's grenades useful for panicking enemies that hide behind cover.

[a_mouse]

I was curious about Pull Field in practical use.  I could have sworn I'd read somewhere there were some issues with it and Frozen Enemies, but I may be misremembering (lotta reading over a short period get's somethings mixed up).

There are. For some portion of the freezing animation enemies are immune to biotics (Shockwave is a particular problem, as it seems to ignore enemies even after they are completely frozen - see this video by RedCaesar).  And it's definitely... annoying.  But usually when it happens (with Pull or Slam) the enemies in question are already suppressed (by virtue of being frozen), so usually not a make-or-break issue.  At this point I've just come to accept the occasional whiffed warp bomb.
 

overall I'm willing to bet that Shockwaves lackluster performance is something that irritates others as well as me.  In my naivette in watching ME3 Let's Plays and combat, I thought Shockwave was the equivalent of Nova in ME2.  Woops!    It's all good though, I started reading and realized how tired people were of that style.  I'll probably get that way too (after a few runs) :lol

If Shockwave consumed shields instead of a cool down (as ME3 Nova does), then I think it would be more powerful. But in most situations it's hard to justify (tactically) spending a cool down on it relative to other immobilizing powers that have shorter cool down (Slam, Pull, NS), more definitive targeting(everything), wider AOE (Area Reave, Pull Field), or set up for more damage (Pull, Slam). Basically the only reason I ever use it is because I already have the situation under control and it's fun to watch groups of enemies go flying through the air.  For this it is ... unmatched.

[SergeTroy]

If that entire run will be on Veteran difficulty, a rank 4 shockwave (wide evo) should actually work pretty well on all missions involving husks.

Energy drain and Reave will instead not be all that useful, as there are way less protected enemies around.

(I'm not sure if heavy reave will drain all live of a basic trooper)

 

Personally, I find Zaeed's grenades useful for panicking enemies that hide behind cover.

I am considering Shockwave on my initial run (first ever, Veteran Difficulty, level 60 import with Rich Achievement, as Vanguard).  I'm just not certain on how I might style it.  One possibility might be

 

• 10 points Inferno Ammo
• 1 point Cryo Ammo
• 10 points Heavy Charge
• 10 Points Improved Shockwave
• 0 Pull
• 10 Points Champion
• 10 point Heavy Slam

 

Or reversing it and going with 1 point in Slam for the 10 points in Squad Cryo, dunno.

[KrrKs]

I'd go with Heavy Slam. The half second longer lift time makes it much easier to actually get a warp bomb out of it (for me anyway).

 

Squad Cryo can be great, but enemies often fall behind cover where you can't target them (not so great). Also there is this bug you and mouse mentioned regarding Shockwave not interacting with frozen targets.

[SergeTroy]

I'd go with Heavy Slam. The half second longer lift time makes it much easier to actually get a warp bomb out of it (for me anyway).

 

Squad Cryo can be great, but enemies often fall behind cover where you can't target them (not so great). Also there is this bug you and mouse mentioned regarding Shockwave not interacting with frozen targets.

I like that.  So, no Squad Cryo in Veteran or below, (not because it's bad but because of trade with other powers that are still useful) & full blown Squad Cryo in Hardcore and above.  Thanks KrrKs