Mass Effect Thread: Leviathan is out, buy it, it's great

[lestatdark]

Khuutra said:

Kantor said:

Khuutra said:

Kantor said:
The Vanguard is actually a lot of fun in multiplayer. I tried him out briefly on my second ME2 playthrough (I had been a Vanguard in ME1, but of course that was an entirely different class) and didn't like him at all, but with sensible teammates to back you up, revive you when you go down and provide covering fire, he's absolutely brilliant. Is that a banshee? Screw cover, I'll go charge right into her and kill her with a shotgun.

You are terrible! You are a terrible Vanguard and you make teams die on Silver and above!

I think the issue is that I am a low level Vanguard who is, in fact, so low-level that he hasn't even tried facing silver-class enemies yet.

I am fully aware that I should be charging in and taking out seven enemies with a melee attack without taking a scratch at some point, but it takes practice and ability points.

More seriously, effective use of the Vanguard is more about practice and situational awareness than it is larger tactics about power spreads.

As a Vanguard, you have one job: clean up trash mobs (and mid-range mobs when you are stronger) so your teammates can fulfill their own roles more effectively. Some will support you, some will do more damage than you, but it doesn't matter. You are the Vanguard. On Silver or Bronze you can hold one flank by yourself, and if you play intelligently and carefully then you should not be going down. You should never go down at all on Bronze once you get in some practice.

Whenever you roll Vanguard, take a Katana, Scimitar, or Disciple levelled up to X (if possible) and your recharge rate will be +191%, or thereabouts, if you take the weapon lightness path (you should). You need to be a close-range headshot machine, which will do more damageo ver time than either Charge or Nova. Close range headshots with any of those guns will stagger most enemies, including Pyros, allowing you to get past the cooldown time necessary to start really tearing ass.

There are people who see Vanguards as "CHARGE NOVA CHARGE NOVA CHARGE NOVA CHAAAARGE", but these people are not good at their jobs. Crowd control is necessary, and Nova's stagger needs to be timed carefully, and should not be your primary source of damage.

Also don't screw with Geth Primes, they don't give a shit about your Nova and Charge stuns them less often than it does Atlases.

Never charge a Banshee if she's facing you, they have frames where they'll automatically grab you if they see you.

Man, never try going up against a Banshee if your game has a bit of lag. I was grabbed by one when I was in cover and she was still a few good 10 meters away in my game, but probably she was already breathing down my neck in reality XD. 

But that strategy you deploy is the same as mine. With my trusty Eviscerator X (or Disciple V, or Claymore II, but mostly the Eviscerator for recharge time), I usually just go for the HS most of the time. But there are just walls that you hit when being a Vanguard, and Gold difficulty is too much of a wall for any Vanguard IMO.