Kantor said:
Khuutra said:
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.
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Just a shotgun? I was worried about the lack of long-range weapons and also the fact that my (only) shotgun only has enough heat capacity for 20 shots.
Thanks for the advice. I was one of those annoying all-caps people for the most part, and I suppose with all of the fun I was having I forgot that dying is bad 
When you say trash mobs, do you mean in general those without armour or shielding?
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Yes. Trash mobs include Husks, Cannibals, Assault Troopers, and Geth Troopers. Some people include Centurions in that ranking but let's be honest, Centurions can be a pain in the ass. Once you're stronger you become capable of handling anything in a group except for the most dangerous big enemies, like Atlases and Geth Primes, and enemies that you really need to focus fire on, like Phantoms. One of your prime jobs as a Vanguard: murder enemies that everyone else is afraid of, stay away from enemies that your teammates use as walking Biotic Explosion factories.
THe Charge/Nova spam is very workable in Bronze, but you'll need to break that habit for Silver and Gold.
And don't worry about your ammo capacity, that increases over time and you'll rarely run out of ammo in situations where you can't safely get more.
