Posted in this thread is the build I've come up with and find works quite well for me so far. Granted, I just hit 55 and now need to start working on gearing up, but I'm rather pleased.

I agree completely. However, my best guess is that Bioware figured VGs would stack shield and absorb to high heaven while shunning defense entirely, so they forced a bit of defense on us to make up for all that sweet sweet shield stat we'll be swimming in.

I'm going to go ahead and blame PvP for this nerf. It's the most logical conclusion I can come to. Still doesn't make sense tho.

First off, please don't use this spec. 1. Blaster Augs? Terrible for Shield Specialist Vanguards. 2. No Riot Gas? This ability is actually pretty damn good now, certainly worth the point. 3. No Energy Blast? Wow...With the way this ability works now, it's absolutely fantastic. The cooldown may read 15sec, but it's up usually within 9sec. Add in the +25% Absorb for 6sec and Energy Blast kicks all kinds of *** now. 4. Neural Overload...whatever floats your boat. Obviously you consider it a better use of a point than Riot Gas or Energy Blast. 5. Soldier's Endurance is a waste of 3 points for so little return. Yes, part of a tank's job is to make sure they can take a beating. The other part of the job is to make sure you're the one getting beat on, not the paper mache dps sentinel in your group. If you aren't putting out enough damage/threat to hold aggro, all the endurance buffs in the world won't do you any good. Put those points in Heavy Stock, please. 6. Overcharged Cell Capacitor is quite a bit better than Rebraced Armor as well, but at least RA provides more benefit than Soldier's Endurance. 7. This last one is just personal preference, but I've found the new Charge! talent to be more useful for positioning and crowd control than the Shrap Satchel. Slowing enemies is all well and good for 6 seconds, but having a +50% buff to in-combat speed the entire fight (lasts 4sec and refreshes when attacked. Which as a tank, should be always) has been much more beneficial, for myself at least. In short. I recommend this build for Vanguard tanking Plus 1 point to spend where ever you want.

You mentioned you play an assassin tank, right? Would you mind letting me know which server? See, I'm a bit worried I might have to play with you at some point on my operative and I'd rather not if I can help it. If it makes you feel any better, you can simply see in my sig what server I play on and my character names. Just a simple "Confirm/Deny" response would suffice.

Ahh, Billy Madison. One of the few good Adam Sandler movies.

Man, I f***ing LOVED City of Heroes. I had an active sub from launch to shutdown. Even if I was playing other games, I'd still keep it active so I could pop in every once in a while to just relax and play a FUN game. *sigh*

Well yeah, except So enjoy your worthless dark-side points, I guess.

Since this won't be happening in SWtOR, might I direct your attention to Star Citizen? Try not to drool on the keyboard.

Enjoy digging into your backlog, man! XCOM is fantastic and the nice thing about CoDBO2 is it'll only take up a couple hours of one day.

It's "Hope" for me, I love me some troopers!

I support this 100%! We need backpack-free armors!

You realize the last post before yours was from 14 months ago. Also, yes, it's the least useful ability a Trooper has. Blitz only works in PvE and then only on junk mobs who have been incapacitated. Hence why it's being removed, thank god.

If you want a little bit tankier PvP build, I might recommend something akin to the old Iron Fist build. Even though it was neutered pretty bad with 1.3, it's still fun to play and how I roll when I PvP with my Vanguard. You can put up decent (IMO) damage while still being an excellent guard.

I would just like to mention that Ammo is not equivelant to Energy Cells. Energy Cells are equivelant to Heat. Just in case there was some confusion.

31/3/5 with 2 free points to spend where you want is pretty standard for PvE.

Assault is the highest potential DPS tree for Vanguard.

I assume this is for PvP? Check out the Iron Fist sticky at the top of this forum. Patch 1.3 effectively killed its damage capacity, but the spec is still fun to play, with a bit of tweaking. If this is in regards to PvE...no.

This issue has been around since the devs decided that 12 was an equivalent fraction of 100 (AKA: Since Alpha). Why on God's Green Earth they didn't just give Troopers 25 ammo and make the ability costs 1/4 of the Bounty Hunters', I'll never know... Someone on the dev team is a G*****n f*****g r****d. 12 IS NOT AN EQUIVALENT FRACTION OF 100! RRRAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!! ++MATH RAGE++

^ This. My roomie and I have the same problem with Esseles, it happens about 95% of the time. However, we have two completely different rigs, so someone saying, "it's just one model of one brand..." is blowing smoke up their ***. Anyway, I don't expect this to be fixed, so I just skip Esseles now.

Still here, still playing. Took a break after 1.3, but enjoying myself enough now.

Gear: Focus on Endurance with a side of Aim. Gear your level doesn't generally have secondary stats on it, but Power or Critical will be more helpful to you in the early going pre-30s. After that, start looking for Shield and Absorption. Strategies: Use Ion Cell. Place Guard on the highest level melee DPS in your group, since they'll be in the thick of it with you and they generally are the ones who will more often threaten to overtake your aggro on the mobs. Try to open with Mortar Volley. If that isn't available, a Sticky Grenade and Pulse Cannon will work nicely. Cycle between Stockstrike, Hammer Shot, High Impact Bolt and Ion Pulse when focusing on a single target. If you're handling more than 1 target, try to manuever them around so they're all fairly close togther, then use Pulse Cannon and Sticky Grenade whenever they're available. Remeber to try and not let your Ammo fall below 7, otherwise it will start to regen slower which means you'll have to wait longer between attacks and your threat generation will fall off. Face mobs away from your party! Honestly, there are a ton more pointers and more in-depth information available, but that will hopefully get you through the early levels.

Hell yeah! My first character on The Crucible Pits was a female trooper. I love Jennifer Hale's voice. Of course, my second character was a male trooper. Because, well, trooper.

I actually left the game shortly before 1.3 dropped due to them killing my favorite spec in the game, Iron Fist (that, and 1.2 had killed my Combat Medic Commando.) :'(. But I've returned to scratch that Star Wars itch and while IF isn't nearly as strong as it was, it's still a very fun spec, now that I've modified it for PvE. Basically what I'm saying is, give a modified Iron Fist a try, you might enjoy yourself.

As far as I know: