Vanguard PVP

[NO_Walking]

Pretty new to the vanguard class, and am having a really hard time. Seems like I just can't do much damage. I just hit lvl 25 and am wondering any good strategies or rotations for PvP as a Vnguard. I am currently tank spec. Thanks for any help.

[Atracin]

At level 25 and as a Shield Spec, you won't be doing much damage. To get your damage up you should do your best to have the best available mods you can get into your armour and in your blaster as well.

 

And going into the skill tree: Static Field, Intimidation, and Brutal Impact are the only real talents that boost your damage. Your main rotation should be Ion Pulse, Stock Strike, HiB, Sticky Grenade, and some Hammer shots. Not much but that's all you really have.

IIRC, I didn't do much damage playing at level 25 PVP (although, this was back when we were mixed in with level 50's), so try to make do with what you have: Guard players and try to be tanky and protect your healers. If you're worried about the damage output, play as an Assault Specialist (even as Tactics). You'll get more damage out of these trees. The trees get better when you have more talent points, and this is so true for the Shield Specialist tree.

[Cheeseblaster]

Vangaurd doesn't really get rolling till the 30's.. then it's just pure fun from then on out.

 

That being said the focus of a Vanguard is not burst damage. It's being able to take a beating while wearing your opponent down.

 

Think of it as being a steamroller. Slow, but there isn't much that can stop it.

 

Commando is the Trooper high damage AC...

 

Just keep on trucking and when you get into the 30's things will fall into place.

[tombok]

1. u will never do alot of burst dmg, if you want to, u need to play another class (assault does ok, but imo its all about tanking hybrid for objective based pvp)

 

2. until you become a geared 50, know your role, its to guard healers, use taunt, hold nodes and doors, harass healers, and attack something that dps is already attacking

 

3. when u do become a bm geared 50, you still dont burst as much as other classes, get used to 2.5k crits (unless u are assault spec'd). But like someone said, you are a steam roller and should win one on one fights.

healers can still outheal your dmg, and against a good one, it should end in a tie.

 

know how to use cryo, neural surge, storm and riot strike to lock down healers and those who spam tracer missles this is crucial or you're not gonna win much. it takes more skill imo to pvp with vanguard, but if you got it, it becomes a really powerful class.

 

besides, we got storm and harpoon, two of the most "fun" pvp skills.

 

 

it does get better, in ilum i can solo 2, cause room to kite is alot larger and no objectives. but it isn't easy mode pvp for a vanguard, like it is for some other classes. you are gonna have to develop some skills. we dont have anything that is spammable like some other classes.

 

Also, there is nothing better than having a pocket commando healer with you, you become virtually unkillable. Taunt and harpoon anyhing attacking ur healer and he will live forever. With mine, it takes a large group to have to stun lock/interrupt my healer, kill me, then kill healer. if they focus just on me, or just on the healer, guess what, we are not dying and will hold any door or node

Edited April 1, 2012 by tombok

[masterbason]

try the assalt tree, if you spend the correct points at 25 you will have a lot fun, help your team and kill a lot!

 

i'm at 25 and doing well... i'm looking forward that this class keep going better and better with time and level...

 

atm this is my build ( if you want to try it out )

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801Z0cZfhMbz.1

[Hethroin]

1. u will never do alot of burst dmg, if you want to, u need to play another class (assault does ok, but imo its all about tanking hybrid for objective based pvp)

 

Assault is the highest burst damage. When you time your Assault Plastique to hit at the same time as a HIB on top of 2 ticking DoTs and follow that with a SS and possibly another HIB. That is burst damage no other class can match. If you want to hybrid tank that's all well and good, but remember that sometimes the objectives force your team to kill someone, and in many of these cases killing them faster is better, no required, to complete the objective.

 

2. until you become a geared 50, know your role, its to guard healers, use taunt, hold nodes and doors, harass healers, and attack something that dps is already attacking

 

I was doing perfectly fine with my champion gun and a full set of centurion eliminator in a DPS role. You still peel for your healers, and you still "harass" the enemy healers. The difference being is that when a shield vanguard harasses a healer they have to heal everyone through his interrupts, but when an assault vanguard harasses a healer that healer has to heal himself through his interrupts.

 

 

know how to use cryo, neural surge, storm and riot strike to lock down healers and those who spam tracer missles this is crucial or you're not gonna win much. it takes more skill imo to pvp with vanguard, but if you got it, it becomes a really powerful class.

 

besides, we got storm and harpoon, two of the most "fun" pvp skills.

 

It takes just as much skill to play a vanguard as it takes to play any other melee in this game. Having both charge and pull in one tank-like package is nice too because you get to decide whose turf the fight will be on.

 

 

...With mine, it takes a large group to have to stun lock/interrupt my healer, kill me, then kill healer. if they focus just on me, or just on the healer, guess what, we are not dying and will hold any door or node

 

Guarded healers are hard to kill, and require strategy, and that's fine. However I think you may be overstating how hard it is to kill one or his guard. 3 competent DPS should be able to kill the 2 of you. Between them they have enough stuns and interrupts to prevent all cast-bar healing for a long time. This leaves you with blowing cooldowns, taunts, hots to tide you over till help arrives.

Edited April 3, 2012 by Hethroin

[Nezyrworks]

The above advices about Assault spec being good on pvp are soon to be changed. Patch 1.2 adds interior cooldown on HIP proc (6sec cooldown), as well as longer cooldown for Plasma Cell proc. This makes Assault spec obsolete if you compare it to post 1.2 Tactic build.

 

Tactics post 1.2= more mobility, higher DPS, BEST utility, better survivability than assault spec. The new change is that you get 70% slow on all targets covered with Pulse Cannon, while you stacked 5 pulse generators (and it also CANT be interrupted). The only downside of tactics (8/31/2) is that you need to learn how to Kite and feel the right moment for AOE. YES. This build is best AOE performer, and sooner you will realize that, the better you will become (with half BM set i can dish 350-450k dmg on Voidstar without sweating).

Edited April 4, 2012 by Nezyrworks

[Riogha]

http://taugrim.com/2012/01/27/iron-fist-25-14-2-pvp-tank-spec-for-swtor-powertech-vanguard/

 

 

Try Ironfist build, i've used it for a while now and its pretty damn fun , L47 atm.

[rydgaze]

Assault is the highest burst damage. When you time your Assault Plastique to hit at the same time as a HIB on top of 2 ticking DoTs and follow that with a SS and possibly another HIB. That is burst damage no other class can match. If you want to hybrid tank that's all well and good, but remember that sometimes the objectives force your team to kill someone, and in many of these cases killing them faster is better, no required, to complete the objective.

 

 

 

I was doing perfectly fine with my champion gun and a full set of centurion eliminator in a DPS role. You still peel for your healers, and you still "harass" the enemy healers. The difference being is that when a shield vanguard harasses a healer they have to heal everyone through his interrupts, but when an assault vanguard harasses a healer that healer has to heal himself through his interrupts.

 

 

 

 

It takes just as much skill to play a vanguard as it takes to play any other melee in this game. Having both charge and pull in one tank-like package is nice too because you get to decide whose turf the fight will be on.

 

 

 

 

Guarded healers are hard to kill, and require strategy, and that's fine. However I think you may be overstating how hard it is to kill one or his guard. 3 competent DPS should be able to kill the 2 of you. Between them they have enough stuns and interrupts to prevent all cast-bar healing for a long time. This leaves you with blowing cooldowns, taunts, hots to tide you over till help arrives.

 

 

 

^^

This.

 

I have been playing full assault through out and I have to say that you are very well setup for burst damage (Assault with eliminator set and power adr/battlefocus/relic). That with ST taunt/aoe taunt can do quite a bit of mayhem against the enemies.

Edited April 4, 2012 by rydgaze

[CaptnBee]

http://taugrim.com/2012/01/27/iron-fist-25-14-2-pvp-tank-spec-for-swtor-powertech-vanguard/

 

 

Try Ironfist build, i've used it for a while now and its pretty damn fun , L47 atm.

 

Signed. If you want to stay in Shield Spec, this is the way to go. You basically trade dps for tools and survivability. It is also worth noting that this build won't be too affected by 1.2.

 

Make sure you watch Taugrim's videos too.

Edited April 4, 2012 by CaptnBee

[Codename_Quincy]

The above advices about Assault spec being good on pvp are soon to be changed. Patch 1.2 adds interior cooldown on HIP proc (6sec cooldown), as well as longer cooldown for Plasma Cell proc. This makes Assault spec obsolete if you compare it to post 1.2 Tactic build.

 

Tactics post 1.2= more mobility, higher DPS, BEST utility, better survivability than assault spec. The new change is that you get 70% slow on all targets covered with Pulse Cannon, while you stacked 5 pulse generators (and it also CANT be interrupted). The only downside of tactics (8/31/2) is that you need to learn how to Kite and feel the right moment for AOE. YES. This build is best AOE performer, and sooner you will realize that, the better you will become (with half BM set i can dish 350-450k dmg on Voidstar without sweating).

 

word on the street is that tactics on test server is still doing less damage than assault. will def test the new ion cannon tho.

 

i'm currently pulling similar numbers to yours when i run tactics, but with assault i'm doing 4-600k for less work. i'm hoping i can match that with the new ion cannon because i really want to like tactics but i will stay assault if i can do more damage.

[Coramac]

word on the street is that tactics on test server is still doing less damage than assault. will def test the new ion cannon tho.

 

i'm currently pulling similar numbers to yours when i run tactics, but with assault i'm doing 4-600k for less work. i'm hoping i can match that with the new ion cannon because i really want to like tactics but i will stay assault if i can do more damage.

 

It's Pulse Cannon.

 

I've already made the switch on live. Tactics is different on a very fundamental level in terms of playstyle. It continually gets undervalued in terms of overall damage and it's burst capability. It has pretty extreme spike burst that is above what I was able to do in Assault. Sticky --> Fire Pulse --> Stock Strike can all hit at the same moment which is a tremendous amount of damage. Assault can't tie as much damage into a single global like Tactics can; however, at least currently, Assault can do substantially more short window burst with resets. On a swap, it's hard to say who's ahead. Tactics isn't HIB dependent and doesn't require an Ion Pulse to start; however, the delay of Fire Pulse makes the burst essentially a two ability burst minimum. If Assault starts with HIB up on a swap, it's going to have a good chance of forcing a reset rather quickly. At that point, it definitely surpasses Tactics.

 

Pulse Generator is the real game changer for me. I really didn't like it at first. It's awkward and vulnerable. On live, if you work with it for a while, you can get to a point where you can use it very effectively... with consumables up, its damage is simply abusive. AoE damage has some very significant advantages with most of the classes / specs that people play on my server and post about on the forums. Tanks and Guard are common. A Tank that gets caught in a Pulse Cannon with his healer (or Guarded target) is dead. We have a single target stun, an AoE stun, and a dislocation ability. It's not nearly as hard to effect this as many people believe, especially if others on your team are working with you to achieve the result. Now, there are some weaknesses to this. Taunt eliminates a lot more damage to an AoE than it does to a single target (same percentage). It requires more coordination than a lot of other builds do. You aren't going to pull it off if you get tunneled / focused. People will figure out what you are doing and try to stop it. The last part isn't necessarily a bad thing because if they are doing that to you, they aren't doing it to a healer.

 

Additionally, ammo management is far superior. I think everyone knows this one though. It has a lot less survivability. That Plasma Cell snare is amazing. Tactics doesn't get something like that. You'll quickly notice the difference when trying to kite. Tactics has terrible kiting ability. It can get away pretty decently with Hold the Line but in terms of kiting, it's terrible.

 

Overall, it's below Assault right now, at least in my opinion having played both specs substantially, but it isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be and situationally Tactics is superior. The primary reason I put Assault above Tactics for PvP is quite simply that the set bonuses are far superior for an Assault build than a Tactics build. +15% to HIB in Assault is light years ahead of +15% crit to Stock Strike.

 

*As a side note, one of the things you have to do with Tactics is remove as much accuracy as you possibly can. It is completely irrelevant to a Tactics build in PvP.

[Didy_Kush]

Spec for assualt and you will be fine i have a 50 vanguard spec'd for assualt and do 400k-500k damage every warzone

 

recently made a vanguard alt (lvl 13) assault spec as well 200k-300k damage a warzone.

[Nezyrworks]

Spec for assualt and you will be fine i have a 50 vanguard spec'd for assualt and do 400k-500k damage every warzone

 

recently made a vanguard alt (lvl 13) assault spec as well 200k-300k damage a warzone.

 

I had played CP build (tank/assault hybrid), Ironfist (before Taurgrim's name splashed on tank build), Run-a-gun (High impact bolt based tactics/assault build), full assault AND full tactics.

 

Let me give you some informations regarding each one (all except last provided by taugrim):

 

Taugrim’s “Iron Fist”: 25/14/2 Powertech (Vanguard): provides charge, Guard, solid melee capability and excellent durability via passive mitigation. Limited ranged capability.

 

Carolina Parakeet: 21/2/18 Powertech (Vanguard): combines the capability to charge and Guard with the excellent cooldown reset proc for Rail Shot (High Impact Bolt) and the heavy ranged DoT. Popular spec on the Powertech forum

 

Run-and-Gun: 1/22/18 Powertech (Vanguard): blends the cooldown reset proc for Rail Shot (High Impact Bolt) with the in-combat sprint and short CC cooldowns of the middle tree. Oozo has created a series of videos on his blog for an almost identical 0/23/18 spec

Controlled Burst DPS: 4/12/25 Powertech (Vanguard): blends high burst and sustained damage with max interrupt capability. This spec passes on Thermal Detonator (Assault Plastique), because within 10m TD (AP) competes with Rocket Punch (Stockstrike) and Flame Burst (Ion Pulse) for the GCD, and the latter abilities take priority due to their ability to reset the cooldown of Rail Shot (High Impact Bolt). Credit for this spec goes to Omegix, a kick-*** Vanguard on Ajunta Pall

 

Full DPS: 4/6/31 Powertech (Vanguard): delivers the highest burst and sustained DPS for the AC at the cost of limited mobility. Fore more information, check out the blog article. There are several variants to this spec, e.g. 4/12/25, 8/6/27, and 8/8/25.

 

Full Tactics: 8/31/2 Provides excellent utility, as well as medicore survivability. This build resolves around High energy cell and elemental attacks (Ion Pulse, Pulse Cannon, and Fire Pulse) (which are not mitigated by armor). Utility combined with passive 15% speed bonus as well as powerful 30 sec cooldown utility "Hold the Line", 20% damage reduction while you are stunned and shorter cc cooldowns makes it very versatile. This build makes best AOE damage compared to other builds, but its weaker in single target burst (right now it provides no snare, but after patch 1.2 pulse generator will provide 70% speed debuff on Pulse Cannon attack, as well as Pulse Cannon will not be interruptable).

 

I prefer the last build (full tactics), because both 15% speed bonus AND 30% sprint granted by "Hold the Line" makes it not only great scoring capability BUT also survivability tool. Faster cooldowns on Riot Strike (casting interrupt), Cryo Grenade (stun) and harpoon (pull), makes this build great versatile. You gain also great AOE damage buffs, which enables you to finish large groups of enemies caping or planting. Also this build resolves almost all elemental damage based attacks which makes tanks as squishy as healers.

[Nezyrworks]

Spec for assualt and you will be fine i have a 50 vanguard spec'd for assualt and do 400k-500k damage every warzone

 

recently made a vanguard alt (lvl 13) assault spec as well 200k-300k damage a warzone.

 

None of PVP warzones except Voidstar resolves around damage. Damage is not a good compensation for lack of utility. Aside from that assault will be kicked in the groins as it should in patch 1.2. IF you want to become pure dps, just roll a gun or *** commando.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Nezyrworks

[Nezyrworks]

word on the street is that tactics on test server is still doing less damage than assault. will def test the new ion cannon tho.

 

i'm currently pulling similar numbers to yours when i run tactics, but with assault i'm doing 4-600k for less work. i'm hoping i can match that with the new ion cannon because i really want to like tactics but i will stay assault if i can do more damage.

 

As i said above, only voidstar resolves around dps. Assault bring much less utility and survival to the table. And i run this build because i can choose which function do i need.

 

Alderaan - interupter on left turret for most of the time (15% speed makes it viable). I run left straight on to harpoon, Cryo and Neural surge potential enemies, then hold the line to get to caped turret and defend it with AOE spam.

 

Voidstar - hudge AOE fest prevents bomb planting. Taunt spam, and as an attacker respawn camp AOE, neural surge spam.

 

Hutball (my favorite) - Mid scoring preventer with shorter cooldown on harpoon, and cryo + neural surge and enemy ball team AOE spam, or scoring with Hold the line, passive speed bust and adrenal+bubble.

[Hethroin]

None of PVP warzones except Voidstar resolves around damage. Damage is not a good compensation for lack of utility. Aside from that assault will be kicked in the groins as it should in patch 1.2. IF you want to become pure dps, just roll a gun or *** commando.

 

I don't think you and I play the same game.

 

Alderaan requires you to clear a turret of defenders before you can cap it. This has to be done in a time efficient manner to not allow respawned defenders time to return to the turret. You cannot achieve this with utility-hybrid-tanks and healers not against teams that have their own healers.

 

Huttball does favor utility and mobility, but a strong DPS group is also needed to control the middle. Charging up ramps and pull-rooting people in fire is not the only way to play that game.

 

Before and after 1.2 assault provides significant damage. There will be a timing change that the pre 1.2 player has to make to play assault in 1.2. I expect very similar results from my assault VG in 1.2.

 

That being said, I'm currently working on getting Combat Tech set just to try out tactics with the changes, but I don't expect it to be better for single target burst.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Hethroin

[SirWai]

Assault has the best dps in the game hands down though the chance of it happening is close to 1% lol. If you wanna see the best thing possible look at this

 

IR, AP, HiB, SS, HiB, IP, HiB is the optimum order

 

the damage should appear like this

 

1k, 0k, 4k4k1k, 3k, 4k, 2k1k, 4k = thats 24k dmg... loooool.

 

each comma is a global cool down somewhat and this is on a geared opponent i done 12k in a second on a squishy new lvl 50 sorc 5.3 + 5.4K + 1k dot lol... GG

 

but yea the nerf to assault is basically the last 4k which usually helps top off the fight but if your burst critted you could just IP them to death or even hammer shot. Hammer shot does surprising close to 1k dmg with the initial dmg + the 2 minor ones then the dot. + don't forget the increase dmg to the fire dot when they are below 30% health. Also would like to add that the nerf gives us less of a chance of decimating two people at the same time (done this on civil war killed two 15k hp maras in a couple of seconds, never seen so many 4ks in my life though and doubt it will ever appear again)

 

and surprisingly if you do this right, you should have a crit rate 25% + 5% smug buff + 15% from eliminator set + 15% from battle focus = 60% not counting the skills you could increase crit chance (don't remember if assault has any)

Edited April 6, 2012 by SirWai

[origional]

Forget what people are telling you about damage figures. They are meaningless. Every server is different and it depends on so many other factors. Some servers will see people doing 500k, others will see people doing 250K. Plus, people lie about what they do because they think it makes them look uber.

[Nezyrworks]

Forget what people are telling you about damage figures. They are meaningless. Every server is different and it depends on so many other factors. Some servers will see people doing 500k, others will see people doing 250K. Plus, people lie about what they do because they think it makes them look uber.

 

thats why my main argument is mobility and utility rather than damage

[SawKrates]

just eeing what vanguards have been doing with their mods?

Are you guys keeping what comes with the BM gear or switching too diff ones to get the optimal stas. If so what mods are you switching too?

TY

[Zunayson]

Tactics doesn't get something like that. You'll quickly notice the difference when trying to kite. Tactics has terrible kiting ability. It can get away pretty decently with Hold the Line but in terms of kiting, it's terrible.

 

They get a passive 15% bonus speed when in HeC. Their kiting abiliy is pretty awesome.

 

Also, I was just playing a WZ and had an awesome burst of Fire Pulse crit (2.2k) and then a stockstrike crit (2k). Amazing, almost 4.5k damage inflicted so fast... Definitely gonna stack crit more than surge here at the beginning of the game.