PvP Vanguard Shield Spec now and in 1.3

[Ehral]

No this is not another thread complaining about 1.3 changes.

 

I understand why some are complaining about 1.3 and I'm not gonna say they are wrong. It sucks to have your playstyle changed in this way. I know of many who base everything they do around SS and I expect a painful amount of respecs into assault spec which is already OP in many ways.

 

BUT, there is plenty of hope and lots to be excited about for those who play the way I think a shield spec vanguard should be played. I keep seeing people saying shield spec needs love -- to which I say these people are crazy. My shield spec vanguard regularly finishes top 3 in dps and that's running in premades with good dps guildies. In PUGS I most often finish #1.

 

AT 50 pvp that means about 350-450k damage for me in voidstar, and situationally less in the other warzones. Less than assault spec, to be sure, but still pretty good, especially when you then tack on 100k+ protection (sometimes a LOT higher). I basically ALWAYS finish #1 in medals.

 

And here's where we get to the real point. I do not care about the damage AT ALL. I win warzones. Shield spec vanguard is about winning warzones and this means winning objectives. I can defend a node like a ****** and can have 4 enemies descend on me, call inc, and still hold them off for a minute waiting for reinforcements. I can storm and harpoon in huttball and I make an excellent node capture player in almost any warzone since I am not usually people's first choice of target. in 1v1 defense situations I am a pvp god. there are some classes that I think have the upper hand on me, but this is rare. rare enough for me to feel overpowered relatively when compared to everyone else.

 

But wait, won't nerfing Stockstrike change all this? NO! I am not based around stockstrike. I use it of course, but one of my key abilities -- maybe my main ability -- is explosive surge. Stupid of me? too much ammo? negligible damage? yeah i've heard all the complaints. But they are wrong. Here's why:

 

1: Hammer shot and energy blast do a surprisingly large amount of damage. And since I mostly care about winning warzones and this frequently means damage is all I need. Just ANY damage to break a node change or a plant, etc. these abilities help keep me in the rapid ammo recharge stage so I can use AoE abilities like sticky grenade, and explosive surge as often as possible.

 

2: Explosive surge is a pressure ability and a high dps one at that. I regularly spread around over 4k damage per use and unlike the 'burst is all that matters' crowd, I actually think the pressure is very important. This may be the most important part of this post so listen carefully. Pressure matters because so many of the objectives require a lot of the enemy team all to die at the same time. Capturing an east/west node in Civil war requires 3 guys to not be able to all speeder in over and over stopping the capture. Planting in voidstar frequently requires having 5+ enemy players caught behind the spawn door all at once. If you rotate burst through these players it can be tough. but if you have a few bursters and a few great pressure DPS'ers you end up in those great situations where the whole team is still on the field with 30% health and all end up dying together in the space of 5 seconds. Finally, lets not forget the pressure put on healers who are frequently themselves caught in these surges, and the utility of this pressure in situations where you need AoE to stop node changes. Oh wait I didn't even mention the 4% damage debuff to everyone caught in the blast everytime I use it (which I am reasonably sure doesn't get added to my protection. That's ok being a shield van is sometimes a thankless job).

 

3. Explosive surge is getting the mother of all Buffs this patch! 2 free every 15 seconds! I am simply amazed by this. It's like mana falling from heaven. I suspect between a bit of ammo management via abilities (energy blast, recharge cells, etc) I am gonna basically be able to surge whenever I want. I won't be spamming it constantly of course, but then I wouldn't want to anyways. The point is, any big opportunity to hit 3+ targets we'll have no worries at all. Spam away!

 

4: AoE high impact bolt induced Ion Cell damage! More pressure! and more importantly, a fanatastic Insta AoE damaging effect to break node captures and plants. And lets not forget that it's now an AoE 2 second 50% slow! yeah the damage sucks but the point is it's damage at all and it's a fanatstic utility ability.

 

All of this is to say nothing about the fact that vanguard is generally OP already and will still burst just fine if they need to. Right now it's not uncommon at all for me to throw a sticky grenade, then immediately storm, stockstrike, High Impact Bolt, have the grenade blow and energy blast all together in the span of 3 seconds for a total of 7000-9000+ damage (and a taunt and an interrupt and an immobilize too if you are like me! man we have so many great abilities not on the GCD!). Even if a nerf to stockstrike surge reduced this by 1000 pts every time (which it won't) that's still pretty great.

 

So stop worrying. Shield specced vanguards are fine. Make friends with every healer on your server. Guard them up and become an immortal pvp god who flies around the field spreading immobilizes, slows, interrupts, damage debuffs and explosive mayhem to all in your path while keeping your own healers alive!

Edited June 15, 2012 by Ehral
spelling

[Grafon]

Great thread. Would you mind posting up your spec? I'm getting back into my Vanguard for the first time since early 1.2 and am trying to decide the best route that still allows me to play with high survivability. I assume you're using the Supercommando gearset?

[Ehral]

Great thread. Would you mind posting up your spec? I'm getting back into my Vanguard for the first time since early 1.2 and am trying to decide the best route that still allows me to play with high survivability. I assume you're using the Supercommando gearset?

 

I use a 31/8/2 build. Mostly variations of this:

 

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

 

Though some minor teaks here and there occasionally. I do not claim this is optimal. Blaster augs, for example, may not be great since ion cell is not delivering correct damage. Anyways, I find this works. What's also great about it is that it works perfectly fine for either pvp or pve.

 

Also, I use 4 pc supercommando armor and the supercommando rifle. This is generally enough tankiness and I love the set bonuses. 5% overall damage buff is great. These alone will get your shield/absorb/endurance to good levels. Everything else (implants, armor piece, ear, belt, bracers) is some kind of dps item. 1 defensive and 1 offensive relic

Edited June 15, 2012 by Ehral

[Huggsnotdruggs]

Great thread. Would you mind posting up your spec? I'm getting back into my Vanguard for the first time since early 1.2 and am trying to decide the best route that still allows me to play with high survivability. I assume you're using the Supercommando gearset?

 

I sincerely hope he does not use supercommando. Combat tech would be much better for applying great pressure while still maintaining great tanking capabilities, but I could be wrong about the op.

 

Edit: the op posted a reply the moment I did

Edited June 15, 2012 by Huggsnotdruggs

[Ehral]

I sincerely hope he does not use supercommando. Combat tech would be much better for applying great pressure while still maintaining great tanking capabilities, but I could be wrong about the op.

 

Interestingly, it's the combat tech guys I feel sorry for in this upcoming patch. Their Stockstrike set bonus worked really well with the surge bonus and it's gonna place them in a tough spot gear wise. They won't be ideal for assault spec since eliminator is better for that and won't be ideal for shield spec either. At least not nearly as good as before. Who knows, maybe they can do something with Tactics. I don't know. I think BW allows a few purchase corrections through customer support so maybe...

 

Anyways yeah, though I DO in fact use 4 pc supercommando, I agree with the sentiment of your reply. For pvp in general you need a lot of dps gear. Hence the fact that everything else I use is dps

Edited June 15, 2012 by Ehral

[Huggsnotdruggs]

Yeah apon further thought it does seem that having a 4pc super commando and another 4 pc eliminator would be ideal.

[Sith_Cho]

I love your positive outlook for the upcoming patch and I hope it does in the end help with control/management in pvp.

I still feel weary about taking away the damage on stockstrike, it's still a great follow-up attack on a single healer to apply pressure for a low cost of ammo.

BTW that aoe HIB applying ion cell won't break the non-targetted players, it applies the dots but won't interrupt the capping, will only stop your initial target(not 100% sure, just heard about on PTS). You'll probably have to storm -> E.S. then use HIB to apply the DoT/Snare.

[ComeAndSee]

1: Hammer shot and energy blast do a surprisingly large amount of damage. And since I mostly care about winning warzones and this frequently means damage is all I need. Just ANY damage to break a node change or a plant, etc. these abilities help keep me in the rapid ammo recharge stage so I can use AoE abilities like sticky grenade, and explosive surge as often as possible.

 

Hammer Shot does do pretty good damage. Anywhere between 300-600 damage. Energy Blast isn't a heavy hitter, but is nice when squeezing in burst. Only downside is you have 90% accuracy by default on it.

 

2: Explosive surge is a pressure ability and a high dps one at that. I regularly spread around over 4k damage per use and unlike the 'burst is all that matters' crowd, I actually think the pressure is very important. This may be the most important part of this post so listen carefully. Pressure matters because so many of the objectives require a lot of the enemy team all to die at the same time. Capturing an east/west node in Civil war requires 3 guys to not be able to all speeder in over and over stopping the capture. Planting in voidstar frequently requires having 5+ enemy players caught behind the spawn door all at once. If you rotate burst through these players it can be tough. but if you have a few bursters and a few great pressure DPS'ers you end up in those great situations where the whole team is still on the field with 30% health and all end up dying together in the space of 5 seconds. Finally, lets not forget the pressure put on healers who are frequently themselves caught in these surges, and the utility of this pressure in situations where you need AoE to stop node changes. Oh wait I didn't even mention the 4% damage debuff to everyone caught in the blast everytime I use it (which I am reasonably sure doesn't get added to my protection. That's ok being a shield van is sometimes a thankless job).

 

Explosive Surge isn't really a "pressure" ability more than an ability to use while moving or when being attacked by multiple people or to apply the damage debuff. Pulse Cannon, Mortar Volley, and Sticky Grenade better fit this category because they do more damage for their ammo cost.

 

3. Explosive surge is getting the mother of all Buffs this patch! 2 free every 15 seconds! I am simply amazed by this. It's like mana falling from heaven. I suspect between a bit of ammo management via abilities (energy blast, recharge cells, etc) I am gonna basically be able to surge whenever I want. I won't be spamming it constantly of course, but then I wouldn't want to anyways. The point is, any big opportunity to hit 3+ targets we'll have no worries at all. Spam away!

 

I already played around with this on the PTR. With the surge bonus loss Explosive Surge only crits for about 1100~ and hits for about 600-700. It's more of a "ammo" management ability now to allow you to better maintain your ammo or give you something to do while your ammo is low.

 

4: AoE high impact bolt induced Ion Cell damage! More pressure! and more importantly, a fanatastic Insta AoE damaging effect to break node captures and plants. And lets not forget that it's now an AoE 2 second 50% slow! yeah the damage sucks but the point is it's damage at all and it's a fanatstic utility ability.

 

Ion Cell got nerfed (or its bugged) on the PTR and hits for about 2/3rds the damage it does on live. My Ion Cell hits for 161 and ticks for 75 on the PTR and on live it's about 50% more. It's a nice ability, but with the nerf to Ion Cell it isn't going to inflict any amount of damage.

 

Also, Ion Cell lasts 6 seconds instead of 9. Another DPS loss.

 

All of this is to say nothing about the fact that vanguard is generally OP already and will still burst just fine if they need to. Right now it's not uncommon at all for me to throw a sticky grenade, then immediately storm, stockstrike, High Impact Bolt, have the grenade blow and energy blast all together in the span of 3 seconds for a total of 7000-9000+ damage (and a taunt and an interrupt and an immobilize too if you are like me! man we have so many great abilities not on the GCD!). Even if a nerf to stockstrike surge reduced this by 1000 pts every time (which it won't) that's still pretty great.

 

So stop worrying. Shield specced vanguards are fine. Make friends with every healer on your server. Guard them up and become an immortal pvp god who flies around the field spreading immobilizes, slows, interrupts, damage debuffs and explosive mayhem to all in your path while keeping your own healers alive!

 

Actually, Vanguards aren't get any better next patch.

 

1. Explosive Surge and Stockstrike crit for 20% less after you calculate in the DRs. So it's about 400~ less critical damage on Stockstrike's and Explosive Surge crits for about 100 less which isn't too much of a loss.

 

2. Ion Cell's damage "nerf" (or bug).

 

3. 14% less chance to crit on Stockstrike and Explosive Surge.

 

Really the only "plus" is the two free Explosive Surges, weak damage High Impact Bolt, and better long term ammo management with Explosive Surge. The two positives don't make up for the overall loss on Stockstrike's DPS which is our main source of burst damage.

 

So we loss say 3, but gain 1. That's not a fair trade off. I love playing Shield, but the nerfs next patch are too much. They obviously had PvE on the mind and gave the finger to those who PvP as shield.

Edited June 16, 2012 by ComeAndSee

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[Chaoskyx]

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