My experience Edit

I've finished the game with Vanguard, done almost every mission except 1, on Normal. Should I start a Vanguard Guide? Or should I wait 'til I conquer higher difficulties?

For the curious, the strategy ends up boiling down to:

1) Use SMG and shotgun only. SMG is for far-off engagements, but full-auto models make it OK for close-up: good to finish an enemy after a charge when it only has a bit of health left and is flying away from you.. 2) Shotgun is great, mostly because of the spread (it's harder to be accurate in ME3 than ME2 was) and the fact it can have hard-hitting melee-enhancing attachments. 3) Also the best ammo in most situations seems to be incendiary, because again, accuracy can be low, and by the time you're sending something flying, it is down to health-only, and a few hits are killer 4) Nova is fun and useful but in reality you should put your points into charge and fitness and mastery: a good vanguard is primarily a melee wielder. The only enemies that cannot be melee'd successfully are Cerberus turrets and Harvesters; squad mates will help with the turrets (see below). 5) Recharge speed, melee power, shield power. 6) It is possible to melee 5 brutes at the same time (did it in the ending rush) successfully though having a squad mate with fast-recharging warp helped a lot. 7) In intense situations Nova should only be used BEFORE a charge, so that you recharge your shields immediately 8) If possible, the best tactic is to pick an enemy with protection, charge them, heavy melee as you come out, wait for power recharge (with the right perks, since that enemy is invariably dead, it will be fast!), nova, then charge to a new one. 9) With brutes, you charge, heavy melee, immediately back off shooting until charge is refilled. This can also be used on Cerberus mechs with higher-level abilities. 10) Even Banshees can be melee'd. Use almost the same tactic as brutes. With the Banshee you don't heavy melee, skip back immediately shooting as fast as you can until you can charge. She will either reach for you and miss or be busy doing something else. Every now and then one will one-shot you but it's very, very rare even when fighting two. 11) The biggest downside is that your squad selection is a bit inflexible: you need every extra percent of shield or recharge speed strength

That's the essence, although there is a lot more to it. 96.39.118.124 18:15, March 11, 2012 (UTC)

I've been working through on hardcore, and so far, I'm quite happy without levelling up the mêlée attack. Instead, I've been levelling up my fitness to enhance the vanguard's barrier. Because nova relies on the barrier pool, an upgrading your base barrier enhances the viability of the power. With the half-nova evolution, it also makes nova far, far less of a suicide move. If you're careful with positioning, you can avoid instant death even in intense situations. I've been playing with a transferred character though, so I started at level 30. This has undoubtedly made things far easier for me on the lower levels—I don't think that ME3 has adaptive difficulty. Didi et gogo 02:53, March 12, 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and start the guide. You oughtn't be shy about it, but make sure that you're careful about the advice. Many tactics that work on Normal surely won't work on Insanity. Didi et gogo 02:57, March 12, 2012 (UTC)

I've actually been pondering on this topic as well. Insanity was cake-walk for me as a vanguard, and I never touched my weapon. With 2 biotic squadmates, all I needed was reave, charge, nova, fitness, and alliance training. However, I played with an imported file so if I was to start at level one on insanity, would a different playstyle be more optimal early on? Spintactics 20:53, April 22, 2012 (CST)

No love for the Graal / Geth shotguns? Edit

badassfully, i'm sure someone out there (besides me) eats brutes, atlases, banshees and masses upon masses of husks and cannibals for breakfast with these babies even on insanity. damage-oriented nova and biotic charge spam + serrice armor and umbra visor + level 10 of either shotgun + shredder mod v + barrel v + damage-oriented incendiary ammo = cheesy game.

badassfully, these are the two best-looking (and best-damaging) shotguns in my opinion. Temporaryeditor78 11:09, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

First language, we have no need of that here, espcially twice in one comment. Second, things like this belong elsewhere as this isn't what talk pages are for. Lancer1289 14:10, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

I think the language is meant to be a joke. He is paraphrasing Blasto 6 preview dialog by the Elcor partner. GRPeng 16:22, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

with a sincerity such that skepticism would be insulting, no.

on topic, i simply raised the issue of using these shotguns as alternatives to those posted in the main page. either some people would be more than happy to do detailed writeups with them in mind, or ignore this bit entirely. i'll be moving along either way. Temporaryeditor78 17:01, March 26, 2012 (UTC)