Think of the Vanguard as a fusion of a Soldier and an Adept. You are both versed in combat and biotic abilities. That means less raw biotic potential than an Adept, but more resistance, more available weapons, more weapon damage.

The Vanguard’s most important power is obviously the Biotic Charge. It allows you to replenish your barriers, but most importantly, it gives you movement. In a game where the AI simply can’t handle being caught in crossfires, this is a win by itself.

There are two things you should know before you move on to read the guide.

I have started writing this guide while on an Insanity playthrough. In the Insanity (and Hardcore) difficulty setting, most enemies (as in, 95% of them) have protections: shields, armor, or barriers. Shield and barriers are always mutually exclusive, but some enemies (YMIR mechs, elites, etc.) have both armor and shields/barriers.

I was also playing with the Advanced Enemy Factions[www.nexusmods.com] mod which gives all enemies more powers, and most notably, the ability to regenerate shields/barriers. It is a fantastic mod, and I encourage you to try it.

Bottomline, the game gets harder than regular Insanity, especially as a Vanguard. When all enemies can stun you out of your charge with a Concussive Shot, Carnage, or Incinerate, you have to be even more capable of quickly switching from offense to defense.

Unfortunately, outside of Biotic Charge and Incendiary Ammo, we do not have much.

Cryo Ammo is just weak. Yes, frozen targets take extra damage from Biotic Charge, Concussive Shot, etc. but what is the point? The freezing is agonizingly slow. Worse, Cryo Ammo doesn’t do anything against protections, which means to actually use it, you would have to deplete an enemy’s protections first, then activate Cryo Ammo, and as soon as you target another enemy with protections, switch back to Incendiary Ammo. It’s not worth the hassle, and it’s not worth the strain on your cooldowns.

Shockwave is fantastic against trash (most notably Husks and Abominations)… until you start playing at higher difficulty levels, where everyone has protections. If this power is used against anything other than a health bar, it doesn’t do anything. It does have its uses once in a while, but it’s not much.

Pull has exactly the same problem as Shockwave. You can argue than using it against a protected target provides a bit of stun, but that’s too short to even notice. That said, in more or less every fight you will have situations where you destroyed an enemy’s protections, but can’t finish them off or charge them. A pretty situational use for pull, but an use regardless.

The Assault Mastery passive gives you bonuses to health, weapon damage, power cooldowns, and as usual, Paragon and Renegade.

The passive’s name says it all - when it comes to assault, you have everything that you need. But as stated before, you also need to have something to complement your powers while on the defensive.

Fortification, Geth Shield Boost, Energy Drain and Barrier are all out of the equation - they are just redundant with Biotic Charge. Similarly, the Ammo bonus powers are not worth it.

Neural Shock, Dominate and Slam are a no go - you already have enough powers that “only work on health” as it is.

That leaves you with four choices: Flashbang Grenade, Inferno Grenade, Reave, and Stasis.

Stasis works on everything, and is a pretty good defensive power. It is a bit dull compared to the other three, though.

Inferno Grenade is a fantastic anti-armor tool with area of effect. It can also make organics panic. It does have friendly fire though, and you also have to mind the aim of your projectile.

Reave is probably the best all around bonus power of the game. It stuns enemies, gives you health regeneration, and deals more damage against armor and barriers. You can never go wrong with that.

I ended up going with Flashbang Grenade. It is deals damage and stun in an area, makes enemy weapons overheat, and most importantly, suppresses their biotic and tech powers (yes, Harbinger is fully suppressed by a single grenade). That makes it a fantastic defensive option, especially when you give more powers to the enemies. It doesn’t have friendly fire like the Inferno, but you can impair your own vision and stagger yourself or your squad.

Get the following powers up to two quickly: Biotic Charge, Incendiary Ammo, Assault Mastery, and whatever bonus power you chose.

Grab a point in Cryo Ammo early as well. It’s less useful than Pull, but Pull requires Shockwave level 2 to unlock. Cryo Ammo is cheaper in the early game.

The first power you want to max out is obviously Biotic Charge. You’ll want Heavy Charge for the slow motion effect.

Keep leveling Incendiary Ammo, Assault Mastery and your bonus power to three. Then get the max level for your bonus power (unless it is Stasis), and take the area upgrade, unless it’s Flashbang Grenade. Area and duration are long enough, and you can use a bit more damage.

Assault Mastery should be maxed out next. If you’re unsure about your Paragon/Renegade levels, pick Champion. Otherwise, go for Destroyer.

Incendiary Ammo should be maxed with Inferno Ammo for maximum damage (and some crowd control).

Make sure you spend your spare points every now and then to reach Shockwave level 2 and unlock Pull.

Your final build should look like this:


That leaves you with one unused point.

You can go for Pull level 3 instead of Shockwave. It doesn’t really matter. It only gives pull more duration though, while the other bonuses can be more useful on Shockwave.

Armor isn’t too important, and you can decide based solely on what looks best to you. Still, here are some tips.

Take what helmet you can until you get your hands on the Archon Visor for better cooldowns.

The Kestrel chest is always the best, if you can stand its look (I can’t).

Kestrel Shoulders Pieces are great until you can buy the Strength Boost Pads. Believe it or not, this class uses melee a lot.

Off-hand Ammo Pack is a great armpiece in the early game. Once you have extra ammo for your SMG and Shotgun, you can use anything else you like.

Stimulator Conduits are the best legs in the game. Running faster gets hilarious once you notice the enemies can’t track and shoot behind you.

Apart from the Shuriken, your starting weapons are pretty terrible. You’ll want to change them ASAP. Fortunately, both the Geth Plasma Shotgun and Carnifex are available early - these will be your weapons in the early game. The Eviscerator is also okay.

Make sure to grab the Locust early to replace the Shuriken. You’ll be forced on the defensive a lot in the early game, and the Locust shines in these situations.

On the Collector ship, grab the Claymore. Most powerful shotgun by far, which will allow you to do riskier charges. You have only one shot, but this is largely absorbed by the slow motion you have after each charge. If you feel like trying something new, you can get Assault Rifle training to play with the Mattock, in which case you should use the Scimitar shotgun in the late game.

After (or around) the Collector ship, you should get the Phalanx pistol and Tempest SMG. Keep them for the rest of the game. As long as you fire in short bursts, the Tempest is precise enough for distance fights, and it’s vastly superior for close range. Charging with the Tempest in hand is very fun.

Heavy weapons do not matter too much. The Arc Projector is great for shield damage and stun. The Collector Beam is great against protections and very precise. The Avalanche is also great against protections, and freezes enemies very quickly, which is great against swarms of fast enemies such as Husks.

Make sure you improve your SMG and Shotgun ASAP. They’re the weapons you’ll be using most of the time, and you want these ammo upgrades.

Any upgrades to your defense are welcome. That also includes health upgrades, as it will also unlock a melee upgrade.

Biotic upgrades are necessary, but scarce in the early game. Take your time. Once you have Biotic cooldown upgraded, you’re fine.

You struggle mostly against shields, so you’ll want companions with Overload. Garrus/Miranda is a good squad in the early game as you also get Concussive Shot (Barriers) and Warp (Armor/Barriers) to handle more protections. Kasumi also has Overload, but is best built without it.

In the mid-to-late game, you can replace Miranda with Tali. She has Energy Drain which will also help against shields, but what interests you the most is her Combat Drone. It is a wonderful distraction and stun machine that will help you a lot, especially when charging.

Playing the Vanguard well boils down to knowing when to switch playstyles. You have to choose when to be agressive. If you charge into a crappy fight, you will die in less time than needed to say “it was the worst idea of my life”

Always start a fight on the defensive. Pickup a cover or stay behind a wall, watch the enemies’ positions, start dealing damage from range with your weapons and companions’ powers. If you have the Flashbang grenade, use it to suppress the enemies and get openings: it is easier to charge an Asari who can’t fight back with Warp. Be careful though, as the animation to launch the grenade is a bit longer than with other powers.

If you see an enemy’s weapon overheating after the grenade, then you can be sure it hit them and their powers are nullified for a few seconds.

Once the enemies are scattered, weakened (less protections, debuffed by a Flashbang grenade or Reave) and/or distracted (Combat Drone or crossfires), you can start charging people.

Pick a target (preferably weak and/or isolated). Charge, then shoot the shotgun in their head, using the slow motion to aim and reposition yourself. Is the target alive? Melee to stun it. Is it still alive? Charge, melee or shoot again. The target is dead. Rinse and repeat on another enemy, or get back into cover.

You always want to have Incendiary Ammo active. The only exception using Cryo Ammo to freeze regenerating targets (Krogan and Vorcha) that you can’t quite finish off. This is frequent in the early game, as you won’t have enough firepower to always kill an enemy after destroying their protections (overpeeking will get you killed). Later you will be able to use Pull or just simply kill everything fast enough.

Your general rulebook is SMG in hand while in cover, shotgun in hand before charging. This can change depending on what weapons you’re using (Charging with the Tempest is a good option, and so is using the Geth Plasma Shotgun from range), but you get the idea. The pistol can be used against armor or to save ammo, but you will find yourself using it less and less as you gain firepower. The same goes for heavy weapons, apart from very specific situations (e.g. Avalanche against Husks).

Remember that Heavy Charge gives you a huge slow motion effect right after the charge. This is great to line up your shotgun headshot, but also to reposition, circle around the enemy, even get in cover, while doing so.

This makes you the king of moving on the battlefield. With the mere aptitude of dashing towards an enemy, the slow motion that follows, and the speed boost from your armor, the AI will not be able to follow. The slow motion also absorbs a big part of the Charge’s cooldown. All the while, you will be gunning or hitting to death whoever is in front of you.

The primary purpose of your Charge is to keep you alive. You will be able to charge isolated packs of two, three, sometimes even more enemies and start killing them. They will fight back, but you will survivre long enough to trigger another charge, and slowly but surely wipe them out.

It is important not be caught in crossfires while doing so, hence the necessity of picking your targets well. You want to be charging in places where the most immediate danger is right in front of you and can be dealt with using your gun, your fists, and your charge. If you charge and find yourself shot at from several sides, you messed up.

When possible, you should also use your charge to flank the enemies yourself. Have your squad anchor a good position. Then find yourself good charge target like before, but try and look for a position that will allow you to catch other enemies in a crossfire. The AI can’t handle being flanked. They just panic and become useless. And the Vanguard is great at finding and exploiting these openings.