How is Vanguard DPS these days?

K

Khurse

Well-known member
Hi all
So GF has decided to join me in game and will be playing a Barb. My main at the moment is a Repeater Arti, so won't be much fun for her if I kill everything before she gets to hit it.
So trying to decide what else I want to play.
Saw people mentioning the shield available in the Dragon Box, and realized I haven't played Vanguard since back when it was broken and stunned with pretty much every hit.

Don't see dozens of Vanguard running around, so guessing it's not top tier DPS, but I'm wondering how it is.
Especially curious as I'll probably solo a bunch with the toon and I don't really want to spend twenty minutes in a quest a FB can blow through in eight.

I know it depends on a ton of different factors but as a (very rough) estimate would it be along the lines of
IF it takes me ten minutes to do a quest as THF FB would it be like twelve or thirteen minutes (so almost as close but a notable difference) or more like twenty minutes ( not even remotely in the same ballpark as a FB)

TLDR How does Vanguard DPS stand up mid 2024?
 
Dandonk

Dandonk

Beater of Dead Horses
I'd be interested in a good version of this, too. I tried a build from the forums here, but I didn't really care for it in practice.*

* Might just have been a me-problem, though
 
woq

woq

Well-known member
Vanguard T5 needs a facelift.

Other than that plenty of other things in the way other than Dragonlord/Ravager, like Single Weapon Fighting having +10% more combat style attack speed... You can just slap patience on it to have same attack speed as vanguard but +1 multi.

Or the fact that half the cool stuff not applying to shields like Patience, holy sword, almost any of the cool stuff in kensei, half the cool combat destiny +1 on 19-20s... Half the trees' power budget is spent on something that SWF defecates on violently and so weak/dead points in there if you go the 41 route.

Or the fact that vanguard tree in general is hella outdated

That being said, 41 kotc 31 vanguard 8 vkf seems like a perfectly viable build using ignition and colossus. Just not particularly appealing for heroics for obvious reasons.

I also think "vanguard-lite" using one main spec weapon line + two specializations has potential using bsword + buckler + swashbuckler (without swashbuckling) w/ 100% bash chance and patience has potential, but it's not gonna be a vanguard. It's just utilizing shield bashes on top as some additional damage lost to patience attack speed drain, while having swf for combat speed, thf for strikethrough, shield spec for ds, and utilizing (low) buckler dmg.
 
FVSHasBeenEvenMoreGutted

FVSHasBeenEvenMoreGutted

If you read my posts you have already lost
vanguard isn't about being the best dps (its not, but its decent). vanguard is about hitting tank ac/prr/mrr on a DPS, while also having the best CC of any melee
 
P

PraetorPlato

Well-known member
FVSHasBeenEvenMoreGutted said:
vanguard isn't about being the best dps (its not, but its decent). vanguard is about hitting tank ac/prr/mrr on a DPS, while also having the best CC of any melee
Click to expand...
What AC/PRR/MRR can you hit? My guess would be you end up similarly tanky to a DPS bear, but not really at tank values, no? I still think the best way to fix VG is giving each core 5 prr/mrr.
 
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C

Contessor

Well-known member
FVSHasBeenEvenMoreGutted said:
vanguard isn't about being the best dps (its not, but its decent). vanguard is about hitting tank ac/prr/mrr on a DPS, while also having the best CC of any melee
Click to expand...
I thought the CC no fail was changed on Vanguard. I would say DL melee CC is pretty darn good. Definitely nowhere near AC/PRR/MRR of Vanguard on a DL, but DPS on DL is close to top tier.
 
eartheyes

eartheyes

outerspacetruth
i realy depends on what you want, and specifically, if you are only runing the toon with your GF, what difficulty you wil be running, at what pace...

i think vangaurd is really fun, you can get pretty BEEFY, the attack speed is nice, lots of sheild attacks and your off hand sheild strikes are almost always going off...i wouldn't suggest it is top tier dps, or in the current meta of endgame builds...but you can have lots of fun playing a vangaurd imho?!
 
Purr

Purr

Well-known member
Khurse said:
Hi all
So GF has decided to join me in game and will be playing a Barb. My main at the moment is a Repeater Arti, so won't be much fun for her if I kill everything before she gets to hit it.
So trying to decide what else I want to play.
Saw people mentioning the shield available in the Dragon Box, and realized I haven't played Vanguard since back when it was broken and stunned with pretty much every hit.

Don't see dozens of Vanguard running around, so guessing it's not top tier DPS, but I'm wondering how it is.
Especially curious as I'll probably solo a bunch with the toon and I don't really want to spend twenty minutes in a quest a FB can blow through in eight.

I know it depends on a ton of different factors but as a (very rough) estimate would it be along the lines of
IF it takes me ten minutes to do a quest as THF FB would it be like twelve or thirteen minutes (so almost as close but a notable difference) or more like twenty minutes ( not even remotely in the same ballpark as a FB)

TLDR How does Vanguard DPS stand up mid 2024?
Click to expand...
So is the idea that you do shield + long sword, or is it always shield + bsword/daxe?
 
Monkey_Archer

Monkey_Archer

Well-known member
Vanguard dps is mediocre. Vanguard tank is decent.

The main issue with the vanguard tree for a dps build is that you are spending 41 AP just to get S&B to roughly the same dps as SWF, so you end up being about as effective as a SWF kensei with no capstone and half their points unspent.... and DL multiclass builds are much higher dps than SWF kensei anyway. Vanguard also doesn't really add any PRR/MRR or useful AC so the minor defensive gains just from the shield line are generally not worth the dps loss. Its playable, but definitely not competing with the current meta.

On the other hand, its much easier to get your defences to effective tank levels (at least up to r1 raiding and r10 questing) with only 35 pts in a defender tree + Unyielding sentinel. Put the rest in vanguard + dps destinies, add some dps and threat gear and you're now the best pug tank available. Even that stubborn dps player that refuses to turn off defensive stance cant pull agro from you :)
 
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