1 1-handed weapon and 1 shield or 1 2-handed weapon ?

[achipalachau]

Hello.

To have the best chance of advancing and in terms of gameplay, do you recommend using a two-handed weapon or a weapon and a shield for Vanguard?

And do you advise me to always specialize in that, or invest a few points in fire, for example?

Would a vanguard specializing only in melee without magic work?

[thorin.hannahs]

Sword and Board is easy. I went up the right side of the skill tree grabbing the big passives there until I reached the vanguard cap stone. I run full plate armor, tower shield and then whatever one hander gives me the most damage. My big hits come from shield bash and the tower shield active skill. None of the bosses have given me any real issue. Nothing I couldn't clear in 10 or less attempts.

If you go plate and tower shield your gonna have to spec Vigor early until you can get some trinkets that help with max load.

[achipalachau]

Thank you very much for your comment.

If anyone else would like to share theirs, please do.

[achipalachau]

please !!

[Shio]

I would recommend just playing the theme that you like most and then when respec comes available (after you killed the boss down in the tomb) to try out something different. First respec is free. Game is not that difficult that you need a "better" class to cruise through the levels.

Also as far as I could see there are no "game-altering" passives in the skilltree. So if you are 25 (you get there pretty fast) you can just grab the first node of any class to wear their offhand weapon check out their skills.

[UncleIstvan]

Multi-classing into fire tree is great for both 1h and 2h vanguard, if you want to buff your offensive capabilities. Which you do, vanguard is tanky enough as is.
1) Fire tree has a lot of strength nodes.
2) There's really convenient shortcut between adrenaline regen(vanguard) and attack speed (pyromancer) nodes.
3) Delayed health loss passive is very powerful, allows you to facetank most enemies with negilible hp loss.
4) Flaming weapon and wall of fire are both great actives for sword-and-board vanguard.
5) Phoenix rebirth is extremely convenient as well.

[achipalachau]

Thank you.
So you recommend I specialize my vanguard in fire attacks instead of just maxing out my vanguard skill ?

[Ska_]

I personally started vanguard with 1h+shield and made a hubrid between two classes.

Mid game I switched to 2h weapon and jump attack almost exlusively, as jump attack does not lock you to the ground and makes you mobile and respec everything to vanguard class.

I became wayyyyy too tanky and everything dies pretty fast with those heavy crits.

I suggest if you want to build multiclass, move to a second class by the side nodes and not from the beginning.(eg. the phoenix passive on the fire tree works amazingly well with vanguard if you go through the side node)