Is Vanguard currently the weakest tier 2 archetype?

[Ereghor the Enigmatic]

Target priority draw / damage soaking seem mostly pointless when you either quickly kill the enemies first or don't get hit at all. And if you really need a taunt, Warrior has one already.

The one really good ability is giving all melee-adjacent allies a free hit at the cost of drawing an attack, but odds are the Vanguard gets hit and immediately dies from said attack unless you stack it with something else first. Meanwhile the rest, including the momentum ability, are all dependent on moving the whole party in a blob and mostly using melee / shorter-ranged weapons. I guess it combines well with frontline-focused grand strategist, but that's about it.

When your alternatives are Executioner / Arch-Militant (for the warrior) or MasTac / Grand Strategist (for the officer), Vanguard seems like an inferior pick in most cases, being much too turtley for the way the combat works. Or am I missing some sort of an OP combo you can do?

[stax]

Originally posted by Ereghor the Enigmatic:

,,, when you either quickly kill the enemies first or don't get hit at all.

To make Vanguard useful, you need to make the above not true. If you play on unfair, do not use what is obviously overpowered, and limit your party size, Vanguard will be very useful because you do not have the firepower to clear the map on turn 1, and need to survive long enough for your party to gain power.

If you look at the base combat mechanics, the game is built in such a way that your party starts at it's weakest, but gains power over time until it overwhelms the enemy. Momentum, versatility stacks, tactical advantage stacks, etc. Vanguard takes the heat in those cruical first turns before you can turn the tide.

I think playing this way makes for a more interesting game.

[Kreddi]

I'm on my first playthrough playing on Hard, so I don't know anything about OP builds. (Playing blind).
I went Vanguard on Abelard and find him moderately useful.
He can AOE taunt, which is only useful when enemies are immune to Cassia's or Idira's AOE stuns. So that's... Neat?
Heavy armor feels like a trap to me. 1 deflection is a slap in the face already at act 2 and it even comes at the cost of cutting your dodge rate in half. The extra armour from heavy armor is obviously good, but worth it? I'm not sure I'd say so.

I like him as a roadblock between my damage dealers and supports and the enemy, but he contributes next to nothing to fights.

[Arcanity]

I've played an Officer Vanguard through to Act 4 on Hard and its pretty effective. It balances out the fragility of the officer and it is the archetype combo that can make the most of the big resolve bonus Hive World and Commissar give for being up close.

For a melee Vanguard you can consistently parry attacks you draw and eventually get gear to retaliate on attacks you parry. Specific to Officer Vanguard retaliations pair well with leaders assault to buff fellowship from multiple attacks.

An OP combo for Vanguard is their ability to infinitely stack temporary wounds combined with a colony event reward Malpian Shroud giving temporary wounds every time you deal melee damage and a melee damage bonus based on the number of temporary wounds.

[Ereghor the Enigmatic]

Originally posted by Arcanity:

I've played an Officer Vanguard through to Act 4 on Hard and its pretty effective. It balances out the fragility of the officer and it is the archetype combo that can make the most of the big resolve bonus Hive World and Commissar give for being up close.

For a melee Vanguard you can consistently parry attacks you draw and eventually get gear to retaliate on attacks you parry. Specific to Officer Vanguard retaliations pair well with leaders assault to buff fellowship from multiple attacks.

An OP combo for Vanguard is their ability to infinitely stack temporary wounds combined with a colony event reward Malpian Shroud giving temporary wounds every time you deal melee damage and a melee damage bonus based on the number of temporary wounds.

A melee Arch-Militant parries most everything all the same in my experience, as well as being far better offense-wise. I can appreciate the Ciaphas Cain roleplay, however.

The combo is interesting, but a bit too niche - again, it's a bell curve where a reliable option which always works except for some very particular circumstances ends up being a more sensible pick both when you haven't and have mastered the system.

Originally posted by Kreddi:

Heavy armor feels like a trap to me. 1 deflection is a slap in the face already at act 2 and it even comes at the cost of cutting your dodge rate in half. The extra armour from heavy armor is obviously good, but worth it? I'm not sure I'd say so.

Heavy armor seems to only have a point being worn on a Forge World character with the related talent making him immune to knockdowns together with the grandmaster talent for bonus will from heavy armor, and even from the available options perspective most of the good armor in the game is either medium or power (and therefore unavailable until the last quarter of the game, pretty much).

[Tomkatt]

Warrior + Vanguard can be utterly monstrous. You get heavy armor, a cloak that increases your damage based on temporary wounds, a skill that boosts strength based on your toughness stat, free punish on parries, list goes on.

I've got Abelard running as a Vanguard and he averages around 500 damage per attack right now, and I've seen him hit as high as 1100 with a crit. If he gets to do a heroic action, he basically just mows down bosses (and everything else). And I'm not even maxed out yet, still have many levels to go.

By contrast, my executioners (Heinrix and Kibellah) are wimps. Kibella can stack up some damage in the right situation, given good enemy placement and a whole lot of time given all her ridiculous animations, but she's squishy as heck, and it's not worth the trouble when Abelard can do the same damage in one hit after self-buffing. And Heinrix is decent, but he's just not Abelard, and handles best dual wielding melee, which limits how many enemies he can hit with one strike.

[Black Sheep Wall]

I'm gonna try and take a whack at this.

My standby for these kinds of turn based tactical squad games (XCOM for instance) has been that you want Active Offense and Passive Defense.

What this means: Spending actions/AP to do defensive things is generally counter-intuitive and prolongs combat needlessly. There are niche/edge cases where it's a good idea for that specific combat, but it detracts from pretty much every other encounter to set yourself up that way. In the one instance it's useful, you could just tough it out being more fragile and all your OTHER combats will be smoother.

The whole idea of alpha striking the opponent in your first round is pretty boring, but it's also optimal. Each combat you are potentially fighting for the integrity of your entire playthrough, at the very least a save reversion. What is the point in intentionally playing sub-optimally just so your reactive element "feels" useful?

In order for a defensive archetype to shine, it needs to be PASSIVELY be immune to what the enemy is doing (meaning it doesn't spend action points, just level up features that are "always on"), and even what you're doing. Think things like flamers or goop grenades. A defensive archetype should be able to just waltz right through that ♥♥♥♥. Stuns? I don't think so. They don't need the biggest damage, they just need to be so resilient that they can go wherever they want and do whatever they want. In the general game space they occupy, think about a piece you can slap down in the middle of the board and your opponent is going to have to invest massive resources just to move it/affect it. They're a damage sponge.

Warrior is not useless in the least, they don't have a TON of great abilities, but the good ones aren't bad and you can certainly crank out some damage with JUST the warrior archetype. Vanguard on the other hand, I don't get it. They have pretty much 0 offensive capabilities, they are not active in any meaningful way, they are completely reactive, which is terrible. If your game piece requires your opponent to play into it to be good, and you can't gimmick/force the opponent into that choice, even when you win it's not because of your stellar play, it's because your opponent did something stupid.

All that being said, I typically run one of each archetype and after the first act the team gels together just fine. It's not like you can't beat the game or that the vanguard is gimping your ability, but that might be part of the problem. A big beefy boy that isn't doing anything outside a momentum ability pushes the power off onto the rest of the party, further focusing power and reinforcing the optimal strategy of alpha striking.

The archetype needs work, but it's not gonna shut down your playthrough if you have one. It's not even going to be ineffective, it's just going to drag out combats and make them more of a slog than they need to be.

EDIT: With Lex Imperialis hopefully dropping soon, the entire dynamic could shift. Who knows how Vanguard will line up with a new Archetype? Could be good.

[Ereghor the Enigmatic]

Originally posted by Black Sheep Wall:

EDIT: With Lex Imperialis hopefully dropping soon, the entire dynamic could shift. Who knows how Vanguard will line up with a new Archetype? Could be good.

My hope is that they actually address the combat balancing in general at some point, so that at least some fights become puzzle-y in the approach they require. So far the only ones like that in the game are the act 4 boss, the act 3 battles prior to getting fixed up, and the DLC fights where they have immobilizing powers combined with a powerful AoE, meanwhile the rest are all about the alpha striking.

Maybe give enemies momentum too, at least the higher tier ones? Though an additional counter running in the background might be a rough ask given how the system already holds together by glue and good faith (granted, it functions (from a technical standpoint, not the design one) far better than the previous attempts by the same team). That'd make desperate measures something to worry about since you are risking triggering a dangerous turn for opponents which manage to survive.

As for the DLC, what will the archetype be, actually? Given how the new companion's gonna be an Arbiter, I imagine it's something CQC-related? A dedicated shotgun user? Some crowd control?

[Ancient Toaster]

Originally posted by Tomkatt:

Warrior + Vanguard can be utterly monstrous. You get heavy armor, a cloak that increases your damage based on temporary wounds, a skill that boosts strength based on your toughness stat, free punish on parries, list goes on.

I've got Abelard running as a Vanguard and he averages around 500 damage per attack right now, and I've seen him hit as high as 1100 with a crit. If he gets to do a heroic action, he basically just mows down bosses (and everything else). And I'm not even maxed out yet, still have many levels to go.

By contrast, my executioners (Heinrix and Kibellah) are wimps. Kibella can stack up some damage in the right situation, given good enemy placement and a whole lot of time given all her ridiculous animations, but she's squishy as heck, and it's not worth the trouble when Abelard can do the same damage in one hit after self-buffing. And Heinrix is decent, but he's just not Abelard, and handles best dual wielding melee, which limits how many enemies he can hit with one strike.

Kibella squishy? LOL. Ok bro. You don't know how to build her. Give HER that cloak. You're wasting it on Abelard.

Currently my Kibella has the most health and basically clears entire maps by herself in Hard.

[Tomkatt]

Originally posted by Ancient Toaster:

Originally posted by Tomkatt:

Warrior + Vanguard can be utterly monstrous. You get heavy armor, a cloak that increases your damage based on temporary wounds, a skill that boosts strength based on your toughness stat, free punish on parries, list goes on.

I've got Abelard running as a Vanguard and he averages around 500 damage per attack right now, and I've seen him hit as high as 1100 with a crit. If he gets to do a heroic action, he basically just mows down bosses (and everything else). And I'm not even maxed out yet, still have many levels to go.

By contrast, my executioners (Heinrix and Kibellah) are wimps. Kibella can stack up some damage in the right situation, given good enemy placement and a whole lot of time given all her ridiculous animations, but she's squishy as heck, and it's not worth the trouble when Abelard can do the same damage in one hit after self-buffing. And Heinrix is decent, but he's just not Abelard, and handles best dual wielding melee, which limits how many enemies he can hit with one strike.

Kibella squishy? LOL. Ok bro. You don't know how to build her. Give HER that cloak. You're wasting it on Abelard.

Currently my Kibella has the most health and basically clears entire maps by herself in Hard.

Yeah, don't get me wrong, she gets better. I'm at the end of act 4 and she's a dodge machine with more health than Abelard now. But she just takes so much time to come online and her turns take forever, it's annoying. Abelard's a monster pretty much from the outset.

Also, why give Kibellah the cloak? Blade Dancer / Executioner, she gets some temp wounds, but she's not exactly a generator with them.

Abelard gets temp wounds from a ton of sources. His attacks, being attacked, warrior skill, vanguard skill, etc. He starts every turn with nearly half his health in temp wounds before buffing himself.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Tomkatt:

Also, why give Kibellah the cloak? Blade Dancer / Executioner, she gets some temp wounds, but she's not exactly a generator with them.

I would assume for Reckless Abandon. Death Warden + Anatomy Expert and +Medicae talents gives silly amounts of Wounds and then you get to turn 30% of that into Temporary Wounds at the push of a button.

[Tomkatt]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by Tomkatt:

Also, why give Kibellah the cloak? Blade Dancer / Executioner, she gets some temp wounds, but she's not exactly a generator with them.

I would assume for Reckless Abandon. Death Warden + Anatomy Expert and +Medicae talents gives silly amounts of Wounds and then you get to turn 30% of that into Temporary Wounds at the push of a button.

That makes sense. I'm not sure which would be better. I already have Kibellah with medicae in lieu of toughness but I just haven't seen her get a lot of temp wounds, other than with Reckless Abandon, and even then she doesn't match Abelard's damage or total temp wounds. He gets as much as she and Heinrix get for Reckless Abandon just by starting his turn.

Also, it doesn't change that she takes an eternity on her turn to do the needful, so many animations.

I'll admit, I could probably do a respec on Kibellah to make her better, but frankly I'm not a fan of her character and I've completed her story arc, so probably won't bother on this campaign, maybe next run whenever that is. On my current campaign, Abelard, Argenta, and my RT already steamroll everything. Heck, Abelard and Argenta in particular could solo entire fights (including most boss fights) no prob.

[Gorwe]

Originally posted by stax:

Originally posted by Ereghor the Enigmatic:

,,, when you either quickly kill the enemies first or don't get hit at all.

To make Vanguard useful, you need to make the above not true. If you play on unfair, do not use what is obviously overpowered, and limit your party size, Vanguard will be very useful because you do not have the firepower to clear the map on turn 1, and need to survive long enough for your party to gain power.

If you look at the base combat mechanics, the game is built in such a way that your party starts at it's weakest, but gains power over time until it overwhelms the enemy. Momentum, versatility stacks, tactical advantage stacks, etc. Vanguard takes the heat in those cruical first turns before you can turn the tide.

I think playing this way makes for a more interesting game.

It does. Have a Tank, a Melee dps, a Ranged dps and a support. That way, even below Unfair, combat actually becomes fun. Should be less of it, ofc, but it's overall fun.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Should be less of it, ofc, but it's overall fun.

Are you asking for less combat in a game whose universe's tagline is "In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war"?

[Gorwe]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Should be less of it, ofc, but it's overall fun.

Are you asking for less combat in a game whose universe's tagline is "In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war"?

If it makes for a better experience, yes. The only thing that matters is how the game feels. Braindead fluff can always get changed. Easy combat spam is one of the most common complaints against RT. After all.

[Ereghor the Enigmatic]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Are you asking for less combat in a game whose universe's tagline is "In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war"?

If it makes for a better experience, yes. The only thing that matters is how the game feels. Braindead fluff can always get changed. Easy combat spam is one of the most common complaints against RT. After all.

I think in terms of encounter frequency the game actually hit a nice sweet spot where it doesn't turn into a slog while also having enough battles to go around, and there are plenty of ways to speed the combat up so it doesn't take up nearly as much time as some turn-based fights could in WotR, for example.

That said, the actually (conceptually, at least) challenging and interesting fight distribution is a set of deep and wide valleys. You have Act 1's sewer cultists, the reactor room, and Aurora, while Act 2's only standout battle is the DLC bossfight, meanwhile Act 3 goes from sudden spike to a smooth sailing in a turn of a hat, with Act 4 remaining as such with an exception of the DLC (note the trend), the final two fights, and Act 5, despite the enemies' in-universe and meta notoriety, is also mostly easy but the final fight can punish suboptimal characters.

And, if anything, the game could use more dialogue- and interaction-heavy semi-peaceful sections. The rushedness of the last third is especially felt by how little downtime and actually running the protectorate happens then - most of it seems to have been done off-screen between Act 2 and 3, actually.

Skills like Commerce end up mostly unused in the second half of the game despite you fully coming into your rights as the Rogue Trader by then. Something like having to pass a few difficult checks to convince the game's "antagonist" about the economical unsustainability and technical complications as well as the unreliability of the heretech relevant to his plan would have been very on-point. Or needing to become more and more convincing justifying your heretical / iconoclastic ways to most of your crew instead of Argenta and Heinrix just arbitrarily leaving the party once you hit a specific point in the story. Like, Abelard's heretic RT ending just comes out of left field with no build-up. It was a surprise, for sure, but it could use at least some foreshadowing.