Breaking Down the Different Specs (Part 1)

One the of the main draws of the Vanguard AC to me was how many fun and viable specs there seemed to be. Playing around with each tree in the beta really showed how versatile the class is in playstyle. Here's a quick breakdown of the general feel for each for the skill trees:

• Shield Specialist: This is the tanking tree of the class which also has quite a bit of movement control and a very fun mobility skill. The Vanguard really doesn't have any talent trees that make it a non-mobile "turret" like the Commando's gunnery tree, but each tree has their own wildly different mobility options. "ShieldGuards", as I like to call this spec, gain a guaranteed albeit short duration snare on Stockstrike and two roots in the form of a talented Harpoon and Storm.
• Tactics: I really like what Bioware did with this talent tree. It has viable builds with all three different ammo cells and I see a lot of potential for high skill cap play. This will probably be my endgame PvP tree. It gives up the two roots that ShieldGuards get in exchange for Hold the Line and big bust damage potential. Fire Pulse, which is guaranteed to make your next Stockstrike free, saves quite a bit of ammo, while also giving a chance to make your next High Impact Bolt free. Depending on what classes my friends play, I will either be going with Ion Cell for guard or Plasma Cell for the guaranteed snare on Ion Pulse which has no cooldown.
• Assault: This is probably the skill tree that I have the least interest in. I don't like the long cooldown for this spec's mobility ability and I generally prefer melee over ranged. That being said though, I did try the spec at level 28ish, and the damage on Incendiary Round is quite high. It was actually high enough for me to solo level 30 elites for Aric Jorgan's loyalty quest. I did have some problems with ammo management, but that also could have been attributed to the fact that I only played the spec for a couple of hours. I also feel like the end tree skill is incomplete, being that all they did was increase the damage on a skill that we already have. If you're willing to go a very hybrid spec, there are very interesting builds you can do that involve Ionic Accelerator. I will probably go into that after trying the spec out myself in PvP.

Taking all this in, I'd like to show you the spec that I plan on leveling with:

Saridan's DPS ShieldGuard

Now, the reasoning behind this spec is to retain decent DPS while still having the ability to guard and the damage mitigation of offhand shield generators. This will be helpful for some occasional PvP and instance tanking with friends. This is all open to change, but I do know the spec works very well in the 30's for PvE and PvP. One thing I would like to point out is that I originally leveled as Tactics, and felt it to be very lackluster early on in the tree. It does seem the tree is quite top heavy in good talents though, and I definitely do look forward to playing with Hold the Line and Fire Pulse.

What specs are you guys planning on leveling first? Which specs are you most interested in PvP'ing with? Let me know what you think below!

Havoc Squad out!