#Vanguard Talent Discussion

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

long mountain
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@little sinew@lament cloud

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To sword or not to sword, that is the question

lament cloud
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Of course to sword! Quiet kills are the only way

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Cybersword is for killing by the blade. Vanguard talents are about. Vanguard talents from Bodybag, to Projection, to Static Spectre are about Stealth.

little sinew
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vanguard is about killing, but on stealth combat missions

lament cloud
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That said. Vanguard-Cybersword is a nice multiclass combo.

little sinew
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and mostly with a blade because vanguard have Silence

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Vanguard Cybersword is a very heavy class on points

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otherwise you would take it only for additional damage from heavy melee strike

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but it would be really nice to have 2 passive skills as well

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for +2 MP after kill of unaware or suspicious target and +2 AP for killing with melee

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but in that case you will get none of the best stuff both of these classes can offer

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which is why i go for Vanguard Scourge

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simply because vanguard can kill guard so far away from other team members, that someone need to clean this kill as well

past radish
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disagree, Vanguard is a stealth class. where possible, I try to get the Vanguard through without detection. not always possible, but it's quite effective

little sinew
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it's much better when Vanguard have it's own Dissolve in the pocket

near horizon
past radish
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a Vanguard/Cybersword or Vanguard/Scourge would be a great stealth combat build

little sinew
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@near horizonwhich way?

near horizon
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using the vanguard's talents to simply avoid detection

little sinew
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well, in my gameplay vanguard is probably the main killing machine

past radish
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different strokes

little sinew
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trying to keep avoiding detection results only in wasted turns for nothing

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which results in higher sec by the end of a mission

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and even when you tried to avoid detection, if you get spotted, all hell break loose and you will end up with even higher sec by the end of a mission

near horizon
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right - that sounds like your playstyle

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the players playing to avoid detection generally end with low or 0 sec level and no hell breaking lose

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the spectrum is very wide tbh

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go loud immediately to basically quiet

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but, this talent is about your style - so go for it

little sinew
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you see i am not going loud

lament cloud
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You should multiclass Vanguard-Cybersword and Vanguard-Scourge for the real killer Vanguard.

little sinew
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i am going faaaast

near horizon
lament cloud
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I love the "Run fast, Gun Hard" playstyle as well.

little sinew
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i am not gonna wait for some guy to turn his head

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i am gonna turn his head anyway

lament cloud
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My Vanguard-Cybersword is one of my A picks for Battle Striker missions. My Pure Vanguard definitely is not.

past radish
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many different ways to play. whatever works for you, as long as you understand that others do things different

little sinew
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i've seen too many times when there were moment that you wasn't able to just past by

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it was waiting game

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turns get wasted

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and that's when i learned how Atomic Stutter works

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and later how mines

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now i can at times kill entire room in one turn

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and because i have Dissolve, i don't need to waste time waiting while guard will be away from camera

past radish
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that's certainly valid.

near horizon
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lol I guess we lost the thread again

little sinew
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i can just disable camera, dissolve body and move on

past radish
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I haven't used Scourge at all yet.

near horizon
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#1215014735922200698

little sinew
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neither am i

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i only took it for Dissolve

past radish
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so, my favorite Vanguard talents are Lure, Jamkit and Silence. I barely use any others

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Haven't worked my mercs high enough for Projection, but that will be another one

little sinew
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but right now i started new campaign on difficulty parameters of Chrome just with ability to save

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cause last bug was scary

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it's probably not a good idea to run without saves in EA

near horizon
past radish
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No, haven't so far. have to try that one, though, will probably like it

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my problem is that I keep starting new games, and I keep trying things to collect data for the wiki 🙂

little sinew
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i tried to use Blend, but it's too expensive point wise and i wasn't able to use it without wasting turns in the process

lament cloud
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Domeshot has saved me many times. Its my emergency button for when a guard surprises me.

past radish
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I've started dozens of new games

little sinew
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essentially i used blend mostly to get that juicy 50% crit chance along with 30% from Silence

near horizon
little sinew
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and honestly the only good use of blend is when i ran into group of enemies on Silence

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marked them

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and then auto fire all them will UAR under Blend buff

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that's nasty, but way too expensive

lament cloud
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If you like to go fast, kill fast. I have to recommend upgraded silence & slashslide.

little sinew
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slashslide was absolutely horrible in my game

past radish
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I do engage my Vanguard in more combat now than I used to. partly because I'm more comfortable with combat, perhaps. Back in alpha testing, I frequently took my team through miissions without any combat at all.

little sinew
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it depends on a mission really

past radish
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yes, it does

little sinew
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if there is something to hack, you will need to clear room for your hacker

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there is no way you would avoid combat

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all you need to do is to make sure the combat won't get noticed

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and given my lootgoblin nature..

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if there are 2 terminals to hack..

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sucks to be these guys in my way

past radish
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I have been a lootgoblin lately. maybe I will pull back on that a bit. one reason I started grabbing everything not nailed down was because income was poor. that's no longer a problem, and I could get through missions faster and stealthier if I didn't spend as much time looting

leaden tusk
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the swappable loadouts system should help as well when it comes online

little sinew
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oh yes, please

leaden tusk
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so you can easilyi switch between a "loud vanguard" and a "stealth vanguard" kit

rare nexus
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I've only really used blend when I need to use almost all my AP to get to an objective or body to hide and guards are about to come around the corner. I've got a persistent bug where enemies that have been alerted by the AI will just... Stop moving and waste a turn.(couple F10s already in) Makes it hard to get in position, blend, and either backstab or move past once the guard saunters past (which feels like the primary use for me)

little sinew
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it works well in that way when you play vanguard scourge

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there will be a lot of moments when you kill someone, dissolve them and some guy just about to run into you from a corner

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still it costs too much for what it does

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it's not really a game changing ability

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if some ability is rarely used in entire mission, it is possible that you don't really need it

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in order for blend to be used more often, you need to invest even more points

past radish
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for example, if I go full stealth and don't try to get all the loot, I can do Haven Smokeout in 5 or 6 Turns, killing only the Wireghost and one guard.

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Silence, Lure, and Jamkit

little sinew
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may be it's the right way to go

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because loot there will cost just about as much as favors for 12 turn mission completion

past radish
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it's one right way to go. 🙂

little sinew
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and if you go for loot, you won't be able to make it in time

past radish
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going for all the loot, I'm out in 11 or 12 turns

little sinew
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i wonder if hacking even worth on this mission

past radish
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and I don't do leverage for the mission

little sinew
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i am now playing ironman

past radish
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yeah, will be different on difficulty higher than normal

little sinew
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the difference is in economy and health bars

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the economy is absolutely cursed

past radish
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anyway, the Vanguard stealth skills are very useful for that style. using 2 vanguards can be quite amazing

little sinew
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i would rather take hacker than second vanguard

past radish
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if you want to be out of Haven Smokeout in 6 turns, you don't bring a Hacker 🙂 I have been bringing the Hacker and grabbing all the loot in my recent playthroughs

little sinew
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Hacker needs as much XP as possible

past radish
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all mercs need as much XP as possible

little sinew
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CK, Vanguard and hacker

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others don't matter to me

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soldier will work fine on any lvl

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CK is not

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same as vanguard and hacker

leaden tusk
long mountain
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Bodies still got seen of course

near horizon
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But they don't know why 🫣

little sinew
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@long mountaincould you pls elaborate what you did

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in details

long mountain
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Sure. One guard was in the camera cone, one was on the other side from zasha.

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I used silent step to move up to the guard, but didn't step into the cone

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I targeting the other side of the thin side of the cone (I was near the base) I wiggled the slideslash until both guards took damage.

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First guard died, second guard survived with a sliver of health, easy to kill with a follow up... pistol attack?

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I am pretty sure I shot them because I only had 1 ap left

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However, while the security tally went down dramatically because the guards died.. the camera immediately spotted the dead body. Win some lose some