Oozo Strikes Back: 10-19 Vanguard Assault Trooper

by Raggok

This is my first short movie for Star Wars: The Old Republic. At the moment I am running this linked assault build on my Vanguard at level 19. With 3/3 in Ionize Ignition, Ion Pulse has a 100% chance to process Plasma Cell. With 2/2 in Sweltering Heat, Plasma Cell has a 100% chance of snaring the target by 50% for 2 seconds. So, every Ion Pulse has a 100% chance of not only igniting the target, but it also snares the target for two seconds. Two seconds may not seem like much, but Ion Pulse is spammable. So, you can keep a target perma-snared until you run out of ammo. This is excellent for kiting, running enemies down, and peeling enemies off of friendlies.

The added bonus of Ionize Ignition is that it puts an elemental damage over time on the target. This allows for a more liberal usage of High Impact Bolt at lower levels. At the moment I am planning on an Assault/Tactics hybrid that takes advantage of the skills associated with High Impact Bolt.

Vanguard has a great mixture of long-range, mid-range, and short-range damage. I can kite if I need too, and I can melee if I want to. You can think of Ion Pulse as a 10m melee attack. Throw on the two AoE options and you bring utility to the table and the potential to put up big numbers on the scoreboard if you are inclined to go for damage rather than working objectives.

The only times I don't end up at the top or near the top of the scoreboard in damage with the Vanguard are the times when I'm working on objectives away from the pack. That is, either solo-capping or solo-guarding objective points.

Here is an example of me going for damage:

Here is an example of me working objectives.  Notice the lower number of kills, but the higher number of solo kills.  I was no doubt assaulting and defending nodes alone in this match.

Now, on to the movie. When I make a movie I take time considering what type of content I want to add. My movies focus mainly on solo PvP. This movie includes 1vNs and 1v1s.  The 1v1s are against orange and red cons only. I wouldn't want to watch a movie of someone going around and crushing gray cons, so I won't make a movie of me going around and doing the same thing.





One thing I have noticed about this game at low levels is that 1v2s are hard to pull off and 1vNs are near impossible.  The time to kill in a 1v1 is rather long and quite often takes a full ammo bar including a reload.  I find myself quite often killing one and dying to the second in 1v2s.  Once you run out of ammo and reload as a Vanguard you are hosed.  It's similar to being energy-starved as a rogue in the old days of World of Warcraft.  Another thing I have to get used to is the resource mechanic.  I can't remember playing any other class with a similar mechanic where the ammo reloads slower the less you have of it.  What this means is that I will have to learn to pace myself more and use reload ammo at mid-ammo rather than at low-ammo

I will make a concerted effort to get more 1vNs in my next movie, but I can see already that it is going to require gear and pots.

Official SWTOR PvP forum post
Official SWTOR Vanguard forum post