Vanguard advice for ME2

Red brings up an excellent point in my post.
I'll try to be clearer here:

If Charge is what you want, then these are my absolute must-haves:

Champion (fastest recharge times)
Inferno Ammo
Heavy Charge (maximum damage, shield regen, and time-slow)

Cryo Ammo can be safely ignored entirely if you're starved for points.
Shockwave requires Charge to be Rank 2, and Pull requires Shockwave to be Rank 2.
So, you'll have Charge ostensibly maxed out, with Shockwave at Rank 2 and Pull at Rank 1.

You can leave Pull at Rank 1 if you want, it does exactly what you need it to do right out of the box.

You can then invest points in whatever bonus power you like.

Eviscerator is my favorite weapon in the entire series, at least for shotguns.
The Arc Projector is your best friend if shields are stopping you, but the humble Missile Launcher is very reliable.
It carries plenty of ammo and is very forgiving with its aim.

It plays differently than the other classes, you have to take environment into account.

On Insanity, it really becomes intense, but you're very fragile up to mid game ( until you get some shield upgrades).

First attack enemies from the sides, where they're "isolated", instead of charging in center: that's almost guaranteed suicide. Watch for your teammates power cooldowns, if you're exposed, they can buy you a second or two. For this: Kasumi ( Flashbang) and Garrus ( Concussive shot), are probably the best. You really have to "sync" your charges with team mate's abilities.

For bonus powers: First use Barrier ( Jacob), then switch to either Reave ( gives you extra health and staggers), or Domination... later on switch to Geth Shield ( you get this, near the end of the game).

Red, out of curiosity, which classes would you say are your top personal 3 favorite, across Mass Effect 2/ME3 ? We will put aside one for now. Actually, anyone can answer this. I'll vote Adept (surprise) maybe followed by Engineer - not sure of my third. I liked Infiltrator.

As I wrote in Favorite classes by michaeln7, I find it hard to pick my personal favorite classes across the trilogy because how I feel about each class changes across all three games in the trilogy. So for the entire trilogy, I will say Vanguard and Infiltrator, since I like them fairly consistently across all three games in the trilogy. My favorite class in the entire trilogy is the ME2 Engineer.

If I broke it down by game, it would be something like this:

Mass Effect 1:
1. Vanguard
2. Infiltrator
... gap ...
3. Sentinel
4. Adept
5. Soldier
... power gap ...
6. Engineer

I really hate the Engineer in Mass Effect 1. No real point in taking it since the Infiltrator exists.

The 'hybrid' classes, particularly the Vanguard and Infiltrator, can do a lot of the same things as the 'pure' classes, so I can just spec the hybrid classes to look and play like a 'pure' class. Biotics are more fun than tech.

Fun fact: I have probably played more Soldier than some (all?) of the classes I like better.

Mass Effect 2:
1. Engineer
2. Adept
3. Infiltrator
4. Vanguard
5. Soldier
6. Sentinel

I like one specific Sentinel in ME2: the Assault Sentinel (and it is a ton of fun). Every other Sentinel is crap. Sentinel would be better if I could actually avoid putting points into Tech Armor. It's lack of flexibility is why it is dead last on my list.

Mass Effect 3:
1. Infiltrator
2. Vanguard
... gap ...
3. Engineer
4. Soldier
... gap ...
5. Sentinel
... power gap ...
6. Adept

No point in taking the Adept since the Sentinel and Liara and Javik exist. Mass Effect 3 has the same problem as Mass Effect 1: the hybrid classes tend to be better than the 'pure' classes. Engineer and Soldier are different enough and flexible enough to be fun with various builds.

Vanguard is my #1. It was my first class, and it's my superhero wish-fulfillment.
Sentinel is my other #1, but I have to give it the #2 spot because while it's a defensive caster, Vanguard still exists.
Infiltrator used to be my least favorite, but I tried it and realized that it's the third hybrid class in the series, and I find myself LOVING the hybrid classes. That, and Tactical Cloak + a free Incinerate is an appealing combo.

Soldier, Engineer, and Adept are not my favorites for a variety of reasons. Chief among them is that your squadmates often have what are ostensibly your unique abilities, or you simply overlap on just about everything.

Soldier? Well, Adrenaline Rush is nice, but Garrus and Ashley have concussive shot.
Engineer? Sure, you have Combat Drone, but so does Tali.
Adept? Liara exists.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing the three "pure" classes, but the three hybrids each have a unique power that no other squadmate has.
Sentinel especially feels the most unique, because unless you save Kaiden, there are no Sentinel squadmates that have a combination of biotic and tech powers that are durable. Miranda comes close, but she's more of a squishy caster, and even if you do save Kaiden, you only really get him for the latter half of ME3.

You do have some Vanguard-esque squadmates across the trilogy. Wrex certainly qualifies, but you only have him for one game. Jacob and Samara as well, but again, only for one game. Javik almost defies classification, but can fit as a Vanguard type.
But no matter what, no squadmates have Charge, Tech Armor, or Tactical Cloak. There are some approximations, but only Shepard can potentially have those powers.

I don't really "count" ME1 regarding favorite classes, because I'm in agreement that Hybrid beats Pure in combination with the lack of class-unique powers.

If I had to rank them on power level, I would rank Sentinel as #1 in ME2, with Vanguard as #1 in ME3.
Biased? Sure.
But to be fair, my favorite Soldier build involves never firing my gun, only ammo powers and Concussive Shot... my favorite Engineer build involves ignoring the drone powers and spamming Overload and Incinerate, and my favorite Adept build involves mimicking a Sentinel's Warp-Throw combo peppered with Cluster Grenades.

So when my pure-class playthroughs involve approximating hybrid-class builds, I find that clears up what my favorite classes are, and why.

Since no one added it yet.

I can confirm this, 100%.

The fact that "is it a krogan?" overrides any consideration over whether the target is isolated or not always makes me chuckle.

lol I have never seen this before, but it's so accurate. Major Props to whoever created this.

Adept in ME3 is basically a crappy Sentinel.

ME3 relies on two things: Good guns and/or power combos.

In ME3, the Adept has a lot of biotic combo primers and detonators. The issue is that you really only end up using Warp and Throw and the Adept, and the Sentinel also has those, but also Tech Armor for damage protection and Overload for priming/detonating/shield-stripping.

Adept has Singularity and Pull for lifting unprotected enemies (which are plentiful), but:
1. enemies can dodge projectile powers
2. Liara has an instant-cast Singularity, and passive talents and evolutions that give her a ridiculously short cooldown
3. Javik has an instant-cast Pull that has a ridiculously short cooldown
4. You can use Liara and Javik most of the game, so you end up using their Singularity and Pull to prime most targets

So for most enemies in the game, you use Liara and Javik to lift enemies, then detonate with your Throw. Other enemies you just Warp > Throw for combos. And since Sentinel also has Warp and Throw -- along with other native tools -- the Adept feels like a crappy Sentinel.

The Adept does have Cluster grenades which can deal tremendous damage and can also detonate biotic explosions, but they are a grenade so they are a limited resource. And with all grenade types in ME3, you end up hording your limited resource to the point you forget that you even have it.

It's not that Adept isn't good, it's more that the Warp-Throw combo can be done by the Sentinel, and has Tech Armor and Overload; and the Vanguard has most of the crowd control of the Adept, but with ammo powers... and both have higher weight capacity and more weapon damage.

Shepard does have better recharge speeds compared to squadmates, but Liara's class passive can bring hers almost up to Shepard, with the option to bring her Singularity recharge down to nigh-instant.

So if you want an Adept on your team, but want to be biotic yourself, bringing Liara makes the most sense, whereas you be a Vanguard or Sentinel.

To be fair, Adept has an option if selected where all powers recharge crazy-fast after detonating biotic combos, and Cluster Grenades deal good AOE with little "wasted damage".