ME2 Vanguard Build

If you find yourself not charging a lot, then maxing Reave as your bonus power is fine. If you find yourself just using Charge most of the time, you may find that putting points into Reave is kind of a waste, but you can always re-spec your build. Since you want to take assault rifles as a bonus talent, then it appears you want to hang back a lot more.

Most players build their Vanguard like this:
1. Max Charge to Heavy Charge.
2. Max Assault Mastery to Champion/Destroyer. (Depends if you want slightly more cooldown or slightly more weapon damage.)
3. Max Incendiary Ammo to Inferno Ammo.
4. Put points wherever else.


Charge-heavy Vanguard builds typically use use this build:
4 - Inferno Ammo
4 - Squad Cryo Ammo
4 - Heavy Charge
1 - Shockwave
0 - Pull
4 - Champion/Destroyer
4 - Crippling/Heavy Slam (for setting up the occasional Warp-bomb)

If you want more a caster Vanguard that charges occasionally, I prefer this build:
4 - Inferno Ammo
0 - Cryo Ammo
4 - Heavy Charge
4 - Improved Shockwave
4 - Pull Field
4 - Champion
1 - Stasis (requires Lair of the Shadow Broker)


Reave is good, but since it has a base 6-second cooldown, it ends up competing with Charge's cooldown. A lot of Vanguard players used Reave in the past so it is a solid choice.

As for weapons, assault rifles are fine as a bonus weapon; I prefer sniper rifles or the Claymore shotgun myself.

As for armor, the Kestrel (DLC) set or strength boost pads for increased melee damage is typically the best for the Vanguard since Charge puts you in melee-range of enemies. Everything else is kind of a waste unless you want to slightly increase your weapon damage instead. +Health armor could possibly help a bit if you want a little more survivability after your first charge, but that won't help much for subsequent charges if you are still in the red.

the main reason i chose reave was for softening up tougher enemies at range before i charged and to give the vanguard a power that deals with protections. so i'm just going to have to deal with the 6 second cooldown

for advanced weapon training i chose assault rifles mainly because i'm not a huge fan of sniper rifles unless im playing as a infiltrator. i like the claymore but i have to reload after every shot. so i'm going to use the eviscerator and get all the damage upgrades so it will do around the same damage as the claymore.

i looked at the kestrel armor and the stats are pretty nice though i'm definitely not using the helmet. ill probably switch it out for a sentry interface or kuwashii visor