The other thing that kills this class, for me personally, is that when you get to Elfheim, you are still mostly using one person as a predominant front liner, and vanguards and fighters get eaten alive by elves and their magic assists.
the shieldshooter followup attack sucks though, unless you need it to finish off someone it should be disabled. Especially if you combo them with an elf archer to guarantee a party heal at the end of battle. Guard Impetus is way better than Reload.
Arrow cover doesn't proc when you want it to. Magic and magic infused attacks still hurt. I'm not 100% sure but I think even Javelins still hit. It's just not that great but still kind of helps.
The swords/shields with abilities were literally made for the vanguard class. They are so generic that the spoon swiss army knife analogy makes perfect sense, you have to add other tools to the swiss army knife to make it useful. Can't add tools to a Katana, but you can to a swiss army knife.
They have decent Magic defense and you can get around 25-30 by the time they hit lvl 40. The problem is their armor designation that downgrades them when breakers are rampant in the lategame which stymies their ability to tank anything else
Yea and Lex still get burned by flame arrow, I know this because I used Lex once in Ochlys map and the boss has that weapon. edit: And he realizes it during the mock battle
I have been experimenting with the vanguard my entire playthrough. Havent experimented on TZ tho. The thing that i have found is that defensive units are inherently bad. The time they shine is when they hard counter someone. The reason they are bad is not stats and skills but stamina. There are so few times when you just need to hold a point and not rush the objective. If you didnt have stamina, they would be way better. Stamina makes it so you want damage more than tanking. With that out of the way the vanguard performs better than the hoplite in most cases. They can get higher defense and they have higher mobility. One map where vanguard really shines on is the coliseum map. You shove him in a manlet and watch the range assist damage drop to one point. Early game there is no unit that is better at guarding flyers from archers.
@@jamesgordon1446 he does stuff but the lack of damage is a detriment. If there was no stamina or time limit on maps, his utility would be great. He is a great off tank that can fit most tanking roles. Now if there was a damage reflect skill he could use than that would be a different story.
well .... defensive units do have some use in TZ. Aside from parking them on bridges/towns you can also use them to get first strikes for other nearby units, and to get some safe chip damage from your own assists.. It's a major playstyle shift from non TZ though and it's more useful to do this early in the game as opposed to later. I mean it probably still works later but by then you have access to board nukes.
@@KyouOneZilla that's the problem with defensive units. Even in the early game, you can create units that can kill the enemy instead of stalling the enemy. With limited stamina this hurts defensive units. They have their use in certain missions, especially early game, but in most cases you want to push the objective and don't want to wait at choke points or bridges. The battle timer makes it so you want to play fast and not to the wire. Personally yhe hoplite is the lowest tier unit because it's slow, doesn't do damage, and only tanks physical. Doesn't mean I think it's a bad unit bit the game mechanics have put a lot of negatives to having one in your unit.
Arrow Cover even if it worked on magick would not make Vanguard good unless you have 2 Vanguards to protect the Vanguard who will be targeted by mages since their default tactics is to prioritize armored. Imagine having to run 2 Vanguards, why are they even armored it just makes them worse Hoplites since they can cover entire rows and heavy guard which is better than Medium guard.
My Lex splits tanking with Liza on the frontline of my angel/wereowl squad and Colm just sits on the backline and eats arrows for my gryphon frontline of another squad. They don’t provide a whole lot of offensive pressure but heavy guarding arrows is not a bad niche when so many fliers can die in one shot to bows.
@@purplatypus7405 they eat arrows for 2 PP while arrow guard only costs 1. If they run only 1 archer it’s not a big deal but I find this to be the more efficient for the PP late game
@@FFF813They are pretty bad vs hinter snipers in general as multi attacks make it harder to make sure they arrow guard the right target and even if they do they wont arrow guard follow up attacks. Overall is probably better to use a legionnaire due to row guard or just let your griffon take care of it and have the PP to deal with it. I mean you can use vanguards if you want of course they are just probably the worst class and even where they are almost good they are just average usually imo
Nah it's just an dumpster fire of a unit, that never should be used unless Vanilla Wear patches it with buffs. It needs better Init, Hp, Magic defense, and I dare say the provoke skill should should give him a one negate damage shield, and Arrow cover should last multiple hits on one target. Just the fact that the class has neither a row or column attack to it's name and it uses swords which doesn't either is a crime. Literally the only single sword that might be any good for them is the gale cutter since it's ranged, attacks two units, but still 2 active points, but you do get an extra 80 potency vs flying targets.
I use vanguards like this: * Put them in front. They attack first so they buff. Then provoke everyone and eat shit until they die. Then the squad's damage dealer equipped with grave impetues can attack a 2nd time and erase the enemy team just in case it wasn't erased on the 1st attack
Idk, Leah and Melissandre + inspiration haven't let me down yet. You can even make their secondary sword a magic weapon to deal with armored units, inspiration still works with the magic attacks since armored usually have low evasion.
I don't know how. My twin swordmaster combo is one of the most high damage teams I have. Support them with a witch so they get magic conferral in case of armoured units and they absolutely crush. They one-shot all rogues and most fliers, too.
They are very mid, I think the biggest advantage is early game and the true strike. But as the game goes on and you get better start of battle skills and aoe/row attacks become important, they just fall off and only nuke 1 enemy a turn at best.
The problem with Swordmaster is always going to be they don't have row or column attacks, and then they don't single-target nuke hard enough to justify a spot placement. It's weird because they absolutely crush early game, but they can't keep up as more classes get more options.
@@HeroMystic I think a lot of sword classes kinda have that problem, so they kinda end up mid or worse. Featherswords, Landskecht, Valkyria, they start off strong but lack or Row/AOE attacks hurt as the game goes on, And some sword classes don't even have good row attacks like Werewolf (20 x 3 that gets stronger the lower the enemy hp has), Thief (Shadowbite 15 x 2 is only to inflict debuffs.)
Lex is horrible. So is colm. Worst class in the game. Guard rate is the worst stat in the game as evading is almost always better. So even for those not packing a shield, you dont want an S in guard rate. You'd want an S in evasion.
tbf, they _frontloaded_ the potential damages you can inflict in this game where most of the time you don't need to tank that much unless you have a dedicated counter team where everyone can just brawl the enemy to death Another problem vanguard has is the skills don't really synergize with each other from a design standpoint and its specialty of anti air isn't really helping much when arrow cover only protects a unit. If I were to design the vanguard class, make provoke into an active skill while make shield bash into a _ranged passive_ skill that allows it to actually disrupt the enemy before they could even deal any damage whatsoever, _especially against_ ranged units. Overall, they poorly designed the vanguard class and there's a couple of things that'll make it be really good and also make its name be meaningful
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"Want to see some bad moves? Wheres Lex? Come here Lex. Show me your shit moves, lets see 'em"
If I had to help the armor tag, I'd give armor characters a free damage shield every combat that's a percentage of their max HP.
The other thing that kills this class, for me personally, is that when you get to Elfheim, you are still mostly using one person as a predominant front liner, and vanguards and fighters get eaten alive by elves and their magic assists.
The Arbalist can block for an ally and heal them while doing it. Not to mention they attack both rows and do their own follow up attack.
the shieldshooter followup attack sucks though, unless you need it to finish off someone it should be disabled. Especially if you combo them with an elf archer to guarantee a party heal at the end of battle. Guard Impetus is way better than Reload.
Arrow cover doesn't proc when you want it to. Magic and magic infused attacks still hurt. I'm not 100% sure but I think even Javelins still hit. It's just not that great but still kind of helps.
Lets see if the Platy can make the Vanguard work without a team's worth of effort.
The swords/shields with abilities were literally made for the vanguard class. They are so generic that the spoon swiss army knife analogy makes perfect sense, you have to add other tools to the swiss army knife to make it useful. Can't add tools to a Katana, but you can to a swiss army knife.
Would be nice to make it a balanced phys and mag def making it an all rounder tank that does not specialize like hoplites and saint knights.
They have decent Magic defense and you can get around 25-30 by the time they hit lvl 40. The problem is their armor designation that downgrades them when breakers are rampant in the lategame which stymies their ability to tank anything else
I beat the final boss Galarius with just 2 units, one which is a lvl 1 Lex,
also I had Rosalinde stun him every turn and all Lex did was apply poison.
12:30 the fighter gets poisoned by poison throw.
Yea and Lex still get burned by flame arrow, I know this because I used Lex once in Ochlys map and the boss has that weapon.
edit: And he realizes it during the mock battle
Fighter have a move that negates flying and archers i personally use it in a poison build
I have been experimenting with the vanguard my entire playthrough. Havent experimented on TZ tho. The thing that i have found is that defensive units are inherently bad. The time they shine is when they hard counter someone.
The reason they are bad is not stats and skills but stamina. There are so few times when you just need to hold a point and not rush the objective. If you didnt have stamina, they would be way better. Stamina makes it so you want damage more than tanking.
With that out of the way the vanguard performs better than the hoplite in most cases. They can get higher defense and they have higher mobility. One map where vanguard really shines on is the coliseum map. You shove him in a manlet and watch the range assist damage drop to one point. Early game there is no unit that is better at guarding flyers from archers.
Lex doing stuff?
@@jamesgordon1446 he does stuff but the lack of damage is a detriment. If there was no stamina or time limit on maps, his utility would be great. He is a great off tank that can fit most tanking roles. Now if there was a damage reflect skill he could use than that would be a different story.
well .... defensive units do have some use in TZ. Aside from parking them on bridges/towns you can also use them to get first strikes for other nearby units, and to get some safe chip damage from your own assists.. It's a major playstyle shift from non TZ though and it's more useful to do this early in the game as opposed to later. I mean it probably still works later but by then you have access to board nukes.
@@KyouOneZilla that's the problem with defensive units. Even in the early game, you can create units that can kill the enemy instead of stalling the enemy. With limited stamina this hurts defensive units. They have their use in certain missions, especially early game, but in most cases you want to push the objective and don't want to wait at choke points or bridges. The battle timer makes it so you want to play fast and not to the wire.
Personally yhe hoplite is the lowest tier unit because it's slow, doesn't do damage, and only tanks physical. Doesn't mean I think it's a bad unit bit the game mechanics have put a lot of negatives to having one in your unit.
Arrow Cover even if it worked on magick would not make Vanguard good unless you have 2 Vanguards to protect the Vanguard who will be targeted by mages since their default tactics is to prioritize armored. Imagine having to run 2 Vanguards, why are they even armored it just makes them worse Hoplites since they can cover entire rows and heavy guard which is better than Medium guard.
My Lex splits tanking with Liza on the frontline of my angel/wereowl squad and Colm just sits on the backline and eats arrows for my gryphon frontline of another squad. They don’t provide a whole lot of offensive pressure but heavy guarding arrows is not a bad niche when so many fliers can die in one shot to bows.
The griffin already had a passive to dodge arrows though so I don't really love that personally.
@@purplatypus7405 they eat arrows for 2 PP while arrow guard only costs 1. If they run only 1 archer it’s not a big deal but I find this to be the more efficient for the PP late game
@@FFF813They are pretty bad vs hinter snipers in general as multi attacks make it harder to make sure they arrow guard the right target and even if they do they wont arrow guard follow up attacks.
Overall is probably better to use a legionnaire due to row guard or just let your griffon take care of it and have the PP to deal with it.
I mean you can use vanguards if you want of course they are just probably the worst class and even where they are almost good they are just average usually imo
@@purplatypus7405 that passive is trash when enemies can true hit lol
Nah it's just an dumpster fire of a unit, that never should be used unless Vanilla Wear patches it with buffs. It needs better Init, Hp, Magic defense, and I dare say the provoke skill should should give him a one negate damage shield, and Arrow cover should last multiple hits on one target.
Just the fact that the class has neither a row or column attack to it's name and it uses swords which doesn't either is a crime. Literally the only single sword that might be any good for them is the gale cutter since it's ranged, attacks two units, but still 2 active points, but you do get an extra 80 potency vs flying targets.
I use vanguards like this:
* Put them in front. They attack first so they buff. Then provoke everyone and eat shit until they die. Then the squad's damage dealer equipped with grave impetues can attack a 2nd time and erase the enemy team just in case it wasn't erased on the 1st attack
Front or back of the house?
Platy! I thought you were going to make the Vanguard work. This whole video sounds more like a Vanguard roast and why you shouldn't use them. Lmao
“calVAry.” LeL. 🤭
Just like any other media asking a question in the title. Answer is always no.
Lex.... poor Lex
i feel like swordmaster was the worst class in the game only use i got out of them was the final boss.
Idk, Leah and Melissandre + inspiration haven't let me down yet. You can even make their secondary sword a magic weapon to deal with armored units, inspiration still works with the magic attacks since armored usually have low evasion.
I don't know how. My twin swordmaster combo is one of the most high damage teams I have. Support them with a witch so they get magic conferral in case of armoured units and they absolutely crush. They one-shot all rogues and most fliers, too.
They are very mid, I think the biggest advantage is early game and the true strike. But as the game goes on and you get better start of battle skills and aoe/row attacks become important, they just fall off and only nuke 1 enemy a turn at best.
The problem with Swordmaster is always going to be they don't have row or column attacks, and then they don't single-target nuke hard enough to justify a spot placement. It's weird because they absolutely crush early game, but they can't keep up as more classes get more options.
@@HeroMystic I think a lot of sword classes kinda have that problem, so they kinda end up mid or worse.
Featherswords, Landskecht, Valkyria, they start off strong but lack or Row/AOE attacks hurt as the game goes on,
And some sword classes don't even have good row attacks like Werewolf (20 x 3 that gets stronger the lower the enemy hp has), Thief (Shadowbite 15 x 2 is only to inflict debuffs.)
Lex is horrible. So is colm. Worst class in the game.
Guard rate is the worst stat in the game as evading is almost always better. So even for those not packing a shield, you dont want an S in guard rate. You'd want an S in evasion.
is the figher/vanguard good? No
Ding ding ding!
@@purplatypus7405 Sad because I really want to love Lex as the light hearted dude bud, but I don't see myself using him much.
tbf, they _frontloaded_ the potential damages you can inflict in this game where most of the time you don't need to tank that much unless you have a dedicated counter team where everyone can just brawl the enemy to death
Another problem vanguard has is the skills don't really synergize with each other from a design standpoint and its specialty of anti air isn't really helping much when arrow cover only protects a unit. If I were to design the vanguard class, make provoke into an active skill while make shield bash into a _ranged passive_ skill that allows it to actually disrupt the enemy before they could even deal any damage whatsoever, _especially against_ ranged units.
Overall, they poorly designed the vanguard class and there's a couple of things that'll make it be really good and also make its name be meaningful
No
Lex is terrible 🤷🏾♂️