Vanguard is.... well.... in a nutshell,a generic soldier that you'll see on every FPS-genre game.Vanguard is the second tankiest class after the Tank. A jack of all trade. His collection of assault rifle covers all situation you'll face. His shotguns can surprise his enemy. And he also has two pistol to choose from if you want to. So he can be made to fit almost all kind of engagement exist in BO. New player will be comfortable playing as him, while experienced player can turn him into a unbreakable mighty glacier.

Not to mention, Vanguard was a starter class in F2P-era Ballistic.

With Grenadier have his HP buffed to 250, Vanguard is less interesting to play as a close-to mid range who is ment to outlast enemy. But don't worry, he is going to get buffed soon. Or in the meantime, pick Widower.

-Easy to play for beginners.
-250 Starting HP.
-Ammo refill and Healing after kills. ( 15/17.4 HP, 10% Ammo: Don't expect much from this unless you use Barrage.)
-Varied Arsenal.
-Best assault rifle.
-Skills improves his survival chance.
-Late-game shotguns are 1-hit-kill.

-Slow (At least not as slow as tank)

Passive<==XXXXXX==>Aggressive
Vanguard's role is highly depend on his weapons and skill. He can stand on the frontline alongside tank and berserker. Or laying down supressive fire behind them. Or if you have enough balls, jumping around with shotgun is also fun and devastating .

Vanguard shines in King of the hill gamemode because of his high HP, along with his skills, which allow him to last longer on the hill. Fast recovery makes him no longer need to leave his cover to get the health pack. Action Hero keep him a bit safer from getting bombard with grenadier's grenade launchers.

+16% max health. (+40 max health)
This skill may looks boring for vanguard. But it helps, a lot.

Extra 40 HP for Vanguard can make him.
-Require 2 more shots from most weapon to kill him.
-Survive getting a bodyshot from ALL sniper rifles. (With Wraith's Critical Hit reworked, not even The Interdiction can take him down in one hit now.)


Basically, He cannot be one-shotted from almost everything. As long as it's not a headshot. And not a double-nade. Maybe some shotgun build can still one-shot him, but it is very rare for it to happen due to how shotguns works.

Okay, He's still got one-shotted from Interdiction with Critical Hit. But Wraith who playing this build are rare. if you got killed that way, you can assumed that you just got counter-builded by enemy. Consider switching your loadout. Not anymore, due to the Critical Hit rework.
(In case you haven't read the changes, Critical Hit now makes all wraith's weapons ignore -25% damage penalty when hitting lower body parts. From previously +25% damage when cloaked.)

2% HP regen per second (5HP per second, or 6 HP with Modified DNA)
This skill makes Vanguard sustain himself without need from health packs. An ideal skill for any defensive-oriented Vanguard who stays far from any healthpack.

Try using this one on king of the hill. It's a godsent when you're holding the hill, and popping out to get a nearest available health pack is too dangerous.

25% accuracy, +25% recoil reduction, +10% damage.
Extra accuracy and recoil reduction always useful. But 10% damage bonus is what makes this skill worth picking. With extra 10% damage, a lot of vanguard's assault will have it's damage reaches a damage breakpoint which decrease its shots to kill.

The notable example is the executioner. 36 base damage, goes up to 40 with Weapons Expert.
Now it can 5-shots non-tank and non-van classes and 4-shots shadows and wraith.

+25% headshot damage, +20% damage resistance against explosions and +15% headshot damage resistance.
This one is also for defending points. When a point is under attack, a barrage of grenades is what usually comes first. Extra Headshot damage maybe rarely useful. But headshot resistance is always help.

When hit by enemy fire or grenades, Vanguard gains +20% rate of fire and +35% reload speed for 2 seconds.
Extra fire rate is best suit with close-ranged rifles, extra reload speed is for when you need to back into cover to reload.
A proper usage of this skill can drastically improve Vanguard's chance of winning a direct firefight.

When Vanguard kill a player, his trait will be improve: +3% of HP recovery and 20% of ammo refill of the weapon you use to kill that player. To the maximum stack of 15% (37.5/43.5) HP recovery and 70%
ammo refill (Already include his base trait bonus.)
So, this skill just got reworked. Now it both slightly heal you and refill your ammo. But it now requires you to kill 3 player for this skill to fully functional. At 3 stacks though, it is almost like the original barrage with extra healing. The healing bonus might not fully heal you from a firefight like vampire. But still, unaware enemy is like your mini health pack now.

I still recomended using this skill with long reload time weapon like widower or Jackhammer/Piledriver.

Using this with Bonebreaker also cause some awkward situation where you run a reload animation with your clip filled and you can still shoot it like the reload animation is not exist.

Some people hate this rework, but their lives was unknowningly saved by it's healing quite frequent.

A starting weapon for Vanguard.
With 35-round clip, it's decent enough as a starting weapon for new player.



It's a Blackguard with standard clip, reflex sight and an underbarrel grenade launcher.

Stalker is the earliest weapon that has a active secondary function. Press E to switch to the underbarrel grenade launcher. The launcher deal 120 damage on direct hit. The grenade detonate on impact. But it's cooldown is a lot faster than regular grenade.

Unlike Blackguard's holographic sight, Stalker's reflex sight provides more open field of view. And it's a lot more comfortable when aiming down sight. It's also a bit more accurate. All at a cost of 10 less ammo per clip.
It's slight higher damage can be ignored, it still use the same amount of shots to kill someone.
(Placebo buff is a thing here.)


A long-ranged assault rifle. Strife's scope has the biggest zoom level for assault rifle.
The downside is it's recoil, it takes time to adjust to it's recoil. Especially when aiming down it's scope. Unless you are bad at aiming for head, the recoil will eventually kicks up to the victim's head. Which results in a headshot. (Only works when scoped.)
Strife also comes with a laser, which make hipfire more accurate. But the laser can reveal your position.
Last update lower it's damage, and increase it's clip size. It's more like a tweak than a nerf.


The Good'ol starting rifle back in F2P ballistic, it seems we have meet again.
But this time, it's a lot better than it's F2P counterpart.
Slower fire rate than most assault rifle. It has higher damage, easy to manage recoil and it's quite accurate.
It's the only assault rifle for Vanguard than comes with an iron sight. But in truth, you don't need it. Hipfire is all you need to kill someone.
Christmas update: Headshot multipler increased to x1.8.

Executioner's close quarter twin, for 5 less round per clip, Coyote comes with an underbarrel shotgun to finish off those pesky shadows. Slightly higher recoil than Executioner. But that's where the holo sight comes in handy.

The interesting part is, Coyote's victim can hardly tell whether they got killed from it's standard round, or from it's underbarrel shotgun.

WARNING: Always switch on/off the shotgun function everytime you respawn. It's ammo drop circle will go drastically wide for a split second the first time you switch it on (On each spawn). And it will ruin your day if you use it while firing the rifle round. I think this is a bug, hope it'll got fixed.


With a 50 rounds clip, a scope which can zoom almost as deep as the Strife, and a silencer. Widower is Vanguard's best tool to defend something. It's only weakness is it's mobility and reload time. When picking Widower, you should pick Barrage skill to eliminate it's long reload time.

Widower's unique downside is that this gun leaves a clearly visable bullet trail when fired, even more visable than Sniper rifle's trails. So expect everyone to know where the shots come from.

In my opinion, Widower is too meta for Vanguard these days. You always see a pathway got lockdowned by someone who using this LMG-like assault rifle.

Executioner's ranged twin. Slightly larger clip size, but sacrifice damage better hipfire accuracy and recoil management. You can go full auto hipfire with this gun at the range that you have to burst-firing with executioner. Same iron sight as the Executioner. And just like Executioner, you don't really need iron sight to kill someone.
Christmas update: Fires as fast as Executioner, but lower headshot multipler. (And I thought Slayer was meant to be a headshot-rewarding weapon.)

Vanguard's starting shotgun. And also the highest mobility shotgun.
A panic weapon, Bonebreaker's fire rate is extremely fast. But it's a double-barrel. So if your two shots failed to kill your enemy, you're dead.
Another issue is Bonebreaker has wide ammo drop cycle, which means the target must be extremely close in order to deal full damage. With Weapon Expert skill, Bonebreaker can be use as a reiliable burst damage weapon.


Gremlin's signature is the ability to reload all its ammo at once, it's fire rate is quite fast compared to any other shotgun. Smaller ammo drop cycle, allowing Vanguard to engage enemy from further distance.


Jackhammer is Vanguard's deadliest shotgun. Slower than Gremlin, but has a potential to one-shot everyone except Tank and fellow Vanguard due to it's high damage and even smaller ammo drop cycle.

P.S. By "potential", I mean "extremely likely".


Piledriver hit a bit harder, but slower than the Jackhammer, with longer reload time and lower ammo capacity.

To be honest, Jackhammer is already enough to one-shot someone. But if you really want to use this monster, aim it down the sights.

Pistol for Vanguard seems useless, but they have quick drawtime. And with weapon expert skill, these pistol are a force to be reckoned with. And now they can go full auto. ( I mean you can simply hold down your mouse button and it will shoot by itself.)



The defination of "Police Brutality".
Extremely accurate, laser is purely cosmetic. With it's base damage buff, this weapon now deal 85 damage. Which is a whopping 3 shots against everyone with 250 hp or less. It is now become Redemptor's little brother. And with Weapon Expert, It will be as accurate as Redemptor itself.
But with it's low ammo pool, sometimes it's better to shot it click by click instead of holding down mouse and let it go auto.

Benefits of equipping Weapon Expert on this weapon: Ignore Ninja/Combat wraith 15% damage resist ( The damage will still be reduced, but it still take 2 shots to kill them instead of 3.) And be able to 4 shot kill Tank without Last Stand equipped. (Instead of original 5)



Vanguard's highest mobility weapon.
Less accurate, but a lot faster than Agent. Effective as both standalone weapon or finishing off someone.

Vanguard can be play in many ways and many roles, so use this guide to help build your own loadout and develop your own style. Feel free to PM me if you need any advice.

About review for other class, I might do it if I have free time. And help from other experienced player.

Until next time, cya!

Update 29 Sep 2017: I'm currently studying in an university, so I doubt I'd have time to write guide for another class. But still, I'm currently looking for more player to help me write guide for the other class.
Feel free to PM me if you wish to help.

"One Vanguard on point and nobody bats an eye, three Vanguard on point and everyone lose their minds."-A certain Vanguard who spend 6 minutes on the point in Citadel's King of the hill.

" Vanguard without rifles are known as Police, Vanguard with rifles is a trooper. And overuse of Jackhammer is cancer. But if you can pull this off with Piledriver, then you deserve the honor."-My attempt of classifying Vanguard Archtype.

16 Apr 2017-Adding more discription to "Modified DNA" and Pistols section.
30 July 2017- Add more discription and Slayer assault rifle.
29 Sep 2017- Update for Season 3. Changed opinion on Courage Under Fire skill. And adding more infomation on Widower.
10 Nov 2017- Update for November's balance changes. (Critical hit rework impact the value of Modified DNA)
23 Dec 2017-Update for Christmas update.
18 Feb 2018-Update for Agent buff and Strife's change. Also added current issue of Coyote.