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Specialisation Deep-Dives

Vanguard

Review signals

Start with the scale and shape of the thread before reading the asks.

302 Messages excluding OP
39 Participants unique contributors
112 Reactions thread total
6 Primary asks Balance Change / Rework Request / Multiple

Summary and sentiment

The short read before diving into the detailed asks and evidence.

Overall summary

Players are almost universally agreed that the Double Barrel Shotgun (DB) in combination with the Vanguard Commando's Tactical Link ultimate is overtuned — specifically that the way pellets each trigger individual bullet-return and multishot calculations creates a near-infinite ammo loop that trivialises PvE content and crowds out other builds.

There is sharp disagreement, however, about whether this is a "Vanguard problem" or a "DB shotgun interaction problem," and whether Vanguard Recon's underwhelming performance should be addressed in the same pass.

A secondary, lower-volume thread of feedback criticises the Recon sub-spec as effectively unplayable outside of highly coordinated teams due to broken skill chips and underwhelming engineering stat translation.

Sentiment read

The thread is genuinely split. A significant camp — led by technically-minded players like @rixelated and @jbcode — wants a specific mechanical fix to the pellet/bullet-return interaction, and is careful to frame this as "fix the interaction, not the class."

A second camp, anchored by @agent.nene and @vollkettenfahrzeug, argues that Vanguard Commando is already balanced in context (glass-cannon tradeoff, only 2% of players can build it optimally, and Medic/Bulwark are worse problems in PvP), and that nerfing it punishes skilled players and will slow PvE content that the whole team benefits from.

A smaller third camp just wants a blanket nerf and writes short posts like "nerf shotgun build" or "too much dmg 😂."

Frustration with Vanguard Recon players runs quieter but is genuine — these players feel sidelined by the Commando meta and ignored by the patch discussion. The emotional tone is contentious but never entirely toxic; a moderator post at message 17 had to remind people to stay productive.

Primary asks

Actionable requests extracted from the synthesis.

#01
Balance / Rework

Nerf the Double Barrel Shotgun / Vanguard Commando interaction — specifically fix the pellet-per-bullet calculation so that each shotgun shell counts as a single shot (not 8–12 individual hits) for the purposes of bullet return and multishot talent procs, and ensure Tactical Link's aimbot does not collapse the natural pellet spread of a shotgun into a single-point laser at range.

Raised by
Rixelate — earliest detailed technical breakdown
Echoed by
SpaceJesus, HoldR, JB, Chewbarka, Destirian, Unidos, berserk Aries, Maku, Ventz, MaxStriker, Ramzy, JD, Reed Santino, EzioRAW, Facu, 66Sayo, CryZ
#02
Balance

After DB/Tac Link is fixed, buff Vanguard Commando's permanent passive weapon damage for AR and SMG so non-shotgun builds feel viable — without this the class will be useless once the DB is addressed.

Raised by
Rixelate
Echoed by
Vollkettenfahrzeug, 66Sayo, Revoker
#03
Balance

Nerf Vanguard Commando damage specifically in Dark Zone PvP (either as a separate PvP tuning pass, or by disabling DB in DZ PvP, or reducing range/damage in PvP context).

Raised by
EzioRAW
Echoed by
Reed Santino, Grimo, 66Sayo
#04
Bug / Rework

Fix Vanguard Recon's skill chips — multiple chip effects do not function correctly, and engineering stat investment does not translate meaningfully into performance, making Recon non-viable without a coordinated team.

Raised by
tib — "PLEASE fix the recon skill chips that don't work"
Echoed by
Falcifer, Chewbarka, 66Sayo, JB, Vollkettenfahrzeug
#05
Balance / QoL

Buff other Vanguard weapons and non-shotgun builds to bring them into line; the class guide still recommends AR/SMG but these are massively inferior in practice — either change the guide or make those weapon types competitive.

Raised by
66Sayo
Echoed by
Revoker, Rixelate, Vollkettenfahrzeug
#06
Bug / QoL

Bullet-return chance is heavily latency-dependent — South American and high-ping players can't reliably chain the DB loop at all, making the class geography-dependent at the high end. Fix or replace the mechanic so it isn't connection-sensitive.

Raised by
HoldR
Echoed by
JB

Community voices

Representative comments preserved from the synthesis.

Voice 01 Discord message
I think the topic title is misleading. The discussion should be focused on nerfing the Double Barrel Shotgun specifically, not the Vanguard Commando specialization. These are two separate things and it's important to make that distinction — the weapon is the issue here, not the class.
Rogue.Agent Jun 3, 2026 9 reactions
Why it matters

Captures the central framing debate that runs through the entire thread: weapon vs. class.

Voice 02 Discord thread
The double barrel shotgun (in synergy with commando vanguard) currently: Deals 215% more single shot damage than a dedicated sniper rifle, at 4x the speed, in full auto, with a bottomless mag, achieves 3.9x the DPS of the highest SMG during tac link, and maintains a minimum 88.87% ammo loop floor outside of tac link that ironically scales up to 98.72% the more pellets you miss.
Rixelate Jun 7, 2026
Why it matters

The most data-grounded post in the thread; provides the mathematical case for why the interaction is broken, repeated multiple times for newcomers.

Voice 03 Discord thread
Shotguns are OP on vanguard for 2 reasons. 1. Every pellet counts as 1 bullet. That count is what messes up every talent that applies to hits/misses... 2. Tac link is aimbot, and shotguns are designed to be hugely inaccurate from any decent distance.
Rixelate Jun 4, 2026
Why it matters

The clearest articulation of the root cause — the two-fix diagnosis that several others build on.

Voice 04 Discord message
Real talk — only about 2% of players have actually built Double Barrel correctly. We're talking genuine effort, deep min/maxing, and full optimization... Drop those two players in the same group and the optimized build will outdamage the unoptimized one 10:1. It's not close. But every complaint throws both in the same bucket.
Rogue.Agent Jun 9, 2026 1 reactions
Why it matters

The strongest counterargument — distinguishes between the ceiling and the floor of the build, and argues that nerfing the ceiling punishes a tiny minority.

Dev notes

Editorial synthesis for developer review.

The Vanguard thread is less a feedback thread and more a structured argument, with two well-organised camps debating the same topic across 16 days.

The reformers — led by @rixelated with detailed damage calculations — make a technically sound case that the problem is not Vanguard or the DB gun itself, but a specific interaction: pellets counting as individual bullets for talent-proc purposes, and Tactical Link collapsing shotgun spread into a single-point aimbot.

Their proposed fix is elegant: count all pellets in a shot as one shot, and preserve natural spread during Tac Link (aimbot aims the centre of the cone, not a singularity). This would bring DB into line without touching the class's identity.

@jbcode suggests an alternative: replace bullet-return with a multishot or ramp-up mechanic, which would also solve the latency-sensitivity issue @holdr0666 raises.

The defenders argue that: (a) very few players can actually achieve the broken numbers, (b) Vanguard is the worst class in PvP precisely because it has no survivability, (c) DB Vanguards are helping the whole team clear PvE faster, and (d) Medic and Bulwark are more urgent problems. These points are all substantively valid and represent genuine tradeoffs.

A developer reading this thread should not dismiss them — a blunt nerf without compensatory changes would degrade the experience for casual Vanguard players who are already not hitting the broken numbers.

The Recon sub-narrative deserves its own thread. Multiple players note that Recon skill chips don't function, engineering stats don't translate into performance, and the sub-spec is only viable in highly coordinated groups. This is a separate bug/balance issue conflated with the Commando discussion because they share a class name.

The key actionable signal for a developer: the community is closer to consensus than the debate volume suggests. Almost everyone agrees the DB/Tac Link interaction is overtuned. The disagreement is about method (weapon fix vs. class nerf vs. stat cap) and sequencing (fix DB before or after Medic/Bulwark).

The reformers' two-fix proposal (pellets count as one shot; preserve spread during Tac Link) is technically specific enough to implement and has clear support.

The devs should also plan for a Commando passive buff in the same patch, and create a separate Recon thread to capture that sub-community's feedback.