Most players that write guides start with their achievements, but as I have only been playing this combat style for just over a month, I don't really have any? I did ranked PvP back in season 7 and have only dipped my toes into it recently, but back then I was a different class with a completely different play style. Now I've only been playing Tactics Vanguard and keep appearing in the top quarter of the scoreboard when you sort it by damage done, so I've got that going at least.
What you can expect from this guide is an in depth breakdown of how abilities work, what gear to use, what options are viable in the Ability Tree, and your various rotations. While this guide is presented with a PvP mindset, a lot of the information presented is viable for PvE too!
Personally, I've sometimes found it hard to find the right information on guide's I've seen before, so I might repeat information in sections where they're relevant so ideally you won’t have to read all the passives to find the one you're looking for, for example. Instead you can find the ability and it will have it somewhere in there. Also for ease of finding things, abilities and passives are underlined.
Key Abilities
Offensive
 | Cell Burst - Being a burst specialization, this is one of the key abilities you work towards in your rotation. It hits one target and applies a small dot. If timed correctly you can see single hits upwards of 70k with this ability! It is empowered by Energy Lodes, which you gain by either using your out of combat healing ability, by firing High Impact Bolt, which will give you 1 Energy Lode, or by using Balmorran Advanced Weaponry to gain 4 Energy Lodes. Cell Burst is procced by gaining 4 Energy Lodes which is the maximum amount allowed at one given moment. Only use this when it's procced because it is a high cost ability at 20 Energy Cells. |
 | Assault Plastique - This is another huge hitter and will be a centrepiece to your burst rotation. With the High Yield Explosives option in the Ability Tree you will be able to give your Assault Plastique an additional 20% damage increase after using a fully procced Cell Burst. It is a high damage ability even without the proc, but when the stars align (aka when your offensive cool downs have all just been used), you can also see hits upwards of 70k! I've even seen 80k on Warzone Training Dummy's if timed right. After it has exploded it also increases tech attacks by 5% on that target for 45 seconds. |
 | Gut - You will always want this DoT ticking on your enemy and it should be applied at the start of every fight, as it does around 11k damage on hit, and an additional 21(ish) k damage over 18 seconds. Not only that, it will also bolster your High Impact Bolt, which I will get to in a sec as it's the next ability on my list. When taking the Tactical Knife option in the Ability Tree, with each DoT tick you will gain 25% damage increase to your Gut's initial hit, with a max of 4 stacks, so doubling its damage! With the Advanced Infantry Tactics ability tree option picked it will also lower Balmorran Advanced Weaponry's CD by 1 second once every 10 seconds which is a nice bonus. |
 | High Impact Bolt - This ability fuels your Cell Burst. With each use it will generate 1 Energy Lode, at 4 your Cell Burst will be fully procced and do massive damage. On its own it does ok damage at around 21k, but it should only be used when it is procced itself. It is procced by Stockstrike, Tactical Surge, Flak Shell, and Explosive Surge, but only once every 3 GCD, so you will want to cycle through the abilities that proc it beforehand. While you Gut DoT is applied, it will ignore 30% of your target's armour, refresh your Gut's DoT ticks and enhance its damage by 15% |
 | Stockstrike - Stockstrike is a melee ranged which sunders your enemy, reducing their armour by 20%. It is one of the abilities that can proc High Impact Bolt, so it is best used after your Storm to take advantage of your now close range and your upcoming rotation. It's also a hard hitter with roughly 22k damage. |
 | Tactical Surge - Another ability that can proc High Impact Bolt. It's a decent hitter and your filler single target ability. |
 | Explosive Surge - Yet another ability that can proc High Impact Bolt. Also used in your rotation to prematurely explode your Assault Plastique AND spread it to nearby enemies within a certain range if paired with the Flame Detonation Tactical, dealing huge damage! But it doesn't do much damage on its own. |
 | Flak Shell - The last of the abilities that can proc High Impact Bolt. It does ok damage which is justified as it can hit up to 8 enemies around the initial target. It will also refresh your Gut's bleed on the target. |
 | Storm - Only available if you pick the Storm ability tree option. It does ok damage, but makes up for it by interrupting the target upon hitting them, and immobilizing them for 2 seconds, guaranteeing you hit your close range abilities. After hitting, for 6 seconds you gain a 30% speed increase or until you use Storm again which will storm your target with an additional 50% damage but without the interrupt or immobilization. |
 | Artillery Blitz - I debated whether to put this in the key abilities section or not, but it's worth noting it can be good for stealth detection if used well enough, specifically when the enemy stealths out during combat and you can predict where they will be. |
Offensive CDs
 | Shoulder Cannon - The staple of the Vanguard combat style. As a Tactics Vanguard it will load one rocket upon activation with an additional 3 straight away, and an additional 3 over time. With the right Tactical you even have the possibility of 7 to 14 total rockets as the Veteran Ranger Package gives each rocket a 50% chance to trigger an additional rocket, increasing your burst damage potential by a lot. Each rocket has its own chance to crit at around 15k damage, so even if you don't get any additional rockets, as a whole this ability can get you an extra 66 to 110k damage without the Tactical. It is also off GCD so you can just put that on a side button and go to town on it once it's ready alongside your burst rotation. |
 | Battle Focus - Increases your ranged and tech crit hit chance by 25% for 15 seconds. Best used right before your burst rotation to increase the chances of crits. When applied my crit chance is 67.6%. |
 | Recharge Cells - Recharges 50 energy cells over 3 seconds and your next ability depletes no energy cells! I try to use this when under 50 power cells, as the lower your energy cells, the slower it will regen. Getting ahead of this can keep your DPS going instead of grinding to a halt and having to spam Hammer Shot until you get enough back. |
 | Balmorran Advanced Weaponry - Increases Cell Burst's critical chance to 100% and applies 4 stacks of Energy Lode, and 5 stacks of Power Yield which increases your armour by 40% and your damage done by 2% per stack! That's 200% armour and 10% damage increase at 5 stacks!! Lasts 10 seconds unless you have the War Machine option selection in the Ability Tree which raises that to 15 seconds, and when hitting a critical with Cell Burst while under Power Yield's effects, it will generate another Energy Lode. This is at the bottom of the Offensive CDs list because it is also a Defensive CD, I just didn't want to have to write it twice. |
Defensive CDs
 | Hold The Line - Love isn't always on time! I strongly suggest picking this in the ability tree as it will unroot you, make you immune to movement impairing effects and knock backs, AND increase your movement speed by 75%. With this ability you can easily keep up with any enemies trying to stun and run, or get into a better kiting position when you're leapt to by an enemy or hard focused (which will happen a lot 😭). |
 | Reactive Shield - Applies a shield that increases damage reduction by 25% for 15 seconds. Electro Shield can be selected in the Ability Tree to also do damage to your attackers when they deal direct damage. |
 | Tenacity - Purges incapacitating and movement impairing effects. |
 | Adrenaline Rush - Upon activating it gives you Fired Up for 60 seconds, which triggers Adrenaline Rush when your health is below 35%. It rapidly heals you up to 35% health for 8 seconds, but doesn't heal above 35% unless you have the War Machine option selection in the Ability Tree which raises that to 45%. With the Efficient Tools option selected in the Ability Tree, it will also purge most stun effects. |
 | Sonic Round - While technically an AOE taunt, it does reduce enemy player's damage by 30% for 6 seconds when not targeting you, so it can help your team out a lot if you're left unchecked. It also increases your defence chance by 30% for 6 seconds, so it has some use in smaller engagements too. |
Passives
 | Tactical Armor - Taking critical damage grants Tactical armor, increasing damage reduction by 2% for 15 seconds, and can stack up to 3 times. This is also what makes your Sonic Round increase your defence chance by 30% for 6 seconds. |
 | Reflexive Shield - When you take damage, the active cool down of Reactive Shield is reduced by 3 seconds, but only once every 1.5 seconds. Also, when taking damage, you have a 20% chance to emit an Energy Redoubt, which lasts for 6 seconds and absorbs 5533 damage, but only once every 10 seconds. |
 | Havoc Training - This increases the crit strike damage bonus of Stockstrike, High Impact Bolt, Tactical Surge, Gut, Assault Plastique, and Cell Burst by 10%. But the highlight of this passive is that your Assault Plastique damages a target, they become Susceptible, increasing the damage they take from tech attacks by 5% for 45 Seconds. |
Other
 | Harpoon - Your other gap closer alongside Storm. It pulls an enemy to you and immobilizes them for 3 seconds. If you choose not to use Storm, it can have either 2 charges and finish the cool down of Stockstrike, or do tech damage to the target and increase your next Stockstrike's damage by 20% and stun them for 3 seconds. It is good for pulling enemies out of position and giving your team an easy focus target. |
 | Thyrsian Relic of Boundless Ages - While not technically a class ability, I do use it to increase my Power by 2314 for 30 seconds on command, rather than leaving it up to chance. I do, however, leave the other relic to be one of the 30% chance relics. |
Ability Tree
Here is my Ability Tree. As I make my way through the options, I will list what is preferred, viable, or not worth using. Let's start from the low level choices to the high.
Level 23: In theory any of these options are viable, it just depends on what your goal is. I prefer Tactical Knife for that bigger single target hit and it being procced reminds me to reuse it which keeps the DoT going. Serrated Blade can be good as High Impact Bolt, and Flak Shell both refresh your dot, meaning they'll do a bit of extra damage. And Ricochet Rounds can be good for some AoE damage as it will deal additional damage to 4 targets within 5 meters. The only issue is it isn't stated how much additional damage the latter two do. |
Level 27: I think Storm is a must have if you're running the Flame Detonation tactical as you need that gap closer for the big boom. I also love a good gap close in a chase. But if it doesn't fit your play style and you'd much rather focus on single target, then one of the Harpoon options work too. Out of them I'd suggest Pull and Pummel for the extra damage for Stockstrike and Harpoon itself, and 3 second stun. |
Level 39: 100% High Yield Explosives. While Kill Zone might seem like a good AoE burst, pairing High Yields Explosives with Flame Detonation will do way better. It isn't limited to 3 additional targets, and increases Assault Plastique's base damage to around 48k! Landing a crit with this is insane, and it spreads! Using Battle Focus before will improve your crit chance by a whole lot too! |
Level 43: I've been running War Machine for that added healing for Adrenaline Rush mostly. It also improves how long your Balmorran Advanced Weaponry lasts by 5 seconds! Advanced Infantry Tactics can also do well if you want that added 5 meters, but I stopped using that for the added defensiveness of War Machine. |
Level 51: Electro Shield and Parallactic Combat Stims both work here. Electro Shield damages the attacker when they deal direct damage to you but only once every second for 15 seconds. Overall you can see about 60-70k damage from this shield if it hits each second it's up. Parallactic Combat Stims is great if your Energy Cells management isn't the best as it will give you 20 Energy Cells when stunned, knocked down, immobilized, or incapacitated in any way, AND after that happens it increase your next ability used to damage or heal by 10%. |
Level 64: I've been running Entangling Tools for this one to keep my targets from getting away, but Reflective Armour is also viable here. It throws some extra damage at the enemy when you're hit by an AoE if they're within 10 meters. |
Level 68: You will want Hold The Line for sure. It breaks and roots upon use and gives you 10 seconds of immunity to movement impairing effects, knockdowns, and physics, meaning no force pushes, slows, or roots either! It also increases your movement speed by 75%! Meaning you can just bolt out of there if you're being hard focused. Guard Cannon gives you additional heals when you deal damage with your Shoulder Cannon, which can be increased by the Veteran Ranger Package implant because of the 50% chance of an additional rocket each time Shoulder Cannon is used. But generally Hold The Line is what you'll want. |
Level 73: Efficient Tools is the only one to pick here to be honest. It turns your Adrenaline Rush into a second stun break, and increases the range of your Shoulder Cannon and Harpoon by 10 meters. It also removes the Energy Cell cost of Neural Surge so you have a free of cost AoE stun! |
Gearing
Armour and Augments
The build I am running right now is a simple one. It is min-maxed and just uses the base Boltblaster set you earn through PvP with a small change. Replace either your helmet or boots piece with a piece that increases your critical stat. If you replace your helmet, get a replacement from either the Mender or Force Healer sets. And if you replace your boots, get a replacement from the Tech-Medic, Pummeler, or Force Healer sets. This will replace your unneeded alacrity points that go over the 1.4s threshold, and put them into your critical. The main two thresholds I aimed for were 105% accuracy, and 1.4 seconds Global Cool down and I achieved them with augments. I am running 1 Advanced Accuracy Augment 74, and 13 Advanced Critical Augments 74s. This will bring your accuracy to 105.31% which is a bit of an odd number because without the accuracy augment it goes down to 104.94% and I couldn't find anything that said if it rounded up or not? So I went for just a bit over. You won’t need any augments for the alacrity threshold, as the base set gives you 8.91% alacrity which passes the 7.14 threshold. The rest of the augments raise critical to get that big burst damage.
Accessories
 | Thyrsian Adept Device - For that extra Critical |
 | Shock trooper Package - This will reduce the Energy Cell cost for Stockstrike, helping with energy management, and after landing a Tactical Surge your damage dealt is increased by 10% for 15 seconds but can only be triggered once every 30 seconds. |
| Veteran Ranger Package - Each Shoulder Cannon rocket has a 50% chance to trigger an additional rocket! This is much better for burst damage than Mandalorian Armaments Package, as it only works on cool down. Being able to get potentially 7-14 rockets off in quick succession is much better in PvP, whereas either could be used in PvE. |
 | Thyrsian Relic of Devastating Vengeance - This relic has a 30% chance to pop when you deal damage, and grants you 2892 Critical rating for 6 seconds, but can only occur once every 20 seconds. |
 | Thyrsian Relic of Boundless Ages - This one works differently than the last relic. You should move it onto your hot bar, as when it's activated it will increase your Power by 2314 for 30 seconds! I picked the Power option as using Battle Focus in tandem with this relic to get that crit chance increase. They also both have a 2 minute cool down so they always get used together. |
 | Flame Detonation - This is a must have! After you've placed your Assault Plastique, dealing the target damage with Explosive Surge will prematurely explode your Plastique, AND explode on other enemies nearby, dealing massive damage across multiple targets! |
 | Advanced Kyrprax Versatile Stim - Extra Mastery and Power. |
Rotation
Here is a cheat sheet I’ve made for your rotations and how to prioritise abilities outside of it.
And here is the cheat sheet explained in greater detail.
Opener
- Make sure you’re stimmed before every engagement, just in case. This doesn’t mean apply your stim before each time however, just check if it’s applied, and if not, apply it. Also make sure you’re at full Energy Lode stacks so you can get right into the burst rotation.
- Before starting an engagement you’ll want to apply your Shoulder Cannon so that when it comes to spam it, you can. I have an MMO mouse so I have 12 buttons by my thumb, but for this not being a part of the GCD, I bind it to the R key so I can just spam it without interrupting my rotation.
- Depending on if you have Storm or not, you close the gap between you and your target.
- Stockstrike them to apply the sundered effect. This will trigger your implant that applies +10% for the next 15 seconds.
- Use Gut to apply its DoT.
Burst Rotation
- Trigger Thyrsian Relic of Boundless Ages before Battle Focus as it lasts longer. They give you +2314 power and +25% crit chance respectively.
- You should have max stacks of Energy Lode and Cell Burst procced, so fire your Cell Burst for a huge hit and +20% damage on your next Assault Plastique.
- Speaking of, throw that Assault Plastique.
- Quickly trigger Balmorran Advanced Weaponry to gain 4 stacks of Energy Lode again and proc Cell Burst, and then fire your Cell Burst again. Balmorran Advanced Weaponry also gives you defensives and a damage bonus to boot.
- Trigger an Explosive Surge with the target in range and all enemies in your area will explode with the Assault Plastique you applied earlier.
- Your goal with these rotations is to get 2 Cell Bursts and an AoE Assault Plastique off with as many buffs as possible. With this rotation the buffs you’ll have applied are +10% damage, a sundered enemy, +2314 power, +25% crit chance, +20% damage increase on your Assault Plastique, and +10 damage from Balmorran Advanced Weaponry on your Assault Plastique AoE explosion! These will all be huge hits too.
Ability Priority
But what do you do the rest of the time? You set up for that rotation!
- You always want your Gut’s DoT applied so that your High Impact Bolt will ignore 30% of your target’s armour. If used right after the opener and burst rotations, you might be able to get the tail end of Stockstrike’s sunder effect on your target so it’ll be a decent hit.
- Stockstrike applies that valuable sunder effect that will increase your damage. It has the same priority as Assault Plastique and both should be used on cool down.
- Cell Burst should be fired whenever it is procced! This is your goal between rotations.
- If your Cell Burst is procced, you always want to fire it BEFORE High Impact Bolt because generating Energy Lode would be a waste.
- Tactical Surge and Explosive Surge are both decent hitters and can proc High Impact Bolt, so if it’s not ready yet, use one of these. But be careful, spamming them will lead to having no Energy Cells.
- Flak Shell is ok and mostly used if you’re not in range to refresh your Gut’s DoT.
Defensive Priority
You’ll get a feel of when to use your defensives as you play, but here is a rough outline on their priorities.
- If someone is trying to get away and/or immobilise you, use Hold The Line. If someone leaps to you and/or immobilises you, you can use Hold The Line or Reactive Shield. Either works in this instance, it just depends on if you’re playing offensively or defensively in the moment.
- Adrenaline Rush should always be used BEFORE Tenacity as a stun or crowd control breaker. This is because it will apply it’s passive that will heal you when you drop below 35% health.
- Tenacity should be used to break stuns if Adrenaline Rush is on cool down.
- Sonic Round is situational so it’s off to the side on its own. It mostly relies on if you’re about to receive an enemy’s burst damage, or you’re not being focused and it can help your allies a bit.
Conclusion
So there we have it. A guide to Tactics Vanguard by someone who has only been playing the class just over a month. By far the biggest thing to focus on is understanding what your abilities and passives do. With that you can understand how the rotation works and gearing can come after that.
I hope you’re able to take something from this guide that helps improve your gameplay. I especially put a lot of effort into that cheat sheet so I hope that gets a lot used too.
Special Thanks
Most of the information I got from in the game itself but there were some resources online I used. I taught myself how to play the class based on 6.0 guides made by Merlyn, Vulkk, and Swtorista, and then worked upwards from there on my own. I highly suggest their websites for SWtor content! I also got all of the in-game icons from Jedipedia, a great resource for viewing everything that is in the game. Although I upscaled and denoised them to make them clearer. And thank you for reading this guide too!
If there are any mistakes or ways I can improve this or any other guides, please leave a comment! I don’t have anyone to proof read everything besides myself so it’d be a great help.
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