The best Vanguard Space Marine build - Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

Published September 10, 2024 11:53 AM, by Aidan O'Brien

The Vanguard Class in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is designed to get right into the middle of enemies, deal tremendous damage, and somehow manage to survive. This class works best for players who enjoy considered aggression and are willing to go after the biggest threats to their team, not just the easiest targets. You can be an invaluable emergency backup to your squad, so pay attention to them at all times.

The best Vanguard Space Marine build in Space Marine 2

For this build, we are going all in on both the ability to devastate large groups of smaller enemies and absolutely eradicate bigger enemies in record time. By specializing hard in both directions via different weapons, there will be almost nothing you can’t deal with.

Class Ability

The central aspect of this class is the Grapnel Launcher. You can drag yourself to a distant enemy and perform a Diving Kick. This can help you get to awkward spots and cover a considerable distance in the blink of an eye. You also start with improved contested health regeneration at a rate 50% higher than the other classes.

Perks

You have access to eight columns, each of which contains three perks. You need to level up your character by playing Operations and Infernal War to get access to all of them. You may only have one active perk per column. 

Core

• Melee Mastery - Melee damage increases by 10% against Majoris-level and higher enemies. This is very useful as part of your job is to hunt down and kill awkwardly placed or disruptive Majoris.
• Duelist - Perfect Parry window is increased by 50%. Stacking up perfect parries is incredibly effective when you are surrounded by mobs. The bigger window to act will give you more time to think.
• Honed Reactions - When your health is less than 50%, your Perfect Dodge window is doubled. Yes, stacking more Gun Strikes is always nice.

Team

• Inner Fire - All squad members can restore ability charge by 15% when performing Finishers. This is vital and will keep your squad’s abilities humming.

Gear

• Shock Wave - Diving Kick deals damage in a five-meter radius. This allows you to grapnel to a large enemy and deal with small enemies that are near it without much issue.
• Tip of the Spear - Enemies hit by Diving Kick take 15% more ranged damage for 10 seconds. Please note this is not limited to just your damage; it includes all ranged damage.
• Thrill of the Fight - After a perfectly timed Parry or Dodge, you take 15% less Health Damage for 3 seconds.

Signature

• Emperor’s Blessing - Taking lethal damage restores all armor instead of incapacitating you. Has a three-minute cooldown. This is great because it allows us to make a mistake and not put our team in danger.

Weapons

For weapons, we are going with the Melta Rifle as our primary, the Bolt Pistol as our secondary, and the Combat Knife as our melee option. The Melta Rifle is like a shotgun, and it will nuke smaller enemies and stagger bigger ones, giving you time to do a lot of melee damage or follow up with more shots from the Melta.

Don’t fret about the low ammo count, as you will absolutely fry huge groups with ease. I would build up to the Gathalamor Crusade variant, as it has good range, damage, and ammo overall. 

The Combat Knife will allow us to cut down any single enemy as it has the best single-target damage from all the melee weapons. It is also fast, and this really helps keep the DPS high. Then, we have the Bolt Pistol as our backup, which will help us with awkward ranged targets.

For enemies like Venom/Neurothropes, don’t be afraid. Sit right under them and nuke them with the Melta Rifle; they won’t enjoy it. Overall, we want to grapnel to something big, hit it with the Melta, angling so that we hit a group of smaller enemies or more majors, and then go to the down in melee. It's a simple formula but a very effective one.

For more guides, be sure to check out our Space Marine 2 page.