How do you beat a Vanguard?

LOL this is TOO funny.

Impossible? Maybe you haven't realized that they are essentially melee classes. Keep them away, they lose a lot of their DPS. You can kill them.

yeah I laughed as well

What's so funny dill hole. What I said is true. If you want armor pierce it's not free you have to buy it.

As a marauder hope he gets unlucky and railshot doesn't proc/misses(Blind him asap, also pop saber ward). Outside of that you're dead. Flame burst alone will kill you. It's a dps race and they do a **** ton more front loaded dps. All our dps is back loaded cause of the dots. If you can survive the first 6~ seconds you may have a chance.

Heh, no, I almost feel bad for Snipers vs, VGs, they are literally the only class that Vanguards can actually Tank. Vanguards have Range and Melee, but it’s also pretty easy to close with Storm, or pull with Grapple. BioWare’s Melee/Range/Force/Tech system is so screwed up in practice, everyone gravitates towards Force/Tech, but Snipers can’t.

i think you are confusing vanguard/powertech with commando/mercenary

on the bright side (for us) you are the only class which we can actually tank.

Powertechs are no issue at 50 once youre in champ gear and above. At least for Watchman.

I'm an Assault Vanguard, but I often use Ion Cell in PVP for the armor bonus and guard ability. I've always wondered what the point of that "choke" thing is that Sith use -- they don't seem to do any damage to me while it is underway. If they are "bleeding" me, it isn't enough to notice.

Lightsabers, though -- they seem to hurt. I'd advise using one of those.

Note that if I am in Ion Cell mode (which gives +50% bonus to armor), my DPS will be quite a bit less than if I use Plasma Cell (in which case I would be easier to kill).

Having someone beat on the healer than I am guarding will bring down my health, and prevent them from healing me....

I have some talents that give my other main instant attacks a chance to cancel the HIB cooldown, and makes HIB give bonus ammo back. Also, most enemies will be burning when fighting me, so HIB is generally always available if not on CD.

From your description, it looks as if you're fighting a commando, not a vanguard.

I have trouble with commandos on my low level Marauder as well, but that's because you lack defensive cooldowns, interrupts and dots to put on them and they simply DPS you to hell.

As for vanguards, don't believe the horror stories told here, if an equally geared and skilled Marauder fights an equally geared and skilled DPS Vanguard, the Marauder will win unless the Vanguard gets extremely lucky with procs & crits.

Marauders will be in serious trouble when their defensive cooldowns are not up though.

What you should remember, is that Assault Vanguards have little to no defences that matter to you, and no abilities to get away from you, stay on their ***, put up your dots, watch your health (be ready to use your cooldowns) and bury him.

You could even dot him up and LoS for a bit only to charge back in when you've buried him in a health deficit already.

Learn to use LoS effectively against all classes (yes, even as a melee) and a whole new world will open up for you.