So, with the coming changes to Vanguards making the current popular hybrid builds obsolete, I decided last night to just mess around with my skill trees and see if I could come up with anything useful that didn't require Pulse Generator outside of High Energy Cell. Here's what I came up with:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GMhrdMboZMsMZfhrbzo.3

I put 22 points in the tank tree just to get to Storm. I tried to bypass most skills that involved shielding attacks, but there were a couple that I had to take just to advance to the next level of the tree. Then 16 points in Assault to get Ionic Accelerator and Incendiary Round, and the rest in Tactics for the cell bonuses, accuracy/HIB penetration, Ion Pulse bonus, and elemental crit chance.

I ran this build with Plasma Cell obviously, since that's needed for the Assault components of this build. I used my regular generator offhand, so the couple points of shield bonuses are useless (not to mention shields are useless without Ion Cell anyway), but I'm intending this to primarily be a damage-dealing build.

I gotta say, it's a really fun build to play. Storm is an incredibly useful gap closer and it gives some nice variety to the usual DPS Vanguard style, where your only gap closer is Harpoon. Now, when that Sorc or Assassin you're beating on Force Speeds away, instead of helplessly spamming Hammer Shot at them, you can Storm them just when they think they're home free. Riot Gas is another nice utility; slowing and reducing accuracy on multiple enemies will help you and your team, and makes for a nice damage nerf to whoever you're fighting combined with Static Field, and throwing out your taunts just takes it even further.

I only had time to try this build out in one game last night, which was a Huttball. Maybe it's different with different game modes, but I found it to be very versatile. I didn't even do too badly with damage, third place overall by a couple thousand points, and most kills.

Anyway, feel free to give it a try. I wouldn't queue for ranked arenas with it, but it's a ton of fun for regular WZs.

If this build doesn't get called "The Firebat" I'm gonna shoot someone

Also when is bioware going to make VG full trees viable enough that hybrids stop performing better?

I tried a similiar build some time ago:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GMGMzRbozZMsZfhMbdoM.3

I called it "The Meteor" because of the jump-and-explosive-surge style...