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Over the past few weeks, I've had a chance to play a Vanguard at levels 4 and 8 in SFS play, getting some time in different situations, with very different parties. I am still in love with the concept and primary thrust of the class (Con-based tank focused less on damage than tanking and battlefield control; passive abilities like Uncanny Agility and Vanguard Ferocity really sold it for me), but I'm finding that the class is a lot less interesting to play in practice and provides pretty limited opportunities to use abilities unique to the class.

Ysoki Vanguard 4, Reaction Aspect, Abilities: 9 18 16 12 10 10 (w/ Mk1 Ability Crystal)

My level 4 session (SFS 1-18: The Blackmoon Survey) was a lot of fun. I was working with a number of ranged attackers, so that big pool of stamina was very helpful when drawing fire from the snipers. Being able to take a lot of damage as a core class feature feels great, even if it's not particularly flashy. Attracting Shield also proved pretty useful when facing a target who was not easily reachable, but it was almost always a better option to full attack unless facing an enemy with an otherwise difficult AC (something I didn't encounter in this adventure as a full-BAB class). Given my ability to dump strength, I found the Vanguard to be a very effective combatant as I could just pump DEX and CON to my hearts content. This made my character pretty ineffective on the skill side, but I appreciated the 6+ skill points/lvl to compensate.

Ysoki Vanguard 8, Reaction & Boundary Aspect, Abilities: 11 22 20 14 10 10 (w/ Mk1-Con and Mk 2-Dex Ability Crystals)

My Level 8 session (SF AP 004: Part 4 The Ruined Clouds) went well, but I found again that my most effective class trait was being a full-BAB class with a lot of health. It was a melee heavy party (and a pretty melee-heavy adventure in general), so Shimmer Guard turned into a faily lackluster ability. A large percentage of melee characters also led to getting hit less often in general, leading to my biggest problem at both level ranges: The majority of my most interesting abilities happen as a result of, or in reaction to, the attacks or actions of others. Shimmer Guard is a great ability, but is primarily useful if I see multiple ranged attackers and wouldn't be put to better use charging or threatening them in melee (a situation that seemed to happen less often that I would have hoped). Mitigating damage is great, but the reduction is faily small and it requires me to have either been hit already or to waste my move action to generate 1 EP (a move action that is probably better used getting myself into combat and tanking directly).

The core issue isn't that Vanguards are bad (in fact, I found myself to be one of the better damage dealers while acting as a pretty effective tank on larger enemies), it's that few of their abilities offer anything unique when it comes to actual play (particularly in relation to how cumbersome it feels to manage one more system: generating and using EP). Getting +1 AC from having at least 1 EP is great, but it doesn't stack with my shield, so I never needed to be cognizant of it or use my action to generate that extra point. Combat Maneuvers are a core competency of the class, but the difficulty/effect ratio is just too high to justify using one vs dealing damage (Sunder, even with the penetrating property, takes too many turns to be effective; Dirty Trick is really only useful for hard-to-hit enemies, and their hard-to-hitness makes landing it extremely unreliable; Bull Rush or Reposition are situationally useful, at best.)

Thoughts and Suggestions:

1. The entropic points system takes up a lot of text in the class description but has very little effect in practice. Between non-stacking bonuses and limited options, the potential effort you would put into a cost/benefit on whether or not you should try to actively generate more points far outstrips their usefulness. Perhaps Vanguards should start combat with a small supply based on their Con mod or Vanguard level (or even a supply rechargable on a short rest). You could generate them similarly in combat, but all Vanguards would at least have some ability to jump into battle prepared and make battlefield decisions based on the idea that they will have resources to use.

2. I love the idea of a tanky class with battlefield control options, but the non-attack options are either low-impact or just too costly in terms of action-economy for their potential benefit (with some of the most interesting ones not popping up until lvl 12). Maybe a Vanguard could reduce the difficulty of Combat Maneuvers by spending EP; or even add the effect of a combat maneuver to a single entropic strike by spending RP and/or EP; or possibly give them a Stamina Heal that forces them to sacrifice their own Stamina? Anything that would allow me to have an outward effect or actively mitigate some negative effect would be welcome (not a suggestion for this class, but the Witchwarper's ability to reduce damage dice to 1 is an example of a limited-use ability that is really fun to pull out at the right time.)

3. I do appreciate that there are a few really great passive abilities (Shimmer Guard being a prime example), but it would be nice to have one or two more actively used abilities (the suggestion about Combat Maneuvers, listed above, being an example of what I'm talking about). My level 8 session included both a Witchwarper and Biohacker and I found myself a little jealous of their moments to show off unique abilities, whereas I often felt like more of a uniquely-built soldier.

4. I think that the playtest may fail to capture what could be a pretty substantial benefit to the class: the ability to go without buying weapons at all. Managing upgrades over multiple levels is serious business in Starfinder (particularly in society play, when budgets are pretty well set by the adventures). A class that can go completely without buying weapons can, over a career, spend a lot more on armor modifications, augmentations, and technological items while retaining enough credits to replace their armor with relative frequency. There has been some discussion about how unfair it is that Vanguards have to spend so much to retain special weapon properties like reach, but I think that going unarmed will end up being a much more popular option once people have time to get comfortable with what the class is and isn't good at. Given that, it might be nice to see a couple more options for special properties on the list for Entropic Attunement.

Thanks for reading! I hope it comes across that I do in fact like where this class is going. I love the flavor (though I'm not 100% sold on the name), and I love the implied focus on tanking and actions other than just damage dealing; I just think it needs a bit of work to make it something that feels unique in practice, and not just on paper.

EDIT: I would like to add that, in regards to Starship roles, the Vanguard was usually the best gunner in the party due to high BAB and DEX.