yeah the level 4 version of charge gives you the option of choosing between an AoE on impact or a more powerful single target impact that slows time around you for about a second or so - and fully restores your shieldsShepherd can control time and space?
Illusive Man set my ass up, sent me on a fools errand and Harbinger and his boys was lighting my ass up.
i had garrus and mordin with me for the harbinger intro and it was a cake walk
but i'd also done kasumi and zaeed's loyalty missions before that - so i had the locust SMG which is accurate as fukk (and when paired with cryo rounds even at level 1 its great because freeze chance is on hit) and advanced training gave me zaeed's incendiary grenades so i could handle armored husks with no trouble.
i think the scaling is relatively the same but you simply need better tools to get vanguard going.