You can only earn that badge by having the contact yourself and running the arc, or by running the arc through Ouro. For "Talk to/Deivery" missions, only the mission-holder gets the reward. Through Ouro, the entire team would get the badge, but you'd still need to be high enough level to run the Ouro anyway.
Thus, you cannot get the badge at a lower level than designed.. AFAIK.
Master is correct. You have to be of a high enough level to run the arc to get the badge, and hence earn vanguard merits. The justification being you're too weak to be much use drafting into the fight against the Rikti. Bucky was handy against the nazis when partnered up with his mentor Cap and being ssked. On his own probably not so much. Yeah unfortunately Tech and Vanguard are the only real energy blades available, unless i'm forgetting about one right now.
Ah... well, all right then. Thanks for the clarification. Guess I'll start grinding for fifteen levels.
If I have a character too low to get Levantera's first mission, but I'm on a team with someone who is doing that mission, do I get the badge too? Paragon Wiki says nothing about it, and people I asked in-game weren't sure... does anyone know?
I'm just starting to really hate the Tech sword, but it and the Vanguard sword are the only energy blades I know of...