Once you download the installer for Visual C++ 2015 Build Tools from here, you can run it as follows:
visualcppbuildtools_full.exe /layout
to have it download all the necessary files for later “offline” installation. This allows one to archive the installer and reinstall it later on another machine. This is similar to the functionality in the SDK and WDK, which also allow to just download all files for later use.
NB: this also works if the full Visual C++ or Visual Studio 2015 product is installed. If you tried to install it, it would reject it due to the full product being already installed.
Update: an analog option exists for the now released Visual C++ 2017 Build Tools:
mu_build_tools_for_visual_studio_2017_x86_x64_10049789.exe --layout E:\vs2017bldtools --lang en-US
Documentation can be found here. I also used this method to generate myself a big VS2017 Pro ISO file.
// Oliver