That Vanguard wakeup call.

[DocRadio]

Running a Vet Level 17 or so Fire/Fire Sentinel. Since I now have decent slotting and incarnate abilities I've been tearing through content. Most villain groups just get steam rolled. The Carnies were really the only group that gave me pause. I got difficulty dialed up, and team level set to 5. Inspirations remain forgotten in my tray. The only thing that challenges me are some of the insane things you see in taskforce runs. I almost laugh when I decide if I should pop barrier or just let'er rip with healing flames. Then I notice a story line I skipped. A group of Rouge vanguard agents need to be taken down a peg or two. Run into my first group... get cut to smithereens before I can see what killed me. One Rise of the Phoenix later and I'm up and retoggling. This time I pay attention... Something debuffs the hell out of my defenses and I get damn near one shot.... by lieutenants. It was a nice surprise to have to actually pay attention when I play again. Prioritize certain targets, use the environment, save my pyronic core, jacked up with assault core for just that right second. Even then on a few occasions a couple of laser claw wielding minions would survive the barrage, slip past my fire cages and almost end me. A tough arc but rewarding. At no time did It ever feel like I was cheated or cheap shotted. The Vanguard are a very fun and rewarding group to do battle with. Even if it did bring fear back to the game. It does make me wonder why the Rikti are considered such a threat. They're kind of laughable compared to the Vanguard.  Heck... the damn X-Men are kinda laughable to the Vanguard.

[oxmox]

And speaking of wakeup calls, The Awakened should be next on the list if you're looking for tough enemies. Those with low psi resists need not apply.

[Apparition]

7 minutes ago, oxmox said:

And speaking of wakeup calls, The Awakened should be next on the list if you're looking for tough enemies. Those with low psi resists need not apply.

 

Oh yeah, tell me about it.  My SG ran a Praetorian lowbie team.  One night, a friend played a Thermal Corruptor and I played a Sonic Resonance Corruptor.  We were the only support.  What was our one hole between the two of us?  Psi.  What did we fight?  The Awakened.  It wasn't pretty.

[DocRadio]

1 hour ago, Apparition said:

 

Oh yeah, tell me about it.  My SG ran a Praetorian lowbie team.  One night, a friend played a Thermal Corruptor and I played a Sonic Resonance Corruptor.  We were the only support.  What was our one hole between the two of us?  Psi.  What did we fight?  The Awakened.  It wasn't pretty.

Haven't run across them yet. But /Fire has a HUGE psi hole. Some of the Rularuu bosses and Lieuts are definitely a challenge. I tend to lean heavily on inspires when fighting them. Unless barrier and Judgement are up. And even then I sometimes have to get in, do massive damage and then bail before whatever survived decides to make sentinel mincemeat pie. Dark Ring Mistresses have high Psi damage along with a nasty -Recovery debuff. 

Edited September 18, 2019 by DocRadio

[Wintercat]

That's one of the advantages of playing squishies. We have NO defenses, so we never notice.

[DocRadio]

5 hours ago, Wintercat said:

That's one of the advantages of playing squishies. We have NO defenses, so we never notice.

Well... "No defenses" is a bit of a misnomer nowadays. If you build for it you can acquire some measure of defenses  by late game. 

[Coyotedancer]

*chuckles at this post* Ooooh, yeah.

Those Vanguard guys will absolutely eat your proverbial lunch if you're not careful.

 

And the Rangers can see you from the far side of the War Zone.

[WumpusRat]

Yeah, I remember fighting them for the first time way back when. 

 

Back when Arachnos and Longbow were considered kind of rough to deal with at times on higher difficulties, and Malta was the "ugh, no, not a Malta mission!" group. Then you run into Vanguard, and it's like every horrible thing the other groups have rolled into one. 

 

To paraphrase Family Guy, "You think you are tough, you think all is well. But kiss my green ass, I shall see you in hell."

[DocRadio]

Yeah.... Vanguard made me miss Carnies... and I frikken HATE carnies. Master illusionists.... *shudder*

[Ekimmak]

I'm still not sure what it is about Rularuu that suddenly causes a spike in difficulty, but they tear apart my incarnate scrappers like no other.

[EmmySky]

So my toons are all still babies....20ish.  The last couple days I am running them through the Midnighters Club arc which is a great way to test their durability.  I breezed through the arc on my Widow, hit 24 and got her all set up with SOs for her next task.  I log in my PB and get going on the arc and BAM....Quantum.  I forgot I was on PB and died so fast I barely had time to register there was a Quant in the mix.  Wake up and pay attention lol!

Edited September 20, 2019 by EmmySky

[nihilii]

7 hours ago, Ekimmak said:

I'm still not sure what it is about Rularuu that suddenly causes a spike in difficulty, but they tear apart my incarnate scrappers like no other.

The eyeballs shoot autohit beams.

 

Those autohit beams debuff defense so everything else also hits you.

 

It's so wonderfully evil.

[molten_dragon]

21 minutes ago, nihilii said:

The eyeballs shoot autohit beams.

 

Those autohit beams debuff defense so everything else also hits you.

 

It's so wonderfully evil.

If I remember right they're not actually auto-hit, they just have a much higher to-hit than most mobs

[Spotlore]

20 hours ago, DocRadio said:

Well... "No defenses" is a bit of a misnomer nowadays. If you build for it you can acquire some measure of defenses  by late game. 

Best blaster defenses are, aggro management, Line of sight/environment use, knowing where your tanks are, and a small amount of CC.  (In my case Web naids, beanbags, and smoke.)

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

9 hours ago, Ekimmak said:

I'm still not sure what it is about Rularuu that suddenly causes a spike in difficulty, but they tear apart my incarnate scrappers like no other.

Eye balls of all ranks shred defense, only defense protected by def debuff res has any use against them, this is why some like myself call soft defense( def  that comes from powers without said debuff res) something only farm toons build for.

 

Fighting Ruls head on has always been my go to standard for a build, I love going out to the Storm palace on my blaster namesake and just doing the big circle for kicks for a few rounds. great way to earn while testing oneself against a real foe.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

2 minutes ago, Spotlore said:

Best blaster defenses are, aggro management, Line of sight/environment use, knowing where your tanks are, and a small amount of CC.  (In my case Web naids, beanbags, and smoke.)

No the best blaster defenses are having multiple tricks in ones survival bag to compliment ones huge bag of killing ability.

My personal preference is as Ive said before mental 2ndary for drain psyche, Force of Nature, Rune of protection, phase shift, tons of global recharge so they are pretty much always ready for use when needed. And plenty of CC, from world of confusion keeping any minnys that show up inbetween nukes, to Psi Tornado keeping just about everything bouncing. Full on wowtard DPS blasters that go glass cannon have no place to QQ if they do die often as they basically chose to die rather then destroy.

[Spotlore]

36 minutes ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

No the best blaster defenses are having multiple tricks in ones survival bag to compliment ones huge bag of killing ability.

My personal preference is as Ive said before mental 2ndary for drain psyche, Force of Nature, Rune of protection, phase shift, tons of global recharge so they are pretty much always ready for use when needed. And plenty of CC, from world of confusion keeping any minnys that show up inbetween nukes, to Psi Tornado keeping just about everything bouncing. Full on wowtard DPS blasters that go glass cannon have no place to QQ if they do die often as they basically chose to die rather then destroy.

I do just fine.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I’m running through AntiMatter arc with my BS/inv scrapper, and relearning to get rid of all those pesky minions first, with their ranged energy attacks and defense debuffs, before the LTs and bosses.

 

i take particular insult at being vanquished by something named “Scrub Bot.”  What are you trying to say?!?

[Twisted Toon]

4 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

i take particular insult at being vanquished by something named “Scrub Bot.”  What are you trying to say?!?

 

Um, my guess would be...you might need a bath? 🤔

[Ekimmak]

Actually, what I remember being weirdly potent was their "Chomp" attack doing quite a number.

 

Either way, Rularuu (and the SSA) is not to be taken lightly.

[Heraclea]

The Rularuu are not quite as terrible to a Willpower, Bio, or Rad scrapper or tanker.  But we all tend to agree that the Vanguard are villains who fight without honor, and the Rikti seem honorable foes by comparison. 

[Megajoule]

The common thread (and threat) of Rularuu, Vanguard, etc etc is that they ignore and/or debuff defense.

So if that's your main or only form of mitigation, you will die.

[boggo2300]

On 9/20/2019 at 9:08 PM, Spotlore said:

Best blaster defenses are, aggro management, Line of sight/environment use, knowing where your tanks are, and a small amount of CC.  (In my case Web naids, beanbags, and smoke.)

and a fanatical devotion to the Pope!