Ouch!

So I was dusting off my old level 50 FM/WP scrapper last night because I had a new concept for one of his costume slots so I headed to the Rikti warzone (I'm after the vanguard pieces.) This level 50 was one of my easiest to level and also my first 50 and never ever ever had any issues of difficulty with him. Recently I respecced him pulling off some of his better IO's to pass on to new alts, but he was still adequately decked out. I had run some radio missions with him when the new difficulty slider came out and found his sweet spot of +1/X8 w/bosses & AV's.

So I get to the last mission I had ran in the RWZ arc previously and hit Gaussian for his first mission. Blah blah blah, rogue Vanguard, blah blah blah. I proceed to the door, walk in and prepare to burn the place to the ground...three seconds later I'm dead, I didn't even get off a complete attack string. So I think ok, difficulty slider might be set a bit high, drop current mission, make a b-line to the hero corps lady, set my difficulty slider down a few notches, then back to Gaussian for mission #2. Hit the door running, find a slightly smaller first group, get ready to pounce, and promptly die. Hmmm, maybe I forgot to toggle back up after the last hospital trip in my haste. Try it again, more careful this third time...dead.

After three tries I gave up frustrated for my first time in scrapperdom. These guys that tough? Am I missing something? I'm fairly sure it was the vanguard rangers who swarmed me, with the glowing claws, there might have been a lt. wizard or two in the group as well. This is my one scrapper who isn't defense minded, but a powerhouse in the offense department.

Yes, they hurt a lot.

Even on my softcapped dm/shield/soul brute I can get eaten alive fairly quickly against large groups. The only reason I stay alive is siphon life and the -tohit in Dark Oblit. Arachnos, Longbow and Vanguard Rouges are the three groups I tend to have the most trouble with on melee toons.

vanguard are ridiculously hard for melee ATs because they have a full array of debuffs (all melee attacks do -resist, flashbang grenades for lots of -tohit, that dang curse of weariness, -regen, and -defense)

on a controller or dom this group is relatively easy assuming you can keep them locked down

on squishier types, they are quite annoying too, but the fact they can melt most brutes like putty too makes it a pain (my dark/stone fully IO'd out brute in granite cant handle more than x3 or x4 spawns of vanguard solo, i tried x8 and when i run into a mob my acc and defense gets debuffed so bad that i cant hit anything and everything can hit me, then the -resist of the melee poeple starts kicking in and is MORE effective than the longbow sonic nades.

Vanguard are just murder on melee ATs. They're pretty much designed that way. Meanwhile control ATs: controllers, dominators and some defender/corruptor variants have a lot less problem with these guys. That's generally because they can keep them at ranged or mezzed. The -end curse the bosses dish out majorly sucks on all ATs.

They did horrible things to my Fire Tank (he plays like a scrapper).
If its any consolation and doesnt violate your principles, you might try doing what I did.
I got even, I summoned up Amy and with her help, I did what I had intended to do in the first place, FRIED EM BAD!
Why have a pocket witch if you dont use her every now and then?!

Whew, what a relief. I'm glad it's not just me then, I was starting to doubt my own scrapper credentials. I guess its good to be humbled every once in a while, toughens you up. I know I'm heading back for a new respec and plan to beef him back up again and get him in top fighting shape.

I wonder now how we earthlings had such a hard time in the Rikti war, Rikti are push-overs and our Vanguard first line of defense is fairly stout.

It's a shame those guys only show up in 2-3 missions. What a waste of a good enemy.

Watch how the fights go in the barrens of the RWZ sometime. The Rikti are pretty happy to fight at range, which blunts some of the Vanguard's wickedness. Also, those fights are spread out with roughly even numbers on each side, so it's not quite comparable to what happens when you solo them on high team sizes. The reason they're so brutal to us is that they get to stack their individual debuffs on us, while they're pretty spread out in the Rikti fights.

yea, they are a pain,

I had forgotten about them, till my son who was 10 at the time, was playing his DM/regen scrapper (leveled 1-50 pre AE, on his own) asked me to help with a mission. "No problem" I said. I logged on the other computer, on my spine/DA, went to his mission.

Me "Stand back till I get some aggro, let Dad show you how its done"
Him "Ok Dad!"
Me ( 20 seconds later) "what the hell!"
Him (voice fading into the distance) "Mom, dad said Hell!"

/facepalm

They are a great enemy, and a tough one too. By and far the most deadly in my opinion just for the massive amounts of resistance debuff they throw around. I decked out a Shield/SS Tank, softcapped and all, and was unstoppable against even the Romans in Cimerora, but when I finally launched my Vanguard Campaign, I went in with the notion that "I will show these renegades what the deal is! They ain't so tough!". Difficulty +2x8, a normal setting for regular missions and story arcs for me, I entered the first mission and the renegades proceeded to show me several times just what exactly the real deal was. I returned with my Shield Scrapper to amplify the damage, thinking MAYBE the tanker just didn't deal enough with perma-rage and AAO. My scrapper proceeded to cry, a lot. The only toon I had any relative success with was my /Dark Armor Scrapper, who promptly threw down some cloak of fear and a fast recharging dark regen, but then I had issues with Lt's and bosses still being boogers.

Based on my experience, the soft control from my dark armor scrapper was a huge help, so I can only assume that the control-type toons would be the best offensive for such enemies.

That Vanguard story arc made me go crawl under the bed and cry. Hurt is not a good word to describe what they do to you. Worse part is I'm agree with few folks replying to this wishing there were more foes like this. I had to get a team to finsh this story. *Now has to crawl under his bed again to cry*

First time I did the arc, I went into the mish all cocky with my soft-capped Fire/SR on a +1/x8 mission, and got owned fast. I thought I just got unlucky, and tried again. Same thing. Then I thought they must debuff Def, so next time I kept a careful watch of my combat attributes. My Def numbers didn't dip, but still got killed. I concluded that they must have some wicked ToHit bonuses, so next attempt I tried pulling from range and fighting 3-4 at a time, which worked OK, until the patrols came from behind. BAM, dead.

Finally, I gave up and asked some friends for help. While I was pissed at the time, looking back it was pretty funny.

Huh.


http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=207935


I guess for some things, you just need a tank.

Or a controller. Like THOSE guys aren't ridiculously uber.

Lol