VoG Hard

DEEP, we took a VoG noob through on hard last week who had never completed it on normal, and he got the Vex Mythoclast at the end. He's a good PvE player, but just never got together with a successful raid team mostly because of his schedule (kids, soccer, work, family). He had done a few parts of VoG, just not the completion. My daughter had been there for the end on normal just one time before completing it on hard a couple of weeks ago. She got both the Fatebringer and the Vex on that run. 

That said, not dying and knowing how to manage the relic are important. I prefer the Warlock because he gets a do-over with the self revive. But, I also have a Titan that I have to run if my other two Warlocks have already been through it. My Titan sat out part of the end the other night because he died a minute or so before Atheon fell. 

I give all credit to others. I do what I can to help the team, and I want to help 2o2p. 

A team mate did some research a week or so ago in the Vault, testing what effect a 30 level player had compared to a 32. He said that weapon damage is the same, but that the defense number difference between the two characters does have an effect. I don't know... I just go in to have fun, shoot stuff and try not to die.

I do know that the CE raid Swordbreaker void shotgun is death on a stick to Praetorians - up close one or mostly two shots in hard mode. This is the best way to kill them. If you don't have a Swordbreaker, another void shotgun should do. They blink past rockets and even if you do manage to hit one with a Truth tracker, it only just drops their shields and takes a fraction of their health. In other words... you can't kill them fast enough with rockets before you're over-run and out of rockets for the next one - you see coming.

In hard mode, we use a machine gun to kill oracles when teleported to Mars/Venus. Super Good Advice and Thunderlord are often used. I used the legendary Corrective Measure, the Vault raid specific void mg, for a couple of hard mode runs. It works well too, but making enough heavy ammo to keep up with the teleports and a lack of time to pull up your inventory to make more becomes a problem. I liked CM because i could keep the Icebreaker up for Supplicants and Atheon. Super Good Advice mostly only takes ammo out of the mag when you hit a target. Most missed shots are returned to the mag. When using an exotic heavy, we used the Black Hammer solar sniper for Atheon, though any 331 sniper or the VoG 300 level Praedyth's Revenge void sniper should do. Use one with a high capacity, and try for critical hits. The VoG solar scout Vision of Confluence is normally equipped as the primary, though it's barely adequate for Oracles when you have a partner shooting as well. The VoC can't do it fast enough on its own. The MGs can solo the Oracles. The VoC works well enough for Goblins and Hobs with critical hits. 

Surprisingly, a single player used a machine gun to kill Atheon in a couple of different hard mode Vault raids when 4 players were dead and it was just one of us shooting at the end (and one was holding the relic/shield).... The DPS of Super Good Advice and Thunderlord can kill Atheon all by themselves if his health had been whittled down to a quarter or so by the full team. This is a last ditch effort cuz you won't have ammo for the next teleport if Atheon survives the attempt. It's quite the M60 Rambo scene... So much fun...

Sadly, Atheon's Epilogue (VoG void AR) is now nearly worthless for taking down Oracles - or anything else. Before the AR downgrade with 1.1.2, I had many tens of thousands of rounds through mine. So much ammunition.... From opening the gate to shooting everything but Atheon, I used it all the way through the raids (especially for Oracles) and almost never ran out of ammo. Loved that gun. I don't take it out of the vault anymore.