Hello, Guardians.

Taking my own advice, I'd like to hear what guns and armor you're bringing to the party. What sort of perks do they have? What might it let you do? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Should help us brainstorm some synergies yeah?

Here's me:

1) Primary: full leveled auto rifle good at medium to short range. Nearly leveled scout rifle great at long and medium range
2) Secondary: Nearly leveled Invective. Crushes at close range
3) Heavy: Fully leveled The Swarm with Arc Damage. Good on everything at all but the most extreme ranges.
4) Striker: Exotic helmet gives me two extra Fists perks, so usually doing Death from Above with Shockwave
5) Defender: Exotic chest lets me revive others faster, produce more orbs, usually play team-medic/orb producer with this one
6) Strengths and weaknesses: tend to kill kill kill and get lots of clutch revives, not good at creative problem solving under fire. Less salarian, more krogan. ;)

EDIT: Also, are we all in the no spoiler camp? I am, but I've gotten about 1-2 hours into the Raid. Can keep my mouth shut real good.

Hello, Guardians.

Taking my own advice, I'd like to hear what guns and armor you're bringing to the party. What sort of perks do they have? What might it let you do? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Should help us brainstorm some synergies yeah?

Here's me:

1) Primary: full leveled auto rifle good at medium to short range. Nearly leveled scout rifle great at long and medium range
2) Secondary: Nearly leveled Invective. Crushes at close range
3) Heavy: Fully leveled The Swarm with Arc Damage. Good on everything at all but the most extreme ranges.
4) Striker: Exotic helmet gives me two extra Fists perks, so usually doing Death from Above with Shockwave
5) Defender: Exotic chest lets me revive others faster, produce more orbs, usually play team-medic/orb producer with this one
6) Strengths and weaknesses: tend to kill kill kill and get lots of clutch revives, not good at creative problem solving under fire. Less salarian, more krogan. ;)

EDIT: Also, are we all in the no spoiler camp? I am, but I've gotten about 1-2 hours into the Raid. Can keep my mouth shut real good.

Great thread.

1) Primary: Somewhat-leveled Exotic scout rifle (MIDA Multi-Tool) good at mid-range. Fully-leveled Rare hand cannon good at mid-range.
2) Secondary: Fully-leveled rare fusion rifle (Helios FR5, Arc). Short to mid-range.
3) Heavy: Fully-leveled rare rocket launcher (Despot SA/5, Void).
4) Voidwalker: fully-leveled and my most familiar.
5) Sunsinger: mostly-leveled and less effective. Willing to go support route as needed.
6) Strengths/Weaknesses: aggressive and effective killer, but sometime too much so. Very willing to change style to suit situation as team needs.
7) VoG Experience: Nope.

Long story short: I vary from mid-range precision to close, fast skirmishing. I'm willing to change my play-style as the team requires.

Recap: Hunter, lvl 29. I have 109 light, but have the materials needed to upgrade some more (reserving my Shards for more Raid gear, only have a Raid chest armor) with 1373 defense.

1) Primary: Fully upgraded Legendary Vanquisher VIII (AR). Reload is maxed, plus it has a reload buff when empty. My gloves also improve AR reload times. My Gunslinger's Chain of Woe only improves this insane reload time to almost a blink of an eye.
2) Secondary: Fully upgraded Exotic Ice Breaker (sniper). It regenerates a round every 6 seconds (up to 6 rounds). Tailored for range, even though the baseline stats already suggest a maxed range stat. But field reports suggest the range buff still helps.
3) Heavy: Fully upgraded Legendary Corrective Measure (MG). This MG is Raid gear, and is by far the best damn MG I've come across. Use it in PvE and PvP religiously, unless I'm trying to level something up (or Void damage is sub-par).
4) Gunslinger: Fully leveled. This is what I use in Raid due to the Chain of Woe. Golden Gun is my "in case of emergency". My Exotic Achlyophage Symbiote helmet gives me an extra GG round too.
5) Blade Dancer: Fully leveled. There's only one part of the Raid where I would even remotely consider using this subclass. That's all I'll say since some people are wanting to be spoiler-free.
6) Strengths/Weaknesses: I'm a good support unit, with very high agility, but OK armor, and shit recovery stats.
7) VoG Experience: I've beaten it multiple times. I'm not sure I have the patience and time to wade through the Raid with team mates that want to play with virgin minds (considering how long it took the first teams to beat it). I can set aside 3 hours Saturday night, but after 4+ hours it will start to become painful to know things that others not only don't, but forbid to know without finding out themselves. Especially if we haven't even hit the last checkpoint yet.

Anyway, I can handle any target range, and don't have to worry about Special ammo, so long as time isn't really a issue. I have the Exotic SUROS Regime that is almost fully upgradable (haven't allocated the Energy for the last 3 upgrades yet), but my Exotic slot is already used by my Ice Breaker. I prefer the Breaker over the Regime's slightly higher range/magazine, and maxed out stability (compared to the AR I listed above)

I'm open to hitting a balance between figuring it out on our own and getting "boosted" by players with VoG experience.

This is probably my best (only?) chance at beating the Vault as I don't have enough friends to form a consistent raid squad, and I'm travelling out of the country on business on Sunday.

So, I'm all for the challenge of figuring it out, but this is a results-based task for sure.

Shall we declare a Fireteam leader? And, as a follow-up, can I join the Fireteam by invitation or can only Friends join Fireteams? You'd think I'd know this, already.

I'm open to hitting a balance between figuring it out on our own and getting "boosted" by players with VoG experience.

This is probably my best (only?) chance at beating the Vault as I don't have enough friends to form a consistent raid squad, and I'm travelling out of the country on business on Sunday.

So, I'm all for the challenge of figuring it out, but this is a results-based task for sure.

Ultimately, I'm with you. Sure I'd like to figure stuff out myself, but there's a limit. Probably won't know the limit till I get there, but probably will depend on other's frustration/enjoyment levels too. I'm pretty easy going when it comes down to it.

Also don't have unlimited time either, 3-4 hours is probably a safe bet.

Shall we declare a Fireteam leader? And, as a follow-up, can I join the Fireteam by invitation or can only Friends join Fireteams? You'd think I'd know this, already.

Since Fireteam leader saves progress, who would be best for that? Probably doesn't matter, unless we're all planning to play again together.

Then there's *actual* leadership. Last time we did it, anarchy ruled the day, which obviously wasn't ideal for progress, but was fun. I'm thinking we'll want some kind of hierarchy this time around, short of kornman just telling us what to do. ;) Thoughts? What do real life squads do? Or do we not care?

Regarding joining, you can set the Fireteam where everyone can join, invitation, friends only, or closed. We should add each other by Saturday methinks.

This post should be free of any direct VoG spoilers. There's no talk of specific scenarios at least.

As far as squad organization goes, I suggest we keep two actual fire teams (ie, two teams of three) that have features (subclasses/gear/etc) that complement each other (if at all possible). From there, I would also advise designating one of those three as a "floater". Someone who can break off from the fire team temporarily, without impacting their performance in engaging targets (could be the one with the highest light, most agile, etc).

As far as a squad leader goes, I'm not sure one needs/should be designated for such an adventure, unless a tactical dispute needs to be resolved in the team. We appear to have at least two VoG veterans, so the other 4 should probably voice their ideas first when entering/retrying scenarios, with the vets keeping their mouths closed unless asked.

In the real world, a squad leader is typically someone with actual experience in the squad's command and function (be it infantry related or otherwise). So if someone is experienced in raiding in other games, maybe they should be the 'leader'? IDK, I've never played games like WoW or whatnot.

Gear: I don't recommend you go in with a weapon that is below Legendary. If you do bring in a Rare weapon, at least make sure it's fully upgraded. If it's your primary, be sure your gear buffs it in some way (gloves improve reload time, boots carry extra ammmo, etc).

Chests: there are chests in the VoG. To avoid rustling anyone's jimmies I won't go into any detail about them unless people ask about them come Saturday. But I know of (all, I believe) their locations.

Other: don't bother using any glimmer bonus consumables. From what I recall, glimmer/XP income is turned off throughout the entire Raid (ie, you won't earn money or level up your gear while inside).