I hopped on earlier today to work on some bounties. I had one left over from yesterday where I had to kill 10 Fallen ultras or majors, but I only needed to kill one more. Since there was a public event about to happen at the Cosmodrome's Forgotten Shore area, I hurried up there. While waiting for the event, I remembered that there's an yellow-bar Vandal accompanied by a Shank that spawns in a cave near the outlet leading to the Grottoes. He's only a level 8, and usually goes down really easily even for a yellow-bar, but for some reason he took a level in badass today. He took about three or four magazines from my Suros Regime, a couple of grenades, a knife to the face, and a dozen blasts from my 220+ attack power fusion rifle before he finally bit the dust. His little plasma blaster thingy was also dealing some serious pain, knocking me down into the red after only like three hits. It's like I was fighting a level 28 yellow-bar instead of a level 8 one. I backed off to check my gear and make sure everything on my end was square, so it had to be him. Fortunately I killed him in time to participate in the public event. I wonder if it was a glitch or some other error that happened when he spawned.

So, has anyone else encountered an enemy far more resilient and powerful than his rank suggested?

No idea why, but it's happened to me multiple times.

I hopped on earlier today to work on some bounties. I had one left over from yesterday where I had to kill 10 Fallen ultras or majors, but I only needed to kill one more. Since there was a public event about to happen at the Cosmodrome's Forgotten Shore area, I hurried up there. While waiting for the event, I remembered that there's an yellow-bar Vandal accompanied by a Shank that spawns in a cave near the outlet leading to the Grottoes. He's only a level 8, and usually goes down really easily even for a yellow-bar, but for some reason he took a level in badass today. He took about three or four magazines from my Suros Regime, a couple of grenades, a knife to the face, and a dozen blasts from my 220+ attack power fusion rifle before he finally bit the dust. His little plasma blaster thingy was also dealing some serious pain, knocking me down into the red after only like three hits. It's like I was fighting a level 28 yellow-bar instead of a level 8 one. I backed off to check my gear and make sure everything on my end was square, so it had to be him. Fortunately I killed him in time to participate in the public event. I wonder if it was a glitch or some other error that happened when he spawned.

So, has anyone else encountered an enemy far more resilient and powerful than his rank suggested?

Funnily enough, I ran into this same exact guy today and thought the same thing, except it didn't feel like his weapon had any undue power, I was able to take a good 15-20 hits without dying, I think; I have been increasing my defense like crazy lately though.

So, has anyone else encountered an enemy far more resilient and powerful than his rank suggested?

He's been there since the Alpha, actually. Sammy, Paddy, and I ran into him when we were poor wee level 8s, and though he beat us to death with each other's corpses, we finally managed to bring him down.

When the game launched, and Sammy and I hit 20, we went to pay him a little visit. Had to kill a number of weaker versions of him (also satisfying) until we got HIM to spawn... That was quite a rush. I'm sure I saved the clip, too, now that I remember...

There are a couple other enemies like that elsewhere, I'm sure.

Reminds me of the "Enemies moving against each other" spots that end up having unkillable enemies...

Related to the Public Event enemy, perhaps?