I would like to preface this with a thank you to everybody who stuck it out with me and braved the various bugs and shortcomings on my part during last nights hard VOG attempt. If at any point I was an ass I am sorry, I try my best to keep it positive and happy. If I gave bad advice on load outs or strategy I am doubly sorry, there are just some jobs that I haven't done or done enough of to fully understand. If there is anything I can fix on my end to make it better please let me know.

So with that out of the way I would like to have an open forum on several points. Extra commentary is always welcome, I would like this to become a learning experience for everyone. The main topics are:

Which load outs to use on each encounter (list your favorites but also one that someone who doesn't have the perfect guns could follow)

How to survive during the gatekeeper section outside the portals (Claude you can just punch all the praetorians as that seemed to work for you)

Getting max dps on the oracles (do hand cannons really do 33% less damage? Is having a 4th pop in a legitimate strategy? How bout the relic holder dropping the relic for a few seconds and helping out?)

What are the arguments for the middle strategy and the back strat? (Where do you put the bubble of life to prevent splash damage?)

Again I would like to thank you guys, I had fun and I hope you did too.

I would like to preface this with a thank you to everybody who stuck it out with me and braved the various bugs and shortcomings on my part during last nights hard VOG attempt. If at any point I was an ass I am sorry, I try my best to keep it positive and happy. If I gave bad advice on load outs or strategy I am doubly sorry, there are just some jobs that I haven't done or done enough of to fully understand. If there is anything I can fix on my end to make it better please let me know.

So with that out of the way I would like to have an open forum on several points. Extra commentary is always welcome, I would like this to become a learning experience for everyone. The main topics are:

Which load outs to use on each encounter (list your favorites but also one that someone who doesn't have the perfect guns could follow)

Some general loadout tips:

* Fatebringer (with Explosive rounds activated) & Hawkmoon (and possibly Timur's Lash?) can 1-shot Vex troops and Hobgoblins, if you score a crit hit. This gives them a huge advantage over any other primaries during the first half of the raid.

* Shotguns are awesome now! They shred Praetorians and harpies. If you have a 331 Shotgun with Void damage, the Praetorians won't know what hit them. Sword Breaker is particularly good thanks to its void damage and high RoF.

* Icebreaker is clutch in VoG. If you have it, use it for all long range encounters. Black Hammer is great against Templar/Gatekeepers/Atheon, less useful against everything else. Praedyth's Revenge is a good fallback as well.

* Hand cannons SUCK against Oracles. Oracles gain health the longer they're alive. HCs fire too slowly to overcome this. Once you get past the conflux section of the Templar battle, you should put away your hand cannons in favor of Auto Rifles/Scout Rifles for the rest of the raid.

* Not everyone agrees with me on this, but I think that unless you have Gjallarhorn, you're better off using a machine gun in your Heavy slot. You'll be able to use them in a wider range of situations. Plus there are lots of opportunities to blow yourself up with Rockets in VoG thanks to the containment bubbles and harpies that come out of nowhere to hover right in from of you. That being said, Gjallarhorn > anything else.

Waking Ruins
If I'm holding the left or right plate, I stick with Hand Canon/Shotgun/Rocket Launcher. Fatebringer is ideal, but any high-impact pistol is great for taking out the grunt troops quickly. When Praetorians show up I hit them with a rocket then move in and finish with a shotgun. If I'm holding the middle plate, I'll use a Scout Rifle/Sniper combo.

Templar's Well
Fatebringer/Swordbreaker/Gjallarhorn is my ideal loadout while defending the confluxes. ARs, PRs, and SRs are generally less useful here. Enemies are too close for SRs and PRs, and ARs take too long to kill.

For this entire section, it can be very helpful to have 1 player stay up on the ledge that overlooks the main platform and go crazy with Icebreaker and a Scout Rifle.

Once the Oracle section starts, it's time to put away the hand cannons. If your group is planning to wipe and tackle the Oracles from the sniper perch, Icebreaker and Vision of confluence are your best bets (although as I discovered last night, a Hunger of Crota rocket works pretty well against Oracles, too ;p). If you're going to be staying down on the main platform, you'll want 1 close range weapon (mostly for Oracles) and 1 long range weapon for hobgoblins. So if you use an Auto Rifle in your primary slot, equip a sniper in your secondary. Conversely, you could equip a scout rifle to deal with hobgoblins and a fusion rifle or shotgun for Oracles.

Generally speaking, I find Atheon's Epilogue is the best primary weapon for killing Oracles unless you're hitting them from long range. In that case, vision of confluence works well.

I'll typically stick with the same loadout for Oracles and the Templar battle, but there is less need for a sniper rifle against the Templar (unless you're sniping him from the ledge up top. Close-mid range weapons are ideal for taking out the harpies and punching through containment bubbles, heavy weapons (or Icebreaker) for hitting the Templar.

Gatekeeper
Ideal loadout for portal team: Black Hammer+Gjallarhorn or Icebreaker+Rocket Launcher w/homing. Primary weapon doesn't matter... You won't use it. You want a combo of special & heavy weapons that will let you kill the gatekeepers quickly. I usually fire a couple Gjallarhorn rounds as soon as I'm through the portal, then switch to my sniper to finish it off. Then I pick up the relic and go through the 2nd portal with the 2nd relic holder and use my super to help them kill the 2nd gatekeeper. Once both relics are claimed, go to the middle. Put a relic holder on each Praetorian portal.

How to survive during the gatekeeper section outside the portals (Claude you can just punch all the praetorians as that seemed to work for you)

Again, shotguns are your new best friend. If you're on the "home team" defending the plates, shotguns & heavy weapons are your best defense against Praetorians. Use whatever primary you're comfortable with to mop up the rest.

Atheon
During the Atheon battle, I go with Atheon's Epilogue, Black hammer, and Gjallarhorn. Atheon's Epilogue for Oracles, Gjallarhorn for Praetorians and Atheon, Black Hammer for Atheon when I'm out of rockets. Icebreaker is also a great choice here. Some people would argue that hand cannons are your best bet against the supplicants, and they are. But if you get teleported, you're screwed (remember, hand cannons are useless against oracles).

Getting max dps on the oracles (do hand cannons really do 33% less damage? Is having a 4th pop in a legitimate strategy? How bout the relic holder dropping the relic for a few seconds and helping out?)

During the Atheon battle, you're dealing with oracles from close-mid range. ARs are best, but even fusion rifles can work decently well. Avoid HCs like the plague. Having a 4th come through the portal is a legitimate backup plan. You shouldn't need to do it, but it works in a pinch. Dropping the relic can work, but again it should only be attempted as a last-ditch effort. If the team getting teleported is unable to kill oracles fast enough, someone is doing something wrong/using the wrong weapons.

What are the arguments for the middle strategy and the back strat? (Where do you put the bubble of life to prevent splash damage?)

middle platform is way better. At the back wall you're way more likely to get rushed by exploding supplicants.

Hope this helps!

CruelLEGACEY forgot to plug his amazing website containing Raid tutorials.

CruelLEGACEY forgot to plug his amazing website containing Raid tutorials.

Note to Cruel: I just re-read the page covering the Vault of Glass (part 5) and noticed a few things worth pointing out...

- You have your Past/Future mixed up. The "green" side is the past and the "brown" side is the future.
- I think the "Praetorian" on the "green" (past) side is actually a Minotaur (a "major" of course).
- It would probably be helpful to have a paragraph covering weapons for the Atheon battle - especially re: oracle killers. I would suggest adding a prioritized list of oracle killing weapons (Golden Gun > Praetorian Foil > Super Good Advice > Vision of Confluence > Atheon's Epilogue > Praedyth's Timepiece > Icebreaker > Fatebringer > (etc.) {or whatever the actual hierarchy is})

CruelLEGACEY forgot to plug his amazing website containing Raid tutorials.

Note to Cruel: I just re-read the page covering the Vault of Glass (part 5) and noticed a few things worth pointing out...

- You have your Past/Future mixed up. The "green" side is the past and the "brown" side is the future.
- I think the "Praetorian" on the "green" (past) side is actually a Minotaur (a "major" of course).
- It would probably be helpful to have a paragraph covering weapons for the Atheon battle - especially re: oracle killers. I would suggest adding a prioritized list of oracle killing weapons (Golden Gun > Praetorian Foil > Super Good Advice > Vision of Confluence > Atheon's Epilogue > Praedyth's Timepiece > Icebreaker > Fatebringer > (etc.) {or whatever the actual hierarchy is})

That's a good idea. I'm going to be re-working that page a bit over the next few days (maps are almost done) so I'll make those changes while I'm at it.

Thanks!

Which load outs to use on each encounter (list your favorites but also one that someone who doesn't have the perfect guns could follow)

Spire: Hand cannon, void shotgun / void fusion rifle, gjallarhorn. Any rockets will do really.
Conflux: exactly the same
Oracles: Scout Rifle, Void Shotgun, corrective measure
Templar: hand cannon, icebreaker, corrective measure
Gatekeeper: If going for the relic - hand cannon, sniper, rockets. If outside, hand cannon, void shotgun, rockets.
Atheon: Hand cannon, sniper, corrective measure.

You can see where you can substitute.

How to survive during the gatekeeper section outside the portals (Claude you can just punch all the praetorians as that seemed to work for you)

Void Shotguns work very very well against the Praetorians now! Have two people watch each of their spawns by the portal, and the rest take out the rest of the Vex.

Getting max dps on the oracles (do hand cannons really do 33% less damage? Is having a 4th pop in a legitimate strategy? How bout the relic holder dropping the relic for a few seconds and helping out?)

Corrective Measure, or any other HMG. Never use hand cannons. You should only need 2 shooting oracles.

What are the arguments for the middle strategy and the back strat? (Where do you put the bubble of life to prevent splash damage?)

Back is safer from splash damage, but less so from supplicants.

I really like the way they are coming together, there are several points that keep popping up in my head. On the Templar map your dot for the dude who jumps down is on the left but no description on where to stand is given. A little blurb abut each spot, priority and secondary oracle positions, maybe even hobgoblin positions. In My main 360 group each up top person has their primary oracle to shoot an then a second to help out with if theirs doesn't spawn. In the vault I don't know if you have dots for hiding on the big pillar left of the left portal an the right ledge behind the back stairs but those are my go to hidey holes during the supplicants once the portal is open.

Thanks for the info on load outs, I pretty much follow what you have, I find I run vision, black hammer, and sga the whole way through but I'm usually holding the relic so it's a bit specialized to my needs. Oh and knucklehead with voc at the confluxes is just dirty, I covered the left and helped mid and never had problems.

How to survive during the gatekeeper section outside the portals (Claude you can just punch all the praetorians as that seemed to work for you)

lol - I only did that because you were all dead already, and I figured it would make me go out in a blaze of glory. I had no clue the idiot would let me punch him to death.

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Even the game itself mixes up the "Precursor/Descendant" moniker, so, as far as I'm aware, we don't really know which is past and which is future. I, for one, like to think desert is past and jungle is future.

Even the game itself mixes up the "Precursor/Descendant" moniker, so, as far as I'm aware, we don't really know which is past and which is future. I, for one, like to think desert is past and jungle is future.

What do you mean the game itself mixes it up? Do you have any examples?

As far as I've seen, the lush, foresty jungle timestream is clearly the way it used to be in the past and the barren, deserted area is the future (I presume it's that way in the future because we've destroyed the Atheon and his keepers of the area).

The Precursor vex appear to be new, and the descendant ones appear to be old.

I don't know if the game mixes it up at all. If we go to the past, it is shiny and new, which is okay, because it was new then. If we go to the future, it's old and shitty, because it's the future, so it's old and shitty then.

Hmm.... after re-reading the grimoire cards for the Vex, I think I now agree that it remains somewhat ambiguous...

The card for the Descendants (that appear on the "green" side) says: "Survivors of the Vault of Glass report sightings of Ancient Vex - ancient in the sense that they have endured for eons. Convergent analysis from multiple Ghosts suggests that these Vex exist in our future.

On the other hand, the card for the Precursors (that appear on the "brown" side) says: "Those who delve deep into the Vault of Glass have seen time itself torn asunder. Awestruck Ghosts report encounters with ancient Vex, their casings built long before the age of humanity. It would be easy to assume these Vex are the ancestors of those we face today - but with the Vex it is never so simple."

Since both cards refer to "ancient" vex that were created long ago, but possibly exist in our future, I guess we can't say definitely which is the past/future based solely on the types of Vex encountered in each.

However, I still think it makes more sense that the past was once lush and the future is barren because of what we do to them.

However, I still think it makes more sense that the past was once lush and the future is barren because of what we do to them.

I'm starting to agree, but since we can't know for sure at this point it's probably easier to just use desert/jungle.

Anyway, IIRC, someone over here already pointed out that the prefixes themselves appear mixed up. When you enter the gates and when they come of the gates, it's switched, I think.

However, I still think it makes more sense that the past was once lush and the future is barren because of what we do to them.

I'm starting to agree, but since we can't know for sure at this point it's probably easier to just use desert/jungle.

lol - I like green/brown. Maybe I'm just simple. :)

I thought the one was barren and the one was lush because they were, respectively, Mars and Venus.

So the difference has little to do with us beating them, in any case.

I thought the one was barren and the one was lush because they were, respectively, Mars and Venus.

So the difference has little to do with us beating them, in any case.

That seems to be a common misconception (and totally reasonable, given the appearance of the 2 locations), but it is in fact the exact same room across 3 different time periods: past, present, and future.

How to survive during the gatekeeper section outside the portals

Generally, the groups I've been in send one person inside per portal, leaving 2 outside each. The main issue outside is Praetorians. Void weapons, such as a good MG, work wonders. Don't skimp on heavy ammo here, the outside teams need to buy time for the relic teams.

Inside, Black hammer or a Gally work wonders. The point is to spend less then a minute inside so you only face one or two praetorians at most.

Getting max dps on the oracles

From what I've seen, having weapons with oracle disruptor are really needed, especially on hard. Outside of that, Hand Cannons spend too much time reloading to take down the oracles in a timely fashion. I've had no issues with two people with maxed out Atheons or Vision on hard keeping up with the oracles, but I've definitely had a 4th come into the portal to assist when there were issues with the adds that slowed things down. You can hold the portal clear with only one guy.

What are the arguments for the middle strategy and the back strat? (Where do you put the bubble of life to prevent splash damage?)

I like the bubble more forward, to give room in the back for a weapons of light bubble. The key thing here is to have the relic bearer come out and create the bubble prior to the last oracle kill, so Atheon is distracted and doesn't start firing until the shield is up.

A couple of other tips:
Hunters should not waste their super on Atheon, but on the supplicants to keep their numbers down and on the adds inside the time streams.

Black Hammer and Icebreaker work great on Atheon if no one is using Gallerjhorn. An LDR will do in a pinch.

MGs in general do better when dealing with those teleporting jerk Praetorians then rockets.

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A lot of people do. The problem is that's the only common distinction that we're sure is wrong. It's definitely the same room (on Venus) at different points in time. The open question is which points in time?