Archon Disruption?... Might as well read, "No archon shard this week"

[Mikhael222]

After five failed attempts, and witnessing multiple Tenno from MR10 to LR2 rage quit, I decided to bring this up on the forums.  What is the point of an unplayable mission?  I attempted to bring Limbo, and his rift bubble was immediately shut down.  I attempted to bring Baruuk, and his Elude didn't hold up for whatever reason (built for full 360 degrees, mind you).  I attempted to bring a 300% strength Nova with the additional 300% strength from the supposed Archon bonus, and it did next to nothing.  When it did, Nova was too squishy amongst the onslaught of narmer/sentient enemies to be viable.

Every strategy I tried failed.  And I think most players were at the point where they rage quit at the first failed defense, so it was difficult trying to find teammates who could strategize and stick it through.  I understand the high rewards demand a high challenge, but if the game is just going to shut down our abilities for no apparent reason, then what is the point?

[NekroArts]

10 minutes ago, Mikhael222 said:

Every strategy I tried failed.  And I think most players were at the point where they rage quit at the first failed defense, so it was difficult trying to find teammates who could strategize and stick it through.

Even though you can continue after failing one the game still continues to scale. Failing one means the group has to finish nine conduits which has stronger enemies than those that finish at eight. It becomes a hassle when the group fails more than one and failing one early into the mission just gives the impression that it's not worth staying.

13 minutes ago, Mikhael222 said:

I understand the high rewards demand a high challenge, but if the game is just going to shut down our abilities for no apparent reason, then what is the point?

We can spam abilities and that already can shutdown any kind of "fair" high challenge. Mechanics like that are implemented so that challenge can be possible. Good news (if you view it as such) is that it happens at fixed intervals so you players do have a fair window of opportunity to go all out.

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

Oh cool! There's finally a different mission type for the Archon Hunt this week?

this'll be a nice chance of pace

let's see if I'm up to the challenge

[L3512]

23 minutes ago, (PSN)haphazardlynamed said:

Oh cool! There's finally a different mission type for the Archon Hunt this week?

this'll be a nice chance of pace

let's see if I'm up to the challenge

It is unfortunately a pretty easy challenge, people are just bad at WF.

[taiiat]

i get this feeling when it's basically any Gamemode anyways. the main part of the Content is already dry enough, if you're going to ask me to basically do more than Walk to Extraction, that's even less likely that i'm going to play at all. 
_{i got better things to do thesedays than play boring Content}

[Numerounius]

And it only gets worse once you weed out all of the experienced players playing it within the first two days. And get more inexperienced players in the days that follow.  Just be expected to pull your own weight and having players not pulling theirs.

 

I'd say the demolysts nullifier fields is something that you have to play around with and not a new challenge if you are used to it. For me I found the hardest difficulty spike in it for me to be the increased enemy level but otherwise most other strats still work like Ensnare, DPS buffs, armor strip etc.

 

Sentients-Yeah I'd say this needs to be toned down. Its okay if there is one or two. Not 10 of them. 

[CrySpear]

Because most people join and walk around like a bot hoping someone who is OP carries the team when the entire squad joins with this mindset you get those results, I never go public with any archon missions, it's easier to do them solo and just one-shot those demolysts anyway.

[Exxion]

Disruption is definitely the hardest mission type for the second Archon Hunt mission, but it's totally doable. Don't expect to win on the first try if you're playing with randoms. Try again a couple times until you get a halfway decent team. Bring a frame that can either CC Demos or strip their armor, and a weapon with good single-target damage.

[Sevek7]

1 hour ago, Mikhael222 said:

I attempted to bring Limbo, and his rift bubble was immediately shut down.  I attempted to bring Baruuk, and his Elude didn't hold up for whatever reason (built for full 360 degrees, mind you).  I attempted to bring a 300% strength Nova with the additional 300% strength from the supposed Archon bonus, and it did next to nothing.  When it did, Nova was too squishy amongst the onslaught of narmer/sentient enemies to be viable.

Every strategy I tried failed.

Some things you make like to know:

1) Demolysts send out a nullifier bubble every few seconds, so using Limbo is a terrible idea.

2) Baruuk is a good choice, but elude only works when you're not attacking. Not a great idea in a mode where you need to kill demolysts... (You may want to build for his 3 instead to get damage reduction).

3) Nova is a good choice of frame, but her damage reduction (from her 1) scales on duration, not strength. Also her 4's damage increase is unaffected by strength, and the slow is capped at 145% strength. Building for 300% strength does nothing except ruin your ability to survive. 

Unfortunately, it seems you have misunderstood how to effectively build and where to use these frames, and it has hampered your ability to succeed in this mission. 

 

[mbf-wr]

The demolysts are tough, but armour strip sorts them out.  Two of them nearly got to a conduit, but 15 mins to beat makes it a lot better than dearth of power carriers in excavation.

[L3512]

52 minutes ago, CrySpear said:

Because most people join and walk around like a bot hoping someone who is OP carries the team when the entire squad joins with this mindset you get those results, I never go public with any archon missions, it's easier to do them solo and just one-shot those demolysts anyway.

The only thing worse than that is when the random NPCs keep putting keys in even though they can't kill demos or try to CC a demo until the timer runs out.

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

Hello. I quickly want to add a disclaimer and acknowledgement that my following post isn't addressing any criticisms around difficulty or balance the game or mode has. I think thats a bit subjective, and will vary across the player base, I wouldn't try to pacify ir argue with someone over their take on such matters. Below is more friendly suggestions, for any that is finding it difficult but still wants to try out different builds and approaches to make it easier for themselves.

Also I want to acknowledge, that even though I originally hated Disruption, and found it oddly difficult to the rest of the games missions, when I started playing years and years ago, its actually now my favourite mission type, I do the Steel Path version for fun, its also amazing way to get Axi Relics around new PA, and in my opinion, finding a good PUG group, that runs Endurance Disruption with you, is one of the best and most fun things you can do in this game. When you play that much Disruption for fun, and enjoy it... You are going to get pretty good at it. So in now way, am I trying to insinuate that someone who is a bit adverse to the mode, will just find it easy just by copying a few builds or following some advice/tips. 

That all being said... Magus Lockdown is a great Arcane and tool for Disruption. Since its an Arcane, you can go with whatever Warframe you want, including comfort picks. Magus Lockdown does work on Demos, it will CC them in place for a decent while, and give you good opportunity to kill them. Focus school can help a little here too. Unairu for Armour Strip, Madurai for Void Strike, I am not certain, but I believe Zenuriks slow will work? Paired with Magus Lockdown, these pair well, since you have to switch to Spoiler, use Lockdown, and then can apply a buff or debuff (depending on the school). You still have a choice of Warframe at your discretion. 

Speaking of... Khora's Ensnare will work... and you can Helminth it. Some Warframe abilities work, some don't, I forget all of them, but yeah. Worth looking up the wikia page. Personally, I really like Mesa, Ash, and Xaku. Mesa is more of a sentimental pick, since her Peacemakers will be great against low level Disruption, so thats how I learned the game mode. Less effective in Archon Disruption and Steel Path Disruption, but at that stage, I was mostly using her for her other abilities and CC, and getting Keys from ads. Ash is great, because you can stealth and ignore everything and focus down the Demo, use your 1 with augment to armour strip, use your 4 if you wish. Xaku is great because you can use Gaze in key locations, plus all your stole guns are great. Oh I think Gloom works? I don't actually like Gloom, so I don't know for certain. I believe Khora and Nova are good too, but I have no experience with them in this mode. 

Personally most of the damage I do against Demos is from weapons. I like a Condition Overload Heavy Stropha build. I use Cedo or Epitaph as a Primer. This isn't to say you should do this too, because there are a lot of options here, and you might not like these weapons, but you do have to put some thought into build. 

Or maybe killing the Demo isn't the problem? Maybe its finding it? Sometimes its just practice and familiarity. Adjusting the sound can help too, and after a while, you start to get a good intuition for where they will likely come from. Again, this is easy for me to say, I play a lot of Disruption, and are familiar with tilesets and all that, but I didn't start this way. Its something most people will pick up, so you may have to try your best not to be frustrated, and let yourself learn and recognise patterns, that will help future attempts. The Demos themselves can have different tricks, including one that will nullify your abilities, but thats a small range, so you have to be aware of that. Once you are, its pretty easy to avoid. 

Disruption is also a game mode you can hard carry too. Which may not sound appealing to everyone, but I kind of like it, because it rewards practice and skill. Also, with good team work? Its even easier and more satisfying. I can solo the Demo, but its still nice to mark it, so other team mates know where it is (the direction, based on sound, since naturally, when you get close enough, the game shows a red icon). I totally understand peoples frustrations, since again, I too used to hate the mode. I hope more people try to get past that stage though, because it can also be a lot of fun too! 

If you are someone who ends up with a lot of rage quitters, well Crossplay is enabled now, so... 

 

[Tyreaus]

33 minutes ago, (PSN)slightconfuzzled said:

That all being said... Magus Lockdown is a great Arcane and tool for Disruption. Since its an Arcane, you can go with whatever Warframe you want, including comfort picks. Magus Lockdown does work on Demos, it will CC them in place for a decent while, and give you good opportunity to kill them. Focus school can help a little here too. Unairu for Armour Strip, Madurai for Void Strike, I am not certain, but I believe Zenuriks slow will work? Paired with Magus Lockdown, these pair well, since you have to switch to Spoiler, use Lockdown, and then can apply a buff or debuff (depending on the school). You still have a choice of Warframe at your discretion. 

Speaking of... Khora's Ensnare will work... and you can Helminth it. Some Warframe abilities work, some don't, I forget all of them, but yeah. Worth looking up the wikia page. Personally, I really like Mesa, Ash, and Xaku. Mesa is more of a sentimental pick, since her Peacemakers will be great against low level Disruption, so thats how I learned the game mode. Less effective in Archon Disruption and Steel Path Disruption, but at that stage, I was mostly using her for her other abilities and CC, and getting Keys from ads. Ash is great, because you can stealth and ignore everything and focus down the Demo, use your 1 with augment to armour strip, use your 4 if you wish. Xaku is great because you can use Gaze in key locations, plus all your stole guns are great. Oh I think Gloom works? I don't actually like Gloom, so I don't know for certain. I believe Khora and Nova are good too, but I have no experience with them in this mode. 

Personally most of the damage I do against Demos is from weapons. I like a Condition Overload Heavy Stropha build. I use Cedo or Epitaph as a Primer. This isn't to say you should do this too, because there are a lot of options here, and you might not like these weapons, but you do have to put some thought into build. 

Just to add one small tidbit: don't underestimate Cold procs, too. On my run, I had brought a Felarx modded with Cold and Loki (because I forgot to switch to Ash + Madurai). Not well-built for DPS. I managed to slow the Demolyst to the point that it couldn't get out of the tile I found it in before the team caught up and blew it up. That was without the likes of Gloom or Lockdown. Nevermind mixing those with Switch Teleport to keep the Demolyst in place until the timer runs out.

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

Just now, Tyreaus said:

Just to add one small tidbit: don't underestimate Cold procs, too. On my run, I had brought a Felarx modded with Cold and Loki (because I forgot to switch to Ash + Madurai). Not well-built for DPS. I managed to slow the Demolyst to the point that it couldn't get out of the tile I found it in before the team caught up and blew it up. That was without the likes of Gloom or Lockdown. Nevermind mixing those with Switch Teleport to keep the Demolyst in place until the timer runs out.

 

Excellent point. Its actually one of the reasons I bring Epitaph as well. Not just for a Primer but its other functions. Definitely something many other weapons can lean into. 

Thats a neat strategy with Switch Teleport! Its why I like Disruption, you do have to strategise a bit more than normal. 

[Tiltskillet]

4 hours ago, Mikhael222 said:

I attempted to bring a 300% strength Nova with the additional 300% strength from the supposed Archon bonus, and it did next to nothing.

 Nova's innate abilities scale minimally with strength.  Null Star's DR is based on duration.  Anti-Matter Drop is mainly weapon damage.  Wormhole doesn't scale with strength at all.  Molecular only needs a total of 145 strength to cap the slow at 75%.

[BR31]

The easiest way is invis or rhino/nezha/rev/hild+ armor strip either from abilities or shattering impact, unairu focus school.

You can bruteforce with conditional overload primer+ whatever the dps source, but it will require a lot more dps.

[(XBOX)Cotton Tail]

I'll admit to being a bit lazy - solo gently strolling about with a Gloom infused Ivara with her Kuva Chakkhurr elephant gun. Like you, OP, I went through a series of (failed) experiments and settled on her as it suits my slow reactions :-)

 

[Vaml77]

all this time and in the end we get another anasa or endo...

All this trouble dont worth my time...

[CephalonCarnage]

The ultimate end-game content that is supposed to be seriously hard and a challenge to placate the "we need hard modes" crew from the community, and now its considered "impossible".

Its not impossible, its difficult and can be tricky and can be made harder by rage-quit players wanting to be carried, but its not supposed to be content for everyone. Its supposed to be end-game stuff that, fi you find it impossible, you're not ready for. Keep playing, acquire more stuff, practice the builds, and then do them.

I think there's more of a problem than just "hard mode" here, and that's the expectation that everything must be quite easy for all rewards. Like people have got into their heads that all content must be trivialised because most of it is. I think that's going to be a bigger problem for the game eventually - DE can't win, too hard, too easy, too grindy, too cheesy, etc.

[Wideyed]

  Thinking some of the people posting here & reddit are thinking regular disruptions or steel path disruptions.  Not Archon disruption mission.

  95% armor strip with seeking shuriken & demolyst still alive after literally 100k+ damage (mesa, 300%+ power, at least 50 shots at 2k+ each hit, with Ash prime holding demolyst in place).  Eventually, mesa runs out of power, ash prime gets mobbed (can't stay invis while holding demolyst in place) and that's the end of that run.

  Gloom with high end power setups - slowed the demolyst briefly until it pulsed a second or 2 later,, did not get any lifesteal from the ability; don't understand why poeple talk about gloom being great for damage - it doesn't do any as far as I can tell.

  Rhino with 300+ power, and range& duration at 100+ as a support only results in a moderate uptick in damage.  And while the stomp slowed 1st demo for about 4 seconds, it doesn't affect a demo after the first use.  Did try boosting duration instead, got first stop to like 8 seconds, but again, nothing after the first hit.  In SP & normal disruptions, stomp stops working after the 3rd demo.  Can't imagine it would last better in archon mission.  My experience, almost everyone who talks about roar being effective in disruption is a theory crafter who doesn't actually play endgame content; the ones that actually do probably aren't giving enough credit to their god riven's & half dozen 5star tier3 arcanes across their frames, operators, weapons, etc. YMMV though.

  Friend & I tried 2 ash primes, 1 to stop the demolyst, the other to armor strip & smoke shadow high crit weapon damage.  Neither of us mobbed, but not seeing enough damage to keep "stopping ash" from getting mobbed before demo goes down.

  Condition overload modded melee weapons do very little to demolyst.  As far as I can tell, the demolyst never seems to react to status effects - when I test high status effect (100%+) weapons on demolyst, cold doesn't slow any of the ones I've tried it on down one bit.  Viral? Toxin? Heat?  Elec? Rad? No color coded changes, no displayed extra damage ticks - if they're having an effect, it's not showing.

  Not sure about magus lockdown - haven't tried it in forever.  Was big 'theory crafter' favorite long ago, but gave up on it back then when my operator zipping back and forth through the demo didn't seem to have any impact at all.  But maybe it's different now.  I remember when disruption first started, mesa's 4 didn't work on demo's at all, and a few months later, a friend was using that on demo's much to my surprise.  Maybe lockdown effect changed too.

... 

  I posted the wall of text above because I don't *think* I'm missing key parts of the above strategies, but maybe I am and someone will reply with a mysterious & magical ingredient.

  More it's because I'm hoping to filter out the inane useless responses I keep seeing here & on reddit.

  I usually like challenging DE content, because effectiveness is either behind a grind wall (like duviri or railjack, just need bunches of intrinsics before it becomes first playable, then easy), or the pressure leads to someone breaking through to a new clever build, essentially providing a new tool everyone can enjoy (at least until DE decides it's too effective, nerfs it, then alters the content to require melee to defeat it to boot).
  Disruption felt impossible until I learned there were (very unintuitive) ways to stop the demolyst allowing them to get killed.  Archon disruption, I just don't see how to do enough damage in short (4-6 second window) to kill the demolyst once, let alone 8 times.

  And so far, the forums are packed with idiots saying things like "gloom kills all" or "git gud loser".

[TheReaverOfDarkness]

I think the problem is that there's very little crowd control options to stop or slow down the very durable and agile demolyst targets. Don't get me wrong, there are some ways. Some warframe abilities can slow or stop them entirely (I think perhaps Protea or Ivara can?) while certain demolysts can be stalled by anyone just by getting in their path, tricking them to stop and use their offensive abilities, or to hit walls or other obstacles while trying to navigate around players. I think it's great that it is difficult to stall demolysts, but I would like to see more total ways to do it. Some demolyst types seem to always ignore players, and/or are very fast and agile despite also being very tough. These don't make me feel like I can smart my way around the challenge; they make me feel like I just have to either delete them with an ultima blaster, use the exact frames which are designed to fight them, or give up and don't play disruption.

[Traumtulpe]

On 2023-03-06 at 3:09 AM, Mikhael222 said:

I attempted to bring a 300% strength Nova with the additional 300% strength from the supposed Archon bonus, and it did next to nothing.

...What were you expecting a 600% strength Nova to do? Her abilities scale with duration.

Here's how you do Disruption the classic way: Play Ash, be invisible, shoot demolisher with cold to slow it (or use Magus Lockdown), throw shuriken at it until it has no armor left (which is one throw usually), shoot a decent gun at it. Done, easy.

Personally I like to use Garuda with Expedite Suffering, but that's a little more complicated.

[Traumtulpe]

8 hours ago, Wideyed said:

I posted the wall of text above because I don't *think* I'm missing key parts of the above strategies, but maybe I am and someone will reply with a mysterious & magical ingredient.

No, it's just really easy. Here see for yourself:

 

[AnatharsWrath]

I typically play my Zephyr and just unload my primary(Kuva Quartakk, Incarnon Boltor, Incarnon Burston) into their head and spam red crits till dead. That being said some do more quite fast and i have to either stop them myself or hope someone else does to get a chance to perforate their skulls.

If anything the annoying part is finding them in time. I had to change my sound settings to catch them, cause i used to play with lowered sound so i can listen to something in the background. So they sometimes get too close to the target to stop them, or someone activates another key and you have 2 running around ect.

[IDystopiaI]

23 hours ago, Traumtulpe said:

No, it's just really easy. Here see for yourself:

 

Just a heads up because you're using the Perigale, it is still bugged client side and does not grant the infinite ammo for 4 seconds on headshots correctly if you are a client (not an issue for hosts). Probably one of the last weapons you want to take for bosses if you're a client, especially with its ammo consumption/slow reload. Chances are that you already know this, but it sucks when you take it for a boss and end up needing to be carried because its gimmick doesn't work.