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.

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.

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

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. :)

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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!

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})