Taniks, the Abomination

tl;dr

Collect augments
Wait til Taniks floats to a zone
Shoot nukes off
Dunk nukes while operator pops bubbles and suppressor does their thing
Repeat steps to dunk nukes if needed
DPS
Repeat til final stand

Notes¶

Team Setup¶

Initially there should be three teams of two divided between the different zones.

During part 2, things can be divided into a few different roles:

One operator
One scanner
One suppressor
Two runners

The runners can be decided on the fly, but the augment roles should be determined ahead of time.

Details¶

The arena is divided into three zones: orange, blue, and spawn.

Take note of the suppression drones around each area for when the time comes.

Establish callouts for each of the nuke containers. Typically I’ve done it as [Zone] left / right i.e “spawn left” or “orange right”. This is from the perspective of facing the containers.

Also make sure to locate all of the augment terminals as all three roles are coming back around. They can also become disabled again so bear that in mind.

The augments will appear in specific zones:

Spawn gets operator
Blue gets scanner
Orange gets suppressor

Sherpa Notes

Much like previous encounters, you should assign new lights to take specific augments / roles so they get used to how they all work here. This one is slightly harder to determine a certain rotation for, so it’s probably best to just assign static roles.

Loadouts¶

Gratuitous amounts of add clear as well as something that does high burst damage for dps and shooting the nukes.

Divinity and Well are huge helps here.

Whoever decides to be operator bring something medium - long range.

Part 1: Travelling Taniks¶

Oh hey so everything just crashed! Sweet! Oh and look where we are. We’re at the beginning of the raid.

Before we start the encounter, make sure to have all of your teams in place at each specific zone.

Once ready, either shoot or get real close to the giant trash heap in the middle where our buddy is taking a nap.

As always, adds are gonna spawn like crazy.

During all of this, some captains will spawn as well. Make sure to kill them as that’s what causes the vandals with the augments to appear.

I’ll clarify what the roles do later, but make sure to grab them immediately as this shindig is getting ready to start.

—

Soon enough, Taniks will begin to float to a random zone. Call out which zone he’s going to and make sure everyone promptly follows.

He will then begin to summon some purple beams of light which leaves him vulnerable so that everyone can shoot nukes off of him.

Nukes? Again?

Yup, they’re located on the four corners of his floating chassis and will be glowing.

Destruction Rains From the Heavens!

These purple beams of light can, and will, absolutely murder you. Do not stand in them!

This is where things can get a little tricky. You either want to shoot two or four of the nukes off of Robo Taniks. I’ll touch on why here in a moment with an alternative method.

As with the nukes from the last encounter, leaving them on the ground for too long will cause a wipe, so keep that in mind.

Now, on to bomb disposal.

Part 2: Everything All at Once¶

As with virtually every encounter in this raid, multiple things are going to happen at once. The steps outlined here are going to be based off the assumption that only two nukes were shot off of Taniks.

Everyone else but operator and suppressor should either be running or helping runners out. Scanner is included in this as well, but should only help out after they’ve determined which receptacles are open.

This means everyone else should be paving the way for runners, preparing to take over running if need be, or resurrecting a guardian if necessary.

Use your best judgement on when to rez vs when to take a nuke and come back later.

I will also warn that the purple death rays from above are still going to be coming down, so this adds an extra layer of hell.

Let’s look at what each role is gonna do here. I’ll try to organize them in logical order.

—

Scanner¶

Similar to the last encounter, your job is to scope out which two containers are glowing yellow and call those out to the runners.

The containers where Taniks is at will not glow so you only have to look at the four from the other zones.

For example, if Taniks moves to spawn, you will only need to look at the Blue and Orange zones to see which ones are glowing. From there you can make callouts like “Blue left and Orange right” so that the runners can decide which ones they need to go to.

Too Many Nukes (Again)!

Remember how in the last encounter we only wanted two nukes as there were only two containers?

Same principle here. If a third nuke drops, it has nowhere to go and can potentially lead to a wipe.

As mentioned above, once you’ve determined which receptacles are open you should be assisting the runners.

Operator¶

Your job is a simple one. As the runners are going to deliver their nukes, they will occasionally get trapped in bubbles of purple light.

I Hate to Burst Your Bubble!

When guardians are trapped, you’ll see some lighter spots or patches moving around bubble itself. Shooting these is the only way to break them out.

Guardians should also be aware that anyone in close proximity to a runner can get trapped in the same bubble. Spacial awareness is key.

It’s best to find a perch somewhere that gives you a full view of the entire arena. This way you can take care of the bubbles in a timely manner and keep from getting trapped yourself.

If you get trapped, this is bad news and can lead to a wipe.

You will only have two bubbles to shoot per phase.

Also try to be a good friend and help clear out adds when you can, yeah?

Suppressor¶

As the runners are delivering their payloads, you will want to shoot Taniks from the suppression points at the zone he is in. So if he’s at Blue, shoot him from those points.

Suppressing him is what activates the receptacles for the runners.

Pace Yourself!

It can be best practice to wait until the operator shoots two bubbles before suppressing, as augments can become disabled right after suppression. This can potentially lead to a scenario where the operator has to give their buff to someone else amidst the chaos.

This also means that timing becomes even more important so that the runners can still safely deposit the nukes.

A good way to set this up would be to use the first two suppression points right away, and then wait until the operator shoots their two bubbles before shooting from the final one.

As a note, whenever you stand in a suppression point Taniks will glow slightly blue whenever you’re able to shoot him. Another visual cue would be to look out for actual damage numbers vs seeing Immune.

Runners¶

Congrats. Y’all are carrying explosives that can cause a team wipe if not dealt with carefully. No pressure.

Immediately after the scanner calls out which receptacles are glowing, y’all need to call dibs on one and start immediately legging it.

Still no RadAway!?

As with last time, you’re going to see stacks of Radiation build on your screen. Make sure to keep a very close eye on this and call out for help whenever needed so that someone can take over running without you dying.

During your exciting journey, communication is absolutely necessary here. You will need to call out when you’ve been trapped, when your Radiation stacks are getting too high and need someone to take over, when you need help with adds, etc.

You need also to take into consideration that you will not be able to sprint, only walk.

—

Do this all one more time for the other nukes and get ready for dps.

Alternative Method

As mentioned previously, the team should only shoot down an even number of nukes. Most modern fireteams can easily shoot down all four these days. This slightly changes the dynamics of course.

Shooting down all four basically makes scanner unnecessary as everyone but operator and suppressor will be a runner. Instead of only two specific receptacles opening, all four will be available. This essentially eliminates repeating the steps to shoot down the nukes and dunk a second time and moves everything straight to dps.

Part 3: DPS¶

After successfully donating the nukes to a good cause, Taniks will begin to find a new location to settle in.

Once he does so, he will create a huge dome around him containing a storm and debris circling him.

The best way to look at this is like a series of three rings inside each other:

The outer ring is debris that can and will hurt
The middle ring is the safe zone where dps will occur
The innermost ring is where Taniks is, which will damage guardians if they get too close.

The setup here is fairly simple. Jump over the first ring, plant a well, and have someone use Divinity while everyone else unleashes enough damage to make Shaxx proud.

Positioning the well can be a bit finicky as you don’t want to be too close to the outer or inner rings. This can take a little bit of getting used to but is easy enough once you get the hang of it.

After some time, Taniks will bounce everyone out of the dome and the team will have to jump back in again to continue doing damage. He will do this one more time. Basically it’s:

Jump to inner ring and do damage
Get bounced out
Jump to inner ring and do damage
Get bounced out
Jump to inner ring and do damage
Dps ends

If Taniks wasn’t sent to final stand from here, the fireteam will have to repeat all of the above steps again from part one.

Either way once you get to the final stand…

—

Taniks will begin teleporting from zone to zone, only staying at each location for a short amount of time before moving to the next.

The idea here, of course, is to cram as much damage in as possible before he moves zones.

There’s really not much more to this than that, but it’s best practice to call out which zone he is at when he moves so folks aren’t left spinning in circles trying to find out where he’s at.

—

That’s it. That’s the raid. It’s honestly one of my favorite ones.

Oh, and also, fuck Clovis Bray.