First encounter with Atheon - thoughts...

Big shoutout to the team who went through the VoG last night, more than half of us had never been and we went from start to Atheon, but couldn't tackle the the master of time. It was a lot of fun and a lot of learning, thanks to our Raid Daddy, DrGrimm for guiding us through and getting us 4 chests of stuff that we just couldn't get easily elsewhere. We didn't defeat Atheon (could maybe use some help with that again tonight), but here's my thoughts from that battle: The biggest challenge the team outside the portals had was those dang exploding harpy's, or supplicants I think they were called. We were consistently dying at their explosions. This morning I've watched a few youtube videos and see that the obvious answer is to stand on the pillars over the sensor plates, they don't explode because you aren't at ground level with them. They still shoot you, but they're fairly easily defeated in a gunfight. How simple. We went the whole night screaming and running from these things, but it looks easy when you just stand on the pillar and shoot them. This was IMO, the biggest oversight we had, and a primary reason we couldn't complete the battle. Lesson learned. The portal team: I was on both sides at varying times, and I'm not even sure I needed to be there, thesadmagistrate was a master with the relic and for the most part handled the baddies single-handedly while DZimm wiped out most of the oracles before I could even get my reticle centered on it. It was clear that there was no confusion here. The relic-holder takes care of the bad guys and cleansing, the other two, oracles first, and bad guys. Don't feel like we had much of a shortcoming here. Time's convex (or whatever it is when you can damage Atheon): We didn't really have this part organized at all, but mostly because we weren't prepared for it. The fact that we couldn't clear out the harpy's while the team was in the portal (because we didn't know about standing on the pillar) made life very difficult and distracting when returning from Mars or Venus. As a result, we didn't inflict too much damage on Atheon since we were trying to kill the Harpy's beside us. In the videos I watched, the portal team immediately ran either to the center platform or the rear wall in the center and unloaded on Atheon while the relic-holder had the shield active until the next teleport. Those things said, here's what I feel are the important takeaway lessons from the Atheon battle: 1. The team opening the portals needs to hop on top of the pillars above the sensor plates to take out the Supplicants. That should be the only job while the portal team is in the portal, and its high-priority. I think we spent too much time avoiding and trying to survive than proactively removing them before the portal team exited. 2. The relic-holder has a lot of responsibility and requires the most attentive person in the group. (good job magistrate!) Priorities are, inside the portal, keep the gunners cleansed and take out the 3 Vex. Cleanse again as you're exiting the portal and head to either the center platform or the rear center and keep that shield up until you're teleported again, rinse and repeat. 3. GOT to get fire focused on Atheon for those 30 seconds he's vulnerable. By taking care of #1 and #2 above, I think we could have been more focused on damaging Atheon. Unfortunately we were just too distracted by supplicants and reviving dead guardians to really challenge the big guy. That said, I understand I can start at Atheon now since that's where I left off. I'd be happy to have a group come with me and finish this today!