I think the skill required is no bigger than the skill required to beat auric maelstroms without dying consistently. If you don’t get brained by melee elites or bosses on Aurics then you won’t get brained by them on Havoc, either. The actual limiting factor is that the shooters get so absurd that it’s no longer really a matter of skill dealing with them, but a matter of either:
- crutching on defensive abilities and the very high mobility weps that let you deal with the ranged and advance on them
- getting lucky and getting good maps that don’t spawn gunners and shooters in very bad positions
- if you get neither then you must painstakingly spend 15 minutes on a singular map segment pulling all the gunners out somehow because you literally cannot approach certain map spots when there’s 10 pus hardened gunners from behind a chest high fence platform overlooking a large area you need to cross
Obviously 1 is the least painful. I’ve no doubt that 2 and 3 work and plenty of people will eventually record “no crutches” Havoc clears (Reginalds 10’000 hour gang got quite close), but the question that gets relevant here is wether that’s actually fun gameplay for anyone. In the latest Reginald vid you can see a clip of it, 4 Ogryns just sitting in a corner waiting until gunners randomly stop firing and move in. Is that actually well designed? I think it’s stupid and anti-fun.
I think none of the 3 options in particular require more skill out of an individual, just progressively more patience. That’s why I think the difficulty design is misguided and falls flat.