The 4 free hits feels kind of cheap with no weakpoint. Like I get if they are there to absorb damage from the front, but they should still be weak from behind like everything else.
Push or even double-push doesn’t seem to make them drop their guard like SV in VT2, and when I hit them while staggered I feel like it’s still blocking the damage (or they’re just that tanky)
Shielded Stormvermin were much easier to deal with because you could push twice to stagger them out of their guard and abilities like gk ult etc. + handguns go through their shield. SV also die fast when their guard is down. I actually enjoy fighting them even without hard counters, unlike these guys.
It’s possible their damage resist is just cranked up way too high maybe, I’ll have to test it when the creature spawner mod is updated (if it isn’t yet).
Edit: So from playing another round and paying closer attention, the issue seems to be the shield still protects them even if they’re staggered. Once the shield is broken they go down in one hit, but even if they’re facing away from you and in a staggered state, the shield still protects them for several swings.
Also they tank bolter hits like a champ. Pretty tough stuff they got.
They have 1600 health and a 50% damage modifier on head so they are very much actually that tanky. Personally I find their tankiness to be basically the same as shielded storm vermin (as in time to kill) and despite not having a guarantee shield break they are rather easy to stagger in general, and their attack aren’t that fast or damaging so it’s much safer to square up with them. Maybe it’s just me being for familiar with the pacing of darktide more but I actually enjoy fighting them more compared to shield storm vermin
yeah stormvermin with shields would do combos that were hard to interrupt, which made groups of them the ai directors go-to for skaven heavy areas. really obnoxious with patrols sometimes (there’s like 8 shielded ones in a cata patrol)
An annoying side-effect of these mobs is how they affect DD stack maintenance.
Disrupt Destiny often ends up highlighting these annoying fuggers because most random bruisers/shooters are quickly killed by AOEing allies leaving only these as viable DD targets, significantly slowing DD stack accumulation, and in many cases can make you start losing stacks and/or make you fall behind if you still wanna chase down stacks.
It is particularly annoying when combined with moebian 21st which arent valid DD targets. Moebian 21st typically saturate the battlefield also leading to DD stack decay.
Give them elite status and let kinetic flayer proc on them at least, or remove them as valid DD targets, and let DD target moebian 21st.
In a nutshell : good idea but bad execution. Why aren’t the Dreg variants more like small shield rats from VT2 ? Pushes and high-stagger attacks should absolutely open them up more than it does now. Right now they’re just DPS-checks. They beef up hordes, which is appreciated, but they really need some fine-tuning.
That’s pretty dumb, seems like an oversight or a bug.
Also, 50% DR to headshots ? Where the f is this coming from.
It definitely doesn’t feel right when they’re not considered elites.
50% DR to headshots feels like typo and they should have had 50% increased headshot damage taken.
FS coding.
nah you can take them out pretty easily over their shield with melee attacks, since they’re shorter than bulwarks by a noticeable amount. and they’d get biffed on the actual end game difficulty in like 1-2 attacks and barely register as a thump otherwise. yeah they suck in havoc, but so does havoc.
No reason what so ever for a chaff enemy to have 50% DR to headshots, especially when they already have shields to prevent melee cleave spam
I was playing some power falchion on the patch before skitarii dropped and honestly thought it’s fine. I stood corrected the second I touched other weapons
These little shits are so infuriating, literally feels like playing legend/cataclysm back to basics on vermintide 2.
I love them and the Arc Rifle and Galvanic (I’m only playing Skit ATM) straight up murders them.
Love that we finally have something outside of Crusher’s and Bulwark’s that stops your weapon swings when we’re fighting hordes.
Clarification: I’m talking about Auric Maelstrom as I have not played Havoc yet so I dunno how the Vanguard mobs impact Havoc 40 runs.
I’m going to be big sad if Fatshark nerfs their survivability in Auric Maelstrom as they are one of the very few enemies that you cannot just roll over.
DD is already way too easy to keep at constant max stacks. It was time for at least a little nerf to the overbearing nature of psyker buffs. They’re a welcome change and barely affect the dmg output.
They definitely don’t. They take 2-3 heavy Ogryn swings to the head.
Might depend how much dmg they take before losing their shield though.
as should be the metric for “solo play”
‘As part of our ongoing balance commitment continuing on from the previous reduction to Ogryn enemies (and at the time, specifically the Crusher), with the release of the Vanguards we’ve reduced the amounts of Bulwarks throughout the missions.’
that was in the message, making them ‘elite’ tagged enemies (triggering multiple damage nodes per character) or as susceptible to head shots as flak/unarmored enemies generally are would make them get 1-2 hit killed by like anything in auric. which is where the game should be fun, get your ball pain in havoc and stop whining about it. obviously something replacing bulwark spam is still supposed to be a durable pita cleave stop to deal with. they’re just not fat entity-collision blocking to the umpteenth degree like a phalanx of bulwarks were.
The Temu Bulwarks
I think it’s a good addition.
Where Bulwarks are slow, not much damage and slow swings to easily move around them.
Adding shield mobs within mixed horde encourages more tactics. So more of an elite tankiness but not as hard hitting to player.
Well I see many Arbites players just arbite shock maul special spam them down in 2 secs. So not much obstacle for them. 
Just like this new class, only been a day and over time FS will “tweak”.
Damn, that is insane. They must be really janky then though because sometimes they die in one swing after the shield breaks, other times it feels like they just ignore damage.
Shielded SV are simple once you know double push opens them up, but I’ve played so much VT2 it’s second nature. The main thing is they’re consistent, and they’re also pingable/marked as an elite which matches their durability. The ones in DT aren’t elites and yet they’re far more tanky than clanrats with shields/shielded norscans were. I’m okay with them being more tanky, but this feels like too much.
Either make them elites or they need a readjustment. They last longer than actual elites a lot of the time. In either case, they need to be more consistent and less janky. It’s not that they’re dangerous, they’re not, they’re annoying.
Does this work? I feel like I get a lot of ghost hits when targeting the parts of them that aren’t behind the shield, but I’m not sure if that’s just my impression or reality.
I haven’t seen a hit on them from any direction while they still have their shield. They block all attacks until the necessary hits to remove their shield. Like I said in OP, I was hitting them from the front and behind while they were climbing (ie. shield isnt even displayed), and they still blocked all hits until their shield was gone. They have 360 degree defenses and seemingly have shield counters that block most damage until its gone.