Screw it, Public Defiler is fine post

Okay, I want to preface this by saying, yes, I have a max reactor and a fully built Bunny. Defiler is an endgame fight and should most DEFINITELY be treated as such. I'm not here to tell you Defiler is easier solo, you already know this, but maybe don't trust your ability or like me, absolutely hate playing co op games solo and want the public experience. Going into public matchmaking, you have to expect to pull at least your own weight and someone else's if not more

That being said, there has been no end to the posts calling pubs a horrendous experience and I flat out wanna just say that you're kinda wrong (not completely). Downvote/hate all you want, this is my take on it and how you can make it better for yourself.

To do this, I guess I wanna ask some questions/tick some boxes. If you tick all of these, then okay, your teammates are indeed kinda bad and expecting a carry. This is gonna happen sometimes regardless, get used to it. Also get kind of used to losses, they're gonna happen. Try not to take them too rough. In my solely pubs experience, I have about a 95% win rate against him. The losses, brush em off and go next

To begin, there are certain things you need to take into account with public Defiler (and any colossus for that matter). The biggest one, is knowing the fight. I know, its not a groundbreaking epiphany, but its true. Do you know the fight inside and out? Do you know how to dodge the attacks of the colossus? Do you know what each of his attacks wind ups look like or the noises/movements he makes before each one? If you answered no to any of these, there are youtube videos out there OR silly as it sounds, screen record your fight and spend some time watching bits of it next time you grab a snack or a drink, you might catch something you didn't know before. IW for example, after losing his Void Reflux mode, ALWAYS follows up with the missile barrage from the sky. Knowing whats coming next, can save your life

Next up. Are you doing enough damage? Defiler has around 76 million hp solo. You don't need to hit like a truck to achieve numbers like this, but they do act as a good benchmark for how much you should be doing in a team fight. If you're not doing roughly a solo colossus worth of HP in the fight, you're not pulling your weight. This is obviously partially situational in that sometimes you'll have higher tier descendants melting the boss before you get a chance or you play support and don't do as much with your gun but end up being the doctor of the match. Regardless, its a good amount to at least aim for to see how you stack up

This leads to the third box to tick, Do you know when to revive? WAAAAAY too many times in pubs, the person being targeted is the one that tries to run over and revive leading usually to 2 dead players. I don't need to tell you why this is worse than 1 dead player. Do a quick check. If you're not being targeted, you can revive. IF for whatever reason, he targets you while you're reviving, don't be afraid to get the hell out of there and come back later or hope someone else does it for you (once again, 1 dead person is better than 2). To add to this point specifically because its another thing I see a lot of, if 3 people are down THE PERSON WHO HAS THE SHORTEST TIMER ON THEIR BAR NEEDS TO BLEED THEMSELVES OUT. I'm capping it because its important. Homie, the last person alive has boss aggro, so if you're the person with the lowest timer, bleed out and run back up to revive your teammates. This leads to a Death Count bar totaling 2 still, instead of 3 dead players all laying on the floor, waiting for a miracle until they bleed out and the fight fails. There are times this won't work for various reasons (you can't make it back in time sometimes or the other alive person dies while you're reviving etc.) but 9 times out of 10, this now means 2 people are alive instead of 1, which is a huge net gain. 1 takes aggro, 1 revives ezpz

Lastly (as i fear this post is getting too long lmao) Survival. I'm not asking you to run all HP components and 2 HP modules to turn yourself into a living god, but just some small things. The gold module for resistance (Perfect Antivenom in this case) is and always will be a lifesaver in these fights. No, it doesn't make you completely immune to elemental damage, but what it DOES do, is give you immunity to the DoT effects those elements apply. You can't go standing on puddles of poison without dying, but you can now land in them and jump out without taking another 10 seconds of damage afterwards (Kepp in mind, it does this at level 1, costing a mere 6 points). This is ESPECIALLY useful against toxic damage as the debuff you get for toxic has stacks (it goes up to 5 stacks, at which point each tick is doing a hell of a lot of damage). 1 HP module on Bunny with Slayer set gives 7.5k HP roughly. this is enough with Perfect Antivenom to tank 1 hit big hit (like the falling missiles, usually for a clutch revive) and then move on.

To close, if you're going into pubs without ticking these boxes beforehand, you're gonna have a bad time. And I understand, its a lot to learn/know, but its worth it in the end. Instead of saying pubs suck and telling everyone not to do them, bring yourself up higher and do better. Push yourself to be the one that people look at after the fight and think "damn, would've lost without them on the team". Be the change you wanna see in the pub queue before saying its shit and giving up on it. (9 times out of 10, teams lack a decent support because EVERYONE wants to be the DPS/main character, so hey, go build Yujin and deck him tf out. you'll never have an issue with fights if you're keeping your whole team alive and he'll be needed in future content for sure)

As someone who almost exclusively plays public (and even drags my friends into it if they wanna play with me) It's not a bad experience at all. I get to meet new friends, kick some colossus ass and gather mats while doing so. Its a joy and I won't ever stop pugging. If you want another friend to play with in the Australia region, hit my dms up and we can sort builds and do some work ^-^

Editing to add one last note about reviving. If you have 3 teammates down and no one is bleeding themselves out, (its a slim chance) but do a quick ping and check the bosses void reflux/enrage bar. Any time you knock a colossus out of enrage or reflux, they stagger for quite a long time. I can't actually count how many pub runs have been saved by me or someone else knocking the last bit of that bar off then clearing 3 revives for free