This lapsed Arc Raiders player was not ready for the Flashpoint update. I hopped into a Blue Gate match with the new Close Scrutiny condition aiming to have a firsthand encounter with the Vaporizer, the fresh ARC drone unleashed topside.

Mistake! The first thing I witnessed upon emerging from spawn was the crimson glow of a raider flare. Just below the flare was a pair of Vaporizers, sized similarly to the Rocketeer, melting its next victim with blue laser beams. Another flare. These things live up to their names.

At least four other raiders in my friendly solo lobby had to come together to take it down while another went for revives. I would say the Vaporizer is basically a Rocketeer that shoots lasers, but this would disrespect its seemingly relentless armor, Matriarch energy shield, superior agility, and ability to melt multiple targets at once. The Vaporizer does not gradually hunt from a distance like its explosive predecessor, but darts across the sky, flanking at any opportunity.

Early encounters indicate the Vaporizer has two main moves. From a distance, there’s a ranged laser blast that instantly vaporizes a light shield (ask me how I know this), eats a big chunk of health, and sets you and the ground on fire. Get close enough to really earn its attention, and it’ll use the sustained laser beam guaranteed to kill unless you can break line of sight. Much like all of the big baddies, your only real chance against one solo is to to hug a piece of cover with a generous overhang and tear down its armor piece by piece.

During the Close Scrutiny event, the Vaporizers can spawn in packs of three around the Assessors, unique loot opportunities that drop from the sky every few minutes. My coworkers who play a lot more Arc Raiders than I do say you should pack like you’re fighting a Queen: Wolfpacks, Hullcrackers, and way more healing items than you think you’ll need. Even with all that in mind, I’ve never seen more PvE death and destruction than with Close Scrutiny. I definitely should have brought more than one stack of defibrillators.

While I wasn’t aching for more bots capable of killing me faster than I can react, my understanding among Arc Raiders diehards is that this is exactly what they’ve been asking for. The current crop of Arc have become somewhat trivial for the folks who’ve been playing daily since October, so it tracks that a new bot that draws comparison to the dreaded Rocketeer would get their blood pumping again.

I got VAPORIZED! from r/ArcRaiders

Of course, I have no doubts Speranza’s finest will work out how to trivialize the Vaporizer, given a few days. At least one has already tried the ol’ rodeo Deadline maneuver to great success. Elsewhere in today’s update, players are celebrating that free loadouts have finally been knocked down a peg.