Ok. So we all experienced it. Getting oneshotted by an arguably overpowered Armek in The Cure to the point if frustrated defeat.
Now I started to wonder if the best way to deal with it is to take a lesson and learn to adapt.

What is it, that makes him tick and so overpowered? We probably have the tools to deal with him and are just not using them properly.

I know enough about Rebecca Simmons to solo her with my engineer. This one should have a weakness as well. Let's find it together.

What kind of damage us Armek dealing? Is it Antiproton or Plasma? Or a Hybrid?
Any exotic damage he deals with a melee attack?
What energy type is his orbital strike?
What's the best way to destroy his cover shields and domes?
What is aggroeing him? Pure damage? Is he ignoring me if I don't attack him at all?

What? No one with Armek insight?
Com on, don't make me go into that zone all by myself to collect data . :p

Take a team of five engies and get 4 to just spam the loving hell outta turrets whilst stood pressed up (OUTSIDE) against the shield wall, whilst the fifth stands at the far end (INSIDE) and hopes Armek doesn't one shot him

This works with one engie too, can tale a while to wear him down and runs a greater risk of the person inside being offed but it's how we all - whilst laughing our asses off - beat him last night on Elite.

There are 2 ways that I know off.

1 Science Tank melees Armek alone. Everyone else basicly just watches, fires off a shot once in a while, but not too much or he will aggro someone at range and 2-shot chain the whole team.

2, Engineers attack him with Quantum Mortars while a cloaked Tactical hides in a corner.

Armek's chain attack does Anitproton damage.

Old ways are still the best ways. Always nice to have two sci in the party so one can keep an eye on the sci tank and toss in extra heals when needed. When he assimilates the tank it can do 70% of their health so it pays off to have a guardian angel.

LOL yeah, prefer tacs locked outside the shield or laying there dead in this fight, only takes a few minutes to take him down, even on elite

Only way I got close to him, he seemed to have some sort of silly wave or stages going on.
I was playing my medic character, straight medic kit for all 4 heals.. large hypo.

Ehh.. Very messy situtation, we actually had a person rage quit on us after like the 12th attempt or some .. thing..

Basically after his first stage he wouldnt bombard the area as much and his repulsion field or whatever aoe he has right away, isn't lethal enough to stop you at this point. So I got tired of remodulating my plasma pistols.. so I decided to try Melee combat. Well the first try of that I got him down to roughly 15% health before he assimilated me.

In short its probably possible if you had the anti assimilation hypo's and 2 crazy people doing straight medic healing themselves to tank the guy. Otherwise, forget about it and go run some other mission a few times.

-- Edit
I should probably mention that all attempts to get anyone up is futilie in this part of 'the cure'. Infact its easier for them to respawn, and spam the turrets into the shield thing.. or if they are tactical... stand there and look pretty.

Being that Armek is indeed overpowered and takes down my shields and 20% of my hp per shot... on NORMAL... WRONG WrONG WRONG!!!!!

... took me each and every one of the heals I had available as soon as I could pop them off to even tank him.. Either you can Fix the mission.. or Give me my Retro Borg gear for the time I've waisted in that ONE attempt to get through it. Nothing should EVER be that stupid hard on the lowest difficulty possible.

An interesting tactic...I noticed once when I messed up and wasn't far enough to be inside when the shield wall comes down, I kept dropping mortars as I was pressed half into the shield and they were firing at him and doing damage.
I was like...Hmm, if we could have a bunch of those and keep one guy in there long enough...
But never got to test it, tho.
Are there any spots in that area where he doesn't have LOS on you?

The problems with the Armek boss fight are many. Boss npc's are op. They pretty much have to be, in order to be a boss. The key to a boss fight is a to allow the player some "out" where by skill, timing creativity, etc, they can avoid or neutralize much of the bosses op'edness.

Classic example is is the original Punch-Out for the NES. Most of the later stages, you could get knocked out in 1-3 punches, but they always had a tell, and if you knew what it was you could always avoid their super-punch.

Now let's consider the stf's as they used to be. I'm lumping infected and cure together, because both rebecca and armek have similar chaining attacks.

In infected, there was a constrained space full of hazards, namely plasma and respawning pets. The alcoves provided cover so that there was no LOS to teammates forcing you to be self reliant, but it generally worked because her aggro would shift regularly.

The alcoves were taken out but there are still things you can use for cover.

For armek, good cover was harder to come by but having loads of room, you could break LOS with distance alone.

The cover shields were annoying, but you had room to strafe back and forth until you got a clear shot.

It was also possible to pull him to the left, into the water, where someone could climb up the mushroom and fire down at armek, while remaining out of chain range of the melee medic.

While I agree it was far to easy to tank him and take him down as a melee medic, the armek fight has swung much too far in the opposite direction. IMO certain elements need to be removed. Either the constrained forcefield room or armek's cover shields need to go.

Afaik, presently, while being melee'd, armek still does not use the chain attack, but that opens you up to being assimilated. Again, one or the other needs to go.

Personally, I think armek needs to be cut away from rebecca's mold, and made into something unique.

My proposal:

Give armek the ability to resist heavily either melee, or energy weapon damage, but not both at the same time. Make his aggro also shift focus between those doing melee dmg and those doing ranged dmg. This way, armek is not a copy of rebecca or a rebecca 2.0 but his own boss encounter.

For my 2 cents. I prefer the phsycian's kit even after the cooldown timer nerf to sd hypospray. The kit also has a nice energy resist spray that removes exposes and comes w/2 good heals. I use knockback/down shield proc, sword (lower dps, but faster attack), +crit armor. Don't run it often on elite, but I PuG it and he usually dies the 2nd time if he didn't die the 1st attempt.