In short, while bioware may feel the "numbers are in line" they aren't in line for real game play with all the mechanics they've put into a game Okay I don't specifically play a sage healer myself endgame. I do however have a 42 dps sage but im generally playing my 50 GS or 50Van. I also have 41 commando, 35guardian, 29 Scoundrel. Legacy lvl 40. My guild has some Quite competent and geared sage healers even after the incredible nerfs they still do rather well with Most fights. We manage to one shot Denova story just fine, speed run kp nightmare, etc. There are a few fights I find having 2 sage healers is just insanely hard to use because of certain nerfs. Prime examples Conveyance and the Resplendence nerfs. Fight's like Jarg/Sorno Nightmare and Zorn/Toth hard mode make it EXTRAORDINARILY DIFFICULT. Smugglers and Troopers have a reusable skills to regain energy costing Nothing but a cooldown. In fights like the ones listed the Massive amounts of raid damage makes Noble Sacrifice Nearly and in some portions of the fights Completely useless for force recovery thus sages run out of resources or risk being killed by the next aoe. As far as Conveyance nerf to Deliverance cast time, The complete removal of the cast reduction I think is absurd. Longest Un-spec'd heal casting times: Scoundrels- Underworld Medicine 2.5s, Commando Medical Probe 2.5s, leaving Sage- Deliverance at a whole 3 seconds. I'm not asking for a complete rewrite of everything Just take a look at the conditions I'm talking about and tell me that the numbers still add up. However if you feel up to it I think many sages would be fine with changing noble sacrifice to a X% recovered with a cooldown and no health loss like the other healers get.

Given this fight is still rather buggy It is quite doable. Unfortunately with the randomness of his abilities this means you can generally not Carry someone thru this encounter in 8 man h/nmm. The group I run with has even downed him with only scoundrel and commando heals even so no bubbles to rely on at all. We pile on soa in p2 and announce Everything in vent with names "bob being tossed" "joe left sue right get your balls" "jeffy mindtrapped" etc etc. We call stop dps at 33-32% and have one competent person push him to 31% while we wait for someone to land from being tossed. Phase 2 is not timed so you have all the time in the world. If your heal's cant recover I suggest trying to get them geared up and properly (power stacking not Crit/surge) also make sure ppl have some blue med-packs on them in those heavy situations. Your Dps with heals should not tunnel vision in this situation and be aware they may need to aid in heals and do so. I do agree that the randomness of the mechanics and bugs should be worked on. I'm just trying to give you tips to help aid you in this

Yeah ctd can be avoided by not having your Companion out untill after youve entered the first hallway after the huge elevator. Also be careful about summoning elsewhere it can CTD you too. Something about that FP and companions does not mix

Done a number of runs can confirm it is ALL phases he can randomly drop agro with a (will only attack you) taunt on him. As far as taunt before or after casting mind trap. I've tried many ways. Generally as mind trap was being casted worked. I found I could do 2 taunts every other mind trap In hopes to garuntee not to get trapped however, I had one incident where I had agro on him then he started cast it so I single target taunted and when the cast ended I immediately did aoe taunt and still got mindtrapped right after the aoe taunt. In both p1 and p2 I found he would randomly start blasting others even while taunt was on him. It is however much more evident in phase 3 due to him actually moving. Also as people noted the pylon/pillar drops are not matching with animations even more so now. I had him peel off me one time with taunts down and he was 1/3 the way across the room when it dropped what should've been on me but actually hit him. The few people who have doubted me before that I raid with about that he should've been hit are now believers after they saw that. As if trying to line him wasn't enough, let alone him dropping agro randomly with the recent patch, it appears also the animations and effects are even worse (or maybe just more evident now as to the mysterious shield not removed bug). The most fun was when he dropped a mindtrap and got the offtank. then we had his shield down and ignored it to burn him then he dropped another and sucked me into it losing both taunts for about 2 seconds before offtank was released in which he reset at around 5-7%. I'll give bioware this IF the mechanics actually worked properly he would be up there in the most entertaining boss fights. It's no fun when mechanics are so broken that you wipe because of it.

I can confirm as well. Saturday KP HM I noticed this happening. I thought maybe I had some sort of server lag with pings that were low and stable. We ended up changing composition after 2nd attempt to have one less melee and a spec change for a our dps vanguard.

Many people have encountered problems with getting the wrong loot in ops. I would like to suggest a system to fix this. Once a boss is downed the loot and the people present are given a tag # and are allowed to trade loot with the tag within a 1-2 hour peroid with other people with the same boss kill tag#. This I feel would solve a large number of complaints and ticketing.

Platform sections missing does happen and I've seen it happen a few times its the floor from phase 2 which can be messed up and only has a chance of happening if you wipe. Solution IF you wipe reset the op before entering again.

I think we should have a cleaned up list of HM Soa bugs... lets have it (compiled from other lists modifing as added or noted as intended) 1)mind-traps: A)*INTENDED*tank trapped resulting in boss hitting/killing random people B)tank trapped resulting in Soa resetting on occasion if not picked up by an offtank specifically on bottom level C)perma stuck in one even if destroyed D)being released from one but being rooted in place unable to even range attack due a mysterious line of sight error 2)Cyclone: person cycloned right after being targeted by a ball lightning, resulting in it roaming freely to kill and unable to pop 3) Ball lightning: A)*Most likely intended*NOT exploding during phase interlude 1)resulting in Orbs Explosions (x3) during 2nd phase 2)resulting in massive raid damage or wipe when going between platforms B) nameplate and/or ball going invisible after up for a period of time(shouldnt happen with a good group but can) C)several second lag between his cast channel completion and them actually appearing and names being called 4)3rd phase Soa getting hit correctly by pillars yet still invulnerable 5)2nd level flooring missing pieces on occasion after wipe(only known fix is reset after a wipe to prevent this) 6)Loot A)sometimes unlootable B)sometimes NO Loot 7)Power sources A)*Possibly killed out of order*Killing 2 close to the same time can prevent further stacks from coming off B)disembodied power sources that are unkillable *annoyance possible bug* 8)pillar moves clear across room but soa keeps stopping to cast preventing him from making it in time to crash down spot