Not to mention that HM EV and KP are easier than SM Ravagers or ToS or EC. It's easy to get to the end of the run and even easier to run away with the loot. I've been pugging in Harbinger and haven't seen a ninja, but if you want to play it safe stick to guild run or lead the ops yourself.

Even with level sync, a geared level 65 will decimate mobs in one or two GCDs. Heroic mobs will maybe take half a rotation but they'll still be dead with you barely losing health. The only reason why anyone bemoans level sync is that now they can't gank low level players.

Yeah... No. Anyway, iirc Dulfy has everything except EV, KP and EC. The mechanics in EV and KP have been changed that most of the bosses are tank and spank, while EC has sort of become pug killer especially in tanks and minefield. The guides for TFB SNV DF DP Ravagers ToS were written on the patch they came out in 2.xx and 3.xx respectively but they're still relevant as 4.0 just scaled them up. Some of the fight mechanics have been removed; DP in particular at Calphayrus there are now only two phases instead of three and at Council you don't have to run crystals and Brontes doesn't do electric fence thing. TFB Kephess will pretty much stay still until you hit 50%, then you'll have to drop pillars and avoid circles. Underlurker cross now only requires each end be filled by one player. Those are ones I have on top of my head; with exception of Ravagers most of SM mechanics have been simplified. My advice is to first experience all the Operations as DPS/heal and pay close attention to what the tanks are doing. The guide gives you the bare minimum information of what to expect in the fight, but tanks usually have their own strategy. Regardless of difficulty our raid group always tanks Raptus in the middle, while some other tanks might prefer tanking Raptus near the crystals.

IIrc Dreadtooth has threat drop mechanic, that one where he knocks away the tank and places a damage increasing debuff. Sonic Paralysis if I'm not mistaken. That's probably what happened, the tank got knocked away and the offtank didn't immediately taunt.

First time I've ever seen a complaint on Sword Squadron. Usually it's Underlurker. Master Blaster does feel overturned SM and HM, but passable if nobody derps. It's mostly tank and healer check; if the healers are inattentive, the tank taking Master will be killed really, really quickly. The pressure for DPS to be responsible for their own well-being by not standing in circles or overlapping mine is higher in this fight, or they'll waste the healing resources that could've been used to save the tanks. There is DPS check, but if a group cannot survive the first round of mines the DPS check is the least of their worries. As for Sword Squadron... I honestly have no idea what could've caused a wipe. Did the tank eat Rapid Fire? Bombs not run correctly? People dying to stupid? Enrage? One unit not killed fast enough after one went down? I find it fascinating that instead of thinking what went wrong and aim to improve the first impulse is 'fight is too hard pls nerf'.

Sparky enrages at 7 minutes mark more or less. Ideally adds need to be DPS'd as fast as possible and then ignored when Sparky reaches 30% with offtank tanking them away from the group for burn phase. In SM the adds can be ignored altogether and be killed by the offtank alone (that's what I do, the DPS of Sintank is incredible). I know the frustration; in early 4.0, guild once took new players to Ravagers and Sparky enraged at 60%. We made them parse in the next pull and none of them reached 3k DPS. Had to have the other tank and healer switching to DPS to finally make the kill. Sparky is a good indicator for DPS nonetheless. Master-Blaster does have hard enrage at 6 minutes mark. You want to push Master as soon possible; if it flies away and you see Rain of Pain, you might have to push your DPS. The fight itself overall is more about coordination and a challenge to tanks-healers. Just finished a DF SM run. We had a Juggernaut in Vengeance spec who thought switching to Soresu alone would make him a tank. It didn't; Nefra poked him once and he went down. Revived, died again, until finally a Sniper took his place with the other tank. Raid group spent the next ten minutes trying to convince him to switch to Shii-cho and let the other tank solotank, but he insisted that he could 'tank'. We let him have his way; it was quite amusing to watch him jump at mob, AOE taunt and be destroyed in seconds. Couldn't imagine the repair bill he must've had at the end of the run.

Hardmode flashpoint is a good way to measure whether you're ready to heal in ops. If you can pass Tyhon, Rishi or Blood Hunt HM, you're ready to heal in ops. Some of the fights in those hardmode are harder than majority of SM operations, in fact I'd say healing in operations is easier because there are two healers and they can depend on each other whereas in HMFP you're pretty much on your own.

IIrc it can't be cleansed. Josh will keep building Execute stack until it reaches 10 and whoever has the most stack will take increased damage from his attacks. Back in pre-nerf 3.0 HM his Maul would oneshot the tank, fun times. Shouldn't be a problem though in Tactical; if you have a lot of stacks, be prepared to blow your defensive cooldown or kite him around so he can't hit you until the stacks expire. Bloodhunt is one of my least favorite fight. The knockback radius isn't as atrocious as when it was first released, but it's annoying to be knocked off when I'm trying to reach a kolto station. What gives?

They're both very good in PVP; Deception Sin and Concealment Op have insane burst that can take out most classes in one rotation and they're excellent to ninja nodes. Their DPS specs are on the weaker side in PVE unfortunately, they definitely have to struggle to get even with Sniper, PT and Merc. Darkness Sin however is an excellent tank and Medicine Op healer has the strongest AOE and unique playstyle of all healing classes. Story-wise I like Agent the most; SI feels like it's meant for Sorcs and ill-fitting for an Assassin.

Nowhere in their post OP stated that the 'other side' doesn't have the right to complain. They understood and even acknowledged the disappointment of the old time players, but this is kind of overwhelming (and I agree, I haven't frequented the forum much for that reason). Imagine that someone is interested in trying out the game, and when they check the official forum all they see is threads about how bad the game has become. How is that going to encourage new people to try the game? New people = more revenue = more content. Here is someone who returned to the game and having a blast, and the first few responses basically condemned OP for having fun and not miserable as the rest of the community. Two wrongs don't make one right, silencing one side won't make your side heard.

I personally think that he is a well-written character. In fact to me his attitude highlights the difference between Zakuul and the two factions; Zakuulan people in general seem to think that Valkorion is okay, and to be fair they have not given any proof to believe otherwise. Koth is by far the loudest when it comes to the defense of Valkorion, but you don't see Senya agreeing with Lana that they need to get rid of Valkorion either. She even asked if she could talk to Valkorion, didn't she? Seems to me like reverence to Valkorion is just a Zakuulan thing. Koth is a decent guy, maybe a bit too overzealous and overeager but his heart is in the right place. Most of my toons would keep him alive.

Has it gotten so bad that now we antagonize people who are having fun with the game? To OP, don't pay too much attention to all the threads you see. The game is fine, and there are likely a lot of people like you who are having a blast. As long as you're having fun, it's money and time well spent.

Play as tank/healer and you'll understand why there are so few of them in Groupfinder queue. I consider myself a laidback guy but there is so much I can take when DPS blames their death by standing in stupid on me. Why play tank and healer when being a DPS seems to free you from any accountability? It's funny to get blamed for boss hitting enrage though, as if enrage has anything to do with tanking/healing at all.

Me as Sniper filling in for friend's guild run in weekly DP SM. Some of the raid members were new; one Sin tank kept losing aggro and one Sin DPS died in every fight including trash pulls. It wasn't too bad overall, funny moment in Tyrans where we almost ran out of platform... then we got to Raptus. It's a fairly challenging fight so my friend asked the newbies to get into TS so he could explain fights. Sorc DPS said he'd be helping with heal challenge, not sure why since 4.0 DP SM heal challenge can be solo'd but okay. RC'd and off we went. Grabbed crystal, went into challenge room as usual, but I was the only one in the DPS challenge. Jugg DPS disconnected early in the fight, Sorc DPS went to help healing challenge, and Sin DPS didn't grab her crystal and cluelessly ran around on the main platform. I did my best, but failed the DPS challenge. Ah well, should be fine. No way we could fail tank and healing challenge, right...? Except that we did. Turns out when the Jugg tank got challenged the Sintank didn't go into the tank challenge and tried to tank spinning Raptus instead. As for heal challenge and how could three people fail, I have no idea what happened. So we failed all challenges, and wiped. Whelp. We went back to Raptus, except the Sin DPS. She started to rant about 'stupid boss mechanic', 'who was the idiot who designed the fight', and 'why does it has to be so hard'. The Sin DPS was frustrated by the mechanic to the point of near tears and wanted to quit, but friend convinced her to stay. We spent the next fifteen minutes making sure that she (and everyone else) knew what to do in the fight. Thankfully it was a guild run, couldn't imagine PUG group being so patient. It took several pulls before we killed Raptus (mostly because the Sintank kept derping and got themselves thrown off the platform) but we did. Council went down without too much of an issue thanks to the nerfs. If we still had to fumble with Bestia knockback, crystals and Brontes clock phase we probably would have struggled. First time ever failing all Raptus challenges, also first time I had someone being so frustrated in a SM run. If she think that Raptus SM is hard I wonder what she'll think of Master Blaster and Underlurker? What I find the funniest is when I assured her, "It's okay, mate. We've all been there." she replied with, "I am not a 'mate'. I'm a female." Um, okay?

Only if you're aiming to get the One and Only achievement. You can walk in 190 gear and then get bolstered to 216-220. Technically the 208 drops would still be an improvement.