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Good way to explain EC HM to guild?


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I've got a ton of experience raiding, I'm in full campaign and I took a break from SW:TOR just before TfB came out, I played on-and-off since then, and have completed TfB SM, but haven't really done much in HM.

 

Anyways, I've got myself situated, and I've found a new guild, they seem to be having problems on EC HM, and I was wondering if everyone here could post what your biggest issues were (in terms of what you had to really try to learn to do or not do, NOT bugs), and what you did to adjust or fix them.

 

Reason I'm asking is because the person who invited me pretty much said that I would almost instantly step into a position where people are going to look to me for advice in EC HM and onward, and so I'd like to know some common problems so I can hit on them if, when we go into EC HM, they have some difficulty; I'll have somewhere to start and help them out.

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I'd recommend just taking it slow, explaining the boss fight phase by phase, and giving it an attempt. When you wipe just figure out exactly why people died and address it. Make sure you're not condescending and everyone knows you're just trying to help the group. Repeat this process until you are successful.

 

If people constantly make the same mistakes over and over then try swapping them into another role or have someone else pick up the mechanic for the remainder of the raid and explain in private what they were doing wrong later.

 

Finally, if you feel like a member of your raid team isn't pulling their weight then address it with your guild leader and that person.

 

If you need to learn the boss fights read some strats online (dulfy.net usually has decent fight overviews) and watch some vids on YouTube. Don't be afraid to ask other people on your server. What server are you on, btw?

Edited by KamikazeNY
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Here are some quick things to remember:

T&Z

- Fearful eminates ~25 meters around zorn when toth jumps. It's important that tanking position is consistent, but more importantly that all dps and healers relevant are checking distance (needs to 28m+) when you approach 90/70/50/30/10. Healers that get fearful won't immediately be affected, but may take big damage from zorn's random rock throw during the 80/40 berzerk phases.

- Toth tanks need to monitor their fearful debuff when a jump is upcoming. If there's still time, they need to pop a cooldown, taunt zorn after toth jumps, jump to jorn, but then do absolutely do no damage. Ideally it's only 1-2 seconds but can be up to 5 depending on dps.

- After each jump the #1 priority is to get the drouks spread out asap. Dps, especially melee and especially post 10% should respect the tanks and allow positioning before 'going to town'

FB&SC

- Basics: Phases push at 80/60/40/20 on either tank (make sure that at least one tank has enough dps to push the phase before a 2nd DD). DD happens exactly 15s into the fight or after missile barrage starts, 2nd DD is 30s after.

- All dps and healers should know whether any of their abilities do damage to targets they are not targeting (AoE, spreading dots, knockbacks, cc's) so that shields don't die

- Tanks on SC side during shield phase need to watch minimap for where shields spawn and make appropriate decisions to be in range of their healers as much as possible

- FB healers should either be soaking lightnings in between FB/SC or standing on the back right corner of FB to be range to heal both tanks if a dps is soaking lightnings

Vorgath

- A dps should help the tower-tank kill the first add as he finds a green square in the first row. Currently, it's best to just use the left-most column, with 2nd to left as a backup.

- The tower-tank should be revealing squares on cooldown, even while fighting mob. He should monitor the health of the active probe and stop revealing square at 10% to prepare to 'yellow' a square for diffuse

- The fight usually involves 4 diffuses; the tower-tank should alert the raid if he finds that more will need diffuse. Alternate routes are rare, but can work.

Kephess

- Members with short cooldowns (melee) should be assigned to interrupt on the 2 droids not being focused by the raid, with the raid rotating interrupts on the focused droid.

- When bombers come out, everyone should get in position for a full burn and so they don't need to move for Warrior Packs (immediately to the right of the walker) or Pulsar Droids (stack on rightmost droid's landing spot)

- Have a raid member monitoring suppression fire conal and calling it out

- Use target markers or focus targets to ensure everyone get warrior targetted and not trenchcutter

- Coordinate sniper shields, predation, static barriers, sprints, intercedes, entrenches and other helpful abilities for kephess's 60% pull

- Try to have tanks not take post-60% knockbacks into walls; it gives the next tank less time to react with a taunt before kephess attacks the previous tank who now has an increased damage debuff

- Try to coordinate your circle dropping so that circles are on the outside of the room and ranged dps have to move minimally to maximize dps and risk of running out of room

 

I realize this came out more like a strat overview, but I hope it helps if you hit some progression walls.

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This is stuff that were problems for us when we were learning the fights...

 

T&Z - Fearful is incredibly important for DPS to not get. The previous poster is incorrect about it being 25M from Zorn, it actually goes out 25m from where Toth lands, so if Toth lands at a point closer to the DPS than Zorn they may get it. So DPS needs to hang between 28-29m and next to the wall to give as much room for error as possible. It's also helpful to bring Zorn up the canyon a hair further than Toth to give extra wiggle room.

Have people designated to call jumps. We usually call at X2% when a jump is about to occur so DPS can double check position, etc and know to look for fearful. If they get it ahve a ranged DPS swap sides.

Also on the initial rush have any melee on Toth wait until after his first leap to avoid that AoE, and any ranged and the healer should loop around and speeder up and swing wide past where the zorn DPS is to avoid it. Toth's AOE leaps damage out to 25m, so any ranged on Toth can avoid that damage by staying outside of 25m and really help out the healers.

 

FB&SC - SC needs to have the 2 best DPS on it so it always hits the even percentages first, and you need to make sure you hit each of those even %s within 45 sec because if you get a second double destruction per phase the lightning gets funky and will probably land on your SC DPS.

Even though your best DPS will be on SC you want FB to die first. We split 2 and 2 on each full time then when SC gets below 20% we swap 1 DPS to FB so he dies first, then we finish SC. This is because the soft-enrage on FB is much more painful than SC's is and more likely to cause a wipe if SC dies first.

Make sure the SC tank that is circling during the shield phases does NOT hug SC to try to DPS him while circling, if he stays right next to him he will get around too fast and be out of position when that phase ends. On my shadow I hug the wall around the outside then give a wide berth on the back and then I"m usually 75% around when the phase is over and force speed gets me the last bit in a second.

 

Vorgoth - Assign 2 ranged to CC the slow walking droids when they get in range so they don't blow anyone up, then burn them down during the defusal phases.

Assign the DPS not on CC duty to interrupt Cleave, have the tank interrupt overload on the probes. Cleave getting through is not ideal but can be healed through if happens occasionally. Overload getting through means people are getting KBed, probably into an active mine, and dieing.

The turrets by Vorgoth that spawn part way through CANNOT be CCed in HM. Have everyone on the far side of Vorgoth and when they spawn burn down the front 2 before going back to Vorgoth, if everyone is on the far side the back 2 will be out of range and can be cleaned up once he's dead.

 

Kephess - yeah, I won't discuss him because he's his own special kind of hell and there are not enough dolls for me to point to all the spots he's touched me.

 

For us the mechanics weren't hard, ironically it's was low DPS causing us to wipe to enrages. But low DPS is normal while learning fights. IMO it's better to wipe to enrage than to wipe because you can't execute a mechanic right. DPS can be fixed, stupid can't. So tell them to concentrate on the mechanics first and as they get more comfortable with those the DPS will rise naturally as people figure out the timings on certain attacks, CDs, relic and adrenal usage, etc.

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FB&SC - SC needs to have the 2 best DPS on it so it always hits the even percentages first, and you need to make sure you hit each of those even %s within 45 sec because if you get a second double destruction per phase the lightning gets funky and will probably land on your SC DPS.

Even though your best DPS will be on SC you want FB to die first. We split 2 and 2 on each full time then when SC gets below 20% we swap 1 DPS to FB so he dies first, then we finish SC. This is because the soft-enrage on FB is much more painful than SC's is and more likely to cause a wipe if SC dies first.

Make sure the SC tank that is circling during the shield phases does NOT hug SC to try to DPS him while circling, if he stays right next to him he will get around too fast and be out of position when that phase ends. On my shadow I hug the wall around the outside then give a wide berth on the back and then I"m usually 75% around when the phase is over and force speed gets me the last bit in a second.

 

See I don't get this at all. Why wouldn't you have your best dps on firebrand burning him down where they can deal with the third add and there are no dps mechanics like DD. Finally at <20% stage you have more people on stormcaller to take DD which is more important for NiM EC than HM.

 

The other thing is to find the best method to deal with Incinerate whether by Stormcaller tank taunting at his guns to sky move, the taunt ***** taunting at the same time or calling a tank a swap. By his guns in the sky I mean he does the red circle barrage followed by 3 rocket attacks on the tank then points his guns to sky and launches something at the healers followed immediately by the incinerate cast.

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My favorite way to explain Kephess HM (and Super Kephess HM) is "/cry".

 

On a more serious note, for T&Z:

- Biggest issue is Fearful. Get your DPS on Zorn to triple check they haven't got it before they start DPS again and make sure you call out HP% on both sides so you know when its coming.

- Red circles, just remind everyone to move AS SOON AS IT APPEARS. Yes there is a second or 2 you can delay but its better to lose a little DPS and not get hit until you are really comfortable with how long you have. Doesn't matter if you are mid Master Strike, Full Auto or Cull. MOVE.

 

SC & FB:

- We split DPS 1 on FB, 3 on SC and then swap to 4/0 after the last Defensive Systems. Its a more complicated strat so try out 2/2 first and if you have enough DPS use that, if not, swap it up to 1/3.

- Have someone on each side call out where the shields are spawning.

- Have your SC tank move in a controlled manner, staying in range of the healer. I've seen too many tanks run around like their pants are on fire dropping spires, its not needed and makes it harder on the healer.

- Put your best healer on SC along with your highest threat tank.

- We have the 2 DPS on SC move to eat the first DD and then the tank brings it around after that.

- When I'm tanking SC I taunt FB to eat Incin. (yay macros). When I'm not tanking we use a tank swap. If you have a taunting DPS, have them eat the Incin. It occurs after DD, FB will aim up into the sky and that's when you taunt.

 

Vorgath:

- Have your 8s interrupter(s) hit every single interrupt on Overload and have the 12s ones rotate as backup. Cleave is easy to heal through unless the probe enrages.

- Keep a constant stream of probes coming and keep constantly solving. Unless the tank is defusing get the next probe as soon as you turn the square yellow, if the tank is defusing, wait 2 seconds and then come down but don't reveal the probe until their done.

- If the turrets enrage on HM its a 1 shot. You HAVE to get it down in time.

- Keep everyone up the cave end once you're on Vorgath and keep him faced towards the minefield.

- Have ranged DPS and one of the tanks burn down the 2 close turrets when they spawn, ignore the back ones. Since everyone is near the cave you can out range the back ones, just be careful with tank/melee positioning.

- Make sure the tanks keep Vorgath on them after each threat drop.

- Stay out of red circles.

 

Kephess:

- /cry seriously its easier.

- Rotate interrupts on the first 3 droids. We set up as 4 DPS on 1, and tank + healer on the other 2. DPS burn the first one while rotating interrupts and then split 1/3 and join the tank/heals. Tank/Heal interrupts go Tank -> Healer -> Tank -> Miss -> Repeat. Once the DPS get there they grab the misses and the Healer interrupts if possible. If you have Shadow tanks it goes Tank -> Healer -> Miss -> Repeat.

- Burn the Bombers ASAP. I hang out near the middle and pull the Bomber if its away from the group. Gotta make sure you pull before the Knights leap in or you're screwed.

- Trenchcutters Spawn WAY faster than SM. Either separate out the Warrior or burn him quick and AoE down the rest. Prepare to end up with 2 groups at a time and DO NOT drop Flyby/Orbital Strike until after the third Warrior is dead.

- On the Pulsar Droids have the longest effective range tank stay out at max range while everyone else stacks inside the hit box (Shadow > Vanguard > Guardian)

- Have whichever tank has the most CDs (Guardian > Shadow > Vanguard) pick up Kephess first.

- For the Gift of the Masters phase at 60%, have Gunslingers pop Entrench at 62% and Guardians can Guardian leap out. If you have a Sentinel use Transcendence and Sage healers can drop a Salvation before the pull. Helps give everyone a target to run at and gives some healing once they're there. Shadows should pop Resilience and Force Speed. At this point best tank to have on Kephess is Shadow > Guardian (if they can Guardian Leap to a Gunslinger) > Guardian who has popped a CD at ~62% to help keep HP up > Vanguard > Guardian who didn't do either of those.

- Make sure the tanks are taunting DURING the cast of Breath of the Masters.

- Tanks should run away for 3 circles then turn around and run back for the last 2. Once the 5th circle drops Kephess will cast the next Breath so this helps make sure you're in range for it.

 

Those are the biggest issues I've seen with EC HM. It's a pretty big step up from NiM KP and missing mechanics can just kill you. Plus the mechanics rely a lot more on the DPS than they have in the previous operations which can really shine through when you start.

 

Good Luck!!

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See I don't get this at all. Why wouldn't you have your best dps on firebrand burning him down where they can deal with the third add and there are no dps mechanics like DD. Finally at <20% stage you have more people on stormcaller to take DD which is more important for NiM EC than HM.

 

The other thing is to find the best method to deal with Incinerate whether by Stormcaller tank taunting at his guns to sky move, the taunt ***** taunting at the same time or calling a tank a swap. By his guns in the sky I mean he does the red circle barrage followed by 3 rocket attacks on the tank then points his guns to sky and launches something at the healers followed immediately by the incinerate cast.

 

We usually run with 2 slingers, and one of them is on SC, so when we swap a DPS over for the final 20% he just shoots through to FB so he's still on SC to eat DD.

 

The reason we do it that way is because of our understanding (or really misunderstanding) of the fight mechanics early on where it was believed that SC had to hit the even %s first to keep the lightning from landing on the SC DPS if you got a second DD. And now we just keep doing it that way because of habit and it works for us.

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If you have a Powertech in group don't let him anywhere near stormcaller. For one he should be taunting IA armor on FB. For 2 i have never lived no matter who the tank is on SC trying to DPS him as a PT. Doesn't matter if you guard and taunt stack the PT is going to pull, couple RS procs(or just one) is going to cause a change of aggro and that cleave on SC will wipe out everyone. As someone who tanks it normally tho that is really the only thing that has ever given me aggro issues, it's probably in my head, but it seems like it's easier for dps to pull on this one and harder for the tank to keep his threat up at least at the start of the fight.

 

Also a good statement i heard from a friend in another guild.(assuming your dpsers are upto par). "When we figured out being aware of the mechanics and staying alive was more important than the extra dps, life became much easier". EC and TFB are both mechanic heavy learning these honestly makes the fights every simple.

Edited by wetslampigduex
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File this away in the "It works for us" file..

 

On Kephess, during the warrior phase, have both tanks, one healer and all but one DPS hide under the bunker to the right of where the walker stands. If you get all the way in and in the corner closest to the walker, the purple AOE won't hit you. You can also be stacked up for AoE heals and for flyby/volley/hail/etc, o burn the trenchgutters down.

 

I mention the use of these AoEs because the healer and DPS that are out of the bunker stand in the main area, find the Warrior in the group of trenchgutters, and burn it. It's ideal if you have a DPS with a taunt, so they can find the warrior, taunt it, and have it run away from the rest of the group bringing its shield with it. This helps ensure that you won't get splash damage even by accident, as you can have one DPS and a healer burn the warrior down in about 5-8 seconds.

 

Since 75% of the raid is bunched up in this small corner, you have enough time to burn down the warrior, then find the next one in the next spawn group and pull it out, as all of the trenchgutters will immediately upon spawn find the healer that's in the bunker and head right toward it. Once they're in range, the tanks can AoE taunt, with the first group and third group from one tank and the second group from the other.

 

Since we started doing this, the only time we've wiped has been when the DPS on the outside failed to pick up the Warrior in time.

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This is incorrect. Trenchcutters spawn with aggro on tanks, not healers.

 

And since the healers are pretty well consistently healing at that point, they'll aggro them in no time, especially if it's a sage/sorc dropping their AoE. Consider that the tanks have no threat on any of the mobs to start aside from what they spawn with, and the healers are generating threat pretty well constantly..

 

That's actually part of why we guard the healers during this fight as well - especially since with the amount of tauntswapping you do on Kephess, no one ever really rips aggro for us, and the threat reduction helps somewhat.

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And since the healers are pretty well consistently healing at that point, they'll aggro them in no time, especially if it's a sage/sorc dropping their AoE. Consider that the tanks have no threat on any of the mobs to start aside from what they spawn with, and the healers are generating threat pretty well constantly..

 

Not necessarily. Trenchcutter threat generation is nonstandard, at least while they're under the shield (in Ni. I would guess in HM as well, but we never used a strat in HM that would have caused me to notice, so that's just an assumption). I've seen--several times, while we learning the fight--healer aggro pull a warrior out of a pack of cutters while the cutters continued on to the tank. Beyond that, my group's approach to the cutters goes like this:

 

Tank guards other tank. Guarding tank and dps stand behind the walker. Guarded tank and healers move in front of the walker. Guarded tank and healers peel the warriors as they spawn. Cutters beeline to guarding tank.

 

And we have never seen cutters change target to the healers before reaching the group behind the walker.

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Maybe that's it. You're standing in front with your peel/raid, we tend to be off to the side in the bunker where the first group spawns. This means, for our #2 and #3 groups, they have a bit of a walk to get to the party. The warrior is peeled off quickly, and the trenchies have a few seconds of picking up healing aggro - and once the warrior is peeled out, they can pick up the healer pretty quickly.

 

Interesting strategy you have, though. Maybe we'll try it next time to see if it runs smoother. Always up to try new ECHM techniques.

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Yeah, it might be the extra time walking without the shield, but I don't think it's ever been definitively established what the deal with cutter threat generation is, so grain of salt and all that. I just posted because "cutters immediately target healers" isn't actually what happens; it's what's happening with what your group is doing, but if another group wants to try a different strat and they assume that cutters will go hit healers it might cause them some problems.

 

You're welcome to try the strat if you want, of course, but it's probably overly complicated for nightmare (it just addressed some issues we were having that were specific to our group) and is almost certainly overly complicated for HM.

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BTW, why is Fearful considered such a big issue?

 

The first time we did Zorn and Toth on hard mode was with four melee DPS (one Shadow, three Sentinels). The tanks just swapped the bosses between each other (so the tanks stayed in the same position throughout, only the bosses moved). The DPS on Zorn's side only had to pay attention that after the jump, they start hitting Toth instead of Zorn, immediately.

 

When we actually tried it with ranged DPS it caused all sorts of nightmares in positioning and such. It was far easier to just revert to the "groups swap the bosses" routine which, as far as I can see, has no downside.

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BTW, why is Fearful considered such a big issue?

 

The first time we did Zorn and Toth on hard mode was with four melee DPS (one Shadow, three Sentinels). The tanks just swapped the bosses between each other (so the tanks stayed in the same position throughout, only the bosses moved). The DPS on Zorn's side only had to pay attention that after the jump, they start hitting Toth instead of Zorn, immediately.

 

When we actually tried it with ranged DPS it caused all sorts of nightmares in positioning and such. It was far easier to just revert to the "groups swap the bosses" routine which, as far as I can see, has no downside.

 

Because a DoT will kill someone w/ Fearful

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Because a DoT will kill someone w/ Fearful

 

Toth's jump immediately removes dots, we tested it (with three Watchman Sentinels it was kinda important). If you put a dot up after the jump, well, you're screwed, but that's just bad play.

Edited by Siorac
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BTW, why is Fearful considered such a big issue?

 

Simply, reflected damage.

 

If you're DPS are on the ball and stop DPS on Zorn when the leap is about the happen, then transfer on to Toth without hitting Zorn it's fine. If you're DPS are a little slow on the uptake they can very quickly kill themselves by using a multi hit ability such as Master Strike or a DoT, heck a Pyro that uses Flame Burst (or really anything other than Rocket Punch) after Fearful goes out will kill themselves.

 

Using 4 melee is completely doable, but you're adding more points of failure into a fight that is really punishing on them.

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BTW, why is Fearful considered such a big issue?

 

The first time we did Zorn and Toth on hard mode was with four melee DPS (one Shadow, three Sentinels). The tanks just swapped the bosses between each other (so the tanks stayed in the same position throughout, only the bosses moved). The DPS on Zorn's side only had to pay attention that after the jump, they start hitting Toth instead of Zorn, immediately.

 

When we actually tried it with ranged DPS it caused all sorts of nightmares in positioning and such. It was far easier to just revert to the "groups swap the bosses" routine which, as far as I can see, has no downside.

 

The downside as already pointed out is how punishing Fearful is someone screws up. The other things is the DPS loss which can be an issue if your DPS is low/undergeared. Not a big issue for you configuration as you described it since 3 of your 4 DPS can leap to the boss instantly and the other has force speed you have almost no DPS loss. Compare that to a group with a couple slingers and a gunnery commando (what we usually run with) and try doing swaps like that and watch your DPS plummet due to the constant running your turret classes now have to do.

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The downside as already pointed out is how punishing Fearful is someone screws up. The other things is the DPS loss which can be an issue if your DPS is low/undergeared. Not a big issue for you configuration as you described it since 3 of your 4 DPS can leap to the boss instantly and the other has force speed you have almost no DPS loss. Compare that to a group with a couple slingers and a gunnery commando (what we usually run with) and try doing swaps like that and watch your DPS plummet due to the constant running your turret classes now have to do.

 

Why do ranged classes have to run? Also, in our way, nobody has to leap anywhere: two DPS stayed on right, other two on left and its the bosses who swapped places.

 

We did it since then with ranged classes as well, tried the tactic of keeping melee on Toth and ranged on Zorn while swapping the tanks but it was still easier just to swap the DPS. Especially with ranged, they just had to press Tab. So even if they got Fearful via bad positioning - which happens, it's not always easy to calculate where exactly Toth will land - they can still do their stuff without problems.

 

To me, it seemed far easier if everybody could stay in their starting position and we only had to move the bosses themselves. When the tanks had to run through the entire field it almost always led to problems :)

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