Hi all,

 

My guild are currently trying to down the bosses on NiM, with limited success - we basically have Withering Horror and Infiltration on farm, but are struggling with the others.

 

One of the ones that we are close to being able to do is Operator IX; we are able to burn all the cores in time and co-ordinated without any real issues, but the problem is the adds.

 

The issue starts in Orange, as we always have one of the two Regulators that spawn left over, and as the dps are focussed on the cores, it takes most of purple to burn it down. That means there are always at least two small adds on relatively high health going into Yellow and then, because the tank is usually popping cds to stay alive and the healers are focussing on heals rather than dps, by the end of yellow there are then usually still both Regulators and at least two small adds still alive when the main boss spawns.

 

That means that when the boss spawns, the guy tanking the adds usually dies pretty much immediately as both tanks now need heals and most of the tank and healers cds have already been used in yellow. The guy tanking the boss then takes too much damage from the adds and we wipe.

 

Would be interested/grateful to hear any suggestions for how we might get around this issue and/or tactics that others have used successfully in the Operator NiM fight.

 

Thanks!

Our configuration:

Blue: Our 2 mdps

Orange Tank channels, rdps in middle

Purple: Healer channels, rdps in middle

Yellow: Tank channels, Healer in middle

 

When we start the purple phase, usually one regulator is dead and the other one is at very low hp. With the other rdps in middle during purple, it shouldn't be problem to have zero adds alive, when you reach yellow. During yellow all 4 dps will start on the cores and when we have had enough dps, the 2 rdps will switch from the cores to the 2 remaining regulators and they will die quickly.

 

Your 2 healers should dps the regulators when there's just one of the regulators there (as healing is not so important at this Point), so that the first regulator in orange dies when the second regulator is about to spawn (may be difficult but that's about the timing you should aim for).

 

Also we use Assassin/Jugg combination and I (the assassin) tank the orange adds, so that my cooldowns are available again, when the big boss appears.

Edited September 22, 2013 by THoK-Zeus

Same configuration as the above post.

You can get away with having 1 (ranged) dps during yellow phase kill the last set of purple adds before going on the cores since you get a 5 second window of free time anyway. What you can also do is making sure that the tank on yellow is tanking the regulators with his back to the orange panel so that the tank on the yellow button can aoe taunt the spawning boss asap, since the boss can target the other tank or a healer.

Edited September 22, 2013 by Panzerfire

Our setup:

Blue: 2 dps (melee)

Orange: 2 dps (ranged)

Purple: healer + tank

Yellow: healer + tank.

 

Blue phase: Kill cores.. healers can help with dps so the dps channeling doesnt die from boredom.

 

Orange phase: Dps need to nuke hard on the cores since healers cant help as much due to regulators spawning. Depending on how much dps your two blue dps can put out one healer and one tank can help out on the cores untill the second regulator spawns. Since you have one ranged in the middle there should be only one regulator left by the time the switch to purple happens.

 

Purple phase: All dps kill the remaining regulator fast then the purple healer channel, tank in the middle.

 

Yellow phase: All dps clear ALL small adds BEFORE going on the cores, when small adds are dead yellow tank channels and healer in the middle. Since your other tank has to tank two regulators make sure he has cooldowns available for this phase. Time should not be an issue since you have 4 dps on the cores.

When cores are dead the tank channeling picks up the boss and dps nukes the regulators down.

 

This is how we do it at least, it takes away some of the strain on the later phases, moving it to he earlier phases by having only 2 DPS available on the cores in blue and orange and 4 in purple and yellow.

Thanks guys.

 

Yeah, we have as our setup:

• Blue - 2 x mdps
  
• Orange - Tank / rdps
  
• Purple - Healer / rpds
  
• Yellow - Tank / Healer
  

 

We did experiment at one point with two dps chanelling/in the middle on orange, as I used to help dps the cores and then switch back to tanking when the second regulator spawned, but we switched back to the above set-up after not very long.

 

We usually have about 15 seconds left when we kill the cores on blue and normally about 10-15 on orange as well. I have suggested using that extra time to kill the remaining small adds before the next phase starts, but the ops leader doesn't think that will work. When I go channel on orange, the last set of small adds has usually only just spawned, so they're both at 50%+ HP.

 

I think perhaps giving the dps too easy a ride which is then asking too much of the tanks/healers? I can survive 2 regulators and 4 small adds on yellow, but when the boss spawns I'm screwed as all the adds are still up and the healers can't just focus on my as the other tank is on the boss.

 

Not sure how much dps the healers can do as although one is a scoundrel, the other is a sage, so he can't really do much dps as the dps abilities deplete his force extremely quick.

We run a similar setup, except that we have a healer channeling orange and yellow and keep both tanks available. With two tanks available you guarantee that no tank will ever have two Regulators on him at one time (until phase 2 transition, at which point one tank might need to taunt both for a few seconds until the first dies), so solo healing those phases is easily manageable. With both healers up in purple phase they're able to run around with extra time to spare to make sure all melee DPS is healed up to full, since they're otherwise out of range on cores full time.

 

I think you should really try again to convince your raid leader to wait a few extra seconds on blue phase; there is really no reason not to. As the main orange DPS in my group, the difference between having to play cleanup or not at the start is night and day. Generally we hold off killing our blue phase cores until the timer hits 10 seconds, at which point both adds in the middle are sub 25% and the tanks can finish them off while I pick up my orange sphere from mid. Both tanks and myself always have 1 or 2 extra seconds to get in position and be ready to start on the first Regulator ASAP, instead of wasting half our time on small adds. Our purple DPS is the one on split core duty during that phase, and in between cores he helps kill the first Regulator with me. Timing it may take a few tries, but ideally he spends as much time in mid as he can while still killing both orange cores with about 5 seconds remaining. Done correctly, we've gone into purple with only one Regulator alive with sub 30% HP. At one point we messed around with popping Bloodthirst during that phase and killed both Regulators before purple, but it was a wasted cooldown since the purple phase DPS then has nothing to do.

 

For yellow phase we have one melee + one ranged on each core, and our ranged break off at about 50-60% and deal with Regulators. Initially we had to break off at 30 or 40% in order to still make the timer, so depending on your DPS you may have to adjust. Ideally you'll have one Regulator die cleanly before the transition, and then all DPS can pick off the remaining one while your free tank gets aggro established on the boss. Sniper shields are extremely useful during this part of the fight.

 

The whole fight revolves around a giant snowball mechanic. By leaving adds with too much HP in blue you're delaying orange, which delays purple, which delays yellow. A few extra seconds in blue *should* make quite a difference.

 

Edit: Something else to mention. With this setup, our healers never have to DPS (although they help out of boredom on blue phase). However, we do have our tanks actively trying to DPS down adds (and interrupting every cast) in all phases, so no one should ever be just sitting around. We also bring all the adds to the middle instead of tanking them against the pillars, since this leaves the floor open for Orbital Strikes whenever necessary without having to worry about AoE taunts or splash damage hitting a sphere.

Edited September 22, 2013 by Synavix

Interesting - when do your tanks channel then? Blue and Purple? Our second regulator on orange tends to have 75-80% HP left, which is what I think is causing us to fail later on.

We run a similar setup, except that we have a healer channeling orange and yellow and keep both tanks available.

 

Is also what we do. We have a tank in the transition taunt the boss and have one tank on a regulator and the other with the boss + regulator.

 

Your issue with the configuration is the fact you don't have a DPS in the middle killing a regulator. There's too much burst damage for healing to keep up and going in purple and yellow your healers will be severely energy and cooldown starved.

Interesting - when do your tanks channel then? Blue and Purple? Our second regulator on orange tends to have 75-80% HP left, which is what I think is causing us to fail later on.

 

Our exact setup is:

 

Blue: Double DPS

Orange: Healer channel, highest ranged DPS middle

Purple: Tank channel, ranged DPS middle

Yellow: Healer channel, tank middle

 

It's an interesting setup that probably wouldn't work for every group, but one that has worked really well for ours. One of the biggest issues you would have with this setup is that tanks have to be really good at interrupts (especially yellow) so that the middle tank doesn't get knocked out, but with good placement missing one isn't a big deal. We've also had rare instances of a Regulator going lose onto a random Marauder instead of passing close enough to the middle for the yellow tank to taunt it, but it's very rare and there are ways to get around it. One way to handle it would also be having the purple tank "pass off" the Regulator to the tank in the middle with a taunt swap.

 

Having one Regulator still up with 75+% health is manageable once you really get the hang of it (and a few more pieces of gear), but it's a bit high for your first kill. It sounds like you aren't having much problem killing cores in time, so your DPS is definitely there, it's just about rearranging a few seconds in each phase to try and manage adds for your tanks and healers to have an easier time (and as a result, easier time for your DPS to mop up in those precious seconds before the boss is active).