The guild I run with started to clear EC on Story mode this week. We are by no means a cutting edge hard core guild, but we do like to progress.

We cleared Zorn and Toth without much difficulty, just took 2 attempts to learn the mechanics. Firebrand and Stormcaller took us a little while longer to figure out, but we are consistently getting them down to <5%.

However we keep running into the enrage at about 2-3%. We've managed to kill stormcaller a few times, but we always wipe before we can finish off Firebrand. The problem is our gear "upgrades" at this point DECREASE our DPS....

All the Black Hole gear gives like +60 endurance but a minor decrease in DPS stats. We don't have a problem with the mechanics or healing, we just need an extra 1% dps, but upgrading our gear seems to be pushing us further away from our goal... Is this intended or is the gear just poorly itemized again?

*Note* I am not in any way shape or form asking for any sort of nerfs on EC like many threads here are. We find the new fights fun and challenging compared to the last tier. We are just afraid the content is going to get harder by gearing up, not easier like it should.

*Note 2* we are mostly in Columi gear mixed with some Rakata. Within another week or so we should have enough Rakata gear to down the tanks, if not sooner, but we don't want to get the fight down, upgrade our gear then all of a sudden have problems again.

build two sets of gear, one for survival and one for high sustained DPS. Obviously if the piece of gear is a straight up upgrade from someone else then they get priority but all those spare pieces can always be used for adjusting to different boss fights. Especially when learning new fights.

It's similar to healers building alacrity vs power sets or off tanks with side dps sets.

I haven't run any of the new Ops yet but I did notice Black Hole DPS gear seemed to stack more Endurance than the class stats. That seems weird to me. Every MMO I ever played, DPS were encouraged to sacrifice survival for damage output. It was the tank's and healer's job to keep you alive. The only time a DPS wanted Endurance was for PvP. So, is this different in SWTOR?

Fortunately there are a lot of MMOs where glass cannons are non-viable or inferior, because of the lack of a "trinity" of classes (heck, its probably the majority of them if you take out direct EQ and WoW clones). SWTOR is unfortunately not one of those, but stuff really toss around a lot of damage that ignore the people on top of the threat list.

The final boss of EC, for example, really only has one difficult-ish part (not really, but...). A point where 2 droids go around shooting people for 15k damage, and they can't be taunted. While we managed the fight just fine, the people in the group who had switched out their mods to be pure glass cannons were bordering on being liabilities. A lot of other mechanics in EC will make lower hp people have to dodge a lot more than they should, no matter how good the healers are (there's always the GCD to deal with...). Hp isn't everything, but a large amount of endurance for a little bit of offensive stats is probably a desirable tradeoff for many classes, especially melees.

As another note, in EC, mechanics are everything. Its very easy to "miss" a mechanic that, if handled properly, would let you put out way more damage. This is most visible in hardmode, but its there in story mode too. When we finished story mode we had people with orange gear with 1.1 daily mods in it, and had no enrage issues on our successful runs. We only had a single ranged (having more would make it even easier). A columi group can totally do it on Story if done the same way a Rekata group would do it on hard. Obviously full rekata/blackhole will make it a lot easier

Fortunately there are a lot of MMOs where glass cannons are non-viable or inferior, because of the lack of a "trinity" of classes (heck, its probably the majority of them if you take out direct EQ and WoW clones). SWTOR is unfortunately not one of those, but stuff really toss around a lot of damage that ignore the people on top of the threat list.

 

The final boss of EC, for example, really only has one difficult-ish part (not really, but...). A point where 2 droids go around shooting people for 15k damage, and they can't be taunted. While we managed the fight just fine, the people in the group who had switched out their mods to be pure glass cannons were bordering on being liabilities. A lot of other mechanics in EC will make lower hp people have to dodge a lot more than they should, no matter how good the healers are (there's always the GCD to deal with...). Hp isn't everything, but a large amount of endurance for a little bit of offensive stats is probably a desirable tradeoff for many classes, especially melees.

 

As another note, in EC, mechanics are everything. Its very easy to "miss" a mechanic that, if handled properly, would let you put out way more damage. This is most visible in hardmode, but its there in story mode too. When we finished story mode we had people with orange gear with 1.1 daily mods in it, and had no enrage issues on our successful runs. We only had a single ranged (having more would make it even easier). A columi group can totally do it on Story if done the same way a Rekata group would do it on hard. Obviously full rekata/blackhole will make it a lot easier

The droids ability is Rail Shot. If you're positioned correctly, only the tanks will be hit by it. DPS being "glass cannons" has no baring on this mechanic.

Fortunately there are a lot of MMOs where glass cannons are non-viable or inferior, because of the lack of a "trinity" of classes (heck, its probably the majority of them if you take out direct EQ and WoW clones). SWTOR is unfortunately not one of those, but stuff really toss around a lot of damage that ignore the people on top of the threat list.

 

The final boss of EC, for example, really only has one difficult-ish part (not really, but...). A point where 2 droids go around shooting people for 15k damage, and they can't be taunted. While we managed the fight just fine, the people in the group who had switched out their mods to be pure glass cannons were bordering on being liabilities. A lot of other mechanics in EC will make lower hp people have to dodge a lot more than they should, no matter how good the healers are (there's always the GCD to deal with...). Hp isn't everything, but a large amount of endurance for a little bit of offensive stats is probably a desirable tradeoff for many classes, especially melees.

 

As another note, in EC, mechanics are everything. Its very easy to "miss" a mechanic that, if handled properly, would let you put out way more damage. This is most visible in hardmode, but its there in story mode too. When we finished story mode we had people with orange gear with 1.1 daily mods in it, and had no enrage issues on our successful runs. We only had a single ranged (having more would make it even easier). A columi group can totally do it on Story if done the same way a Rekata group would do it on hard. Obviously full rekata/blackhole will make it a lot easier

Well, hell, this finally explains why I'm getting slapped around so much then. Right now I'm one of the orange gear guys, sitting on about 1500 Aim and less than 15k hp. Guess I need to work on that. Thanks!

The problem is our gear "upgrades" at this point DECREASE our DPS.....

The excuse is always gear isn't it... Try playing better, that is the best solution. You may think that there is "nothing else you can do but get more gear," but that is NOT true 99% of the time. Maybe some of your DPS aren't using optimal builds, or they don't have optimal stat setups. Maybe some of your DPS suffer from latency. Maybe some of your DPS just simply didn't play that well on that particular attempt. There are a number of things that could have held you back.

When you really know how to play your class what it really comes down to is uptime. This means reducing the amount of time that you aren't DPSing as much as possible with out dying or taking unnecessary damage. Good positioning can help reduce the amount of times you will need to move, standing too close to others could cause you to have to move out of someone else's AoE for example. Don't move more than you need to, don't move 20 yrds when targeted by a 10 yrd AoE, move 11-13. DPS while moving, as a lightning sorcerer I can shock when ever I'm moving, and if I'm still moving after that I could even clip affliction. Just little things like that go a very long way.

You also seem to be unaware that you can use different mods and enhancements. Even in rakata and columi there are mods that have less endurance more dps stats, and some have more endurance less dps stats. You want to buy multiple pieces of gear so you can swap the mods around for optimal stats. Stack all mods with high DPS stats less endurance, and use properly itemized enhancements.

The excuse is always gear isn't it... Try playing better, that is the best solution. You may think that there is "nothing else you can do but get more gear," but that is NOT true 99% of the time. Maybe some of your DPS aren't using optimal builds, or they don't have optimal stat setups. Maybe some of your DPS suffer from latency. Maybe some of your DPS just simply didn't play that well on that particular attempt. There are a number of things that could have held you back.

 

When you really know how to play your class what it really comes down to is uptime. This means reducing the amount of time that you aren't DPSing as much as possible with out dying or taking unnecessary damage. Good positioning can help reduce the amount of times you will need to move, standing too close to others could cause you to have to move out of someone else's AoE for example. Don't move more than you need to, don't move 20 yrds when targeted by a 10 yrd AoE, move 11-13. DPS while moving, as a lightning sorcerer I can shock when ever I'm moving, and if I'm still moving after that I could even clip affliction. Just little things like that go a very long way.

 

You also seem to be unaware that you can use different mods and enhancements. Even in rakata and columi there are mods that have less endurance more dps stats, and some have more endurance less dps stats. You want to buy multiple pieces of gear so you can swap the mods around for optimal stats. Stack all mods with high DPS stats less endurance, and use properly itemized enhancements.

I was going to write a long post..but the quoted post pretty much covers everything I was going to say so yah.

The problem is not the enrage timers(thought they are well tuned, which I like) its your dpsers. they might not be doing as well as they should be.