MM Hammer Station, with a Shadow tank, Scoundrel heals, Gunslinger dps, and me on a Shadow:

 

I said hi a couple of times at the beginning of the run. Nobody responded.

 

Everybody was well geared, some of us very well geared. Tank insisted - not verbally, but with his actions - on doing LoS pulls every time anyway, yet had trouble holding aoe threat. This was not really much of a problem, but it was of a piece with what happened later.

 

Tank also insisted on pulling the tunneler droid back into the exit tunnel. This was and is a waste of time (much like many of the LoS pulls) to attempt to avoid an extremely easy mechanic. It also confused the healer and the other dps, who thought that running to the other side of the room made the first boss skippable, and kept going into the next few tunnels, so that when the tank actually pulled, his healer had to run back. Healer was also incapable of cleansing, which was something I didn't notice until after the tank used up his Resilience and his Force Cloak and died halfway through the fight. I had less room to maneuver away from the droids because we were in tighter quarters, but I survived okay, albeit a little annoyed.

 

The slinger, who died during the tunneler droid fight (something I could have and should have prevented, despite the healer's incompetence, if I were thinking about it clearly enough, since I probably had enough self-cleanses at that point in the fight to hold aggro and not die), made up an excuse about wife aggro and dropped group. Poor guy. This was convenient enough, because it let us stealth past everything; I brought out a 50 dps Nadia and we continued. Tank decided to pull one group anyway for no reason at all, resulting in my near-death when the healer got confused.

 

We kept stealthing past things up to Vorgan, but the healer hung back and asked me to set my comp to heals. I rhetorically asked - told - him that that was his job; I didn't want to lose dps, and there wasn't much aoe damage in the last two boss fights anyway. He could cover the comp with aoe heals for minor chip damage if he didn't like focus targeting her. Apparently he had decided to respec to dps on the assumption that I would use a ranged heals comp and then changed his mind after my comment and went back to heals. Our tank didn't bother waiting (again) and pulled Vorgan without our healer even remotely close by aaaaand got himself and me killed. Whoop de doo. We respawned, the tank pulled out Shae Vizla, and we rolled through again, successfully this time, although he didn't micromanage her well, nor did he do a particularly good job of keeping aggro. Whatever.

 

We stealthed up to Kreshan and the tank pulled from immediately behind the boss, meaning that his companion got slaughtered by Sweeping Blasters almost instantly. The tank also decided to point Sweeping Blasters in my direction every time I went to kill the adds in the fight, and almost killed me a couple of times.

 

In the grand scheme of things, this wasn't an unusually frustrating run, and "healer heals poorly and tank does dumb stuff on Hammer Station MM" is not exactly new material for this thread, but it was the first derpy MM run I've had in a while, so I felt like sharing.

 

EDIT: Ran MM Esseles immediately afterward. It was a good, communicative, friendly group. One person asked to do bonus and we obliged. We moved quickly without leaving people behind, we had minimal derping (although it's tough to derp on Esseles), and there was a lot of spacebaring. Great group - much more in line with my usual group finder experience.

Edited October 20, 2019 by Euphrosyne

Pretty much this ^... most of the time we met weird peeps who are in fact either bad or out of touch with their toon. only if they realise it and re-learn their class, lot of awkward situation can be avoided.

 

I had a similar thing with a guild run just before 60. to get another Sage into level 70.

I barely rfemembered his abilities, but, on the positive side, he had been my main toon for such long time (until I made another one my main toon), that after 30 seconds I instandly knew what i had to do. I even remembered why I had arranged the keys / buttons in that manner.

 

What I'm saying is this . If you know yout toon particularly well, it's far easier to fet into everything.

Worst is a seldom played toon with forgetting the abilities ...

What I'm saying is this . If you know yout toon particularly well, it's far easier to fet into everything.

Worst is a seldom played toon with forgetting the abilities ...

I agere with you. Being an altaholic, I know the pain of seldom played toons can bring.

 

On a separate note... another weird run

MM Rakata, first boss unkillable. Got a pop, zoned in to see two player standing. jugg tank, sin dps. They said two others left... Fine, can work with that. got a healer. wiped three times. healer quits. Jugg tank says this should not be so difficult. I say healer hps is poor and sin dps too. so they switched roll. sin rerolled to tank and jugg into dps. tried with a healing comp and guess what, the boss dies... rest of the run went smooth... jugg says meh... whats wroing with peeps these days? I say, after effect of constantly running hammer station.

This is the story about how I got both lucky and unlucky at the same time.

 

So new FP is out and it means its time to kill all bosses there at least once on all modes for achievement. Story and tactical dont present a problem and share achievements. so its HM where the real fun begins.

 

I got lucky with that. When I first queued for Meridian HM I got instant pop at bonus boss, and we killed everything from there. But that still left the problem of 1 boss...

 

So today I start spamming the fleet for the group, because as a dps I really cant afford to just sit and wait for GF to pop. I got lucky, and find a merc dps and a merc healer on Fleet. Then GF finds us a tank.

 

I explain to my group the situation and offer to explain tactics before each boss (minus the first, since I only ever saw him at story and tactical, but its probably not much different) We reach the 1 boss, and tank, who hasnt noticed my words (as he later admitted) pulls. We die to combination of towers (group-wide damage from 2 pylons, have to kill them ASAP) and blue circle on tank (massive periodic damage)

 

I explain what to do. We pull again. This time we get past the towers, but merc dps dies. He gets a combat rezz, then tank dies due to the blue circle. I am tanking now (306 geared Mara) I survive the blue circke twice due to my awesome dcds. but I got almost nothing left for 3 time and die. Fortunately at that point boss is at low hp and the rest of the group kills it. I get my achievement. Yay!

 

We proceed to the bonus boss. i explain stuff. Tank died to boss' beam. Not his fault. he's first time here, and it hadn't occured to me that he should hide behind strong golden add, not normal weak ones, so it's really more of my fault.

 

We return to boss. Then merc healer says he got an urgent message and has to go. He drops group. We queue for replacement, then merc dps dced. Tank says he will leave and wishes me luck. I explain to him that I already got what I actually wanted. On that note we part ways.

 

And now I have to do it all again Rep side.

Edited October 28, 2019 by Gelious

So you know Hammer station and that bridge that disappears? Apparently at some point community came up with an idea to skip the turrets near that bridge just by running past them. The problem? Not everybody knows this and not everybody actually tells the rest of the group that they will be doing that.

 

So here I am in my HS run №9981 (really sick of this place, but have to level alts anyway to get them access to that sweet, sweet 306 gear) The group is mostly 75 level minus me (74) and I think some other guy. So I decide to do the skip and not warn the others, even if they dont know, they can figure it out, right?

 

So I run past the bridge, somebody runs with me, at least 1 gun is shooting on me. We deal with the droid, and then I see there are only 3 of us here. 1 guy stayed behind and attacks a gun. And then he dies to it. The group includes 2 mercs, one of them me, but I got used to not relying on others to do the job I can do. So I run back, to give the guy a combat res. And the gun still shooting a t me. I get on the bridge, walk until the dead guy is in range and revive him with combat rez. All the while my health is dropping fast. I reach to press Adrenalin rush but I am a fraction of a second too late. I die. The rest of the group is somewhere far ahead apparently fighting other mobs.

 

Then they die. We all die and have to go back. Somebody suggests to stun the guns. I pick the gun and do it, but the other merc doesn't. Meanwhile bridge goes from blue to red. Me and the other guy run on it... we didnt make it, Bridge disappears and we die.

 

The rest of the run went without any problems. Though the other merc got triggered by all the delays. He was 75, so he was just farming gear:D

Edited October 29, 2019 by Gelious

Apparently for some players out there, the idea of reviving a fellow group member is in fact not as obvious as it is for me. Who would have thought?

 

I get a pop of Athiss VM. I move too fast and miss all the jump stops falling all the way to the ground. Naturally I die. The 2 other members make it to the ground alive and now wait for the third one who isnt here at all.

 

And... that's all. I am dead on the ground, they are standing near me, the 4th member is somewhere still above and no one makes a move to ress me. No one. Granted, I didn't actually ask for it and just blindly expected it, but hey, they are doing anything anyway So I have to revive by myself and do the whole jump thing again, this time without problems.

 

Nothing else of note happens during the FP. I am shocked, however, by the level of indiffrence from those 2 players. Never before have I seen people just staying still and not doing anything when a fellow group member was lying dead on the ground and there was no combat.

Edited October 29, 2019 by Gelious

Apparently for some players out there, the idea of reviving a fellow group member is in fact not as obvious as it is for me. Who would have thought?

 

I get a pop of Athiss VM. I move too fast and miss all the jump stops falling all the way to the ground. Naturally I die. The 2 other members make it to the ground alive and now wait for the third one who isnt here at all.

 

And... that's all. I am dead on the ground, they are standing near me, the 4th member is somewhere still above and no one makes a move to ress me. No one. Granted, I didn't actually ask for it and just blindly expected it, but hey, they are doing anything anyway So I have to revive by myself and do the whole jump thing again, this time without problems.

 

Nothing else of note happens during the FP. I am shocked, however, by the level of indiffrence from those 2 players. Never before have I seen people just staying still and not doing anything when a fellow group member was lying dead on the ground and there was no combat.

 

Free players? Are they even able to res like that? I probably would have said something myself, and probably been called lazy lmao.

Because MM Flashpoints are the best way to gear up atm, there are tons of people running them who are not in any way prepared for the content - especially if they queue for all of them for the daily bonus. I've had two pretty bad ones just this weekend.

 

The first was Hammer Station, of all things. First boss. Healing had been low all flashpoint, if I look back on it, but I didn't notice it at the time - was running Watchman spec Sent. We reach first boss - no-one asks about mechanics, so I assume everyone knows. Bad move on my part. As soon as the droid does his first channel, the tank goes down like a long. He was not cleansed - I can see that on my UI. Boss switches aggro to me as soon as tank goes down. Beam channel comes up - I am not cleansed, and have to force camo it. The second time the beam comes up, I pop GbtF, but that only last for four seconds of the channel. I am not cleansed, and I die. Other DPS dies shortly after, and the healer tries to run out the tunnel to the next part of the FP, but doesn't make it.

 

The healer tells us the reason we wiiped was because we didn't pull the boss to the back of the room to avoid the adds, implying the tank stood in the red (which I did not see him do). Most even vaguely competent groups don't need to do this since it makes so little difference. I'm pretty sure that's not the problem, but the healer insists it is, so we try it.

 

Healer does not cleanse tank or me once again, so it's a wipe. I ask the healer if they're new to the class or the Flashpoint. S/he inform me, rather rudely, that they've farmed this flashpoint every day for six weeks (wut?). I drop group, because that means that the heals is either lying, or intentionally not cleansing (weird to think, but I've had a guy on the same boss tell the tank that s/he didn't feel like cleansing). I'll happily explain the mechanics to new players, or how to cleanse somebody, but I have zero tolerance - in Master Mode Flashpoints - for people who aren't willing to put in the effort to clear that level of content.

 

I also had a Kaon Under Siege MM where the tank hadn't a clue what he was doing. Never used anything but basic attack that I saw, and couldn't keep aggro for anything. He didn't respond when I asked if he knew the Rak Behemoth fight, but instantly pulled it. He tried to pull it down into the middle for some reason, so I ended up having to tank that on a Sent to do the mechanics properly. He also repeatedly chain pulled mobs that he couldn't keep aggro on, which ended up killing the healer. I didn't initiate a votekick, but it was a close thing.

 

New players: if you are reading this, PLEASE let your group know if you are new to your role, class, or the fight. Most groups I've played with have been more than happy to explain the fights, or give you a lot more latitude.in performance. I don't think I've ever seen a player who said something along those lines kicked or insulted. But if you do not, it WILL come out, and it is very likely that you WILL be kicked, because you didn't do your group the courtesy of informing them.

Healer does not cleanse tank or me once again, so it's a wipe. I ask the healer if they're new to the class or the Flashpoint. S/he inform me, rather rudely, that they've farmed this flashpoint every day for six weeks (wut?). I drop group, because that means that the heals is either lying, or intentionally not cleansing (weird to think, but I've had a guy on the same boss tell the tank that s/he didn't feel like cleansing). I'll happily explain the mechanics to new players, or how to cleanse somebody, but I have zero tolerance - in Master Mode Flashpoints - for people who aren't willing to put in the effort to clear that level of content.

 

He might have been really farming it but just getting carried by competent tanks (sin and jugg can deal with the beam themselves, they don't need cleanses, really) or a dps who helped with cleansing.

 

I have to say, though, I really dislike people who go into a rude defensive state when someone points out their mistake. Like, unless someone is angrily blaming the heal for not cleansing, why not listen? If you just said something like, "are you cleansing the tank on 4-5 stacks?", it sounds perfectly reasonable to me and one shouldn't be mad about being asked such a question. But then, if he truly did this fp so many times without cleansing, I can see how he might think that it is normal and he isn't expected to do it. Still, even if it wasn't required (which, technically, it isn't, unless your tank is a PT), isn't it always best to aid the group in any way you can, even if it means doing something extra? Especially, as a healer but it is true for DPS, too. As a sin I would gladly taunt the boss mechanic into my shroud to help a PT tank. Or simply just taunt the boss if tank is getting low. If I have some DCDs that weren't used yet, why not give tank some time to get back to full HP if damage output is truly too much for tank/heal to handle for whatever reason?

 

On Meridian Master mode bonus boss, it's especially noticeable. Helping the tank get an add between him and the boss when armor-piercing rounds are being fired is like the top priority over anything else you can be doing as a DPS. That's just the most recent memory of a situation like this. There can be plenty others (especially, when the tank isn't experienced with certain mechanics) where you can help the tank a lot.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Equeliber

S/he inform me, rather rudely, that they've farmed this flashpoint every day for six weeks (wut?).

 

Ah man that cracked me up real good. Expansion barely out 2 weeks, such a funny lie. I cant decide if they r genuinely that dumb or intentionally trolling ur group.

 

I hear ya btw, especially with this new expansion and the mindless hammer farm by most folks (farming gear most of them dont even need XD), a lot of folks r clueless about most FPs. And they say absolutely nothing about it at the start. Now that kind of triggers me... im happy to help, but i need to know that u dont know.

 

I muscle my way through getting them kicked since 99% of the time im tanking, i simply dont have time for such nonsense.

 

And fun fact, when they do get kicked, there is usually quite an argument over who gets to summon their comps .

They may have been farming for 4 weeks beforehand... but that seems unlikely.

 

I usually cleanse at 5-6 when I'm healing against that boss. I've seen some runs where I've been DPS and the tank has been sufficiently potent that the healer can get away with cleansing at 7, but I never intentionally let it get past 6 when I'm the healer.

Now I get why this expansion is called Onslaught, because it's an Onslaught of Noobs... I don't mean "new players", I mean clueless people with no desire to learn... So many times I had groups with people who never say a word, ignore instructions, tanks in dps gear, or I keep getting groups of ppl who have 2% FP achievements and dont have the decency to inform that they never done it before... As someone who enjoys queueing for group finder, it feels more like russian roulette

So many times I had groups with people who never say a word, ignore instructions, tanks in dps gear, or I keep getting groups of ppl who have 2% FP achievements and dont have the decency to inform that they never done it before... As someone who enjoys queueing for group finder, it feels more like russian roulette

It's not clear how you can say you enjoy queueing for GF, and yet you complain about the basic nature of GF.

It's not clear how you can say you enjoy queueing for GF, and yet you complain about the basic nature of GF.

 

Nah, the change is noticable

Horrors from group finder/FPs with randoms:

 

Back in 1.0, when there were no GF. I ended up in Mandalorian raiders while leveling. Got a group and went to dungeon. I had 2 teammates, Powertech, and Mercenary. I was Marauder. And I dont remember which class was healer. PT and Merc was irl friends. I thought PT would tank. But no. Noone was tanking. When we wiped few times on first boss, I was told by Mercenary that he is Mercenary tank, and that Mercenary is unofficial tanking class, and that when they playing with PT together, Merc always tanking, and thats ok and they are in their right. Well, I dont think I need to explain how hard I laughed irl, and then just said goodbuy to them and left.

Now I get why this expansion is called Onslaught, because it's an Onslaught of Noobs... I don't mean "new players", I mean clueless people with no desire to learn...

 

This made me laugh And yeah, I agree. I've only pugged random MM FP twice after 6.0 launched, when most guildies were busy doing something else. First one was MM HS, so I quit immediately. I don't do that s**t with randoms, because it's boring enough without someone accidentally pulling extra mobs, or dying to stupid, which usually happens when people who are bad enough to queue only HS.

 

Second one was Directive 7. We had one dps pug (or so we thought). It was a lvl 70 focus guardian in 234 tank gear. so everything died really slowly. He also watched all cutscenes and stayed behind to scavenge every droid we killed... But he obviously knew the mechanics and didn't do anything stupid, so we didn't kick him (we had a premade of 3 with this one pug). Everything just took a lot longer than it should have. We would have done 4x Red Reaper within the same amount of time with a companion...

 

So let's put it this way, I'll try to stay as far from pugging anything in GF, unless I really really have to for some reason (that I can't think right now). It's just not worth all the waste of time and frustration I get from it.

Just want to share a personal pet peeve :

Kolto station spams in vet fps. I get it , most people are used to run vet fps with no healers as squishie dpses, hence are used to spam the station frenetically at every occasion.

 

But when you have an healer, and even better, a tank, can you let them do their jobs ? AND DO YOURS, which is DPSing. We are there to test our gear , our roles, practice in group content, and hopefully get better.

 

Tanks dont need squishies that jump in front of them, as healers don't need MELEE dps to STOP DPSING to go run and hit the kolto station because they lost 5% health.

 

I know a lot of healers that are very frustrated by that and either stop queueing for vets, or just tag along looking pretty, because, meh. What is the point lol.

Edited November 14, 2019 by jambalayabungee

Just want to share a personal pet peeve :

Kolto station spams in vet fps. I get it , most people are used to run vet fps with no healers as squishie dpses, hence are used to spam the station frenetically at every occasion.

 

But when you have an healer, and even better, a tank, can you let them do their jobs ? AND DO YOURS, which is DPSing. We are there to test our gear , our roles, practice in group content, and hopefully get better.

 

Tanks dont need squishies that jump in front of them, as healers don't need MELEE dps to STOP DPSING to go run and hit the kolto station because they lost 5% health.

 

I know a lot of healers that are very frustrated by that and either stop queueing for vets, or just tag along looking pretty, because, meh. What is the point lol.

 

This. Exactly this. The only time it doesn't enrage me is if I end up in Blood Hunt. That FP lags far more for me than anything else in the game (except maybe the train section of Crisis on Umbara) - so much so that I still frequently go up to a minute at a time of being effectively blind in battle. It's just... ugh.

 

Everywhere else, I can usually see what I'm doing, which means I can usually keep the group healed as long as they don't do anything really spectacularly silly, which means "Please trust me. In the event that I can't keep up and a kolto station is needed, let me be the one to click it"

Just want to share a personal pet peeve :

Kolto station spams in vet fps. I get it , most people are used to run vet fps with no healers as squishie dpses, hence are used to spam the station frenetically at every occasion.

 

But when you have an healer, and even better, a tank, can you let them do their jobs ? AND DO YOURS, which is DPSing. We are there to test our gear , our roles, practice in group content, and hopefully get better.

 

Tanks dont need squishies that jump in front of them, as healers don't need MELEE dps to STOP DPSING to go run and hit the kolto station because they lost 5% health.

 

I know a lot of healers that are very frustrated by that and either stop queueing for vets, or just tag along looking pretty, because, meh. What is the point lol.

 

Honestly, this -- and a few other reasons -- is why I just never run vets. I can't stand them.

Kolto station spams in vet fps. I get it , most people are used to run vet fps with no healers as squishie dpses, hence are used to spam the station frenetically at every occasion.

 

... dps to STOP DPSING to go run and hit the kolto station[/b] because they lost 5% health.

 

I know a lot of healers that are very frustrated by that and either stop queueing for vets, or just tag along looking pretty, because, meh. What is the point lol.

Well, I agree that people often spam the koltos too frenetically. It's really annoying if, when you actually need health, there's no koltos available because someone has spammed them all. And I would agree with the frustration of having someone use the kolto when they're only down about 5% - especially when there's a healer.

 

However, I don't quite understand why healers seem to get so annoyed when someone essentially helps them out by using a kolto. Several times recently, while doing Vet FPs with a healer, my health has gone down seriously - like down to 10% - and I've had to use a kolto to heal myself. I don't know why the healer has let someone get that low - maybe they are lagging, maybe they are overwhelmed, whatever - but I don't think I should just die to let them "practice" and I don't see why they should get so pissy about it.

Honestly, this -- and a few other reasons -- is why I just never run vets. I can't stand them.

Honestly, this sounds like a very silly reason.

Well, I agree that people often spam the koltos too frenetically. It's really annoying if, when you actually need health, there's no koltos available because someone has spammed them all. And I would agree with the frustration of having someone use the kolto when they're only down about 5% - especially when there's a healer.

 

However, I don't quite understand why healers seem to get so annoyed when someone essentially helps them out by using a kolto. Several times recently, while doing Vet FPs with a healer, my health has gone down seriously - like down to 10% - and I've had to use a kolto to heal myself. I don't know why the healer has let someone get that low - maybe they are lagging, maybe they are overwhelmed, whatever - but I don't think I should just die to let them "practice" and I don't see why they should get so pissy about it.

 

well the point is, when people as, dps, stop dpsing to run to kolto for nothing, they dont kill the boss, and the healer is left ... dpsing. Which doesnt make sense lol.

 

And yeah, the reason healers can get pissy, as an healer you do ok-ish dps but your whole kit is oriented around healing, so if you cant heal you are kindof useless lol. Kolto spamming isnt really fun for healers, its made to *remplace* them in case of a group without one. Its almost insulting at times, like the group dont have confidence you can actually heal them.

 

But yeah, again, I understand the compulsion to click it , and I think its mostly an habit most people have and they dont even think about it much.

 

About practicing ...

Lets be honest, leveling as an healer sucks. Unless you feel like healing your comp in dps spec (its as boring as it sounds), the interesting part comes when you can actually heal in group content.

 

Vet fps is for most of the healers their first experience in group healing in swtor, and if not, the way they can learn how to better play their classes, abilities, see the efficiency of their set bonuses, stats, etc. As a dps would like to test their gear and rotations, or the tank want to know how much aggro he can hold, how much damage he can take. Letting the healers "practice" like you said, to a reasonable point, will make better healers in the end than not ..

 

ok //rant finished

Edited November 18, 2019 by jambalayabungee

Everywhere else, I can usually see what I'm doing, which means I can usually keep the group healed as long as they don't do anything really spectacularly silly, which means "Please trust me. In the event that I can't keep up and a kolto station is needed, let me be the one to click it"

^ this

"Please trust me. In the event that I can't keep up and a kolto station is needed, let me be the one to click it"

The problem is that Kolto stations give the biggest and quickest health boost to the player that clicks them and the rest of the group gets less healing over a longer time. Many times I've died because someone else used the Kolto and I didn't get enough health quickly enough to survive the next hit..

It's always best if the person who needs the Kolto is the one that uses it.

That's part of the thing of wanting the group to trust me. I much prefer it when they focus on the enemy and let me focus on keeping them alive. While I know that if I hit the kolto station, I get the most, the heal-over-time on the rest of the team combined with what I'm putting out is usually enough to save everyone.

But as I said, most boss fights I can stay ahead of things and no-one should need a kolto station anyway... but people still go for them even when they don't need them. Not a lot we can do about that while PUGing.