The shuttle thing is completely effective as long as the tank knows to save their aoe taunt for Explosive Fuel instead of panicking and blowing it at the first sign of pigmen.

If the tank knows what s/he's doing, adds will be picked as soon as they spawn with a quick AoE attack and then killed by the wookie's flames before another batch of adds spawn. No need to ever use AoE taunt for anything on that fight.

Basically, if the tank can deal with adds properly, the shuttle thing is irrelevant. If the tank cannot, then being on the shuttle makes it worse

If the tank knows what s/he's doing, adds will be picked as soon as they spawn with a quick AoE attack and then killed by the wookie's flames before another batch of adds spawn. No need to ever use AoE taunt for anything on that fight.

There is no argument that there are other effective ways to do the fight. I was merely pointing out that using the shuttle is one way to make it a very straightforward, uncomplicated, and fast encounter.

1. Burn boss.

2. Oh look, Explosive Fuel.

3. AoE taunt. (It's one keybind and not difficult or extreme.)

4. Loot and move on.

If you prefer to do it another way, that is fine, but the shuttle method is also valid and effective.

? WHAT ADDS? Are you talking about the little droids that spawn in the first boss fight? They are supposed to attack, it was a very long standing bug that they didnt. All you have to do is break off every other electricity phase, tap them twice and they die. Thats nothing....

 

Yea, but as a tank, those adds hit like a truck, and without really good Mdps, or ok Rdps, you arent gonna burn those adds down quickly enough, the first time i did that fight, it took 10 tries before i finally gave up on the fight, nowadays i can clear it perfectly fine.

 

Your idea of "a really good healer" is clearly different than mine. Have you ever done an operation? (Im just trying to imagine a guild advert: '<Gone Sithing> is now recruiting for Tactical and HMFP progression content. Apply today and come push the boundaries of SWToR!")

 

Yes, in fact ive done HM TFB, All ops in SM fasion, Attempted NiM EC < 2 Hours achivement, AND done HM S&V and, i'm a part of one of now 6 raid groups, some of which are trying NiM DF and DP progression, i am in the newest of our raid groups though, and have moved back to HM TFB and SM S&V for team coordination building.

 

As far as defending your exploiting as "tactics," just .. dont. Its too sad to be funny. Hell, most of the time these "tactics" you love so much just make the fight more difficult. If your tank has more than two neurons to rub together (which is a freaking hilarious joke from about 3 different angles), the wookie himself kills all the adds for you. Instead of trying to glitch the boss out because youre scared of a few ugnaughts, you could just do it the RIGHT way, and have an EASIER time.

 

Nine times out of 10, i actually am a tank with my dad and me, PT tank, and i DO know that the wookie's flamethrower attack kills the ugnaughts, the reason why i use the stratagey for that fight is because 9/10 the healer will take aggro on the Ugnaughts, and it makes it stupidly easy to group them up by kiting the boss to the police car, and have the heals stand on top.

 

Bold replies.

These replies concerning the competency of tanks for using the shuttle in Cam or having used the Cave in Athiss are hilari-bad. "If the tank knooows what he's dooooooing, then he'll just--"

Moooo. Who cares? It's a flashpoint. You can face tank them, or you can cheese it. Who cares? There are no brilliant insights* into endgame tanking to be gained from not cheesing the encounters. It generally comes down to if you think your team has good dps or poor. If it's poor, sure, make it easy on them (if you can.) If the dps is good, then just plow through it.

I notice in the hubbub to name tanks hot or not, no one says boo about wussy healers who hide behind trash cans and rails so that bosses with pulls won't interrupt their casting.

*Actually, now that I think about it, cheesing adds in FP's prepares you perfectly for operations. Most ops cheese the first trash pull in DP, the trash pull before the writhing horror in TFB, the adds before the first money boss in TFB, the adds before the puzzle boss in EV, and heck, anyone who does a stealth rez is technically using an exploit. it would appear that cheesing encounters is something that players are conditioned to do. But anyone who uses the shuttle in the Cam is a lazy punk who should be shot in the face. Principals, yo. Standards.

Moooo. Who cares? It's a flashpoint. You can face tank them, or you can cheese it. Who cares? There are no brilliant insights* into endgame tanking to be gained from not cheesing the encounters.

This cheesy mechanisms actually turn the encounters longer than they should. Requesting to use them induces you're not confident enough to deal with a more efficient mechanisms.

It's similar than CC a mob in a pack while you can just cluster for killing them by AOE. You can do it, it's safest, there is no reward for not doing it. But it's time waste and a display of lesser confidence.

The point of the cave/pond stratagey is to make the boss less difficult. those adds if not dealt with quickly can kill a group even with a really good healer (my dad can attest to that as his main is a Mercinary Healer, and he is nearly the top healer in my guild [Gone Sithing on The Harbinger]) So, the knowledge of being able to kite the boss previously isnt an exploit, it's a tactical advantage. If your fighting something, you want every single advantage you can get right? Cause, if you dont your kinda stupid. It's similar with the wookie fight in HM Cad, that's a tactical advantage, not an exploit...

Both strategies take longer to execute than tanking those bosses properly. Neither strategy is necessary even if your gear isn't great. I play all roles and I have no problems with those bosses on any character.

Faster fights = more credits and comms per hour = advantage (and more fun!)

Now would you rather be cheesy and use lame tactics or fast and making more credits?

There is no argument that there are other effective ways to do the fight. I was merely pointing out that using the shuttle is one way to make it a very straightforward, uncomplicated, and fast encounter.

 

1. Burn boss.

2. Oh look, Explosive Fuel.

3. AoE taunt. (It's one keybind and not difficult or extreme.)

4. Loot and move on.

 

If you prefer to do it another way, that is fine, but the shuttle method is also valid and effective.

*shrug*

In my experience, the shuttle thing has made the fight messier and longer everytime, specially if you have melee dps. If I'm not tanking it, I try to discourage it. Usually telling people not to run around the yard when adds stick to them, trying to outrun them, and keep hitting the boss is good enough to make it through

Nine times out of 10, i actually am a tank with my dad and me, PT tank, and i DO know that the wookie's flamethrower attack kills the ugnaughts, the reason why i use the stratagey for that fight is because 9/10 the healer will take aggro on the Ugnaughts, and it makes it stupidly easy to group them up by kiting the boss to the police car, and have the heals stand on top.

That just means you suck. I'm pretty mediocre tank but still have no problem grabbing the pigs before they decide to go for the healer.

I would actually prefer them to add more cheese-out mechanisms rather than take away, if only to piss off those highly obnoxious "If you are not playing the game like I do, you are playing it WRONG!!!!" types. It's not a job where precision and efficiency matters, it's a game, something that people can have fun with. And if someone thinks it's fun to have it easy by tricking the system, hey, more power to them.

If the "cheese-out" mechanics work out nicely, I'm all up for them, like all raid bunched up on Corruptor Zero hm to avoid mines.

But some kinda reminds me of the "shortcut" on S&V pugs like to take for example, going for the warlods boss, where to avoid that one trash pull people take the long way, which results in a waste of time, specially when someone falls off from those pipes on the sides. Taking out that trash mob, with some many knockbacks and pushes in a 16 man, can take literally seconds, only one has to be killed the usual way (stimfiend iirc).

Cave strategy was good only when you had tank who didn't know or couldn't(!?) tank back-against-the-wall or in the doorway, or if dps was lazy at killing adds before they head for the healer (lowbie).

But it was always faster to kill beast right at the doorway but of course it required dps to start unloading AoEs as soon as adds spawned.

Cave strategy was good only when you had tank who didn't know or couldn't(!?) tank back-against-the-wall or in the doorway, or if dps was lazy at killing adds before they head for the healer (lowbie).

 

But it was always faster to kill beast right at the doorway but of course it required dps to start unloading AoEs as soon as adds spawned.

Honestly, you don't even need the dps to AoE. All tanks have natural AoE damage in their rotation, can hold the dogs as soon as they spawn by simply doing one of their on demand AoE attacks and them proceed to slowly kill them their self. Sure, if dps drop an AoE or two it gets done faster, but it's a non-issue in terms of dealing with the adds given a tank who is breathing.

Honestly, you don't even need the dps to AoE. All tanks have natural AoE damage in their rotation, can hold the dogs as soon as they spawn by simply doing one of their on demand AoE attacks and them proceed to slowly kill them their self. Sure, if dps drop an AoE or two it gets done faster, but it's a non-issue in terms of dealing with the adds given a tank who is breathing.

Not so good approach with non overgeared tanks/healers. Try to kill those 4 dogs with the 156 set from Oricon and survive them and the boss while slowly doing it before another batch of dogs spawns, specially if the dps is strong and they are burning the boss down quickly

Tank picks the adds up so they don't go for anyone else, usually the healer, which keep the dogs near boss. It's the DPS' job to kill them. If they use AoE, they also dps the boss. Don't see a good enough reason to spare them of such thing.

Cheesing the beast takes LONGER than doing it the intended way. Why on earth would people want to make Athiss longer?

The only reason to do it is if the dps sucks.

To the original point of the changes not being needed: 'Needed' is a strong word. These weren't game-breaking bugs, but they were bugs nonetheless, so why not eventually fix them? It took BW long enough to get to it.

I - and many others I think - could do without the bs elitism in this thread however. These FPs are challenging enough to inexperienced and under-geared folks trying to run them via Group Finder. They're not challenging to you? Well, good for you! But yours isn't the only experience, so cut the bs. It doesn't add anything to the discussion.

Lastly, on topic of individual changes themselves. I don't have much to say about Athiss. It's always been a matter of positioning. The sooner you learn that it matters, the better I guess. Regarding Labs however, I'm happy. As a healer, trying to 'cheese' the encounter as you say, taking care not to hit the adds, usually resulted in some numbskull doing the opposite. As a result the add would start on me, the healer. They tend to hit me for 6 - 7k a pop for some considerable damage in the long run. Without the cheesy mechanic, the situation is that much clearer - everyone has to mind the adds and thus the healer is that much safer.

Well it started in 2.0 this fight could be pretty brutal to people in 61's. So it was useful until everyone got super over geared then it became pointless, than it bled over into sm for some reason. Point no reason to get fussy when devs fix a exploit.

Ps, yes I know are Uber leet, and solo'd hm the first day of 2.0 naked, but it was rough on some of us.

I - and many others I think - could do without the bs elitism in this thread however. These FPs are challenging enough to inexperienced and under-geared folks trying to run them via Group Finder. They're not challenging to you? Well, good for you! But yours isn't the only experience, so cut the bs. It doesn't add anything to the discussion.

Agreed! Most of the replies in this thread are an almost perfect example of why many people don't like to group up and instead rely on so-called "exploits". Why? Because otherwise it requires grouping up with people like you see here. My view is that alternative mechanisms should be encouraged, not discouraged. It potentially gets more people playing -- and enjoying -- the content. That, ultimately, should be what Bioware wants.

Agreed! Most of the replies in this thread are an almost perfect example of why many people don't like to group up and instead rely on so-called "exploits". Why? Because otherwise it requires grouping up with people like you see here. My view is that alternative mechanisms should be encouraged, not discouraged. It potentially gets more people playing -- and enjoying -- the content. That, ultimately, should be what Bioware wants.

The only reason to do it is if the dps sucks.

Re: ZachNyman, I have to agree with Sanctified. The DPS would have to be tanks/healers that qued as dps or wearing level 40 gear for cheesing the beast to make sense (not calling out other tricks, just that the beast is better to tank and spank).

The only reason to do it is if the dps sucks.

You can kill the adds as a tank. Don't even need the dps to switch. Half the time they don't because they have tunnel vision.

You can kill the adds as a tank. Don't even need the dps to switch. Half the time they don't because they have tunnel vision.

I can kill the adds now. It was a bit of a chore before getting decently geared.

I can kill the adds now. It was a bit of a chore before getting decently geared.

So it takes a little longer for you to kill them.

Gone Sithing

Didn't think anyone in GS was afraid of a challenge