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Basic Napkin Math on HM Esseles final boss mechanics.


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So I tried (and failed) to do HM Esseles final boss on my Combat Medic.

 

There were two main problems we encountered:

 

1.) People dying to lightning, even when they were way far out of the purple circle. I think this is primarily a lag issue, I had one particularly silly time when it hit me even though I was running when it was cast and simply kept running. I have also heard that the server lags in updating your location until you stop moving, which may also explain this. Here's an SS, my body is in the center of the screen, obscured by the rez prompt. The purple circle in the pic is the one that killed me. http://s180.photobucket.com/albums/x154/ScrawnyPaleGuy90/?action=view&current=Vokk.jpg

 

2.) People getting two-shotted with a double saber throw. I can't shield and Bacta Infusion won't necessarily be up for every saber toss (it's listed as a 12s cooldown on Torhead), Bacta is 21s. Nor can I guarantee that, if Bacta is up, I won't be GCD locked the moment a Saber Toss happens, because there's no warning.

 

I decided to further explore this second issue with some napkin math.

 

Some things I'm going to assume:

1.) Non tanks will have less than 13k HP going into the fight. This seems reasonable given the gear in the instance, assuming you aren't going in overgeared or with PvP gear.

2.) This is low enough to be two shotted by two sabers to the face back-to-back without any sort of -damage buff or shield.

3.) He uses Saber Toss, on average, every 20s. Source:

. He uses it at first at 18s, and it hits the same target twice, and again at 38s. He survives due to Force Armor.

4.) His enrage timer is roughly 90s, same video as the source.

 

So, how often will the same target get hit twice?

 

Well, that part is quite simple. The chance of him hitting any party member twice in a row is 6.25% (1/4 * 1/4). That may seem reasonable, but we have to consider the fact that he will throw more than once, in fact he will throw about 4 times before enrage.

 

The chance of not double throwing on any given encounter is the inverse, 93.75%, or .9375 to the fourth power. It comes out to be 77%. So there's a roughly 23% chance, which is over 1 in 5, that he'll double saber toss someone in any given pull. But don't fret, 25% of the time, it'll be your tank getting double tossed. Given the bosses generally low damage to the tank, this usually isn't a problem. All said and done, the chance of him double saber tossing a non-tank on any fight is ~17.25%.

 

I find this to be rather poorly designed. Force Armor (and its mirror) is inappropriately powerful against this scenario. You can't be GCD'd out of it because you can pre-cast it on the DPS/yourself, and the Force Imbalance is less than the average time between throws.

 

I also just feel like a ~17.25% chance of someone being essentially instagibbed in a 4-man fight is kind of cheese. In a 16 man, this wouldn't be an issue. I'd be much, much rarer; and 1 death out of 16 isn't nearly as big as 1 out of 4.

Edited by Soshla
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Double saber throw is ridiculously cheap, and I'm sure they will fix it to where it can't hit the same target twice. You have to get lucky b/c his enrage is so unforgiving that if you lose a dps you can't win the fight.

 

As far as the lightning goes... The trick is to jump. After wiping 10+ times to the lightning even though we were clearly out of the AoE, we realized that if you jump and move forward at the same time the lightning will miss you 100% of the time. Just make sure as soon as the purple crosshair pops under you, stop what you're doing and get out of it.

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I have to agree with everyone here, HM Esseles is very tricky, not only the final boss though. Ironfist with his headshot can give nightmares. The problem with this instance is the spike damage, you can be at 100% and 2 sec later you are at 5%, giving the healer a hell of a time.

 

Taral V is so easy when you compare it is not even funny, 0 wipes on Taral V, around 20 on Esseles. When you try 20 times a FP and sometimes you get the boss to 10% or other at 90% you realize something is utterly wrong with the FP. The spike damage is just too great in Esseles to be a fun encounter.

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Whenever I see a thread about Vokk, my first question is always "How the hell did you get to him? IronFist is 102971247 times harder"

 

Forgetting the IronFist part: A tank with stim, a medpack for emergency, relic clickies, etc, can (almost!) tank Vokk without a healer, even after he enrages. The only thing in the fights that hurt are the purple lightning and the lightsaber throw. The rest is weaker than the trash that leads to the fight.

 

So assuming a 18 seconds throw, and that no one gets hit by the lightning (there's so much lead time to it, you never should get hit by it), and that everyone but the tank will die except the tank instantly at enrage (not gonna happen, but lets say...), you'll have to help someone recover from damage 5 times in the entire fight with the occasional heal on the tank. Less if they have blue medpacks with them.

 

Once you look at it that way, its a fairly trivial fight really. Last time I did it, healer messed up and died right off the bat, and we were able to take Vokk down to 15%~ or so, without a healer at all. If you want some perspective, pay for your party's repair bill and ask them to do Vokk without you. 3 people only, and see how far they go. Its rather educational.

 

Ironfist is another story. Harder than pretty much any other hardmode flashpoint by a factor...that guy really stands out as a "what the hell?"

Edited by PhoenixMatrix
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Could be bugged. First time I tried him, he wiped us by one shotting DPS/healer with Saber Throw. Second time, it wasn't doing much damage at all.

I've noticed that sometimes he throws the Saber, but no damage is registered. I'm not sure if this might be a LoS issue or just some wacky coding bug.

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I have tanked this a few times now and I've noticed when I have to move out of the purple I have to move literally 1 step away from the edge of the purple and I'm fine. I've been hit by it once. The only repeat offender complain I have is from Jedi Knights who use Master Strike. If they are mid-animation and the purple circle comes up they swear up and down the animation causes them to be immobile temporarily even if they're hard pressing their mouse keys down to move. Another thing is I find healers seem to prioritize finishing a long cast heal over moving thinking they can just live through it and heal up immediately after. This just causes problems. Unless you have a sucky tank they're not going down quick in this fight. There are many times when the boss just is doing nothing and our health will barely move. This is so much the case there have a been a couple times where he enraged and I was able to finish him off because it took him another 5 secs to get around to giving me the beatdown.
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So assuming a 18 seconds throw, and that no one gets hit by the lightning (there's so much lead time to it, you never should get hit by it), and that everyone but the tank will die except the tank instantly at enrage (not gonna happen, but lets say...), you'll have to help someone recover from damage 5 times in the entire fight with the occasional heal on the tank. Less if they have blue medpacks with them.

Apparently there are issues with the server updating location. I posted a screenshot where I've died from lightning which I was way out of range of. Apparently jumping fixes this updating issue. Never would've gotten to that on my own, I've done progression WoW raiding, and I'm not sure I'll ever unlearn the desire to move the least amount possible while avoiding mechanics.

 

Also, you're off. As I mentioned in OP, there will be 4 Double Saber tosses in the fight. 17.25% of the chance, this will hit a DPS/Healer twice and 2-shot them if they're GC locked and can't medpack/heal.

Edited by Soshla
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Just to clarify you can dodge the lightsaber throw. I've gotten lucky on a double throw and dodged one of them. I've also seen the tank take 0 damage on a double throw so he is obviously avoiding it.

 

And yeah Ironfist is a pain in the hindquarters. The fight is nearly impossible to pug just because of the amount of teamwork needed in the interrupts. A guardian is super handy in the fight b/c of their 6 second cd interrupt. Just don't bring too many commandos or you're screwed since they have no dedicated interrupt skill. I do guild runs 99% of the time on hardmodes and with vent the fight is pretty simple. The knockdown he does periodically can screw up my heals, but other than that it's not a big problem.

 

My suggestion is do Taral V or Maelstrom Prison for your dailies. The cyborg guy with the lazer shot in Maelstrom is the most fun I've ever had in a hardmode. First time we downed the instance he was enraged for over 2 minutes with us LoS'ing him around the boxes sneaking in shots when we could. Made my hands sweat a little and that's a good thing.

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