I tried to create a ticket for this in game last night, but both times I tried it said there was a problem submitting the ticket, so I'll post it here.

 

Our group, who has finished HM EV and KP several times, had two major glitches with Soa last night. The first was at the end of the second stage, Soa would lift someone up in the air and throw them (happened randomly from 36% to 31% before he popped his shield). Everytime this happened the person who was thrown would land on the platform and before they could get around the outside to the west the floor would drop out. This by itself wasn't a huge problem as we should have been able to rez said player at the bottom, though this issue itself was supposedly fixed already.

 

The second Issue was that we could not rez anyone who had died on previous stages once they fell to the bottom. We had 5-6 attempts on Soa, getting him below 10% everytime and the only reason we were dying is because combat rez was not usable on the player who fell through the floor. This was an incredibly frustrating way to end what was otherwise a stellar OP.

 

The third and smaller issue is that once mind trapped on the final stage (knowing you are going to wipe with 2-3 people in mind trap) you cannot exit area and have to wait 2 mins for the mind trap to kill you. This is frustrating, especially when the only reason you are failing is because of glitches and now you are forced to wait longer inbetween attempts.

Let's see...

 

#1 is a new addition (previously you didn't get dropped immediately at the transition so could die to this.) While you need to react quickly you CAN make it to safety in time, you just need to pick the right route and go as fast as possible - yelling for a Sage to grab you once you get within 30m if necessary. I made it as a Sawbones, so any class with sprints or leaps should be fine. So, this isn't a bug or anything - just a mechanic you have to be aware of and deal with.

 

#2 is sort of intentional I think, otherwise you'd be able to almost ignore the previous phases. The key point here, though, is that you don't need a full group to complete it. Not even close, I've had groups go for 60-120s past the time he enrages, just keeping the tank alive and then doing 40k damage each time the shield dropped (think we were down 2 DPS and the offtank due to people standing in silly places.) With SOA, as long as you can get 7 people (including Tank or Offtank and a Healer plus at least a second Sage if one of your healers died) safely into phase 3 you should be able to complete it as long as you are fast on the mind traps.

 

#3 is annoying. You can always /stuck or /leave to immediately get out of the Operation though.

I'll try to clarify:

 

We tried to rescue people, we ran as quickly as possible once landing on the platform. The first time it happened was within 1 sec of landing on the platform the floor dropped out, no rescue possible. If this is a 'mechanic' it is a lousy one as the chance of him throwing people in the air seems completely random. Other times we had 2-3 seconds but still not enough time to be rescued. We tried having our DPS stop attacking and waiting till everyone was in position and inevitably someone else would get thrown in the air. We've had several successful attempts where he was not throwing people nearly as often. One run he actually threw people at 42, 36 and 31%.

 

I don't feel that issue 2 is a designed mechanic. Till i hear from BW that they intentionally aren't letting you rez people who died on a previous stage in the same boss fight, you won't convince me otherwise. I'm pretty sure its something to do with the placement of death being tied to whether you can be targeted or not. BW has attempted to fix this by having your corpse now actually fall all the way to the real floor, instead of some alternate dimension where you were on the floor but could not see your team or the boss, shows that they are trying to resolve this and it's not intentional. Otherwise why would they change anything, so you can watch your team die because they are short a player??

 

Edit: Yes I know it's possible that you can take the boss with less then a full group, we've done it before with 4 people standing at the end, we had a few new DPSers so our damage was already lowered and not being able to bring the 8th person back up was most certainly the reason we were failing.

Edited May 7, 2012 by DarkhawkXY

We tried to rescue people, we ran as quickly as possible once landing on the platform. The first time it happened was within 1 sec of landing on the platform the floor dropped out, no rescue possible. If this is a 'mechanic' it is a lousy one as the chance of him throwing people in the air seems completely random. Other times we had 2-3 seconds but still not enough time to be rescued. We tried having our DPS stop attacking and waiting till everyone was in position and inevitably someone else would get thrown in the air. We've had several successful attempts where he was not throwing people nearly as often. One run he actually threw people at 42, 36 and 31%.[/Quote]

 

Well, what should happen is that when the transition starts (i.e., the announcement is made and his shield goes up) regardless of what stage through the air-twirl you are at you get dumped directly onto the platform (i.e., it no longer completes the whole bouncey-around.) There is quite a long time (5-10s?) between the transition starting and the floor in the middle falling away, and even longer before the floor around the edge vanishes too. You should be able to dash around the outside ring. If, however, you are being put down after the outer ring has already fallen then that would be a bug (one I haven't seen since 1.2.) Are you running around the edge rather than trying to go directly to West? With the changes there should be no need to hold back on the DPS, just make sure you run around the edge and that somebody is ready to snatch.

That indeed is what was happening, the air fling was being completed and we weren't being dropped till a few seconds after his shield went up. The mind trap part didn't seem to be any problem and he wasn't popping his shield till people were out of the trap and it seemed to give us time to run around. Before they added the platform we used to just hold DPS, which is why we tried that strategy again, but it didn't seem to be working. Everyone knew to run around the outside, and it was impossible all of the 5-6 tries even with 3 people who could rescue. That is what was so frustrating in conjunction with the 2nd issue of not being able to rez on the ground floor.

You don't necessarily have to go to the west edge to start the transition. There are two platforms you can survive falling to, and from either of them you go to the same second platform (where every group I have run with pauses for AOE heals). If your health is in good shape after being thrown, it's entirely possible to rejoin your group without dying.

You don't necessarily have to go to the west edge to start the transition. There are two platforms you can survive falling to, and from either of them you go to the same second platform (where every group I have run with pauses for AOE heals). If your health is in good shape after being thrown, it's entirely possible to rejoin your group without dying.

 

This. Our group was able to down Soa on a NMM run when the platforms were bugged by running to the east side. The initial fall is the hight of the second fall from the west side and the second fall on the east side is just as high as the first fall from the west, ergo, you're falling the same distance to get onto the third platform you'd get to from the west.

 

Just make sure you're person has more than 50% hp when he takes the first leap. He should be able to meet up with your group from there.

 

Concerning the rez, I think it IS almost a mechanic that you can't rez someone if they die before the 3rd phase. Killing Soa (especially in NMM) HAS to be a perfect run. Battle rez could be seen as a gift in any fight. You shouldn't rely on it to correct mistakes.