Enjoy

COMBAT LOG

After we 3-manned Toth & Zorn we had a few tries on Firebrand & Stormcaller but the damage of both their cleaves hitting everyone proved too much to heal. We are still trying to devise a strategy for that fight. Anyway we got a 4th (tank) and also killed those.

Also... why is it that Sentinels can't queue as tanks on LFG?

[uPDATE] Firebrand and Stormcaller 3 manned

Now THAT is super-impressive. You guys are definitely on top of the 3 man progression game… ;-) As you said, tanks are overrated.

For whatever reason, it never occurred to me to 3 man this boss without swapping. I knew that there was no agro dump (something which appeared to surprise you guys), but I had forgotten that Fearful is a largely-ignorable mechanic in story mode. It is somewhat amusing, btw, that having fewer people actually made certain parts of the fight *easier* on the healing (e.g. cleansing and the AoE circles).

I'm actually somewhat surprised that you couldn't 3 man the tanks. We 5 manned it the other day (not for the challenge really, but because one person really wanted to do SM EC and we couldn't be bothered to find more people), and the healing was a joke compared to T&Z. If the healer is dropping lightning between the tanks, the DPS could stand in front and only get hit by their respective cleaves. You'd definitely need a sentinel to "tank" Stormcaller though, since they'd have to jump over to Firebrand to kite the DD onto the other two. Maybe a Guardian would be better, so they could reset the jump CD and leap back immediately. Not sure.

Anyway, big congratulations!

Now THAT is super-impressive. You guys are definitely on top of the 3 man progression game… ;-) As you said, tanks are overrated.

 

For whatever reason, it never occurred to me to 3 man this boss without swapping. I knew that there was no agro dump (something which appeared to surprise you guys), but I had forgotten that Fearful is a largely-ignorable mechanic in story mode. It is somewhat amusing, btw, that having fewer people actually made certain parts of the fight *easier* on the healing (e.g. cleansing and the AoE circles).

 

I'm actually somewhat surprised that you couldn't 3 man the tanks. We 5 manned it the other day (not for the challenge really, but because one person really wanted to do SM EC and we couldn't be bothered to find more people), and the healing was a joke compared to T&Z. If the healer is dropping lightning between the tanks, the DPS could stand in front and only get hit by their respective cleaves. You'd definitely need a sentinel to "tank" Stormcaller though, since they'd have to jump over to Firebrand to kite the DD onto the other two. Maybe a Guardian would be better, so they could reset the jump CD and leap back immediately. Not sure.

 

Anyway, big congratulations!

We did 9 tries on the tanks after that we got 1 more person (1 tank) and it was so much easier. Going to try 3man it this week again probably, i think we need one dps with a taunt though.

Now THAT is super-impressive. You guys are definitely on top of the 3 man progression game… ;-) As you said, tanks are overrated.

 

For whatever reason, it never occurred to me to 3 man this boss without swapping. I knew that there was no agro dump (something which appeared to surprise you guys), but I had forgotten that Fearful is a largely-ignorable mechanic in story mode. It is somewhat amusing, btw, that having fewer people actually made certain parts of the fight *easier* on the healing (e.g. cleansing and the AoE circles).

 

I'm actually somewhat surprised that you couldn't 3 man the tanks. We 5 manned it the other day (not for the challenge really, but because one person really wanted to do SM EC and we couldn't be bothered to find more people), and the healing was a joke compared to T&Z. If the healer is dropping lightning between the tanks, the DPS could stand in front and only get hit by their respective cleaves. You'd definitely need a sentinel to "tank" Stormcaller though, since they'd have to jump over to Firebrand to kite the DD onto the other two. Maybe a Guardian would be better, so they could reset the jump CD and leap back immediately. Not sure.

 

Anyway, big congratulations!

Well, I can see a main problem with Firebrand : incinerate armor. Even if in SM a tank can easily take it without problem, the healer will have some issue on keeping both DPS alive.

Well, I can see a main problem with Firebrand : incinerate armor. Even if in SM a tank can easily take it without problem, the healer will have some issue on keeping both DPS alive.

Force Camo right before the cast so that the healer gets the incinerate armor should be manageable, healer might have to combat stealth once or twice just in between to insure that the FB sent is able to get the aggro back. Might want the Combat Sent on FB as opposed to the Watchmen.

Now THAT is super-impressive. You guys are definitely on top of the 3 man progression game… ;-) As you said, tanks are overrated.

 

For whatever reason, it never occurred to me to 3 man this boss without swapping. I knew that there was no agro dump (something which appeared to surprise you guys), but I had forgotten that Fearful is a largely-ignorable mechanic in story mode. It is somewhat amusing, btw, that having fewer people actually made certain parts of the fight *easier* on the healing (e.g. cleansing and the AoE circles).

 

I'm actually somewhat surprised that you couldn't 3 man the tanks. We 5 manned it the other day (not for the challenge really, but because one person really wanted to do SM EC and we couldn't be bothered to find more people), and the healing was a joke compared to T&Z. If the healer is dropping lightning between the tanks, the DPS could stand in front and only get hit by their respective cleaves. You'd definitely need a sentinel to "tank" Stormcaller though, since they'd have to jump over to Firebrand to kite the DD onto the other two. Maybe a Guardian would be better, so they could reset the jump CD and leap back immediately. Not sure.

 

Anyway, big congratulations!

Neither incinerate armor nor double destruction actually leaves a debuff in SM, so you can actually just stand there and take it.

Really nice job guys!

Neither incinerate armor nor double destruction actually leaves a debuff in SM, so you can actually just stand there and take it.

You're right, they did remove the debuffs when they nerfed the boss. Man alive, so many mechanics gone… Standing and taking the DD seems like exactly the right answer. Incinerate is trivial even in hard mode with a decently geared healer and tank, so I was planning on just eating it anyway.

The real problem in this fight is that there are too many mechanics to be handled by 3 people. So what we were trying to do was ignore as many of them as possible.

On our first couple of tries we had Gosia on Firestorm, Kamii on Stormcaller, and Ny'sha on the ground. The problem with this approach starts on the first shields phase:

• I have the aggro from Stormcaller meaning I must kite the Electrical Disturbances.
  
• Gosia has to go under the shield on Firestorm's side to kill the three Trandoshan Shooters.
  
• Ny'sha has to go under the shield on Stormcaller's side and somehow manage to heal everyone and kill the two adds there.
  

Even if we survive this we will all be very low on health and it's very hard to recover.

We decided to switch our tactic in an attempt to completely ignore the Trandoshan Shooters on Firestorm's side. Gosia and I both started on Stormcaller and did everything as usual, including killing the Trandoshan Shooters under that side's shield until we got Stormcaller under 20%. This meant we didn't have to deal with any more shield phases. This approach however resulted in some issues aswell.

• Ny'sha has the aggro from Firebrand while Gosia and I are on Stormcaller.
  
• After Gosia and I switch to Firebrand we are simultaneously getting cleaves from both tanks, which is more damage that can be healed through.
  
• There are 12 Trandoshan Shooters on Firebrand's side which we try to keep out of range but one false step means an almost instant death.
  

We have come up with some, hopefully better, tactics which we will try this week and will keep you updated on progress.

Thank you all

On our first couple of tries we had Gosia on Firestorm, Kamii on Stormcaller, and Ny'sha on the ground. The problem with this approach starts on the first shields phase:

• I have the aggro from Stormcaller meaning I must kite the Electrical Disturbances.
  
• Gosia has to go under the shield on Firestorm's side to kill the three Trandoshan Shooters.
  
• Ny'sha has to go under the shield on Stormcaller's side and somehow manage to heal everyone and kill the two adds there.
  

Even if we survive this we will all be very low on health and it's very hard to recover.

Our "three man progression group" has a slightly different composition, so we might have a bit more luck with this strategy. Specifically, we're running a Focus Sentinel, Gunnery Commando and Combat Medic Commando. This is advantageous for this strategy in two ways: the gunnery commando can heal himself after nuking the adds, which he can do more easily due to superior AoE, and the commando healer is able to quickly AoE down the adds in ways that an operative would not (OS takes too long and too much energy).

My thought is that we put the commando DPS on firebrand, the focus sentinel on stormcaller (since armor doesn't matter there). Healer on the ground between the tanks, kiting back-to-front. Healer goes into the stormcaller shield and Mortar Volley + Pulse Cannon + Hammer Shot. The focus sentinel kites lightning. If absolutely necessary, they can pop Zen and insta-nuke the SC adds by quickly leaping into the shield immediately following a lightning drop, smashing and moving on again before the next one falls. I don't think that'll be necessary though. When we 5 manned this boss, I (on my commando healer) was able to take the SC adds down to about 30% before the DPS even made it to the shield, and that was without compromising my ammo management.

Two cleaves at once is definitely a non-starter. There's just no way you'd be able to heal through that much damage, so any working strategy would need to keep a person on each tank. One possibility would be to have the commando dps on stormcaller but *standing* on the ground, kiting lightning. This really only helps in that the healer can stand on a tank and concentrate on keeping people up, but I don't think that's much of an advantage (kiting isn't hard).