It can be (at times) difficult to problem solve with the same DPS. Sometimes you think a mechanic happens at X% but it could simply be that DPS does not change, giving you the erroneous idea that it's either i) bugged or ii) that it's a mechanic that always occur at X health levels.

 

From reading on the forums, some people report this "mechanic" occurring anywhere from 20 - 25%. I saw it in one run at about 18-19%. These varied numbers lead me to believe that it's an enrage.

 

IFF the reports all agreed on X% when it occurred, you can reason that it was a mechanic that always occurs. But because this is not the case, I'd lodge my bets on it being a soft enrage.

The reason it made myself think it was an enrage, is becouse it's impossible to get past it. Unless you have the best gear available in the game, but even then it would be near impossible.

the room has areas in it that you can run to to los pull him.

Tried that once. There were about 4 spots to los him but once those have bubbles...every roughly 48 seconds into the fight...where do you go?

You mean WoW (and SWTOR, and Rift, and...and...and...) proved that having all classes bundled in "role" categories is a bad idea, because then you have to balance them heavily against each other.

 

Classes should fill different roles altogether. Pure tank, Tank damage dealers, Pure healer, Pure support/buffer (that wouldnt work well with the 4 man mechanic though), Crowd Control and utility, ranged damage, melee damage, and all the hybrids.

 

Then you still have the issue of balancing so that all roles are useful, but it sure as hell better than making all damage dealers do the same amount of damage and the only difference being in what order you push the buttons...

Classes must be balanced against the role they perform. In the case of TOR, that is: tank, healer, DPS.

Whether it is melee or ranged DPS doesn't make a dreadful difference - especially for flashpoints - nor should it.

There is no crowd control / debuffer role in TOR, so any discussion regarding them is moot.

The point is, if an encounter is rendered easier because Tank01 has abilities that Tank03 does not have - then the playerbase will gravitate toward preference to Tank01. Likewise, if there is some nasty debuff that must be removed and Healer02 cannot remove that type, then the playerbase will gravitate toward Healer01. To finish the point off - and as Paladins in WoW prove pre-Cataclysm, encounters designed around everyone interrupting nasty cast abilities lead to players gravitating toward choosing classes that have interrupt abilities.

You can never have too many interrupt abilities available. DPS having an interrupt help if a mistake is made and the tank fat-fingers their interrupt early.

Someone would have to be stupid to not take a Sage that can kite/slow/interrupt/lifegrip over a Commando that cannot. This is why classes must be relatively equal across the board - it's okay for them to do things differently as long as they can accomplish the same end goal. Right now, all Commandos bring to the DPS role is DPS and now, in 1.2, a battlerez.

I'll be honest, if there was a Sage wearing Rakata in LFG along with me, I'd tell the group to take the Sage, even though our gear was equal - they are much more versatile to the group overall if things get rough.

Classes must be balanced against the role they perform. In the case of TOR, that is: tank, healer, DPS.

My point was that there should only be 1 class per role, unless the 2 classes are different enough that they fulfill the role so differently that you cannot compare them. So where SWTOR went wrong isn't that the classes aren't balanced. They can't be unless they're all the same with a different rotation. The problem is that they only have 3 roles and that is freagin dumb.

The closest 2 classes should ever be to filling up a role is stuff like in D&D Wizard vs Sorcerers, where the two are the same roles, but have totally different advantages and drawback to the point they're hard to compare, its all situational (and even there in an MMO where everyone should be able to do everything, its problematic).

Guild Wars 2 goes the other way to tackle that problem, by making everyone be able to do all roles instead, and went to crazy length to make the stylistic difference more than just the order in which you push the buttons.. That may end up better, or much worse...we'll see.

Those are just a few examples though. There's a LOT of games where classes are too different to compare, and the concept of having stuff fall in specific roles makes no sense. WoW really popularized those "role buckets", and the MMO industry suffered for it.

My point was that there should only be 1 class per role, unless the 2 classes are different enough that they fulfill the role so differently that you cannot compare them. So where SWTOR went wrong isn't that the classes aren't balanced. They can't be unless they're all the same with a different rotation. The problem is that they only have 3 roles and that is freagin dumb.

 

The closest 2 classes should ever be to filling up a role is stuff like in D&D Wizard vs Sorcerers, where the two are the same roles, but have totally different advantages and drawback to the point they're hard to compare, its all situational (and even there in an MMO where everyone should be able to do everything, its problematic).

 

Guild Wars 2 goes the other way to tackle that problem, by making everyone be able to do all roles instead, and went to crazy length to make the stylistic difference more than just the order in which you push the buttons.. That may end up better, or much worse...we'll see.

 

Those are just a few examples though. There's a LOT of games where classes are too different to compare, and the concept of having stuff fall in specific roles makes no sense. WoW really popularized those "role buckets", and the MMO industry suffered for it.

I don't agree, but further discussion would just derail the thread even more.

so what is the optimal kite path?

i would think that you can los pull to corner with dps/heals behind boss, get ball growth on dps/heals, then go to the next corner, repeat, then go to other side of room...

but we gave up after 10 tries.

luckily repair costs are finally reasonable.

With a Gunslinger, I can interrupt the "Incinerate" skill by myself all the time. We wiped around 6-7 times with a PUG in our party and a very bad geared healer so.

It's a hard boss (the droid)? Yes. It's a hard flashpoint (compared to the others)? Yes. But its a hard mode. The rest of hard mode flashpoints should be like Lost Island in difficult terms, not the bad joke they are. I ding 50' and starting hard modes to get my Columi Gear last week (with my 4º 50 char) inmediatly without entering in a normal flashpoint. Now I'm full columi and 4 rakata pieces.

This game isn't difficult so please, be careful with the word "hard".

I think the loot dropped by the bosses should be upped a small notch (Columi drops seem underwhelming for content of this caliber)... but I honestly hope they do NOT nerf the difficulty. I'd suggest they up things a half-step and have sub bosses drop Exo loot at least, and end boss can remain Rakata. Dropping Columi *Commendations* would be more appropriate than Tionese crystals...

Even without lockouts, I'm not sure how many groups at this point of the content-cycle can truly "farm" this content, nor would desire to do so given the challenges. This is not content for the casual PUG.

That said, challenge is welcome in a business where everything seems to be handed to the loudest QQ these days.

There is one reviewer who said it perfectly... "This is more akin to a mini-operation (raid) for 4 players than a just another flashpoint (instance)..." Hit the nail on the head quite well with that description.

PS We beat all except the end boss before we had to quit for the night due to unforeseen circumstances. Our composition was:

Assassin Tank (me)

Sorc Healer

Merc DPS

Marauder DPS (switched to Merc DPS for LR-5 to avoid annoying melee bubbles)

Once I figured out the interrupt cycling, I was able to sole-interrupt the Incinerate and I could Force Shroud myself if I managed to end up with more than 1 stack of Incinerate somehow. We ignored Plasma Arc since the healer was pretty focused on healing and moving. By going to a 2nd ranged dps instead of melee, I never had to move the boss at ALL... just rotated him to keep the party out of the cone for Incinerate.

I kept trying LR-5 Sentinel for somewhat 3 hours. We had quite a good group, but on HM it's impossible.

 

I got full Columi with 4 Rakata items.

 

The setting we had was:

SI Assassin (tank)

SI Assassin (DPS)

SI Sorcerror (DPS)

BH Mercenary (Healer, which was me)

 

I can easily keep them alive, that's not the problem. We even figured out the tactics ourselves, but at 26% we keep dying. For some reason he gets a buff which tells us that he "Lost control over the machines". So the Lighting Bolts on the floor are being placed as big ones without a warning. The Lava from the floor goes on all Platforms. So pretty much, we aren't save on any spot.

We kited him very well, and I can Cure the tank as soon as he got a Incinerate DOT.

 

-The way we were kiting was as following:

The ranged stand on the middle platform, while the tank brings the boss to one of the side platforms (where the adds come from). When we get a Lighting Charge on our spot, we move to them, but we stay behind the boss. After a second Lightning Charge he moves the boss to the top or bottom platform. Again we repeat the same thing, when there are 2 charges, we move to the next platform. And when the middle one is free, the ranged stand on that one.

But when on 30% or so, we cant stand anywhere.

 

I'd give a vote to Downtune him a bit. Makes the damage from the Lava less, or the Lightning Charges not so big. I don't know.

Hahaha Thats the enrage timer saying hello there! :-D Happened to me once due to some low geared dps from GF. Its quite a life time experience when outta nowhere all hell breaks lose, isnt it? lol In fact I think they should have established a much tighter enrage timer, so DPs and tanks would be really pushed to their limits. Its way to easy as of now, since even some sorry ***** recruits can dps this boss down. Or maybe BW should install a nightmare mode for fps, that would be awesome.

I love a good necro in the morning. Mods, please close this thread.

On a side note: LI is fine once you clear it and know the strats. Its a PITA until then.

Full columi + some rakata dailies stuff.

And first boss got me on 3/4 hits.

Healer cant keep up to heal me through. (healer was bit undergeared but, enough to heal all 1.1 fps)

 

I dont mind to make fp bit harder comparing to 1.1.

But myabe someone from BW slipped on the floor and hit some random buttons?

first boss does hit a bit hard, but then only the tank takes damage. If the healer cant deal with that kind of damage he´s undergeared or the tank is undergeared or both. That is if you consider the first boss to be that big bosslv trash that drops a crap item before the droid boss.

Droid boss, the one most people consider beeing the first is all about learning the mechanics. He´s not too hard if you know how to kite. Dont listen to people saying only to do it with ranged dps. It´s not that much harder when all are grouped up. just make sure melee dps stay away from tank. Incinerate will spread to all that stands close to incinerate target(tank hopefully) and it will hurt. If dps help with interupting incinerate it shouldn´t be a problem.

the Droid is overtuned. I can easily run HM EV and HM KP and this boss is way too powerful for people in Columi/Rakata on my server server (Gav Daragon)

This fight has already been nerfed and it was very easy beforehand once you knew the mechanics. Took a while to learn because a lot happens on screen but its pretty easy once you get the strat down. You can also used the all ranged strat with a melee DPS now as long as they are on the ball and move once the circle appears.

Cleared it on my Guardian tank in full (optimized) Columi pre nerf. Cleared it on my Assassin tank in a mix of Tionese and Columi about 2 weeks before 1.4 hit. I regularly take guildies through on my Guardian who have never done it and 1 shot the fight. It's about mechanics, not gear.

This fight has already been nerfed and it was very easy beforehand once you knew the mechanics. Took a while to learn because a lot happens on screen but its pretty easy once you get the strat down. You can also used the all ranged strat with a melee DPS now as long as they are on the ball and move once the circle appears.

 

Cleared it on my Guardian tank in full (optimized) Columi pre nerf. Cleared it on my Assassin tank in a mix of Tionese and Columi about 2 weeks before 1.4 hit. I regularly take guildies through on my Guardian who have never done it and 1 shot the fight. It's about mechanics, not gear.

we followed are very particular strat that worked the first time with other players, but our server has been pretty buggy with Ops and FPs, Soa wont stop bugging out. I believe its more the server that's the problem.

This fight has already been nerfed and it was very easy beforehand once you knew the mechanics. Took a while to learn because a lot happens on screen but its pretty easy once you get the strat down. You can also used the all ranged strat with a melee DPS now as long as they are on the ball and move once the circle appears.

 

Cleared it on my Guardian tank in full (optimized) Columi pre nerf. Cleared it on my Assassin tank in a mix of Tionese and Columi about 2 weeks before 1.4 hit. I regularly take guildies through on my Guardian who have never done it and 1 shot the fight. It's about mechanics, not gear.

Stop the high mighty attitude of "lol it's so easy". It is not a easy boss and it is not meant to be an easy boss. It may seem easy to you right now because you overgear it and got well accustomed to its mechanics. That just means you are experienced in it it does not mean boss is easy.

Stop the high mighty attitude of "lol it's so easy". It is not a easy boss and it is not meant to be an easy boss. It may seem easy to you right now because you overgear it and got well accustomed to its mechanics. That just means you are experienced in it it does not mean boss is easy.

You're right. It isn't easy. But I think the important message to take away is that HM LI has a greater emphasis on strategy, and knowing one's own class superbly, than did other HM FPs.

Why should a group be forced to take certain classes?

 

We tried to do this with two melee and a Jug tank and couldn't get any better than 50% on the first boss. The fight has way too much going on for a melee group to be able to complete it on HM. We wiped for hours and ended up going into the red for durability twice before just giving up.

 

(Everyone was in almost full Rakata)

It's very doable with all melee DPS, you just have to change up your strategies. Me and my guild have run it regularly with 2 melee DPS.

Though with that said, the mechanics are quite unfair against melee. The amount of extra work just for having a single melee DPS is stupid, compared to the ranged DPS. When we do it with 2 ranged the healers are happy and stress free, not much damage goes out, but the second we bring an melee, damage from aoes goes all over the place.

It's very doable with all melee DPS, you just have to change up your strategies. Me and my guild have run it regularly with 2 melee DPS.

 

Though with that said, the mechanics are quite unfair against melee. The amount of extra work just for having a single melee DPS is stupid, compared to the ranged DPS. When we do it with 2 ranged the healers are happy and stress free, not much damage goes out, but the second we bring an melee, damage from aoes goes all over the place.

I heal LI, regularly. My main group is full melee, and sometimes ranged.

I have no problems with the melee. They help interrupt the droid, stand behind him when attacking, and can take advantage of a salvation on the tank. If your having troubles with a melee group, they're doing something wrong

I've even taken a guardian dps and a shadow dps who had never passed LR5 through LI. I explained the strats and told them where to stand and we all one or two shotted everything

Lost Island is a joke now, and this makes me sad. The annihilation droid used to be a fun little challenge. I can now tank it on my marauder. Seriously.

There are people 2-manning the entire FP now.

This is the worst change they have made to the game that I have seen.

I dont like the nerf, but i can understand why it had to be done. Too many times melee got kicked from Lost island groups because the droid boss was "impossible for melee" Something had to be done.

I would have preffered making it so that tank would have to kite no matter the group composition. E.x give the bupple cast a max range, if no dps/ranged is within 5 meter it will drop on the tank.