Alright, so after several runs of every level 55 Hard Mode and bonuses I've noticed this boss tends to be the hardest of the bunch. On my vanguard tank tanking it isn't too terrible unless there's an enrage timer hit. I've watched a guardian in DPS gear almost manage to tank the entirety of the fight... But when I try to tank this fight on my shadow it's almost a sure bet I'll die to that boss. This doesn't exactly make sense to me given my shadow is almost entirely in 66/69s. My vanguard conversely is barely in 61s with a few 63s added in.

Things to note.

The stun apparently can be dodged by remaining 27m(?) away from the boss.

Stun-Breaks/Stun Resists seem to prevent the bonus damage from the boss.

I have yet to see two M-DPS without a stun resist complete this fight.

So does this boss need a re-balance? it it just the bane of shadows? Or is there some gimmick people have figured out to make it easy yet? (beyond the obvious troll responses)

It's probably one of the easiest bonus bosses, however I'd say it puts more of a strain on the healer rather than the tank providing the tank knows when to pop their cooldowns. It's the healers job to top everyone up before he slams everyone again, if they are not fast enough with healing then someone's going to drop even if you happen to have the best geared tank.

The hardest bonus boss I'd say is the one in cademimu as all it takes is one person not fast enough to move to wipe the group.

Can't speak from a tanking perspective, but as a healer I've done the fight a few times and I found it no harder with the 2 Sin tanks I grouped with than I did with the Jugg tanks.

I'd fail to see any point in making it easier.

Can't speak from a tanking perspective, but as a healer I've done the fight a few times and I found it no harder with the 2 Sin tanks I grouped with than I did with the Jugg tanks.

 

I'd fail to see any point in making it easier.

Sin tanks are the best choice at this boss! force shroud will do the trick more than one time and they have enough other CDs as a filler.

Ranged dps don't get any damage at all.

It's just a dps-race

Sounds like I'm just having bad luck with healers being able to keep up with the damage going out then. I'm guessing I shouldn't be needing to decide between my life and a def CD outside the stun/smash combo? Since that seemed to be the case on the vanguard at least. Likewise Hold the Line on the vanguard does the same as Resilience/Force shroud in removing the stun debuff and by extension the damage and it's only a 30 sec cool-down compared to my shadow's 60 sec, not to mention it not being intended as a damage mitigation ability as far as I know.

Yes Ranged-DPS have the easiest time with this fight and put the least strain on healers. They don't take damage from the stun and they don't loose damage time to the stun... so yes this fight is easy for them since there's nothing to bother them from getting perfect rotations off. Two M-DPS are going to lose a large amount of damage time during the fight, and those who don't gather up for AoE healing on the other hand are going to be torn apart repeatedly thus requiring a lot more work from the healer.

That boss is hard to heal because you need to be closer then 25m to the boss to be able to heal the tank.

One thing I noticed that helps me with healing is that just before the aoe stun there is a debuff on the tank, looks like a fist hitting the ground, you have a second or so to run away and get out of 25m range of the aoe stun. You can run back even before the aoe stan damage is finished and continue healing the tank.

This boss is probably the easiest with a shadow tank. It does most of its damage after it channels rampage. Resilience, after right rampage's channel, essentially protect you from most of the boss' damage. This way it gives you healer time to respond after stun etc and have energy to heal the rest of the group from the aoe.

Rotate battle readiness with resilience after each rampage channel and this boss is a walk in the park. The only time I died with this boss on my shadow was due to enrage.

Alright, so after several runs of every level 55 Hard Mode and bonuses I've noticed this boss tends to be the hardest of the bunch. On my vanguard tank tanking it isn't too terrible unless there's an enrage timer hit. I've watched a guardian in DPS gear almost manage to tank the entirety of the fight... But when I try to tank this fight on my shadow it's almost a sure bet I'll die to that boss. This doesn't exactly make sense to me given my shadow is almost entirely in 66/69s. My vanguard conversely is barely in 61s with a few 63s added in.

 

Things to note.

The stun apparently can be dodged by remaining 27m(?) away from the boss.

Stun-Breaks/Stun Resists seem to prevent the bonus damage from the boss.

I have yet to see two M-DPS without a stun resist complete this fight.

 

So does this boss need a re-balance? it it just the bane of shadows? Or is there some gimmick people have figured out to make it easy yet? (beyond the obvious troll responses)

Done it on the first day we reached level 55, 2 sentinels. Only full level 63 gear. Much easier as 2 gs thought, can totally avoid the stun.

That boss is hard to heal because you need to be closer then 25m to the boss to be able to heal the tank.

So I discovered. Before pulling, I had the tank indicate where he would be standing and then moved to the extreme range of my healing, in theory 30m, but this is still apparently within range of the boss stun - I guess because it's being tanked against the wall so the boss is actually a little closer than the tank.

One thing I noticed that helps me with healing is that just before the aoe stun there is a debuff on the tank, looks like a fist hitting the ground, you have a second or so to run away and get out of 25m range of the aoe stun. You can run back even before the aoe stan damage is finished and continue healing the tank.

Now that sounds like it could make the difference, I've found that the constant interruptions in healing gradually take their toll and grind the party down - so thanks for the advice.

It's too hard to heal everyone if they are spread out and the tank is getting wrecked, if you're going to take the damage anyways, be smart about it.

What my healers have found is that it's easier to just have the melee, the healer and sometimes the ranged (except snipers since they can dps over 30m) stacked next to the tank. The smash isn't enough to kill you if you're topped off, once he smashes healer just drops AoE heals to get everyone back up and keeps focusing on tank. By next smash everyone is back up to full health and can take damage from the smash no problem.

So Ill tell you guys how I (we) do it. Ive successfully healed it with a juggernaut, assassin and pyrotech so it really had nothing to do with the tank type, it had more to do with the dps.

The strategy we use is for everyone to have their backs against the wall that is directly facing the boss. Everyone clusters in range of my aoe heal. At that point it just basically comes down to me healing everyone. Its not the most glamorous strategy, but the boss doesnt have any sort of cleave or aoe, so getting everyone in the healing pool makes life so much easier. It was (I tried it one time) significantly more difficult to heal when everyone was spread out. I have also not found a range where I could not be stunned, I just make sure that I use my CC breaks. I generally do it on the 3 and 4 stomp, because the 1st and 2nd my force and everything is still usually fine.

The only thing is that the dps must beat enrage timer. The enraged smashes are likely to wipe the party, so dps must beat that. Its actually the same for all bonus bosses. Your healer should be able to heal through until enrage, so its actually more of a dps check.

So does this boss need a re-balance?

No, it's fine.

It's a challenge, but it's totally doable.

The boss hits hard, but as long as you have a capable healer, and everyone uses CD's wisely it's a pretty smooth fight.

So Ill tell you guys how I (we) do it. Ive successfully healed it with a juggernaut, assassin and pyrotech so it really had nothing to do with the tank type, it had more to do with the dps.

 

The strategy we use is for everyone to have their backs against the wall that is directly facing the boss. Everyone clusters in range of my aoe heal. At that point it just basically comes down to me healing everyone. Its not the most glamorous strategy, but the boss doesnt have any sort of cleave or aoe, so getting everyone in the healing pool makes life so much easier. It was (I tried it one time) significantly more difficult to heal when everyone was spread out. I have also not found a range where I could not be stunned, I just make sure that I use my CC breaks. I generally do it on the 3 and 4 stomp, because the 1st and 2nd my force and everything is still usually fine.

 

The only thing is that the dps must beat enrage timer. The enraged smashes are likely to wipe the party, so dps must beat that. Its actually the same for all bonus bosses. Your healer should be able to heal through until enrage, so its actually more of a dps check.

^

I agree with his strat. I am an operative healer, and it was a REAL pain with people spread out. Once we noticed stacking like he said with our backs to the wall. The boss was just a cake walk and we down him now with ease everytime. Just a touch more work for me, but its pretty simple to heal with everyone stacked on one another. Give that a try and I bet you beat him with ease if your dps is there and the healer can heal.

You can Force Shroud every other rampage which greatly reduces his spike damage, and presumably your healer better be able to keep up when he's not rampaging.

I find that his damage is just there to distract you from the enrage timer. It's rare to actually lose because you can't outheal his damage until enrage.

TBH I found this boss to just be boring when I tanked it on my Guardian. I'm honestly kinda surprised people are having trouble with it, as a matter of fact all the Bonus bosses are painfully boring aside from Cade.

Hammer - Stand against a wall and whittle him down.

Athiss - Stand against a wall and whittle him down.

Cade - Stand in the open and run out of the AoE.

Mando Raiders - Stand against the wall and taunt him when he leaps away.

If DPS or Healers stand (or stay) in the stupid they can get pretty hectic but they aren't hard if you avoid that. I'd like to see more mechanics added to the bonus bosses other than knockbacks (which isn't a mechanic... seriously..) or threat drops.

 

If DPS or Healers stand (or stay) in the stupid they can get pretty hectic but they aren't hard if you avoid that. I'd like to see more mechanics added to the bonus bosses other than knockbacks (which isn't a mechanic... seriously..) or threat drops.

I remember doing end of Torvix and fight 4 elites mobs with knockback and two of them have grapple and can't imagine why anyone thought it's a good idea to get forcefully moved up to 6 times in a span of about 10 seconds. I mean it's not like it even does anything threatening, just annoying that you spend the whole time bouncing around.

The couple of times I've done this, our problem has been hitting the enrage timer. Mind you, that's with tank/healer/DPS from a PvE progression guild and one slot filled using group finder. I think you can guess the problem, but that essentially means this is not content for the casual player - methinks the enrage timer is too tight for puggable.

Don't think the issue is about pug but more about under-geared and low skilled players joining the pugs to do the lvl 55 HM. Once everyone is geared enough, the gear should even carry the less skilled players to do the boss.

By skill, I simply mean player's ability to execut decent dps rotation well enough.

He is the hardest bonus boss. He hits as hard as Thrasher in S/V iirc. Last run I checked he was doing around 1600 dtps. That being said, he isn't really that hard, more of a dps race.

Cad is stupid easy, especially if you have ranged dps.

Playing as an operative healer, I ran into two melee DPS that couldn't beat the enrage timer for this fight. On the second attempt I found the time for multiple Orbital Strikes and corrosive darts to help take it down. The tank was biochem and even made both the DPS stims to help out.

TL:DR - fight is pretty easy to heal clumped under the boss

Playing as an operative healer, I ran into two melee DPS that couldn't beat the enrage timer for this fight. On the second attempt I found the time for multiple Orbital Strikes and corrosive darts to help take it down. The tank was biochem and even made both the DPS stims to help out.

 

TL:DR - fight is pretty easy to heal clumped under the boss

Agreed, I heal this on my commando, and can usually throw a few kolto bombs in between the smashes and just keep the tank topped up. It is a dps check more than anything, and with some groups, I have had to throw in some dps just to make sure we get it down.