I am glad they changed that boss, it is very annoying when people insist on doing that when they have a strong team. There is no reason to run that damn thing halfway across the map when everyone is having no problem with the fp.

 

But doing a los to make a pull quicker I have no problem with. Losing something to gather them up for quick aoe burn is a good skill to build for operations. Off tank grabs all the adds for a quick aoe goodness. Setting up a good los is the same thing, and a good habit to get into.

 

Speaking of Athiss, on my op healer, the droid pull before the first boss. The tank said he had never done the place on hard mode, so I told him we would cc the marked droid for him, and just to get aggro on the rest really quick and we would burn them down. He pulled and just wacked one droid, nothing else. Of course I stealthed out and just stared at him until the merc needed some healing because it got all the aggro I had.

 

When asked why he didn't try to get aggro on everything else, he said as a tank he can't hold everything, and only has so many moves at max lvl that generate aggro. When I told him one hit could pull aggro off of me he didn't believe me. The rest of the fp went pretty well though, so no complaints after that.

Fair point, for sure. Good way to show off tank pulls and whatnot, like you said, yeah. What I've found funny though, is recently people are wanting to LoS more often, in mobs where I've never been asked, or expected to LoS before. Makes me wonder if just more and more people are getting worse in FPs.

I was so glad for this change... I hate hate hate hate, when people insist on LoSing adds, especially particularly when everyone is more than geared for the fight.

 

If someone on your team is asking to LoS mobs, they're not that good at their role... I've both tanked and healed and DPSed in situations where perhaps an LoS could have helped, but how are you going to learn to take the heat of a mob, if all you do is try to go the easy route? I can understand for getting FPs done faster (Battle of Ilum), but you still won't learn how to deal with operations if all you do is make it too easy for you...

Believe me, I've been wishing for the these changes to the beast to be applied for a very long time. It's a stupid easy encounter.

As for the excessive LOSing. It's been a popular theme as of late for a lot of tanks. Using LOS on every pull is just stupid. LOS pulls are great for times that you want the group to aoe mow a pack down.

However, LOS pulls come with the thing that I call, "Wild agro". Which is, you have threat on just one mob in the pack. The rest however are just running on social agro and the moment someone gains a buff or the healer decides to stick a band-aid on that paper-cut you scored while starting the pull. The entire pack suddenly decides that the giver of buffs or band-aids is far more interesting

Personally I'll use a rapid aoe surprise attack instead of an LOS pull. The healers are too shocked that I didn't LOS to cast any heals, so it gives me the few seconds I need to tab to anything outside of the pack and hit it with something.

Lol, I did a few runs of Athiss today and discovered that the Beast can't be kited to the cave anymore. Heh, no more safety net.

I ain't complaining. That's five minutes shaved off the run in my opinion. The problem now is that I keep getting yelled at by people expecting the cave strategy, who haven't been clued in on the change. It's annoying.

Of course, I do wonder why they bothered making this change, 21/2 years after launch. Why bother?

Fair point, for sure. Good way to show off tank pulls and whatnot, like you said, yeah. What I've found funny though, is recently people are wanting to LoS more often, in mobs where I've never been asked, or expected to LoS before. Makes me wonder if just more and more people are getting worse in FPs.

Well... There is two pulls and the second boss in Mando Raider I like to LoS pull while tanking.. make it so easier to manage with the ranged adds and the dogs or the ranged + melee in the second boss... except that... I can't remeber one place I try to LoS pull something...

I was so glad for this change... I hate hate hate hate, when people insist on LoSing adds, especially particularly when everyone is more than geared for the fight.

 

If someone on your team is asking to LoS mobs, they're not that good at their role... I've both tanked and healed and DPSed in situations where perhaps an LoS could have helped, but how are you going to learn to take the heat of a mob, if all you do is try to go the easy route? I can understand for getting FPs done faster (Battle of Ilum), but you still won't learn how to deal with operations if all you do is make it too easy for you...

Line of sight pulling in general isn't bad. It's very useful if a pull has a lot of ranged enemies, and you're not a Juggernaut with saber reflect. But like anything, it's bad if you're overly dependent upon it.

Off the top of my head, for the six HM's,

Meltdown: Doesn't need any LOS pulls.

Corporate Labs: A couple rooms where ranged damage is spread far apart from melee, so LOS can be handy.

Hammer Station: The second room with the elite droids and all those ranged mobs can be simplified with LOS.

Cad: Two rooms with spread out ranged dps, so LOS helps.

Athiss: No need for LOS

Mandalorian Raiders: No need for LOS. (With the exception of the boarding party fight.)

Line of sight pulling in general isn't bad. It's very useful if a pull has a lot of ranged enemies, and you're not a Juggernaut with saber reflect. But like anything, it's bad if you're overly dependent upon it.

 

Off the top of my head, for the six HM's,

 

Meltdown: Doesn't need any LOS pulls.

Corporate Labs: A couple rooms where ranged damage is spread far apart from melee, so LOS can be handy.

Hammer Station: The second room with the elite droids and all those ranged mobs can be implied with LOS.

Cad: Two rooms with spread out ranged dps, so LOS helps.

Athiss: No need for LOS

Mandalorian Raiders: No need for LOS. (With the exception of the boarding party fight.)

Czerka Labs: All of the humanoid weak mobs in labs have jetpacks. They'll go where you go. And the room with the five weak and one strong can be easily tanked with out using an LOS pull. Just have to move around a little.

Cad: I don't use LOS pulls at all. The pack after the first short cut can easily be taken by surprise. Start out on the dogs and the cluster of strongs. Tab to the weak mobs and use your toolbox to get them onto you. A bit more work granted but I'd rather have the ability to hit the mobs with my attacks rather than have them get stuck on the door.

The rest of the packs are much the same, surprise attack with aoe on the strong mobs while you grab the weak mobs.

I'm not saying using LOS on the Cad pulls isn't a valid strategy, it's entirely up to the person tanking.

Hammer Station: I just have the elites CCed and charge straight into the weak mobs. Tab to the two strong mobs and it's all good. Assuming someone doesn't break a CC. In which case, challenge accepted.

But beyond those few pulls, using LOS becomes a crutch. I use my crazy tactics because I like having the challenge and for the most part it works. Or I just work harder to make it work.

For anyone else, LOSing those few pulls is your choice.

Lol, I did a few runs of Athiss today and discovered that the Beast can't be kited to the cave anymore. Heh, no more safety net.

 

I ain't complaining. That's five minutes shaved off the run in my opinion. The problem now is that I keep getting yelled at by people expecting the cave strategy, who haven't been clued in on the change. It's annoying.

 

Of course, I do wonder why they bothered making this change, 21/2 years after launch. Why bother?

It takes the devs a while to notice exploits. They seem to only find out when the exploit becomes super popular. For instance the Garj skip in EV had existed since the point when lvl 55 characters reached 30k+ HP, but it only became the norm for EV runs in the few months before it was patched.

In the same vein, it used to be I'd see people doing the cave/pond method maybe 1 out of every 10 times I ran Athiss HM. In the past 3 months it's become the norm.

Line of sight pulling in general isn't bad. It's very useful if a pull has a lot of ranged enemies, and you're not a Juggernaut with saber reflect. But like anything, it's bad if you're overly dependent upon it.

 

Off the top of my head, for the six HM's,

 

Meltdown: Doesn't need any LOS pulls.

Corporate Labs: A couple rooms where ranged damage is spread far apart from melee, so LOS can be handy.

Hammer Station: The second room with the elite droids and all those ranged mobs can be simplified with LOS.

Cad: Two rooms with spread out ranged dps, so LOS helps.

Athiss: No need for LOS

Mandalorian Raiders: No need for LOS. (With the exception of the boarding party fight.)

I've had some hilarious runs of Cademimu while on my sorc healer. Several times tanks would LOS the droid mobs between the police officer boss and the wookie, but they would only do this with the intention of getting the droids near an edge to be knocked off. The tanks didn't even bother AoEing to get agro on the bunched up mobs. So each time this resulted in myself getting agro on everything just from my puny HOT on the tank and nearly dieing.

Mandalorian Raiders: No need for LOS. (With the exception of the boarding party fight.)

There were times when I had to LoS because of terribly geared people and players unaware of their surroundings, but I made every effort to tank the boarding party on the platform where they spawn.

This sometimes meant that three people were hiding and typing stuff like "tank get here", "lol no idea how to play", "nub tank" and such. One even threatened with kick. They fell in line pretty fast when they realised I was ignoring them and tanking the mobs without much effort.

Getting called a noob from someone with 1300 achievement points never gets old.

P.S. Could a kind soul explain the "pull the beast to the cave" in Athiss? I have 100% in that FP but have no idea what you guys are talking about. I just leeroy in and start slapping faces.

Considering this is the only fun fight in Mando Raiders, I'd say - no LoS there either.

 

There were times when I had to LoS because of terribly geared people and players unaware of their surroundings, but I made every effort to tank the boarding party on the platform where they spawn.

 

This sometimes meant that three people were hiding and typing stuff like "tank get here", "lol no idea how to play", "nub tank" and such. One even threatened with kick. They fell in line pretty fast when they realised I was ignoring them and tanking the mobs without much effort.

 

Getting called a noob from someone with 1300 achievement points never gets old.

 

 

P.S. Could a kind soul explain the "pull the beast to the cave" in Athiss? I have 100% in that FP but have no idea what you guys are talking about. I just leeroy in and start slapping faces.

Eh I used to tank it properly, but now I LoS them because I ninja respec before the fight and put my DPS gear on. When they are LoSd, it takes about 30 seconds for the combined DPS of 3 AoE specs to obliterate them (hooray for bunching them up!)

As for pulling to the cave, I never went to the cave but I did go to the pond. The general idea was when you started the fight, you brought the beast to a cave just down the cliff, and a bit to the right after going down the ramp. It required clearing 2 more mob packs, but it meant that the knockbacks would last all of 5 meters before you hit a wall, and the Adds didn't spawn.

The pond didn't go so far as the cave, so was still succeptible to knockbacks, but was far enough away to not have to worry about the adds.

Never understood how so few people know you can tank the beast in the archway and pick up the adds the moment they pop with Force Sweep, Slow Time or Explosive Surge. There's a line in the stone where the texture changes - park your character's toes on that line, the head swipe bounces you off the arch and more or less back where you started.

Job done.

As for pulling to the cave, I never went to the cave but I did go to the pond. The general idea was when you started the fight, you brought the beast to a cave just down the cliff, and a bit to the right after going down the ramp. It required clearing 2 more mob packs, but it meant that the knockbacks would last all of 5 meters before you hit a wall, and the Adds didn't spawn.

 

The pond didn't go so far as the cave, so was still succeptible to knockbacks, but was far enough away to not have to worry about the adds.

This all seems way too much effort and time-consuming compared to the regular tanking strategy as described by CrazyGreggy in the post above.

This all seems way too much effort and time-consuming compared to the regular tanking strategy as described by CrazyGreggy in the post above.

It was. Especially, as mentioned above, it got truly popular recently after many DPS are even more redonkously overgeared for the fight.

I chuckled when a tank wanted us [and our DPS was my 38k marauder and some 39k merc] to do the cave as 'it would be safer.' From what? Sudden Onset Narcolepsy? It's rarely worth the argument but it does show where your team is at, I guess.

Had a weird-ish run of HM Core Meltdown last night on my so-so geared op healer, Grobian on TRE. The desert boss went down without any fuss, but the Vrlbther in the jungle proved impossible for the group. Probably a combination of gear, lack of tactical insight and whatnot, the adds got us every time. That's not the weird thing, though.

The group was nice! After the 5th or 6th wipe, we realised that we couldn't do it, but instead of disbanding and calling each other ugly names, we decided to abandon that mission and requeue for another. We got Athiss HM, and it went down smooth as silk, except for one wipe at the Prophet when I stopped to heal too soon, running from the flames. You could feel the sense of accomplishment.

Thanks to all.

Im not sure the LOS pulling the beast of Vodal is about safety. It seems quite a few people on this game want an easy time without having to apply any thought (just look at all the ops groups who only take those who have achievement). They just want to switch the computer on, get into the mission, then practically fall asleep for the whole mission. This is I believe why tanks are less common than the other classes, tanking cannot be done without paying attention, whereas DerPS and healing can (as long as tank is competent ofc).

My wierd story, has nothing at all to do with group finder, but still strange.

I got a whisper on my sorc healer from what I thought was some random. After a bit it was clear he was someone in the guild who was going for HK and wanted help with the 2 flashpoints. I said I would help after I've finished my gree daily run. I ask him for invite, then set off to do false emperor. He then says he fancies doing the whole thing for fun. I don't see why not so we complete the mission me as 23k Sorc with 27k Khem, him as 26k DPS Jugg with 17k Quinn.

All goes fine as that ones not particularly hard (apart from the whole, interrupt Malgus "unlimited power" or you die instantly, which I explained beforehand so was never an issue).

Now the strange bit, we set off doing foundry HM. At HK a glitch occurs so when he goes to the middle and the thing comes down, the 4 panels don't appear and HK starts shooting us. Ofc we get "cannot see target" when we try to fight back, but Quinn is able too (Khem cant reach ).

When HK entered the middle thing he was at 64%, only Quinn could attack him and the phases weren't progressing. The Jugg switches off all Quinn's heals and puts him on officer instinct, while I deal with the heals and the jugg switches to soresu to keep himself alive (otherwise our only comp that can attack is gone).

Now I understand foundry is only lvl 50, but my Sorc was only 156/162 geared, Khem was 156, the DPS Jugg (who couldn't do anything) was 156/162 and Quinn was 140. Now IMO Quinn should not be able to take HK from 64% to dead without any problems.

@Bobfredjohn;

Tanks are the rarest for that reason and others. Though I suppose one could claim that your states reason is the umbrella which all others fall. As tanking takes the most raid awareness, boss knowledge, gearing, and in cases of the upper-class NiM raiders; pure skill. All of them can be tossed under the umbrella of people just not wanting to more challenging things then needed. Though of course this is subject to a person's point of view. As not everyone is the same, some can tank and Dps the hardest content in he game but cannot heal a SM Op to save their life. Those kind of people would be the so-called exceptions to the rule (there is ALWAYS an exception to the rule lol).

As for the HK thing, chances are if the person who had aggro on him outranged him. It would force HK to move out and be attackable again. Presuming this is the same bug that I think it is.

My weird story;

Think I have not shared this yet. Did my last HM Cad ever (achievement hunter especially now with strongholds being tied to them), myself on Sin-tank, Sniper Dps, Merc Dps (I think might have been a second Sniper) and Sorc healer. We get to the elevator after the opening little area. Now I have already gone through my usual statements of;

"(Healer's name) yell at me if I am going to fast"

"I do hope to kill the bonus boss, as its my last achievement for here then I am 100%"

The healer just goes "g2g" and drops group. Now this healer was 23k-ish health, which I am not thrilled about on a healer. But I was getting to the point of asking him to prove he is heal spec. As I did not see anything that would tell me otherwise. The replacement ended up being a Merc healer but while we waited I was speaking with the Dps and learned that both were newish to the game. Which somewhat surprised me as they seemed knowledgeable of some stuff at least (one recognized my title for what it was, a NiM timed run one).

We go about our merry way with the new healer. And during both the Wookie and Gerald I swear he was DPS'ing. So I made the idle/joking comment of asking if he was bored to which he replied;

"Yeah.. Start taking damage so I got something to heal would ya?"

On the last boss I swapped out my helm, boots, and gloves to empty shells (have everyone warning that I was). And we down Ortol and afterwards the healer says;

"Now that was kinda fun, you actually took some damage"

We all had a good laugh and parted ways

I am sure I will have something from Gree event this week as I have like 5-10 toons I will be running it on. Need more basic comms! And grey helix components! And credits! ^.^

I just did a KDY with a level 19 Smuggler (yep no advanced class) and a Sentinel that would go afk or something after every combat, which meant he DIDN'T rush ahead of the group. However, he DID keep going 'HEALS' ... when we only had a DPS spec commando (level 19) who was either dead at the time or quite simply doing her best. Sentinel was the highest at level 26, never saw him use the baseline Knight shield and at one point he asked "Hey, why am I all glowy?" I moused over him and said "30 stacks of Centering". He said, "Oh. I thought it was just some weird Yoda ****" and then...just let the stacks go away. Had NO idea what it was for.

Quinn has been stuck on my ship for going on two years, not allowed to wear any pants. Pants are for crew members who don't annoy me.

I take it thats due to Quinns attitude of "once we are in combat I will stand still regardless of LOS healing issues". Thats what pisses me off about him, constantly switching his passive on and off just to get him to move to me.

I take it thats due to Quinns attitude of "once we are in combat I will stand still regardless of LOS healing issues". Thats what pisses me off about him, constantly switching his passive on and off just to get him to move to me.

I take it thats due to Quinns attitude of "once we are in combat I will stand still regardless of LOS healing issues". Thats what pisses me off about him, constantly switching his passive on and off just to get him to move to me.

And the real healer would follow you everywhere?

I take it thats due to Quinns attitude of "once we are in combat I will stand still regardless of LOS healing issues". Thats what pisses me off about him, constantly switching his passive on and off just to get him to move to me.

Nah, I just never got over Quinn selling me out. My juggernaut's a tank, so I don't need a healer for dailies or anything. I like to imagine that at this point, Quinn's gone insane from the isolation.

Nah, I just never got over Quinn selling me out. My juggernaut's a tank, so I don't need a healer for dailies or anything. I like to imagine that at this point, Quinn's gone insane from the isolation.

Oh right, I haven't completed his conversation line/juggs story. The other reason I tend not to use Quinn (apart from the odd 1 or 2 occasions when heals my come in handy) is that I think Jeasa is really cool, shes happy for me to just click dark side options on everything, threaten and slaughter everything, just how I like doing things.

Quinn has been stuck on my ship for going on two years, not allowed to wear any pants. Pants are for crew members who don't annoy me.

I appreciate this reasoning. I really do!

I handled Quinn a little different. He is in 100% (empty, of course) cyborg CM shells. I burned that ****** to charred toast and have him rotting away since I cannot space him (or apparently hang him in carbonite in my GS). My one true nod to RP, I guess.

I hate Quinn.

I appreciate this reasoning. I really do!

 

I handled Quinn a little different. He is in 100% (empty, of course) cyborg CM shells. I burned that ****** to charred toast and have him rotting away since I cannot space him (or apparently hang him in carbonite in my GS). My one true nod to RP, I guess.

 

I hate Quinn.

I've recently finished my third time through the sith warrior story, first female one, so I had it all planned in advance. Slept with Quinn, turned down his marriage offer in the most insulting way, then slept with Pierce. I still wanted to kill him but at least this time through I had given him a reason to behave the way he does...