Yeah, rifle shot is the only one that should be missing. All other ranged attacks are counted as "special attacks" and get the same 10% accuracy bonus that tech attacks do, so they have 110% while rifle shot only have 100%, leaving a 10% chance to be defended for that.

Hi Steave - That's what I thought as well, until I saw that on a fair few fights, my SoS was doing absolutely zero damage and Follow through was only just tickling my target. The pinnacle of that fight was a hard cast Ambush on my target (OMG U ARE NOOBZ!! HARD CASTING AMBUSH!!!) netting me a whopping 0 damage (this was Athiss - Beast of Vodal Cresh/Kresh). Yet in the same fight, against the Athiss bonus boss - one of my attack rotation was crit galore. most of my SoS shots and follow through were crit hits. But for the life of me - I couldn't repeat that at the Prophet himself. Prophet resisted 2 snipes (but not follow through) and assortment of other attacks at various stages of the fight (he even resisted grenade:(). I suspect, what I my problem is my pings, and not my gear itself.

My apologies for derailing this thread:o.

The worst group I got was for Hammer Station got a dps sorc and healer from the same guild and another random dps and I was tanking. So we get to the first hard mob with the two gold droids and before I can do or say anything the sorc attacks and draws all the aggro I jump in on my jug and try to get aggro on me but don't succeed at all, we nearly die but get there in the end, after the fight the sorc starts saying how I'm a bad tank I ignore it and continue with the same thing happening by the time we get to the 3 bosses I am annoyed as hell and tell him to stop jumping in first and let me do my job he responds with that's not the problem I'm just a bad tank. By the time we finish the bosses the random dps leaves and we continue, we get to the last boss and another dps has joined I say lets wait for the dps to catch up and we will finish, the sorc though jumps in and the healer go's after him by the time I join in they are both dead with the sorc abusing me, I say just kick me then if im so bad so they both do.

Funny thing was the healer that agreed I was bad pm'd me like 10 mins later asking if i'll join as they cant get another tank to help finish the FP, I tell them no way in hell as I'm a bad tank and you both kicked me then stuck them both on ignore.

The worst group I got was for Hammer Station got a dps sorc and healer from the same guild and another random dps and I was tanking. So we get to the first hard mob with the two gold droids and before I can do or say anything the sorc attacks and draws all the aggro I jump in on my jug and try to get aggro on me but don't succeed at all, we nearly die but get there in the end, after the fight the sorc starts saying how I'm a bad tank I ignore it and continue with the same thing happening by the time we get to the 3 bosses I am annoyed as hell and tell him to stop jumping in first and let me do my job he responds with that's not the problem I'm just a bad tank. By the time we finish the bosses the random dps leaves and we continue, we get to the last boss and another dps has joined I say lets wait for the dps to catch up and we will finish, the sorc though jumps in and the healer go's after him by the time I join in they are both dead with the sorc abusing me, I say just kick me then if im so bad so they both do.

 

Funny thing was the healer that agreed I was bad pm'd me like 10 mins later asking if i'll join as they cant get another tank to help finish the FP, I tell them no way in hell as I'm a bad tank and you both kicked me then stuck them both on ignore.

While they where clearly in the wrong here, a good tank actually should be able to recover that yeah. AOE taunt to get them back on you and saber reflect to help build threat on anything ranged, and smash+crushing blow (in that order, so crushing blow becomes an AOE) to get the melee. Single target attacks and taunt for anything the DPS are actually focusing on.

You have to work 10 times as hard for it if they don't let you pull first, so it's not something they should be doing, but you may still want to have a look over in the guardian/juggernaut or tanking forum for some tips, the general principles behind it are the same as for pulling normally except for that you have to burn some of your tools earlier than you should have to so it would likely help your normal tanking too.

While they where clearly in the wrong here, a good tank actually should be able to recover that yeah. AOE taunt to get them back on you and saber reflect to help build threat on anything ranged, and smash+crushing blow (in that order, so crushing blow becomes an AOE) to get the melee. Single target attacks and taunt for anything the DPS are actually focusing on.

You have to work 10 times as hard for it if they don't let you pull first, so it's not something they should be doing, but you may still want to have a look over in the guardian/juggernaut or tanking forum for some tips, the general principles behind it are the same as for pulling normally except for that you have to burn some of your tools earlier than you should have to so it would likely help your normal tanking too.

I don't know if he was talking about sm or hm, if it was hm one could get the aggro back (but I wouldn't even try to get it back, the one who pulls it also tanks it. some just need to take a dirt nap before they learn), if it was sm there is no way to get it back you just don't have enough aoe nor does one have a aoe taunt by that time

I don't know if he was talking about sm or hm, if it was hm one could get the aggro back (but I wouldn't even try to get it back, the one who pulls it also tanks it. some just need to take a dirt nap before they learn), if it was sm there is no way to get it back you just don't have enough aoe nor does one have a aoe taunt by that time

I wouldn't try either, but since he claimed he tried and failed it indicates he could use some help. I don't blame him at all for the situation ofc.

While they where clearly in the wrong here, a good tank actually should be able to recover that yeah. AOE taunt to get them back on you and saber reflect to help build threat on anything ranged, and smash+crushing blow (in that order, so crushing blow becomes an AOE) to get the melee. Single target attacks and taunt for anything the DPS are actually focusing on.

At level 13, he won't have AOE taunt, saber reflect, or crushing blow.

At level 13, he won't have AOE taunt, saber reflect, or crushing blow.

Wait ... he was doing Hammer Station at level 13? Isn't that a bit low? I generally don't try that one until I'm 16 or 17...

Also, it's not available on Groupfinder until you hit 15.

At level 13, he won't have AOE taunt, saber reflect, or crushing blow.

Yeah you're right, if that was SM rather than HM it would indeed have been extremely difficult to salvage. Hell, if he was minimum level for it (15 rather than 13), he wouldn't even have single target taunt, but at least personally I avoid queuing for it until I hit 16 for that very reason.

There was a pretty fun story in my weekly HMFP runs (at least for me and my girlfriend).

First of all, we playing in same local network, so if some issues with network happens - we both suffer.

We both in the same guild (that the main part of story btw)

First run in Athiss (i prefer to rn Athiss as weekly, becouse its simple for me) was perfect.

Me (tank), my girlfriend (healer) and 2 random DPS. DPS was knowing their job and didnt couse any trouble not for me, nor the healer.

On the second run i meet "them"...

2 dps guys.

I must say, my connection is not perfect. And in that day my provider has gone mad. Lag spikes and random DC.

Anyway, we was able to reach second boss... And then DC happend. We'r both kicked, but quickly returned.

And i see a strange picture - im still in FP, but my dear beloved healer is missing? What the hell?

Somehow she found herself on a fleet, were we both started queue.

Im asking (politely) in group - "What happend to healer?"

Answer - "He's disconnected, so we kick him"

I'v never laugh so much very long time... Just imagine - those guys kicked my guildmate, not to mention that she's my girlfriend, but didnt kick me.

Of course i left those guys hanging there alone. I didn't wanted to continie run with people, stupid enough to kick my guildy.

Lowbie Boarding Party. Operative healer.

I qued and got an instant pop. We got to the FP and started fighting 1st set of trash. Then I realized the Assassin "tank" wasn't in Dark Charge, she(assumption) was using Lightning Charge. I was like "are you in tank spec?" No answer. Then the merc and jugg DPS realized her saber charge too and "it's going to be interesting".

We were going to go with some shortcuts to bypass the mobs, but the "tank" had other plans and charges through the mobs. She did it several times and I sighed on the chat several times too. Luckily we are over-leveled for the FP. The "tank" was the lowest lvl and I was thinking "great, a free ride". The jugg DPS said to our "tank" to not que as a tank if she ain't a tank. Her reply was "sorry didn't know I qued as tank". So this has become a case of DPS quing as a tank.

I CC'ed mobs but she attacks my CC. Well...

Boss fight, that Major with two droids. We fight and fight, I was occasionally tanking but sometimes the jugg DPS taunts mobs off me when my aggro dump didn't help. The fight's not even finished yet and she rushes off to the next set of mobs. I was like WTH. Didn't even notice the mobs behind her all the time. I didn't even see her getting to the back of mobs to use Maul. Ever.

Final boss, Storm Squad. Tanking again as healer, jugg DPS taunts off what she can and we passed it. The jugg thanks me for staying when I said I was thinking of bailing earlier. I thanked her back for taunting mobs off me.

Hoooo boy. At the end of the day, I think some of us have been in the "tank"s place sometime before. It's a learning experience.

Colocoid War Games:

I did this FP two times in a row. First time it took me some time to get into the fp again since I hadn't done it for quite some time (and only one or two times in total).

Accidently demounted the cannon at first, got pushed in the lawa alongside the tank, and needed some time to figure out the puzzle, but it all worked out.

Second time was better, however after the fp was over, I quit group as usual and talked to Darth Malgus at the terminal on the fleet alone.

One of the DPS whispered and asked whether I knew that I wouldn't get social points unless I hold this conversation in a group. The question itself was no big deal but the "-.-" smiley seemed a bit aggressive to me.

I replied I didn't do flashpoints to get social points. He said: okay, but don't qq later if you haven't got enough social points to buy stuff for social 10.

The tone was a bit rude and I was quite surprised anyone cared for social points enough to even bother asking this after I had already handed in the quest. Almost no pug group I've been in so far held the terminal conversation together (so he would have to ask this a lot of people). My level 47+ characters get plenty of social points just by doing Illum dailies in a group of two and my characters that have social 10 have yet to buy something that requires social 10.

the only thing I know of that requires social 10 to buy, is galactic party bomb. fun toy, but music therapy probe works just as well for me.

chances are, that person was annoyed becasue THEY lost extra social points on turn in (1 point per convo option per person) that said, its not even the best way of getting them. believe it or not, you earn far more of those, simply by doing ops, without a single conversation.

on topic, I almost wish I had something funny/odd to report. all I've been getting lately are the groups that are excruciatingly slow even for me. (and I'm usually pretty patient and prefer a less breakneck pace than many)

Another not-rainy-enough day on Coruscant. After failing at the yellow matrix shard for second time, I get a pop for hammer station SM. Once inside, I take a look at our group. Me, sentinel dps. The others are a commando, a guadian and a shadow. Somehow I automatically assume that the commando is the healer (...obviously), the shadow is the other dps and the guardian is the tank. Guardian is level 15. I'm a little worried, since I'm level 19 and I'm not sure if you get your guard and taunt at level 15 or 16. But hey, it's double xp, he'll have a level up soon and then we'll have no problems at all!

First, we just stand there next to the droid that sells stims and medpacks. I wonder why the guardian won't go ahead and pull the first mob. Then I see the shadow running - to the corner farthest away from where we are going! He attacks the mobs there. Great, I think, one of the people who thinks the best way to get xp is to kill everything inside a flashpoint. I ask if we are going to kill absolutely everything we see. No answer. I have a bad feeling about this, but since I got no answer, I decide to go ahead for a little longer, and if the group members keep attacking absolutely everything, drop the group.

We keep on going. The two silver droids - and the shadow pulls again! This time I also notice that the shadow isn't using any kind of lightsaber technique. The tank doesn't seem to mind this dps pulling, and I wonder why. I check if they're guildmates. Nope, they're not. Weird. The hard pull soon after, a couple of us (at least me and the tank) dies, but we don't wipe. I don't have to mention that the shadow pulled again.

While the healer is giving me a rezz, shadow and guardian run to the middle of the room and stand there. They are stairing towards the mobs that aren't necessary to kill in order to move forwards. Moments pass, nothing happens. I'm starting to feel that it's just a matter of time before someone opens at the mob far away, so I do what no dps should do: open before the tank. I jump at the "correct" mob, and as the shadow rushes to the scene, I realize something I should have realized at the start: the shadow is our tank!

So, we have a evel 16 tank who doesn't have tank stance, doesn't guard and doesn't taunt. Great. Just before the first boss, I tried to /w the tank to put on a tank stance. He opens before I finish typing. I jump in and start dpsing, and of course, manage to steal the aggro pretty quickly. I start spamming my basic attack, but still hold the aggro. I stop all dpsing and just stand there, and I still hold the aggro. Standing there was boring and looked stupid, and the healer was able to keep me up, so I decided to tank the first boss. We finish, strenght saber drops, guardian wins the roll. The healer makes a comment about how hard the fight was when a sentinel was tanking. I apologize and point out that the tank really isn't doing his job. The healer says that he isn't blaming me.

I have a bad feeling and I check the log on what the tank rolled on the strenght saber. Need, of course. I let the group know this. Between the next pulls, me and the guardian discuss about the situation. Guardian suggests kicking the tank.

I decide to give the tank one more chance. I pull out my hutt trainer and tell tank that if he doesn't have taunt, tank stance and guard, please get them from this hutt and use them. Nothing seems to happen, but I proceed (with the guardian) to explain why he shouldn't press need on things that have other main stat than willpower. I certainly didn't expect anything to actually happen, since the tank didn't even answer any of the other times we asked him to do something.

But, suddenly, he activates tank stance! :eek:

I was both shocked and happy at the same time (waiting for a new tank always takes ages...). The tank says "ready? :)" (first thing he have said during the whole fp) and both me and the guardian type something like "that's much better, ready". The couple of pulls go much smoother, though I still manage to get the aggro here and there. The guardian stops the group, and him and me slowly explain the tank how to put guard on me. He puts a guard on me, I don't steal the aggro anymore! Yay! Even we he dies a few mobs later (thanks to we aggroing one extra mob by getting pushed to them), after revive, he puts the guard back on me! Wow, this guy actually learns!

The next boss drops a willpower chestpiece, everyone else greeds, the tank doesn't press anything. Me and the guardian tell him to need it, since it's willpower, and he needs it. The rest of the fp goes smooth, and even though the tank dies at the last boss, it wasn't even his fault. We forgot to mention him that he should avoid the boss's "sweeping gunfire". We manage to kill the last boss without a wipe anyway (the healer kept the tank alive almost to the end), and boss drops willpower lightsaber and aim cannon for our healer. The tank needs on willpower and greeds the cannon. I have to say I feel proud. ^^

And we finish the run, without a single wipe, even though at the start I was worried if we'd even get the first boss killed.

I finally got my odd flashpoint/person of the day O_O

a player who passed on half the gear and greeded items that would have been upgrades. shadow tank, by the time I won a second willpower piece with a greed roll, I just had to ask if they are sure, they don't want those willpower pieces? and tank goes, yeah, would be nice. O_O so I traded to him - told them they shouldn't hesitate to need on gear that is direct upgrade, but it was just so... weird. usually you hear (and run into) people who need everything they can hit that button on, usually when they shouldn't :/ that was a first time I saw someone greeding things they should have needed on.

seemed like a newish player too, but learning quickly, following the lead and directions of our experienced healer nearly perfectly. was one of the most pleasant, social pugs I've had in a long long time.

Just had a group doing EoT. All DPS, but we all have usable CCs, so it should be smooth. Nah, not at all. I mark my CCs, call them out, and of course someone else keeps attacking them. About five mobs in one of the guys chimes in saying he's used to the marked target being attacked, not CC'd. All well and good, had I not explained that I was CCing the targets that I market.

Anyway, I was a 52 or 53, they were all 55s, so minus targets that I was on first I never pulled aggro initially so I never died. There were near chances, and everyone else died at least twice, but hey, we got through and I didn't have a repair bill so things could have been worse. I guess some DPS just get used to playing faceroll and not utilizing any kind of strategy. Everyone on a different target, not focusing on weaker targets first. It's crazy out there in them streets =p

Having rolled on a US server when my longstanding guildmates from other games chose that option at launch (as has happened in other games), I've grown accustomed to this time of year being a struggle to find groups or indeed anything to do. PvP was dire, the same bunch of clueless people making the same mistakes, FP queues lacking either healer or tank which I tested by queuing first on one, then the other only to find the role I wasn't filling was the one missing. So I rolled a new smuggler on The Red Eclipse and started levelling her up.

Within a few hours I was level 10 and having selected Scoundrel I queued for Esseles and got an instapop for the healer role. Level 10 vanguard "tank", 2 sentinels (uh-oh) and me. Then I realised FP in progress, which is... less of a good sign. I zone in and run to catch up, taking forever as a) permanently in combat and b) as it's a server I can't transfer my legacy to, no rocket boots, no legacy perks, nada. Catch up with the group at the conversation with Commander Narlock and away we go!

Tank disconnects right after the conversation with Narlock and Asara, so the 3 of us continue on, clearing trash as we go. One of the sentinels seems a good sort, name with special characters but wearing the Living Legend title so I take this as preliminary evidence (your honour) that (s)he knows what they're doing. Their gear indicates the same, 2 orange weapons, all gear with strength in it.

The other sentinel....car crash. Willpower chestpiece, willpower pants, willpower offhand, cunning boots. Charges into combat first, never once heals up between pulls, just after deaths of which more to come later. We reach the engine room, tank still hasn't reconnected but Special Sentinel is on lead. Super Sentinel initiates a votekick on the still offline tank, I concur. We ask Special Sentinel to queue us for a replacement. Around about the time we reach Ironfist is the time he does so and our new member is......another sentinel. Fortunately Supplementary Sentinel is friendly and chatty, taking an interest when I finally crack and advise Special Sentinel never to wear any primary stat other than Strength. Supplementary Sentinel thanks me for the info and then proceeds to ask about the skill trees for Sentinel. At this point I'm feeling better about the run, now that Super Sentinel and Supplementary Sentinel are there to carry the load of Special Sentinel.

We get through Ironfist and head to the Emperor's Glory. Special Sentinel continues to pull and heads straight for the first elite in the power room, tunnel visioning it with the ferocity only one of truly limited higher function can achieve. I manage to save him from himself with back to back Underworld Medicine casts and Super and Supplementary finish off the pack. Special doesn't heal up, he just charges straight for the 2nd pack of mobs while on half health or worse, once again tunnelling on the elite. I decide that the heal aggro from the other 4 mobs in the pack isn't worth trying to save his skin and let him die, using backblast and blaster whip to kill one of the droids while Super and Supplementary finish the other mobs and we then take down the elite. I scrape Special up off the floor, reassemble his internal organs into something approaching working order and we pop the consoles. We finish off the boss in the room which drops Trooper boots for the zero troopers in the group, and turn off the tractor beam in true Obi Wan style.

The next thing we see is "Special Sentinel has been defeated". He leapt to the add pack and fell victim to the ramp bug, falling through it to his death. Fair enough, it's been the death of many of us in the past, but it did add one more impression to the pile

He releases and runs back, then turns right and heads for the 3 pack in front of the lift while myself, Super and Supplementary head for the ISS bonus boss. We kill it before Special's presence outside the shield gets him killed, only for the Esseles Consular Robe to drop. As I had somewhat jadedly expected, Special rolls need on it and when challenged says "it's not for me, it's for my mate". I type a lengthy explanation of etiquette and that if by "mate" he meant companion then he should roll greed along with the other 2 sentinels as they get the same companions he does. By this time he's up the lift, into the next area and pulled, trapping me below as I was typing rather than keeping up with Special (my own fault, obv).

We finally get to Vokk, the orange shotgun drops along with a purple skill mod 2. I "woot" and roll need on both. Special rolls need on the mod (although not the shotgun) but loses the roll. I facepalm but decide it's not worth any further wear and tear on my keyboard. We finish the run, I say farewell to the others and proceed on my merry way. Due to being on a new server and not wanting to populate my ignore list before adding anyone to my friends list, I shrug this off and head back to Ord Mantell to finish up the Prologue and get at least 1 companion.

When I hit level 15 a short while later, I queued for Hammer Station. Guess who was in the group......

Doing Athiss, our tank and DPS slots were fine. Our healer was a train wreck though.

A Mercenary, using combustible gas cylinder (DPS cylinder) wearing the Poison Pit set, which is the agent's set from the Heroic Missions on Hutta, which I don't even know how she got. She had a strength headpiece too. Anyways, she would constantly open up on packs with Death from Above then desperately try to heal through all their attacks by spamming rapid scan on herself. We made it past the first boss before our tank had enough and voted to kick her.

Doing Athiss, our tank and DPS slots were fine. Our healer was a train wreck though.

A Mercenary, using combustible gas cylinder (DPS cylinder) wearing the Poison Pit set, which is the agent's set from the Heroic Missions on Hutta, which I don't even know how she got. She had a strength headpiece too. Anyways, she would constantly open up on packs with Death from Above then desperately try to heal through all their attacks by spamming rapid scan on herself. We made it past the first boss before our tank had enough and voted to kick her.

A derp-merc?

/Sigh...this makes me haz a sad

(If you should see her again, then /whisper her to roll a smasher, as is clearly suited to her level of intellect.)

Doing Athiss, our tank and DPS slots were fine. Our healer was a train wreck though.

A Mercenary, using combustible gas cylinder (DPS cylinder) wearing the Poison Pit set, which is the agent's set from the Heroic Missions on Hutta, which I don't even know how she got. She had a strength headpiece too. Anyways, she would constantly open up on packs with Death from Above then desperately try to heal through all their attacks by spamming rapid scan on herself. We made it past the first boss before our tank had enough and voted to kick her.

Good job helping a clearly new player learn. Not.

I mean seriously, we're talking Athiss SM, level 20 or so.

Good job helping a clearly new player learn. Not.

 

I mean seriously, we're talking Athiss SM, level 20 or so.

It's not specified whether or not it's story, nor are any attempts at communication mentioned. *shrug* Probably best not to assume.

It's not specified whether or not it's story

Because a Merc as unexperienced as described would reach 55 HM Athiss in Cunning lvl 10 gear lol

Good job helping a clearly new player learn. Not.

 

I mean seriously, we're talking Athiss SM, level 20 or so.

Helping isn't a duty, it's the players own responsibility to learn his class. They can either ask for help or look it up on their own if they can't figure it out by simply reading the tutorials. Most clueless players you meet either completely ignore or start raging when their mistakes are pointed out, so I generally don't bother either, but if they actually ask for help it's a completely different matter, that means they're paying attention and are willing to listen so they're actually worth spending the effort to teach.

Queued for my Hammer with my new sniper, get a pop relatively quickly. For some reason the second DPS quits before the first pull out of no where. Healer pulls out Mako, but I figure it's whatever, if she's geared it will be slow but we'll be fine. I wonder why on the second group I pull all the aggro, same on the next. When we get to the two golds it was over before it began.

After we wipe I ask the healer to requeue us and realize the tank isn't using Dark Charge and has rather motley gear. I mention that she needs to switch stances. We rebuff and a new DPS comes in before we proceed. He's a higher level so I figure everything will be fine. Mention the stance to the tank again, but she ignores me and charges in. Well, that was enough to at least get her aggro, but even with our CCs up she drops before the healer can do enough to keep her up. She respawns but never move, and we finish off the group. Tank quits for whatever reason.

We requeue, get a new tank, and finish with pretty much no more issues. Even when you try to help other players sometimes just don't want to listen =p