Is it just me or is Operator IX in TFB HM much harder than it was at level 50? Our team had cleared TFB HM at level 50 including many Operator IX kills but we're seemingly nowhere at level 55. Withering Horror and Dread Guards seem much easier at 55 than at 50 which results in a extremely big jump when you get to Operator IX.

We're able to either deal with the adds OR the cores but not both. We've got all 4 dps available in yellow but end up failing to kill the cores or we have one tank with 2 small adds and 2 big adds at the same time which doesn't work either.

Our current color pairings are below but we've tried other combinations without any success.

Blue: dps/dps

Orange: tank/dps

Purple: dps/heal

Yellow: tank/heal

Is it just me or is Operator IX in TFB HM much harder than it was at level 50? Our team had cleared TFB HM at level 50 including many Operator IX kills but we're seemingly nowhere at level 55. Withering Horror and Dread Guards seem much easier at 55 than at 50 which results in a extremely big jump when you get to Operator IX.

 

We're able to either deal with the adds OR the cores but not both. We've got all 4 dps available in yellow but end up failing to kill the cores or we have one tank with 2 small adds and 2 big adds at the same time which doesn't work either.

 

Our current color pairings are below but we've tried other combinations without any success.

 

Blue: dps/dps

Orange: tank/dps

Purple: dps/heal

Yellow: tank/heal

The trash mobs hit a HELL of a lot harder now. Thats the issue

Is it just me or is Operator IX in TFB HM much harder than it was at level 50? Our team had cleared TFB HM at level 50 including many Operator IX kills but we're seemingly nowhere at level 55. Withering Horror and Dread Guards seem much easier at 55 than at 50 which results in a extremely big jump when you get to Operator IX.

 

We're able to either deal with the adds OR the cores but not both. We've got all 4 dps available in yellow but end up failing to kill the cores or we have one tank with 2 small adds and 2 big adds at the same time which doesn't work either.

 

Our current color pairings are below but we've tried other combinations without any success.

 

Blue: dps/dps

Orange: tank/dps

Purple: dps/heal

Yellow: tank/heal

It is harder which is a nice change considering what a piss it was before.

Good job actually helping him... not.

Ok, what you can do is having your dps on orange stand in middle and the tank on button.

Split the Regulators on yellow phase between both tanks, have a dps on button/middle during yellow if you want, make sure no adds from purple are up.

On storymode you cannot do a double phase, on hardmode you can. If you need to kill adds from orange then kill those then start purple -> let purple expire -> kill all adds with Rectifier first -> complete purple with 0 adds left -> go to yellow. And be careful on the operator as Black Obtuse had a damage increase, hope it helps.

We fail the purple phase on purpose. After orange phase we clean up the adds, kill one core and by that time one of this big adds comes - a Rectifier or something - we kill him and proceed to kill the second core. I don't really know now but I think we fail the yellow phase too, which is doable.

We haven't done the fight in 2.0 (only the first boss) but yeah, the fight is difficult and requires a lot of coordination with your group. Usually it's easier to get the colour balls.. things.. during a round, but we couldn't deal with that and kill them before we start channeling, so we have less time on the cores, but it's still manageable.

Blue: dps/dps

Orange: tank/dps

Purple: dps/heal

Yellow: tank/heal

Change to:

Channel / Stand in center

Tank / DPS

DPS / Heal

Tank / DPS

DPS / Heal

With your way of doing it, I am assuming the adds are over running you because you have no tanks free and the adds are going to the healers.

My guild's tactic is flawless.

Blue: Tank + DPS

Orange: Heal + DPS

Purple: Tank + DPS

Yellow: Heal + DPS.

Instead of putting DPS in the center, the tanks and healers go in the center with the DPS on the panels. The reason for this is survivability. Those adds can only be TAUNTED to get aggro on. On BLUE and PURPLE phase 2 adds will always spawn. It makes more sense to have two tanks available than one on the panel.

Also, having 4 dps available on yellow isn't a necessity anymore. We easily got yellow down with 3 DPS only. Just make sure your DPS have their relics and offensive cooldowns available. Having a Sentinel makes things easier too .

The reason for heals in the center is so that healer can keep the tanks alive, the other healer can work on the rest of the group and throwing minor DPS on the cores. And yes we also fail purple.

When your DPS down the second core of each phase, let them at the one to it's right, it'll be the next one. Ofcourse one DPS has to move to the panel next.

You want your tanks to deal with the adds constantly. Our tanks (I'm one of them) pull the adds close together with their backs against eachother, and we use AOE damage. It will take those adds down faster. When your DPS is running from a destroyed core to the one across from there, they can throw in a fast instant AOE attack if they have any (Sticky / Thermal grenade or a cone attack like Twin Saber Throw).

After orange phase, let the DPS kill the regulators (you should have only 2 up) and make sure they immediately resume to core killing. If they can get a core down before purple ends, you should be fine. When it announces that purple phase failed, everyone should be on the Rectifier, then resume to killing the cores asap.

I hope this helps.

PS: Make sure each group gets their spheres!!!

We set ours up a little different. With the way I set our group up, we don't purposely fail any phase.

Channel/Middle

mdps/heal

tank/rdps

mdps/heal

tank/rdps

With this set up, healing is a bit rougher on the 1 tank that will have 2 champs of him for a short time. The ranged in the middle will always focus the champs first. How ever with a good healer it still can be mainly solo healed if you time your heals when the healing debuff on the tank is about to go off to get the most out of your heal. The healing debuff does stack so if both are on it's ~80% reduced healing on the tank. This really the only thing that make orange and yellow difficult.

For the first 3 color phases, put your strongest healer on full time heal duty. I used to have my 2nd healer do this but I am a scoundrel healer and recently changed to me being the full time healer and things go a lot smoother now. The other healer can switch to mainly helping dps the adds.

Blue- Pretty straight forward, but do not start the channeling until all adds are down, including the grey/strong that spawn. The timer for blue does not start until you begin the channel. This is the only color you use this start on.

Orange- 3 dps not in middle kill the first core, as they transition to 2nd core, 1 mdps breaks off and helps finish the champ adds, while other 2 dps kill the 2nd core.

Purple- Pretty straight forward as well. 3 dps kill cores.

Yellow- This is where the healer that was mainly dpsing the adds will drop back and go into healing mode. I usually will dps the 1st champ a bit, till the 2nd one is about to spawn and then drop back to heal. All dps not in middle uses all cd's and insperation to kill both of the cores.

Note: With this strat a lot of pressure is put onto your tanks, your tanks will need to coordinate their taunts, to take any adds that are on the tanks that has to go and channel. If a tank uses a taunt at the wrong time most likely the adds will go kill a healer or hit the person channeling causing you to fail the color most likely.

Also like I said earlier, using this strat you have to have a very strong healer that can solo heal up to yellow phase. Also the 2nd healer is still full heal spec. I am thinking about having 2nd healer go hybrid heals/dps to maybe not have the 1 dps peal for orange phase, will have to see how it goes next week after lockouts.

Another note about the color spheres and when to kill them...For blue we kill them right away. After that the person channeling will get on the panel right away and find/target their sphere and kill it immediately after the color phase. The ranged dps in the middle focus on killing the champs and when his color sphere is close to the adds they just aoe and kill their sphere...this allows for maximum dps on adds/cores at all times. For yellow this is the same, Tank that is channeling will taunt operator as soon as it spawns then go and kill his color sphere while add are being finished off.

In 2nd phase, the 2 adds that spawn will get aoe taunted, other tank single taunts the boss back. Adds are just tanked until shield goes up, get in your color circles then drop the adds while waiting for shield to come back down. Then have your tanks swap roles so the adds can be aoe taunted next time they spawn.

I'll drop and put my guild way of doing it as well. It is somewhat similar to the ways already proposed, with slight differences here and there. It goes as follows:

Preparation.

We have the following setup before starting the encounter:

Blue color - healer + dps (melee dps if possible);

Orange color - tank + dps (range if possible);

Purple color - healer + dps (any dps would suffice);

Yellow color - tank + dps (range if possible. If you only have 1 range dps, he or she should be on this color);

Healers and tanks are channeling the consoles / buttons, while dps are staying in the middle of the room.

Blue phase.

Orange phase

Purple phase

Yellow phase

Transition / 2nd phase start.

Additional pointers.

• Spread dps between the cores. 1 dps on 1 core, 2 dps on 2nd core. If your dps are good, when 1 core will die that solo-dps should bring his to around 60-40%. So 1 dps can go to the middle right away (usually the next "color phase" person) and help with the adds, while another dps goes to help with the remaining core;
   
   
  
• I cannot say that enough - Regulators MUST be interrupted. Tank can solo interrupt 1 of them, so if the 2nd one spawns while 1st is still up, healer or dps should be on interrupt duty;
   
   
  
• Positioning. Range dps can attack the cores almost from the consoles, minimizing the travel time between the cores. That might not be much, but every extra second helps, especially on later phases.
   
   
  
• Blood thirst. If you have 1, use it on yellow phase;
   
   
  
• Feel free to fail purple phase on purpose. It will give you the extra edge on yellow phase.
  

Hope that helps. Feel free to ask any additional questions.

Instead of putting DPS in the center, the tanks and healers go in the center with the DPS on the panels. The reason for this is survivability. Those adds can only be TAUNTED to get aggro on. On BLUE and PURPLE phase 2 adds will always spawn. It makes more sense to have two tanks available than one on the panel.

The adds only come once every 45 seconds or so. With a single tank, you can burn your AoE taunt every time and get them both.

The adds only come once every 45 seconds or so. With a single tank, you can burn your AoE taunt every time and get them both.

This is true in most cases and to add to that even if the tank has somehow used up his aoe taunt, all he really need to do is single taunt the one add that is going for the button clicker so it does not get to interrupt him.

The other add will most likely go for the person standing in the middle and that add can be stunned, slowed, pushed or pulled away by both the tank and the person standing in the middle until either it dies or the tank's taunt comes out of cooldown again.

There is no reason not to have tanks to do the clicking.

What I am used to is

Blue: DPS and Healer - dps, if melee, on button

Orange: Healer and ranged DPS - healer on button

Purple: Tank and DPS - Tank on button

Yellow: Tank and ranged DPS - Tank on button

Middle/Channel

Blue: mDPS/mDPS

Orange: rDPS/Tank

Purple: rDPS/Heal

Yellow: Heal/Tank

Orange Phase: The rDPS in the middle, a tank, and the healers will be able to kill (or very close) the first Regulator before the 2nd one spawns. DPS running from one core to the other throw a couple of dots or hits as they run by.

Purple Phase: Kill one core and DPS the 2nd one low. Fail on purpose and burn the adds that spawn. Heal up and kill the last core.

Yellow Phase: 3 DPS work purely on the cores, a 4th DPS will only kill the Regulators that spawn. The lone-DPS should have no problem killing the first regulator before the 2nd on spawns. Again, the 3-DPS will throw a couple DOTs and hits on the Regulator as they run by. The 3 DPS on the cores will burn them down with a lot of time to spare.

My guild has been running it this way since the raid was released and rarely fail.

We set ours up a little different. With the way I set our group up, we don't purposely fail any phase

Our strat and methodology exactly. Yes, this fight did get a bit harder in 2.0, mostly on the healers. We usually have one DPS pause momentarily between cores to lay down an AoE on any adds that are in the middle...but only momentarily. We don't fail any phase, have a DPS in the middle of orange with a healer clicking. From yellow on, it pretty much takes both healers working full time to deal with the incoming damage.

DPS/DPS BLUE

DPS/DPS ORANGE

HEAL/TANK PURPLE

HEAL/TANK YELLOW

range dps middle, melee dps channel, range kills adds

if problems in yellow phase-> in purple phase only kill 1 data core, only kill the other until 10% then let it fail, kill rectifier and all adds start yellow phase

I solo 1 core in yellow phase and 2 dds do the other

Since I did it 8man and 16man pre 2.0 and now 16man post 2.0 as a healer I would like to point out that this fight is exactly the same except a few details.

Tried it once 8man post 2.0, was a bad raidnight so it didn't go so well, but all in all I found 8man to be the exact same as it used to be.

in 16-man my guild had issues to start with, because of the insane damage increase in phase 2, when you need to run into the colors to stop the boss from doing ticking damage on the whole raid.

For 16-man Hardmode Operator IX we do as following:

Our strat and methodology exactly. Yes, this fight did get a bit harder in 2.0, mostly on the healers. We usually have one DPS pause momentarily between cores to lay down an AoE on any adds that are in the middle...but only momentarily. We don't fail any phase, have a DPS in the middle of orange with a healer clicking. From yellow on, it pretty much takes both healers working full time to deal with the incoming damage.

Yes, yellow is usually when our 2nd healer starts helping out to heal. However our last time in there, we didn't kill him cause was teaching someone new to the fight, but my 2nd healer did very little healing. I didn't know this till after the fight when looked at the parse. We wiped in 2nd phase cause someone didn't get in color circle, was close to half way through phase and I wasn't having to much trouble with only light heals from the 2nd healer. I was close 900k healing while other healer was around 150k but he had also put out close to 400k damage at full heal spec. That's why I mentioned about may be trying my 2nd healer as a hybrid to put out more dps but still be able to throw decent heals to help me out.

I made sure to mention twice in my post that in order to use our strat exactly you need a Very strong main healer. I have not tried it this way with out me being the main healer as a scoundrel...a lot easier for scoundrels to be able to throw hots on dps to keep them up while still being able to focus the majority of our heals to the tanks that need it most. I am not sure if other classes can do it with out significantly more help from the 2nd healer. When I was the one that was mainly dpsing during blue/orange/purple...I would drop back to help heal cause usually the other healer gets over whelmed a bit while champs are up.

This big key to mainly solo healing it is the timing of your heals with the healing debuff on tanks. Coordinate with the tank if they get a double debuff that they may need to use a cool down until you can get a full heal on them.

I wouldn't advise trying to solo heal unless your healer is decently geared as well. I am far from bis. I have full 69's with few mods/enhancement still to min/max and Verpine implants, bracers, offhand. I am planning to drop my crit/surge a bit to get some more alacrity to be able to keep 2 stacks of my hots on all 8 during phase 2 and have a little more time to throw a couple casts on the tanks before I have to renew my hots.

Edit: Something else I thought I should mention. If you do try to use our strat and mainly solo heal, your main healer should be on blue in order to get their color sphere right away so don't have to worry about it during the fight.

2nd Edit: Here is a video of the way we used to do it pre 2.0 with me mainly dpsing during cores had a sage main healing. We did loose a tank part way though cause I didn't drop back to help heal soon enough.

My guild's tactic is flawless.

 

Blue: Tank + DPS

Orange: Heal + DPS

Purple: Tank + DPS

Yellow: Heal + DPS.

 

Instead of putting DPS in the center, the tanks and healers go in the center with the DPS on the panels. The reason for this is survivability. Those adds can only be TAUNTED to get aggro on. On BLUE and PURPLE phase 2 adds will always spawn. It makes more sense to have two tanks available than one on the panel.

 

Also, having 4 dps available on yellow isn't a necessity anymore. We easily got yellow down with 3 DPS only. Just make sure your DPS have their relics and offensive cooldowns available. Having a Sentinel makes things easier too .

 

The reason for heals in the center is so that healer can keep the tanks alive, the other healer can work on the rest of the group and throwing minor DPS on the cores. And yes we also fail purple.

 

When your DPS down the second core of each phase, let them at the one to it's right, it'll be the next one. Ofcourse one DPS has to move to the panel next.

 

You want your tanks to deal with the adds constantly. Our tanks (I'm one of them) pull the adds close together with their backs against eachother, and we use AOE damage. It will take those adds down faster. When your DPS is running from a destroyed core to the one across from there, they can throw in a fast instant AOE attack if they have any (Sticky / Thermal grenade or a cone attack like Twin Saber Throw).

 

After orange phase, let the DPS kill the regulators (you should have only 2 up) and make sure they immediately resume to core killing. If they can get a core down before purple ends, you should be fine. When it announces that purple phase failed, everyone should be on the Rectifier, then resume to killing the cores asap.

 

I hope this helps.

 

PS: Make sure each group gets their spheres!!!

This is how we do it also. For those putting dps in the center, they're just making it harder on themselves.

This is how we do it also. For those putting dps in the center, they're just making it harder on themselves.

Our guild does it this way too, actually heal/tank/heal/tank with dps channeling every phase as was suggested in another post, and we usually one-shot the encounter with little difficulty.

The bottom line is that there is certainly no consensus as to the "right" way to do this. Find what works for you, and stick with it. Be prepared to spend plenty of hours working on it though. I have worked with several guilds who give up after 3 or 4 attempts and "let's just do SM". As stated earlier this is the most difficult encounter in all of TFB, and arguably more difficult than any in HM S&V, Styrak presents an extremely tight enrage timer and Thrasher and Titan 6 are tough on the healers, but none present a more difficult set of mechanics where 1 mistake by anyone in the raid very often results in a wipe.