Hey folks,

I'm trying to play the KOTET chapters on Veteran, but with mostly-230 gear and Emperess Acina at 25, I still can't get past the genoharadan scouting party. I think I need to update my utilities and rotation.

Here's what I've got now:

Utilities:

Second Wind, Debilitation

Purifying Sweep, Guardianship, and Unremitting

Through Peace, Preparation

Daunting Presence

Rotation:

Opening with Force Leap, Warding Strike, Guardian Slash, then for filler: Slash, Riposte, Blade Barrage, Blade Storm. Combat focus and Saber Throw as needed for extra focus. Saber reflect, hilt bash, and taunts as needed for threat; hilt bash and force kick as needed for interrupts.

I checked Dulfy for an updated tanking guide for 5.0, but couldn't find one. And I haven't massively re-tuned my rotation since like 3.0, so I'm sure it's a mess (I added blade barrage in with 5.0, but IDK if I'm using it in the right place). Any advice?

(And yes, I know I could just run it on Story Mode, but I really like achievements and don't want to play every chapter twice on my main, so I'd rather do it once on Vet).

I can't really speak for the new veteran story as I have yet to finish the story period. Because of the new gearing system I've had to prioritize higher cxp content to try to get something for our raid tomorrow (failing miserably btw 25 crates and all I've gotten are pants ).

I also haven't read much as far as actual guides fron people who do theory or NiM content, but from what I've seen we're more or less similar to what we were in 4.0.

As far as what you're using for an opener try to put off warding strike until you have a taunt window. If you use the give you 6 focus button, you can go straight into guardian slash, riposte, and hilt bash before needing the focus. Those abilities give far more threat than warding strike. As you're probably aware, guardian slash, riposte, blade storm, hilt bash, heck even saber reflect as with the utility (which is almost a necessity for guardian tanking) it gives you an incredibly high threat button.

As far as the story content goes, is your comp dps specced? I usually run with it dps specced as I find the self heal enough to keep me up usually. Using defensives as appropriate is good. I simply mean the obvious here, like rotate them, use them for the damage types they prevent (i.e. single target ranged, force, and tech for reflect), and so on. If you're killing stuff at a reasonable rate and atruggling to stay alive, set the comp to heals and you can survive almost anything as long as you keep the comp alive. Like keep the mobs off the comp, move the comp out of fire, etc.

Like I said I haven't finished the story yet period on any mode so idk about anything more specific, sorry.

KendraP thanks for the tip about my rotation--I will give that a try. What's been messing me up in this fight is that I've been having a heck of a time keeping threat--not usually a big problem but for some reason the adds on this fight are tough to pull.

My comp is set to heals--which works out fine until I lose threat on an addd and it kills her, then me.

For the GenoHarradan at the end of chapter 2, it's probably more of a strategy problem, than a rotaion problem. If you're tank specced and geared, Acina should have no problem keeping you alive if you have aggro on all three.

So here's what you need to do:

Take the Leader into focus target, so you see his Ultimate Shot cast. It's 16 seconds, but breaks on the slightest bit of damage. So let him cast that as long as possible, but you need to hit and interrupt him at all costs, since this is pretty much a oneshot with ~120k damage.

Then you need to interrupt(normally) Hail of Bolts everytime asap. This is bugged, as it cleaves the whole room, not only a cone in front of the leader. And it hits like a truck at lightspeed.

Finally, try to kill the two hunters first without touching the leader too much. If he goes below 75%, he starts firing his fire mines.

With all that in mind, deactivate Acinas stun ability. Make her stun one of the hunters first and then actively set her to attack the other hunter. Keep one of them stunned/mezzed with Choke, Backhand and Roar and finish off the other one first. Keep the leader on you with taunts so he doesn't go for Acina(also, guard her). When the first Hunter is down, go for the second one. Set Acina to attack him instead of the leader, so she doesn't interrupt Ultimate Shot early.

When it's only the Leader left, kill him. When he starts soearing and throwing his fire mines around, set Acina to passive, keep moving and stay away from him. Cause when he's done, he smashes onto the ground, which does a cr*pton of damage as well. After that, set Acina to active again and kill him. If you need time to get healed, don't attack him during Ultimate Shot as long as possible.

tldr: Keep all 3 on you, kill hunters first, interrupt Ultimate Shot with damage, interrupt Hail of Bolts(normally directly after he pulled you in), keep moving during firemines.

And be aware that this is the hardest fight in all of the solo content. Everything else is a walk in the park in comparison.

And for rotaion and stuff: Just look up the guide for 3.0 or 4.0 on Dulfy. Nothing has changed since then, really. Apart from Ravage being instant, which allows for it to be used more frequently.

Torvai, thanks a ton for this advice! I really appreciate you taking the time to walk through the strategy on this fight.

Also, good to know this is the hardest fight in all of solo. I was feeling kinda demoralized like "if I can't beat this in Ch. 2 there is no way I'm getting through the rest of the chapters on Vet." Chapter One on vet wasn't a problem even at level 65-8 with 216/220 gear, so the difficulty on this one really surprised me.