with battlelord Kreshan, if I'm not the one tanking him and/or don't know the tank that will and see that they are not trying to circle around? I position myself on a side of the room before he gets pulled as promptly as possible, because almost inevitably - the tank will pull him as he stands, never turns him around and the whole group ends up getting hit by his cone attack. at least that way, there's one less person to heal (and since more often than not, I'm that healer... yeah)

 

its almost weird to me at this point when I see a pug tank get into position and NOT hit the group with AoE

 

edited to add. apparently healing abilities on commando don't require a canon to work? or so I've heard. its only dpsers that are stuck with those enormous "overcompensating much" things

 

Indeed, only the DPS guys have to overcompensate with the cannon, healing abilities don't require that.

 

And boy, you can be sure I got to safety ASAP, no faith in that tank whatsoever. But I've never seen a "tank" take so much damage from that one attack in SM, it was pretty absurd.

 

Also, by now I have arrived at the conclusion that the Scoundrel was not specced for healing. My Ops is specced for healing, and at level 20 you unlock that stacking HoT (Slow release medpac for Scoundrel I think). And that guy at 23 didn't use that once.

 

EDIT:

By the way, have I mentioned how the Shadow and Scoundrel tried to stealth skip a group that you cannot skip if you don't have stealth? I'm dead serious, the Shadow wanted to leave us behind.

Edited April 13, 2014 by Darkelefantos

I've been leveling up a lot lately, so many stories to tell unfortunately :/

 

Hammer Station SM : I load in, I notice the tank has an unusually low amount of HP. I inspect his gear : Empty shells for the most part. Did have two enhancements though. And the worst part is : All of his stuff was broken. Durability : 0. I don't even know how that's possible. We begged him to at least repair his stuff. Nothing. He was basically naked. The DPS were much easier to heal. We had no choice but to kick him.

 

Mandalorian Raiders SM : Final boss, I make sure to type "Do not attack the boss until all turrets are dead". But what does the Marauder do ? He keeps hitting on the boss and chasing him, completely ignoring the turrets. There's three sets of them at one point. Another frustrating healing job. And yet another Marauder on my ignore list.

 

Colocoid War Games : A wipe on the first set of turrets. Don't even ask me how that's possible I have no idea.

 

Foundry SM : HK fight. I'm tanking. My health bar drops, and drops, and drops, not a single heal. I die, we wipe, I type "Healer ?", he says "You're a crap tank you're taking too much damage". We try again, I get my first heal when I'm at 10% health. Healer is complaining he doesn't have time to DPS and that he has to heal me. According to him a good tank would not require healing. Kick, ignore and all went well after that.

 

Boarding Party SM : Everything goes smoothly. I'm tanking. Final boss is dead, tanking gear drops so I press need but a Marauder gets it. He thought he could get away with ninja looting the final drop because the flashpoint is over anyway. Little did he know that to finish the flashpoint and to get the daily done, you need to have one last conversation. I did not participate and said I wouldn't until he gave me that drop. He doesn't, so I initiate a vote kick and he quickly changes his mind and gives it to me. Vote kick got confirmed a few seconds later

 

KDY : A DPS with mostly empty shells, I think he only had 4 enhancements or something. He said "There's bolster, it doesn't matter, just like in PVP". I guess I know why the empire sucks so bad in PVP on my server ...

 

Czerka Lab HM : First boss, the droid in the electrified water. I'm healing. The DPS completely ignore the adds and I get obliterated in seconds. Fair enough, those adds used to just stand there and not attack. We try again. The boss enrages and he's not particularly close to being dead ... We still manage because the boss doesn't actually hit that hard while enraged. First and only time I've seen a flashpoint boss enrage.

 

Second boss, tank dies, and guess who has aggro on the boss ? The healer. One Marauder was in mostly 78s, the other DPS was in 72s/78s, and they can't even build more threat than the healer ? Are they just randomly pushing buttons ? I guess that explains the enrage on the first boss. A DPS died, so it's just me and another DPS, and I have to tank the boss, heal myself and the DPS that was occasionally staying in circles a bit too long. Oh and I had to take care of the adds as well because obviously it was beneath the DPS.

 

Final boss. At that point I have lost all faith in humanity, so I'm not taking any chances and I type instructions "DPS, open a blue container, hit the mob and when you see the message pop up, open a red one". They say "ok". So maybe this boss fight won't be that bad after all. We start, both DPS release every single blue monster at once. Wrong day to quit drinking I guess.

 

That's just a small list. I won't even bother mentioning all the Marauders thinking they're tanking and not even healing between pulls, DPS ignoring kill order, inquisitors using Overload on cooldown and spreading all the mobs or knocking them away from an AOE or people having no idea how to play their advanced class, like an assassin tank using Crushing Darkness, not having Dark Ward up at all times and never ever having stacks of dark protection.

 

Ergh, sometimes I wonder why I even bother queuing for flashpoints.

Queue as my Commando, get slotted as heals for Assault On Tython with three DPS: two sages and a shadow. On the very first objective, the shadow unilaterally tries to stealth-cap one of the artillery targeting sensors and pulls two groups presumably because he is an idiot who has never tried to stealth-cap anything in PvE and doesn't understand how mobs aggro. (I don't think he even Mind Mazed anything in the attempt.) At least one of the Sages CCs some elite droids, thankfully, but everyone's taking so much damage that I'm full-on-crazy-burst-spam-healing, and so everything aggroes to me and I die after a little bit. Time to log and try again somewhere else!

 

I swap over to my Shadow and get assigned to tank HM Athiss. I load in and find that one of the DPS has already dropped group. Why? Our commando healer has 20k health, has level 30-something ear and implants, and is missing relics entirely. I write the run off, advise the commando to run dailies and get some decent gear pieces, and log. Back to the Commando I go!

 

So yeah, then I got a run of HM Czerka Core Meltdown (as DPS) and things went smoothly, even though the healer seemed a little new to the tactics.

So, today I played Athiss with a lvl 26 Scoundrel healer who decided to stand in the flames and heal through it on the last boss. Was there any chance on that working, ever?

So the guy dies, and I skip to healing mode so we can 3-man the boss. For my troubles of keeping everyone alive without being specced for it and later reviving the Scoundrel, I am awarded no words at all in chat and the Scoundrel ninjas the cannon the boss dropped that I kinda needed. Faith in humanity: lost.

So have been reading this thread since its debut and though I've had some funny gf moments, today was the day i finally decided to post. So today in Mando SM pub side, i was on my dps scoundrel and qued up. Got sage heals, vg and guardian. So it turns out that both the vg and guard were tanks but whatever vg says the guard can tank and so we rolled, all were pretty good lvls so didn't think anything about it. Was a little annoying because both "tanks" tried to tank but we cleared the first boss and second boss np. Only weird thing was on the first boss the vg wouldn't attack the dogs and shot at the boss and every now and then would harpoon him out of the tanks range. Anyways after the second bosses died the vg died, i was going ahead to get to elevator when all of sudden he asked for a revive, however the healer couldn't see him and neither could I. He then begin cussing the healer and calling us idiots, so i initiated a vote kick with the reason A-Hole. He then told me that he would hack my computer before he was kicked, so weird. I mean completely fine run no deaths he is laughing and joking and then boom, he just flipped out. Then we got a guard dps with an aim chest piece but at that point i couldn't care less lol

Double xp weekend so I am doing lots of KDY with my lowbie sage. Two days in, and about the only thing making this flashpoint interesting is bad groups. So I'm quite tolerant when things go wrong in KDY groups, but at this point I am ready to scream every time I see a DPS using their knockback.

 

If I see someone using their knockback on the first mob, I seriously contemplate leaving because I know it's going to be a painful run. I understand that very low level toons don't have many abilities and that this is probably their only AOE. I also understand it's necessary to use a knockback if you're getting swarmed by adds and nobody else is trying to take them off you. But I don't understand why people from levels 40 to 54 who have far better options would use a knockback as their MAIN damaging ability, using it every time it comes off cooldown. If you're a sage (and they seem to be the class most guilty of this), why would you think that your knockback is a better option than the Mortar Volley the commando in the group is obviously lining up to use, until you screw things up by pushing the mobs right out of it?

 

This has definitely replaced marauder / sentinel tanks as my pet peeve in groups!

Cademimu HM.

 

Newly leveled tank with about 25k health. Also a newbie, didn't know the fights.

 

2 casually geared, average dps from the same guild.

 

Me on my severely overgeared healer without a care in the world.

 

Even before we engage the first trash mob, the dps start making fun of the tank, saying how he has no business being there and how they were going to carry him. He's polite and honest, says yes he's new, sorry about that, but they keep ragging on him even after I say it'll be totally fine, because it's not like Cademimu is difficult or anything.

 

Tank screws up the first boss because he doesn't know the mechanics, but nobody dies so who cares. He leaves the flashpoint anyway, because the dps won't stop telling him how bad he is. For some reason they assumed I was totally okay with this elitist attitude, and weren't worried about alienating the healer as well as the tank.

 

So the dps whined about having spent an hour in queue and now we're down a tank, wah wah wah, so I break out my darling 45k Kaliyo to tank for us, and what does the dps do? Leap into the first large mob we see before Kaliyo and promptly die, probably while yelling "YOLO SWAG" in real life. "The hell with this," thought I, and I left since I had no desire to carry two bad dps with terrible attitudes through Cademimu. I prayed that they never got replacements, and went to read a book.

 

People, if Cademimu is so intimidating for you that you can't deal with it without a fully Dread Forged tank to hold your hand, you are bad. And you should probably be quiet about your insecurities.

Double xp weekend so I am doing lots of KDY with my lowbie sage. Two days in, and about the only thing making this flashpoint interesting is bad groups. So I'm quite tolerant when things go wrong in KDY groups, but at this point I am ready to scream every time I see a DPS using their knockback.

 

If I see someone using their knockback on the first mob, I seriously contemplate leaving because I know it's going to be a painful run. I understand that very low level toons don't have many abilities and that this is probably their only AOE. I also understand it's necessary to use a knockback if you're getting swarmed by adds and nobody else is trying to take them off you. But I don't understand why people from levels 40 to 54 who have far better options would use a knockback as their MAIN damaging ability, using it every time it comes off cooldown. If you're a sage (and they seem to be the class most guilty of this), why would you think that your knockback is a better option than the Mortar Volley the commando in the group is obviously lining up to use, until you screw things up by pushing the mobs right out of it?

 

This has definitely replaced marauder / sentinel tanks as my pet peeve in groups!

 

Sages don't get AoE till 34 (proper AoE circle stuff) so they probably wouldn't think about it. Also Sage heal tree used to have knockback heal everyone, till they moved it up the tree in 2.7 (I still have a habit of using it on my sorc). I don't see much wrong with a knockback, and I have a mid lvl Commando.

I normally do a lot of group finder fps. I don't mind it too much but some are rougher than others. My experience is that I found the tacticals to be the more straining on the patience. I am not one to rage in the chat (I play frequently with a friend, so we whisper a lot. Thus when we do FPs together and things fall apart cause of reckless calls, I know its just not me that feels their blood boiling over stupid things I witness).

 

Anyway, double exp weekend, so KDY shipyard multiple times these last 2 days. Only one was terrible, but when it was bad, it was rotten. Playing my PT tank, and all is well, I am leading the charge, making sure people have time to heal between skirmishes and not rushing the group too much, or at least my friend didn't mention anything(and he is quick to let me know when I am doing poorly). Get to the final boss, its good old trooper who can lob 2 dozen nades at a time like a BA. No issues, fought his guy numerous times, I know the routine in my sleep. I tell everyone that we will go to the one on our left, the one I am standing by. We have a healer, but those grenades will eat you alive if you decide to take them like a champ, as I am sure everyone knows. Well sure enough, first time we have to clear grenades, healer goes to opposite side I point out, and I don't realize this until we have activated ours. So next time, we are all guaranteed to get hit by the grenades. No biggie, we should be able to handle that. I tell the healer that we need to go as a group. What happens? 3rd time, healer, who lingered right next to one, activates it immediately, and the rest of us don't have time to end our melee attacks and get there before it clears the grenades so we get hit again. If that wasn't bad enough, the 4th time, he does the same thing. Luckily 2 of us made it right as it cleared but my friend wasn't so lucky. Final time, we take down the trooper as he chucks his stickies with his last dying breath. Healer activates and cleanses himself. I have enough health thanks to the kolto stations and decide to run up to the healer and share the pleasure of grenades going off. Nearly killed my friend and the healer, with it, but my friend said the healer had it coming. It’s the simple joys.

 

I also recall a wonderful time on Athiss where loot ninja turned out to be just plain stupid. Leveling a scoundrel to see if I want it as an alt as all the other classes I had played hadn't quite felt right to me. Get to first boss, crazy devotee lady. Earpiece drops, and I have a crappy one, and would be a huge upgrade. Only cunning user in the group. Vanguard Tank rolls need, so does Commando healer. I am like ***? But I keep my cool. I ask them "You guys realize Aim is your primary stat right?" The winner justifies his needing by saying "Yeah, but as a tank, I seriously need more endurance." I check his gear, and its a hodgepodge of Str, Aim and Willpower, now with its nice little Earpiece to give him cunning to make his ensemble of ignorance complete. I shrug it off as its not endgame gear and I would replace it soon enough anyway. Well that goes on for the rest of the FP. Needing everything cause "It has endurance and I need high endurance to stay alive." That's why the vanishing act is useful. Group being stupid and about to wipe? Vanish, save your own tail, revive the idiots while they rage over their own ignorance.

Double xp weekend so I am doing lots of KDY with my lowbie sage. Two days in, and about the only thing making this flashpoint interesting is bad groups. So I'm quite tolerant when things go wrong in KDY groups, but at this point I am ready to scream every time I see a DPS using their knockback.

 

If I see someone using their knockback on the first mob, I seriously contemplate leaving because I know it's going to be a painful run. I understand that very low level toons don't have many abilities and that this is probably their only AOE. I also understand it's necessary to use a knockback if you're getting swarmed by adds and nobody else is trying to take them off you. But I don't understand why people from levels 40 to 54 who have far better options would use a knockback as their MAIN damaging ability, using it every time it comes off cooldown. If you're a sage (and they seem to be the class most guilty of this), why would you think that your knockback is a better option than the Mortar Volley the commando in the group is obviously lining up to use, until you screw things up by pushing the mobs right out of it?

 

This has definitely replaced marauder / sentinel tanks as my pet peeve in groups!

 

At least Marauder can tank every champion in KDY if healer is still alive. I don't usually do it but what can you do when everyone else dies withing first 10 seconds? Even Shadow/Assassin dps can tank Elite Defender if healer lives long enough so you can easily burn it down.

 

I have to agree that if I see 3 non-force users in my group I'm like "thank you God!". Sages/Sorcs are the worst when it comes to knockbacs. If I see someone doing it for every group of mobs when melee is just about to attack them then I start using single target abilities only (for example Grav round, HIB, Full Auto as Commando).

Cademimu HM.

 

Newly leveled tank with about 25k health. Also a newbie, didn't know the fights.

 

2 casually geared, average dps from the same guild.

 

Me on my severely overgeared healer without a care in the world.

 

Even before we engage the first trash mob, the dps start making fun of the tank, saying how he has no business being there and how they were going to carry him. He's polite and honest, says yes he's new, sorry about that, but they keep ragging on him even after I say it'll be totally fine, because it's not like Cademimu is difficult or anything.

 

Tank screws up the first boss because he doesn't know the mechanics, but nobody dies so who cares. He leaves the flashpoint anyway, because the dps won't stop telling him how bad he is. For some reason they assumed I was totally okay with this elitist attitude, and weren't worried about alienating the healer as well as the tank.

 

So the dps whined about having spent an hour in queue and now we're down a tank, wah wah wah, so I break out my darling 45k Kaliyo to tank for us, and what does the dps do? Leap into the first large mob we see before Kaliyo and promptly die, probably while yelling "YOLO SWAG" in real life. "The hell with this," thought I, and I left since I had no desire to carry two bad dps with terrible attitudes through Cademimu. I prayed that they never got replacements, and went to read a book.

 

People, if Cademimu is so intimidating for you that you can't deal with it without a fully Dread Forged tank to hold your hand, you are bad. And you should probably be quiet about your insecurities.

If the DPS are treating the tank like that, what you do is simple

 

1. Whisper the tank, tell him he's doing fine

2. Whisper the tank, tell him you're gonna vote kick the other 2 dps one by one to get rid of them and get nicer DPS's

3. Vote kick the DPS 1 by 1 with the reason "Complete ***** that dont deserve to get this run"

4. Queue up for new DPS.

5. Collect winnings with a tank who wasn't insulted by the bads anymore. Also, if possible let the tank win every roll so his gear gets better.

Edited April 14, 2014 by TACeMossie

At least Marauder can tank every champion in KDY if healer is still alive. I don't usually do it but what can you do when everyone else dies withing first 10 seconds? Even Shadow/Assassin dps can tank Elite Defender if healer lives long enough so you can easily burn it down.

 

I have to agree that if I see 3 non-force users in my group I'm like "thank you God!". Sages/Sorcs are the worst when it comes to knockbacs. If I see someone doing it for every group of mobs when melee is just about to attack them then I start using single target abilities only (for example Grav round, HIB, Full Auto as Commando).

 

On my Sniper I'm tanking every champion in KDY even without a healer and sometimes if we have a tank in our group I still end up tanking

So, queued up for my daily pug as usual. Got Colicoid War Game. Now, I've not once done this FP ever. So, moment I spawn, I politely address the group who is comprised of two 46s and a 48.(I'm only 40) that I've never been there. Silence. When our last member spawns in, we proceed to turrets. The tank, before anybody mounts them, asks if anyone hasn't done this before. Again, I say I've never done any of the FP before. Well, no explanation was given. So, I mount up and use the on screen prompts and just start blasting away. I took the white ones as I noticed they were ranged before switching to the green swarmers. I took the time to make sure my blind spots were covered just in-case. Well, I end up getting mobbed from the area that the tank was covering. Turns out, he was only shooting the ranged bugs.

 

Naturally, the group ends up wiping. The other dps ragequits. Tank asked what the problem was. I say, for the 3rd time mind you, that I've not done ANY OF THE FREAKING WAR GAME BEFORE. Again, silence. Healer whispers me saying she's been pugged with this tank before and he is just an ***. She kindly explains exactly what to do so I'm not shooting blindly(all puns intended). Well, second attempt all goes well. Almost. Tank is again only shooting the ranged ones and anything that is attacking him. Naturally, the others are getting overwhelmed. Again, we wipe. "F this, you stupid morons." The tank says as he ragequits. Spent about 20 minutes in queue looking for another tank to no avail.

You should try it again but this time take the Beast to that far cave (the 2d common strategy for Athis PUGs). You won't get the adds that way.

 

My Assassin is a tank in off spec only, so, I don't know that she's geared enough. May be able to do it on my Guardian whose main spec is tank.

 

Would be fun to try. Its just a repair bill, after all.

 

Thx for the tip.

Which cave would that be? The one in the very back (heading right instead of left on the stairs just before the boss)? Since I tend to either tank pugs myself or I get tankpugs who are doing the same/screwing up royally.

 

I think a guardian would not be bad at all either. Mainly the new focussed defense plays very nice while solo'ing content (at least it does on my lv43 lowbe tank). And afterall, its just a repairbill. Plus if it doesnt work out you just ask a guildy for some support and you breeze trough it.

yeah it's better to not use the markers when there's idiots in the group. if you mark something for cc someone attacks it right away but if you mark something in a boss fight to be killed first they completely ignore the marked mob

 

Speaking about markers .... Last week I was in a TfB SM pugrun where I thought to make good use of the fp/ops class markers. At Kephess I typed in chat that I would mark the pylon where I would take Kephess and were we would cleanse nanites (to clarify, I was on a tanktoon).

Somehow the group managed to ALWAYS choose the other pylon. Since they were consistent I didn't fret it and just pulled the boss to the pylon where people were channeling .

HM Czerka Meltdown on Duneclaw fight as a healer. I've healed it tons of times before, even with an undergeared tank who's never done it before but it's easy enough to explain so it's usually been no problem. This time, I get a tank who thinks he knows what he's doing. Before the pull, he starts off by going to the far right barrel/generator right away. Apparently, he thinks that the barrels turn green in a fixed pattern. I ask him why he's over there. He says "lol" in party chat and comes back over by us. He pulls and things are going well in the center. Then when sandstorm comes, he goes right back to that same far right barrel EVEN THOUGH IT'S NOT LIT UP GREEN. I go in completely the opposite direction, towards the green barrel with nobody following me. DPS follows the clueless tank and the tank is still there by the nongreen barrel, just oblivious to everything going on, unaware of their health bars going down down down. I ask in party chat "does that barrel look green to you?". Tank responds "just heal and shut your big fat mouth". I leave group after the inevitable wipe.

Sages don't get AoE till 34 (proper AoE circle stuff) so they probably wouldn't think about it. Also Sage heal tree used to have knockback heal everyone, till they moved it up the tree in 2.7 (I still have a habit of using it on my sorc). I don't see much wrong with a knockback, and I have a mid lvl Commando.

 

Knockbacks DO NOT exist to blast enemies randomly all over the place.

 

If you use knockback on CD in a group setting for the damage, and especially if you are consistently knocking mobs out of aoe / melee range, you are a bad player and the type that gets added to my ignore list.

 

If you use knockbacks to get some breathing room when being overwhelmed or to push a couple of side ranged mobs into a group of melee mobs for aoe or to toss an annoying champ over a ledge to their death, then you are the type I'll probably want to group with again in the future.

 

And sadly I find myself grouped with many more of the former than the later.

Edited April 14, 2014 by DawnAskham

not as much weird as tiresome.

double xp weekend, somehow get sm Candemimu (I mean I was queued for everything, but KDY seemed to pop pretty much exclusively until then) I'm on my baby operative and I haven't upgraded her gear in 10 levels. but... ok, I can handle it, my main is an operative, I've healed tougher stuff than that.

 

except. our tank has one of the most extreme cases of tunnel vision I've had displeasure to encounter. I'm sucking wind after every fight, becasue I have to spam heal tank AND the sorc that ends up tanking pretty much everything but the one mob tank is focusing on. but... we're moving, progressing... until the part where you are clearing through droids etc to get to the wookie - specifically that double pull at the top of the stairs. for some incomprehensible to me reason, tank decides not to tank the group once his chosen mob is dead and just runs ahead... leaving the rest of us to deal with pretty much everything else. sorc bless their heart - tries their best and so do i, and maybe if I were in upgraded gear, I could have pulled us through it... but I wasn't. and we die, while sniper just barely finishes off the last mob.

sorc finally has enough and very politely asks tank to please finish tanking mobs before running off and consider giving him guard so that he'd pull less aggro.

 

indignant tank tells sorc that they don't know anything becasue they are not a tank and they should shut up, unless they want to find another tank. me and sorc try to explain the concept of alts AND how threat tables work. tank zones out. sniper pulls out Kaliyo and we easily kill the wookie while waiting for a new tank.. who shows up in a middle of trash pull, realises that its an almost finished flashpoint... and leaves group becasue he'd rather wait for a debuff to wear off, then get a super easy and fast quest turn in xp >_> this time I pull out my Treek (thanks to obscene amount of presence I have, she's tougher than Sniper's Kaliyo even in unupgraded gear - and easier for me to target for healing) and we finish off the flashpoint with no issues. (because I know how to switch between passive and aggressive modes for the purposes of kiting )

 

I'm still trying to figure out the logic behind taking a debuff that won't let you even try for another flashpoint for like 15 minutes, vs finishing off a quick 5 minute flashpoint with its 30k xp turn in and then getting another run in less then half the time you are going to spend waiting for the debuff to wear off. (that and if you don't want flashpoints in progress... deselect that option for the love of.)

this time I pull out my Treek (thanks to obscene amount of presence I have, she's tougher than Sniper's Kaliyo even in unupgraded gear

This reminds me of a time wayyyyy back, when a couple of guildies of mine managed to 2-man LR-5. The sent was using Lord Scourge, who (at one point) did the amazing feat of

 

1. Got an energy coil

2. Ran away from the group

3. Dropped the energy coil

4. Leapt back in

 

We always wondered if it was some bizzare fluke, or if Scourge was just better than most pugs.

Just between us chickens, I actually wasn't being particularly serious. I tossed off a casual comment, guessing at what another poster meant.

 

Somehow, this is so important to you, that you have to not only dissect my unimportant post into tiny pieces, but you have to then follow it up with a wall of text, on a thread that started out as "let's tell humorous stories about flashpoints"

 

:rak_03::rak_03:42'>The Shadow forum is that way. Perhaps there, your infinite wisdom may be appreciated in all it's glory.

I agree:rak_03: Edited April 14, 2014 by Wobbleharrison

Is there something buggy about the first two pulls in Red Reaper imp-side?

I wasn't able to spot any of the first two pulls, leaving the tank to rely on target of target to find any of them. Meanwhile, we have a healsorc who'd queued for dps toss out a comment along the lines of 'taunt, you dimwit'.

Let me just waste my aoe taunt without knowing what I'm going to catch, let alone if I'm catching anything, why don't I? We wipe on those pulls, naturally, but the healing dps ditches (whispering my sister, who was healing and had queued for heals with a 'taking the nope train, have fun') afterwards and we get a replacement just before the first boss. Now, our replacement was a Jugger who was most definitely specced into tanking (I could hear him using bash and I had to swap guard from the 'sin to him), but we didn't wipe at all.

 

I'm really not sure what it is with those first two pulls, though--

 

Ah!

Also, kudos to the sin for not only putting up with all that crap, but being an amazing stealthstunner and general 'pain-in-our-enemy's-backside'.

Is there something buggy about the first two pulls in Red Reaper imp-side?

The first 3 rooms of Red Reaper are a bizarre social experiment on BioWare's part to see how much inexplicable pain they can inflict on 4 total strangers within the first 60 seconds of a FP.

 

And yes it's 'normal' for mobs to be invisible. Consider this a 'feature'.

 

Here is a rough summary of how those rooms work:

• There are a bunch of angry psycho mobs that hit much harder than their "Strong" classification suggests.
  
• Those psycho mobs are busy hitting Republic NPCs and will ignore you.
  
• Those psycho mobs are still in combat, meaning they're 'listening' for any aggressive actions you take — such as buffing or healing — and because the Pub NPCs do crap damage, the psycho Purebloods will very easily aggro onto anyone who does anything near them that generates threat.
  
• There is an invisible trigger point near the doorway leading out of the room that causes 4 more of the Strongs to spawn in the hallway, and rush into the room.
  
• These 4 new mobs are 'aggro'd', meaning they're listening for aggressive actions — in other words, the Tank doesn't notice them because they're in the hallway, so the only Threat these mobs get put on their aggro table is the healer.
  

 

The net result is that most groups that blunder right into the space of the doorway to kill the first couple Purebloods, trigger the extra spawn and then end up fighting 7-8 psycho Strongs simultaneously. These things hit hard enough to basically 1 or 2-shot even a geared tank if all their Ataru procs line up, etc.

 

Combine this with people having no idea what's going on, tunnel-visioning, ignoring the healer's safety, and not using hard CC like stuns to reduce damage and you have an absolute PUG-shredding death trap.

 

Room #2 is completely avoidable because all the Purebloods are distracted beating on Pub NPCs, but someone usually aggros because the Purifiers (Purebloods with guns) have an Ion Cell buff which makes their attacks proc a small AoE zap around their victim.

 

If this AoE zap hits anyone as they're passing by a Pub NPC, boom — your entire party is now instantly in-combat with the entire second room of Purebloods and has to kill every single one to be allowed to use the elevator.

 

Room #3 (up the elevator) is more of the same. You have 4 nasty Strongs, and then 3-4 more spawn in the distant hallway and rush in. This causes so much party-wide damage that, again, it can totally overwhelm even a geared healer or totally explode a geared tank.

 

And since tanks usually don't notice the 3 new Purifiers that are obliterating their healer, it's usually a chain-reaction of Healer death → Tank death → everyone death.

 

It pretty much goes on like that for the rest of the FP. Any healer that pulls you through a Red Reaper run deserves your love and a Purple Heart, and any tank that actually holds aggro on all the random mobs that run in from all over the place will earn a healer's undying adoration.

 

So, yeah, Red Reaper should probably have 1 'e' subtracted from its name for a more accurate description. All the mobs hit like trucks driving trucks on amphetamine and it's totally compared to the softcore easy pulls you've had for the last 40 levels of Group Finder.

not as much weird as tiresome.

double xp weekend, somehow get sm Candemimu (I mean I was queued for everything, but KDY seemed to pop pretty much exclusively until then) I'm on my baby operative and I haven't upgraded her gear in 10 levels. but... ok, I can handle it, my main is an operative, I've healed tougher stuff than that.

 

except. our tank has one of the most extreme cases of tunnel vision I've had displeasure to encounter. I'm sucking wind after every fight, becasue I have to spam heal tank AND the sorc that ends up tanking pretty much everything but the one mob tank is focusing on. but... we're moving, progressing... until the part where you are clearing through droids etc to get to the wookie - specifically that double pull at the top of the stairs. for some incomprehensible to me reason, tank decides not to tank the group once his chosen mob is dead and just runs ahead... leaving the rest of us to deal with pretty much everything else. sorc bless their heart - tries their best and so do i, and maybe if I were in upgraded gear, I could have pulled us through it... but I wasn't. and we die, while sniper just barely finishes off the last mob.

sorc finally has enough and very politely asks tank to please finish tanking mobs before running off and consider giving him guard so that he'd pull less aggro.

 

indignant tank tells sorc that they don't know anything becasue they are not a tank and they should shut up, unless they want to find another tank. me and sorc try to explain the concept of alts AND how threat tables work. tank zones out. sniper pulls out Kaliyo and we easily kill the wookie while waiting for a new tank.. who shows up in a middle of trash pull, realises that its an almost finished flashpoint... and leaves group becasue he'd rather wait for a debuff to wear off, then get a super easy and fast quest turn in xp >_> this time I pull out my Treek (thanks to obscene amount of presence I have, she's tougher than Sniper's Kaliyo even in unupgraded gear - and easier for me to target for healing) and we finish off the flashpoint with no issues. (because I know how to switch between passive and aggressive modes for the purposes of kiting )

 

I'm still trying to figure out the logic behind taking a debuff that won't let you even try for another flashpoint for like 15 minutes, vs finishing off a quick 5 minute flashpoint with its 30k xp turn in and then getting another run in less then half the time you are going to spend waiting for the debuff to wear off. (that and if you don't want flashpoints in progress... deselect that option for the love of.)

 

I was the sniper, Kaliyo sends her greetings

I hope BW can make healing comps easier by putting up a "Group icon" for them together With the rest of the party so its easier to click the comp. Would solve some issues.

 

Ya, put the last idiot tank on ignore, we were 4 mins from completion and easy XP...

I hear Your Treek and my Kaliyo became best buddies after this one lol

 

Good run.

Knockbacks DO NOT exist to blast enemies randomly all over the place.

 

If you use knockback on CD in a group setting for the damage, and especially if you are consistently knocking mobs out of aoe / melee range, you are a bad player and the type that gets added to my ignore list.

 

If you use knockbacks to get some breathing room when being overwhelmed or to push a couple of side ranged mobs into a group of melee mobs for aoe or to toss an annoying champ over a ledge to their death, then you are the type I'll probably want to group with again in the future.

 

And sadly I find myself grouped with many more of the former than the later.

 

^^ THIS ... is the correct use of knockback. Thank you for stating it so succinctly, Dawn.

 

There is nothing wrong with knockback when used well. MOST people have no clue how to use it well, though (it seems, at least, in PUGs).

The first 3 rooms of Red Reaper are a bizarre social experiment on BioWare's part to see how much inexplicable pain they can inflict on 4 total strangers within the first 60 seconds of a FP.

 

And yes it's 'normal' for mobs to be invisible. Consider this a 'feature'.

 

Here is a rough summary of how those rooms work:

[...funny stuff...]

 

Great post! I lol'd.