Okey, I'm not new player but I mainly focus on solo content. Now I wanted to explore more group activities like ops fp or heroics and was wondering / what I really need to be prepared for harder levels? I have 2 Siths on 75lvl and soon BH. Are there any guides that would suggest on what I should focus?

I'll take a stab at giving some advice. Disclaimer: the extent of my group play thus far ends at FPs (both Vet and MM). Some of what I advise probably extends into Ops, but raiders can chime in with whatever they want.

 

First off, yes, there are guides that can help. Vulkk has some guides (there are others as well) that can help with gearing recommendations, utility allocations and primers on rotations.

 

Generally, though, the thing I think is most important for group content of any level is knowing the mechanics of boss fights. Pay attention to what's going on, where the damage is coming from, what abilities need to be interrupted and when the boss is using them, etc. Also, know the differences in mechanics based on difficulty.

 

For example, the final boss of the Athiss FP has a couple mechanics to watch for, and they can change a bit between Vet and Master: Occasionally the boss will disappear and summon 4 red balls of flame. Any player that catches a "fire" debuff (it will look like that player is on fire) should not allow the flames to touch him/her as they rapidly damage that player. This is true in both difficulty modes. Another mechanic involves a purple circle the boss will place on the ground that gives a very bad debuff and damages the player immensely. In Vet, this circle will disappear after a short duration; in Master, they never disappear until the end of the fight and can eat away at the free space in which to fight the boss without taking a lot of damage.

 

The second thing you should know is your class. That sounds basic, but you should know what your abilities do, how they synergize, and what your DCDs (defensive cooldowns) are in case you need to save yourself from bad situations or in the case of Shadow/Assassin tanks, when to cheese boss mechanics with their DCDs. Some more hardcore raiders will probably say that you need to know the optimal rotation in order to do max DPS (if that is your role) and the like. Just pressing whatever random order of abilities you may be used to might not cut it in harder content.

 

Third, gear. It's not a panacea to bad play, but it helps. Others might be able to put it more eloquently, so that's all I'll say.

 

My personal recommendation comes fourth: speak up. Chat exists. Since you're asking this question, you likely don't know skips and bosses. Say so. Silence is often interpreted as "I know what's going on and where we're going." Some will gladly help explain stuff. Blindly charging ahead and pulling mobs is a quick way to anger some people. It's unfortunate, but jerks exist. If you have a mez (an ability that stuns/puts an enemy to sleep without starting combat) learn to use it. Examples include Mind Maze/Mind Trap, Sleep Dart, etc. Some will expect it of you so that the group can sneak by without unnecessary fights. This does get a bit ridiculous as some people will try and skip everything even when they could solve the issue with 20 seconds of combat.

 

In the same vein concerning Ops: if the prospect of learning all this seems daunting and you don't want to do it in a pug setting with randoms, join a guild. Many would likely be glad to teach you mechanics and give you advice on things.

 

Hope that helps.

Edited October 2, 2020 by Automnal

Great tips, big thanks. Definitely will help me make some more steps since I know on what I should work on!

nice example from yesterday:

 

crisis on umbara mm

 

we were q'ing as tank and dps and got a heal and dps which were from the same guild.

their first move after typing hello was to say that they were there for the first time.

what happened? we didnt kick them or anything but what i did was giving them a detailed explanation before every boss.

i explained why you do certain things at certain points in the fights.

yep we wiped one time at the last boss but that wasnt an issue, they were newbies and handnt seen it.

2nd try boss down, group happy.

 

moral of the story: open your mouth

 

sure there are stupid people out there who will kick you without saying anything, when you tell them you have no clue. but seriously put those people on ignore and go on.

a lot of players are really helpful, if you ask for help.

what i really dislike are people who dont say anything, screw everything up and if you have a look in to their achievements you see they have never been there.

 

for operations in mm things are a bit different. that stuf is no joke at all.

first of all: starparse is mandatory

 

http://ixparse.com/

 

what is star parse?

 

starparse (a.k.a ***** meter) is a tool to read out combat logs. it tells you how much damage you deal / take, how much healing you do, how you died, what healing you took.

you can see what the others in your group did in terms of dps, hps, threat per second and the laast 10 sec of their combat, if you are in the same parse group.

if you are playing dps you can go to your ship and parse on the dummy. add the armor reduction module and a health modifier (6.5kk at least! the lower amount ones dont give you a large enough sample size)

then you can compare your parse with others on http://parsely.io/parser/leaderboard/all/all/6500000/all/live/0/.

all in all starprse is a nice tool for finding reasons what went wrong in case of a wipe.

 

second: get gear. for mm ops you need to have the correct set bonus and at least optmized tertiary stats (old content)

for dxun you need fully optimized gear.

 

and for every operation i strongly recommend that you do sm/hm first.

if you really want to do mm ops, the best is to find a fixed raid team. pick up groups most likely wont take you as you dont have experience. mm raiding is a learning process. you need to understand not only what damage you will take but also what type of damage it is. is it single target weapon damage, is it force tech aoe? this really helps using the right defensive cooldowns. you need to know when to use offensive cooldowns. (there are certain mechs which require them to be used at certain points of the fight because otherwise the dps would be too low, e.g draxus phase 5).

 

hm raids are not as challenging as they have been in the past, you got the veterans edge stacks, which let you deal like 30% more dmg. if you clear the hm version of a raid, it doesnt mean you are ready for nim.

the only 4 hm raids, which are a bit challenging are temple, ravagers, gods and dxun. (yeah mono isnt that easy but its only a 1 boss op and it has basically no dps check anymore). mm fps are basically the same difficulty level as hm raids (sounds confusing i know).

 

sm raids are there for the story... they are so easy that nim raiders can 3 man them (if there is no mech that requires more people)

you can see the bosses there but they have very little to none relevant mechanics

 

easiest way to get into group content / raiding is finding a raid guild / community.

 

hope that helps and have fun

nice example from yesterday:

 

crisis on umbara mm

 

we were q'ing as tank and dps and got a heal and dps which were from the same guild.

their first move after typing hello was to say that they were there for the first time.

what happened? we didnt kick them or anything but what i did was giving them a detailed explanation before every boss.

i explained why you do certain things at certain points in the fights.

yep we wiped one time at the last boss but that wasnt an issue, they were newbies and handnt seen it.

2nd try boss down, group happy.

 

moral of the story: open your mouth

 

sure there are stupid people out there who will kick you without saying anything, when you tell them you have no clue. but seriously put those people on ignore and go on.

a lot of players are really helpful, if you ask for help.

what i really dislike are people who dont say anything, screw everything up and if you have a look in to their achievements you see they have never been there.

 

for operations in mm things are a bit different. that stuf is no joke at all.

first of all: starparse is mandatory

 

http://ixparse.com/

 

what is star parse?

 

starparse (a.k.a ***** meter) is a tool to read out combat logs. it tells you how much damage you deal / take, how much healing you do, how you died, what healing you took.

you can see what the others in your group did in terms of dps, hps, threat per second and the laast 10 sec of their combat, if you are in the same parse group.

if you are playing dps you can go to your ship and parse on the dummy. add the armor reduction module and a health modifier (6.5kk at least! the lower amount ones dont give you a large enough sample size)

then you can compare your parse with others on http://parsely.io/parser/leaderboard/all/all/6500000/all/live/0/.

all in all starprse is a nice tool for finding reasons what went wrong in case of a wipe.

 

second: get gear. for mm ops you need to have the correct set bonus and at least optmized tertiary stats (old content)

for dxun you need fully optimized gear.

 

and for every operation i strongly recommend that you do sm/hm first.

if you really want to do mm ops, the best is to find a fixed raid team. pick up groups most likely wont take you as you dont have experience. mm raiding is a learning process. you need to understand not only what damage you will take but also what type of damage it is. is it single target weapon damage, is it force tech aoe? this really helps using the right defensive cooldowns. you need to know when to use offensive cooldowns. (there are certain mechs which require them to be used at certain points of the fight because otherwise the dps would be too low, e.g draxus phase 5).

 

hm raids are not as challenging as they have been in the past, you got the veterans edge stacks, which let you deal like 30% more dmg. if you clear the hm version of a raid, it doesnt mean you are ready for nim.

the only 4 hm raids, which are a bit challenging are temple, ravagers, gods and dxun. (yeah mono isnt that easy but its only a 1 boss op and it has basically no dps check anymore). mm fps are basically the same difficulty level as hm raids (sounds confusing i know).

 

sm raids are there for the story... they are so easy that nim raiders can 3 man them (if there is no mech that requires more people)

you can see the bosses there but they have very little to none relevant mechanics

 

easiest way to get into group content / raiding is finding a raid guild / community.

 

hope that helps and have fun

 

Big thx! That was a bit uplifting haha. Hope I will get soon more into ops

Like anything in life, performing at the highest levels requires a lot of practice. Master Mode (also known as Nightmare or NiM) operations are no different. Also, don't confuse master mode FLASHPOINTS with master mode OPERATIONS. MM FPs are 4-player story driven encounters with usually 3-4 main boss encounters. These encounters range from being relatively straightforward to nearly impossible. They often have a little bit more story to them than operations, if you are here because of being a fan of the original KOTOR. In general, the level of spatial awareness, skill, and coordination is less than that required of a MM operation.

 

MM ops are some of the hardest scripted content in the game, and they require coordination with 7 or 15 other people. Like any team, you have to practice together. I don't mean to bust your bubble ... well, actually I guess I do ... but one does not simply ask on the fleet for an invitation to Master Mode Operations. I've been playing since closed beta and I do operations on a regular basis, and I'm still not good enough to be part of a team that does Master Modes. Your best bet is to join a guild that can teach you the basics of the story mode version of operations. Once you get a feel for how the encounters play out, you will be in better position to learn the mechanics for Hard Mode ... this means the unique features and boss abilities that dictate what you and your group members have to do to win. This means anything from getting out of something in order to survive, changing what target you are focusing on, standing in a place where you need to be, recognizing something going on, or any combination of the above. Master Mode builds on that, and more, with a requirement to do everything faster and better than in easier modes.

 

You can certainly join the random "pick-up" groups or PUGs that form on the fleet for story modes too, but you may be a little less likely to be told an explanation for the encounters. As a general rule, its always easier to explain over a voice chat than by typing. Join a guild, practice on Story Mode, and as you get more comfortable, you may want to see if your guild has a "progression" team that works on hard modes with the goal to master those, and then move on to harder modes.