What is the gear minimum for Denova?

What is the gear minimum for Denova?

 

columni/rakata mix.

columni/rakata mix.

 

No. Story Mode Denova drops Rakata gear. Therefore in no way does it require the gear it rewards you with in order to complete it.

 

Full Columi is fine for Story. Full Rakata for HM.

No. Story Mode Denova drops Rakata gear. Therefore in no way does it require the gear it rewards you with in order to complete it.

 

Full Columi is fine for Story. Full Rakata for HM.

 

Bare minimum sure but I would suggest doing EV HM first which does drop Rakata and maybe even some KP HM since Denova is said to be as hard as KP HM.

No. Story Mode Denova drops Rakata gear. Therefore in no way does it require the gear it rewards you with in order to complete it.

 

Full Columi is fine for Story. Full Rakata for HM.

 

Except you can get 3 of the Rakata pieces (Implants and ear) without ever stepping foot in an Operation.

 

I wouldn't want to do this place with a group in full columi. You'll have a terrible time.

 

If a player cannot understand and complete at least some fights in HM KP/ HM EV, they won't fare well in EC Story Mode.

No. Story Mode Denova drops Rakata gear. Therefore in no way does it require the gear it rewards you with in order to complete it.

 

Full Columi is fine for Story. Full Rakata for HM.

 

It drops Rakata as an intent to help people finish there Rakata set, not start it. It's not recommended to go here without a moderate amount of Rakata already on the group.

Except you can get 3 of the Rakata pieces (Implants and ear) without ever stepping foot in an Operation.

 

I wouldn't want to do this place with a group in full columi. You'll have a terrible time.

 

If a player cannot understand and complete at least some fights in HM KP/ HM EV, they won't fare well in EC Story Mode.

 

So? You can also get Black Hole gear without ever stepping foot into an operation. What does that have to do with anything?

 

And what does being able to complete HM KP/EV have anything to do with Denova?

 

Full Columi is fine. In fact Columi gear is pretty much better than Rakata until you re-itemize it anyway. People seriously overrate Rakata gear.

 

Denova is not so much a gear check as a competency check. If you're a skilled player full Columi is fine.

Edited May 23, 2012 by pureeffinmetal

I would say full Columi + rakata ear and implants.

 

Tbh, minimum is tough term to work with, since it's probably doable with full columi, or even mostly columi with 1 or 2 bits of tionese.

 

But yes, I wouldn't reccomend trying unless everyone has full Columi. There are some enrage timers there that will be tough to beat without it - but in general, EC is all about learning the tactics/mechanics.

 

Once you master them - the fights become not too bad in terms of actual numbers (damage taken, damage required to kill, etc etc)

No. Story Mode Denova drops Rakata gear. Therefore in no way does it require the gear it rewards you with in order to complete it.

 

Full Columi is fine for Story. Full Rakata for HM.

 

Have you completed it with a group with all Columi gear? I'd be surprised and impressed it you have. I'd say it's more a 50-50 Columi/Rakata mix that is necessary. If people have never done the other Ops on HM then I'll be shocked if they can do storymode Denova. We've one-shot both EV and KP HM but still struggle on Denova Storymode with mostly-Rakata. I mean, we're primarily a PVP guild but still - I'll be shocked if people who have never done the other HM Ops could do this.

Have you completed it with a group with all Columi gear? I'd be surprised and impressed it you have. I'd say it's more a 50-50 Columi/Rakata mix that is necessary. If people have never done the other Ops on HM then I'll be shocked if they can do storymode Denova. We've one-shot both EV and KP HM but still struggle on Denova Storymode with mostly-Rakata. I mean, we're primarily a PVP guild but still - I'll be shocked if people who have never done the other HM Ops could do this.

 

I would say in terms of gear requirements it can be done in Columi gear but the mechanic execution requirements are much more demanding than EV and KP and that is where a lot of groups run into problems. If you are good with executing mechanics I don't see why you can't complete this place in Columi gear, considering EV and KP are complete jokes and don't really prepare you for this raid anyway mechanic-wise. Over gearing can play some part to overcome mistakes but over all it is about mechanic execution. I mean just look at your comment about you struggling through Story mode Denova in mostly Rakata. The last time I ran through Story Mode Denova we did it in about an hour and our gear was all over the place(some of us, like myself, were in Full Modified Rakata while others were in just Columi, and others were in a mix of Columi and Rakata).

The minimum? Columni, no question. As another poster has said: story mode Denova drops Rakata, so it would be silly to suggest that you need Rakata to do an Operation that rewards Rakata.

 

What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that there isn't a majordifference between columni and rakata. 56 vs 58 mobs. Tionese vs columni was quite a jump at 51 vs 56. But two item levels? It's not going to make or break you.

 

The difficulty (I think) players have with story mode is i) raid experience and ii) understanding of how TOR mechanics work.

 

The enrage timers in NiM KP/EV were VERY forgiving and exceedingly liberal. You didn't even need to mini-max your character in order to beat the enrage timers. But this is an entirely different story with story mode Denova. Enrage timers are -really- tight so that the 1-3% DPS difference from mini-maxing is huge. If you did not raid in other games, and your only exposure is tier 1 TOR Ops, you're in for quite a wake up call.

 

That I consider to be the major discrepancy, not gear.

Have you completed it with a group with all Columi gear? I'd be surprised and impressed it you have. I'd say it's more a 50-50 Columi/Rakata mix that is necessary. If people have never done the other Ops on HM then I'll be shocked if they can do storymode Denova. We've one-shot both EV and KP HM but still struggle on Denova Storymode with mostly-Rakata. I mean, we're primarily a PVP guild but still - I'll be shocked if people who have never done the other HM Ops could do this.

 

No I have not completed it in a group that was full Columi. Our mains and our alts were all in Rakata by the time 1.2 hit. That being said we have brought in 2-3 players who had worse gear and still completed with half the raid in bad gear.

 

In an extreme case, we brought in a raid member on his alt Operative that just hit 50 that day. He and another operative in Rakata/black hole healed an 8 man story. It was fine. (On a side note we actually had 4 stealthers that raid, and we skipped almost every single trash pack lol)

 

Like others and I have said. Rakata gear...until you re-itemize it is not even better than Columi. And the 56 to 58 jump in item level isn't as big of a deal as the 56 was from 51.

 

Your main problem with Denova will be Learning, understanding and overcoming the mechanics. The bosses in Denova actually have mechanics, whereas in EV and KP, there was almost none to speak of.

Edited May 24, 2012 by pureeffinmetal

Story Denova is clearly harder than Nightmare EV and probably harder than Nightmare KP. If you're running these zones as part of a guild, I'd run through Nightmare EV and at least Hard KP before worrying about Denova.

 

I know that's not a direct answer to your question, but I can't really give you an answer based on firsthand experience, since I doubt everyone I raid with plays to the absolute maximum potential of their class (I certainly don't, at least not every pull). We wiped a lot on Story Denova even with (almost) full Rakata.

No. Story Mode Denova drops Rakata gear. Therefore in no way does it require the gear it rewards you with in order to complete it.

 

Full Columi is fine for Story. Full Rakata for HM.

 

Heh, yeah right and good luck with that.

Battlemaster

Did it with a group in mostly recruit, all just hit 50 and had one run of EV/KP HM worth of loot. It's not too hard, just have some set of level 50 gear.

For tanks and healers, columi is fine. The damage and healing needed isn't that high to be honest.

 

The main challenge in Denova Story is the mechanics and the enrage timers. The mechanics can, at times, be quite tricky to learn and will take some time to perfect if you are undergeared as you have less room to manuver. However, once you know the mechanics, damage taken and healing needed is quite easy to deal with.

 

However, enrage timers are tight as hell! So, you're DPS either need to be amazing with their rotations, or have extremely well itemised columi gear, or be "overgeared" in rakata/black hole. The second boss has a really tight enrage timer and you effectively only have 3.5 dps for that fight (4th dps kites and drops stuff). The third boss, if you are too slow, enrages the turrets on the minefield pretty consistantly. If you aren't quick enough, either the healers or the guy in the tower is gonna drop. On Kephess, you have 15seconds to kill a bomber with 100k health. That includes the time to spot they've spawned, target them, move to them, start dpsing etc. We did Kephess for first time last night and found if we lost a single DPS, we couldn't kill them in time. Even if we were simply stood on wrong side of the room, the travel time to bomber was too long and we wouldn't get them.

 

 

Its a fun raid, but pressure really is on learning mechanics and having great DPS.

On Kephess, you have 15seconds to kill a bomber with 100k health. That includes the time to spot they've spawned, target them, move to them, start dpsing etc. We did Kephess for first time last night and found if we lost a single DPS, we couldn't kill them in time. Even if we were simply stood on wrong side of the room, the travel time to bomber was too long and we wouldn't get them.

 

Its actually 20 seconds from the time he spawns to the time he blows up. Also you can stun him @ 1s to go and earn yourself a few extra seconds.

Try it sometime, it's not that bad if you know how to DPS. The only real issue was everyone incl tanks at <17K HP.

Story Denova is clearly harder than Nightmare EV and probably harder than Nightmare KP. If you're running these zones as part of a guild, I'd run through Nightmare EV and at least Hard KP before worrying about Denova.

 

I know that's not a direct answer to your question, but I can't really give you an answer based on firsthand experience, since I doubt everyone I raid with plays to the absolute maximum potential of their class (I certainly don't, at least not every pull). We wiped a lot on Story Denova even with (almost) full Rakata.

 

In terms of mechanics it is harder than Nightmare EV and KP but in terms of gear requirements they are on pretty much the same level. If you have enough gear to do NiM EV/KP you have enough gear to do Story Mode Denova. Whether you are skilled enough to execute the mechanics is a completely different question though, NiM EV/KP are complete jokes in terms of mechanics while Denova actually requires a brain. There are players that have full Rakata that cannot clear Story Mode Denova, this is not a gear issue, this is a skill issue.

MY guild has ran HM EV/KP and did Nightmare Mode EV, we were in all rakata when we went into Storymode denova and we had a huge difficulty killing the first boss and last boss.. From what i believe SM Denova is alot harder then Nightmare mode EV. first boss puts out so much damage you gotta get the mechanic down to help your healers out. exspecially melee dps tank a ton of damage if you have them on toth. Last boss/Kephess. is a pain with all the aoe damage going around. i dont know how we did it but our guild killed the walker in 2 shots which screwed us up in the end cause we had another phase before kephess came down. so yah everthing comes around mechanics and knowing what to do to keep your healers happy

MY guild has ran HM EV/KP and did Nightmare Mode EV, we were in all rakata when we went into Storymode denova and we had a huge difficulty killing the first boss and last boss.. From what i believe SM Denova is alot harder then Nightmare mode EV. first boss puts out so much damage you gotta get the mechanic down to help your healers out. exspecially melee dps tank a ton of damage if you have them on toth. Last boss/Kephess. is a pain with all the aoe damage going around. i dont know how we did it but our guild killed the walker in 2 shots which screwed us up in the end cause we had another phase before kephess came down. so yah everthing comes around mechanics and knowing what to do to keep your healers happy

 

I think this is really accurate. Nightmare EV is definitely easier than story EC. If you killed the walker in only 2 vulnerable phases, you have a ton of DPS. Not every team in Rakata can do that, so that's impressive.

 

Additionally, I would agree the first boss is extra hard with a lot of melee. It's a very unforgiving fight for groups that use 3 or even 4 melee for their DPS. As much as I would prefer things be balanced, the more ranged you bring the easier that fight will be.

 

In general, there is very little warning when you are about to take massive amounts of damage in EC. For example: check out this video at 45 seconds in:

. Kephess uses his Savage Arching Slash and hits most of the operation group for 27k damage.

 

There's no sound warning from the boss that he's about to 1-shot people, there's no graphic indicating the range of the maneuver and no cast-bar to interrupt. In EC, one-shots just happen until you've run the fights enough or watched others run them enough to memorize and anticipate everything.

I wouldn't want to do this place with a group in full columi. You'll have a terrible time.

 

If a player cannot understand and complete at least some fights in HM KP/ HM EV, they won't fare well in EC Story Mode.

 

This. If you can clear HM's without difficulty then you're ready for SM Denova. Full columni means everyone has to really be top of their game - you should have people with crafted/farmed Rakata pieces and some people full or near full Rakata just from running hard modes. There's a number of burst/DPS checks in the operation that will be hard to beat unless your raid is at least partially Rakata such as the bombers on Kephess.

 

I also agree with the guy above that the mechanics in this operation are stupid in the sense that they are counter-intuitive (rail shot, person furthest away has no reason for it and is invisible as an example) and don't really make sense or have visible/audible indications. You learn the fights by reading about it and memorizing how it works and its kinda dumb in that regard. I much prefer mechanics like on Lost Island's Lorrick that are visible but still challenging.

Edited June 14, 2012 by dcgregorya

I laugh everytime i see this in general chat.. .and i see it a lot....

 

**LFM for EV HM or KP HM or Denova SM ,, MUST be in Full Rakata or better.....**

 

LOL... Why do so many people require you to be in gear that is equal to or better than the gear that the instance even drops?

 

Is it so you won't roll need on anything? I honestly want to know.

Tionese/Columi could be used at the bare minimum, but what you want to focus on is mostly a player's performance in EV and KP HM and their ability to follow instructions. So, yes, a player should ideally be roughly Columi/Rakata mix before starting Denova SM. The instance is also mostly for getting to Full Rakata, too Edited August 1, 2012 by ImmortalAlien