The guild that I am in has finally progressed to the point where our main raid group has been put together.

Because of people that stopped playing and so on, many of us ended up leveling 2 alts that we've been raiding with, filling in spots as needed depending who was on and what AC's were available when raiding.

Now that we have started on EC, we need to optimize the group, to get the most out of what we have available. Our 1st run through EC proved tough, which ended up due not having enough DPS at the time, as everyone picked up the mechanics quickly.

This is what we have available between the alts that everyone has, and I'm just wondering what make up from these would be best grouping we could use (to be able to move into HM EC and beyond). 2 of the spots are locked in, as those people only have their main. Current gearing is between full rakata + a few blackhole pieces on the high end, to 3/5 rakata on the low end.

#1 Guardian (main tank)

#2 Commando (healer)

#3 Sage (healer, can respec to dps if needed)

#4 Commando (dps), or Sentinel (dps)

#5 Shadow (tank), or Scoundrel (healer)

#6 Commando (dps), or Vanguard (tank or dps)

#7 Guardian (tank), or Gunslinger (dps)

#8 Commando (dps), or Scoundrel (healer)

Disregarding any thoughts of player ability and/or preferences, my picks would be

#1 Guardian (main tank)

#2 Commando (healer)

#3 Sage (healer)

#4 Sentinel (dps)

#5 Shadow (tank)

#6 Commando (dps)

#7 Gunslinger (dps)

#8 Commando (dps)

Sages are unparalleled for sustained group healing. Sentinel DPS is a given for the group-wipe buffs alone. Taking a Shadow for your second tank gives you a fair bit more utility and (until 1.3, at least) some much needed AOE threat. For #6, I don't know how Vanguard DPS stacks up against Commandos (and Vanguards at least bring an interrupt and a taunt), but most encounters are easier with more ranged.

Current gearing is between full rakata + a few blackhole pieces on the high end, to 3/5 rakata on the low end.

 

#1 Guardian (main tank)

#2 Commando (healer)

#3 Sage (healer, can respec to dps if needed)

#4 Commando (dps), or Sentinel (dps)

#5 Shadow (tank), or Scoundrel (healer)

#6 Commando (dps), or Vanguard (tank or dps)

#7 Guardian (tank), or Gunslinger (dps)

#8 Commando (dps), or Scoundrel (healer)

With full rakata and some black-hole mods, you can definitely do story-mode including the spots that really test your DPS and healing throughput.

Personally, and this is just the opinion of one healer, you don't want two of the same kinds of healers. They run out of power at the same time which wipes you. Instead, one AOE healer and one commando healer will do you well. commandos have great throughput on their healing, like what Sorcs had pre-nerf. Sorcs have great AOE healing and you will absolutely find that AOE heal neccessary at times. Scoundrel healers can be tough to play because they have to keep moving around mid-combat and EC has a lot of times where people are spread out.

So again, this is just my opinion, but I would break it down like this:

2 tanks (tank / shadow)

2 healers (sorc / commando)

4 dps (Commando, commando, commando, gunslinger)

You'll end up with a lot of commando DPS, but that's not bad. They can do good damage and there are certain spots where they can even backup heal if a healer dies. Kephess has some moves that do over 20k damage in a single shot, so this can certainly happen. A gunslinger is always nice to have around partially because of their great damage shield that can be used to protect the whole party.

For tanks, I think powertechs/vanguards are slightly underpowered right now. Not because they tank poorly, but they are weaker the first few seconds they grab an enemy at the start of a fight and EC has so many tank-swaps, especially on hard-mode, that it makes fights more complicated for healers.

Again, this is all just my opinion. You know your players, their rotations, their preferences, and their play-styles better than anyone. You are the best judge of both what is best for your group

1 Tank (guardian)

2 Healer (commando)

3 Sorc keep heal spec for Salvation AOE heals

4 commando dps

5 shadow Tank

6 Commando DPS

7 gunslinger dps

8 commando dps

You know your players, their rotations, their preferences, and their play-styles better than anyone. You are the best judge of both what is best for your group

This I absolutely agree with. That being said:

4 commando dps

I strongly disagree here. Choosing between a Sentinel who can bring Inspiration/Transcendence and a low-cooldown interrupt versus a third Commando strikes me as a no-brainer.

#1 Guardian (main tank)

#2 Commando (RESPEC TO DPS)

#3 Sage (healer)

#4 Sentinel (dps)

#5 Shadow (tank)

#6 Vanguard (DPS)

#7 Gunslinger (dps)

#8 Scoundrel (healer)

Perfectly balance. Everyone only competes for pieces against one other person. awesome.jpg

Here's why, though:

#1 Well, it's a given he'll have to come as a Guardian if that's his only raid-ready toon. It's pretty good, though, considering Guardians are decent in surviving soft enrages.

#2 Explained later. I prefer Soundrel healers and a Sage healer is useful.

#3 Sage healers provide excellent AOE heals with their Salvation. They're best for sustained heals on the entire group.

#4 The group-wide buff of Sentinels is a must have on HM and NMM.

#5 Shadow tanks, as an above poster said, have excellent utility and can easily pick up adds and trash from afar.

#6 Vanguard DPS is crazy high. Better utilize it while it lasts.

#7 Depending on the spec, Gunslingers can be excellent trash/add killers or will put up insane numbers since one spec mostly ignores the target's armor. Whatever spec the Gunslinger chooses, they'll have a 20% armor debuff that will come in handy better tough enrage timers.

#8 Again, I prefer Scoundrel healers over Commandos. They're excellent with instant heals while on the move.

If #2 must heal:

#1 Guardian (main tank)

#2 Commando (healer)

#3 Sage (healer)

#4 Sentinel (dps)

#5 Shadow (tank)

#6 Vanguard (dps)

#7 Gunslinger (dps)

#8 Commando (dps), or Scoundrel (RESPEC TO DIRTY FIGHTING DPS)

In that case, #8 can choose whether or not to compete with two people or one.

And as the above posters say, you know who's good with what. Go with what they're best at rather than a set structure. If #4 doesn't utilize Sentinel group-wide buffs, then that's not a good use of the class.

Due to the mass of people I usually play with leaving the game, finding the game so boring they would rather see paint dry then raid(progress or farm), I take what ever I can.

I would prefer a setup like this:

Tanks: Powertech/Assassin

Healers: Operative/Sorc

DPS: 1/2 Marauders, 2 snipers and possibly a Merc instead of the extra Marauder.

Reason being, from expirience our Juggernaught tanks have handicapped expirience, and they seem to be less focused then the other 2 tanking classes(speaking from my own guild's members), Healers well, Mercs can do the job, but it will be a lot easier with either a Operative or a Sorcerer in it's place, they have less of a problem with resources then a merc, and in most cases are able to push almost 1/3rd more HPS(some due to overhealing most of the time though). DPS, Marauders can push great dps in most fights(1400-1600 is quite common), also they can give 15% damage increase to their group for 15 seconds every 5 minutes, which is quite good. Snipers, personally I have no idea what they can do, because there are no freaking snipers on my server that need a guild, but seing as they are the other AC which is pure DPS I would take those and expect equal/higher numbers to the Marauder. Mercs seems to cap at around 1350-1450 DPS and are under par with what I smell from the previously mentioned classes, Sorcerer seems to be even lower then Mercs.

All this is only personally for my guild, but nobody plays outside of raid hours in my guild anymore, we basically end up raiding, logging off and chatting on ventrilo while playing other games instead.

Setup we end up with:

Tanks: Powertech/assassin

Healers: Mercenary/Sorcerer

DPS: Marauder, Mercenary, Mercenary and Sorc.

After wiping for 6 hours(not straight mind you) on tanks HM mostly due to enrage, we were able to jinx it when they enraged at ~2% and burst them down, just to give you an image on what we're working with ^^.

You want the guardian and shadow to be your tanks. Shadow has the highest internal resistance, which is very useful on both Stormcaller and Toth. Also, the shadow tank debuffs can literally be *felt* in the pulsar droids phase of Kephess. Force Pull is also mind numbingly useful, especially on the bombadiers. As for the guardian, I *would* say go with the vanguard tank instead, but it sounds like his gear probably isn't as good as the guardian, who only has one raiding toon and one listed spec. Either shadow or guardian could be your main tank. We run with a shadow (me) as main tank, and life is great, but our guardian could do just as well. Most of the fights require both tanks to be working just as hard, so the "main tank/off tank" distinction is artificial.

For healers, I would say the Sage and the Scoundrel. Could go with the Commando healer, but I have had *really* good experience with a Sage and a Scoundrel healer pairing. Those two specs just mesh really well.

As for DPS, I would recommend: Sentinel, Vanguard, and Gunslinger. Unfortunately, this leaves you one DPS short, stemming from the fact that you have a commando who only heals. Thus, I would have that commando heal and make the scoundrel healer play his Commando alt as dps.

Note that Commando's Assault Specialist tree seems to do a bit more damage than Gunnery, these days. Given how much movement you see in the final phase of the Kephess fight, that might be the best spec he could go with. With that said, if he's more comfortable with gunnery, leave him there.

Thanks for the input with this.

It looks like we'll end up running with this set up.

#1 Guardian (tank)

#2 Commando (healer)

#3 Sage (healer)

#4 Sentinel (dps)

#5 Shadow (tank)

#6 Commando (dps)

#7 Gunslinger (dps)

#8 Commando (dps)

With this set up, almost everyone gets to keep using their main (except me, but I'm ok with that), who they are the most familiar with. We will likely try 1 of the dps commandos as an Assault spec and see how that works out.