It's no secret that this boss is a melee hater. The tactics for melee compared to ranged DPS make this highly unfair to melee guys (especially sentinels). So I would propose the following tweek to make this fairer to melee groups while still remaining challenging and fun. When the boss is about to drop his lighting ball thingy and the target appears at the DPS's feet, instead of it being a second before the ball appears make it 5 seconds. Next make the target follow the DPS (or healer or whoever) as they run around.

Now when he puts the target at your feet the DPS has to run from the center and place his ball of lightning on the edge then run back to the center. You are still filling the arena with lighting, so it's still a challenge, but the tank can stay in the middle same as with the range guys. If you did it with an all range group the tactics would remain I would imagine pretty much the same.

I agree with the OP, this would put things on a even playing field with Range DPS..... The way it is now it's brutal on Melee Players... You end up having to kite the boss around with everyone following it while trying to move out of the electrical shields.... It's 100 times easier with 2 range dps.... I'm at the point I won't take melee dps into Lost Island because I end up spending 100k plus on repairs.... Right now the best way to do it is to bring range dps ONLY.....

I tried LI HM on my Vig Guardian (in a PVP spec too, I was too lazy to change) alt for the first time yesterday. I was in about 50% Rakata, as was the tank (also a Guardian.) The rest of the group consisted of a mostly-Rakata Infiltration Shadow and then a mostly-BM Commando Healer who hadn't done the FP on Hard before.

LR-5 took us two attempts. We one-shot the other bosses except for Lorrick who took 3 attempts (due to the healer and myself needing to get a feel for the mechanics on the last fight as doing it as mDPS is a lot harder than healing it or doing it with rDPS.)

So, now I've cleared LI HM 4 times on different characters I'm starting to fall more into the 'It takes a while to learn but once you get the mechanics it's actually quite easy' camp. Remember, that's having done it as mDPS and also healed it with both all mDPS and all rDPS.

While I wouldn't be particularly upset with the suggestion of making the domes deploy using a mechanism similar to the yellow missile strikes on Firebrand & Stormcaller or making them deployed by an uninterruptable 3s cast ability I think I'd actually rather if they made the fight more challenging for ranged groups by adding a mechanism that makes keeping the boss in the middle a bad idea. Basically, I like the current challenge level of LI HM and want more content on that level rather than making it easier - I really hope when they give the remaining FPs HMs they are Tier 2 and at least as hard as LI (harder, even, as by then you can expect people to be wearing mostly-BH.)

We one-shot the other bosses except for Lorrick who took 3 attempts (due to the healer and myself needing to get a feel for the mechanics on the last fight as doing it as mDPS is a lot harder than healing it or doing it with rDPS.)

Never ceases to amaze me the strange experiences people can have with different encounters.

I honestly cannot conceive of how melee DPSing Lorrick is harder than ranged DPSing it. Move out of bad stuff, hit boss. Done.

Never ceases to amaze me the strange experiences people can have with different encounters.

 

I honestly cannot conceive of how melee DPSing Lorrick is harder than ranged DPSing it. Move out of bad stuff, hit boss. Done.

Ranged DPS are spread out and can adopt a new DPS position anywhere within 30m of the boss. Basically, you just keep the group spread out and then when the circles appear strafe a few meters to the side before continuing to DPS.

With melee DPS you are going to have the circles spawning much closer together and so it is slightly trickier to move out of them into open space. In particular, you then need to also be able to get back within melee range of the boss which involves more movement than rDPS have to worry about - the tank needs to pull the boss to somewhere that leaves a path for the mDPS to get back to him. Now, this is certainly not hard but it is an extra layer of things to worry about and if you don't think of it in advance can cause a wipe if you also have an inexperienced healer.

I really don't understand how anyone could say that this encounter isn't easier with ranged DPS because with ranged DPS you have more flexibility with positioning . Why do you think that ranged DPS have a harder time than melee on this boss? Heck, even Sav-rak is slightly easier with ranged DPS for similar reasons. None of that is to say that the encounters are particularly evil with melee dps, just that they are a bit more challenging. I'm pretty sure the real reason for the two wipes, though, was mostly the fact it was the healer's first time in HM - I've healed it with 2 mDPS before without much difficulty.

With melee DPS you are going to have the circles spawning much closer together and so it is slightly trickier to move out of them into open space. In particular, you then need to also be able to get back within melee range of the boss which involves more movement than rDPS have to worry about - the tank needs to pull the boss to somewhere that leaves a path for the mDPS to get back to him. Now, this is certainly not hard but it is an extra layer of things to worry about and if you don't think of it in advance can cause a wipe if you also have an inexperienced healer.

This crossed my mind, but to be frank, I consider this so simple that I don't think it even counts as additional difficulty. AOE drops: tank and melee move towards the kolto tank. There's no reason for them to step out of attack range or stop DPSing at any point. The AOE only remotely poses a problem if your tank rushes straight to the next kolto tank and the AOE forces the mDPS out, but this just boils down to common sense.

Then there's the fact that melee DPS are often (at last as far as sents/maras are concerned) putting up higher numbers. Take two decently geared mDPS and laugh at how quickly you push Lorrick's phase changes.

I don't understand why moving a boss is more difficult?

This is basically why people think melee dps is harder in this place...because if AOE drops on the boss your tank has to move?

I don't understand it quite frankly.

The point isn't to make the FP easier as such, it's to make sure it isn't a gimp to take melee instead of range. I've started to see plenty of "LF1M Ranged DPS for Lost Island". Now fair enough they may be wanting to balance melee with range, but i think it more likely the healer and tank want an easier ride so take ranged over melee. A poster above mentioned Shadows / Assassins which don't tend to suffer in this encounter quite as much as a sentinel or guardian does. Moving the boss around the room while staying within 4m at all times is tough, especially when the boss decides to stop mid move to cast something.

I'm willing to bet come tomorrow there will be a post on the forum saying that a melee dps got vote kicked from a Lost island group.

I don't know why players fined the Flashpoint harder with melee in it. I have a Gunslinger and a Vanguard Tank.

Yes having range only makes the tanks job a bit easier. But a tank should easily be able to kite the Boss. If the Tank can't kite in this fight , then they are lacking a skill that is needed for tanking Endgame.

My fastest run through Lost Island HM was with a Sent DPS, Vanguard DPS (his first time), Scoundrel Healer, and me as Vanguard Tank. We did the fight in about 30-35 mins. One death only on the droid.

This fight is hard if you don't know the mechanics of it.

The only players I don't take in this FP is new 50's that don't have the gear yet for it.

It's no secret that this boss is a melee hater. The tactics for melee compared to ranged DPS make this highly unfair to melee guys (especially sentinels). So I would propose the following tweek to make this fairer to melee groups while still remaining challenging and fun. When the boss is about to drop his lighting ball thingy and the target appears at the DPS's feet, instead of it being a second before the ball appears make it 5 seconds. Next make the target follow the DPS (or healer or whoever) as they run around.

 

Now when he puts the target at your feet the DPS has to run from the center and place his ball of lightning on the edge then run back to the center. You are still filling the arena with lighting, so it's still a challenge, but the tank can stay in the middle same as with the range guys. If you did it with an all range group the tactics would remain I would imagine pretty much the same.

So, sort of like HK, where you drag the circle to place X.

I don't know about this. I think you're just encouraging the soft enrage to be hit. If you think about it, you're taking 1 melee out of the fight for 5 seconds every 15 or so seconds (and you lose at least 1 additional DPS from boss for 5 or 6 seconds when the adds pop).

And it's not like these lightning balls even tick for that much now. I'm ranged, but in my experience in groups with melee in this FP, if there's a melee-related wipe, it's usually from splash damage from a missed/late-interrupt on incinerate (ex. the tank's moving boss when it starts channeling), not because the bubbles outpace the healer for the second or two the melees get caught in them.

Suppose you could say to increase the timer on soft enrage, but that's going to make it really easy for ranged groups that aren't geared enough to outpace Savrak's hard enrage to get through the droid boss easily, only to run into a boss that's mathematically impossible to defeat 25-30 minutes later.

Most misinformed thread ever..

This boss is not a melee hater, If tank is not a complete idiot he can move the boss around the room and melee can follow around, Making the AoE's not a problem. Plus, melee hardly suffer from movement heavy fights, something that ranged do.

Its not hit or miss at all. Run this with two melee consistently, its never ever been a problem.

Though I can see the argument that with two range classes you can make the mechanic easier, if you can't simply walk the boss around the room you are failing quite hard and probably shouldn't have rolled melee DPS to begin with.

Melee DPS tends to have to be more mobile, in every game, in any encounter that is not just "Boss has frontal cleave". If you can't deal with LI, you're going to have problems progressing at all on your class.

Even if we have a range class when we do this fight, we still kite the boss around the room, if its at a point where we might miss an interrupt, congratulations, tank pop a CD. That's what they are there for.

Instead of demanding that they make a fight easier for you, when so many people have zero problem with it, use it as an exercise to actually get better. Rather than just dumb down content that's already simplistic.

As someone mentioned, with one melee, guarded by a tank you will hardly see a ball on said melee, it will drop on ranged or less likely a healer.

I tanked Li few times with one melee and one ranged, once with two melee and once with 2 ranged. It was obviously easier for me with 2 ranged, but with one guarded melee it is still not that hard, just position this melee player so his (unlikely) plazma ball will not block your way to next safe spot - figure where you want the balls, tell dps where to plant balls and you are good.

Also lava has indicators before eruption, and there is always safe path in every direction (if not blocked by plazma due to bad dps positioning).

Adds can be ignored at first, then aoe taunted by a tank and aoed.

I am sure then once you clear it once or twice you will get used to this fight and one shot it most of the times, even with melee.

I have cleared the fight (as sent and shadow) with both another melee and with a ranged. I would be all for them introducing something new alongside this to raise the difficulty a bit higher. I've also done this with 2 different pug groups as tank, one all melee, one all ranged. The difficulty level is massively less without having to move around, you're never out of interrupt range for a start. I also completed the FP as healer and it's so much easier again with ranged, target appears, run, drop aoe heal, go back to tank, repeat. Throw in the occasional cleanse if the tank isn't concentrating and you've got him beaten. Compare that to melee who are occasionally getting splash damage off incinerate and dying or the tank loses aggro because he can't back away from the lightning and keep attacking so once taunt goes he has no threat. Or as a healer you lose sight of the tank at a crucial moment because he's moved behind a pillar and you can no longer see him. From every persons perspective in the group all ranged > ranged + melee > all melee. So take someone who has just really chosen this to get the black hole comms, you know you are going to make the fight harder for yourself as a tank and healer if you have melee in the group, the answer to which is don't take melee.

In short, I don't want a gimp, just a mechanic that is fair to all classes.

Some of the people saying it's easy are Range players, go figure......

I never said it can't be done with melee dps, just that is a lot harder with melee dps then range dps... To the point that as a Tank I won't bother taking in DPS Melee unless I know they are extremely good at their class.....

If thats what Bioware intended then so be it..... People who are average at Melee should re-roll to range dps because that's definitely the easy route... and until they do they shouldn't expect invites to certain flashpoints and op runs...

People complaining about this fight and melee are basically terrible at this game by their own admission.

Please disregard their comments. If "moving while fighting" has become a complex mechanic its a lost cause.

Having to clear LI HM every week on my sent, gs, shadow tank, and sage healer, i agree with the notion that its easier with rdps. but it's also a matter of grp and skill. with a grp that doesn't know how to interrupt or cleanse, u'll prolly wipe. and with a grp that knows what they are doing u can clear it no matter what ur grp make up is. granted, having 2 mdps makes this fight way easier. but then again, where's the fun in doing easy FP all the time? if you want easy, go do T5.

cleared LI HM on my sent with 2 other sents and a scoundral healer. no death, and done it in 30-35 mins.

also cleared LI HM on my sent with 1 other sent and 2 scoundral healers. 2 death, no wipe, and done in 30-35 mins.

Hate to sound like an elitist but i would love for more people to learn how to play their class better instead of asking BW to nerf everything. we shouldn't have newbs running around in BH gear, thinking they are somehow good anyway.

Having to clear LI HM every week on my sent, gs, shadow tank, and sage healer, i agree with the notion that its easier with rdps. but it's also a matter of grp and skill. with a grp that doesn't know how to interrupt or cleanse, u'll prolly wipe. and with a grp that knows what they are doing u can clear it no matter what ur grp make up is. granted, having 2 mdps makes this fight way easier. but then again, where's the fun in doing easy FP all the time? if you want easy, go do T5.

 

cleared LI HM on my sent with 2 other sents and a scoundral healer. no death, and done it in 30-35 mins.

also cleared LI HM on my sent with 1 other sent and 2 scoundral healers. 2 death, no wipe, and done in 30-35 mins.

 

Hate to sound like an elitist but i would love for more people to learn how to play their class better instead of asking BW to nerf everything. we shouldn't have newbs running around in BH gear, thinking they are somehow good anyway.

So you cleared HM Lost Island with no tank, just 3 sentinels and a healer... I call BS on that....

So you cleared HM Lost Island with no tank, just 3 sentinels and a healer... I call BS on that....

Hahaha Point! This man´s a big time liar!!!

The point isn't to make the FP easier as such, it's to make sure it isn't a gimp to take melee instead of range. I've started to see plenty of "LF1M Ranged DPS for Lost Island". Now fair enough they may be wanting to balance melee with range, but i think it more likely the healer and tank want an easier ride so take ranged over melee. A poster above mentioned Shadows / Assassins which don't tend to suffer in this encounter quite as much as a sentinel or guardian does. Moving the boss around the room while staying within 4m at all times is tough, especially when the boss decides to stop mid move to cast something.

 

I'm willing to bet come tomorrow there will be a post on the forum saying that a melee dps got vote kicked from a Lost island group.

Exactly! Not nerfing this instance but making it more challenging for a group with rDPS too. At least seeing it from a tanks point of view, its pretty boring to just stand in the center and burn that robot in like 10 secs. haha

It's no secret that this boss is a melee hater. The tactics for melee compared to ranged DPS make this highly unfair to melee guys (especially sentinels). So I would propose the following tweek to make this fairer to melee groups while still remaining challenging and fun. When the boss is about to drop his lighting ball thingy and the target appears at the DPS's feet, instead of it being a second before the ball appears make it 5 seconds. Next make the target follow the DPS (or healer or whoever) as they run around.

 

Now when he puts the target at your feet the DPS has to run from the center and place his ball of lightning on the edge then run back to the center. You are still filling the arena with lighting, so it's still a challenge, but the tank can stay in the middle same as with the range guys. If you did it with an all range group the tactics would remain I would imagine pretty much the same.

What did u expect from Biofail? Thats what I´ve been crying ever since the launch: this game is imbalanced, this game is imbalanced, this game is imbalanced. But those guys at BW are obviously not the chosen ones to bring balance to the force. lol The way this game is designed, ranged classes are nearly always at advantage. Sounds really stupid to me, why would anyone design a game that way?

But concerning this instance its really just a matter of practice. I used to hate to have to kite that damn robot with my jugger tank but know I love it, when I have to tank through this with 2 mDPS, simply because theres no challenge whatsoever for me with 2 rDPS.

I use this strategy: I pull him, then he starts his incinerate, thats when I force charge, what will disrupt his incinerate immediately. Then I kite him around every time he casts those plasma arcs. I move him from the center to the right platform and further in that direction counter-clockwise. Important thing is, I always move him directly after I disrupted his incinerate, else you risk to miss disruption. Even if you miss it, should be no problem with 1-2 mDPS, u need to assign one of them as your backup disruptor, since u dont need to disrupt anything else, exclusively focus on incinerate. And you can basically ignore those adds too, they are just there for distraction like most things in that instance. Incinerate is your one and only concern.

Using that strategy I´m beating this instance easily on hm on a daily basis with any group. If I fail, its only due to low geared dps and enrage timer.

Good luck! ;-)

Please don't suggest any changes to any part of HM LI. The bosses are meant to be harder than your normal HM Fp's for a reason. If you are getting hit by the lightning, this is not a DPS problem. It would be a Tank problem since he is not moving the boss either in time or far enough.

Making your suggested change would make this boss way too easy since you could stack all the lightning off on 1 side of the room leaving the other sides untouched. Less coordination would be needed and would almost make the boss faceroll.

The boss designs are good just the way they are and i would prefer LR-5 to stay exactly the way he is. On the average, i usually find myself killing him faster with the Melee DPS compared to the ranged DPS probably because the ranged DPS need to stop their attacks while moving to the next spot during the lightning attacks compared to the constant barrage of attacks from the melee even while moving him.

Having LR-5 being the first real boss and the hardest is preferable to me in the since I can see if the group knows the instance, knows situational awareness, and has decent damage to keep out of the enrage timers. Having a well coordinated group that knows what to look for with LR-5 makes this boss really easy.