My guild has been having issues with Soa, and I want to ask the community if we're missing a mechanic.

 

The first 2 phases are a breeze. We get him to 30% with little to no problem and have always headed into the final phase with the group at full strength, full resources, and full cooldowns. We're ready to go.

 

But we cant get him to 20% before he enrages. We've tried a few different dps strategies, from having all dps on Mind Prisons to only ranged + the Trooper tank, and hard swapping when his shield goes down. Splitting the dps helped keep the Mind Prisons under better control, but I fear if we went back to our original approach (swapping only when necessary, which, in the final phase, is a lot) we will lose our control of the Mind Prisons.

 

Are we simply undergeared? When we do get his shield down its not down for very long, most of our dps dont have a lot of time to deal any amount of meaningful damage before its back to Mind Traps or getting tossed around in the air. We're managing to take down about 8% or less before he enrages and its all over. This, after heading into the phase at full strength.

 

Any suggestions or musings would be helpful, thanks.

 

Rev

You only take 8% off him during p3? How many pillar stuns do you get? If <3 your dps is way too low in the earlier phases and you're doing something wrong / are undergeared. If 3< you really need to switch faster to Soa when he's stunned. Not sure why you would stay on mindtraps during that, everyone must switch to him instantly when he comes out and you should get 8-10% off during one stun to be able to kill him.

First, the first two phases need to be some serious dps to get him into the transitions as fast as possible. If the healers aren't doing anything, they should be dpsing to.

 

Everything should be a real breeze, and fast, until p3.

 

On phase 3 you need to hope for a little luck if under geared, that the mind prison is out before he is vulnerable or that it hit a healer or tank.

 

But really all you do is go around killing mind prisons as fast as possible and a couple seconds before he gets hit by the thing falling, just have ur DPS drop everything and get in position.

 

 

As long as there is only 1 person in a mind prison at a time (there will be two in there for a few seconds) you should be able to win. And you can beat him through enrage if you avoid lightning balls and have the tank kite.

Well......we are all swapping to him as soon as his shield is down (when hes kneeling) but are you saying we're supposed to knock off serious percentages during that time? Cuz we arent seeing the result of that. We have 2 Leap happy Knights (myself included) and 2 Gunslingers, and we all swapped fast every time, but we're not seeing the serious drops in hp that are being suggested. Maybe, given all of the posts Ive seen around here, theres a bug thats mitigating damage past the point its supposed to? idk.

The pylons are his enrage timer, you only get 4 burn phases for the last 29% in Phase 3. You need to do 7-8% in every burn phase.

 

Are you doing 16man or 8man? Are you on normal or on hard mode?

 

We did 8man as fresh 50s so it isn't a gear issue holding you back if it's 8man normal. Just need to make sure everyone is on the boss as he goes down. We call it out 5 seconds before he is going to get down so DPS can get in position. Blow cooldowns on the 1st burn phase. On the 4th and last, everyone has to DPS the boss, even healers.

Ok, so there are 4, and once the last one goes down he enrages, basically? That makes more sense. I think we're indiscriminately taking them down without consideration of that.

 

And mathematically, since he comes down at 29% every time, we have to knock off 7.25% every time.

The pylons are his enrage timer, you only get 4 burn phases for the last 29% in Phase 3. You need to do 7-8% in every burn phase.

 

Are you doing 16man or 8man? Are you on normal or on hard mode?

 

We did 8man as fresh 50s so it isn't a gear issue holding you back if it's 8man normal. Just need to make sure everyone is on the boss as he goes down. We call it out 5 seconds before he is going to get down so DPS can get in position. Blow cooldowns on the 1st burn phase. On the 4th and last, everyone has to DPS the boss, even healers.

 

8man normal. A lot of us are well geared with 3-4pc tier2 and crafted gear.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Kayoss

8man normal. A lot of us are well geared with 3-4pc tier2 and crafted gear.

 

I just uploaded our 16man hard mode kill strategy video to the youtube I think I have in my signature. You can skip to P3 (or P5, depending how you count it) and see if you can pick up any tips. You don't need to worry about soaking lightning damage by tanks in 8man normal so you can ignore that part.

 

8man normal we usually kill in 2 burn phases in our stacked group.... but most of us are in 4pc rakata so we way outgear it now.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Niclamus

From all the attempts I have done, I believe the enrage on this fight is solely tied to phase 4. We've had all kinds of various dps set ups and groups and I have always noticed him enraging on the 4th ancient artifact crash. His enrage does not instantly wipe your raid, so you can definitely use the 4th artifact crash, but the cyclone throw ability he uses will one shot any from that point on. We have, on occasion, made it to a 5th artifact drop, but it's not much use as by then the boss doesn't like to move much, and usually the dps on the mind traps is too low to keep up anyway so at best you have a couple people that can actually still damage him.

 

The goal is to kill him in 3 crashes, assuming the 3rd crash actually weakens him (last week he was bugged for us and the 3rd artifact crash would not remove his shield on any attempt). If you encounter this bug, you will most likely have to kill him in 3 artifact crashes (1, 2, and 4 when he enrages). To have a legitimate shot at killing him, you should be able to take him down no less than 8% per weaken phase (assuming the fight doesn't bug for you).

 

The general strategy is to keep all your dps on mind traps, killing them as fast as possible. Pay attention to the artifacts, and everyone, tanks, and healers included should swap to dps the boss when he is weakened. If you are on a mind trap (especially a ranged dps) it may be beneficial to destroy a low hp mind trap before swapping to the boss, but this is only worth it if the mind trap will die within a couple seconds of the boss being weakened. In general, you want to have your dps swapping immediately, and melee moving into position to jump on him asap once the artifact falls. It's also a good idea to save any dps cooldowns for these weakened phases.

Thanks for the responses. My next question - How long is this weakened phase supposed to last? It feels like its lasts all of 5 seconds for us.

My guild has been having issues with Soa, and I want to ask the community if we're missing a mechanic.

 

The first 2 phases are a breeze. We get him to 30% with little to no problem and have always headed into the final phase with the group at full strength, full resources, and full cooldowns. We're ready to go.

 

But we cant get him to 20% before he enrages. We've tried a few different dps strategies, from having all dps on Mind Prisons to only ranged + the Trooper tank, and hard swapping when his shield goes down. Splitting the dps helped keep the Mind Prisons under better control, but I fear if we went back to our original approach (swapping only when necessary, which, in the final phase, is a lot) we will lose our control of the Mind Prisons.

 

Are we simply undergeared? When we do get his shield down its not down for very long, most of our dps dont have a lot of time to deal any amount of meaningful damage before its back to Mind Traps or getting tossed around in the air. We're managing to take down about 8% or less before he enrages and its all over. This, after heading into the phase at full strength.

 

Any suggestions or musings would be helpful, thanks.

 

Rev

 

 

 

Think about this fight, there are some places where you can absolutely do nothing to buy you more time.. IE the jumps down

 

you need to maximize dps on the top and middle section from the get go.. even have your healers shooting if you see people AOEing or using big attacks before he's vulnerable tell them to stop or be better prepared next time. I would go as far as to say make one healer the backup healer on the first two phases and to only dps and spot heal as necessary STOP WORRYING ABOUT FORCE / HEAT / ENERGY @ TOP AND MIDDLE You can regain them as you go down to the next floor

 

During the top phase you don't have any mechanics to worry about you should have him down to 75 percent in around 30 seconds of the encounter.. I don't know exact numbers but these are the only two places you can buy time

 

 

 

During middle part.. maximize dps again, only swapping to break out of mind traps (do not stop dps because someone is in the air) they can always be rezzed at the bottom before the boss spawns.

 

Again these are the only two places you can make up the extra time as the jumps down are set in stone

 

 

When you're at the bottom break mind traps.. (IGNORE MIND TRAPS IF BOSS IS VULNERABLE) mind traps have 25k hp in normal they shouldn't live more then a few seconds. (made sure your tank is taking him and keeping him under the floating pyramid thing)

 

you just need one tank for the fight and two healers max in 8 man..

 

 

even you do the first two parts quick enough @ the bottom you should be able to make him vulnerable 5 times before he enrages.

 

 

 

force your group to assist assign 2 people 1 as a main assist and a backup incase that person is locked down in wind or mind traps

 

to assist that person you just have to hit alt - t at least until macros or a better option is implemented.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Shammus

Think about this fight, there are some places where you can absolutely do nothing to buy you more time.. IE the jumps down

 

you need to maximize dps on the top and middle section from the get go.. even have your healers shooting if you see people AOEing or using big attacks before he's vulnerable tell them to stop or be better prepared next time. I would go as far as to say make one healer the backup healer on the first two phases and to only dps and spot heal as necessary STOP WORRYING ABOUT FORCE / HEAT / ENERGY @ TOP AND MIDDLE You can regain them as you go down to the next floor

 

During the top phase you don't have any mechanics to worry about you should have him down to 75 percent in around 30 seconds of the encounter.. I don't know exact numbers but these are the only two places you can buy time

 

 

 

During middle part.. maximize dps again, only swapping to break out of mind traps (do not stop dps because someone is in the air) they can always be rezzed at the bottom before the boss spawns.

 

Again these are the only two places you can make up the extra time as the jumps down are set in stone

 

 

When you're at the bottom break mind traps.. (IGNORE MIND TRAPS IF BOSS IS VULNERABLE) mind traps have 25k hp in normal they shouldn't live more then a few seconds. (made sure your tank is taking him and keeping him under the floating pyramid thing)

 

you just need one tank for the fight and two healers max in 8 man..

 

 

even you do the first two parts quick enough @ the bottom you should be able to make him vulnerable 5 times before he enrages.

 

 

 

force your group to assist assign 2 people 1 as a main assist and a backup incase that person is locked down in wind or mind traps

 

to assist that person you just have to hit alt - t at least until macros or a better option is implemented.

 

Im sorry but this is wrong, it does not matter how much you push the first phases, he enrages at the 4th Pylon no matter what you do, we already tried all of these things when we first started doing SOA normal.

 

So yeah, 8% per burn phase is required to kill him.

i'll make sure to keep better track of it next time.. I know we had times where he was enraging at 3 and 5 Edited January 16, 2012 by Shammus

Ok, so there are 4, and once the last one goes down he enrages, basically? That makes more sense. I think we're indiscriminately taking them down without consideration of that.

 

This is false. His enrage is a hard timer, so you want to be bringing down the shield on every spike. If you wait to pop his shield, you're only making it harder on yourself.

 

Bring ranged. Lots of ranged.

Did this (our server first! woo newbie server) and the main thing seems to be luck.

 

Is anything bugging out? If not you should be fine.

 

I think that's it. If you aren't able to drop him below 25% in the third phase your dps may be incompetent.

There is no enrage timer, it is tied to the 4th pylon. He will enrage on the 4th pylon drop (not hit, drop) 100% of the time. Never before or after. It used to take us 5:30 to get to the 3rd phase, it now takes about 4 minutes for us. The enrage is still always on the 4th pillar.

DOT Soa right before the shield pops off for added dps, we did that on normal and 1 shot him first attempt. Just an added boost to what you are doing already.