So I wanted to ask about the threat mechanics on Raptus. I have tanked it multiple times, often with the same cotank as tonight, and while sometimes a pit patchy, it was never a huge issue. But tonight, for whatever reason, we could not get through it.

 

Here is the log http://www.torparse.com/a/612675 according to which I am generating negative threat =D

 

The set up was, the cotank (Guardian) tanks it in phase one (he has better gear). After both challenges I would taunt the boss, take any Driving Thrust he may do, while the other tank gets in position and taunts him away (by this time everybody should be back from challenges). From phase 2 onward, we would swap after the other tank gets knocked up, with me just Holding the Line and the Guardian avoiding the knock backs by leaping someone. (I could avoid them too, but I have noticed that I often get knocked back even though I stand behind him so the healers agreed that the 12k is the lesser evil.).

 

The problem I had tonight, was that after I get knocked up, and the other tank takes him, I would then leap back to him or even just walk close by and Raptus would immediately switch back to me which cleaved the raid and killed a DPS.

 

I talked about this with other tanks in my guild and apparently my threat is suspended when I am knocked up, so the other tanks taunt does not really count or something, I dunno. I have also noticed I get a buff/debuff called focused defence when I am up.

 

Any insight is welcomed.

Edited March 7, 2014 by Darth_Dreselus

One of the other tanks in my guild theorycrafted what happens with Raptus when you get sent up and it has helped us significantly with this.

 

What he discovered is that, basically what happens when Raptus sends you up is he throws you so far away that you are out of his threat table, however, you do not lose whatever threat you had. So basically imagine whoever is maintanking the boss has, say 50,000 threat at that moment they are sent up. You only have 30,000(these numbers are arbitrary). You taunt, pick up the boss, and keep his aggro for 6 seconds but do not exceed the 50k threat that the other tank had. Then, the tank comes back down, and leaps back to the boss. Immediately Raptus refocuses on the tank that was just sent up, because he still technically has higher threat than you, even though you just taunted.

 

To counteract this, what you need to do is whoever has the boss must single taunt on cooldown, at least until after the 2nd challenge. But, most importantly, when one of the tanks gets sent up and the other tank taunts, once the tank that was in the air returns to the ground, they must call this out and have the tank on the boss use their AOE taunt. This way they will exceed whatever threat the other tank had and Raptus will not suddenly swap targets as soon as the other tank returns/the 2nd taunt wears off. Another precaution you can use if even that doesn't work is have the tank that returns drop their threat after your AOE taunt, though this is highly unlikely to be necessary seeing as ever since I was told this information, I haven't had the Raptus switching issue since, unless of course me or my cotank didn't do the AOE taunt.

So since he loses threat on me when I am up does he then automatically switch to the other tank (i.e. second highest threat), so that way I can only have the cotank taunt once I am back down, so he builds on my threat. Sure Raptus may still switch to me but at least the other tank will have taunt ready.

 

Reason why I am asking is because I have noticed getting knocked back more often than 45s.

 

I have also never had him switch back to the cotank after my taunt, and I did it right after he got thrown. Maybe the fact that VG taunt has a delay worked in my advantage there.

Edited March 7, 2014 by Darth_Dreselus

So since he loses threat on me when I am up does he then automatically switch to the other tank (i.e. second highest threat), so that way I can only have the cotank taunt once I am back down, so he builds on my threat. Sure Raptus may still switch to me but at least the other tank will have taunt ready.

 

Reason why I am asking is because I have noticed getting knocked back more often than 45s.

Um...I think so. The tank on Raptus taunting on cooldown and you picking up a good chunk of that threat whenever the other tank goes up should leave you in the 2nd threat slot so long as you weren't teleported away, especially if you also then taunt on cooldown because you should have a hold of him for a bit. If not, tell your DPS to drop threat on cooldown.

 

If by knocked back you mean getting hit by the huge purple fan that Raptus places, that's probably more of a slow computer loading/online game problem than you or the game. One thing you can do is pop hydraulic overrides(Hold the Line) and you will not get tossed back from the big purple fan move if you react a little late to it. If you cannot do this, run past the boss and jump as soon as you pass him. This will cause a server-client update, telling the server where your position is. Basically sometimes when you walk past something, it looks to you like you're like 5 meters past it, however, the server is lagging behind a tiny bit and thinks you are still in the purple fan. However, if you jump, the server updates and knows you are actually outside of the AOE. This is not very noticeable outside of instances where there are big AOE's like this and Corrupter Zero's Anti-Gravity Field, but becomes a big problem during them.

Edited March 7, 2014 by OMGITSJAD

A tank must not stand behind raptus. You setup should stand like a triangle. Tank A on the left south corner, Tank B right south corner ( there is a square on the ground use it for orientation. The rest of the raid stands near the throne. So whenever raptus switches his aggro on the other tank his cleaves dont hit the raid. Another thing is, that raptus has a aggro reset after each Challenge. You have to do a tauntrotation in order to maintain aggro, otherwise the player who kited him during the challenge might get aggro. Dodging the cleaves of raptus should be mandatory, bc when your hit you are pushbacked and out of reach for the healers, you have to run back, making the boss turn while you run back to the tankplace. During that time every cleave or whatsover could hit the raid. Therefore when you see the big cleave jump through the boss and swap tanklocation with the other tank ---> Tank A south left corner, Tank B south right corner. Tank A has the boss. Boss does his cleave. Tank A runs through boss. Tank A now south right corner, Tank B south left corner and so on. You can also make Tank B taunt during the cleave.

Ye the Force Wave is not an issue, Hold The Line/Guardian Leap/Force Speed sorts it out pretty well.

 

The threat resetting explains the massive drops on the log.

 

Another problem was that we recently merged guilds and had completely different positioning for DPS, but that will get sorted out over time. It was just really annoying when I'm walking into position and get threat and the way he turns he plants his cone on the raid (I dunno why the DPS was there wasn't really looking at where they were until the last pull.)

Edited March 7, 2014 by Darth_Dreselus

A tank must not stand behind raptus. You setup should stand like a triangle. Tank A on the left south corner, Tank B right south corner ( there is a square on the ground use it for orientation. The rest of the raid stands near the throne. So whenever raptus switches his aggro on the other tank his cleaves dont hit the raid. Another thing is, that raptus has a aggro reset after each Challenge. You have to do a tauntrotation in order to maintain aggro, otherwise the player who kited him during the challenge might get aggro. Dodging the cleaves of raptus should be mandatory, bc when your hit you are pushbacked and out of reach for the healers, you have to run back, making the boss turn while you run back to the tankplace. During that time every cleave or whatsover could hit the raid. Therefore when you see the big cleave jump through the boss and swap tanklocation with the other tank ---> Tank A south left corner, Tank B south right corner. Tank A has the boss. Boss does his cleave. Tank A runs through boss. Tank A now south right corner, Tank B south left corner and so on. You can also make Tank B taunt during the cleave.

 

Tanking front-back is fine, it keeps Force Exhaustion in a very predictable location and keeps the two cleave zones pointed away from both the entrance and the throne areas, which makes life easier for the rest of the raid. The ranged folks can just park on the throne and do their thing, and people can come back from the bridge without having to worry about where the edges of cleave zones are.

 

Quite honestly, how you tank it is relatively small potatoes for Raptus. It's a test of raid awareness and coordination more than anything. Even with Raptus' occasional threat oddities, he should be ping-ponging between tanks if anything, not the rest of the raid. So long as the rest of the group isn't taking unnecessary damage, is passing challenges, and is killing him consistently, the exact positioning doesn't really matter. Everyone just needs to be on the same page and cognizant of positioning throughout the fight.

Edited March 7, 2014 by Omophorus

Problem is even with positioning and ping-ponging him between tanks with all taunts available so that threat goes into millions he still sometimes randomly will switch to someone or do the cleave opposite way to the telegraph or one of the tanks will explode (in 16-man). I have been killing him 3-4 times every week for weeks as all 3 roles and rarely I have seen a clean kill with no deaths. In our progression group some weeks he put up more of a fight then the council. I believe it's just buggy this fight and that is most of the problem.

 

There are 2 fights in current tier that in my experience give problems even to overgeared and overpowered skilled groups - Raptus and Brontes.

There are 2 fights in current tier that in my experience give problems even to overgeared and overpowered skilled groups - Raptus and Brontes.

 

I agree, Council is an issue of getting the strat down and from then on it is fairly straightforward. Brontes requires supreme coordination and is pretty much is not possible to carry anybody on 8 man (DPS and healing checks are easier on 16). Zero and Raptus are just beyond annoying.

If you do this amount of threat on him, he will even chase you after you teleport!

one of the other tanks in my guild theorycrafted what happens with raptus when you get sent up and it has helped us significantly with this.

 

What he discovered is that, basically what happens when raptus sends you up is he throws you so far away that you are out of his threat table, however, you do not lose whatever threat you had. So basically imagine whoever is maintanking the boss has, say 50,000 threat at that moment they are sent up. You only have 30,000(these numbers are arbitrary). You taunt, pick up the boss, and keep his aggro for 6 seconds but do not exceed the 50k threat that the other tank had. Then, the tank comes back down, and leaps back to the boss. Immediately raptus refocuses on the tank that was just sent up, because he still technically has higher threat than you, even though you just taunted.

 

Oh my god this explains so much.

Edited March 7, 2014 by Kuciwalker

If you do this amount of threat on him, he will even chase you after you teleport!

 

Here we see the common specimen of an entirely unhelpful post.

Personally, I don’t believe that the Raptus fight is buggy, apart from that wonderful one-shot Step of Death he had installed for a while. Ah, memories…

 

My guild clears Raptus (HM/8m) as a one-shot each week with no deaths. Healers and DPS are positioned in the throne/ramp area with the tanks at 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock next to the center square (if the throne is 12 o’clock.) As a tank, this is how I deal with threat throughout the fight.

 

Beginning room: Complete opening tank rotation, wait a couple more GCDs and then I single taunt to make sure Raptus is locked to me when transitioning to the platform.

 

Platform Phase 1: Raptus will be aggroed on me as I taunted him and had aggro when we left the starting room. He jumps to me, I complete a few attacks then single taunt, AoE taunt about seven or eight seconds later, then single taunt again when that comes off CD. I hold boss this entire time. My co-tank has only been DPSing up to this point.

 

Challenges: Both tanks enter the tank challenge and exit first, before healers, and especially before DPS. DPS should always be last to finish their challenge by delaying their entrance for a good seven or eight seconds after both the tanks and healers have entered their own.

 

Platform Phase 2: I exit and work to position myself so that when I do taunt the boss back onto myself at the end of the challenges any cleave he casts will not be pointing towards the DPS exiting their challenge. When he stops his Helicopter of Death I single taunt him onto myself, wait for the rest of the group to be safely in the throne/ramp area then position boss in the middle of the platform. I then AoE taunt the boss.

 

When I get knocked up, I call for my co-tank to instantly single taunt the boss onto himself. As I return to the boss, I know that there’s a possibility that the boss could leap to me, so I make sure I approach from a safe angle, one that would keep any cleaves out of the throne/ramp area. (If you chose to, you can call out for your co-tank to AoE taunt as you’re returning, but we don’t do this.) If the boss doesn’t leap to me I wait for my co-tank to be knocked up before taunting. If my co-tank continues to hold the boss waiting for his knock-up, he will AoE taunt to ensure the aggro is locked to him.

 

If the off-tank is teleported to the bridge we prepare for the knock-up of the main tank by having our powertech DPS step into the missing off-tank’s position to taunt the boss the instant the knock-up of the main tank happens.

 

Challenges: Same as the first time.

 

Platform Phase 3: Same a Phase 2 except my co-tank (Assassin) picks up Raptus first with a taunt to Force Shroud his opening Driving Thrust for zero damage. I wait for the knock-up to happen and then instantly taunt. We then just taunt the boss back whenever a knock-up occurs.

 

Knock-back purple fans: All knock-backs are avoided by having the main tank run through the boss and jumping to force the client/server foot position update. The two tanks then swap their positions and continue the fight as normal.

Knock-back purple fans: All knock-backs are avoided by having the main tank run through the boss and jumping to force the client/server foot position update. The two tanks then swap their positions and continue the fight as normal.

 

If only this worked reliably. We had both cases of tank being knocked forward even though he was on everyone's screens way behind the boss and jumping and we had cases of tank being knocked backwards opposite to telegraph on the floor.

 

Also you wrote you only have one tank tanking him and taunt instantly on being knocked into the air. It usually works perfectly, but I have seen him switch to a DPS or even a healer and immediately do the conal knockback channel. No amount of taunting will help that.

While we oneshot it like every other guild out there I do belive fight is buggy as hell. Those threat switches cant be explained. I had situations where I would pull him with hammer shot. Not to mention his knockbacks. Him and third boss in same OP are buggy as hell. Edited March 7, 2014 by TheRampage

If only this worked reliably. We had both cases of tank being knocked forward even though he was on everyone's screens way behind the boss and jumping and we had cases of tank being knocked backwards opposite to telegraph on the floor.

 

Also you wrote you only have one tank tanking him and taunt instantly on being knocked into the air. It usually works perfectly, but I have seen him switch to a DPS or even a healer and immediately do the conal knockback channel. No amount of taunting will help that.

 

It could be a lag issue. My co-tank and I both have less than 100ms lag. I personally play with ~28ms lag most of the time. All I can say is that in my personal experience in my guild's runs we do not miss knock-back avoidance or the required instant taunt.

When your kncoked into the air, you are not on the agro table so the second highest person there will be the highest in threat list. If you taunt at that time, then the boss will just turn back to you as soon as you land.

 

how to counter it?

 

Tank swap on the knockbacks and you will guarantee that both tanks have the highest threat in the raid, and if you are knocked up in the air, he will not turn to a dps. If you are still worried or it is still happening, just taunt swap to build up the threat.

 

The boss will turn to you, only if you have 130% threat, of the current tank while your running back and 110% if in melee range. But since you will be positioned correctly when you are back in melee range, it really doesn't matter that he jumps to you. All you need to do is make sure that neither o the tanks are too far behind on threat which is easily done by taunt-swapping 3-4 times in a row.

 

every time you taunt in melee range, it increases your threat by 110% of the person who had agro. When the boss has say... 200k threat (average threat of a decent tank in 1min) then taunting will give you 220k and if you keep taunting it will go up very fast to the point that the tank that was punted up in the air, would require at least 200k more threat, than the other, to pull him off you.

Edited March 8, 2014 by Kadjunga

Here we see the common specimen of an entirely unhelpful post.

 

 

Nobody can blame you for drawing the wrong conclusions based on a picture that shows threat on Raptus. Goodluck with that!

I figured out exactly why I am losing threat:

 

07:44:44.868 Koinzel's Guardian Leap adds effect Guardian Leap to Toughen.

07:44:44.869 Toughen's Guardian Leap causes 0 threat gain on Doomed Captive.

07:44:44.869 Toughen's Guardian Leap causes -8523541 threat loss on Dread Master Raptus.

 

07:46:50.312 Koinzel's Guardian Leap adds effect Guardian Leap to Toughen.

07:46:50.313 Toughen's Guardian Leap causes 0 threat gain on Doomed Captive.

07:46:50.313 Toughen's Guardian Leap causes -19964414 threat loss on Dread Master Raptus.

 

He was doing it to give me the damage reduction in the challenge, I will just ask him not to do it.

 

Your explanations of being removed from aggro table were very useful, thanks guys I can work with that.

Edited March 8, 2014 by Darth_Dreselus

It could be a lag issue. My co-tank and I both have less than 100ms lag. I personally play with ~28ms lag most of the time. All I can say is that in my personal experience in my guild's runs we do not miss knock-back avoidance or the required instant taunt.

 

I play with 60ms and my co tank as well. It might be lag issue of course, but it only happens on this boss.

 

So at least for me it IS buggy as hell. And that means it might be for others.