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Explosive Conflict - Hard Mode Guide <Renegade Soldiers>


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Toth and Zorn HM:

 

Strat(HM Only):

- Bosses should be kept apart always.

- Melee on Toth, ranged on Zorn at MAX range.

- Lots of AOE damage going out.

- When Toth jumps to Zorn, Tanks need to swap and pull them apart.

- Toth and Zorn will be tanked at the same place the whole time, the tanks will switch positions.

- The range you need to be at is supposed to be 25m.

- There is a dispellable debuff on melee usually.

- Fearful is the debuff that you have to outrange. If you have that you cannot attack Zorn. If you do, you die.

- Toth will go berserk at some points, and someone will have a yellow circle under them. That person needs to run over to Toth and stay until the circle changes purple. Then move back to original position.

- Soft enrage when Toth/Zorn dies.

 

VIDEO

 

TANKS

- Ryast (Jugg)

- Disappoint (Powertech)

HEALS

- Fhatal (Sorc)

- Koshimo (Sorc)

DPS

- Auliga (Mara)

- Swiper (Mara)

- Kuato (Merc)

- Mythicrose (Sniper)

 

LOOT

- Campaign Bracer Token

- Campaign Pants Token

- Relic

 

Fire and Storm HM:

 

Strat(HM Only):

- Tanks must jump to boss together. Fire will be tanked facing the wall, and Storm will be tanked along the small gray strip on the boss’s platform. We tried tanking completely forward, but our Double Destruction soakers were getting hit sometimes. This puts the boss at a slight angle from its initial forward positioning.

- Fire has a large range frontal AOE. Storm does too but not a large range.

- There needs to be two Double Destruction Soakers on the right side to get between Storm and the tank when Storm casts Double Destruction. The melee need to be between the tank at the end of this cast.

- Watch for red circles on the ground.

- Watch for giant semi-spheres of lightning that fall. Don’t stand in them. They are blue. And large.

- If someone has the yellow circle on them, it needs to be cleansed ASAP while running away from everyone. The circle will stay on the ground in HM.

- Tanks need to swap after Fire tank gets the armor debuff ASAP

- At 80%, 60%, 40%, 20% usually, they will start casting Defensive Systems. This is where you run to a shield that drops from the sky.

- In HM, they will spawn in 3 locations, not just one.

- Fire tank will go into that sides shield and Storm will stay out and run around in LoS of healer dropping the lightning around the group, not inside the shield.

- Inside the shields, NO AOE. If the shield generator dies, you take a lot of damage.

- The two mobs inside need to die before the Fire stops mortar volley.

- Tanks go to their bosses, and repeat everything.

- GG

 

VIDEO-Difficult to find a clear video that shows from a ranged PoV on Firebrand.

 

TANKS

- Ryast (Jugg)

- Disappoint (Powertech)

HEALS

- Fhatal (Sorc)

- Nawato (Sorc)

DPS

- Auliga (Mara)

- Swiper (Mara)

- Zadruhn (Sniper)

- Mythicrose (Sniper)

 

LOOT

- Campaign Belt Token

- Campaign Offhand Token

- Offhand Piece

 

Minesweeper HM:

 

Strat (HM Only):

Phase I

- Never go in a red block, ever.

- A tank stands up in tower to solve puzzle.

- When looking for a path, you need to find a Mine Probe.

- When the tank finds the Probe, the other tank taunts and turns the boss away from raid to avoid the cleave.

- Overload must be interrupted every time.

- When the Mine Probe dies, one person gets to diffuse to bomb. This person has to wait for the tower tank to turn the square yellow and then go click.

- Rinse and repeat until the path is completed to the end.

 

Tower Guide:

- We started with three people going up the ramp to the console. One to find the path, one to summon a Mine Probe, and another to kill the mob that spawns.

- Tank will continue to find a path while the group fights the Mine Probe. As soon as the Mine Probe dies, the tank will click on the red panel to turn that square yellow. While this point is yellow, the tank cannot click on another point, so he should find a Mine Probe in the meantime.

- Rinse and Repeat.

- One you turn the last point yellow, the tank should drop down to catch out to the the group.

- This allows for 5 diffuses before hitting puzzle enrage.

 

 

Phase II

- Someone needs to click the panel on the right hand side after reaching the other side.

- Probe Tank goes in first, then kill the two adds.

- He targets someone and places a red circle. Run away from raid until you blow up.

- He summons the 4 turret adds once he gets to 40% or so.Must be killed in NM. Can be CC'd in Story Mode.

- GG

 

VIDEO

 

TANKS

- Ryast (Jugg)

- Eternity (Inqis)

HEALS

- Fhatal (Sorc)

- Koshimo (Sorc)

DPS

- Auliga (Mara)

- Swiper (Mara)

- Zadruhn (Sniper)

- Mythicrose (Sniper)

 

LOOT

- Campaign Chest Token

- Campaign Gloves Token

- Chest Piece

 

Warlord Kephess

 

Strat (HM Only):

Phase I

- Everything hits harder.

- Never go under the boss unless you have the bomb.

- Three droids must be killed first. Kill the front one, while a tank taunts the other two. After the first one goes down, kill the others.

- The walker will shoot random targets every so often, so be aware of this especially for the bomb carrier.

- The giant boss will fire purple shots on the ground, in different sections of the room at different points. This will take a sweeping path across the room. There seems to be 5 spots it will shoot.

- The sections are Upper Right, Right, Middle, Left, and Upper Left, from facing the boss.

- After the last droid dies, a Bomb mob will spawn. This needs to be killed ASAP. A tank needs to hold aggro. DPS use threat drops. Watch out for the Purple Shots from boss as they hurt, alot. These mobs can be stunned.

- This mob needs to be picked up fast as to reduce hitting healers for 14k or so. A sunder armor debuff on these mobs helps alot. Plan accordingly.

- One the Bomb mod is killed, someone in the group will have an explosion symbol above their head.

- This person will run under the boss an stand in the small red circle. This person needs to be topped off and needs heals.

- The person under the boss will grapple up and bring the boss down automatically. Burn the boss hard. A marauder or another DPS with a stun needs to get off the boss a couple seconds early and prepare for the next part.

- The next part involves AOE packs with a shield carrier. Do not attack any mob inside the purple shield or you will die. This carrier must be stunned and DPSed down by one or two people while the rest of the AOE mobs will go towards the healers.

- Tanks will pick up the packs and DPS AOE down. This is repeated 2 more times. The packs spawn to the right of the boss, the back where you spawn from entering, and the far left.

- In this phase, for the first two packs, everyone except for the one DPS should be on the right hand wall. Once the second pack is down, he will scorch the middle. This is where everyone moves to the center and prepare for the third pack.

- Once the last mob dies, a Bomb mod will spawn and it needs to die ASAP. Same procedure as before.

- After killing the boss some more, he will spawn two Rail Shot droids. These are not tankable. They Rail Shot people for heavy damage unless a tank soaks them. Attack the right one, as if facing boss. The other will have a large purple circle that hurts. Tanks should be the farthest ones out, but within 30m.

- Someone should focus the other add and call out when 2 seconds is left on the cast to start switching. Repeat until these two are dead.

- Once the last one is dead, the real boss will drop down. This needs to be tanked, and healed through hard hits.

- He jumps in the air every so often. Don’t stand in the red circles.

- After about 10 sec, a Bomb mob will arrive, which needs to be killed fast. Same thing. Under big walker boss. Should be killed after three drops.

 

 

Phase II

- A tank grabs the boss. All heals should be on tanks only. DPS wont take damage at all. Tank gets hit hard. Like real hard.

- At around 50% health, the boss will pull everyone to him and create a large purple circle that should be run out of. Predation helps here. Use health packs and defensive CDs if you have them.

- He will gain a buff called Gift of the Masters, which gives him Breath of the Masters. When he is casting this spell on the tank, the other tank should immediately taunt. Be ready. If the tank affected by the Breath gets hit by the boss even once, it is almost always an instant death for that tank.

- Whoever got the Breath needs to run on the outside edge dropping the purple circles on the ground. 5 of these will drop from one Breath.

- When the other tank gets the Breath, the main tank should grab back as fast as possible. Repeat until boss is dead. Sniper shields are very useful here.

 

Breath of the Masters Note:

Cshouston: "Touch of the Masters. When Kephess performs his knockback on the current tank, it applies that debuff. Taking a single point of damage is essentially an insta-kill. He knocks back, applies Touch, then shortly after begins to channel Breath. Unfortunately, whether this is by design or a bug, he can get a swing off inbetween the two and one-shot the tank. We handled this by having our offtank taunt immediately after the transition, take the debuff, then pop force speed and run away until the channel for Breath began. At that point, I would taunt it off of him and just tank him in place, providing maximum DPS up-time for our melee. Once Touch wears off on the 2nd tank, he will be very close to applying it again to the current MT, so the cycle repeats. We found this to be optimal because there is very little kiting involved, and the tank with Breath can just run along the wall dropping the purple circles far out of anyone's path."

 

 

VIDEO

 

 

TANKS

- Ryast (Jugg)

- Tahota (Powertech)

HEALS

- Fhatal (Sorc)

- Choren (Op)

DPS

- Auliga (Mara)

- Heelin (Merc)

- Zadruhn (Sniper)

- Mythicrose (Sniper)

 

LOOT

- Campaign Main Hand Token

- Campaign Head Token

- Bracer Piece

- Mount

- BOL Companion Customization

- Armoring 26

 

 

Things to Note:

- I am Swiper. Auliga is our guild leader, who pushed us to clear this content.

- Ryast was our main tank and definitely kept the peace at those 2:00 AM wipes. Also is awesome at tank swaps. This goes for you Dissappoint, Eternity and Tahota. Nice job.

- Zadruhn and Mythic, you guys have some pro DPS, except for Firebrand and Stormcaller. :p

- Fhatal, super pro heals : "This is by far the hardest healing I have had to do in this game, hands down." Koshimo, Choren and Nawato definitely saved us througout the Operation.

- We were not able to go on the PTS unfortunately. All of these strats were compiled since raiding the new content on Thursday, April 12th.

- I give credit to all the <Renegade Soldiers> who helped, especially those who raided every late night. It was about 35 hours in total across Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Monday for HM and Story Mode.

- Also, I give thanks to cshouston who helped tons in the HM Warlord Kephess fight, especially the Rail Shot mechanic and the Breath of the Masters Mechanic.

- The videos I linked do not belong to me, all credit goes to those involved.

- The kill group makeups are shown for each HM kill. we were all in pretty much full Rakata.

- We first cleared Story Mode. These should help alot with grasping what is going on.

- Hard Mode gives little room for error, as everyone is liable on almost every boss due to the important tank swaps, the large amount of damage that needs to be healed, and the enrage timers.

 

*Anything I miss, please point out and I will update accordingly.

**

Something to note: These are 8 man strats only, 16 man brings a whole new perspective on things. Some mechanics on 8man can be "dealt" with improperly, but 16 man is not so forgiving. Anyone doing 16 man, please be aware of mechanics and deal with them accordingly.
Edited by Aeronislol
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That would be great. Is it a mount similar to something we've already seen before?

 

Touch of the Masters. When Kephess performs his knockback on the current tank, it applies that debuff. Taking a single point of damage is essentially an insta-kill. He knocks back, applies Touch, then shortly after begins to channel Breath. Unfortunately, whether this is by design or a bug, he can get a swing off inbetween the two and one-shot the tank. We handled this by having our offtank taunt immediately after the transition, take the debuff, then pop force speed and run away until the channel for Breath began. At that point, I would taunt it off of him and just tank him in place, providing maximum DPS up-time for our melee. Once Touch wears off on the 2nd tank, he will be very close to applying it again to the current MT, so the cycle repeats. We found this to be optimal because there is very little kiting involved, and the tank with Breath can just run along the wall dropping the purple circles far out of anyone's path.

Edited by cshouston
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Ok. Our tanks were doing that I believe. I was hoping Touch would be a mechanic that would reduce the Warlords damage done (I mean in a way it is, but not the way I was thinking). The mount is a smaller, darker version of a mount already in the game. It resembles one of the speeder analogs that has a triangular head with two fins (or I think it looked like that). Choren zoomed around fast enough that it was hard to get a good look at it.
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We found it easier to outrange the Fearful debuff with well, ranged. But that doesn't mean a good/smart melee who immediately stops attacking when getting the debuff and charges the other guy officially can't do it. Just immensely more difficult with zero room for error. We never did it, but I suppose the melee would swap with the tanks. Edited by cardiac
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Something to note: These are 8 man strats only, 16 man brings a whole new perspective on things. Some mechanics on 8man can be "dealt" with improperly, but 16 man is not so forgiving. Anyone doing 16 man, please be aware of mechanics and deal with them accordingly.
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Out of curiosity, what mount did Kephess drop? :D

- A SS of the mount will be posted as soon as the owner of the mount gets on to take the picture.

 

 

we did it last night with 3 melee dps and did boss swaps with the dps as well. Is there a reason you don't think melee can be on Z? I found in full rakata I was able to survive through the boulder throws pretty easily.

- Im assuming you are talking about Toth and Zorn. The problem with melee on Zorn is the Fearful debuff on anyone within 25 when he screams. Stopping atttacking Zorn and switching to Toth when this happens fast is necessary, or you will kill yourself. It is possible, but involves lots of moving which is a problem if hitting enrage timers. Healing this is not fun either

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I can't say for sure that 16 EC is more difficult than 8 EC having never done it on hard mode yet, but when we would do Nightmare Soa, 16 man was most certainly easier than 8.

 

They are on par, with parts of 16 requiring more coordination. Battle tanks have two shield spawns on each side instead of one, for example.

 

Can't wait to see the new mount.

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Yes, I'm talking about Zorn. But my tank is taking most of the damage so I think it's okay to stay on him until the tank swap. At least it was for me. I was taking way less damage on Zorn than I was on Toth, due to Toth's AOEs.

 

- A SS of the mount will be posted as soon as the owner of the mount gets on to take the picture.

 

 

 

- Im assuming you are talking about Toth and Zorn. The problem with melee on Zorn is the Fearful debuff on anyone within 25 when he screams. Stopping atttacking Zorn and switching to Toth when this happens fast is necessary, or you will kill yourself. It is possible, but involves lots of moving which is a problem if hitting enrage timers. Healing this is not fun either

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Phase II

- Someone needs to click the panel on the right hand side after reaching the other side.

- Probe Tank goes in first, then kill the two adds.

- He targets someone and places a red circle. Run away from raid until you blow up.

- He summons the 4 turret adds once he gets to 40% or so.Must be killed in NM. Can be CC'd in Story Mode.

- GG

 

Do you mean "Must be killed in HM"? And do they need to be killed during the phase or after Vorgath is dead? Our guild opted to just burn the boss instead of worrying about the turrets but lost our Tanks and a DPS. We managed to finish off the turrets with what was left.

 

Thanks for the guide! Really helpful.

Edited by Psykopath
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Really nice guide - pretty clear and very concise ^_^ Just one question about Kephess during the last phase:

 

Some say switch tanks (so MT would go drop purple stuff in the corner, then OT does the same when he gets the debuff), you suggest the OT just taunting and taking the debuff everytime, which makes sense - less movement for the whole group would make it easier.

 

My question is when should I be taunting exactly? You say he knocks back, applies 'Touch' and then channels 'Breath'. So do I need to taunt straight after the knockback, or when he's channeling Breath? (I would be the offtank who picks up the debuff and drops nasties in the corner)

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Do you mean "Must be killed in HM"? And do they need to be killed during the phase or after Vorgath is dead? Our guild opted to just burn the boss instead of worrying about the turrets but lost our Tanks and a DPS. We managed to finish off the turrets with what was left.

 

Thanks for the guide! Really helpful.

 

On normal mode, the turrets spawn and can be CC'd. On hard mode, they cannot and their damage in combination with Vorgaths could overwhelm your healers. On the bright side, the turrets have ~30k or so health on 8 man hard mode. If a group is reaching enrage consistantly, it may be possible to heal through one or two turrets plus the boss damage but that group will be putting more strain on the healers.

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  • 3 months later...

Thanks for the guide, it is easy on the eyes, I have linked it on my Guilds site.

 

I will add we have great success with our tanks and healers holding positions, while dps adjust when we swap Toth and Zorn, but thats the only minor point I wanted to add.

 

Again thanks, finding this was great a good read

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- There is a dispellable debuff on melee usually.

 

IIRC, the DOT debuff comes from Zorn for anyone within 30 meters of him. If Toth does give a cleansable debuff, that would explain why the melee DPS and those on Toth get killed first almost every single time.

 

Then again, my group has used the same healer for Toth's side every HM Denova run. So I'm wonder, with where there are two melee DPS on Toth, what is the best healer to put on the Toth side? The best healer overall, or a certain class such as Operative or Sorceror?

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Tank switching is actually not necessary for Firebrand and Stormcaller. When Firebrand casts incinerate armor, a melee dps with a taunt or the tank on Stormcaller can take the debuff so the tank on Firebrand does not.
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