So then...there shouldn't be any gear in the game...and just your skill (and by that meaning copying whatever known strat is floating around the net) should be enough to kill the boss. Why can't we do ops at lvl 10 then? we have the skill, we know the strats. Why should we be limited by our level...

I have had the same thoughts since late December. I don't check the forums often enough. Just thought I would bring this up as a problem that is very real. If you have seen a post by me "shooting you down" by all means point it out.

Shhhhhhh :-p

For justice!!!

I am glad that everyone is giving constructive feed back on this issue.

Thank you for your constructive feed back. Though there may be slight differences the end thoughts are the same. I too agree that its too late for this tier of content. They can start with the next tier. They could also up the difficulty of the next tier substantially to compensate for the fact that anyone with a couple weeks of raiding time has full Columi/Rakata.

I understand the farm mentality totally. The problem here is that the gear is so easy to get from FPs that you don't even need to do Normal EV. you can skip to HMs. There's something wrong with that.

It is fun getting that next peice of gear. If you bought a game, would you want to play through it or be ported the the last boss fully geared and beat the game in 10 minutes? Also, your question is the entire point of MMO raiding :-p

Now before the flames begin, hear me out. I know some have complained about how easy the fights are in operations. My own guild went 4/5 HM in our first night of doing HMs ever. I thought about this and realized that the fault wasn't in the difficulty of the encounter but more so in the ease in which gear is acquired. Again, before the flames begin about elitism and all that other BS, hear me out. You can acquire T2 gear from running Flash points. In fact in your first week of hitting 50, you could easily acquire enough e-peen candy (purples) to fill all your slots in mostly T1 or T2 gear. If you PVP, you could easily acquire a full set of Champ Gear which although it does have expertise, you could raid the normal operations just fine in it (why is beyond me). So you enter the normal raid which is tuned for 50's in blues and greens in mostly epics and face roll the normal content only to receive loot that is on par with what you are already wearing. You can then after face rolling the normal encounter, change the difficulty to HM and with a decent group, clear 4/5 HM in the same set of gear you used to clear Normal. Now the gear that drops in HM is Rakata level but that doesn't matter much because the gear that drops from NM is Rakata level. Do people honestly think that guilds would of been able to clear NM encounters in blues and greens? Flashpoints SHOULD have been a stepping stone to operations. Do flashpoints to gear up for ops. People ask me to do a FP with them and I ask "whats the point?" you will get more gear faster by running normal EV. It's the same loot. Normal Operations should have been a stepping stone for HM ops and so on to Nightmare ops. If that was the case, people would not have been clearing nightmares in the first week, not even the first couple weeks. Gear drops should have been as follows: Flashpoint (HM): Lvl 50 Blue set (Custom) Operations (N): Tionese Set Operations (HM): Columi Set w/ Tionese Crystals Operations (NM): Rakata Set w/ Columi crystals. Gearing up for the next tier of content is part of playing an mmo. In its current state, you out gear the tier you are trying to clear. Its stupid. This isn't a hard core vs casual thread. You could leave the difficulties exactly the same. I think running normal ops in blues would of given a much bigger challenge however i will never know because I had full epics before my first operation.... Now people will argue that in wow, guild clear content extremely quickly, even HMs. The truth of the matter is that those guild are all wearing full HM gear from the previous Tier which is only a couple stat points shy of the new tiers normal gear. THis allows them to blow through the normal tiers content and start knocking out HMs. This has been going on from every tier in WOW but i promise you that nobody was doing Molten Core in greens and they definitely didn't start their first day raiding Molten Core in full purples...

If it was done more reliably, i would be happy. Not knowing is frustrating specially when you see it done multiple ways.

I did it with 3 melee, I'm the tank. I use the same strat wether 3 melee or 2 range or mix..doesn't matter. This boss is the easiest boss to do. If three melee, form a triangle around the commander. be at max melee range. Have the tank GUARD one of the melee. KILL THE COMMANDER FIRST!!!! with his shield up, his damage output is reduced. Blow your CD's and burn him down. He goes down very quickly. Your tank should be maintaining aggro on the commander and the medic. They are the only two that do any real dmg. 3rd guy hits like a girl. just ignore him. DO NOT INTERRUPT HEALS.. Just full dps on the commander KILL MEDIC Second. Interrupt heals to spead it up KILL MASSEY last. Very easy to do. If your melee are spread out in a triangle at max melee range only 1 person will get hit by the mortor. Not hard.. DOesn't take rediculousy gear. No crazy strats.. just follow this and win. Do it every night nomatter the group comp. Can we please stop with these "its too hard" posts. Its only hard until you know how to actually do it.....

For justice!!!

You might not win 1v1, but if your TEAM plays well and has good positioning, neutral contral and good passing you can still win the game.

For justice!!!!

I honestly believe this would be a NON ISSUE if everyone knew how to play. Premade doesn't mean auto win, it just means that they don't do the stupid things that inexperienced (nice way of saying bad) players do. In any of the war zones there are little things that premades do that pugs either don't have the ability or just don't want to do. Civil War The biggest issue in this game are ninja caps. It is so common for an enemy to cap from behind someone "defending" because they are looking out instead of at their node. You should be behind the node with clear view of your node and any incoming enemy. As soon as you see enemy inc,you let the ops know that.."1, 2, 3 inc west, mid or east" If you are attacked by 3 people and are solo defending, youjob isnt to try and kill them. Thats what baddies do. Your job is to stop caps until defense arrives. Simple. Someone starts capping, you tab and attack and run around, pop cds , take pots, stay alive..run away and then run back in when you see the cap. STOP THE CAP that simple. Lastly, if your node is over run with 4 or 5+ enemies, its not rocket science to realize that there are only 8 people total on the team. if they have commited that many people to one side, dont have your whole team go there, ATTACK A DIFFERNT NODE!!!!!! 9 out of 10 times, it will simply result in a switch of nodes and the game is the same. However if your defense followed the earlier strat of stopping the caps..IT IS possible for you to take the other node and then send in back up for your attacked node and end with a 3 cap. I do it all the time. In conclussion, Keep an Eye on your node when on Def, Call out incs ahead of time, stop the caps until defense arrives and know when to attack something else. Strand of Ancients Clone (can't remember name right now) This warzone is the easiest of the 3. Like Civil war, the biggest problem is with people being ninja capped. They aren't paying attention and let someone cap from right behind them. Another big issue is lack of game awareness. I don't have to be in a premade to know that if there are only 5 enemies in front of me, there are 3 on the other door or stealthers. No matter who i am attacking i am constantly watching my door. as soon as i see a stealther pop and try and cap or anybody go to door and try to cap I SWITCH AND STOP IT. Now imagine if everyone on the team did that...... well if you did, the ohter team would complain that you were a premade because only premades do things like that. I queue a lot with 3 others but most times it just with 1 other person. Just 2 of us. We split up and each take a door. Why? Because we can't trust pugs to do the simplest of things IE look behind them and make sure someone isn't capping the door. We win because of this and that is just 2 people doing what they are suppose to. Huttball I love this warzone but often times it is lost by bad players. Here are a few concepts that the average huttball player doesn't know. PASSING: Passing wins games. There is no point in the entire team rushing to the ball in the begining of the game. You get the ball and get owned by the opposite team beacuse they forcus fire/aoe you to death, they get the ball and guess what? pass it to the guy who is in a good position and makes a easy score. DAMN premades and there smart moves!! Someone needs to stay top and get in position, if you see all your people going mid, then YOU go somewhere else. really simple. The ball guy will die if he gets the ball and has NOBODY to pass it to. ANd no, passing it to the guy right next to him at 20% health will just delay the ineveitable which brings me to the next point NUETRAL THE BALL: If you are surrounded by red with nobody to pass it to THROW THE BALL AWAY! It is better for the ball to be neutral then for the other team to get it. Please stop thinking "I can last a couple more hits and then i ill neutral it or pass it" What ends up happening is when you get low and the enemy KNOWS your getting ready to pass or nuetral, they will SURPRISE stun the **** out of you and kill you and get the ball. Be preemitive. The flip side to that is if you see that the ball guy is surrounded by enemy and will most liekly die GO TO THE MIDDLE!!!! when he neutrals the ball guess what? You are there to pick it back up. OH MAN stupid premade! only premades do thngs like that. NUETRAL CONTROL: It doesn't that the ENTIRE team to score. You can usually tell when a score is going to happen from either team, enemy or same. You need to have some players that are maintaining control of neutral. If the enemy team scores, you got the ball and are halfway to scoring by the time the enemy catches up. If you score, you have the ball right back and are going for another. This is how premades score those first 5 points in 5 minutes. because the other team is sending EVERYONE to try and get the ball back and they wait patiently and when they score they get the ball, pass and score again. If they are going to score HEAD MID and get the ball there. Neutral control wins games. We have one games where the enemy scored the first point in the first minute or two but we maintained neutral controal and won 6-1. In conclusion, there are more things i can discuss but if EVERY player on the team did these simple things you would win. I can't count how many times I've SOLO queued and because our team was actually good we got called out for being a premade. I laugh because its stupid. If you play right your a premade... So there we have it. If players would just know these simple things in any of the warzones, you wouldn't get rofl stomped. 90% of the communication that goes on in vent is BS talk and jokes and nothing to do with the actual game. We just know what to do. when things happen we react without being told. We EXPECT the other players on the team to know where to be. I expect the same from pugs. I expect them to watch nodes, I expect them to watch the door, i expect them to go ahead of me when i have the ball so i can pass it to them. I expect a teammate to be mid when i neutral the ball. None of that happens and the players blame premades for their own failures. just my 2c