With phasing and low population limits, it pretty much is a single player game.

When we started, almost everyone in the group had at least a 4 set of columi. and epics just about everywhere else. It was overkill to the max. You don't need a whole lot of gear to run normal modes in this game.

We have 2 tanks in all of our runs. I'm MT on my assassin, and we have a jugg OT. He switches to DPS gear on fights that only require one tank and we have no trouble with enrage timers. However, there is seriously only 1 boss out of the 10 available that I can think of in which you actually need 2 tanks. That's Jarg and Sorno. Even G4-B3 (4th boss in KP) could easily be done with 1 tank and a dps that can survive for 10 seconds. The puzzle in EV could be somewhat challenging if you don't have stuns/CC for the Acklays, but if you do.. then you're golden.

Our group is: 1 Assassin Tank (Me), 1 Jugg Tank, 1 Sniper, 1 Powertech DPS, 1 Merc Healer, 1 Sorc Healer, 1 Sorc DPS, and 1 Marauder. Our DPS Sorc and Merc Healer stay up for the pattern, everyone else is downstairs. The Merc healers primary job is to keep himself and the DPS Sorc alive and click the far left button. The DPS Sorc handles the middle and right buttons, as well as killing any droids that spawn upstairs. Our Sorc Healer has no trouble healing the rest of the group downstairs. Our sniper handles the droids downstairs with the occasional assistance from our Powertech. We number the three solve locations 1,2, and 3... then our DPS Sorc calls out which number he is solving next and we move the boss accordingly. Once a puzzle is ready to be solved, we get a quick 3 second (firing) countdown and then everyone except the Sorc Healer puts as much DPS as possible onto the boss. Edit: Forgot 1 thing, we also switch tanks at 5 stacks of the debuff.

1) we struggled until we got the pattern down 2) we use 2 people. A Sorc (because of force speed) and a healer 3) That's our snipers job. He calls for help when there are multiples. If you and the other sniper are absolutely the only people in your group that can do the puzzle, you still need to do absolutely everything you can to get as much DPS on him as possible, when he's vulnerable.

Perhaps they could spend a whole patch just fixing their current operations and flashpoints. Shoot, if they fixed everything in one patch, the notes would be just as long as the 1.2 notes.

I was running through there with my guild a few weeks ago and we thought we had solved the issue by avoiding AOEs and DoTs just as you said. Everything that everyone did our very next attempt was single target, and no abilities that even had residual DoTs. The only thing it did for our specific run, was delay the bugged spawning until he was half-dead instead of doing it from the start. So, that is a workaround that could work from time to time... but in our case, it just delayed the inevitable.

I'm honestly thinking that bug has something to do with Bounty Hunters and Troopers. I'm trying to remember if I've ever seen it when there isn't a BH in my group... I don't think I have.

Simple workaround or not, the fact that we (the players) even have to work around their bug STILL is absolutely asinine.

I'm not "blaming" any lack of progress on anything. My guild didn't start operations until about a month ago, once a week. We've cleared 4/5 HM EV and will be doing KP this week on HM and I'm completely satisfied with that. I could care less where my progress stands compared to other guilds. The intent of my original post was to agree with the OP, I just happened to come across your "holier-than-thou" snotty post and thought it needed to be responded to. In addition, when the boss resets 3 times in a row because someone got stuck when the floor fell out from under us.. I think I can safely blame the game if I so choose. Those 3 in a row came just after we spent an hour fighting a bug on the council (fight>reset>fight>reset...). Oh, and did I mention the puzzle bug? Bug after bug after bug after bug. Excuse me for expecting end-game content to work properly when the game has been out for 3 months.

My guild does 8 man Ops. Our team is: 1 Assassin, 1 Jugg, 3 Sorc, 1 Sniper, 1 Merc, and 1 Powertech. Our 2 BHs have seen ~3 (if that many) gear drops for them since we started operations over a month ago. I'm even including to level 56 tank mod that dropped that neither of them needed. Oh, did I mention we run twice a week? My assassin and the 3 sorcs getting gear like crazy though.

I've read through the majority of the posts in this thread, and the one thing I don't think I've seen is... INTERRUPT! Interrupt that one dudes grenade thing and it's easy.. I'm telling you. I've done this quest on 4 different toons: Assassin Tank, DPS Juggernaut, Concealment Op, and a Arsenal Merc. The only time I died was the very first time I did it on my Tank because I was half asleep from the questlines leading up to this point. If you allow any mob to cast their big damage ability, it's gonna hurt.

I understand that, but anytime enrage timers are in play.. your DPS shouldn't be asked to slow down. For that matter, there shouldn't ever be an issue with too much DPS in a videogame. Even more so in an MMO in which you're rewarded with gear that makes you better. As of now, unless I've got 2 solid hours to devote to a hardmode, I won't even attempt any of the 3 places I mentioned in my OP. And that's because in the event I do run these, I expect to spend 30 minutes to an hour just trying to get past bugs. Work-arounds are fine and dandy, but don't change the fact that there are far too many bosses in this game that are severely broken. But don't worry, in patch 1.2, the developers are gonna break your classes too!

Call me a jerk if you want, but I wouldn't take a Pugger wearing PVP gear into a Hard Mode operation. Period. It's not that they are exceedingly difficult, but some bosses are dps/gear checks (Bonethrasher or G4-B3 for example) and there are 7 (or 15) other people in the group and their time is just as valuable as yours. I'd take you into a normal mode operation in a heart-beat though... if it means anything.

I can appreciate your perspective, and I can make the assumption that you are a very good healer and your guild is lucky to have you. But what happens if you're in a mind trap and the other healer gets pulled in the air? just like the scenario I mentioned in my earlier post. There is nothing a healer can do about that, just like I said. One of our attempts, our Sorc healer blew up his ball, started casting a heal on himself and was immediately pulled into the air. Even with that, he WOULD HAVE survived the fall damage if he hadn't landed on top of another lightning ball. Which will supposedly be fixed in 1.2... but I'm not holding my breath.