I agree. An indicator in the inventory for items that are equipped in a style would be most helpful.

Yeah they need to increase the rewards. I've kinda stopped queueing for them after reaching 326. Nefra being the only sensible way to get purple upgrades makes MM fps irrelevant at this point. A simple fix is just to change the gearing so that vet fps drop blues and MMs drop purple, just like operations do. Or/And they need to drop more tech frags.

This adventure happened a few days ago. Got a MM assault on tython with my overpowered, soon to be nerfed (probably), full 306 & aug'ed merc healer. I zoned into an argument that was starting between a jugg "tank" and one of the dps, an assassin. The jugg was a dps who apparently queued as tank, probably on purpose. The assassin was quite upset at the "tank" and was scolding him for queuing for tank as a dps. The "tank" countered that he had done this fp before without a tank. I didn't really believe him, but I was extremely bored and getting pretty burnt out with the game (again). So, I suggested that we try the fp anyway with 3 dps. The assassin was very skeptical, so I told everyone that as long as no one stood in any circles on the ground, it would be easy. That was probably way too optimistic, but I felt the need to put on a brave front... ...Which was almost immediately exposed. The "tank" pulled trash while the assassin was stealthing the towers. We died. That enraged the assassin. Insults were hurled. I braced for a vote kick or rage quit but, incredibly, everyone stayed. Hilariously and ironically, the assassin pulled while trying to stealth the final tower, which prompted some retaliatory snark from the "tank". That seemed to quiet everyone down at least. First boss was pretty ugly. The assassin died, twice, due to being inside of giant red circles on the ground, and then accepting my rez at a bad time. The "tank" died. I was even caught standing in a circle, though in my defense I was preoccupied trying to keep everyone up and had to just eat one. Mercs have 3 health bars anyway, no big deal. Despite the mess, the remaining dps was absolutely great at staying out of stuff and we managed to 2 man it. After somehow pulling all the trash up to the 2nd boss, even though it's all skipable, we began the 2nd boss pull. He's really easy, the circles are much smaller. The "tank" died anyway. I rezzed. We clear. For the last boss, I again implored the group to make an effort to stay out of ground circles. We pull. I kept pulling and holding boss aggro. Merc heals are so OP, I was somehow getting more threat than any of the dps and "tank". This was unexpected, and unfortunately, I could not tank and heal at the same time due to the number of knockbacks I was getting. So annoying! We made it pretty far, but in the end it was a wipe. The usual suspects expressed their frustrations. The "tank" assured us that he most definitely was not standing in any circles when he died. I braced again for a rage quit/vote kick but none came. I explained to the "tank" how I was pulling aggro, and that he should guard me and taunt the boss. These instructions were followed, at least until the "tank" died due to excessive circle eating. However, it was late enough in the pull, and we lost no one else, so it was a clear. The fp was over, but not the drama. The assassin told the "tank" how lucky he was that I agreed to doing the fp without a tank. He continued berating the "tank" as we watched the final scene. I just said my "gg"s and dropped group. They were still arguing with each other when I left. It was an unconventional, absolutely dysfunctional group. Your classic nightmare GF pug scenario. We had no tank, certainly no group synergy, and we didn't like each other. We should not have succeeded. Yet, we did succeed and with only one wipe to boot. It was a challenging change of pace from the typical GF experience. Was it more fun than Hammer Station spam? Yes, I think it was. Would I do it again? Probably not.

FFXIV has a separate queue for those who want to see story and in it the cutscenes cannot be skipped. Have it give double the tech frags to compensate for the time.

Yes /10char

The simplest idea I can think of for improvement is to introduce an additional group finder tier of HM FP. I think most would agree that certain flashpoints are beyond the capabilities of bioware's bolster system. It's very unlikely that a random group of mixed 50-65 players can beat the first fight of Blood Hunt for example. So I propose simply making these FPs 65 only, no bolster, and last boss should reward a SM token to better compensate for the difficulty and encourage more play. These flashpoints are the primary one's I am thinking of for the new tier: Blood Hunt (duh) Battle of Rishi Lost Island Maybe throw in Depths of Manaan and Tython as well, although these are significantly easier than the above 3 imo. This kind of tiering actually used to exist btw. A long time ago Lost Island was on its own group finder tier, so this idea is not entirely original or without precedent. This would solve a couple of problems: 1) insta quits when Blood Hunt is selected, 2) Lack of challenge for good, well geared players in the "easier" flashpoints, 3) Lack of rewards. The trick is to make sure the rewards encourage enough play for the new tier.

Heh, well I should have done some more parses before posting it seems. The following seems to work better. Just hit 3.8 by swapping the ordering in my heat conservative rotation, and using TSO in the opener on UL: MS, PS, PS, MS, SS, IM, rapid shots, TD, UL Still not sure about supercharge. When I use it, it seems to throw off the timing of my proc, probably due to the alacrity increase, requiring the insertion of an extra PS somewhere to proc MS.

Not sure why everyone is being so secretive about it. Like it's some competitive advantage. I did exactly 2 parses last night in the new pyro, still in my old gear, the first was 3.4k. 2nd, after some adjustments was 3.55k. Far from optimal parses. Before 3.0 my absolute best parse with lucky critting was 3.95. And I am far from BiS 186s. So I dropped off a bit, but not much. Maybe ~5%. This is the opener I am using: casted SS (Serrated Shot), IM, TD, MS, UL, MS, PS (instant), PS, MS, SS, IM, TD, PS, UL At this point I use vent heat when my heat reaches 70, and start the heat conservative rotation, starting with MS. This is repeated until vent heat comes off cooldown: MS, PS, PS, MS, SS, IM, TD, rapid shots, UL That's it, just repeat that ad naseum until sub 30% where you replace one of the power shots for missle blast: MS, PS, MB, MS, SS, IM, TD, rapid shots (may not be required every time sub 30), UL You can work in supercharged gas too. But I haven't yet figured out the optimal time. Discuss.

For those healers running 16 man HM content (or even 8 man I guess, but I'm mainly interested in 16), do you coordinate with other healers such that each healer heals a certain group or is responsible for certain raid members? If so, what are the schemes you use? I mainly run 8 mans but occasionally find myself in a 16 man group and I find healing these to be a giant cluster****.

This happened awhile ago. In S&V 16 man HM. Guild run mostly, I was a healer pick up. Fairly smooth run up to the operations chief, although we had some issues with Thrasher adds that caused wipes. Anyway, guess what....guild decides to run with a super group. In HM you only get 6 min to do it instead of 10, but I'm like "whatever, it's their guild run. I'm sure they know what they are doing". Maybe they didn't trust the pugs enough? I don't know., but the kill group doesn't make it past gold before the time limit expires. They try again, and do even worse. The 3rd time, I calmly suggest that we try it the normal way since we only have 6 minutes. No issues. If you're going to insist on doing a super group for this boss, at least have the dps and heals to back it up..

Hmm, well hopefully they never fix this "glitch". I happen to like my pyro merc as is Has Bioware ever commented on this? Bioware has been on a mission recently to remove RNG dependence from most of the dps trees, so I doubt they would fix this without removing the RNG some other way.

Can someone quickly explain how pyro mercs are "glitched"? If this is about the PPA proc being 100% the 2nd time, I always was under the impression that was considered a tooltip problem, not a glitch.

I generally will defer to tanks when I do flashpoints. You are free to los pull, request cc, assign kill order, etc. I won't say anything (usually). It can be annoying though when I get the extreme micromanagement types who insist on doing every pull like this. The turrents in mando are merely one example. My favorite tanks are those who recognize that I am a capable healer and just plow through the fp. It's a compliment I guess.

Snide whispers aside, I don't understand why some individuals/groups insist on jumping through hoops instead of just straight up killing. Those turrents are not difficult and will die faster to the whole group doing dmg instead of just one sniper. As an overgeared healer, antics like this annoy me. Another place I see this a lot is S&V, there's a point right before cartel warlords where you can avoid a pull by walking around a room on a ledge. But that always takes forever (much longer than just pulling) and there's always 1 or 2 ppl that fall down, delaying the group that much more...

I know.. My guess is that it was a GF bug.